[plug][megasuper OT and getting worse] A JW non Xmas

[Leon Brooks]

On Friday 27 December 2002 12:19 pm, Shayne O'Neill wrote:
> I gotta tell ya Leon, even tho I'm an avowed athiest, I've got alot of
> respect for the JW's.

As with most groups, some of them are great.

> * There avowed pacifits. Unlike some of the other bible-literalist
> christain groups, these guys put there money where there mouth is and
> actually refuse to go to war. Bravo.

Check.

> * The JW's dont do government. That means that there is no chance of a
> JW as president losing the plot and deciding to expediate 'the second
> coming' via a big fat nuclear bomb. GWB also believes in Revelations, and
> he *does* have his finger on the button. Godhelp us all.

Check. But OTOH their own internal government isn't averse to being repressive 
itself or pushing skeletons to the back of the closet.

> * The JW's , while still creationists, have a far more plausable take
> on it that doesnt invole crazy perversions of the 2nd law of thermo (A
> physics PHD friendof mine pointed out the creation science foundations
> rather unique misreading ofthe second law actually makes sense... ifyour
> drunk.), by pointing out the original hebrew text didn't refer to the
> world being created in six days, rather six 'periods of time', thus being
> much more accomodating for geological time etc.... A bit easier to cope
> with.

Hmmm. The JW's I've talked to are ambiguous on the topic. Some are 
Creationist, some are `Progressive Creationists' as you describe, and some 
are essentially Evolutionists (`but', they say, `God guided it').

Evolution and religion don't mix, because Evolution is at heart materialist. 
Materialism essentially == Atheism. The working definition of deity is that 
your god should have a supernatural influence on your life. Materialism 
doesn't permit this at all, it asserts that there is no `super' to 
Naturalism. I don't give Evolutionist JWs any brownie points, they haven't 
even thought through the beliefs they're trying to push on others.

If you are an Atheist, Evolution or something like it appears to become 
absolutely necessary at this stage in the growth of science. This explains 
why almost all of the science-in-education groups in the USA are going 
completely Bursar at the prospect of Evolution being dethroned in the 
classroom: their beliefs (Materialism) are under attack. I personally hate 
the one-theory-only mode of teaching, in particular because if you stop 
questioning basic assumptions, you stymie progress toward the next revolution 
in theory; the best you can do is laboriously inch forward and wait for the 
champions of the last theory to die off or retire.

One other little nit on this topic is that Evolution sems to have no plausible 
explanation for how things originally got launched. There is a lot of 
handwaving of unfavourable statistics, muttering about clay templates, warm 
little pools, anaerobic sulphur reactions and stuff, but still this yawning 
gap between even implausible chemistry and the simplest reasonable 
hypothetical lifeform.

Progressive Creation won't fly either, and is abysmally inconsistent. For 
example, the plants get left in darkness for `a period of time' (conceptually 
many millions of years), and the Hebrew word generally translated `day' is 
always accompanied by a clear contextual indication if it's being used in the 
sense of `in Abraham's day'; on top of this, the sense required to support 
millions of years is simply not available to Hebrew.

<digression depth=2>
Ancient languages can be a lot of fun. For example, the word translated 
`window' when describing Noah building his ark doesn't actually mean window 
in the sense of an opening in a wall, it means `bright light' but because in 
1611 that basically meant a candle or a lantern (which would not appreciably 
lessen the darkness in a 500-foot-long vessel) it got translated `window'. A 
lot of archaeology points to things that we can no longer replicate*, 
including long-lasting mystery light sources.
</digression>

Outright Creationism is in principle internally consistent, and given the 
limited amount of funding available has done spectactularly well in terms of 
predictions and results. They're also wizards at pointing out holes and 
inconsistencies in current theories, an invaluable and usually thankless 
service. However, they've still got a _very_ long row to hoe if they expect 
to catch up to Evolutionary theories in terms of extent and completeness.

> * The JW's don't 'do' hell. And thank GOD for that. As far as I am aware,
> 144000 dudes get to go to space(cool) to hang out in heaven, most of the
> rest get to hang out on earth, which is real nice now and , like ,lions
> hang out with sheep and stuff. Importantly, bad guys stay dead thus
> eliminating that nonsense about a loving god damning his people to
> everlasting horror.

The Mormons are more interesting; AFAICT the really, really good Mormons get a 
planet of their own to stake out, an unlimited supply of wives etc (not clear 
on what happens to exceptionally good Mormon wives); the not-so-sparkly 
Mormons get you hang out on the Moon with each other; and the scraped-it-ins 
get to share what's left of Earth. Also not clear on what happens to bad 
guys; they don't seem to get a place at all, so maybe they still wid up 
destroyed.

A plain reading of the text would seem to indicate that the nasties bite the 
dust big time. Great apocalyptic language, this, you could imagine George 
Lucas let loose on it:

    And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of
    his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the
    four quarters of the earth, Gog, and Magog, to gather them together
    to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went
    up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints
    about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of
    heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast
    into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false
    prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
    And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose
    face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place
    for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and
    the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book
    of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were
    written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up
    the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead
    which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their
    works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is
    the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of
    life was cast into the lake of fire.
 
There remains some ambiguity in `and shall be tormented day and night for ever 
and ever' but a bit of exercise with a search engine turns up `Even as Sodom 
and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves 
over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an 
example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.' It would have been pretty 
obvious to the original author that Sodom and Gomorrha weren't still afire.

Several explanations have been proposed, but the one which makes most sense to 
me is that an object itself cannot burn after it has been completely 
consumed, even if the fire outlives it. As far as the object is concerned, 
the fire is eternal. One of these explanations also pointed to 1 Samuel 1:22 
and verse 28, which describes Hannah's as bringing her child `that he may 
appear before the LORD, and there abide for ever' and six verses later saying 
`as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the LORD'.

Ah, well, I suspect there's only \one way to find out for sure. (-:

> I DO have a big gripe with the blood law, even tho in the New testament,
> JC eliminates 'food' rules , the JW's seem to have held onto it
> translating it to blood transfusions, and I must ask, whatever happened to
> that prophecy of the world ending within one generation of 1914... Time
> seems to of run pretty tight on that one.

IIRC (and I'm pretty sure on this one, having been over it lots), the JWs 
hinge their transfusion thingy on `For the life of the flesh is in the blood: 
and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your 
souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. Therefore I 
said unto the children of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, neither 
shall any stranger that sojourneth among you eat blood. [...] For it is the 
life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof: therefore I said 
unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: 
for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be 
cut off.' from Leviticus, and they generalise `eat' as `ingest in any way'.

As far as JC eliminating food laws, the nearest I can find is a thing about a 
sheet full of stuff you wouldn't catch me eating in a fit, and it was 
actually used to point out that no _person_ was inherently unclean (Book of 
Acts, chapters 10 and 11), apparently Peter did the right thing in refusing 
to eat them.

As for the pyramid prophecies, there have been a heck of a lot of those, but 
the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society seem to have finally given up on 
setting dates. Very impressive up front, not so good when the date comes and 
goes uneventfully.

> But either way, I've never met a JW I havent liked. Friendly enough folk
> in ned flanders sort of way....  I remember a JW friend telling me they
> don't need to christmass cause everydays a party when your christain.

More of them should notify their faces. (-:

Cheers; Leon


* The pyramids in Giza are a classic example, and difficult to ignore.
  Still ruler-straight and level (to within an inch or so) thousands of
  years after they were built. How did they do that?

  Oh, and have a gander at some of these,
  http://members.xoom.virgilio.it/mmmgroup/e-gall.html especially the first
  image WRT the pyramids. (-: