Date   : Wed, 27 Jul 2011 14:05:37
From   : heyrick.beebsoc@... (Rick Murray)
Subject: [BeebSoc] Witnesses...

Hi,

This is a moan. For the most part I kept my mouth shut. Meh.


Had the Jovies around. Today's informal discussion was the prophecies of 
the book of Daniel, and how it affects life today. Apparently there was 
a recent Jehovah's Witness training seminar where they uncovered the 
belief that the feet of some statue are now supposed to represent the 
devil; and the divisions of the kingdoms of earth. We are living in 
exciting times, apparently, for they may actually see the fulfilment of 
God's promise... are Jovies one of the 2012 mob?

The end of the woman's excited speech ended with the quote from their 
own bible "And the dream is reliable, and the interpretation of it is 
trustworthy.".

WHOA! Hang on? There's no actual statue?!? This was a DREAM? And you're 
basing all of your hopes and wishes on a dream featured in a book that 
was actually written to pacify the Jews during the Maccabean Revolt? 
Seriously?


I'll tell you what. I have sweet dreams with animated kittens (yes, they 
even have black outlines and stuff) and I have dreams that would make 
George A. Romero cack himself. But none of my dreams make it much 
further than random fodder for some of the fiction I write. [I'd do a 
manga, but I'm about as good at drawing as the XKCD guy] I certainly 
wouldn't bother with heavy interpretations, and I really really wouldn't 
have it be a big point in a religion, never mind a prophecy.


She said that things are getting so much worse in the world, with the 
rich becoming richer and the poor becoming poorer.
Yeah? So what's new?
Actually, we are not as badly off as it sounds. Okay, it was a brave new 
world in the '50s, everything rocked hard in '81 and was burned out by 
'89, and compared to past decades we are on the butterslide to hell.

But the reason I would refuse to apologise to blacks for their slavery 
past is, while they had it pretty bad, the fact was back around those 
times the land owners and the wealthy/titled had the money and the 
privilege, while the poorer were the nearest Lord's personal bitch. Even 
children. Workhouses were deporable places, but that was about all the 
poor could aspire to. Compared to that, at least most of us can moan 
about our meagre pensions...


She then said that the kingdom of God would come to earth and provide a 
wonderful life for everybody who accepts his rule. Those who reject his 
rule... well, you don't want to delve into that.

So tell me, how is this any different then <insert random dictator>?


Gah, I'll stop here, "Panic Room" is on C5 so I can forget about all of 
this.


Best wishes,

Rick.