Members of my family who left/exiled got a call from a JW sibling yesterday. No socializing just an invite to "special talk" being given by her husband. All it accomplished is demonstrate that the controls are still in place. Of course I didn't get one, they regard me as dangerous. I'm ok with that.
peacefulpete
JoinedPosts by peacefulpete
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29
Beards vs. Shunning announcements
by slimboyfat induring lett’s announcement that beards are now allowed he elaborated at some length how brothers ought to feel and react to the change in policy.
he warned brothers not to resent not being able to grow beards earlier if they had wished to do so.
he also warned brothers who supported the old policy not to allow themselves to wonder what the point of doing so was now that it has changed.
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Chat AI shows Jesus was not god
by enigma1863 intitle: jesus' perception of himself: a nuanced view of equality in a patriarchal society.
introduction:.
the perception of jesus christ's divinity has been a subject of theological debate for centuries.
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peacefulpete
Anyone who has asked AI to answer a controversial question learns quickly that it just regurgitates the information from popular websites. There is no evaluation of accuracy or objectivity. Garbage. Nothing to do with left or right. It's just repeating crap, often contradictory answers in same response.
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Will New Rules Bring JWs Together or Pull Them Apart?
by doinmypart inthere's been a lot of discussion about the changes in the org.
you might think all this would shake things up, especially for the older or super dedicated jws.
but remember when gb decided all the khs and the bank accounts needed to be transferred/managed from the top?
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peacefulpete
Not so much "sticking together" as believing they have no choice. It's also human nature to preserve status quo, cling to the familiar. It takes a pretty strong push emotionally to convince people to change.
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JWlite like being a Trekkie. You know it’s fictional
by ExBethelitenowPIMA ini now view jwlite like the trekkie conventions.
star trek is fiction and all the fans know this full well.
but they find it beneficial.
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peacefulpete
You must understand millions of people thought they could/would be able to emotionally and psychologically go on as you are. You either find yourself compromised ethically or eventually re-lose yourself.
Then again, if someone is a JW in their outlook and values but has been simply offended by current leadership, I can see such a person loosely clinging to the group awaiting change they hope to see. That wasn't me or many here.
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Finger of God
by peacefulpete ina myriad (or close) of threads have discussed the depiction of deity in the ot and nt.
many exjws simply can't seem to wrap their minds around the concept of hypostases of god.
hypostases as i'm using the term refer to personified conceptualizations of divinity often acting in a particular role.
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peacefulpete
Phizzy, I suspect that exposure to a multicultural superpower alone offered the elite in exile new perspective. The world of ideas got a lot bigger. That combined with the disillusionment of no longer being the center of the world. Reinvention and reform were imperative. Yahweh had to mature along with his people.
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JWlite like being a Trekkie. You know it’s fictional
by ExBethelitenowPIMA ini now view jwlite like the trekkie conventions.
star trek is fiction and all the fans know this full well.
but they find it beneficial.
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peacefulpete
You say you woke up, I say you are still dreaming. -
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JWlite like being a Trekkie. You know it’s fictional
by ExBethelitenowPIMA ini now view jwlite like the trekkie conventions.
star trek is fiction and all the fans know this full well.
but they find it beneficial.
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peacefulpete
And when the congregation announces a member has been disfellowshipped, will you join in the shunning and share in the abusive treatment to keep up appearances?
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Finger of God
by peacefulpete ina myriad (or close) of threads have discussed the depiction of deity in the ot and nt.
many exjws simply can't seem to wrap their minds around the concept of hypostases of god.
hypostases as i'm using the term refer to personified conceptualizations of divinity often acting in a particular role.
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peacefulpete
Hey Phizzy. I'm also rather obsessed with the hypostatic process due to how it resulted in a dualistic image for many careful readers. (I like the word hypostatic and will use it a lot) The 'Spirit' that moves to and fro over the waters of chaos, the 'Light' that exists before the sun and moon, the 'Word' of god that rests and heals and runs, the Wisdom of God that creates and reproves, the 'Name' of God that dwells in the temple (tho likely the result of borrowed Akkadian idiom that meant having name inscribed but Rabbis later mistakenly understood as hypostatic for presence of a deity too great to enter a building made of stone). The Shekinah fire/light as similar stand-in for God's presence, and actually a number more, demonstrate an almost pathological love for hypostatic personification.
As I've expressed before, this was a major contribution to the Christian conception of Logos(Word) and Christ/Wisdom/Light/Son as hypostatic names. John 17:11 goes on to say the Son was given the very Name of God. Which I'm assuming was not suggesting Yahweh but the Name in a hypostatic sense. The divine essence and presence.
As SBF and others have argued, obviously there was no formal Trinity doctrine at the earliest stages of Christian development, however the writings reflect a far more sophisticated and esoteric conception of deity than the WT insists. As I see it, the rise of Christianity was an almost natural result of the evolving understanding of God within Judaism of the Greek world. God was so unapproachable by that time he needed a representative, someone to 'reveal' God to the world and who better than a Son of God that embodied all the earlier hypostatic concepts and whose name was Immanuel "with us is God".
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Finger of God
by peacefulpete ina myriad (or close) of threads have discussed the depiction of deity in the ot and nt.
many exjws simply can't seem to wrap their minds around the concept of hypostases of god.
hypostases as i'm using the term refer to personified conceptualizations of divinity often acting in a particular role.
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peacefulpete
A myriad (or close) of threads have discussed the depiction of deity in the OT and NT. Many exJWs simply can't seem to wrap their minds around the concept of hypostases of God. Hypostases as I'm using the term refer to personified conceptualizations of divinity often acting in a particular role. This personified aspect of divinity is often described as quasi-independent and yet subservient to the will of the divine. In the OT there are many expressions that were/are understood this way. I have touched on a number of these.
Students of religious history understand how often, over time, the intent of an author becomes a casualty to later theological interpretation. This is the very essence of religious thought development. This is not saying a conscious effort was made to alter meaning, it rather is a natural result of changing circumstances and cultic leadership. Later theologians merely "clarified" what they understood a text to mean. Although in some instances a deliberate reutilization of an ancient story in a contemporary context was seen as away to reform a cultic tradition toward the ideal of the scribe. Either way, what we see is an evolving theology.
It is also not surprising then that in a large setting multiple streams of tradition are likely to diverge. That certainly was the case in the traditions of Israel and Judah.
Back on topic. I find the expression "finger of God' to be a simple example.
Exodus 31:18 And he gave to Moses, when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.
This idea repeated in Deut 9:10:
And the Lord delivered unto me two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them was written according to all the words, which the Lord spake with you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly.
It appears to me the author in context was anthropomorphizing his god as having fingers and it was simple as that. In time this was no longer deemed appropriate and the expression was redefined in a more abstract sense. Note that at Exodus 8:16-20 when the magicians are unable to reproduce the 3rd miracle 19 the magicians said to Pharaoh,
“This is the finger of God.”
This is clearly a fresh take on the expression, a more abstract, less anthropomorphic one, meaning simply divine action, even apart from the presence of God. Fast forward a few more centuries and we find the expression in Luke 11:20
20 But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you.
Here the Lukan author is revising his source Matt 12:28 where is reads:
28 But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you.
Now the expression is fully detached from any literal anthropomorphic sense and is equated to the Holy Spirit and doing the will of Jesus. It is approaching a hypostatic concept of God's action.
The differences are subtle but reflect a growing sophistication.
The ever-present risk when reading early layers of tradition is to color the meaning with the later. Reading the Moses story again we might think the earlier author intended the expression "finger of God" to simply mean "Spirit of God". Doing that begs the question of why the earliest author didn't simply say "Spirit". He didn't because he meant finger.
I should add that the writers/redactors of the stories in Exodus and Deut. probably allowed the expression to stand precisely because the expression had taken on a more abstract metaphoric sense by their time. IOW they preserved an archaic concept by reinterpreting it.
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God, one person, or three?
by slimboyfat inthe trinity doctrine says god is three persons in one being.. yet the bible says god is one.. gal 3.20 a mediator, however, implies more than one party; but god is one.
niv.
gal 3.20 now a mediator is not for just one person, but god is one.
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peacefulpete
I mean, why limit it to one or three? Couldn't a godhead include 10 persons?
Or thousands.
The full list of Hindu gods and goddesses includes thousands of deities, each one representing a certain aspect of the Supreme Absolute, which is known as Brahman. Because they are all manifestations of the same divine spirit, these forms of Brahman are different in essence from the gods of ancient Greek and Roman religion, two of the more famous examples of polytheism. Why Do Hindus Have Multiple Gods? (learnreligions.com)