Posts by Apognophos

128

Jesus and the Mosaic Law...

by mP in

ive had many chats with tec and shes always fun but i must disagree with her angle on jesus and the mosaic law.

she always claims that jesus repealed the law.

ive asked for many times and she has yet to give the exact quote.. perhaps the most damning scripture for tec and friends is mat 5:18 where jesus unequivacably says the laws is perfect and will last forever.

Apognophos

If your going to argue that love thy neighbours means no slavery then how to you explain moses and the torah who said exactly the same hting and had slaves ? This cannot be denied. Jesus was not introducing anything new, it was a one liner and thats it. The remainder of the gospel stories show that Jesus was perfectly compatible and respected the Torah and enver says he is replacing it.

I already pointed out that Jesus went beyond the Law with his parable of the good Samaritan and said that all men were their "neighbors", not just Jews. Are you sure you don't want to read that account again? It's Luke 10:25-37. This expansion on the Law was something Jesus did multiple times, as PSacramento already explained to you in a few posts on page 4. Please take the time to read Matthew 5:21-48. Jesus did not abolish the Law, he expanded it to a new level but remained true to its divine principles.

That being said, I agree that Jesus didn't fully condemn slavery. What he did say clearly precludes fighting against another people and taking slaves from them, but Paul showed that the basic arrangement of having a slave was not forbidden by Jesus. It seems that if someone was already a slave, or came into servitude through financial debt, they were to remain in this arrangement even if the master and slave were Christian. I will say, though, that a Christian master would have to be kind to his slave. Also, not all slaves or servants in history had the same roles, so I hope you're not equating a household servant with a slave being forced to plow a field under the burning sun all day. But it's true that if Jesus had spoken clearly against slavery, Paul would not have been able to write what he did to Onesimus and Philemon.

but its good to see that your realise jesus was not that nice to women especially non jewish women.

I don't realize that at all. As I said, Jesus tested both men and women with his words. Remember when he turned away a whole crowd by telling them they had to eat of his flesh and drink of his blood? Do you know why he did that? It was to reveal what was in their hearts; they were only there to get fed or see a miracle, so they turned away in confusion and disgust, whereas Jesus' apostles remained because of their faith. Later, Jesus told Peter that he was Satan when he tried to dissuade Jesus from sacrificing himself. Those were stronger words than anything he spoke to a woman. Why are you getting offended by words that didn't even offend the people who were being spoken to? That's rather over-sensitive of you.

Ultimately, Jesus' actions speak louder than his words. He did heal (exorcise) the Canaanite woman's daughter after testing her humility. He also explicitly revealed himself as the Messiah for the first time when speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well. Sorry, but those are not the actions of someone who was "not that nice to women".

36

WTS vs. Star Trek

by Farkel in

jw
friends

star trek claimed to be fantasy and in fact, was fantasy.. wts claims to be the sole truth on earth and in fact, is fantasy.. star trek had spock who solved problems with logic.. wts has a gb who solves problems with bullshit.. star trek had a pompous ass charismatic leader whom everyone loved to watch rant and emote.

wts had three pompous ass charismatic leaders whom everyone hated to watch rant and emote.. captain kirk was always saving his people from new disasters.. wt leaders are always leading its people into new disasters.. star trek made money by always giving its fans the stuff they wanted.. wts makes money by always charging its fans for stuff neither they nor anyone else else wants.. people had fun when star trek came on.. people would rather have a root canal when meetings come on.. star trek was all about making the cosmos a better place for all.. wts is all about making the cosmos a better place for a few and killing everyone else.. people love to go to star trek conventions.. people would rather be in an earthquake than go to wts conventions.. star trek had a transporter room.. people in meetings wish they also had a transporter room.. star trek had lots of insane villains.. wts had judge rutherford and fred franz.

same thing.. star trek also had lots of good guys.. good guys are banished from the wts.. star trek had the klingons who spoke a bizarre language.. wts had fred franz who spoke an even more bizarre language.. star trek had all sorts of devices which could cure most any medical problems, but of course, they were science fiction.. wts had the electronic radio biola which it sold and said could cure most any medical problem, but of course, that was science fiction.. star trek had floppy disks, computers you could talk to and flat screen monitors all of which were about 50 years ahead-of-their time.. wts had vaccines which were called "filthy animal pus", humans hearts which were the seat of all emotions, organ transplants which were cannibalistic, human personalities which were also transferred with blood transfusions and black people turning white by reading their literature, all of which were 100 years behihd-their-time.. if you missed a few star trek episodes in a row, no one came by to harrass you.. if you miss a few meetings in a row, you are in deep shit.. star trek tv shows and movies are still played all the time, even after 47 years.. wts dramas never even play a second time.

Apognophos

Star Trek had miniskirts, microskirts even!

WTS requires all skirts to be below the knee.

Enough said.

16

Does anyone know who [email protected] is?

by coffee_black in

jw
friends

i just got 2 emails from them inviting me to a conference call about the memorial.. i have no idea how they got my email address.. coffee .

Apognophos

I don't know what's going on, but isn't Witness My Fury right? A mention of the Photodrama of Creation must mean Bible Students, right?

Funny side question: If this is the Bible Students, then I guess this can't be considered an apostate meeting, can it? I mean, it's the Witnesses under Rutherford who broke off from Russell's teaching!

21

Understanding the futility of TRUE and NOT TRUE as assertions of fact

by Terry in

the following is a sentence.. the sentence contains an assertion of fact.. here is the sentence: .

"this statement is not true.".

is it a statement of fact?.

Apognophos

Heh, I didn't do much with VB except write long-ass macros for work, but that didn't require any serious code, just lots and lots of simple stuff. But in C, I've been doing the same thing, combining booleans into 'char's (bytes) so I can send them over networks efficiently. These days, it's rarely necessary to lump data together like that to save on memory or disk space, but network bandwidth is still a precious commodity.

53

A recent discussion that had me stumped!

by Terry in

okay--first off, i wasn't involved in the following conversation; i was eavesdropping!.

you know how it is when you happen to be in a public place.

you are minding your own business until you're not minding your own business.

Apognophos

Methinks you are looking for CERTAINTY where CERTAINTY cannot exist ;-) There will always be some group being oppressed by the tyrannical majority and some other group lobbying for more freedom. Humanity is messy.

That being said, isn't "Are they harming society?" a fairly reasonable basis for deciding whose unusual behavior to accept?

34

Porneia in marriage - a changing view:

by Splash in

1974 - can divorce your marriage mate if they insist on oral / anal intercourse.

1978 - can still divorce your marriage mate if they insist on oral / anal intercourse.

1983 - cannot divorce your marriage mate if they insist on oral / anal intercourse.

Apognophos

Ah, I believe that's Matthew JustShutUp:AndObey. This subject pisses me off, and I'm not even married. What Pharisees.

A careful further weighing of this matter, however, convinces us that, in view of the absence of clear Scriptural instruction

I think this speaks for itself.

7

Trading your life away for CERTAINTY

by Terry in

i read somewhere that 99+% of all species that ever existed on earth are extinct.. these species appeared, thrived, declined and perished.. now we are on top of the food chain like a drunk on a mechanical bull in billy bob's bar hanging on for dear life!.

humans require more than survival!.

we also need comfort, a sense of well-being, freedom to make a wide variety of choices about our lives and particularly:.

Apognophos

Don't forget SIMPLICITY. It's also very attractive to the human mind, and goes hand in hand with CERTAINTY.

21

Understanding the futility of TRUE and NOT TRUE as assertions of fact

by Terry in

the following is a sentence.. the sentence contains an assertion of fact.. here is the sentence: .

"this statement is not true.".

is it a statement of fact?.

Apognophos

Do you mean "not provable" and False?

No, he meant "not true" as a separate state from "false" in programming. This is a good layman's article on the subject: http://blog.bridgelinedigital.com/ecommerce/when-not-true-is-not-false/. Simply put, sometimes an object can have an undefined state.

53

A recent discussion that had me stumped!

by Terry in

okay--first off, i wasn't involved in the following conversation; i was eavesdropping!.

you know how it is when you happen to be in a public place.

you are minding your own business until you're not minding your own business.

Apognophos

The mere perception by the majority that you cannot be tolerated (for whatever reason) is a peculiar non-consensual situation requiring some remedy.

Should you, an X, be granted the RIGHT TO BE an X even though it disrupts the community at large?

If so, on what BASIS?

I think I answered this back on page 1 with my example of Ed Gein, who, after his conviction, lived the rest of his life in a mental hospital until he died of old age. If someone is causing harm to society, regardless of whether they mean to, or can help themselves, you lock them up. This is only morally troubling if you believe that all individuals are created equal. The fact is that we are the result of an imperfect evolutionary process which occasionally turns out defective products. It's sad that it happens, and it sucks to be that product, but we lock them up for the greater good. I see no problem in that.

128

Jesus and the Mosaic Law...

by mP in

ive had many chats with tec and shes always fun but i must disagree with her angle on jesus and the mosaic law.

she always claims that jesus repealed the law.

ive asked for many times and she has yet to give the exact quote.. perhaps the most damning scripture for tec and friends is mat 5:18 where jesus unequivacably says the laws is perfect and will last forever.

Apognophos

Firstly Jesus was quooting lev 19:18 when he said love thy neighbour.

http://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/leviticus/19
‘You must not take vengeance nor have a grudge against the sons of your people; and you must love your fellow as yourself. I am Jehovah.

The jews in the torah has exactly the same law and yet they could rape and had slaves.

The point of the Samaritan parable was to answer the question, "But who really is my neighbor?" The commandment you quoted above only applied to fellow Jews. Jesus was encouraging the Jews to widen their concept of who could be their neighbor. Taking slaves and stealing wives from foreign populations would no longer be acceptable under this new way of looking at things. Make no mistake, this was a revolutionary suggestion and it absolutely represented something new to the Jews. Sadly, it's a lesson that Israel still fails to apply to this day.

There is also no law against pedophilia in the Bible. There was no concept of underage in those days

Well, how are we defining pedophilia? Marrying a child? Perhaps, but usually people are referring to molestation of children, not simply marrying them. Molestation was obviously going against Jesus' whole message of love and didn't need a specific call-out. Who actually thinks molestation is okay and would believe that Jesus condoned it because he didn't specifically mention it?

And there was absolutely a concept of "underage". People's lives were shorter back then, and you were no longer a child once you were sexually mature. What we call a child today was a young woman back then, a "maiden". While I certainly think that 13 is too young to decide who to marry, marriages were often based on convenience for the families involved, so age was much less a factor than it is today, when people need to be emotionally mature enough to make a good romantic decision.

If you went back and studied the good Samaritan parable yoou will see that Jesus was extremely rude to the women

Huh??? I was talking about the good Samaritan parable in Luke 10, told in response to a Jewish man's question to Jesus. You're apparently referring to the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15 and Mark 7, whose daughter was possessed. Jesus was known to test men and women, Jews and non-Jews with his words. Insulting it may have been, but when the woman responded humbly, he was moved and healed her daughter.