fulltimestudent

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Posts by fulltimestudent

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  7

  Has Isaiah's signature seal been found?

  by fulltimestudent in

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  fulltimestudent

  Had some problems posting this morning, so did not get all info on the thread:

  https://theconversation.com/seal-of-the-prophet-isaiah-sorting-out-fact-from-fantasy-92296
  

  I was using a discussion that appeared in The Conversation. It was headlined;

  Seal of the Prophet Isaiah: sorting out fact from fantasy.

  Eilat Mazar,who is an archaeologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem claims that even though part of the inscription is missing, the missing section should be translated as prophet.

  My own take is that an historical existence does not prove divine inspiration or even the existence of a divinity, anymore than the existence of buddhist relics prove that the magical claims of Buddhism are true.

  Candida Moss's write-up notes that:

  "Isaiah is one of the most important Old Testament prophets, who predicted the birth of Jesus Christ."

  That's referring to Isaiah's prophecy at Isa 9:6. Which claims that one day a special person in the life of Israel would be born.

  The Christian appropriation of those verses does not make Jesus the promised 'Prince of Peace.' For since the death of Jesus, wew have heard nothing from him.

  and the other reference to Isaiah &:14) notes:

  "Christian tradition interprets Isaiah’s words as prophecies about the Virgin Birth, the nature of being a messiah and the universal relevance of Jesus’ messianic identity to both gentiles and Jews. "

  But the Hebrew word used there and translated centuries later in the Septuagint does not suggest that the Messiah would be born to a virgin, but merely a young woman.

  We need to differentiate between historical figures and outlandish mythical claims.

  But an interesting find even if the claims that will follow are outlandish.
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  7

  Has Isaiah's signature seal been found?

  by fulltimestudent in

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  fulltimestudent

  
  
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  12

  Everything I once knew as a JW, is now wrong.

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  just had 2 nice witnesses at the door.

  without boring you with all the to-ing and fro-ing.

  i invented a friend who became a witness back in the early 1950s, this friend tried to get me to become a witness, because his teachers father (a leader in that congregation) told him that the big a was coming in 5 years (which was true).

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  fulltimestudent

  punkofnice : Fullers - I don't envy you having to go thru all that awful Jobo nonsense.

  Yeah! Once I used to lose my temper with them (thinking of all the trouble they've caused me as the relationship was severed). Then I chose to ignore them. But this is the second time I've chosen to initiate a conversation. I was interested the first time, because the JW lady used an ipad (or whatever) to show me biblical texts. An intriguing development. This one didn't, and didn't even open the bible in her hand.
  

  Her opening question was the oldie we were using way back in Nathan's days (anyone else recall the 4 to 10 minute sermons?), "Do you think the bible is relevant?" And when I said it was all rubbish, she opened a way for me to tell her that I'd spent the last ten years studying the thought and history of Asia and reeled off a list of relevant study units I had undertaken.

  I liked your Sagan quote. A need to believe! Apt isn't it? Not just for the JWs but for most if not all religions.

  DesirousOfChange: I’m fully convinced that at least 90% of JWs have no idea what they believe. JWs have resorted to mindless, pre-scripted iPad presentations at the door because they are incapable of explaining even the basics of their beliefs.

  Absolutely agree. In my experience (In at least 6 different congregations in Aus.) understanding of doctrines broke down something like this. 5-10% could understand and discuss a wide selection of doctrines and beliefs. another 10 to 25% understood and could discuss a limited range of doctrines and beliefs. And, the remainder found it difficult to go further than limited statements. Probably 50% plus of the JWs in the congregations that I was part of. had limited cognitive abilities and found it difficult to understand WT study articles.

  Does anyone remember studying the old Babylon book in cong, book studys? We were supposed to get through about 10 pages at a time, but were often lucky to get through 3 or 4. I think the dumbing down of literature has something to do with that problem. And, we shouldn't blame the ranks of believers. In the fifties and sixties last century, most of the witnesses who were born early in the 20th century would have had limited schooling (in Aust. likely only six years) and very little cognitive ability.

  Of course, for most going to the KH for meetings was not too different to going to church, plus a few more hours a month H2H. The rest of the time life was not too different to the general population. But if you were stupid enough (like me) to take it all seriously - your life could be seriously f**ked-up!

  Drearyweather

  Yup! I exaggerated!

  Quote: From an article on literary devices;

  Exaggeration is a statement that makes something worse, or better, than it really is. In literature and oral communication, writers and speakers use exaggeration as a literary technique, to give extra stress and drama in a work or speech.
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  12

  Everything I once knew as a JW, is now wrong.

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  just had 2 nice witnesses at the door.

  without boring you with all the to-ing and fro-ing.

  i invented a friend who became a witness back in the early 1950s, this friend tried to get me to become a witness, because his teachers father (a leader in that congregation) told him that the big a was coming in 5 years (which was true).

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  fulltimestudent

  Just had 2 nice witnesses at the door. Without boring you with all the to-ing and fro-ing. I invented a friend who became a witness back in the early 1950s, This friend tried to get me to become a witness, because his teachers father (a leader in that congregation) told him that the big A was coming in 5 years (which was true)

  Oh! says the nice witness, that person should not have said that.

  Why?

  Because the bible says no-one knows the day or the hour.

  I then got to 1975?

  Now it was a matter that men may have said that, but the organisation would never have said that!

  Then I was told that Jehovah's true organisation is not dogmatic, but is always changing. (Umm! Ezekiel's chariot I guess).

  I decided to let that pass.

  So then I'm asked if I believed the bible?
  

  When I answered that its rubbish. the nice witness asked me how I explained bible prophecies.

  Give me an example, I asked, expecting the usual Matt 24 routine.

  But no, I get an assertion instead. Isaiah the prophet, said that, God hangs the earth on nothing.

  Well, Ok, strictly speaking that's hardly prophecy. Its a statement.

  But I let it pass and suggested that ancient people knew quite a bit of what we now call science. For example, the ancient Greeks had calculated the circumference of the earth (and were remarkably accurate). Did you know they could do that? I asked. (Check it at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes

  So then they brought up Matt. 24 and WW1. I pointed out that WW1 may be called WW1, but it was really a European war. Other parts of the world were only involved because the Europeans had been colonising the world. Which I was able to demonstrate quite easily.

  I then tried to go back to other biblical statements about the earth in genesis 1. i wanted to point out how close it was to Egyptian beliefs about the creation of the earth.

  So that's when they decided they just had to go....

  But I did learn something - lots of what I used to teach (and believe) is no longer true.

  But I already knew that anyway.
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  The Day I Discovered My Dog Was Trans

  by LoveUniHateExams in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hi, my name is curtis williams and i’m twelve years old.

  me and my family live in tennessee.

  my daddy wanted to buy a dog to protect our family.

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  fulltimestudent

  Curtis William's daddy was shocked to see same sex sexual activity in dogs. Considering the widespread misinformation spread by ignorant christians, that's not surprising.

  Fact is, same sex mating is widespread in the animal world created by YHWH and his Jesus side-kick.

  Bruce Bagemihl, in his meta-study* of this topic, as discussed in zoological research, listed some 450 different animal species, including dogs and wolves, as having been observed having homosexual fun and games.

  * Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity. Published in 1999 by Profile books in the UK, and by St. Martin's Press in the USA.
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  12

  Other Religious Denominations

  by Plato in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  it’s me again, your favorite greek philosopher xdd.. i was wondering if any ex-jws around here have since indetified with other christian denominations.

  if that is the case for you, how has it been?

  do you feel more welcome?

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  fulltimestudent

  Hi again Plato - since my last post I have become intensely curious about you choice of web identity.

  It is most unusual for a JW to admit to any admiration for a Greek philosopher. But that's not what I'm curious about.

  I'm curious as to how you reconcile, the idea of a pure strand of truth (isolated into the Judeao-Christian storyline), uncontaminated by Satan's world, and the reality that after the first century, early christian converts were soon incorporating Plato's thinking into developing Christianity?

  Or, am I asking something too close to the bone (as the English saying goes).
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  11

  A World so different to the one I grew up in.

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  in the early 1950's i changed my life.

  i started to study the bible with a jw.

  big mistake!

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  fulltimestudent

  dropoffyourkeylee: "Let’s hope that Africa can achieve victory against poverty as well. Some of the countries there ( Congo DR for example) are abysmal."

  We should all hope that. But it clearly will be a long project. It's interesting to consider why? There's a sort of expectation that you have an election, someone wins, then you have democracy and within a few years everything will be OK.

  Well, backtrack a bit. British democracy, is mythologised as starting in the thirteenth century with the Magna Carta. I suggest that's bullshit. (All it did was - basically- was an agreement that the powerful families in the land, also had a say). But even if true, it then took near to 1000 years to achieve full democracy. And, even so what the UK calls 'democracy,' is really an oligarchy. Two different oligarchies (power groups) vie for power and present the electorate with a list of candidates and ask the electorate to vote for them. They also (far too often) present a list of policies which are thinly disguised bribes to certain elements of the electorate. Once in power the victorious oligarchy will often ignore the will of the people.

  In the case of the D.R.Congo, another factor militating against the good order needed for progress toward poverty reduction is its recent history. To save me some time, here's an extract from the Wikipedia entry on that country:

  Quote: "European exploration of the Congo was carried out, first led by Henry Morton Stanley under the sponsorship of King Leopold II of Belgium. Leopold formally acquired rights to the Congo territory at the Conference of Berlin in 1885 and made the land his private property, naming it the Congo Free State. During the Free State, the colonial military unit, the Force Publique,forced the local population into producing rubber, and from 1885 to 1908, millions of Congolese died as a consequence of disease and exploitation. In 1908, Belgium, despite initial reluctance, formally annexed the Free State, which became the Belgian Congo."
  and, "In the Free State, colonists brutalized the local population into producing rubber, for which the spread of automobiles and development of rubber tires created a growing international market. Rubber sales made a fortune for Leopold, who built several buildings in Brussels and Ostend to honor himself and his country. To enforce the rubber quotas, the army, the Force Publique, was called in and made the practice of cutting off the limbs of the natives a matter of policy.[27]
  During the period of 1885–1908, millions of Congolese died as a consequence of exploitation and disease. In some areas the population declined dramatically – it has been estimated that sleeping sickness and smallpox killed nearly half the population in the areas surrounding the lower Congo River.[27]"
  Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo

  In Leopold's brutal control of the area, the social structure of the area was destroyed. For real progress, it will be necessary to re-build in some way the social order that makes good order possible. It is unlikely to happen in the short term.
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  14

  So you're worried about the Big A, or the North Korean bombs? Sorry everyone, Japan is the one that has likely screwed us all.

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  heard much lately, about the fukushima nuclear disaster in japan?.

  that is until earlier today when i found this article from last year, with dr. helen caldicott discussing the chernobyl disaster and fukushima.

  she believes fukushima is uncontrollable and there is absolutely nothing anyone can do about it.. read the article: .

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  fulltimestudent

  All three of the possible disasters in the thread's title, are believed by some to be imminent.

  All three are the subject of claims that should be verifiable.

  But how can we do that?
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  12

  Other Religious Denominations

  by Plato in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  it’s me again, your favorite greek philosopher xdd.. i was wondering if any ex-jws around here have since indetified with other christian denominations.

  if that is the case for you, how has it been?

  do you feel more welcome?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
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  fulltimestudent

  I am not associated with any type of religious thinking, but I have spent a lot of time during the past ten years in a deeper study of Asian (i.e. religions that originated in Asia - which is all of the major religions) religious thought than I had ever made as a JW. (And I became a witness when the old book, "What Has Religion Done for Mankind." was in use).

  Here's the study topics I've undertaken as part of my degree (at Sydney's Macquarie University);

  Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic World.

  Pagan's Jews and Christians: Athens and Jerusalem.

  Myth in the Ancient World.

  Early Christian Literature and Thought.

  The New Testament in its Times.

  Byzantium: East and West.

  From Constantine to Theodora: Church and State in Late Antiquity.

  The Dead Sea Scrolls and Second Temple Judaism.

  The Classical Tradition of Thought.

  Religions along the Silk Road.

  As a Capstone Unit in Ancient History, I researched and wrote an essay examining Daniel 7's development of a second divine being in the heavens as driven by the hellenisation of Jewish thought. There are some topics on this site where I discussed that.

  (That's out of a total of 30 study units I've undertaken.)

  And at Sydney Uni, I undertook some study Units on a cross-Institutional basis, that covered elements of Buddhism and its spread across Asia and the connection between Iranian thought (primarily Zoroastriansim) and Indian thought.

  Two other important study units in which I enrolled were, Critical thinking and Why People Believe Weird Things: Making Rational Decisions in an Irrational World.

  All that as part of my key interest, the role of Asia in World History.

  After all that, a conclusion far different from what I had previously come to believe as a witness.

  As a witness, I was taught that there was a line of pure spiritual thinking, given (inspired) by the one true god that is contained in the bible and available to be understood by those to whom the one true god chooses to reveal his 'truth.'

  I found however, that wherever cultures come into contact with each other, there is a (consciously or unconsciously) a sharing of ideas. Hence - no pure revelation of a god to anyone! Rather the development of interconnected concepts in fits and starts.

  As a med. student you surely will have to understand the scientific method, which advances knowledge by a system of (briefly) observation and measurement, the formulation of a hypothesis and subsequent testing and modification. But as a JW, you cannot (lawfully) test any hypothesis advanced by the sacred and discreet slave. If you question the result they claim to have arrived at, you will be in trouble.

  Apparently, (as some have discussed on this site), the only way to escape when you find yourself in intellectual conflict with the organisation, is to say that you can no longer believe the bible.
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  14

  So you're worried about the Big A, or the North Korean bombs? Sorry everyone, Japan is the one that has likely screwed us all.

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  heard much lately, about the fukushima nuclear disaster in japan?.

  that is until earlier today when i found this article from last year, with dr. helen caldicott discussing the chernobyl disaster and fukushima.

  she believes fukushima is uncontrollable and there is absolutely nothing anyone can do about it.. read the article: .

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  fulltimestudent

  But ... some say Caldicott is wrong!

  As here: https://eclipsenow.wordpress.com/2015/08/19/doctor-helen-caldicott-is-a-fraud/

  So how do ordinary people like us know who is right?