Sheep and Goats

Author: tomsheepandgoats

  • Tartarus: The Fourth Instance of Hell

    Tartarus: The Fourth Instance of Hell

    Sometimes when discussing hell, I open with: “With a single exception, all instances of ‘hell stem from only one of three original language words. Find the meaning of those words, and you’ve found the meaning of hell.”

    Tartarus is the single exception. It occurs just once in Scripture, which is why it is the single exception. For the sake of simplification, one can temporarily shelve it. But so as to be complete, here it is as one of the four words translated “hell”:

    “Certainly God did not refrain from punishing the angels who sinned, but threw them into Tartarus, putting them in chains of dense darkness to be reserved for judgment.” (2 Peter 2:4)

    Some equate it to “prison.” That it should be escalated to “hell” by most translations is purely a matter of interpretation. Better to play it safe, as the NWT does, and just use the actual ‘Tartarus’ word, so as not to insert what is really just interpretation as though it were actual Bible teaching.

    The NWT is not the only translation to recognize this pitfall. Others do it too, though they are in the minority. For example, the NTFE (New Testament for Everyone), which I picked from Biblegateway, reads: “God didn’t spare the angels who sinned, you see, but he threw them into the pit, into dark caverns, handing them over to be guarded until the time of judgment.” It works. One must not assert hell when it’s not there.

    Certainly one must not assert it with terms such as the ‘Lake of Fire’ from Revelation. That passage has never been translated as hell. However, the idea is invariably used to support a fiery hell. It makes no sense. Logically, the Devil would have a summer cottage on the Lake of Fire. We are to believe that fire would trouble him? No.

    Sheol and Hades both mean the Grave, widely recognized today. Whereas older Bible translations would frequently translate these words as hell, newer translations rarely do. When they do, one should not only discount it, but perhaps look askance at the entire translation. The word means Grave, not what they are trying to escalate it too.

    This leaves only Gehenna. It was an actual place, a valley outside of Jerusalem, once the site of child sacrifice. “In later years, Gehenna continued to be an unclean place used for burning trash from the city of Jerusalem” says GotQuestions.org. It “became a place where corpses of criminals, dead animals, and all manners of refuse were thrown to be destroyed.” (https://www.gotquestions.org/Gehenna.html)

    That’s all it was: a garbage dump with a sordid past. Nothing more. Just because fires were kept burning there and “the maggot did not die”—there were always plenty of them—does not mean that what was thrown into that place did not die. It would have been dead already. The bodies of ones thought so despicable that they didn’t even merit a resurrection were tossed there. They weren’t buried with respect in tombs. In short, there is nothing about Gehenna to suggest everlasting torment. Closer to the point is final destruction from which there is no return.

    In recent months, I’ve come to think of AI as my research assistant. It sifts through a lot of stuff in a short time. Also in recent months, congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses have been considering Isaiah, and now Jeremiah, next Ezekiel and so forth, in their weekly Bible studies. AI will direct me to commentaries, sources like David Guzik, who in turn quotes Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) a lot, and some of these sources are very very good, with sublime powers of expression. Not to worry; this is not “cheating” from the JW point of view. The JW app itself will feature an option on all Bible verses to link directly to the internet, usually to Bible dictionaries and encyclopedias.

    Good as these sources are, they are all contaminated by a preexisting ‘eternal torment in hell’ dogma completely unsupported by the underlying original-language words discussed above. Thus, good as they are, many Witnesses will prefer to stay “in-house” where you don’t have to sift through the chaff.

    Why is it there, when the underlying words don’t support it? Even the afore-mentioned GotQuestions asserts that Jesus used Gehenna “as a symbolic depiction of hell: a place of eternal torment and constant uncleanness, where the fires never ceased burning and the worms never stopped crawling.” He didn’t. He used it only as a symbol for what it actually was, a place that destroyed permanently whatever what heaved in there, stretching the word only to include the notion that, if it was people, they must not be deserving of a resurrection if their consigned there.” Jesus could make that judgment. We can’t.

    Got it that also that while Isaac Asimov was a brilliant science fiction writer, his atheist views will be repugnant to those taking their cue from the Bible. Yet, when reviewing the notion of hell, he nailed it. Hell, he said, was the “drooling dream of a sadist, crudely affixed to an all-merciful God.” It is as plain as day to anyone approaching the topic without blinders. What first draws our eye is that is is the “drooling dream of a sadist.” However, equally important is that it is “crudely affixed.” It doesn’t fit. It’s enough to make anyone turn atheist. Not that they all do it for this reason, but it sure is a powerful shove in that direction. They are looking for things that make sense, not for things that are “crudely affixed” and make none.

    Where does it come from? It is an import from Greek philosophy. “The western notion of the soul was a philosophical invention defended by Plato that got integrated into Christian theology by the likes of Augustine [who] studied Plato and liked what he said about the soul and so incorporated it into his Christian theology,” says David Kyle Johnson in his 36-part Great Courses lecture series, The Big Questions of Philosophy. It’s not original! It is “affixed.” Moreover, it is sort of a bolloxed job. Johnson continues: “In fact, belief in the resurrection of the body doesn’t make any sense if you believe in souls. At best it is superfluous. There is no need for a resurrection of the body if the soul survives into the afterlife without it.” Not only is it “affixed,” it is “crudely affixed,” as Asimov said, whose star is rising for this reason alone.

    One can only envision as to how people inclined to be cruel would be attracted to this doctrine. It would even give them license for further cruelty, and the history of the church abounds with cruelty. After all, if you think your enemies are going to a burning hell, there can hardly be an objection to giving them a little foretaste of it now. Perhaps you can dissuade them from carrying on as you don’t like, and if not, well, they’d better get used to the heat.

    It doesn’t help that the master of Matthew 18, provoked to wrath at a slave’s ingratitude (he had forgiven the fellow a million dollars, only to find him beating a fellow slave over the $20 owed him) handed him over to the “jailers.” (18:34) Older translations render that word “tormentors,” for that’s what jailers did back then, especially the ones charged with debt repayment. In some convoluted way that makes no sense, this passage too is taken to support hell, since the Devil is also one who torments those who run up a “debt” of sin. But you can write off anyone who so insists. You know that if they read of “crocodile tears,” they will take it as proof that the one shedding them was a crocodile.

    ******  The bookstore

  • Establishing a Beachhead

    Establishing a Beachhead

    Established a beachhead in enemy territory, they did, like the Allied troops landing in Normandy. It may expand. A younger generation has come along, more savvy with social media. I was surprised to see it.

    On the other hand, it was clearly presented as a trial program. They’re prepared to withdraw if need be.

    Not sure how it will turn out. Will it be as I wrote about the website, then relatively new when I covered it in ‘Tom Irregardless and Me’?

    “Members of the Governing Body thus repeat the pattern they are known for with any new technology: They eye it with suspicion. They advise caution. They know that when the thief switches getaway cars, it is the thief you have to watch, not the dazzling features of the new car. They follow the thief for a time. Convinced at last that they still have a bead on him, they examine the car. They circle it warily, kicking the tires. At last satisfied, they jump in with both feet and put it to good uses its inventors could only have dreamed of.”

    The Witness website is today one of the most robust sites in existence.

    “Things will get interesting right about now.” Social media is that raucous place akin to the synagogue of Acts 19:9 where opposers began “speaking injuriously about The Way before the crowd” to such an extent that Paul “withdrew from them and separated the disciples from them.”

    Maybe the greatest takeaway for me personally is that I now assume the tacit go-ahead to keep on keeping on. Alas, long ago “I fell in love with a roller derby queen.” At times it takes me “round and round.” At times she is the “meanest hunk of woman that anybody’s ever seen.” She consumes substantial time. But when a certain Bethel brother spoke of a state of “war,” I told myself that the first thing you do in war is reconnaissance on the enemy. Few will do it. Even in a literal war, not many do reconnaissance. There’s no encouragement to start. But there is a recognition that some are doing so anyway, drawn by the circumstance that 30% of (U.S.) adults today report they spend “all” their time on the internet, and some are using social media for purposes of reaching them.

    There is plenty of opposition, to be sure. But that has always been the case. When Paul reached Rome, he asked at the synagogue whether anyone had been talking trash about him. “They said to him: ‘We have not received letters about you from Judea, nor have any of the brothers who came from there reported or spoken anything bad about you. But we think it proper to hear from you what your thoughts are, for truly as regards this sect, we know that it is spoken against everywhere.’” (Acts 28:21-22)

    Exactly as today.

    ******  The bookstore

  • Macro and Micro-Evolution: From Where do the Terms Arise?

    The terms “microevolution” and “macroevolution” were coined by an evolutionist. They were not coined by a creationist in an attempt to “divide and conquer.” It was an evolutionist who first suggested that you can’t take the abundant evidence supporting micro and assume that it proves macro. The chasm is too wide. The variation it must account for is too great. In short, macroevolution is not fully reducible to microevolution. The two are qualitatively distinct to some degree.

    Russian geneticist Yuri A. Filipchenko (1882–1930) first proposed the terms microevolution and macroevolution, for the above reasons. He was the mentor of Theodosius Dobzhansky who would go on to produce for American Biology Teacher an essay entitled “Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution.” The intent was to get all those teachers on the same page. Make sure none of them go teaching creation. ‘If you teach biology without evolution, it’s like teaching chemistry without the periodic table’ is the parallel he draws.

    Dobzhansky makes no reference to macro and micro as his mentor did; he rams the two together as do most evolutionists today. But, for my money, it is like ramming similar poles of a magnet together. You reach a point where you’re just kidding yourself if you think you’ve done it. They repel. What proves one does not suffice to prove the other. There is abundant evidence of evolution cited Dobzhansky’s essay, but the specifics are all for micro. It is but educated speculation to apply it to the epochs of macro. It will apply to a degree, but to what degree is the question. It’s not likely “all the way,” as modern evolutionists are apt to say, confusing tonnage with substance.

    It will be like when my wife prefaces a question with, “Honey, do you love me?” “To a degree,” I hedge, for I am awaiting to hear what Herculean task she has in mind for me. I think evolutionists should do the same. ‘To a degree,’ they should answer, and then view the JW-authored series, ‘Was it Designed?’ and ask themselves, ‘Just what Herculean mental construction am I being asked to swallow? Am I willing to go that far? I mean, sometimes when my wife surveys the heaviest pieces of furniture in the house and wants me to move them just for the sake of doing so, I tell her no.

    ******  The bookstore

  • Substituting God for Aliens

    Twice aliens have intervened in human affairs, according to the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Once they did it to jump-start evolution, to implant the notion in a certain famished apeman that he could weild an animal bone as a club to wallop the daylights out of a competing clan. Put to that use, the struggle to survive leapfrogged countless generations of natural selection in an instant. You might think strict evolutionists would cry foul to a meddling outside race putting its finger on the scales to overcome a hurdle and thereby deprive natural selection of the opportunity. But aliens tend also to be very popular with this bunch. So far as I know, none of them ever raised a peep of protest.

    Presently the head apeman had taught all his fellows to do the same—they just watched hm swinging that bone and did it themselves. Within seconds—the movie compressed it into that short a time—they had won over the water hole and food source from the other clan that hadn’t yet figured it out. Exhilarated with victory, he hurls that thigh-bone skyward. Up and up it ascends, then—(setting change)—it falls as an orbiting spacecraft. Millions of year compressed into a split second! That tiny nudge, though cheating, was all humans needed to evolve to the point of sending craft to the moon! There, they would find another nudge from those same aliens in the form of a beacon, which would send them off to a stargate just outside of Jupiter.

    Question: What if you substituted God for that early alien intervention? Would the same crowd so enthused at the first 1 x 9 x 16 dimensioned obelysk (squares of the first three integers!) upgrading that apeman be equally enthused? Of course, it wouldn’t be God nudging him on to beat up on his fellows. It would be God setting apart a certain one of them, implanting whatever he must to make that one separate and special, planting him with mate in a garden-like surrounding and a commission to spread it earth wide?

    Farfetched? Absolutely. Evidence for it? None. But those drawbacks equally apply to aliens, and they are all the rage today. Nobody calls you stupid if you suggest there must be aliens out there. They are more likely to call you stupid if you suggest there are not.

    ******  The bookstore

  • Critical Thinking Will Not Save Us

    What is today known as “critical thinking” is a product of the mindset that adheres to the Darwinian model. Adherents to that model all but have a patent on the phrase. Misunderstanding this, modifying the term to fit their own ends, even those taking their cues from the Bible will speak of how they, too, employ “critical thinking,” as though they are not to be outdone by skeptics using the phrase. But it is in vain. Critical thinking, by definition, totally denies miracles. The Bible records many of them. They are to be appreciated through what Paul calls “the eyes of faith.”

    “Critical thinking” is not a mere modern manifestation of the “reasonableness” or “soundness of mind” that the Bible recommends for all Christians. It is the skeptic’s means of discarding faith. It is the skeptic’s way of saying those eyes of faith have cataracts in need of removal. I never use the term, though I understand how some Christians might. It becomes like the conniving doctor from The Fugitive advising detectives that they will never catch Richard Kimble because “he’s too smart.” Whereupon, one of those detectives says, “Well—we’re smart, too,” and a cacophony breaks out with his fellows declaring how smart they are. So it is with the skeptics. You don’t want to accede to them a monopoly on smarts. We’re smart, too, even if we don’t accept all of their premises.”

    (From: A Workman’s Theodicy: Why Bad Things Happen)

    Elsewhere in the book, there is a section discussing the difficulties in recording history, which is not objective but very subjective. The book adds that, “Historian Allan Guelzo is dubious about the saving value of critical thinking, due to its effect of “cloaking human foible beneath a veneer of science.”

    But I may bang away at this too much, to the point where some all but blow a gasket. It’s just that vast swaths of the world has replaced “All You Need is Love” with “all you need is critical thinking,” and notion that CT is the secret potion that will solve all is so absurd that I just can’t restrain myself. To clarify, I’m not against it if kept in its place. It’s fine insofar as it goes. But it is not capable of going the distance. It is the repairman who shows up for the job with a toolbox stuffed with wrenches when a screwdriver is needed. Worse yet, he is unsure that screwdrivers really exist. Yes, he has heard anecdotally of such things, but how can he be sure they really are valid?

    I should have inserted “in effect” to make it, critical thinking effectively denies miracles, not that it outright does. As Luke Timothy Johnson put it in a lecture regarding the historical-critical method of examining scripture:

    “the historian cannot take up anything having to do with the transcendent or the supernatural. Therefore, the historian cannot talk about the miraculous birth of Jesus, his miracles, his walking on the water, his transfiguration, his resurrection from the dead and so forth. Well, fair enough, the historian can’t talk about those things, but that methodological restraint . . . very quickly becomes implicitly an epistemological denial, that is the historian can’t talk about these things, therefore they are not real.” 

    So the method embracing critical thinking is okay so long as someone does not suppose their critical thinking is the be-all and the end-all, that it’s fine as far as it goes but it doesn’t go everywhere. But if they DO think critical thinking is the be-all and end-all, then the statement of the book is true as-is: ‘critical thinking denies miracles.’

    …It only becomes a problem when people begin to suppose anything other than critical thinking is not thinking at all. Alas, during these days of exalting science, many people DO suppose that. Elsewhere in that lecture, Johnson likens that historical critical method to a Trojan horse. It is eagerly accepted by schools of theology, for who wants to disdain history? and who wants to be thought uncritical? But once wheeled inside, it releases the troops of faith’s destruction.

    …..I think there are many ways of evaluating information. Who can say the process through which one triumphs over the other in a given situation. There is a character in a certain John LeCarre novel who “believed that facts were the only kind of information and he despised whoever was not ruled by them.” I never want to be that character and I think to restrict oneself to any one way of analyzing information assures that one will be. To that character, “human nature was one vast unsavory quagmire.” At the very least, that statement verifies what I have found in life, that critical thinking is not the optimal tool for comprehending human nature.

    ******  The bookstore

  • How’s it Going with “the Wicked” These Days?

    How’s it Going with “the Wicked” these days?

    There are plenty of passages to show that ‘the wicked’ (the Bible’s terminology, not mine) do just fine these days, so that one must serve God through love for his ways, not through thinking it will set one up pretty in the short term. For example, Job’s complaint:

    Why do the wicked live on, Grow old, and become wealthy? Their children are always in their presence, And they get to see their descendants. Their houses are secure, they are free from fear, And God does not punish them with his rod. Their bulls breed without failure; Their cows give birth and do not miscarry. Their boys run outside just like a flock, And their children skip about.  They sing accompanied by tambourine and harp And rejoice at the sound of the flute. They spend their days in contentment And go down peacefully to the Grave [at least they do not escape THAT bit of inconvenience\].  But they say to the true God, ‘Leave us alone! We have no desire to know your ways. Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What would we gain by being acquainted with him? (21:7-15)

    Or Psalm 73, where the carefree ways of those ignoring God almost made the writer stumble:

    As for me, my feet had almost strayed; My steps had nearly slipped. For I became envious of the arrogant When I would see the peace of the wicked. For they have no pain in their death; Their bodies are healthy. They are not troubled like other humans, Nor do they suffer like other men.  Therefore, haughtiness is their necklace; Violence clothes them as a garment. Their prosperity makes their eyes bulge; They have exceeded the imaginations of the heart. They scoff and say evil things. They arrogantly threaten oppression. They speak as if they were as high as heaven, And their tongues swagger about in the earth. So his people turn aside to them, And they drink from their abundant water. They say: “How does God know? Does the Most High really have knowledge?” Yes, these are the wicked, who always have it easy. They keep increasing their wealth.  Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure And washed my hands in innocence.  And I was troubled all day long;   (73:2-14)

    Sharing in the ministry helps, I think, for that is where you can showcase what you have to offer. It builds your own faith as you see how people respond. Here in the Bible are answers to the deep questions of life. Some thirst for such answers. Others do not. A statement in the 1968 book ‘The Truth that Leads to Eternal Life’ reads just as true to today as it did then: True, there has been progress in a materialistic way. But is it really progress when men send rockets to the moon, and yet cannot live together in peace on earth?” Some people think it is. Witnesses look for people who don’t. There is even a difference between those who “sigh and groan” over all the “detestable things” and those who bitch and complain because the politicians they don’t like presently have the upper hand. 

    I highly recommend an offer to read a scripture and see if the person has any interest in discussing it. Some will. Often, I start out with an observation that ‘the world is crazy [which nobody disputes in my part of it] and we are people who think the Bible helps: why is it crazy, what hope for the future, how to live in the meantime. I want to read you a scripture, you tell me what you think, and I am gone.’ This way they know immediately the two things Westerners must know: What does this visitor want? and How long will this take?

    Many years ago my wife and I, for our anniversary, attended a high-class cultural function in which everyone was dressed to the nines—impeccably. During intermission, as they were all sipping wine and mixed drinks, I said to her: “Here’s people we don’t hang out with too often: the wicked!” drawing on the phraseology of Psalm 73. I know, I know, completely unfair. No doubt most of them were nice. My wife, who did not yet savor all my sense of humor, looked at me oddly.

    ******  The bookstore

  • Key Ingredients in the Search for God – Isaiah 58

    We do ourselves a disservice when we allow ourselves to be driven into dead ends, even if it is the name of education. Humans vastly overstate their conclusions with a confidence often unjustified by the underlying facts. Even “settled science” often turns out to be settled by decree. Conclusions tried and true may turn out to be up for grabs, as in this video someone pitched my way as to how “some leading scientists are questioning Darwin’s theory.”

    I shy from things like this, for some degree of natural selection is surely built into the fabric of life. The question is: How much? Fight battles more consequential. These days, that is abiogenesis (life arising completely through natural processes). There is no evidence whatsoever that this has occurred. Incredibly, the confidence of those who state life arose in this manner simply derives from a refusal to consider anything else. Ditto with our knowledge of the universe itself. We know almost nothing about “dark matter” and “dark energy” other than that they must exist, otherwise much of which we have already concluded about the universe is invalid.

    Assessing evidence and gaining knowledge is a plus, but it shouldn’t be made a sacred quest. “We don’t have to know everything” makes for a more appropriate human mantra. It is even shortsighted to argue “evidence” with unbelievers, because the Bible makes clear that evidence is not what it’s all about. “Abundant peace belongs to those who love your law; Nothing can make them stumble,” says Psalm 119:165. Does one love that law or not? It has nothing to do with “evidence.” Nor does Psalm 34:8: “Taste and see that Jehovah is good; Happy is the man who takes refuge in him.” If you don’t like broccoli, will “evidence” convince you that it tastes good? “No man can come to me unless the Father, who sent me, draws him,” Jesus says. (John 6:44) Does he draw them because they have gathered evidence?

    People are so poor at processing evidence that it ought not be one’s guiding light; half the time they get it wrong. Systems of faith recognize that basic human flaw to a much greater degree than systems of non-faith. Nothing wrong with evidence in itself. Pour me a double-shot of the stuff. But don’t make it your sole criteria. Faith is less dependent on processing evidence than is science. The latter totally depends upon it—the former, not so much. Faith helps us overcome the blind spots we impose upon ourselves when we adopt the prerequisite that we must know everything.

    Instead, scriptures continually speak of “preparing” or “softening” one’s heart as a prerequisite to seeking God. It is best to adapt to God’s point of view rather than our own. “Heart” incorporates intellect but is not confined to it. It includes emotion, appreciation, motivation. Here, from the scheduled Bible reading for this week, is a people seeking God while he hides from them. The problem is not that they have neglected to gather evidence. The problem is one of heart, that they don’t act on what they know, and they aren’t much interested in being readjusted:

    “They seek me day after day, And they express delight to know my ways, As if they were a nation that had practiced righteousness And had not abandoned the justice of their God.” (Isaiah 58:2) It matters whether one “practices righteousness,” and of course, it will not be our own righteousness to conform to. It will be his. He is the one “teaching you to benefit yourself,” (Isaiah 48:17) so it’s a deal for us as well.

    “Why do you not see when we fast?” the Isaelites plaintively ask in the next verse.  “‘And why do you not notice when we afflict ourselves?’ Because on the day of your fast, you pursue your own interests.” They either ignore God’s requirements completely or pursue them so half-heartedly that it doesn’t count, like the Christians of Revelation 3:16 who deliberately stayed lukewarm.

    God lays down a few conditions for them, then says (verse 9): “Then you will call, and Jehovah will answer; You will cry for help, and he will say, ‘Here I am!’” But it is easier said than done, for they must desist from that most cherished of human activity: “Stop pointing your finger and speaking maliciously.” (also verse 9) Pay attention to your mother, who said when you point your finger at someone, three fingers point back at you.

    Jehovah summarizes all in next chapter: It’s not that he can’t deliver. “No, your own errors have separated you from your God. Your sins have made him hide his face from you.” That is why “he refuses to hear you.” Plus, it’s not just an OT thing, something unique to Isaiah. Jesus fully endorses that one must walk the walk, rather than devote themselves instead to collecting evidence:

    “Many will say to me in that day: ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and expel demons in your name, and perform many powerful works in your name?’ And then I will declare to them: ‘I never knew you! Get away from me, you workers of lawlessness!’” (Matthew 7:21-23)

    There are many (though the ones obsessed with “evidence” are not necessarily among them) who love the scriptures. But try to get them to live by them? Forget about it. Says Ezekiel, another prophet: “Look! You are to them like a romantic love song, sung with a beautiful voice and skillfully played on a stringed instrument. They will hear your words, but no one will act on them.” (Ezekiel 33:32)

    Now, not to be too hard on the rank-and-file. Most people don’t fit the successive verses of Isaiah 59: “For your palms are polluted with blood And your fingers with error.  Your lips speak lies, and your tongue mutters unrighteousness. No one calls out for righteousness, And no one goes to court in truthfulness.” (59:3-4) But they trust in the “unrealities” (vs 5) that enable all of it, the unrealities of trusting in humans, including the unrealities of self-rule. Through sheer incompetence, even when not augmented by deliberate misconduct, human rulership based upon self-interest results in every sort of abuse. 

    It may be the “unreality” of dominant human teachings. As to how God can exist without a creator, that will be among the things beyond our comprehension. But as to anything else that exists, the simple principle of Hebrews 3:4 applies: “Of course, every house is constructed by someone, but the one who constructed all things is God.” This instantly resonates with the person whose mind has not been messed with. It is validated in everything he sees. He knows of no exceptions. It really takes a colossal and relentless degree of “education” to knock this bit of common sense out of him. Such education is undertaken, however, from kindergarten and on.

    One ought not get complicit with such “unrealities” of human self-rule. For “they hatch the eggs of a poisonous snake, And they weave the cobweb of a spider.  Anyone who eats their eggs would die, And the egg that is crushed hatches a viper.” (vs 5) Think a cobweb makes good cover? It doesn’t. “Their cobweb will not serve as a garment, Nor will they cover themselves with what they make.” (vs 6)

    Of those unrealities (and of you, if you are complicit with them):”Their works are harmful, And deeds of violence are in their hands. Their feet run to do evil, And they hurry to shed innocent blood.  Their thoughts are harmful thoughts; Ruin and misery are in their ways.” Sometimes it’s ruin and misery for the subjects of other human governments, preferably those far away that no one sees. Other times it’s ruin and misery for their own subjects. Indeed, “they have not known the way of peace, And there is no justice in their tracks. They make their roadways crooked; No one treading on them will know peace.” (vs 8)

    The scriptures become very graphic, likening human “righteousness” to a menstrual cloth. It’s sort of like how the way you embarrass an archeologist is to hand him a used tampon and ask them what period is it from. Where is one’s reverence for science to say such a thing? It’s too much. It ought be simply rephrased that science is not absolute, therefore, while one ought not sneer at its conclusions, it is fair to regard them always as tentative, subject to future revision. When cheerleaders of science say ‘Jump!’ there is no need to respond ‘How high.’

    How can it be that evangelizing atheists praise to the stars the wonderful human accomplishments AND my neighbor describes the news as “like a bad accident—you know you should look away, but you can’t”? In some cases, I don’t even think they believe it themselves, but they take the position because their adversaries take the opposite one. At any rate, Isaiah does not shy from the tampon analogy:

    “And we have all become like someone unclean, And all our acts of righteousness are like a menstrual cloth. We will all wither like a leaf, And our errors will carry us off like the wind.” (Isaiah 64:4)

    Notice how there’s a change of narration starting with verse 9. The “they” changes to “we.” Someone has gotten the point. Someone has taken it to heart: “That is why justice is far away from us, And righteousness does not overtake us.  We keep hoping for light, but look! there is darkness; For brightness, but we keep walking in gloom” and so forth, for several verses. You always hope for people to turn around. But it doesn’t happen that often.

    ******  The bookstore

  • “Remove the Wicked Person from Among Yourselves”

    Favorable government treatment of religion was originally based upon the premise that religion does the government’s legitimate work for them. It improves the calibre of the people, making them easier to govern and more of a national asset. Jehovah’s Witnesses are among the few still fulfilling this premise. As a people, they pay more than their share into the national treasury, since they are honest, hard-working, not given to cheating on taxes. Yet they draw on that treasury less, by not abusing government programs and almost never requiring policing. They are a bargain for any country.

    Witnesses think it well when this original “contract” is remembered and not superseded by the modern demand of “inclusion.” While they include races, ethnicities, classes, etc to a greater degree than most (in the US, according to Pew Research, they are comprised of almost exactly 1/3 white, 1/3 black, 1/3 Hispanic, with about 5% Asian added) they do not include within themselves persons refusing to live by Bible principles—though they respect the right of people to live as they choose, just so long as it is not within the congregation.

    They have lately made some legitimate tweaks to address the issues of minors straying from the Christian course, a matter of concern to the government. And, as for those who, after help, manifestly refuse to abide by Bible principles, they have replaced a word that is not found in the Bible (disfellowshipping) with a phrase that is (remove from the congregation). Thus, it becomes a matter of whether a government recognizes a people’s right to live by the Bible. A distracting term that is not found in the Bible has been dropped. Real changes have been made to address any perception that elders are “trigger-happy” toward those straying from Bible values, but the basic thought expressed at 1 Corinthians 5 still holds:

    “In my letter I wrote you to stop keeping company with sexually immoral people, not meaning entirely with the sexually immoral people of this world or the greedy people or extortioners or idolaters. Otherwise, you would actually have to get out of the world. But now I am writing you to stop keeping company with anyone called a brother who is sexually immoral or a greedy person or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner, not even eating with such a man. For what do I have to do with judging those outside? Do you not judge those inside, while God judges those outside? “Remove the wicked person from among yourselves.” (1 Cor 5:9–13)

    ******  The bookstore

  • What is Hell? (Condensed from Previous Posts)

    With a single exception, all instances of “hell” stem from only one of three original language words. Find the meaning of those words, and you’ve found the meaning of hell. Two of those words are Hebrew-Greek equivalents: sheol and hades. They refer to “the place of the dead.” Bad people are said to go there, but so are good people. When the patriarch Jacob was told his son Joseph had died, for example, he “kept refusing to take comfort and [was] saying: “For I shall go down mourning to my son into Sheol!” Did he really expect to burn in hell someday, or did he figure on dying and going to the grave? (Gen 37:35) Or Job, who, amidst great suffering, prayed  “O that in Sheol you would conceal me, that you would keep me secret until your anger turns back” (Job 14:13) A sensible request if sheol is the grave. Not so bright, though, if it is a burning place of torture.


     The third word translated ‘hell’ is gehenna. Every instance of hellfire is ‘gehenna.’ The term refers to the valley of Hinnom outside the walls of Jerusalem. It served as the municipal garbage dump and fires were kept burning continually to consume the refuse. Carcasses of criminals and those not thought worthy of decent burial might be tossed over the wall into gehenna below. It even became symbolic. Giving one a proper burial presupposed they were worthy of future resurrection. Heaving someone into gehenna presupposed their death would be permanent. Thus, when Jesus denounced religious hypocrites: “Serpents, offspring of vipers, how are you to flee from the judgment of Gehenna?” he was suggesting they merited no future resurrection, not that they deserved everlasting torture.
     
    The New World Translation declines to translate the three words into English. Instead, it transliterates sheol, hades, and gehenna directly from the original language into the English. This is an invaluable aid for students in uncovering what these words actually mean.

    ******  The bookstore

  • The Song-Writing Dog: Everybody Oompa

    We knew from the get-go that our rescued dog had a thing for chasing cats. What we didn’t know was that it had a flair for song-writing.

    (Sung to the tune of I Am the Walrus)

    I am lean. My plate is clean. Those cats convene and I am going to nab one.

    See how they run like pigs from a gun, see how they fly

    I’m trying

    Tired of eating cornflakes, waiting for a cat to come

    Maybe in a tee-shirt. Maybe on a Tuesday

    Man, I’m having joy, I’ve been away too long

    I’ll nab a cat, man! I’ll nab a cat, man!

    Like it never saw us, ooh-ooh-oo’ooh!

    It’s not hardly easy-peasy, feeling queasy, pesky cats they’ve all been laying low!

    See how they fly when I’m coming by. See how they run

    I’m trying, I’m trying

    I’m trying, I’m trying

    Mangy cats are busted, No chance they’ll be slipping from my eye

    Gripe a lot, you dish-wipes, Mourn a lot, you feces

    Boy, you’ve been some naughty cats, you let your guard way down

    I’ll nab a cat, man! I’ll nab a cat, man!

    Like it never saw us, ooh-ooh-oo’ooh!

    (Radio tuning noise, music, then a British voice:

    “You men get those cats off the table.”)

    Sitting in an English garden hoping for a visit from one so dumb

    If it doesn’t come, I’ll don a coat and track it in the English rain

    I’ll nab a cat, man! I’ll nab a cat, man!

    Like it never saw us, ooh-ooh-oo’ooh!

    Slinking, stinking, reeking felines, 

    Don’t you think I sit and laugh at you? (ha ha ha hee hee hee ho ho ho)

    See how I smile like pigs in a sty, see how I snie

    I’m trying

    Salmon tuna goldfish, swimming up the Eiffel Tower

    Elementary penguins singing Hari Krishna

    None of them will save ya, not munching even escargot.

    I’ll nab a cat, man! I’ll nab a cat, man!

    Like it never saw us, ooh-ooh-oo’ooh!

    (Rising orchestral musical accompaniment):

    shoot her shoot her

    Oompa oompa, everybody oompa

    Oompa oompa, everybody oompa

    Everybody

    Well, I told you fine blokes. I don’t see any cats around!

    Wait

    Look over there

    “Oh, untimely death!”

    Yeah. That’s what I’m talking about!

    ******  The bookstore