The Theocratic Treadmill was too tedious, and I no longer believed the supporting premise for it.
PrimateDave
JoinedPosts by PrimateDave
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53
What made Jesus' followers believe that Jesus rose from the dead?
by John Kesler inwhat made some of jesus' followers believe that jesus rose from the dead?
my best guess--and as e.p.
sanders says, we really don't know--is that jesus' followers--distraught, sad, and disillusioned--had visions in what we now call altered states of consciousness, a condition that can be induced by fasting, sleep deprivation, and fatigue.
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PrimateDave
cloud of witnesses that died over what they testified they saw
Come, now, Burn. Can't you see the beginnings of a circular argument? You have very old stories, and you believe said stories because the stories themselves claim to be true? There are no living eye witnesses that can be cross examined, and any physical evidence is at best inconclusive, having been buried for nearly 2000 years. We don't even have the original documents from which later copies were made. Shall we also invoke the heresay rule? How about the bandwagon fallacy? Just because a lot of people believe something that someone said or wrote doesn't make it true.
Direct experience? That mostly depends on one's mental state. There are so many who have abused their own minds, and/or whose minds have been abused in some way, that their own perceptions of reality cannot be trusted. Add to that cultural and other factors that tend to cloud or limit perceptions, and it becomes clear that the reality created in the mind of an individual or group can differ significantly from physical, measurable fact.
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53
What made Jesus' followers believe that Jesus rose from the dead?
by John Kesler inwhat made some of jesus' followers believe that jesus rose from the dead?
my best guess--and as e.p.
sanders says, we really don't know--is that jesus' followers--distraught, sad, and disillusioned--had visions in what we now call altered states of consciousness, a condition that can be induced by fasting, sleep deprivation, and fatigue.
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PrimateDave
they became courageous in the face of death
This proves nothing beyond the simple power of belief. Even Jehovah's Witnesses have died for their belief in things of which they were convinced to be true. Those Witness martyrs never saw Jesus come out of a tomb and be resurrected. They were held in thrall to mind programming which ultimately lead to their deaths. Same thing happened back in Rome. Thank the goddess for the internet so we can immunize ourselves against this meme!
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DC 2010 Release - The Origin of Life and its many misquotes
by Designer Stubble inlooking up all the references is a lot of work - one of the reasons nobody normally verifies these, but trust the writers.
as you will see, the writers are banking on this, but it is not a good thing to trust the wtbts writers.
please find the bibliography worked out for quotes 38-51, covering the heading "what about human evolution".. interesting is that many quotes are from the [u]preface[/u] of books, where the authors honestly explain the difficulties and assumptions related to evolutionary science.. [b]what about human evolution?[/b].
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Questions for Leolaia (possibly the board's brainiest poster :)
by JimmyPage inleo, do you have reference books about the bible stored on your computer?
you seem to have a lot of info at your disposal that you can pull up quickly.
what is your motive for learning so much about the bible?
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PrimateDave
There is no one group that I trust to tell the stories now. Not even scholars know what is gold and dross entirely. I believe that God still reaches us with his spirit and it is good.My sense is that there was one called Jesus who did say never to be a Leader nor to follow one. I take that saying to heart--whether I can prove who said it or not.
Thank you, Not a Captive. Well said. Ironic, isn't it, that we live in the so-called Information Age, and yet we look to ancient documents in order to find the divine? Yes, by all means we should learn from the past, but live fully in the present. I wonder. If Jesus (assuming he was the man as he was portrayed in Scripture) were alive today, would he be as fixated on the Bible and the deeds of those who lived thousands of years ago as so many Christians (and JWs) are today? The more I think of it, the more it seems to me that he wouldn't.
Do good for goodness sake.
I still want to read Leolaia's response to your question.
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Questions for Leolaia (possibly the board's brainiest poster :)
by JimmyPage inleo, do you have reference books about the bible stored on your computer?
you seem to have a lot of info at your disposal that you can pull up quickly.
what is your motive for learning so much about the bible?
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PrimateDave
In your scholarship in matters surrounding the handling of scripture, how likely is it that religious powers have subverted, dictated and distorted of our present understanding of original texts? - Not a Captive
There is a recent thread on the topic of the amount of time that the Israelites spent in Egypt. Leolaia made several posts in it which indirectly answer your question. Imo, her posts also indirectly question your premise: that there are or have been original texts containing some sort of divine truth, as it were, that have been subverted, dictated, and distorted.
The Witnesses claim authority on "the truth" because they believe that they somehow have bypassed centuries of Church "tradition" and "apostasy" from the "original" teachings of Jesus and the Apostles, or so they say. Yet, like other Fundamentalists they staunchly refuse to take their criticism further than the Church and into the texts themselves.
Some believers begin to recognize that all is not well even within the Bible itself and go on a search for the "original" texts and meanings. Where does that lead? If you question the words, do you also begin to question the principles? Whose words and principles are "more original" and therefore "more trustworthy" or of "divine inspiration"? Here is a quote from one of the blogs that Leolaia recommended (thanks! ):
...All the ethics taught in the Bible are meant to keep people at the level of children. One can even suggest, as Nietzsche did, that the ethical teachings of the Bible function to instill a mentality of subservience. But slaves are not part of our society and most of us can relate more easily to the immaturity of children.
I see nothing noble in the teachings of Jesus. They are all predicated on the threat of damnation if you don’t obey, and nice happy big fat rewards if you do. What sort of ethic is that? But even if we reflect on the noblest principles of Jesus quite apart from their reward-punishment matrix, they don’t ring an unambiguous clarion call for the ethical progress of humanity.
His most famous “love one another” passages in the Gospel of John are all about the importance of loving those in your own circle of like-minded subservients to the exclusion of others. Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. Love one another.
It seems that the Gospel of John is an attack on the sentiments put into the mouth of Jesus by the Gospel of Matthew. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
But Jesus’ command to “love your enemies” is justified on some quite inhuman precepts. Jesus is appealing to his followers here to prove themselves to be “more righteous” than others in their community. His command is presented as a challenge, or more accurately a threat, to win the contest of showing themselves to be superior ethically to Pharisees and such. And to do this, they must set their minds to become as impersonal and perfect as an impersonal and perfect agent that sends rain and sunshine on the just and unjust alike.
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Would not humanity be better off — more relaxed and “naturally” good for goodness’ sake — if it ever can eventually leave behind the immaturity of the extrinsic reward and punishment ethics that religion generally spawns?
Do the religious powers that be actually subvert or distort the texts, or do they simply find precedents for their own behavior?
I find it interesting how much of the Bible is like a back-and-forth argument between different writers at different times. It's like a "greatest hits" compilation of ancient writings, some of which have been reworked many times over the centuries. To carry the metaphor a bit further, if you enjoy the "music" you might not look too deeply at the lyrics themselves. Some authors of texts found within the Bible intentionally contradicted others. The lack of "harmony" provides interest. It gives apologists (who enjoy the "music") reasons to play their own interpretations. It gives Scholars (who look for meaning in the "lyrics") a fascinating puzzle to figure out, not so much in search of divine meaning but to learn more about the composers themselves.
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Length of the Israelites' Egyptian Sojourn: An Unsolvable Bible Error
by John Kesler inin exodus 12:40-41, we find this very specific statement:.
40 the time that the israelites had lived in egypt was four hundred and thirty years.
41 at the end of four hundred and thirty years, on that very day, all the companies of yahweh went out from the land of egypt.. the problem is that this is at odds with the genealogy in exodus 6:16-20:.
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PrimateDave
You could attend Watchtower Studies for years and not learn as much about the Bible as a single post from Leolaia will teach you. I sure hope JWN readers will put forth the effort to read what she has written above.
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Do you think it is a good idea to stop the oil spill in the gulf with explosives?
by asilentone in -
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PrimateDave
No.
Just because bombs save the day in Hollywood movies like Armageddon and Independence Day does not mean that such things always work in real life. Besides, the explosives could turn one big gusher into a lots of smaller leaks that could be harder to contain. This is all a moot point, anyway, since the relief wells are being drilled. Detonating explosives could erase all progress to date on that endeavor.
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Why arn't JW's vegeterians?
by highdose inthink about it... theres always some blood left in a cut of meat, you can't wash it all out.
what about stock?
you boil up the bones for gravy... whats in the bones that gives it the favour?
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PrimateDave
In a nutshell, because JF Rutherford wasn't a vegetarian. Neither were Knorr nor Franz.
Beards on men are harmless, yet look what Rutherford did to that. If they had wanted JW's to be vegetarian, they would have come up with some supporting nonsense just as they have done with the blood transfusions. It's a contrarian religion, but only so far as the personal likes and dislikes of the leaders themselves.
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My Critical Analysis of Life how did it get here book
by ForbiddenFruit inhi guys, i know this has been done many times before, but i'm doing it so i can send this out to family and friends who are still in, so i can hopefully open their eyes.
i'll update it regularly.
i am far from an expert on the subject, but i will do my best :).
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PrimateDave
Well, that didn't work.