.
i have not found one jehovahs witness who could show me in the bible where jesus is refered to as micheal the archangel or that you could draw such a conclusion.
if anyone is willing to discuss this topic with me i would greatly appriciate it.
Doesn't it make sense that the "only-begotton" son of God would be God himself? Jesus was begotton, not created. And as we can see from Paul's passage above, the argument that Jesus was an angel holds no weight whatsoever. It is similar to the Arian heresy of the 4th century.
Ignorance is strength, (??!!)
It might mean that. But I wouldn't say it makes sense linguistically. For example, let's say Isaac is the only-begotten son of Abraham, does that mean Isaac is Abraham?
Gamaliel
ok, i won't give his name, but he is a major with an engineer unit in iraq.
here's what he has to say on iraq, i've highlighted a few interesting points.
it has been a while since i have written to my friends about what's really going on here in iraq.
Yeru,
I didn't know at first that I was speaking to his wife, I just called the Church. Actually I called a local Lutheran organization in that city that was only too happy to give me the number of the Church, and Audrey Rydbom answered when I called the number. It way too easy! But this is a rather sensitive issue now, but she appreciated a sympathetic ear, and that I could sense the tough situation that had been created for her. She talked about how difficult it's gotten with so many people calling, and I apologized and started to say good-bye, but she was happy to continue talking.
The most straightforward explanation is the one you gave, that your friend, the Major, liked the letter and sent it out because he believed it would be valuable support to everyone who believed likewise. No harm done. If he was the one who edited out Major Rydbom's info, then he made a mistake, but I'm sure he meant well, and was sure at the time it was for the greater good. It's just as possible that he received it like that and didn't even know it had been edited.
It's not much of a stretch to believe in the scenario I'll propose below. I am beginning to believe it after speaking with Audrey Rydbom, although I didn't mention it to her:
The Army already knew that Maj Rydbom's writing style was well received back home, that his previous monthly letters were already getting publicized on a small scale. So they encouraged him to send a version that more succinctly included all of the important arguments that they were already trying to get across to reporters in Iraq. (One of the forums discussing this letter links to a FOX News interview with a General that hits all the same points the Major made, but from the viewpoint of the General.) I don't see how the Army would have any trouble helping Major Rydbom get this special version of his letter distributed much more widely than his previous letters. This was the one they helped him edit specifically for wider distribution, after all (imo). I don't see how Major Rydbom would object because he obviously believes in the media briefing points anyway.
Army divisions in Iraq may have even encouraged other Majors to send the letter in the ambiguous manner your friend utilized so that recipients would be more likely to distribute it more quickly. This way they could create a potentially large Internet news blitz, to help counteract the failings of US news media. This tactic may have given some of the senders the impression that they had the right to edit it even further which would explain the WOMD additions and a couple other changes on other versions that Maj Rydbom and his wife specifically deny.
Gamaliel
my *personal* opinion is that they should because the people of iraq will probably require some proof.
i don't have any interest in seeing the photos but i believe that their photos will spread throughout the internet and the news media and curiosity will eventually cause me to peek at the photos.
don't know why i would have interest in seeing a couple of lifeless bodies though.
FOX News will do it for them if they ask. FOX is owned by the same one who owns the NY Post, and they got in trouble for their hypocrisy on this issue just a few months ago. All they have to do, as someone said is turn the bodies over to Iraqi's and have cameras on the transaction. Al-Jazeera would do it too, I think.
Or we could bury them in shallow graves (with cheap markers, hopefully) and then ask news correspondents to keep an eye out on them, and report what happens to their graves.
Gamaliel
i just had a jw come to my door and i had to threaten her to get her to leave!
i told the woman right off i was 'apostate' and had no intention of changing it.
she kept asking me personal questions which i told her were none of her business and she said she would have the elders come by and i told her that if they came by the better be wearing bullet proof vests!
((((((Ravyn))))))
Ignore them or laugh at them or feel sorry for them, but don't let them have this kind of power over you.
Gamaliel
was dr kelly - vince fostered?
this time all those conspiracy nuts started their swim from the other side of the pond.
we all know that the english are surely above intrigue and sinister deeds, just ask roberto calvi, you know "god's banker", as he hung from blackfriars bridge.
These days conspiracy theorists have become sophisticated enough to so that even if David Kelly was shown to be murdered it could be pinned on either Blair's supporters or those who wanted it to work against Blair's supoorters. Conspiracy believers are so plentiful now that the conspiracies lose their meaning.
I put up a post (linked below) about how some senior Bush Administration officials have just ruined the CIA career of the wife of the man who originally investigated and then pointed out Bush's use of faulty evidence. Her CIA career is easily ruined and the White House has put all of her foreign contacts at risk, such that the CIA is as angry at the White House as they are at the reporter to whom they gave the info. It doesn't take much imagination to realize that a person who has given their life for a career for their country might consider suicide if their country appears to turn against them. Their whole life can seem to appear worthless to them. In today's paper it reconfirms the idea that this was done to silence all officials who might be tempted to speak out against Bush's use of "sexed up" evidence that he thought he needed to back up the US led invasion of Iraq.
USA White House Officials force Career "Homi-Suicide" a-la UK's David Kelly
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/14/55984/1.ashx
Gamaliel
"what's happening to the weather?
" is something wrong?".
"can environmental damage be halted?
Awake! should change its name to "Scared Yet?"
I went to an assembly with my parents in 1994 to a first edition of the
JW Proclaimers book, and the talk was about how viruses, bacteria and
bugs were evolving into versions that could never be stopped with
anti-biotics, etc. Then when that was finished the speaker went on
to a bunch of other things to prove that Jehovah must intervene before
we all die of plague, pestilence, or other more overt acts of God.
I thought it was interesting that they didn't even take the word
"evolving" out of the quotations.
Gamaliel
2 peter 2.
22there has befallen them the thing spoken of in the true proverb, the dog turns back to his own vomit, and, the sow is washed only to wallow again in the mire..
i remember when i was going over my baptismal questions the elder spouted off this scripture to me.. looking back at it i wonder how could he be such a moron!
As far as thinking for themselves goes, JWs are kept "too young" until age 90 or so, after which a litte bit of independent thinking is usually allowed.
Your point about returning to your vomit was classic, though. It was used about me, too. I was baptized at 10, and the answer of course is, You mean return to the vomit of being raised in the Truth before I was baptized -- is that what they're calling it now?
Gamaliel
i just got a phone call from someone i used to know, oh, about 25 years ago.
she and her cousin and i hung out together as single pioneers -- they got married, i got married, we lost touch.
well, turns out she now goes to the same congregation as one of the witnesses who works at my law firm -- the same one who, months ago when i started telling people i was no longer one of jehovah's witnesses, told me i could believe what i want but "don't make trouble for the rest of us" -- and evidently the two ladies got to talking and my co-worker gave her my phone number at home.
I think you could drive gumby's point home by saying the same thing to them if they start discussing JW issues again. Just say:
"Look, you [JWs] can believe what you want, just don't make trouble for me."
From what I've seen happen to others, if JWs get frustrated in their efforts to "help" you, even former friends will have no compunction about trying to hurt your reputation among your co-workers, too. After all, they might rationalize that if you were to face trouble at work, it might even help you rethink your situation in which the world has too much hold on you.
If there is any potential for such damage, I would add a mild threat to the response recommended above such as: "or else I'm not afraid to take legal recourse." That's hardly a way to treat former friends who have your "best interests" at heart, but I'm working with a freshly freed exJW right now who has just lost her job due to harrassment and gossip of JW co-workers. HR lawyer told her she had a case, but it would be expensive and iffy to pursue.
Gamaliel
as a complement to my justice series it seems only fitting to have judicial stories told from the perspective of those who have had to sit in the "hot seat" and face the watchtower tribunal of the three stooges ... many, maybe most, elders have never had to face a judicial committee.
were this to have been the case, maybe we would not have the horror stories, but rather more tempered justice among jws.. .
before i was an elder, i too faced the trinity of elders ... and sat in the infamous "hot seat" ... for what?
That was so good Jim that I hate to spoil the thread with my post, even though it's just to say how much I appreciated the thought that went into that post. I wasn't aware that the Mister vs. Brother title might be used to "punctuate" the seriousness of such situations. I never was had the "pleasure" to be on either end of a JC, although I must have been the subject of at least one after I wrote my DA letter to the congregation. We are certainly fortunate to have a poster with insight who has been on both sides of the JC process. Thanks.
Gamaliel
i found this article to be a bit surprising from our "new york and long island" newspaper that used to be so pro-israel, anti-palestinian in its reporting over the years.
it's effectively the same type of governmental attack on a lifetime career that evidently led to the suicide (or worse) of david kelly in london.
(david kelly was the scientist who committed suicide last week just days after being called before a parliamentary committee to question his participation in the story that blair's aides had "sexed up" a lack of evidence to make it appear like evidence blair needed to get backing for the invasion of iraq.
I found this article to be a bit surprising from our "New York and Long Island" newspaper that used to be so pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian in its reporting over the years. It's effectively the same type of governmental attack on a lifetime career that evidently led to the suicide (or worse) of David Kelly in London. (David Kelly was the Scientist who committed suicide last week just days after being called before a parliamentary committee to question his participation in the story that Blair's aides had "sexed up" a lack of evidence to make it appear like evidence Blair needed to get backing for the invasion of Iraq.)
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-uscia223383072jul22,0,1332639.story
Columnist Names CIA Iraq Operative July 21, 2003, 9:48 PM EDT
Washington -- The identity of an undercover CIA officer whose husband started the Iraq uranium intelligence controversy has been publicly revealed by a conservative Washington columnist citing "two senior administration officials."
Intelligence officials confirmed to Newsday Monday that Valerie Plame, wife of retired Ambassador Joseph Wilson, works at the agency on weapons of mass destruction issues in an undercover capacity -- at least she was undercover until last week when she was named by columnist Robert Novak.
Wilson, while refusing to confirm his wife's employment, said the release to the press of her relationship to him and even her maiden name was an attempt to intimidate others like him from talking about Bush administration intelligence failures.
"It's a shot across the bow to these people, that if you talk we'll take your family and drag them through the mud as well," he said in an interview.
It was Wilson who started the controversy that has engulfed the Bush administration by writing in the New York Times two weeks ago that he had traveled to Niger last year at the request of the CIA to investigate reports that Iraq was trying to buy uranium there. Though he told the CIA and the State Department there was no basis to the report, the allegation was used anyway by President George W. Bush in his State of the Union speech in January.
Wilson and a retired CIA official said Monday that the "senior administration officials" who named Plame had, if their description of her employment was accurate, violated the law and may have endangered her career and possibly the lives of her contacts in foreign countries. Plame could not be reached for comment.
"When it gets to the point of an administration official acting to do career damage, and possibly actually endanger someone, that's mean, that's petty, it's irresponsible, and it ought to be sanctioned," said Frank Anderson, former CIA Near East Division chief.
A current intelligence official said that blowing the cover of an undercover officer could affect the officer's future assignments and put them and everyone they dealt with overseas in the past at risk.
"If what the two senior administration officials said is true," Wilson said carefully, "they will have compromised an entire career of networks, relationships and operations." What's more, it would mean that "this White House has taken an asset out of the" weapons of mass destruction fight, "not to mention putting at risk any contacts she might have had where the services are hostile."
Deputy White House Press Secretary Claire Buchan referred questions to a National Security Council spokesman who did not return phone calls last night.
"This might be seen as a smear on me and my reputation," Wilson said, "but what it really is is an attempt to keep anybody else from coming forward" to reveal similar intelligence lapses.
Novak, in an interview, said his sources had come to him with the information. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."
Wilson and others said such a disclosure would be a violation of the law by the officials, not the columnist.
Novak reported that his "two senior administration officials" told him that it was Plame who suggested sending her husband, Wilson, to Niger.
A senior intelligence official confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked "alongside" the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger.
But he said she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment. "They [the officers who did ask Wilson to check the uranium story] were aware of who she was married to, which is not surprising," he said. "There are people elsewhere in government who are trying to make her look like she was the one who was cooking this up, for some reason," he said. "I can't figure out what it could be."
"We paid his air fare. But to go to Niger is not exactly a benefit. Most people you'd have to pay big bucks to go there," the senior intelligence official said. Wilson said he was reimbursed only for expenses.
Timothy Phelps is the Washington bureau chief.
A followup article today in Newsday adds to the potential damage:
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-uscia233384176jul23,0,5461415.story
In a move that sparked the current controversy over allegations that Iraq was trying to buy uranium in Niger, Wilson revealed two weeks ago that he had warned the Bush administration the reports were unfounded.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), vice chairman of the intelligence panel, called the disclosure of Plame's identity "vile" and "a highly dishonorable thing to do; highly, highly dishonorable." He, too, said a probe is probably necessary and accused the White House of strong-arm tactics aimed at those who question their policies. "To go after him [Wilson] is one thing, but to go after his wife is another thing," Rockefeller said.
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Gamaliel
