Posts by schnell

26

New movie by Mel Gibson 'Hacksaw ridge'

by barry in

jw
friends

i just went to a pre screening of this movie about an adventist guy who didn't want to kill but joined the army as a medic on the front line.

desmond doss saved 75 men in one operation singlehanded on the island of okinawa where desmond worked lowering men down a 400ft cliff to safety.. i thought this may be of interest to jws because of the pacifist stand they also have.. the movie comes out on the 4 th november..

schnell

Given the logistics of WW2, I'd be nervous or actually angry to have a guy like Doss in my platoon. Now, today, things are different and there are far more jobs to do in the military, but you still have to go through basic training.

If you are on the ground in Iraq and you don't believe in killing, and you would absolutely not kill a crazy ISIS cultist if he had us pinned down just to show that you believe rightly in God and he doesn't, then I wouldn't want you near me. No, you shouldn't like killing. But if that's your stance, you have other jobs available to you, including not being in the military at all as long as there's no draft or military requirement.

That's why this is infuriating.

26

New movie by Mel Gibson 'Hacksaw ridge'

by barry in

jw
friends

i just went to a pre screening of this movie about an adventist guy who didn't want to kill but joined the army as a medic on the front line.

desmond doss saved 75 men in one operation singlehanded on the island of okinawa where desmond worked lowering men down a 400ft cliff to safety.. i thought this may be of interest to jws because of the pacifist stand they also have.. the movie comes out on the 4 th november..

schnell

As a personal fan of Smedley Darlington Butler, a Pennsylvania Quaker who went against his beliefs and parents and became the most decorated United States Marine of his time, and who warned his country about domestic threats of fascism and all the money made from the Great War... I cannot respect this, and I yell at the screen every time this preview comes on.

3

Mocked for Being a Hoary Head

by snugglebunny in

jw
friends

i tend to be quite open about my experiences within the dub religion.

i've been out for a long, long time.

i'm now in my eighth decade.

schnell

Release the bears!

:)

In all seriousness, I am deeply honored to be on a forum with someone with experience going back so far. I wish my family had made that decision decades ago.

Those still-in dubs have a new song called "The Best Life Ever" and have the nerve to mock anybody.

27

Question: Can't You Just Ignore A Judicial Committee?

by Sorry in

one thing i've never understood is judicial committees.

yes, i understand it's held to see if elders should go through with the disfellowshipping process.

but why give them all the power?

schnell

Why does she now feel she has to if she earlier said screw it? Maybe she wants to face them?

26

Was it Adam who altered his own DNA so that sicknesses & consequent death would be passed on to his offspring?

by deegee in

the blame for mankind's sicknesses/diseases and consequent death has been placed squarely on the shoulders of adam:.

romans 5:12, 17 - 19:"therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—for if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man.......consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people........for just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners........".

1 corinthians 15: 21, 22:"for since death came through a man........... for as in adam all die.......".

schnell

@jookbeard, they can't explain the genes at all, but they try explain it by blaming Satan, of course. Remember, it was Revelation that finally went back around and said the serpent in Eden was the devil. Revelation, written much later than Genesis, was a book allegedly written by John and more likely by an early Gnostic named Cerinthus, and a book many early churches didn't accept. (In fact, some preferred "the Apocalypse of Peter.")

Cerinthus, it should be especially pointed out, wanted to spread his idea of 1000 years of paradise on earth.

(Source: "Forged" and "Jesus, Interrupted" by Bart Ehrman, a seminary professor)

As usual, 43alley explains it well.

https://youtu.be/j-gbOnWj6Mw

26

Was it Adam who altered his own DNA so that sicknesses & consequent death would be passed on to his offspring?

by deegee in

the blame for mankind's sicknesses/diseases and consequent death has been placed squarely on the shoulders of adam:.

romans 5:12, 17 - 19:"therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—for if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man.......consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people........for just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners........".

1 corinthians 15: 21, 22:"for since death came through a man........... for as in adam all die.......".

schnell

"I am not the one testing you, he is. But if you fail, I'll punish you for it. No, that most certainly does NOT mean I am testing you."

We share just shy of 99% of our DNA with chimpanzees, and geneticists know and have published PLENTY about the subject. There is no basis for Adam in 4026 BCE.

On my way out, I began to suppose that Adam could have been a name for a single human around that time that decided he was hot stuff, or perhaps that Adam and Eve were a metaphor for early homo sapiens. Indeed, we like to think of our species as special and unique and without any parentage, that our species came out of a sort of virgin birth from the dust. We like to lie to ourselves. But we are the not the only hominid species in history, as evidenced by Lucy and Ardi and all the rest, from all over the world, and from long before 4026 BCE.

Either way, the idea of Adam not being created from the dust, or of Adam and Eve being a metaphor, is an unnecessary reinterpretion of the 2 creation myths in the Tanakh. It also leaves no room for original sin or a messianic ransom sacrifice in the JW's philosophy of history. Neither, I might add, does science.

22

I got a voicemail from an elder about meeting with me.

by schnell in

yesterday, i missed a call and got a long voicemail from an elder who would like to meet with my wife and i some time this weekend, with another elder who dealt with my brother.

i haven't responded.

it's meeting night tonight, and my wife has already talked about staying home to do yoga with me instead.. yeah.

schnell

Cold Steel: Yeah, no. First of all, I would sooner believe the story of Jephthah is fiction and probably anti-Israel propaganda from 8th century Judah. (Hence the smear against Israel at the end of Judges for doing as they see fit. How DARE they!) Then as a story, I would trust the Jewish rabbinical interpretation long before a fundamentalist Christian's. "Olah".

"The Bible Unearthed" by Finkelstein and Silberman is illuminating about Josiah's propaganda machine and the veracity and historicity of the Tanakh.

6

Anyone else a fan of Red Letter Media?

by schnell in

probably my favorite band of cinephile miscreants on youtube is red letter media, which has, among other things, a series called "best of the worst".

they have a sub-series of that called "wheel of the worst," where a bunch of crappy old vhs tapes, either sent in from fans or added by the guys, are stuck to a plywood wheel and 3 of them are randomly selected for forced viewing.

here's the thing.

schnell

Yes!! Hahaha I love those hack frauds and that bit about real friends could've been great

114

"The G.B. is neither inspired nor infallible"

by smiddy in

that admission in the feb.17 ,study edition of the watchtower , " who is leading gods people today ?

" "the governing body is neither inspired, nor infallible, therefore it (they/we) can err in doctrinal matters or in organizational direction .".

have the many jehovahs witnesses past and present who have lost their lives by refusing blood transfusions due to the prohibition on blood tranfusions by jehovahs witnesses really got the sense of this statement ?.

schnell

As my brother said recently, "I really think a lot of us are going to eat crow in the new system when those new scrolls are opened up." Thus, this wouldn't matter.

It's terrible.

6

Anyone else a fan of Red Letter Media?

by schnell in

probably my favorite band of cinephile miscreants on youtube is red letter media, which has, among other things, a series called "best of the worst".

they have a sub-series of that called "wheel of the worst," where a bunch of crappy old vhs tapes, either sent in from fans or added by the guys, are stuck to a plywood wheel and 3 of them are randomly selected for forced viewing.

here's the thing.

schnell

Probably my favorite band of cinephile miscreants on YouTube is Red Letter Media, which has, among other things, a series called "Best of the Worst".

They have a sub-series of that called "Wheel of the Worst," where a bunch of crappy old VHS tapes, either sent in from fans or added by the guys, are stuck to a plywood wheel and 3 of them are randomly selected for forced viewing.

Here's the thing. They had an episode a while back with a catchy little tape called "SOS."

https://youtu.be/ceUSZBMeREY

It turned out that SOS was a product of the Children of God cult. But it also involved barcodes as the mark of the beast! Whaaaat?!

Eventually, Wheel of the Worst #11 came around. And in #11, they pick a video expounding on that whole idea about UPCs and the mark of the beast... But something else was submitted for that episode too. Skip to 5:40.

https://youtu.be/-M2khjpOxzc