i made a thread on reddit regarding questions jw's can't answer.
was wondering what you guys can add to it..
The basic Christian issue is “Jesus – Gods son was sent to earth to offer his life as a random so that we earth living humans will be forgiven and have eternal life. When he comes: we spit on him, we torture him, we drag him in the mud, he dies, goes up to his father, and say now they are ready to be forgiven…???!
Bugbear
i have recently been studying the myths and legends of other pre- jewish cultures.
such as babylonian, egyptian and greek.
these stories and beliefs are all pre dating the writing of the jewish torah and the new testament.
I have read “history of Ideas and science” on an University level. And one of the understandings I found was that most of Bible content only is a repeating of older stories, sometimes distorted from old tales and explanations. Many of these stories has been found in cuneiform letters from the ancient Sumers. Even since we have been able to understand old Egyptian hieroglyphs (thanks to Champillion), we have been able to document our history down to 5400 years bc. This documentation is not a translation of old paper rolls that has been translated, transformed. Written again, translated, destroyed, reformed over and over…..
They are actually written in original letters on stone……
An idea of what makes the “wholly Bible” fallacy obvious, are the s.c. Parallel scriptures. The books of Chronicles, Kings, the books of Samuel and others are practically copies. You will find that many of the different chapters are identical. Sometimes they makes mistakes and mention another name than in the in the previous. If these books are run in a computer, you can immediately se the similarities, thus if you were using them in un University essay your examination will fail. You would probably be accused of fraud. And suspended from the university. Why is this obvious not holly scriptures, why do they repeat themselves on and on again.
The obvious reasons are they were not written by god inspired men. They were written by copying men who were looking on older rolls. And these older rolls where not the only rolls, there were 100 of rolls with similar texts. The copyist did not understand that other versions of the text were stored in other synagogues. When Athanasius of Alexandria compiled the books of the bible, he could not see these obvious mistakes.
If you would like to se more literature and Bible criticism, I would recommend as a starter SAB.
or http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/
Here you can see lots of commentary’s to Bible texts. God luck in your studies…
Bugbear
nice try brother lett.
you moved the cups around the table and thought we would not see the slight of hand you were handing us.
you begged for money but you have failed to show yourself capable of handling the monies already provided .
Doc
I agree with you. The question that always pops up in my mind is…. how do they dare ask for more money. Don´t they understand that this money begging and real estate selling will reduce the will to donate, amongst those who have economical capacity to give. In fact it will work contradicting to what they really want, more members, more founds, more real estates
Bugbear
what would have happen if i was not home when jehovahs witnesses knocked on my door?.
there was a group of us living in a small trailer in the mid 60s when and old pioneer brother knocked on our door and placed all kinds of books and magazines with us.
all of us took it seriously and studied and started attending the kingdom hall.
I think that a ”cult” might stable a person with problems for a while. But when that person discover that he is on the wrong track, it could go even worse. Those who remain in the “cult” are captured in a routine manner that helps them don’t do anything that the cult doesn´t approve.
Bugbear
when i see people on here saying they've looked on several sites before this one, jwfacts, jwstruggle, youtube, etc., and then they make friends here, sometimes meeting up with ex-jws, it seems incredibly easy compared to leaving in 1989. .
no internet, no amazon to find ex-jw books, no facebook to link up with ex-jw groups.
still people find it so hard to leave.
Mephis
I think you are quite on to it, quoting:
(I did a year of coming down with every sickness I could think of trying to do a fade - bit easier with once a week phone calls).
In our neighborhood cong. almost all publishers are claiming illness or diseases. I personally know that 3 or 4 of the elders admit that they are going on pills. They offered me their pills when I claimed that I suffered from depression. I also know that In other neighbor congregations the situation is the same. All of them are desperately finding excuses for not take their speeches and going out in the service. This is what the WT call “the healthiest people on earth”. The world must be very sick…
Bugbear
so it was reported that the wt made $60,000,000 in canada last year (?).
working on the assumption that this figure is from not only donations, but from property revenues and other ventures from the branch, we get a figure of $528 per publisher, per year.
the calculation: 60,000,000 / 113,617 (2014 av pubs) = $528 a year per publisher.
Of course they are doing what every capitalist , always has being doing , collect all money they can for future eventual bad times, to secure their or their relatives prosperity and wellbeing. Investing them I “secure” founds. This is nothing but business. It’s only the squirrel mind that always has occupied human brains, there is no spiritual thought behind it whatsoever..
Bugbear
does this mean possible a creator did or does exist.
there is plenty of evidence of a slow evolutionary changes over millions of years and i do not disagree with this.
but again that fact that mankind can not create a living creature from scratch mean there must be a creator?
I come to think of a sign a saw the other day:
Life is a sexual transmitted disease, with 100% mortality.
Bugbear
does this mean possible a creator did or does exist.
there is plenty of evidence of a slow evolutionary changes over millions of years and i do not disagree with this.
but again that fact that mankind can not create a living creature from scratch mean there must be a creator?
First of all, put yourselves a question: What is life?
Is a DNA chain life? Is a virus crystal life? When becomes a chain of atoms enough complicated to become a molecule? And when is that molecule life?
Is it when It can replicate it selves? Or does it must have a system to breathing, water, oxygen. Is it necessary that it is built on carbon/chain/oxygen?
I think that scientists are still not agreeing on the definition. The waste numbers of different species, from viruses, bacterial, worms, parasites, insects, mammals, birds and fishes, on different places of the earth, shows us that a very long time of evolution, has been going on. We cannot tell exactly how the very first DNA molecule was formed But we know that certain circumstances made the DNA structure (if that is life) able to recreate or transformed it selves to new structures.
Some scientist claim that the can make DNA changes to new lifeforms. Others say that this is not creating new life, just cooping others lifeforms. (remember the sheep dolly?) Others says that viruses constantly reshape themselves, into new forms, much more dangerous to us than the old ones.
Sorry that I haven’t been able to answer your questions, just lying up new ones, but I think that is our part of life----trying to understand.
Bugear
similarities between, jw:ism, stalinism, putinism, and mullahism, popeism and maoism..
all these leaders has been elected by un elite group controlling big values in form of real estate, bank account, enthusiastic voluntary working task forces, almost willingly to die for their leaders.
the workers (slave class), is never ever supposed to question the leaders decisions.
Vidiot
god point "authoritarian regime" lol
buggis
similarities between, jw:ism, stalinism, putinism, and mullahism, popeism and maoism..
all these leaders has been elected by un elite group controlling big values in form of real estate, bank account, enthusiastic voluntary working task forces, almost willingly to die for their leaders.
the workers (slave class), is never ever supposed to question the leaders decisions.
Yes I have red Michel Foucault. In fact he was a french teacher in Uppsala University, before he went to Sorbonne in Paris where i wrote his famous thesis. Its a pity that we couldn´t have this published in Uppsala. I must however admit that I didn´t understood much of his reason...
My mainly subjecs is whitin the area of History on Ideas and science and Theoretical philosofy. I haven´t even yet achived my PhD, but was thinking that I would like to finished that before I die. (I am almost 70 years of age!?)
Thanks for tipping me
Bugbear
