Posts by slimboyfat

32

Letter to my JW elder brother

by Roger Kirkpatrick in

i sent the following letter to my older brother, a jw elder in grand prairie, texas, who actively shuns me since i left the religion for conscientious reasons two years ago.. may 11, 2017. dear ronnie,.

in the opening scenes of the movie gone with the wind, a field worker hollers out, “”quttin’ time!” big sam protests, saying, “i’s da fo’man on tara.

i sez when it’s quittin’ time.

slimboyfat

I wonder if former elders can weigh in on this:

in fact, since I voluntarily disassociated and was never disfellowshiped for wrongdoing, I could renounce my disassociation tomorrow and resume being a JW again with no restrictions whatsoever, as opposed to those disfellowshiped for wrongdoing.

I don't think that's correct, unfortunately. If you have disassociated, and if you want to return, you need to sit at the back of the hall and be shunned for six months or more, just like a DFed person, before being reinstated.

The narrative of evolution can resemble a kind of religion.

Scotland would be better off independent.

There is no such thing as fixed truth, everything is relative and subject to revision.

46

Complete this sentence with only one word: THE TIME REMAINING IS...

by steve2 in

the time remaining is... elastic.. .

stash: /intesoft-inc.appspot.com/post/f0315d7a1cdf4d6498064881689ea032.html

slimboyfat

What a good idea for an Edwin Morgan type poem!

The time remaining is...

The time remaining is tantalising

The time remaining is infantilising

The time remaining is short skirts

The time remaining is Witness carts

The time remaining is surprising

The time remaining is revising

The time remaining is repetitive

The time remaining is a sedative

The time remaining is a saying

The time remaining ain't delaying

The time remaining is a slog

The time remaining is a panting dog

The time remaining is expectation

The time remaining is confrontation

The time remaining is reprieve

The time remaining disbelieve

The time remaining is without doubt

The time remaining - don't tire out!

The time remaining is remaining

And remaining and remaining and remaining

The time remaining is quite draining

The time remaining is not complaining

The time remaining is a lie

The time remaining death defy

The time remaining is for wimps

The time remaining creaps and limps

The time remaining is determined

The time remaining is foretold

The time remaining isn't burdened

The time remaining sure is bold

The time remaining is running out of steam

The time remaining is living in a dream

The time remaining is destructive

The rhyme pertaining is deconstructive

The wheels have fallen off the cart

The short skirts blow in the wind

And need no explaining

My friend

In the rhyme remaining

14

More scullduggery in the New World Translation?

by NikL in

i was reading in jude last night in the esv bible.. i came across this little gem as i was falling asleep and woke right up.. jude 1:5.

5 now i want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that jesus, who saved a people out of the land of egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.

jesus who saved a people out of egypt?

slimboyfat

See this blog where there is a discussion in support of the change in NA-28 from "Lord" to "Jesus".

http://historicaljesusresearch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/jesus-saved-people-from-egypt-jude-5-in.html

See also George Howard's discussion (on pages 81 and 82) of Jude 5 and his argument that the divine name stood in the original.

http://digidownload.libero.it/domingo7/howard.pdf

Interesting discussion of the textual variants here:

https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/2895/who-led-the-people-of-israel-out-of-egypt-in-jude-5

Particularly striking is P72 (an early papyrus fragment from the third or fourth century) which has the unique reading "God Christ".

14

More scullduggery in the New World Translation?

by NikL in

i was reading in jude last night in the esv bible.. i came across this little gem as i was falling asleep and woke right up.. jude 1:5.

5 now i want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that jesus, who saved a people out of the land of egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.

jesus who saved a people out of egypt?

slimboyfat

From memory this is the situation:

There are both issues of textual variation and interpretation involved here.

The reason some translations have "Lord" and others have "Jesus" is because of differences among the early manuscripts and disagreement about which reading is original.

The NWT was originally based on the text of Westcott and Hort, which presumably had the reading "Lord".

The NWT replaces the word "Lord" with "Jehovah" 1) in those instances where it appears in a quotation from the OT that contains the divine name, 2) where there is an allusion to an OT passage that speaks about Jehovah, or 3) where the word is used in a phrase that includes the divine name in the OT. (Such as "angel of Jehovah" or "word of Jehovah")

This verse appears to fall into the second category, an allusion to an OT passage referring to Jehovah.

Many other versions have "Lord" in this verse, Since most Bible interpreters believe "Lord" can refer to either God or Jesus in the NT, there are differences of opinion over whether it is here talking about the "Lord God' or the "Lord Jesus". For many commentators the verses from Corinthians mentioned swing it in favour of Jesus.

Now the reason the ESV uses "Jesus" instead of "Lord" is because (if memory serves me right) the latest version of the Greet Text Nestle-Aland 28th edition changed the previous decision for "Lord" in favour of the reading "Jesus".

Nevertheless opinion remains divided about which reading is most likely original. Bible scholar Bruce Metzger ranked the verse D (on a scale A to D) as most difficult to determine the original reading, or where the reading carries the greatest uncertainty.

The 2013 edition of the NWT said it referred to the latest edition of the Greek text when preparing the revision. Apparently they did not follow the new edition in its reading of this text but stuck with the previous consensus "Lord" and changed it to "Jehovah" according to their practice, and in line with their argument that the original NT text contained the divine name in such passages.

Bible scholar George Howard also argued that the original NT used the divine name. The high number of textual variants involving "Lord", "God", "Jesus" and "Christ" was part of his argument. I think he cited Jude 5 as an example to make his point.

So Jehovah's Witnesses are not alone in believing that Jude 5 refers to Jehovah, or even that the divine name may have stood in the original text.

167

Sudden General Election in UK to be held June 8th 2017

by freddo in

theresa may the british p.m. has called for an election.. the house of commons has to vote tomorrow and have a two-thirds majority to agree and the main opposition parties want it to happen too so it looks pretty certain to go ahead..

slimboyfat

Yes thanks to the first past the post electoral system, 11 seats on 30% of the vote, second pace to Labour with 41 seats on 36%.

Anyway the point isn't how close to winning they were (which was pretty close anyway) the point is that the UK government were scared enough of the "SNP threat" to suppress the reality of North Sea oil revenue at the time and misinform the public.

167

Sudden General Election in UK to be held June 8th 2017

by freddo in

theresa may the british p.m. has called for an election.. the house of commons has to vote tomorrow and have a two-thirds majority to agree and the main opposition parties want it to happen too so it looks pretty certain to go ahead..

slimboyfat

EU is just a way for a few states (France, Germany) to get rich on the back of smaller satellite states.

Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Ireland and Sweden are all wealthier than Germany. And Austria, Denmark and Belgium are wealthier than France.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita

167

Sudden General Election in UK to be held June 8th 2017

by freddo in

theresa may the british p.m. has called for an election.. the house of commons has to vote tomorrow and have a two-thirds majority to agree and the main opposition parties want it to happen too so it looks pretty certain to go ahead..

slimboyfat

You're saying that unionists from Labour voted for the Tories, in order to keep the SNP out.

Why does it sound ridiculous? I guess, possibly if you know nothing about Scottish politicts, it might sound ridiculous.

Labour, Lib Dem and Tory activists have organised tactical voting against the SNP ever since the 2014 referendum. Quite openly. Labour activists share graphics on twitter and Facebook to show which seats you are better off voting Tory or Lib Dem than Labour.

See the 2015 "wheel" that was going round.

http://billcameron.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/in-scotland-vote-tactically-in-may-2015.html

Kedia Dugdale the Scottish Labour leader indicated her top priority when she said the Tories had a better chance than Labour of beating SNP in some parts of Scotland in this election.

https://youtu.be/S4se0PRjCSw

167

Sudden General Election in UK to be held June 8th 2017

by freddo in

theresa may the british p.m. has called for an election.. the house of commons has to vote tomorrow and have a two-thirds majority to agree and the main opposition parties want it to happen too so it looks pretty certain to go ahead..

slimboyfat

There was no appetite for Scottish independence in the 70s.

The SNP certainly polled well in 1974. Whether there was "appetite" or not is beside the point. (It's true that Scotland is much nearer indepdence now than it was then.)

The point is that the UK government feared Scottish independence and went to great lengths to conceal North Sea oil revenue and Scotland's potential as an indepdenent country. Now we can actually read it in government documents in black and white.

While in public the government played down North Sea oil, in private their report advised:

The country [an independent Scotland] would tend to be in chronic surplus to a quite embarrassing degree and its currency would become the hardest in Europe, with the exception perhaps of the Norwegian kroner. Just as deposed monarchs and African leaders have in the past used the Swiss franc as a haven of security, so now would the Scottish pound be seen as a good hedge against inflation and devaluation and the Scottish banks could expect to find themselves inundated with a speculative inflow of foreign funds.

http://www.oilofscotland.org/mccronereport.pdf

The report was kept secret for 30 years.

In 1974, McCrone wrote a now-famous report for ministers predicting Scotland would become "as rich as Switzerland" if it controlled North Sea oil - a prediction that was kept from voters.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13159881.Exclusive__McCrone_2__

secret_report_which_advised_Westminster_to_set_up_oil_fund/

Dennis Healey who was chancellor in the 1970s said:

I think we did underplay the value of the oil to the country because of the threat of nationalism but that was mainly down to Thatcher.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/scottish-independence-blog/2013/may/29/scottish-independence-oil-healey

167

Sudden General Election in UK to be held June 8th 2017

by freddo in

theresa may the british p.m. has called for an election.. the house of commons has to vote tomorrow and have a two-thirds majority to agree and the main opposition parties want it to happen too so it looks pretty certain to go ahead..

slimboyfat

And it's parliament that elects the Prime Minister. If the Tories had lost just 6 more seats they wouldn't have had enough votes to keep Theresa May as prime minister, even with DUP support.

The Tories gained 12 seats in Scotland with help from unionists from other parties who voted tactically to keep the SNP out.

167

Sudden General Election in UK to be held June 8th 2017

by freddo in

theresa may the british p.m. has called for an election.. the house of commons has to vote tomorrow and have a two-thirds majority to agree and the main opposition parties want it to happen too so it looks pretty certain to go ahead..

slimboyfat

It's very relevant, because: when UK governments have concealed and extracted money from Scotland in the past, while giving the misleading impression of subsidising Scotland - why do you think they would turn around hand out free money instead indefinitely into be future? How is relying uncertain handouts any sort of viable economic plan? Apart from lacking self-respect it's also wishful thinking.