fulltimestudent

Joined

• started 752 topics
• posted 3,901 times   see topics posted on
• send a message

Posts by fulltimestudent

• 
  2

  Do you like pictures with quotes?

  by Doug Mason in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  if you like pictures with quotes, then search with this at google images:.

  cure-for-christianity knockout quote.

  doug.

  1. 
  2. 
• 

  fulltimestudent

  GRIN!! Thanx mate!
• 
  29

  Lack of zeal

  by road to nowhere in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i hear rumbling about the rank and file not having the same zeal they had when new.. lets see: door to door at the time least likely to find someone.

  waste of a whole morning.

  isolated.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  fulltimestudent

  Let's face it, 'zeal' is defined as, "great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or an objective." In my 40 year experience (starting from 1953) more than half of every congregation I associated with could not be described as having 'zeal.'

  Who could have zeal for the most brain-numbing activity (i.e.H2H work) that anyone could invent to waste your bloody time.Those who engaged in that work likely forced themselves to get out of bed on the days they went out in service.

  Maybe only about 10% of any congregation could be called zealous. Clearly even old YHWH himself has gone to sleep out of sheer boredom (and, that's why he's forgotten about the Big A.)
• 
  89

  Do You Think “Higher Education “Is All That??

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  as jehovah’s witnesses, we were regularly told how awful a college education is.

  i’m no longer associated with the religion but i am not so pro university.

  it’s not because i think you are better off without a degree.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  fulltimestudent

  
  

  Minimus - Very difficult for a student to challenge the professor

  Given that I attended an Australian university, it may be different in your country. Possibly your country is very authoritarian,

  At the university (one of the top 8 in Australia) I attended most lecturers I talked about this same problem expressed disappointment that too many students were too passive.

  And, in class one lecturer told us, "You can disagree with me if you want to, but just make sure you really know what you're arguing."

  Its possible I was treated differently because I was much older, but I'm sure that many students were far brighter than I was.
• 
  89

  Do You Think “Higher Education “Is All That??

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  as jehovah’s witnesses, we were regularly told how awful a college education is.

  i’m no longer associated with the religion but i am not so pro university.

  it’s not because i think you are better off without a degree.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  fulltimestudent

  Why? As witnesses we engaged in a H2H work where we heard all kinds of personal thoughts and we simply (mostly) ignored whatever the householder said.

  I suggest that you could do the same thing whenever someone expresses an opinion that you disagree with.

  However, if you have (and I hope you have) enrolled in a critical thinking study unit, you could always practise your critical thinking skills and analyse his/her arguments and engage him/her in a discussion.

  Learn from your JW experience.
• 
  42

  Elon Musk, And The CyberTruck That Homer Built

  by Simon in

  1. social
  2. current

  i think tesla and musk have officially jumped the shark.. did you see the "cybertruck" they released?

  it's like the car that homer built!.

  it has to be the ugliest vehicle ever built.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  fulltimestudent

  Posted today, on the FB page of a Singaporean friend.

  
  
• 
  49

  What Did You Do With All Your Meeting Clothes?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i literally had dozens of suits.

  i still have more dress clothes than anyone i know.

  i did give some suits and clothing away and to be honest, i still like wearing a nice suit.. brothers and sisters, are all your “ meeting clothes” still in your closet?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  fulltimestudent

  Wore the pants out, binned the Coats, wore trackpants for most of exjw life.
• 
  9

  Food for thought-if it wasn't for the Roman Catholic church would Christianity have faded out into oblivion?

  by nowwhat? in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  since it was the church that put together the bible canon and it was was them that spread the teaching throughout the known world.

  thoughts?.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  fulltimestudent

  resolute Bandicoot:: "we would all be living in the dark ages, speaking arabic and raising our butts to allah."

  Umm, well, maybe!

  First of all, I do not think it can be argued that Islamic West Asia lived like the so-called 'dark ages' of an earlier Western Europe. That idea is a late Western fantasy.

  Second, if the Mongolians had continued their European campaign we'd all be speaking Mongolian and instead of listening to Rock and Roll we'd be listening to Mongolian throat singing.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rmo3fKeveo

  Why didn't it happen? A possible reason (it has been thought) was the death of the Great Khan Ogedei, which meant that the leaders of the Mongol Armies in Europe returned to Mongolia to elect a new leader.

  Quote: "During 1241, most of the Mongol forces were resting on the Hungarian Plain. In late March 1242, they began to withdraw. The most common reason given for this withdrawal is the Great Khan Ögedei's death on December 11, 1241. Ögedei Khan died at the age of fifty-six after a binge of drinking during a hunting trip, which forced most of the Mongolian army to retreat back to Mongolia so that the princes of the blood could be present for the election of a new great khan. This is attested to by one primary source: the chronicle of Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, who after visiting the Mongol court, stated that the Mongols withdrew for this reason; he further stated that God had caused the Great Khan's death to protect Latin Christendom."

  Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasion_of_Europe

  Another reason may have bee Donald Trump and Scott Morrison's bete noire - "climate change*"

  Quote: "In 1241, the Mongol army marched into Hungary, defeating the Polish and Hungarian armies and forcing the Hungarian king to flee. In 1242, despite meeting no significant military resistance, the Mongols abruptly packed up and left.

  Now, a new study of the climate in Eastern Europe that year suggests a reason for this mysterious military retreat: The Mongols got bogged down. Literally.

  A cold and snowy winter yielded to a particularly wet spring in Hungary in 1242, according to data from tree rings. As a result, the grasslands of Hungary turned to marsh, said study researcher Nicola Di Cosmo, a historian at Princeton University. The Mongols, dependent on their horses, wouldn't have been able to move effectively across the squishy land, and their steeds would have had few fields to graze."

  Stephanie Pappas May 27, 2016 inLiVEScience - Link: https://www.livescience.com/54902-mystery-of-mongol-retreat-solved.html

  
  * A more accurate description would be a weather event, rather than climate change.
• 
  2

  Greek Myth and the Bible

  by Doug Mason in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  while the cost of the physical book, "greek myth and the bible" by bruce louden is beyond my means, the kindle version is tempting.. a preview is available at amazon and a critical review is available at:.

  http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2019/2019-08-03.html .

  doug.

  1. 
  2. 
• 

  fulltimestudent

  Thank you Doug for sharing this review of Louden's book with us.

  Once I abandoned the mental chains of Watchtower think, I started to grasp the poin that Louden illustrates, i,e, that whenever one culture comes into contact with another culture, there will be an interchange of ideas.

  Louden illustrates Jewish writers using Greek (or hellenic) stories in the writing of religious texts that were later collected together to form the OT.

  But was Greek culture itself affected by another culture. It has been conjectured by many that the Greeks admired Egyptian wisdom. What do we make of this:

  "Just over a year ago an eager team of archaeologists scoured through the mud and groundwater of a slum in Cairo erected on the ruins of the pharaonic city of Heliopolis. There they uncovered a gigantic statue, which they believed represented the pharaoh Ramses the Great. Euphoria soon gave way to slight disappointment when it was discovered that the statue was not of Ramses but a lesser-known seventh century BCE ruler of Egypt, Psamtik I.

  While almost forgotten by the modern world, Psamtik was once revered as a decisive ruler who boosted trade and diplomatic relations with Greece. His policies allowed the Hellenes to establish colonies on Egyptian soil for the first time, opening the door to a trading and cultural relationship that would endure for more than three hundred years.

  Later Greek and non-Greek Hellenistic historians, such as Herodotus in his Histories, were convinced that this was the spark that ignited an axial shift in Greek culture, which saw philosophy spring forth majestically from Greek soil. To many of them, it was in Heliopolis that the most profound Greek thinkers, such as Pythagoras and Plato, learned the basis of their metaphysics, astronomy, or geometry."

  (Quoted from Peter Flegel's article, Does Western Philosophy have Egyptian Roots, published on the web-site Philosophy Now. Link: https://philosophynow.org/issues/128/Does_Western_Philosophy_Have_Egyptian_Roots )

  (Its important to remember also, that the Egyptians were most likely the descendants of West Asian migrants)

  And what do we make of the remark in Acts that, "Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action." (Acts 7:22 NIV) when we recall that for a few hundred years Palestine, the traditional home of the ancestors of the Jewish people, was part of the Egyptian Empire and controlled by Egypt, just as in Jesus time, Judah etc was part of an Hellenic Empire.

  And in the Babylonian captivity were the elite Jewish scholars who the Babylonians carted off to Babylon affected by Babylonian wisdom? When Babylon was defeated by the Persians it is likely that these elite Jewish scholars (man of whom did not return to Jerusalem) absorbed Zoroastrian ideas and incorporated them into documents that later became part of the Bible.
• 
  49

  A deeper examination of The New World Translation

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  shorturl.at/ouakr.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  fulltimestudent

  Diogenesister Quote: "...There were quite a few New Zealander’s parachuted in and chosen for their ability to blend in apparently these were soldiers who spoke Greek."

  To clarify.

  Your reference must have been some other group. I am unlikely to know everything about H.F.James, but he may have told me that he was a gunner in the A.I.F (Aust. Infantry Forces) and was part of an Australian force sent to Crete early in WW2. When the German army invaded they overwhelmed the Australians. James was captured and assigned by the German army to a burial detail. While doing this work he claimed that he became an atheist. They had to go through the belongings of the dead and he said you would see the same things - photo's of their family, religious trinkets etc, no matter which army they belonged to. How could a loving god allow all this he claimed to have reasoned.

  He escaped the German camp and lived in the hills. Often hungry, as there was little food available. He learnt to speak the local Greek so as to beg for food,

  He was able to escape Crete on a British submarine ( likely part of the group you spoke of- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ill_Met_by_Moonlight 0 ). He arrived back in Australia with a bad case of PTSD, and some years later became a JW.
• 
  49

  A deeper examination of The New World Translation

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  shorturl.at/ouakr.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  fulltimestudent

  It is likely that few with a JW background would know that Jewish culture in the time Jesus lived was thoroughly affected by Greek/Hellenic culture and Ideas. So here's a link (and an extract from a recent article by the study grou that calls itself the Biblical Archaeology Society.

  A recent article discussed this topic:

  From ancient Greece to ancient Judea: The Hellenization of Jewish culture

  Let BAS show you how Greek culture influenced the people and worship of Jesus’ time

  

  How and why and to what extent Greek culture was absorbed into the ancient Jewish world is not always clear, but that it was is undeniable. From the time of Alexander the Great in the fourth century B.C.E., Jews lived in a world in which Greek culture carried a certain prestige and offered a route to political influence.

  Hellenistic and Roman-era art from the Biblical world shines a spotlight on Judean identity and cultural influences during a formative period in the region’s history. From Hercules as trendy Israeli bathhouse décor to mosaics celebrating Helios, the sun god, in ancient synagogues, Greek culture permeated Judea.

  It is even thought by some scholars that Jews in ancient times considered Helios a minor deity to whom they could offer prayers!

  Scholars are now weaving together evidence from archaeological sites and early Christian texts. Notes Lucille A. Roussin,

  A connection between the Jewish worship of angels and astrology is attested by many early Christian writers. According to the Preachings of Peter, referred to by Clement of Alexandria, the Jews, “thinking that they only know God, do not know him, adoring as they do angels and archangels, the months and the moon

  Origen writes in Contra Celsius that "what is astonishing about the Jews is that they adore the sky and the angels that inhabit it.”
  

  Cultures collide, and then combine

  Unsurprisingly, while there is ample evidence of the influence of Greek culture on Jewish culture, there was also resistance, at least for a while. Human nature explains the desire of the Jewish elite to seek power and status by adopting elements of the dominant culture. And piety explains the blowback from some Jews, such as Judas Maccabee, who, of course, revolted against Hellenized Jewish rulers and purified their “defiled” Temple in an act that is still celebrated in the Jewish festival of Hanukkah.

  Yet as Professor Martin Goodman notes, “Outside of Jerusalem and Judea, Jews rarely treated Greek culture as a threat to their Judaism.” The lovely zodiac mosaic floors of Palestinian synagogues of the fourth to sixth centuries C.E., so similar to those at pagan sites, attest to that.

  This artistic expression tells us that Jews had simply adopted those Hellenistic features that complemented their own worship, including Hebrew labels on the zodiac signs, and—according to some scholars—used images of the Greek sun god Helios to represent Yahweh, who has no form and cannot be represented in art, but is described in Jewish texts from Biblical times as fiery like the sun.

  Because the centuries immediately surrounding Jesus’ birth were such a formative period in Judean history, studying the Hellenization of Jewish and early Christian culture during this period is crucial in understanding Biblical history.

  And all of it is revealed in the art and architecture examined in a very special collection of articles from the Biblical Archaeology Society, Ancient Art of the Biblical World.