here's something i wanted to throw out for debate.
there is a line in a smashing pumpkins song that says "something always gets lost in the translation.
" how true of a translation of the bible do you think you can find?
That is why when I have talked to Muslims on the ministry they say the Koran has never changed --it has always been in Arabic and there is no such thing as an English Koran as too much gets lost in the translation
That's true. I think a student of any language can tell you that. Try to translate a story, joke, or comic from another language. It totally loses it's meaning.
the other day dad was telling me about how the wts used to say that the personality was in the blood.
today mom brought home the latest magazines (didn't look at the date) and in the "in our next issue" box there is an article asking if our blood type determines our personality.
maybe they're going to revisit the issue, i understand they never retracted their previous view on the subject.
Perhaps this would lead to new light on being "washed clean in the blood of the lamb" obviously all we need is a bit of blood exhibiting Christ-like qualities, that would make us over quite nicely.
my mother is fanatical nut.
it's bad enough i suffer through the weekly bible reading (revelation 1-6), this week she decides we clearly are not learning enough.
she comes armed with (old light) the revelation book and copious prinouts.
My mother is fanatical NUT. It's bad enough I suffer through the weekly bible reading (revelation 1-6), this week she decides we clearly are not learning enough. She comes armed with (old light) the revelation book and copious prinouts. She must have spent four or five HOURS digging up and making notations on all this stuff. So then we read the bible reading in tiny segments so she can point out every minute, STUPID (POS) detail from the entire thing. She blows right past GLARING inconsistencies and hammers all this WT junk at me. The whole thing took FAR too long. How ANYONE can find "refreshment" in that crap is appalling.
the other day dad was telling me about how the wts used to say that the personality was in the blood.
today mom brought home the latest magazines (didn't look at the date) and in the "in our next issue" box there is an article asking if our blood type determines our personality.
maybe they're going to revisit the issue, i understand they never retracted their previous view on the subject.
I knew you'd have a good quote Poztate, tell me do you think the society would then condone me getting a blood transfusion so I could change and live a heterosexual lifestyle?
i'm packed for vacation so i can now prepare myself for the season finale.
who's going to win the big bucks?
i'm pulling for darrah but anything can happen.
Remember no one thought Hatch could win it either but he did.
I don't know. I always figured he could. He had that sort of quiet observation and plotting manner about him. Jon has a big mouth and quite outwardly rubbed people the wrong way. Plus Hatch was loyal to his alliance until the end, and they stayed loyal to him as a result. Jon is a backstabber.
the other day dad was telling me about how the wts used to say that the personality was in the blood.
today mom brought home the latest magazines (didn't look at the date) and in the "in our next issue" box there is an article asking if our blood type determines our personality.
maybe they're going to revisit the issue, i understand they never retracted their previous view on the subject.
Hmm yeah I'm sure that was in a Watchtower
25 Are idolatry and fornication damaging to the Christian personality? Disastrously so! So too is the taking in of blood, whether through blood foods or blood transfusions, for the Christian governing body has included this in the same category as the other evils. Moreover, recent medical research has indicated in a realistic way how blood transfusions may damage the individual?s personality. According to one authority: "The blood in any person is in reality the person himself. It contains all the peculiarities of the individual from whence it comes. This includes hereditary taints, disease susceptibilities, poisons due to personal living, eating and drinking habits." Transfusing blood, then, may amount to transfusing tainted personality traits. How great the danger may become if the blood is taken from blood banks to which criminals and other derelicts of society have contributed! Wisely and in faithfulness the Creator of man guarded against this, and other harmful consequences, by his law forbidding blood.?Lev. 17:11-14.
"The Faithful Creator" Watchtower 1962
Might as well post a few other notable quotes. If Poztate ever gets here I'm sure he has better ones.
37 Each one of us makes his own record with God. That record represents you! It tells of your personality. Your personality does not altogether depend upon your physical body. Because of the continual wearing out and repairing of the tissues and organs of our bodies we get a completely new body every seven years or so. Yet our personality remains as an identification of our being the same person. Even our personalities can change, not because our bodies are renewed, but because God?s holy spirit or transforming force acts upon us. Each one develops his own personality pattern, and this is stored up in each one?s brain, also in the blood to some extent. The seat of intelligence, of thought, of memory, or consciousness and of personality is not some pagan Greek idea of a soul or psykhé. Pagans argue that a soul resides in each of us and is the seat of intelligence and personality; but we know that if the physical brain is damaged in anyone, he loses his intelligence or sanity and no so-called soul inside him keeps him intelligent, sane or possessed of memory and thinking ability. This disproves the pagan theory of an immortal soul as the seat of life and thought.
"Identifying the Ressurected" Watchtower 1963
Blood Tells All? Forensic (criminal) medicine may soon ?make it possible to reconstruct the personality image of every person who leaves behind a bloodstain,? according to English criminologists who spoke at a meeting of the International Juridic Scientists in Zürich, Switzerland. As reported in the German newspaper "Die Welt," researchers have found that each person?s blood carries a great variety of disease antibodies accumulated throughout life that mark the blood of that person as distinct from all others. "It is today accepted that every person has his own specific type of blood with which no other blood can compare exactly," notes the paper. Information about where a person has lived, his approximate age, his allergies, even something about his occupation and sexual habits, is coming within the scope of blood analysis. "In short there seem to be no limits to the possibilities of reconstructing a ?recognizable? person together with his life?s history and his environment," the article concludes. Truly it can be said that, in more ways than one, "the life of every living creature is the blood."?Lev. 17:11, 14, "New English Bible."
Watchtower 1976
ok......................60,000 attended the convention at the olympic stadium and all the news reports here in oz say there were 500 baptised.
images on the news showing young and old getting dunked gave me the horrors.
i just couldn't help but wonder how many pedophiles and sexual abuse victims were there pretending to be righteouss and happy.
For a while there was pressure to make sure those being baptised were old enough. I think the problem is that they are fed such a steady diet of rubbish that they know all the right things to say to make the elders think they are spiritually mature enough to get dunked. They certainly don't realize what they are getting into at that age, it's sad really. I think elder and m.s's kids are pressured more. I know of a ministerial servant who is pressured because his 17 year old son isn't baptised yet. Clearly he must be doing something 'wrong'
" men take the lead, women merely "support.".
what contributed to priscilla's zeal and courage?
(luke 8:1-3).. yes, the privilege of doing the marketing, cooking, cleaning up, and laundry of 13 men while they did evangelizing.. wt 12/1/75 p. 717 christian greatness comes from serving.
I think we study the watchtower better now than we ever did before.
Thanks to blondie for bring out all the high (low?) points. I was fortunate enough to be sick this morning.
so, what do you think about the bible?
is it really ispired of god?.
i am strongly believing that the bible is nothing more than folk-tales, half-truths, and suggestions by man.
Many other religions in this world are based on myths and legends. Have a look at Hinduism and Buddhism, do they not have stories which are obviously myths and legendsl. Strangely some who leave the JW's will run to them quite freely, while denouncing the Bible.
That's where faith comes in. I don't care what anyone says, you cannot PROVE any religion. Christians prove things based on the Bible, if you don't believe the Bible they have no proof. Similar with other faiths and holy books, myths and legends. The thing is that you have to believe in the myths and legends of YOUR faith. Being on the outside looking in it's easy to dismiss things.
Adherents of other religions are especially hard pressed to understand the emphasis Christians place on that the events and people actually took place or existed. Almost all other religions are based upon a theological dictum or ideology, not upon historical fact of its founders identity or an event in time and space. The Christian faith's dependence upon history is almost incredulous to many others.
I don't find their dependence on history incredulous. Many religions base their faith on things that have always worked historically. I find their dependence on the bible without thinking whether what they are reading applies in modern society to be incredulous. Slavery was condoned in the bible, most in society would not condone it now. Are we to believe this is the only point that has changed over time?
If the truths which the Bible exemplified and taught are true., then they are true always and everywhere, whether a person called Jesus ever lived or not. So in his eyes whether the Bible was a book of myths and legends doesn't matter, if it stated a religious truth, it was true. Then why did Christians feel the need to prove that events and people in the Bible happened or existed. So what, if the Bible is myths and legends, does it matter.
Oh I agree with that. However there are points in the bible I hold are NOT universally true always and everywhere, that is where my objection comes in.
I've come across so many who have left cults like the JW's, who have because of their experienced with the Watchtower, reject the Bible, as untrue, myths and legends. Then in the next breath are telling me they have become Pagans, Wiccans, Buddhists, Hindu's.
I studied the Bible independent of the JW's. I read Christian literature and teachings. I talked to Christians of many denominations. When it comes down to it I simply do not accept what they believe. I reject the Bible not because it is "untrue, myths and legends" but because I don't accept it as the foundation of my faith and I don't hold that is always true no matter what. The Bible is not the higher ideal I hold to.
Many men hghly intelligent men, have set out to disprove the Bible, then have ended up as Christians.
I have zero problem with people who want to believe the Bible. I'm sure there are lots of people that Christianity is right for. However I do NOT believe that Christianity is right for everyone.
But I see many, including myself, who because of their experience with a man-made organisation called the Watchtower, and whose teachings we freely accepted at the time. Then discover we were lied to and all the rest. Who do we blame, ourselves for being taken, then the Watchtower organisation for lying, then the scapegoat becomes the Bible. Its false, contradicts itself, myths etc. Well why didn't you see it before, this book has been around for nigh on 2000 yrs and now you've suddenly decided its now a book of myths and legends!! Many of us had as JW's been reading and using it for 10, 20, 30, 40 years now suddenly overnight it becomes this fairy tale book.
Not a fairy tale book, simply a religious document that I no longer adher to but one that I still respect. I certainly do not disagree with every principle contained in it's pages. As for freely accepted, if you have heard nothing else (I was raised a dub) how can you freely accept it? I was never taught anything else. I was never allowed to explore anything else. I had it forced on me as the only way to believe since I was a baby. That isn't freely accepting to me. I don't blame myself. I have grown beyond the Watchtower. The bible is not my scapegoat, I don't need a scapegoat. I have turned myself around, and I am turning my life around.
I think many, use the Bible as a scapegoat, because we don't want to admit to our stupidity of being taken in by the Watchtower organisation. Because they used the Bible in such a big way it becomes the focus of our anger against the Watchtower and in doing so many have rejected the Christian faith.As I said before. I reject the Christian faith on it's own merits, not on the Watchtower organisation.
ok......................60,000 attended the convention at the olympic stadium and all the news reports here in oz say there were 500 baptised.
images on the news showing young and old getting dunked gave me the horrors.
i just couldn't help but wonder how many pedophiles and sexual abuse victims were there pretending to be righteouss and happy.
Nodody should have to wait for anything if they desire to do this. Your friend could baptise you in your bathtub if you so desired. Phillip and the eunich had "no audience".
That was one of the things my Christian friend (non dub) surprised me with..the fact that in her congregation anyone could perform a baptism who was a baptised christian themselves..and let me tell you there is certainly no baptism into a "spirit directed organization" either.
