Tzaia

You can't read Ehrman's critiques and ever see the bible the same again, or early Christians.

She might have been a big abundant sharer. I knew of a number of people who traveled to her practice. Her methods were "different", to say the least. But she was a doctor. Most of my early associations with TWI were with people who were in school or recently graduated with advanced degrees in medicine, dentistry, and law - and yes - we were treated well. But then again, people who are that career driven have a tendency to be able to say no, or I'm not interested. Regarding other religions - maybe you mean denominations - it is different. Who gives what is not common knowledge. The vast majority of adults in our congregation are professionals with college degrees. Our budget is nearly $2 million a year - and our church is not large - average attendance is around 750 a week.

The last of my study, dissecting, and debate took place over 13 years ago. Before that, I started the Biblical Unitarian site (which was my major area of study). I simply have no need or desire to go there anymore. Ironically, that came about after spending a weekend at an event called a "Great Banquet" where I came to the conclusion that after all that study, I had no relationship. Once I worked on the relationship, I came to the conclusion that I didn't like my fundamentalist beliefs. Now I'm not too sure I want or need the beliefs at all because I really don't like how they manifest in everyday life.

This is a lead in from the website: Talmudic Rabbis Debated the Cost of Rape—In Terms of the Woman’s Market Value Reading the oral law today forces Jews to reconcile repellent, outdated legal views with modern morals The "Cost" of Rape

MRAP - there are a fair number of people here who fell for TWI hook, line, and sinker. They gave years - many times the best years - of their lives only to be unceremoniously dumped at the first question directed towards leadership. They had nothing. They were kept poor and many times underfed. They came here shattered. Many have PTSD. This is their place to vent and be protected. You are like me: Not in for too long and not deeply involved. I sincerely have no point of reference when it comes to what they went through. I found my fringe involvement confining and appalling enough. I don't get how they did it, much less why. Your military training, by and large, protects you from personalizing. The corp trained received a sort of military training that tore people down and built them into non-thinking non-individuals.There was no outside point of reference that was accepted as a viable standard for living. When some of these people were kicked out, it would be similar to a court martial and simply leaving them on the road with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Unfortunately, in many instances, outside family relations had been damaged. Family who remained were not allowed to interact with those who left. They were devastated. They came here. Many have managed to pull themselves together. Some more quickly and thoroughly than others. There is no time table. There are very few TWI or splinter apologists here. Some swoop in hoping to latch onto a few who pine for the old days. Some just like to debate doctrine. A fair number finally figure out that everything they once held dear is nothing more than vomit. Most eventually lose the lingo. Some eventually develop some actual critical thinking skills. But in every case it is a process. People want you to respect that process, even if you don't think you need it.

Could it be that god's "laws" helped with sustaining the barbarity?

No, I'm pretty sure we live in the same world they did. We do live in a different culture, but I think the important question is WHY the culture is so different.

The whole REV NT

The issue you will find here is that most of the regular posters believe that TWI and all the offshoots are cults which generally colors our comments.

I really like Eric Hoffer's "The True Believer". And isn't MRAP just a blast from the past?:evilshades:/>

I was involved with STF in the home office when JWS started his rewriting of the NT into his Revised English Version (REV). It was his goal and intent to rework the language of the NT to fit STF doctrine. My conversation with him about that was that the JWs had done the same thing and it had not boded well with them. I see it basically as a vanity book. People here are cynical when it comes to religious organizations in general, and TWI and its offshoots in particular. "Right doctrine" is not the end all that some would claim it to be, as far as some of us are concerned.

When I questioned John Schoenheit as to why he felt the need to "go there" in rewriting a new testament, he said to me said that the purpose of the REV was to support the doctrine of STF(I). He believes any trinitarian bias in current translations is intentional and dishonest, so he's done the same thing to remove that bias. Whether he has handled scripture "honestly" in the process is up for debate. Let's just say that my experience is that John doesn't play well with others if his research methodology is criticized. I find that John lacks the ability to be objective and that spills over into his "research". I am particularly dismayed by his unwillingness to give credit where it is due. So, my bias is that I would take his work with a salt lick. Feel free to do a search on me. I have written extensively about my long experience with CES/STFI. It has been 9 10 years since I've had any contact with any of them, and quite frankly, I have not missed any of them the drama a bit. The church I attend has migrated from the NIV to the ESV. Since I find many of the differences between versions to be semantical in nature and not worth fussing over, I don't have a favorite.

That is presupposing ths (the holy spirit) can't lead someone into speaking the language of those around the speaker. Isn't that the purpose? Perhaps in the future it will be possible to capture someone SIT and feed it into a google-like translator that can determine the language and what is said. Not that I ever really believed it was real. I just saw it as some sort of a spiritual dick-size/....ing contest thing.

The conundrum faced by the SIT community is that they want to make the experience of SIT "real" as in "I'm hooking up directly with god in a special way via hs" as a sort of scientifically verifiable fact, when all of it is not in that realm at all. The verbal utterances in charismatic movements are supposed to provide the proof that one is saved. Because the reality is that no one REALLY knows if they are saved. One can do the whole Romans 10:9-10 and claim that's sufficient, but there's really not enough supporting evidence that it really does the job. NO ONE has come back to provide a definitive answer. SIT attempts to do just that. If one is willing to go there and allow themselves to jabber out loud in a group of co-jabberers, then surely they are providing proof. In reality, the only sure-fired way of knowing would be to interject ones self into a group of people that one does not share a language with and have at it. THAT would be the true test of whether tongues is from god.

Waysider - I am aware of the beginnings of what we think of the charismatic movement. My dad was pentecostal "oneness" church of god in his youth. I was also aware of VPW leading us to believe he'd discovered something. Well maybe interpretation. I'd been hearing tongues long before that.

I think the whole thing weasels out of having to adhere to any sense of being real by invoking the "language of angels" clause. Then there's the idea of dead languages - again weasel-y. Clearly in Acts the first time people spoke in tongues they spoke in (1.) languages they did not speak to (2.) people who did speak those languages. There is no evidence that phenomenon ever took place again - not that it wasn't attempted. As time continued, speaking in tongues became more and more weasel-y in its purpose (and at some point mostly dies out in common usage) until we arrive at the mid 20th century where it becomes a "test" of who is a believer by a certain religious sect that shall not be named by me. But given the weasel-y nature of the whole thing, it just becomes a point of division because no one actually knows if they are actually doing it. Right. Wrong. At all. I have a fairly good ear for language, and maybe one time did I detect anything that remotely had the sound of "language". Most of the time I would hear a lot of repeat phrasing. However, in the "interpretation", there would be a lack of repeat phrasing, which indicated to me that what was "interpreted" was not going along with what spoken.

Because the religion-based moral code is so conflicted and confused that it helps the conflicted, the confused, and the immoral justify their behaviors. BTW - the father of one of those girls was absolutely typical in his response. I heard the same thing when I found out that Way Corp kids were being groomed with porn.

I'm "wired" differently than the rest of my family when it comes to morality. Never much of one to judge based on actions and lifestyles that don't affect other people. I don't pay much attention to color; I'm more interested in what one thinks. Even my own mother has commented that I must have alien parents. I simply see the world differently than most of the people I associate with - except for a brief time in 1979-1981. I TRIED to fit in with TWI, but ultimately I could not. I got my morality from reading. Lots and lots of reading. And mistakes. Lots and lots of mistakes. And living. Lots and lots of living. Intentionally and mindfully after dealing with the folly of being unintentional and not too mindful. I have started to notice that with every judgmental wave I have experienced, it has been accompanied by an upswing in "faith". Hmmm.

If you look at all (with out exception or distinction) religious organizations, you can see the signs of them all (with out exception or distinction) being "cults". THAT'S the true irony

Back drop: We had an exchange student back in 2001-02 from Germany. He was "irreligious". However, he was amenable to staying with a "religious" family. Which is what we were, if that is defined by regular church attendance. Several times the concept of morality came up and his assertion [was] that one could be moral without believing in a god. At the time, I was flabbergasted. "Where else does one get a standard of morality?", I asked. The reality is that this young man was a very moral person, who had never had a bit of religious education. Where did his sense of right and wrong spring from? Can we be moral and never worship a god or have a personal savior? And if so, where does that morality come from?

Apparently he loved the smell of animal fat [burning] over an open fire.

Well, it certainly didn't differentiate him from the multitude of other "deities" other than his was a case of "doesn't play nice with others".

So getting back to the topic: What is the morality of using stand-in bleeders?

I get that they were eaten. To not eat the animals would be completely pointless if not downright impractical. Th irony of using a Muslim site was not lost on me as they are the mother of all religious rationalizers. But here's the point: Competely draining the animal of its blood is the most important thing, not necessarily the animal's comfort. According to this site http://m.wikihow.com/Properly-Slaughter-a-Cow-Under-the-Kosher-Method-Shechitah, It's more efficient to let the animal bleed out, and it's just not kosher to stun the animal. And it says this: But don't you know that even the pagans of that day as well as today do the same throat cutting? Nothing special beyond to WHOM the animal was sacrificed. Yahweh could have done something completely different, but nooooo.

I definitely get the survival of the gene pool. Ancient Greek women were kept virtual captives in order to protect the gene pool of the husband. Knowing that doesn't make the Jewish law particularly enlightened in comparison. It still puts the burden on the woman, when an all-knowing god could find a better way than what was already being done amongst the pagans in the Greek Empire. Don't you think?