can anyone confirm that gb member anthony morris iii's real birth name is anthony esposito?.
if it is, that would explain why it has been hard to find his military record, or any other biographical information about him.. .
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Why, then, would he be called "Morris III" if he was adopted? Wouldn't that imply a "Morris II" and a "Morris" in his ancestry? i know one thing doesn't rule out the other, but normally those dynastic type of conventions are based on bloodlines.
Eden
just simple quesiton.
in one video i saw, anthony morris iii makes the comment "i come from a wealthy family, you all know that".
does anyone know who this family is?
His spiritual family is indeed wealthy ... his Father owns the universe and his older brother has a kingdom over heaven and earth, and his other 12 half-brothers all sit on the administration board.
Eden
everyone has an opinion on things.
oftentimes, we ask for help or want the view of the board in a matter.
but just remember, the comments are simply personal views.
Coftly, but the OP was about "opinions", especially regarding the business of "advice". No matter how much informed it may be, no interpretation of facts will ever be entirely objective, devoided of tidbits or chunks of speculation and theorization, personal experiences, and even personal/communal/professional conveniences. As Coded Logic noticed, an informed opinion is always preferable, and one is better when there are facts to back it up. But "advice" will always be on the realm of opinion, not on just data. We're not discussing science here.
Eden
got to admit that when some of these screechers get wound up, ive felt the same as the young lady.. http://www.9news.com.au/world/2014/11/06/08/34/girl-tells-street-preacher-to-shut-up.
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This video makes me very unconftable on so many levels.
First, the preacher: He IS being a public nuisance. He's way too loud for comfort, and his message doesn't convey love or peace, but fear-mongering and guilt. However, is he breaking the law of the land? I see a police car way on the back of the scene. if someone finds the guy breaking the law, or feels offended, take it to the authorities, and let them resolve. Or, engage the preacher with a reasonably articulate conversation.
But the girl was wayy off the mark, and it was clearly coached and staged. At some point she betrays herself when she looks directly into the camera operator, looking for validation. I don't know who's behind the camera - a parent, a relative ... but certainly that's not the way to educate your child to behave like a civil human being in society. That's disrespectful, disgraceful, tasteless. I feel as sorry for the preacher as I feel sorry for the girl and whomever is responsable for her education.
Eden
everyone has an opinion on things.
oftentimes, we ask for help or want the view of the board in a matter.
but just remember, the comments are simply personal views.
Cofty: There is no such thing as opinions when it comes to statements about reality. It is important to be able to tell the difference between an opinion and an objective fact that we can go and check out for ourself.
It's not always black & white, Cofty.
Let's state a fact: It's 13ยบ Celsius out there.
Me, being from Southern Europe and very spoilt with sunshine and warm weather, will say: It's cold out there. But someone from a scandinavian country will look at the same fact and say: It's quite nice out there. We will both be right - or: neither of us will be wrong - albeit we don't agree on our interpretation of the very same fact.
So, even statements about reality are subject to interpretation and subjective opinion, even without contradicting factual reality itself. This diversity of opinions makes the world a warmer and interesting place, not a cold lab-like environment of cold hard data.
Eden
to give a little background, my parents are in their late 50s.
around a year ago, my elder dad got laid off from his job.
he worked as a auto mechanic making ok money.
Indeed, full-throttle CULT MODE. Sad.
Eden
what saying made it all around the country?.
the ones that were passed around, word of mouth.. for example.
"donations basis proves jehovah is behind the work!".
I'm glad they don't venerate cult leaders! (He said with bitter irony).
Amen to THAT!
what saying made it all around the country?.
the ones that were passed around, word of mouth.. for example.
"donations basis proves jehovah is behind the work!".
"God is exercising patience".
"Aren't you glad that God has been exercising patience? If God had brought Armaggedon in [insert any year before your baptism], would YOU be saved?"
"This one's a 'goat', for sure"
"The number of earthquakes has raised dramatically since 1914"
"The end is so near - it's so obvious! How can YOU question it?"
"We must trust in the 'faithful and discreete slave', now more than ever"
"The Slave has been teaching us that [insert the most banal concept that can be found in any wordly literature]. This is Godly wisdom".
"The work is accelerating. The "slave" knows the end is imminent".
Eden
"truth is one, paths are many.
" - gandhi.
gandhi also said, "i like your christ.
By "unbiased research" I mean study the bible (or the NT) from a non-devotional point of view; study it from a historical, sociological, point of view. The results are shattering, but if you value the truth as an absolute ethical value - as I do - you owe yourself that endeavour. Follow the evidence, not your heart.
Eden
"truth is one, paths are many.
" - gandhi.
gandhi also said, "i like your christ.
The problem, objectivetruth, is that what the gospels supposedly portray Jesus saying can hardly be confirmed. These gospels were:
a) Written much time after the facts; the earliest, Mark, nearly four decades after Jesus' death - at least.
b) None of them were written by eye-witnesses, none of them even by palestinian jews;
c) They are - at best - fourth-hand accounts (and I'm being VERY generous conceding this, because it was certainly much more);
d) They were written with a political agenda in mind and an axe to grind: blame the jews, make the romans look good, so that Christianism is more pallatable to the Hellenistic-Roman world;
e) They were witten to suit the apostle Paul's interpretation of whatever he imagined the Christ to be. It was Paul's own visionary gospel, not the gospel of the twelve eye-witness apostles of Jesus. " I did not receive it [the gospel] from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ." (Galatians 1:12)
f) They reveal a great degree of contradictions when you start looking at the fine details, many of those are impossible to reconcile. And, even when you attempt to reconcile some of the discrepancies, you're in fact constructing a fifth gospel.
g) The real historical Jesus was part of a jewish messianic apocalyptical movement that stood against many things that the very gospels attempt to portray about him, and definetively very opposed to the version of the Christ that Paul concocted resorting to jewish mysticism and greek neoplatonism.
h) The 'Jesus movement' failed first when John the Baptist and then Jesus himself were killed by the Jewish establishment in alliance with the Herodian-Roman establishment; after this, the momevent alleged that Jesus had resurrected to heaven, and would return soon; now led by the apostle James, then his brother Simon, this renewed movement utterly failed in getting their expectations right about the imminent establishment of God's Kingdom led by the "Son of Man" that would overthrow the foreign Roman-Herodian domination of Palestine and purify the temple, and restore a Davidian kingship and an Aaronic-Phinean-Zadockean priesthood in Jerusalem's temple. Likewise, Paul's expectations proved unfounded also.
i) In an attempt to explain away the utter embarassment of why God's Kingdom didn't come as expected (2 Peter 3:3,4) but rather, Israel's earthly temple was destroyed and Jerusalem transformed into an heathen metropolis and the Jews scattered into a diaspora, the Christian movement, especially that of Pauline persuasion aimed at the gentiles, started to resort to supernatural idealizations about the nature of Jesus, the Christ, and his "not-of-this-world, heavenly" Kingdom. In turn, in later periods of time, re-interpretations of Jesus' alleged utterances generated new apocalyptical expectations of a "return" of Jesus in his kingship power, the latest of which are the Millerite, and their heirs, such as the Jehovah's Witnesses. But there have been many others during the last 1900 years.
j) It was in THIS context that the four bible gospels were produced, each one with its own flavor, but all agreeing with the Pauline vision. In this process, the real, historical Jesus was reshaped, morphed, changed, in fact, FORGED, into something that he never meant to be.
Once you realize this process, what is left from Christianity to take away? Inspirational quotes? Wisdom? I agree that there is wisdom and inspiration to be drawn from the gospels, but nowadays I struggle to see what's the point of devoting your life to follow a myth.
I was once like you, believing that the Bible was the inspired Word of God, and essentially error-free; that whatever was written there, give or take a glitch or two, was the truth of the matter, for God would surely ensure that it would get to our hands essentially intact. However, I thought that BEFORE I made any serious research about history and how the Bible canon came to be, and how these texts were written, by whom and why. At the end of the day, the Bible is a very human anthology of texts. God had NOTHING to to with the production of these texts, and certainly even less to do with their preservation and transmission. If anything, the writers had Gor in mind when they wrote them, and if that's enough to call it "inspiration", then fine. But that's not the kind of "inspiration" that I find worthy change my life for. If I change my life and devote it to someone, it better be God himself or His son. But unfortunately, that's NOT what you find when you put the Bible through a stress test.
Do yourself a favor and make some serious, unbiased research. See where that leads you.
Eden
