Further, failing to ascertain whether a concept is fanciful or concrete is a sure sign of trouble.
Tell me this, when a story is told, does the question of whether it actually happened or not have any relevance to what we can learn from it?
IS IT FAIR TO PAY THE SAME DEBT TWICE?? Divine Justice...
by Terry 139 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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John Doe
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Terry
Only things which exist actually exist
So you're telling the rest of us that you, TERRY, know what exists and doesn't exist based on what you as one human being experiences with his physical senses. Talk to a quantum physicist about things humans can't experience and become enlightened, my friend.
I was wondering when Deepak Chopra would walk into the discussion!
Fritopf Capra and Deepak Chopra are people who parlay metaphors into a writing style that rapes Physics.
You cannot read about physics in a book by a popularizer without understanding they are SPEAKING IN METAPHORS and not using the ACTUAL language of Physics which is MATH!
Albert Einstein used metaphor in a useful way to help his mind model the way the physical universe works. He then had to translate his ideas into MATH (with the help of others) in order to TEST his concepts and establish his theories as actual.
What EXISTS is always testable. The difficult part for science is inventing the methodology for testing, quantifying and measuring what actually exists.
ENLIGHTENMENT is not mental gymnastics with ill-defined vocabulary and mushy reasoning; it is a hard slog with the Scientific method.
You need a basis in Philosophy to understand that A=A. A thing is what it is. In order to exist a thing must be SOMETHING.
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John Doe
Regarding the importance of metaphors, I think we can all agree whether we believe Jesus was real or was a fanciful feature of men's imaginations that he used some excellent metaphors to make points while teaching. These examples, in my opinion, suggest that metaphor and imagination are far from unimportant. Rationalization and logic can be good, but they can not be the end all for world views.
Take for instance biological life. We can study and classify and theorize the origin of cells and the workings of organisms. Yet, I think it clear that organisms are more than the sum total of their parts. What separates us from the sum of rna and dna and carbon and water and muscle and bones and tendons and neurons is something that is not easily defined, nor is it close to being completely understood. Life is above and more than the sum total of our parts. Rationalization and logic will not accurately describe what life is.
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Terry
TERRY, open your mind just a little and entertain the POSSIBILITY that there is a dimension that you cannot experience with the five senses. To use a very simplistic illustration: You can't see ultra violet light nor infra red light, but we know it exists on the spectrum. Our physical eyes just can't "see" that frequency.
Ultraviolet light can be measured, detected and used in a practical way; it is part of the electromagnetic spectrum along with the invisible light your microwave oven uses, the radio and television uses and your CD player uses. Nothing mystical at all going on there, my friend.
You are confusing your 5 senses with the job those senses do in acquiring information so that the mind can build synthetic concepts for exploration. Some synthetic concepts turn out to be real and testable; while others are merely fanciful fictions of thought.
Know the difference is the difference between sanity and delusion!
Open YOUR mind a little and let some light in.
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Terry
Terry I think I will trust Jehovah that he gave his only begotten son, Jesus .
Sarah, stop!
You say you will trust Jehovah, right?
But, think a moment. You have never had an angel appear to you and speak directly. You have never heard a voice out of a burning bush.
You RELY entirely on what you are TOLD and what you READ which is presented to you in a certain way.
YOU ASSUME that what you hear and read is FROM Jehovah.
That is your error!
Who does Sarah TRUST?? Not Jehovah! No.
Sarah TRUSTS the people who SAY Jehovah does this and does that.
Sarah TRUSTS that her sources are pure, pristine, untampered by motives of ordinary men.
Sarah ERRS.
Rethink this, Sarah. You are being manipulated---NOT BY JEHOVAH--but, by people who PRETEND TO REPRESENT Jehovah.
The difference is the most important distinction you will ever make in your entire life!!
Sarah---that is why YOU HAVE YOUR OWN MIND!!
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Terry
Human history shows that humanoids existed millions of years. We have been evolved, and that is a fact. Homoerectus, neantertal, homosapiens. they were part of the human race.
Adam was chosen at that time by God, and he was giving the free gift of the Holy Spirit, and the soul. That is all. God he was going to use Adam to glorify nature, and human race, but Adam failed to do that.
So that is why He sent Jesus to fullfill that purpose.
Do you believe everything you are told?
Do you own any part of what you believe?
Where is your personal responsibility to your own intellect to stop and consider what goes into your head?
Let me ask you a question which I think is worth asking you.
Are you aware that you are already a renegade Christian ?
Christianity is not composed of people who, for the most part, would even begin to agree with your statements above BECAUSE YOU MENTION HOMINIDS!
You are already out on a limb with even your own group of believers!!
Science and Christianity only pretend to get along. Science is testable, quantifiable and predictable thinking. Christianity is doing what you are told.
How did you get to the point you believe science? You MUST BE THINKING somewhere and somehow. So, why not be even-handed and reasonable about what you are thinking.
ANSWER my question about JUSTICE, please as regards the Christian Doctrine of Salvation.
You have mixed Platonic philosophy (the soul) with modern science (hominids) and Christianity (Jesus) and the soup must taste awful!!
You CAN think, you just haven't done it logically yet.
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Terry
This is how we came to be. Now along with such life we can have, identity, personality, and the rest. This is important to us, but this is not what God valued the most. It was this life itself,
Oh my, my my....
A person on a respirator with a dead brain has LIFE! But, they have lost their identity and personality because they cannot do and be what consciousness allows. Without your identity you don't exist; only your body does!
You are off on the wrong foot right from the outset.
The electrical activity at a cellular level animates you so that the entire gestalt of your physical body is functional. IT IS NOT YOU.
You are making a part greater than the whole!
But you said: Children are the result of birth! You are imputing life to non-existent non-entities . And further: Imputing identity to unformed spermatazoa not even united with eggs which were not yet in ovaries yet to come is beyond whimsical and ignorant---it is pathological nonsense.
Nonsense to you perhaps, but not to God. That life, capable of propagation, capable of sustaining living beings is what really mattered. Without it we are just dust. That life is now found in us, in our blood for example and such blood does not think does it? Yet it counts with God beyond any identity or being that may be attached to it.
You are making a fetish out of a conceptual misunderstanding.
Our blood is mostly water and nutrients. Yet, you say God values this above the human person???
What are you thinking? Or, are you thinking?
It is our personal identity which makes us unique among other living things. How we think, act, feel and react is personal to us and distinguishes our mind from what is "other".
If you were to interact in e-mail with a dozen different people (without seeing their address) you'd quickly be able to determine who was your mother, father, sister, brother from the answers they gave to specific questions. The opinions they present would be specific to their own thought processes. Why? Because their identity is unique.
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I'll handle your "life in the blood" subject separately.
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Terry
Genesis 9:4 But flesh with the life thereof , which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
Genesis 9:5 And surely your blood of your liveswill I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man .
John 6:54 Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood , hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
In this universe (at least the one and only one I live in) there are only two alternatives: existence and non-existence.
Living organisms either exist or they do not.
Living organisms have a conditional existence. Inanimate matter does not. It simply IS.
What is the "conditional existence" which living organisms have?
Existence (Life) depends on a specific course of action. Existence must be sustained, maintained and regulated second by second to continue existing.
Inorganic matter is indestructable, it changes its forms, but it cannot cease to exist.
It is only the living organism which faces a constant alternative of non-existence.
The issue of LIFE or DEATH is plain enough.
What is LIFE, then
Definition: LIFE is a PROCESS of self-sustaining and self-generated actions.
How doe we know this? Because, any living organism which fails in the actions vital to survival cease to exist! It DIES! Its organic and chemical elements become inanimate materials that decay and disperse.
The chief PURPOSE of a living organism is first and foremost the maintenance and continuance of actions that maintain its life functions.
SELF-SUSTAINING ACTION must be goal-oriented toward maintenance or LIFE cannot continue.
What does all the above (description) have to do with the scriptures you cited in the box above???
Primitive men with no scientific understanding of LIFE made the best (magical) guesses they could make and wrote them down as God's words.
Clearly, early man did NOT UNDERSTAND that life was a continuous fueling process, a chemical process, an excretory process and an interactive bargain with the elements. To them is was GOD MAGIC!!
LIFE to the early non-scientific thinker was the INFESTATION of the human body with a GOD MAGIC called the SOUL.
How you can present this kind of thinking as any kind of rational, substantive proof of something actual is beyond me!
LIFE is a process and not a THING ITSELF.
Your conceptual tools have failed you.
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Terry
Justice cannot be subjective in the practical sense. It can only be made to appear abstract by failing to define it.
Since when does defining something mean the definition is not subjective? Once again, I propose that if justice were as objective as you seem to think, there would be no discussion about what justice is--it would be a self established fact. That justice is a self established fact, I think we can agree, is not the case.People smoke, get cancer and die. Yet, you can still argue with plenty of people that smoking is self-destructive and they will argue back about it.
You can lead a horse to water, but, you can't make him drink.
The failure of people to accept something such as the fact that the earth is a sphere does not mean the spherical nature of the Earth is not an established fact.
Controversy is disagreement.
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John Doe
The failure of people to accept something such as the fact that the earth is a sphere does not mean the spherical nature of the Earth is not an established fact.
False analogy. The shape of the earth is a physical question. The notion of justice is an abstract question.