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TwilightPrincess
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06 Sep 2022, 8:29 am

klanka wrote:
I don't think you want John the Baptist, he baptises jesus criticises the king then gets beheaded.
I think you're looking for John the disciple. He is described as the disciple Jesus loved...and he is the one saying to rely on faith.

JWs don’t celebrate birthdays, in part, because John the Baptist was executed on King Herod’s birthday. It seems like a silly argument to me because the story is more complex than that.

They are somewhat puritan in thinking that if something is fun it’s likely bad.

We have an ongoing silly joke in exJW circles. Whenever an exJW talks about celebrating a birthday, we ask if anyone was beheaded. So far, the answer has always been “no.”


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klanka
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06 Sep 2022, 10:10 am

Wow didn't know they were that bad.
They'd definitely be against exotic dancers if they are against everything in that story



IsabellaLinton
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06 Sep 2022, 10:19 am

I imagine Valentines Day was even more forbidden.
That was the ultimate beheading.


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TwilightPrincess
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06 Sep 2022, 10:24 am

klanka wrote:
Wow didn't know they were that bad.
They'd definitely be against exotic dancers if they are against everything in that story

Exotic dancers are a definite no no. People can slow dance at parties, but it needs to look like the slow dancing that you’d see on a 1950’s TV show.


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TwilightPrincess
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06 Sep 2022, 10:26 am

IsabellaLinton wrote:
I imagine Valentines Day was even more forbidden.
That was the ultimate beheading.

With Valentine’s Day, they primarily talk about its “pagan origins.” They do the same thing with Mother’s Day. They can’t see the forest for the trees.


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naturalplastic
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06 Sep 2022, 11:57 am

Twilightprincess wrote:
IsabellaLinton wrote:
I imagine Valentines Day was even more forbidden.
That was the ultimate beheading.

With Valentine’s Day, they primarily talk about its “pagan origins.” They do the same thing with Mother’s Day. They can’t see the forest for the trees.



Mothers Day and Fathers Day had their roots in...modern American Madison Avenue. Not Christian. But certainly not Pagan either. No more "Pagan" than any secular holiday (like Independence Day).

Halloween...definitely Pagan. Even Christmas and Easter have pre Christian Pagan elements. But not mothers day.



TwilightPrincess
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06 Sep 2022, 12:10 pm

Quote:
Festivals honouring mothers and mother goddesses date to ancient times. The Phrygians held a festival for Cybele, the Great Mother of the Gods, as did the Greeks for the goddess Rhea. Likewise, the Romans adapted the practice to their own pantheon. Some countries have continued to observe ancient festivals; for example, Durga-puja, honouring the goddess Durga, remains an important festival in India.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mothers-Day

Obviously, I think this is ridiculous. Celebrating one’s parents seems like a perfectly normal and healthy thing to do, depending on one’s parents of course. It’s the sort of thing, like birthdays, that most societies would probably think up at some point. I bet pagans ate and drank but JWs don’t object to that.

JWs don’t celebrate Independence Day because they are against patriotism.

They don’t celebrate Christmas or Easter due to their “pagan origins.”


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TwilightPrincess
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06 Sep 2022, 12:16 pm

In actuality, most of the Bible is “pagan” in some way because it was heavily influenced by the cultures, religions, and myths of the locales in which it was written.


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naturalplastic
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06 Sep 2022, 12:32 pm

@Aghogday

Interesting film clips. A buddy (with more Fundie leanings than I have)owns the Denzel Washington film, and got me to watch it. Great Drama (regardless of your religion, or lack thereof).

Its amazing how many educated folks dont know why the Bible has italicized strings of text and assume that it is "for emphasis".

The truth is almost the opposite.

The italics actually mean "these are filler words that we put in because they arent in the original text".

Alan Watts points out that at one point in scripture Christ says "I am the son of God"- the "filler" word "the" makes a BIG difference in how you interpret his words.

Fun fact: The braille version of the Bible being smuggled across the wasteland by Denzel Washington was about the size of a normal unabridged dictionary. Real braille versions of the Bible are about the same size as the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica. Thats because braille (raised bumps rather than ink) take up FAR more space than regular printed text.



aghogday
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06 Sep 2022, 1:43 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
@Aghogday

Interesting film clips. A buddy (with more Fundie leanings than I have)owns the Denzel Washington film, and got me to watch it. Great Drama (regardless of your religion, or lack thereof).

Its amazing how many educated folks dont know why the Bible has italicized strings of text and assume that it is "for emphasis".

The truth is almost the opposite.

The italics actually mean "these are filler words that we put in because they arent in the original text".

Alan Watts points out that at one point in scripture Christ says "I am the son of God"- the "filler" word "the" makes a BIG difference in how you interpret his words.

Fun fact: The braille version of the Bible being smuggled across the wasteland by Denzel Washington was about the size of a normal unabridged dictionary. Real braille versions of the Bible are about the same size as the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica. Thats because braille (raised bumps rather than ink) take up FAR more space than regular printed text.




Thanks.

Haha Yes, Interesting Indeed,

The Space A Bible For The Blind in Braille Will Take;

Of Course if 'They' Don't Understand "The Metaphors,"
The Essence of 'The Metaphor' of "Those Who See Are Blind"

Makes Sense too; How Different Civilization Might
Be If We Had Only "A Son of God" As Mentor Rather

Than An Idol 'The God Man' to Be Worshipped
With So Many of the 'Good Cop'
Parts of the
Message of
Story Book
Jesus 'Left Behind" YucK in "TRuMP" Ways.

The Part of 'Eli' Played By Denzel Washington
Surely Would Have Had to Have a "Savant-Like
Memory" to Reproduce Close to 800,000 Words

Verbatim From the King James Bible;

The Part i liked Best is at the End
When All That Effort That Eli took
to Get The Bible to The Library in San Francisco
Transferred Bound in A Book Was Only A Grain of Sand
On A Beach Of Other Books With Sacred Text As Shared

By Other Humans No Less or More Than ELI For Real;

And This is Our Modern World, No Longer Are The Views
Of Others Censored in Many Areas of the World; We Have
The Opportunity Every Day to Evolve More Than Out of One

Book of
Sacred
Text Spoon
Fed From Birth;

Even Better Yet Per 'Walt
Whitman'; We May Write, Dance,
Sing Our Own From Deep WiTHiN;

So Many Choices Indeed For Those Who Exercise
All Aspects of Human Intelligences and Potentials With SMiLes

With Enough Respect For Others Not to Condemn the Level
They are at too Much

Yet Of Course it Helps
to Start Somewhere
At The Bottom Levels
To Achieve That Kind of Empathy
And Compassion for Others on Their Life Journeys...

Anyway, As General Metaphor, it Took Innumerable Efforts
And Innumerable People Over Centuries of Efforts to Put That
King James First Old Edition Together As The Written Word And

Those Who Were Literate Were Real Pots of Gold Then Always Better

to Use it Rather
Than Lose it
When it is Given
to Us Free in this
Modern World of
So Many Gifts to
Use And Actually Do..:)



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IsabellaLinton
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10 Sep 2022, 2:46 pm

Image

This is from my daughter's ESV Bible.

Is it just me, or is that excessively wordy?


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TwilightPrincess
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10 Sep 2022, 3:10 pm

Quote:
Is it just me, or is that excessively wordy?
It seems fairly typical of other Bible translations. Parts or the Bible are excessively wordy.


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klanka
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10 Sep 2022, 3:11 pm

its the same as most other translations.
If you mean is John 3:16 to 3:21 excessively wordy? well i suppose the repetition brings home the point



TwilightPrincess
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10 Sep 2022, 6:28 pm

klanka wrote:
its the same as most other translations.
If you mean is John 3:16 to 3:21 excessively wordy? well i suppose the repetition brings home the point

Some would say it "brings home the point." Others would say that it beats a dead horse. I suppose it depends on your perspective. I think it depends on the specific Bible passage. I, personally, find this particular Bible passage unnecessarily wordy. Needless repetition can make people zone out and lose interest.


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AardvarkGoodSwimmer
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10 Sep 2022, 7:29 pm

Twilightprincess wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
As I understand it. Jehovah's Witnesses are a far out theology not really akin to any other Christian sect.

They are comparable to the Mormons, though not particular akin to them either in theology (but as far out as they are).


They are similar to other fundamentalist groups as far as theology is concerned. Their core beliefs aren’t THAT unusual but their rules about shunning and blood transfusions really set them apart.

They are a doomsday cult but other fundamentalist groups believe in Armageddon, too.

The part in which the Jehovah Witnesses tell people they have to break off contact and in fact shun family members, to me, this is 70% of the way to being a cult already.

Add in the other high control aspects, and yep, the JWs are a cult.

============

With blood transfusions . . .

I understand JWs have loosened up a little bit and now allow blood “fractions” [don’t know how much difference this makes in emergency situations]

and also have taken a few timid steps to viewing a transfusion as a matter of conscience, although I may be mistaken on this point.

=============

Potential joke:

Next time I see my local JWs outside my local library, perhaps I’ll shyly confess that I help out another group, a smaller group who really needs the helps, the AWs.

The AWs? they’ll ask [hopefully!]

Yes, the Adonai Witnesses! [another name for God in the Old Testament]



Last edited by AardvarkGoodSwimmer on 10 Sep 2022, 7:40 pm, edited 2 times in total.

klanka
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10 Sep 2022, 7:34 pm

It could be said that this is the most important idea to convey in the whole Bible.

so repeating it three times helps to highlight it.