I had recently a debate with my mom regarding the baptism. I felt always that baptism is something that was added to the Christianity much later after the death of Jesus. People suppose to achieve salvation through Jesus, not through immersion in water. Jesus promised the criminal next to him an salvation through the faith, and not through baptism. I read various origins of baptism and I feel that Christians borrowed from Helenism. Achilles was dipped in the water by Thetis to gain immortality.
Posts by kaik
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24Why Do Jehovah's Witnesses Reject The Bible's Example Concerning Baptism
by Watchtower-Free ini asked the below questions to 2 of my elders a few week ago ................................silence.
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72
I never realized that Hitler's persecution of the Witnesses was worse than that of the Jews
by ThomasCovenant in'the terrible persecution of jehovahs witnesses by hitler, worse than that he inflicted on the jews, took place.
'' wt 1966 15th oct page 635.
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kaik
Prologos, Protectorate was probably better than most of the occupied Europe and the situation was indeed unique. It is often compared as brutal, but efficient dictatorship that contrasted with liberal free interwar democracy Czechoslovakia, and provided unique industrial opportunities for the upper classes and industrial workers. The masses did not benefit much, but industries did because Protectorate was integrated into German economy and was extensively modernized. Overall, both my parents lived through WWII and told me that their childhood was ruined because of the war. My father was a refugee, they had no place to live during and after war, they moved from place to place depending where the Nazi and postwar government resettled them. Slovakia was much better place because it did not experienced war until summer of 1944 and it was seen as a second Switzerland during WWII. Protectorate government attempted to direct people attention from the war into the parties, drinking, movies, concert halls, and extensive working hours. I heard in the 1980' s that never people got so drunk as they did during WWII. Germans during holidays flocked to Prague as it was seen as safehaven. British government had an agreement with Czechoslovak governement-in-exile that Prague would not be bombed (only USAF bombed Prague). Due much less restrictive system, Germans could watch forbidden movies from USA and listen jazz that was popular in Czechoslovakia and still played through WWII. Occupational regime tolerated as it wanted to keep a peace, but brutally suppressed anti-german opposition. The biggest loss from Protectorate was a destruction of intelligentsia and Czechoslovak society did not had much to begin with due having short independence, which helped paving a power toward communism in 1948. Intelligentsia would be a crucial for limitting the rise of the communism.
I heard conflicting stories about JW during WWII from elderly we had in our KH. Some JW were executed during the marshall law of 1942 following assassination of Heydrich. Their only crime was that JWs refused to wear identification papers based on disinterpretation of Rev 13:16-17. In time where hundreds of people were killed for violating extreme measures such as lackign identification papers, this was foolish behavior. I have been in Terezín only once and drove though it bunch of times, it was rather depressing city. Terezín was rather collection of various prisons and camps which served as staging ground for transit into Germany and Poland during Holocaust, but thousands others outside Jews went through it and died. Even German dissidents from Sudetenland and Protectorate. I am not sure where JWs were held, because some of them we had were imprisoned in Poland and Germany during WWII.
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20
Are we living in the best time in human history, and on the edge at the same time?
by Fernando inpersonally i believe we are.. your thoughts?.
how will it turn out?.
what can/should we do?.
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kaik
I would say human race lives in the best time in history. Can you imagine living in Roman Empire, Dark Age, during the Reign of Terror, under Stalin or Nazi? I disagree with the wording of Dali lama, it is either taken out of context, or the guy is clueless due his advanced age locked within Ivory tower with the world around. Greed was always something to be complained all the way to the time of the Roman Emperor. Diocletian resigned as emperor- only one ever done it- due extensive greed and cunning policy of the Roman Empire. He lived happily at his retirement planting turnips. Big families are past due retirement, social security, emancipation of women, and low infant mortality. Back in the medieval times children meant very little. Parents seen them as free slaves working on their farmland. Women did not cherished their infants, they were lucky to survive child birth and back to work and producing another offspring. Small homes were often due economy, but for the middle class in Europe and Northern America, the size of the flat peaked either in 1920's or 1950's. Since 1980's there is trend world-wide for much smaller, energy efficient and cheaper homes. Big homes in suburbia was a domain of boomers, not other generation afterwards.
While our time and our society has many problems, we cannot compare our life with the past.
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50
Something I need to clear up about the bible - It is not a BRONZE AGE BOOK!
by HowTheBibleWasCreated inlet's be technical.
the bronze age ended in 1200 bce in devoloped places and later ... aroun 900-800 in other places.
indeed read 1 samuel 13's ending.. the bible was produced not one tiny bit in the bronze age.
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kaik
Bronze and Iron Age are definitions of the modern times. They were also not happened universally in the world at the same time. Iron Age in Urartu started much earlier due extensive ore deposits. Bronze age lasted in China much longer than in Middle East or Mediterranean. What OT cover from Genessis to the destruction of the Northern Israel happened during Bronze Age. OT was compiled in the Iron Age, but it is Bronze Age myth. On the other hand Midrash were compiled under influence of Persia and Greece.
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72
I never realized that Hitler's persecution of the Witnesses was worse than that of the Jews
by ThomasCovenant in'the terrible persecution of jehovahs witnesses by hitler, worse than that he inflicted on the jews, took place.
'' wt 1966 15th oct page 635.
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kaik
Band on Run, there are several issues with thinking that Holocaust and concentration camps could be stopped. They were in existence since late 1930's and Germany was not in war until 1939 and USA/USSR until 1941. In my hometown Jews were already killed in April 1939 a onward nd first transports occurred from Ostrava around March 1939. Until 1942 Germans were a master of Europe. Whatever they decided to do, it could not be stopped by anyone. There was no stronger power until their defeat at the Stalingrad. German economy in 1940 was even larger than USA due incorporation of Austria and Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. No country in Europe before WWII would start a war on behalf of oppressed minorities. This was status established by Peace of Westphalia in 1648 which forbade European states in interfering in other countries affaris on behalf of the national or religious minorities. This status was prerserved for the next 300 years.
When Germany occupied most of Europe, the biggest genocides happened in Eastern Europe. Nazi regime very quickly carried extermination with their facilities. Until 1943 the area was out of reach for RAF and USAF from their bases in UK. There was no way that successful air raides could be carried that far into the Eastern Europe. That was also reason why most of the Eastern Germany, Protectorate, Slovakia, and Hungary, Vienna have not seen bombing until much later part of the WWII (Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Bratislava were not bombed until 1944). Most of the raids on Central and Eastern Europe were carried from Italian bases once British and American occupies southern tip of Italian penninsula. It would be impossible to stop the holocaust before 1943 from air raids alone. Additionally, Central Europe had dense railway grid with 100,000 miles of tracks that interconnected and not even a collapse of air defenses in Germany could knock them out. In March 1945 the tracts and rails worked so well that it carried 1 million troops in that month alone and many more refugees. Destruction of such vast network was almost not possible from the air campaign even with systemathic targetting as USAF started in summer of 1944. Dresden rail junction functioned two days after air raides. The camp facilities also held thousands of POW and forced laborers, so bombing of them would kill thousands of other people.
Did people knew what was happening? Yes they knew, but they were not aware of the extent of the killing. It was not imaginable for the society the horror until the war was over. And majority of population did not really cared at that time. People attempted to survive. They are happy that are not that one on the end of the rope. Survivors do not care about the victims. The same mentality existed in French Revolution during the Reign of Terror. Thousands of people were guillotined and the victims were immediatelly forgotten the day they lost their heads. When anyone later inquired what French did in 1794 the simple answer was "I do not know, I just tried to survive". Executions were often carried in public and announced on press, radio and filmed. Brno' mass shooting range was opened to public. Mass executions also happened in the city center as entertainment for Nazis like mentioned here in downtown of Prague during Xmas 1941: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM902N7UIjY. Destruction of Lidice, its leveling, and killing all men was filmed, announced, and used in cinema before start up movies as way to inflict fear into the population. When you see newspaper from occupied Europe, you see the list of people who were executed daily. With their name, age, address, and profession.
Many JWs in the 1930's started their own fate with a collision with the government. In Czechoslovakia which was democracy until 1938, the JW on purpose violated publishing laws and played a martyr for their faith. Government did not want foreigners distributing literature in time were war was expected. And there was issue with amount of publication than anyone could distribute while not violating tax and publishing laws. JWs could not often explain what they weer doing with bag of books and where the money went after they sold it out. Situation in Germany after 1933 was much worse and they would have to expect violent suppresion at the hand of the totalitarian regime.
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72
I never realized that Hitler's persecution of the Witnesses was worse than that of the Jews
by ThomasCovenant in'the terrible persecution of jehovahs witnesses by hitler, worse than that he inflicted on the jews, took place.
'' wt 1966 15th oct page 635.
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kaik
Terry, I am not sure if you name JWs for German state for entire German's occupied Europe, or specific territories. I have seen original book printed in interwar period in Czech language which still in 1932 was published in Prague under Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society & International Bible Students. Document related to JWs used as servants of Heydrich (+1942) uses the same name, International Bible Students . I wonder if the old timers stuck with the old name. I also notices that change between publishing homes between 1932 and after where only Watch Tower is used as a publishing house versus International Bible Students .
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72
I never realized that Hitler's persecution of the Witnesses was worse than that of the Jews
by ThomasCovenant in'the terrible persecution of jehovahs witnesses by hitler, worse than that he inflicted on the jews, took place.
'' wt 1966 15th oct page 635.
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kaik
I would also add, that some JWs were used as unpaid servants for high ranking nazis. In Protectorate Bohemia 15 of them were employed at the court of the widow Lina Heydrich at her chateau outside Prague here:
http://www.panenskebrezany.cz/Gallery/content/Foto/Dolni%20zamek/DZ05.jpg
Reinhard Heydrich was mastermind behind holocaust and called a butcher of Prague. He oversee conference to deal with a final solution of Jews in occupied Europe and fate of Slavs. He was assassinated in 1942 in Prague. Lina lived as widow here surrounded by SS men bodyguards and 15 JWs of German and Dutch nationality. They were her servant running daily chores until the collapse of the Nazi regime. All of them survived. I wonder how they felt to provide services for a monster that by will sent millions of people into extermination camps. Did they feel any guilt? I wonder what was their postwar fate.
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37
Your thoughts on demons, ghosts and spirits
by Crazyguy inas a jw were taught all about demons but i never had an incident.
my wife believes wholeheartedly says her family including her has had problems with them.
i have met people that even non religious people that say they have experienced a ghost or a spirit.
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kaik
JWs are totally obsessed with spirits, demons, and satan, that they will see it everywhere except WT publications. I know JWs who whined in field service to sit at farmer table that was wood carved with goat and sheep motifs as were normal from shepherd life. JW with me insisted that the goat resembled demons and refused to have a conversation/bible study with the farmer.
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72
I never realized that Hitler's persecution of the Witnesses was worse than that of the Jews
by ThomasCovenant in'the terrible persecution of jehovahs witnesses by hitler, worse than that he inflicted on the jews, took place.
'' wt 1966 15th oct page 635.
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kaik
I disagree that Catholic church was fully comliant with the Nazis. Many ordinary priests sufferred the same result as other opposition to Nazi regime. Thousands were executed from various ranks and some orders were outlawed like Teutonic Knights who were hunted down and exterminated. However, there were various currents within the church that were not only sympathetic to the National Socialism, but activelly supported Nazis and fascists until 1945 like Tiso's Slovakia and Ustache in Croatia. It is not easy to single out all catholic priesthood as collaborators, but they should certainly be more vocal in opposition to Hitler. When the war started in 1939, it was too late.
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72
I never realized that Hitler's persecution of the Witnesses was worse than that of the Jews
by ThomasCovenant in'the terrible persecution of jehovahs witnesses by hitler, worse than that he inflicted on the jews, took place.
'' wt 1966 15th oct page 635.
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kaik
Prologos, still Jews sufferred the most because they were singled out as a collective victim of the genocide. They were not only these who were killed, because there were Romans, Slavs, anti-fascsist Germans, and many others. But overall the Jewish population in Czechoslovakia alone sufferred 88% death rate. In comparision to JW who were charged under non-racial laws and had less than 5% death rate, this is not even comperable. Many JWs were also in regular prison camps instead extermination camps like Birkenau. Europe during WWII had witnessed many large-scale massacress, I had mentioned Lidice (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a49DBQ7cA8), but there were hundreds of these all over the continent from Oradour in France to Kragujevec in Serbia to Kaliste in Slovakia and countless others in Russia, Poland, Ukraine...
I do not believe bombing of death camps would alter the killing machine. Many of them happened outside the camps like in Babi Yar. Additionally, much of the deaths happened at the end of the war due outbreak of typhoid fever and bombing would not change the death toll. JWs were attempted to stay neutral of the military machine; which was also reason, why they were spared in mass killing. Generally people who accidentally appeared in opposition to nazi regime were tortured and killed. Who was military and had training to survive guerilla war had higher chance for survival. For civilians who suddenly appeared as a helper like delivery of messages or transmit signal to UK, they sufferred the most. The torture was often public and had to terrify population into compliance. I heard from my teacher and relatives a teen girl helped partisans. It was nothing more than bringing a medical supplies. As a result she was impailed on fence with snipper pointing to anyone who would save her. She was dying for two days. My mother told me when partisans were captured, they were brought into town square and were put into roasting tar cauldron alive where everyone was forced to watch in gun point. I do not ever recall JWs sufferred any similar fate like these people. But some were shot.
