When ocean itself is salty, there is no point in asking why one particular drop is salty. Bible is hung on the thread that God chose a nation as His own terming others as pagan (OT) and God exalted one of His children over the rest of children (NT)--something that is impossible for God to do (Deuteronomy 10:17; Romans 2:11)
Posts by venus
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17NWT - revised 1984 vs revised 2013 versions
by Tallon inin the latest 2013 revision the footnote of john chapter 8 states; a number of ancient and authoritative manuscripts omit vs 53 (of chapter 7) to chapter 8, vs. 11.. yet the 1984 revision quotes a similar footnote, however the passage of scripture is included in the text, albeit separately at the bottom.
this passage of scripture is about the scribes and the pharisees who brought a woman that was accused of adultery before jesus to test him on the punishment to be meted out.
then came his famous reply; let the one of you that is sinless be the first to throw a stone at her.. i just found it interesting that the wtbts would leave this out in the latest revision.
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Comparing Total Numbers Baptized During the 1990s and the Last Ten Years:
by steve2 insometimes, comparing raw numbers provides a more clear-cut numerical picture of growth or otherwise than percentages.
below are the numbers for peak publishers (rounded off so that 4,1 represents more than 4,100,000) for each year throughout the 1990s and those for the last ten years.. year: peak* baptisms.
* peak publishers abbreviated - simply to show annual baptisms in relation to peak publishers.. the main point: .
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venus
JWs have been applying to themselves the prophecy found in Isaiah 60:22 "the tiniest group will become a mighty nation. At the right time, I, the LORD, will speed it up." Now they are going in opposite direction to this prophecy.
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Philosophy of religion
by venus increate a superhuman character performing amazing feats, make him speak very good proverbs and parables which find easy acceptance among people, thus make him an authority on spirituality, and then make him speak business: become rich through improper means (luke 16:1-12) and avoid going into hell by sharing a portion of the ill-gotten wealth to the poor (mathew 25:31-46; contrast luke 16:19-31) which resulted in many orphanages and similar institutions coming into existence with the rich sponsoring them and the management living in luxury while working on behalf of the poor.
or make him provide basis for adoption of rituals that ensures a luxurious living for the management..
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venus
Cold Steel,
My point is that in big picture God is not using any religion but is being used by religions--with a commercial intent.
When I approach the religious leaders for various reasons, I have noticed their reactions changing according to the nature of the request I have. They seem to be very sweet when it brings some monetary benefit to them, but seem to be irritated/even exploding when you go for things such as a birth certificate which brings them no monetary benefit. Yet in their public talk they instruct us to be sweet in our behaviour with one another.
This I have observed among JWs too. If you invite the elders/COs for meal, or give them gifts, they know how to be sweet with you.
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Philosophy of religion
by venus increate a superhuman character performing amazing feats, make him speak very good proverbs and parables which find easy acceptance among people, thus make him an authority on spirituality, and then make him speak business: become rich through improper means (luke 16:1-12) and avoid going into hell by sharing a portion of the ill-gotten wealth to the poor (mathew 25:31-46; contrast luke 16:19-31) which resulted in many orphanages and similar institutions coming into existence with the rich sponsoring them and the management living in luxury while working on behalf of the poor.
or make him provide basis for adoption of rituals that ensures a luxurious living for the management..
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venus
Create a superhuman character performing amazing feats, make him speak very good proverbs and parables which find easy acceptance among people, thus make him an authority on spirituality, and then make him speak business: Become rich through improper means (Luke 16:1-12) and avoid going into hell by sharing a portion of the ill-gotten wealth to the poor (Mathew 25:31-46; contrast Luke 16:19-31) which resulted in many orphanages and similar institutions coming into existence with the rich sponsoring them and the management living in luxury while working on behalf of the poor. Or make him provide basis for adoption of rituals that ensures a luxurious living for the management.
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37
Illogical illustration of “the rich man and the poor man Lazarus” (Luke 16:19-31)
by venus inillustration of the rich man and the poor man lazarus indirectly hints that the materially rich would go to hell and the poor ones to heaven.
if one reads between the lines, one can discern that this illustration is a later adoption intended to exploit the rich using the poor as a means.. i have friends who are extremely rich (net-worth in billions) and also who are materially very poor, and have found both are living in hell because of their attitude.
the excess the rich have prevents them from enjoying it (and even the affluent find a huge gap between income and desires, hence find themselves often in conflict and competition) and whereas the deprived compare themselves with the haves which prevents them also from enjoying their lives.. jesus would not provide an illustration that undermines his own most favored statement: “happy are those poor in spirit because kingdom of heavens belongs to them” (mathew 5:3) and his own explanation that heaven is the condition of one’s heart (luke 17:21) obviously he had in mind those who do not have the baggage of attachment and sense of possession, those few people of simplicity that belong to both the categories—the rich and the poor. simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, a stage where every possession serves a purpose living a life that is deliberate and intentional (not one that someone else has scripted for them) and wanting to feel more complete (not more objects of the world), at ease.
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venus
TheWonderofYou,
If Jesus symbolized the Pharisees through the rich man in the illustration of “The Rich man and Lazarus,” what did he gain by that except that it made them more revengeful that ultimately resulted in the murder of the messenger himself? If an act is going to increase the problem, why should one initiate it in the first place? In this way also, illustration served no purpose!
In the big picture, this is what happens. The selfish people take advantage of a supernatural person who has supposedly spoken some good proverbs and performed some super-human feats—presenting things (parables and proverbs) through such authority to get easy acceptance from readers. One can see such motives behind some of the parables/illustrations Jesus supposedly used. For example, some people wanted to convey the following:
Fraud in business is ok (16:1-12); but such fraudulent ones will end up in hell (Luke 16:19-31); yet there is a way to work around this situation—the rich have to give a portion of their ill-gotten wealth to the poor, and can go to heaven. (Mathew 25:31-46). See how the rich have responded to such a message—many orphanages and similar institutions came into existence with the rich sponsoring them and the management living in luxury while working in the name of the poor.
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37
Illogical illustration of “the rich man and the poor man Lazarus” (Luke 16:19-31)
by venus inillustration of the rich man and the poor man lazarus indirectly hints that the materially rich would go to hell and the poor ones to heaven.
if one reads between the lines, one can discern that this illustration is a later adoption intended to exploit the rich using the poor as a means.. i have friends who are extremely rich (net-worth in billions) and also who are materially very poor, and have found both are living in hell because of their attitude.
the excess the rich have prevents them from enjoying it (and even the affluent find a huge gap between income and desires, hence find themselves often in conflict and competition) and whereas the deprived compare themselves with the haves which prevents them also from enjoying their lives.. jesus would not provide an illustration that undermines his own most favored statement: “happy are those poor in spirit because kingdom of heavens belongs to them” (mathew 5:3) and his own explanation that heaven is the condition of one’s heart (luke 17:21) obviously he had in mind those who do not have the baggage of attachment and sense of possession, those few people of simplicity that belong to both the categories—the rich and the poor. simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, a stage where every possession serves a purpose living a life that is deliberate and intentional (not one that someone else has scripted for them) and wanting to feel more complete (not more objects of the world), at ease.
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venus
If something is open for interpretation, it cannot be from God because "For God is not a God of disorder ." (1Cor 14:33)
Any interpretation is just the perspective of the one who interprets it. If a teacher comes from heaven, and leaves behind something for anyone to interpret in any way each one likes, what is the purpose of communication? Can an interpreter be absolutely sure that what he says is what Jesus really had in his mind?
If something is crystal clear, then it would be one of the signs that it may be from God.
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"But it gives my life meaning"
by Coded Logic init's not enough that we simply raise empirical challenges to these iron age beliefs saying, "jesus didn't really rise from the dead" or "muhammad didn't really fly to heaven on a horse.
" we must also give no quarter to this falsehood that religion can give peoples lives real meaning.
the truths about our identity, experience, and the future impacts that our decision will have on the world around us are much deeper and more profound than any culture or religion.
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venus
Religion does more harm than help. All the fights and conflicts my Witness parents have had could be traced to the false religious teaching that woman is inferior to man. My dad never allowed my mom to be dynamic with respect to her potential.
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22
The point at which you think this may not be the truth
by LevelThePlayingField ini remember one of the nights that i found out the truth wasn't the truth, that is after finding out about the united nations, i remember riding my bicycle from like 1am till 5am in the city night.
it was rather chilly, maybe about 55-60 degrees and i was playing pink floyd's dark side of the moon album in my earbuds.
just riding and riding, not really tiring because of the thought that 7 men in brooklyn had duped me, duped me for like 20 plus years.
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venus
I had my first doubt during memorial service. Jesus' death specially benefiting only a few just because they were born before and after certain year did not make sense to me. Once this was in doubt, them many other things started one by one ...
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Illogical illustration of “the rich man and the poor man Lazarus” (Luke 16:19-31)
by venus inillustration of the rich man and the poor man lazarus indirectly hints that the materially rich would go to hell and the poor ones to heaven.
if one reads between the lines, one can discern that this illustration is a later adoption intended to exploit the rich using the poor as a means.. i have friends who are extremely rich (net-worth in billions) and also who are materially very poor, and have found both are living in hell because of their attitude.
the excess the rich have prevents them from enjoying it (and even the affluent find a huge gap between income and desires, hence find themselves often in conflict and competition) and whereas the deprived compare themselves with the haves which prevents them also from enjoying their lives.. jesus would not provide an illustration that undermines his own most favored statement: “happy are those poor in spirit because kingdom of heavens belongs to them” (mathew 5:3) and his own explanation that heaven is the condition of one’s heart (luke 17:21) obviously he had in mind those who do not have the baggage of attachment and sense of possession, those few people of simplicity that belong to both the categories—the rich and the poor. simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, a stage where every possession serves a purpose living a life that is deliberate and intentional (not one that someone else has scripted for them) and wanting to feel more complete (not more objects of the world), at ease.
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venus
Old Navy,
Lionel Trilling in his essay “Knowledge and Philosophy” incidentally reveals a great truth about story/parable telling. He says ‘for a story to be great, it should be understood even by children, not just a few elite from the world of adults.’ [This makes sense because the few brilliant elite may understand the import of stories even without the help of such stories.] Even using simple vocabulary of the common people would not suffice. For example, everyone understands the words such as healthy, disease etc. But if you say “healthy disease” no one would understand. In the same way, we all understand words such as Heavens, God, leaven etc. But if someone says: “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven” (Mathew 13:33) how many will understand it? So is the case with illustrations in Luke 16.
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Hilarious Seth Andrews lecture - "How Christianity steals the best ideas"
by doubtfull1799 inhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knik8nisrry.
worth a watch imho.
very enlightening and entertaining at the same time.
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venus
scratchme1010,
By pretending to be helpers, sects are actually engaging in massaging their egos, thus become qualified to hear the condemnation mentioned in Mathew 7:21-23