Posts by SpiderMonkey

59

Homework: what do nations think about america?

by raven101 in

.

i would appreciate any input from residents of other nations for this homework assignment, as well as americans.. what do members of other nations really think about america, compared with what we percieve them as thinking?.

please help, assignment due tomorrow!.

SpiderMonkey

MrMoe & others, I too am very patriotic about the USA, but not so much about its current state as I am about the circumstances of its founding, about the constitution, about what it's "suppposed" to stand for and so on...

The comments are well taken about the US poking its nose in everywhere, while showing constant hypocrisy in foreign affairs (trade=engagement, which is good, in human-rights-weak Communist China, whereas trade=support for suppression of human rights, which is bad, in human-rights-weak Communist Cuba)... I think it's all too evident that our major concerns with the rest of the world are money & oil, which is exploitative & sad. By now, we could be decades along in the process of weaning ourselves off of fossil fuels; instead we have a President who can't decide whether he believes humans contribute to global warming or not.

I'm not one who generally gives in to conspiracy theories... But our government has become very weak, and morally corrupt, when it comes to money and oil. I think it's self-evident that the folks who founded this country were, for the most part, heroic, self-sacrificing, moral people... I just wish I could say the same for today's leaders.

SpiderMonkey

13

Noah's Flood & Other Bible Stories

by Sentinel in

did anyone catch the east coast tlc (the learning channel) programs last night?

the first one was about noah's flood.

the program after that was about sodom & gammorah, the ancient apocalypse.. the programs were trying to establish that events have happened, and have been recorded, but the facts have been distorted within the structures of various existing societies inside the bounds of "religious dogma".

SpiderMonkey

Karen, I seem to recall something on the Red Sea from a high school Western Civ class. I think the "mainstream" non-fundamentalist thinking was that they crossed something like a marsh that existed in that day, where the tide went in & out at various times.

"Oh no the Egyptians are after us, and there's all this water in front of us! What'll we do?"

Later, after Moses raises his arms & all that for awhile, the tide goes out & the Hebrews walk across the leftover mud. The Egyptians try to pursue in their chariots, which of course get stuck in the deep mud... And the story gets exaggerated over the years until you have walls of water 100 feet high on both sides, crashing in on the hapless Egyptians (who all perish, of course) immediately after the Hebrews finish crossing.

The "Bible scholar" interpretation was something like that, I recall... My WC teacher said something to that effect in a class, plus I ran across that idea during research for a term paper. Hope it helps, might give you a place to start at least.

SpiderMonkey

9

Are Muslims backed by the Christian God?

by TheRedPill in

i was reading in the book of a genesis today and came across an interesting set of scriptures, genesis 21:17-21. it talks about how after abraham sent hagar and ishmael from her house, hagar wandered about in the wilderness and finally, after running out of water, sat down with her baby ishmael and prepared to die.

gods angel then appeared to hagar and told her to rise up, and that ishmael would be the father to a great nation.

he then led her to water and hagar and ishmael and she lived a prosperous life in the wilderness of paran.

SpiderMonkey

1.) Why the promise to Ishmael is not treated with the same weight as the promise to Isaac
2.) Why the God of the future Christians would promise that the line of people that Muslims came from would be a great nation.
3.) How it seems that the feud between Isaac and Ishmael continues today through the Christian/Muslim wars.

RedPill, I'd say that this whole account of God's treatment of Hagar & Ishmael is really cruel, if taken literally! God tells these 2 sibling rivals, one of which has already been outcast by his own dad, that they will grow to become great nations. Maybe this is cultural/chronological ignorance on my part - maybe that was such a big deal in those days that it would truly have been a blessing for Ishmael to be promised such a thing? I don't know about that. And didn't the prophecy include something about the 2 seeds continuing to be rivals for however long a time?

Why would God plant this seed in Hagar & Ishmael's mind at all? Who cares if I'm going to become a great nation 100+ years from now, since I currently feel as though I'm moments from death in the middle of the wilderness? But as one and one's descendants start to become a great nation, thinking back on God's promise, wouldn't that be the beginnings of those delusions of grandeur (as Christians & Jews would have it - never mind that Christians & Jews suffer the same delusions) about being God's One True People?

So much that I read about the Bible on this site, 7 years after escape, seems SO strange to me... I find it really weird that I ever swallowed this stuff in a literal way; at this point, I find it inconceivable that One True God Of Perfect Love, Justice, and Wisdom would perpetrate such a joke on Ishmael & his descendants.

SpiderMonkey

9

Are Muslims backed by the Christian God?

by TheRedPill in

i was reading in the book of a genesis today and came across an interesting set of scriptures, genesis 21:17-21. it talks about how after abraham sent hagar and ishmael from her house, hagar wandered about in the wilderness and finally, after running out of water, sat down with her baby ishmael and prepared to die.

gods angel then appeared to hagar and told her to rise up, and that ishmael would be the father to a great nation.

he then led her to water and hagar and ishmael and she lived a prosperous life in the wilderness of paran.

SpiderMonkey

Jed, I agree w/ all your points above, but I'm very glad you didn't post it to a mostly-Muslim group! Seems like it would be taken the wrong way, right about now... The comments about religions killing could be taken as targeting Muslims unfairly, since self-proclaimed "Muslims" have killed so many innocents lately...

This is a test for us. If we are hating people because of our religious pride we "swallow a camel" and have failed the test.

I agree, and unfortunately, it's a test that we've taken it upon ourselves to take & fail =( I really doubt that "God" gave religion to mankind... I think that certain humans have gotten a glimpse of some divine vision, and in many cases used that to gain power, control other men, slaughter their personal enemies, etc etc etc... Not as a means to spread love & peace to other men, as any One True God would surely have intended. Very telling.

SpiderMonkey

25

Disturbing material in May 15, 2002 Watchtower

by spender in

in the questions from readers section, the question was: "would it be advisable for a true christian to attend a funeral or a wedding in a church?".

to analyze this wonderful piece, i'm going to use their words, and translate them into real english.. "being in a group where everyone else is engaging in a false religious act, a christian may find it difficult to resist the pressure to join in.

how unwise to expose oneself to such pressure!".

SpiderMonkey

Being in a group where everyone else is engaging in a false religious act, a Christian may find it difficult to resist the pressure to join in. How unwise to expose oneself to such pressure!

"Disturbing"? this crap makes me sick! I can't believe I ever fell for this, even as a kid. yeah, Brooklyn, you know what meat puppets we are, no resistance to sex, drugs, or rock&roll, so we might as well go for some idolatry as well, seeing as it happens to be around.

Not to be overlooked is the effect our attending a service in a religious building might have on fellow believers. Could it injure the conscience of some? Might their resistance to avoid engaging in idolatry be weakened?

whaaaaaaat? not only is our own faith/willpower so weak that we're ready to drop our green bibles & make the sign of the cross at a moment's notice, but it will also become a virus that will destroy others in the congregation! just because 1 person went! wow!

personally, I don't remember any elder ever trying to make this a local law, or marking anyone for going to a funeral or wedding; but that they have such an ill opinion of their own "sheep," and their own doctrine apparently, that they'd make these statements, really pisses me off!

SpiderMonkey

10

WT 15 June - Approves of Internet?

by Nemesis in

i just noticed this in the latest mags (15 june, 2002, see picture below) on the top box: if we want .

a concordance to the bible, we can find no better than the internet.. im just wondering if this will lead more witnesses to indulge in some web surfing, with the inevitable consequences of them coming across some critical matter?

lets hope so!

SpiderMonkey

some of them try...to conjure up an objective and supposed viewpoint that a human author of each book had in mind

um, hello? is this not what the WTS does? I seem to remember the "S.I." book having a section detailing, more or less, the objective and supposed viewpoint of each and every bible book's writer.

they get more involved in studying word origins and citing Hebrew & Greek meanings than in the import of God's message

HELLO? does that mean that I can raise my hand at the WT study and in a "comment" say something about Jesus dying on the cross? after all, it's the import of what Jesus did, not whether the Greek word means "cross" or "stake," right? the WTS cites Hebrew & Greek meanings all the time... when. it. suits. their. purposes.

SpiderMonkey

74

WatchTower Study 4 Sept, 2002

by plmkrzy in

.

x

edited by - plmkrzy on 22 june 2002 13:1:53.

SpiderMonkey

dang, check out question #22... "how has reviewing the account of Korah strengthened YOUR faith in Jehovah's visible organization?"

yeahhhhh, buddy, that tale was a one-to-one correspondence with JWs today. after all, don't we also have miracles and scourges and fire coming from the heavens to show who's REALLY god's rep & who's not? d'oh. never mind.

Lisa, that was my take also on the picture of the old man... I think he's saying "The bugs, the bugs, get'em off me" or something like that.

I can't believe I just read a WT article! and this was even one of those WT studies where I'd flip to the end and go "rats, twenty-TWO whole paragraphs! this sucks!"

ew, I need to go take a bath.

SpiderMonkey

15

Palestinian kills 5 in West Bank

by ashitaka in

jw
friends

palestinian kills 5 in west bank settlement three days of attacks kill 31 israelis .

june 20, 2002 posted: 6:56 pm edt (2256 gmt).

paramedics evacuate an israeli soldier thursday after a palestinian gunman wounded him in the itamar settlement.

SpiderMonkey

personally, i'd have god send the Palestinians a Gandhi. someone to (metaphorically) shake them by the head and say "this isn't getting you anywhere." someone with the guts and the brains to show them that they'd accomplish 100 times as much by sitting, nonresistantly, at a checkpoint, than they do with 100 bombings. or some such.

SpiderMonkey

6

astrology (?) / happy b-day to me

by SpiderMonkey in

jw
friends

i'm spending the week more or less lounging around my place on vacation, & today's my birthday, so i thought i'd ask all you hopeless apostate types <eg>, what's your take on astrology?

for years i thought this was a ridiculous practice, even after leaving the dubs.

but after reading a book that breaks down which planet was where on which day, and how each "affects" me, i don't feel i can blow it all off as coincidence or as one-size-fits-all doubletalk.

SpiderMonkey

thanx Cassiline, Incense & MissyMoe =) no, I don't take newspaper horoscopes at their word, either. I do do Tarot card readings, though; had some amazing experiences doing that for total strangers. Never really connected too much w/ my astrological profile, though, til I found out I'm Gemini w/ Scorpio rising... the majority of Gemini fits for me, but not the hyper-communication parts so much.

I&P, I will check out Linda Goodman... what you quoted seems like good advice about now.

SpiderMonkey

6

astrology (?) / happy b-day to me

by SpiderMonkey in

jw
friends

i'm spending the week more or less lounging around my place on vacation, & today's my birthday, so i thought i'd ask all you hopeless apostate types <eg>, what's your take on astrology?

for years i thought this was a ridiculous practice, even after leaving the dubs.

but after reading a book that breaks down which planet was where on which day, and how each "affects" me, i don't feel i can blow it all off as coincidence or as one-size-fits-all doubletalk.

SpiderMonkey

I'm spending the week more or less lounging around my place on vacation, & today's my birthday, so I thought I'd ask all you hopeless apostate types <EG>, what's your take on astrology? For years I thought this was a ridiculous practice, even after leaving the dubs. But after reading a book that breaks down which planet was where on which day, and how each "affects" me, I don't feel I can blow it all off as coincidence or as one-size-fits-all doubletalk. Anyone else have this experience? Comments? Observations? Insults? Bueller?

SpiderMonkey