Posts by peacefulpete

98

Better off PIMA than POMA or POMO.

by ExBethelitenowPIMA in

the situation is many of us are pima and all putting on a front, sometimes saying something we don’t fully believe.

or at least are actually agnostic about but a hope that it’s true.. but it can be useful if someone is really going through a hard time or has something they are very worried about, to say things like well let’s hope there is not much longer of this old system.. this can be useful in an awkward situation where you just don’t know what to do or say.

it’s a little bit of hope that can help when there is nothing else.. my agnosticism just means i won’t look back over decades thinking i wasted my life.

peacefulpete

Habakkuk famously declared that what he was told would happen for those who devoted their lives to Yahweh worship, never happened. It seemed clear that Yahweh wasn't even watching them. However, instead of reconsidering the pointless sacrifices he and his people had made, (maybe even stoning their own children if they left the religion), he imagines Yahweh's reply, "just keep waiting. though it might linger it will not delay," whatever that means.

I attended a funeral yesterday. WELS Lutheran. Very religious family. They have spent thousands of hours sitting on hard wooden benches. Must have heard the pastor declare that the deceased was in heaven now 30 times. Those words didn't keep anyone from mourning.

33

The (Shunned) Woman at the Well

by Sea Breeze in

i always found the account of the "woman at the well" to be particulary interesting.

this unknown shunned woman of ill-repute was specifically sought out and chosen by jesus.

why?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el7dzonv3iy&ab_channel=michaelpapale.

peacefulpete

I can't hear you either, but know what you just said. Is God greater than a computer?

My wife pretending to be me typed that.

19

Christmas Decorations at the Kingdom hall

by Simon in

i can't remember if i've told this story before .... but back in the day, in irlam congregation (northwest england, uk, cheshire #1 circuit i think) we used to rent a kingdom hall for many years before we eventually built our own.. preston hall.

ah, the memories .... it was primarily used as a community hall for old folks, but we had it friday night and sunday morning.. there was a loft and fold-out ladder and we used to store the chairs up their.

every meeting, there would be an assembly line of all the "lads" to pass the chairs down and set them up, then collect them up and pass them back up at the end of the meeting.

peacefulpete

In the 70's we built a KH (now sold off and congregation dissolved). Paper wall murals were popular so Dad picked one of a park scene for the wall behind the podium. After it was pasted up we noticed a nun dead center in the background! Dad refused to admit it and it stayed there for decades. It was a little inside joke.

33

The (Shunned) Woman at the Well

by Sea Breeze in

i always found the account of the "woman at the well" to be particulary interesting.

this unknown shunned woman of ill-repute was specifically sought out and chosen by jesus.

why?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el7dzonv3iy&ab_channel=michaelpapale.

peacefulpete

Who heard the conversation so as to record it later?

13

What is Greg Stafford up to these days?

by slimboyfat in

you may have been wondering: what is greg stafford up to these days?

lots of interesting things, is the answer.

exposing the false trinity doctrine, of course, but keeping on top of other issues too.

peacefulpete

Worse than sad. It's delusional. He clearly has not read anything on the site. The series of some 20 temple circles are filled with anthropomorphic idols/steles. They are humans wearing loin cloths/flaps. At least one is giving birth. The largest circle has steles that weight at least 8 tons. So he is now supposing an old vine dresser and his sons spent hundreds of years creating these temples to house his animal collection? on the side while making the ark?

41

Why are JW's THIS blind?

by BoogerMan in

i had a conversation about this 22 carat gold contradiction with a couple of zealous jw's a couple of days ago.. even their personal "explanations" contradicted each other as they tried justify their cognitive dissonance!.

an absolute delight to witness such absurdity.. "after all, no one will be allowed to practice vile things in the new world.

the unrighteous must have practiced these vile things [john 5:29] before their death.

peacefulpete

I understand.. Christian origins and early development is a puzzle with a lot of pieces missing. Even so, I really enjoy the detective work.

41

Why are JW's THIS blind?

by BoogerMan in

i had a conversation about this 22 carat gold contradiction with a couple of zealous jw's a couple of days ago.. even their personal "explanations" contradicted each other as they tried justify their cognitive dissonance!.

an absolute delight to witness such absurdity.. "after all, no one will be allowed to practice vile things in the new world.

the unrighteous must have practiced these vile things [john 5:29] before their death.

peacefulpete

I've pondered trying to "recreate" a hypothetical Jewish form. It just seemed pretty much impossible to divine what was Jewish from Jewish Christian. Like I said earlier, it strikes me as a series of verbal dioramas. They may not have even been drawn from a single original document. IOW the Christian author/redactor may have collected material from separate works and married these with his own. Without at least some guidance, it would be impossible convincingly separate sources.

You may have read that Cerinthus was one of the proposed authors. IOW, It was apparently at some point anonymous. The name 'John' is the single reason it was eventually included into the Canon of most churches. It seems reasonable to say that it was added to facilitate its inclusion into the Canon. Even then keen readers recognized the style differences from the Gospel and so assumed it referred to a different John. Eventually the Orthodoxy firmly established the tradition that the writer was the same man as the author of the 4th Gospel, the epistles and the John from the Gospel story.

41

Why are JW's THIS blind?

by BoogerMan in

i had a conversation about this 22 carat gold contradiction with a couple of zealous jw's a couple of days ago.. even their personal "explanations" contradicted each other as they tried justify their cognitive dissonance!.

an absolute delight to witness such absurdity.. "after all, no one will be allowed to practice vile things in the new world.

the unrighteous must have practiced these vile things [john 5:29] before their death.

peacefulpete

I think my last comment addresses the issues you are seeing. The way the writer (and redactor) structured the whole thing wasn't meant for it to be read as a narrative but a collection of scenes, utilizing familiar symbols and language from earlier apocalyptic works. Ultimately it was written for a particular sect of Christians experiencing Roman oppression who felt sure things would deteriorate. The basic themes are vindication and vengeance. Few Christians read it or liked it then. It took hundreds of years for it to be widely accepted. Ironically about the time Christianity became the State religion of the empire.

6

Yahweh the Angel

by peacefulpete in

a small thread that may be of interest to some.

in short, there are 3 occasions in the ot where yahweh is identified with the epithet "angel".

(mal ak).

peacefulpete

Phizzy, Yep. That's what I suspect as well. While all three texts are in the Persian era, they may have been written early enough for the word to not have fully taken on a limited application that would have invoked concerns of blaspheme. It is very interesting to analyze the later attempts to revise the passage in Eccl (LXX 'Elohim' e.g.) out of this very concern. The NIV and others interpret that word as referring to a priest or temple 'messenger' and add the word 'temple'.

41

Why are JW's THIS blind?

by BoogerMan in

i had a conversation about this 22 carat gold contradiction with a couple of zealous jw's a couple of days ago.. even their personal "explanations" contradicted each other as they tried justify their cognitive dissonance!.

an absolute delight to witness such absurdity.. "after all, no one will be allowed to practice vile things in the new world.

the unrighteous must have practiced these vile things [john 5:29] before their death.

peacefulpete

DisiJW...I won't spend a great deal of time breaking it all down, but in short, Revelation is a work that that attempts to incorporate OT and intertestamental apocalyptic symbolism and even diverse scenarios. For instance, the description of a war of all the nations is repeated in various ways, notably before a 1000 year interval and also after. Some commentators suppose the 1,000 year chiliasm is an original idea of the author that he had to shoehorn into his collection of motifs and scenarios he is reinterpreting from his sources. Whether you find it intellectually satisfying or not, the author was not overly concerned with a completely logical outcome. IOW. regards what you observed, yep taken literally and read as a single harmony, it would be an issue that no one is left on earth to rule over during the 1000 years, (that is until you read that all the nations are soemhow still around to oppose the saints after the 1000 years). It's an artifact of the way he used his sources.