Freedom of speech is a wonderful thing isn't it?
I think so but I doubt god does,...;)
JWs & Atheists - Great (Cultic) Minds Think Alike
by Perry 141 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Elsewhere
Elsewhere, you should come down to San Anto, I can get some... err... 'stuff' that will make you see 'God'!
Woo Hoo!
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Spook
I swore I responded to this, but maybe Perry is peddling dissonance theory (Festinger, various 1950's) in multiple threads. Perry, atheists (with the exception of communist states) are not particularly at risk of this phenomenon. Dissonance relies highly on external factors (Cialdini, INFLUENCE) and social pressures to maintain. Individually arrived at points of view largely detached from an active reinforcing social network may be delusional for many reasons, but this is not a good one.
Further, dissonance theory has been supplanted and incorporated in other more robust models. It's "old hat" psychology.
And I'll repeat the natural constant point I made: The value of a constant cannot be said to be unlikely. Only if you knew a possible range of values which existed elsewhere could you set a statistical threshold. If there were other values, then it wouldn't be a constant, it would be a variable. Unless the Theist can proved there are other possible values of a constant then this is a complete non issue.
My question to Perry: What is the possible range of values for the speed of light in a vacuum, and how do you know?
The theist is furhter trumped if one is making a logically pragmatic argument. If God created the universe he need not be bound by physical laws in his creation, and one would not expect there to have to be "finely tuned" values to support life. Only in naturalism would you expect there to be such limited range of existance-supporting phenomena. Why? Because in naturalism life is not the point of the universe.
It is, for example, extremely likely that any of us exist. Try this math on for size.
You came from...
1 in billions of life time sperm
1 in hundreds of life time eggs
1 in dozens of possible sexua partners
exponentiated over thousands of human generations. Yet, you're still here. Enormously unlikely in the broad sense, yet certainly true.
Litterally, if your great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother had taken a leak before she went to bed after having sex, the entire world may be drastically different.
The fine tuning argument is an epic failure.
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Perry
Mastodon,
Thank you for stepping up to the podium!
Being able to think freely
Are you able to think freely Mastodon? I mean after I thoroughly debunked the false definition of the word atheist in my original post, you still pulled out an opposing definition from another source. The word is understood a particular way among the gerneral populace, it is defined a certain way historically, and it is defined a certain way from authoritative sources like the Oxford English Dictionary. Yet, the definition you propose is it's opposite ie. "without belief". It sounds to me like you have decided that the term atheist does not conote a world-view and you have simply cut and pasted a definition "compatible" with that falsity. Is that freedom? Or, is it slavery to an ideology that wishes to mask itself as freedom?
Being able to take resposibility for my own actions
Are you able to take responsibility for your actions? Atheists complain that if there is a God he must be "bad" because he doesn't prevent people from doing evil. Ever had your stero ripped off out of your car, been robbed etc? I bet you called the poilice. Ever accepted extra change at the store that wasn't yours? Ever cheated on your taxes? What does that make you? Ever been lied to in business? Did you report the fraud? Have you reported your own fraud to those you have lied to in the past? True responsibility would require retribution for each and every moral crime you have ever committed wouldn't you agree?
You see we all like justice. The problem is that we ourselves are not just. God, seeing all - must by necessity punish evil; or else he would be a collaborator in the evil. Get it?
Not condemning people to 'hell'/destruction because they don't 'believe' as I do
Aww Mastodon, people don't go to hell for not believing like other people do. They go to hell because they broke God's (and there own) laws and they seek the justice from others that they deny for themselves.
Being free from Bible/Religion induced fears and superstitions
I agree that atheism will temporarily remove fear from a person. But at what cost? Digesting infinite universes, accepting others views of right and wrong? How do you now know what is right and what is wrong? There will always be those that will present you with illusions for the purpose of manipulating you.
Additionally, some fear is a good thing..... Like fear of punishment from the police, your wife, friends etc. Total freedom from fear is merely bondage to punishment.
Not butting into people's lives to tell them how to live their lives
I am willing to bet that if you are lied to by a friend or family member, out of love you will tell them how they ought to live their life...at least in connection with you. I don't buy that.
Being able to see and appreciate people without the distorting lense of the Scriptures
This one has a false premise embedded in the statement. How do you know that the Scriptures are distorted? Is it because you feel that you are good and the scriptures claim the unassailable truth that every man is a liar? If so, you are living in a world that is flying upside down. Reality is ALWAYS superior to illusion, even if it is painful at first. Truth is always victorious.
Helping and loving people because I want to, not because an archaic book tells me I HAVE to
What if your version of "helping" is actually hurting? How would you be able to tell the difference? What if the love you spread today is later viewed as "hate" by those that change definitions? Whose definition would you "know" to be correct?
In other words, freedom. A kind of freedom that fundamentalist fanatics will never know, no matter what the storybook says.
Im sorry Mastodon, I don't see freedom here. I see slavery to your own and others' ever-changing notions of freedom.
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jws
The JW may even experience feelings of superiority because he is “able” to understand the “true” definition of what it means to be a Christian, even while 99.9% of all other people are deceived and “just can’t get it”.
According to the PEW research, that would be 99.3% that aren't JWs.
You're trying to argue semantics. One definition for observation is to observe but not participate. Maybe you've had an efficiency expert come to "observe" your work so that they can look for ways to improve it. In this sense, the observer does not participate. It's sad that you can only see one meaning for a word as it fits your argument. OnTheWayOut summed up the JW view pretty well.
The argument about belief in your job makes no sense. According to your dictionary definition, it's a "feeling that something exists or is true, especially without proof". The fact of whether or not one has a job can be proven.
I don't get the whole numbers argument. Just because something can be measured with consistency isn't proof of a creator. Throw a pile of dirt on the ground, it'll create a shape. The chances of duplicating that exact same shape, down to the atomic level is staggering. Yet that one pattern you're looking at exists.
I reject the notion that athiests are without belief. Many may have a belief in a way to live, such as a belief that it's better not to harm your fellow man.
Atheists like to present themselves as lovers of facts, quasi-scientists, above the taint of false interpretation. The fact of the matter is that atheists have adopted a looking-glass lense that requires them to interpret phenonma incorrectly so that their precious world-view is not disturbed.
I think I've only seen that among Christians. I recently asked a Christian friend of mine to read the account of the flood. How many birds did Noah take on the ark? One verse specifically says 2. Another specifically says 7. He never answered. He read and read, trying to twist words or meanings, trying to figure out how to harmonize these two variations so that his world-view was not disturbed instead of re-evaluting his assumptions. He never answered me. A few weeks later, I asked him if he ever figured it out. He conveniently forgot about the whole conversation and had to look it up again. Still no answer. His mind conveniently tossed out anything that would shake his faith. His religious teachers have at times made great claims to unique interpretations regarding the true meaning of this or that verse because of improper translation. Now to have to admit that the bible isn't actually that cohesive.
And the next step. If the Bible isn't perfect, it cannot be from God. If the Bible isn't God's book, why do you believe all of the things in it?
I don't think I've seen an athiest reluctant to change their thinking on scientific evidence if the evidence warrants it. On the other hand, I don't see them jumping onto the God bandwagon because some Christian draws an invalid conclusion.
It is not that atheists are without belief, they are in actuality full of belief as to how things should be for you, and for me... as they interpret facts in their world. The atheist paradigm requires belief in the impossible and is reducible to : “Because I exist, there is no God.”
I don't see where the belief in the impossible comes in. Rarity and impossibility are two different things entirely. Again, what are the odds of somebody being born with the exact DNA as you? Pretty staggering. Yet here you are.
I don't see athiests saying "Because I exist, there is no God". It's more like "because there's no evidence".
Prove it. Where is all of this scientific proof?
And in your world, we're not talking about some greater being that created things. We're talking about a personal creator that not only created everything, but hears all of our prayers and intervenes on a daily and never-ending basis.
What are the odds of such a being existing? Surely he must be a very complex being indeed. Are you saying he just exists by chance? Obviously he must have a creator. Who created him?
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Perry
Could you (or God) create a triangle with values that are any different? Even by a fraction of 1 degree? NO! That could very well be how the Universe is. There are no values that are finely tuned - they simply could not be any other way!
Nicolau,
Pure C. D. That is not what scientists say:
Dr. David D. Deutsch, Institute of Mathematics, Oxford University: "If we nudge one of these constants just a few percent in one direction, stars burn out within a million years of their formation...., If we nudge it a few percent in the other direction, then no elements heavier than helium form. No carbon, no life. Not even any chemistry. No complexity at all."
Dr. Paul Davies, noted author and professor of theoretical physics at Adelaide University:
"The really amazing thing is not that life on Earth is balanced on a knife-edge, but that the entire universe is balanced on a knife-edge, and would be total chaos if any of the natural 'constants' were off even slightly. You see," Davies adds, "even if you dismiss man as a chance happening, the fact remains that the universe seems unreasonably suited to the existence of life -- almost contrived -- you might say a 'put-up job'."
When Sir Fred Hoyle was researching how carbon came to be, in the "blast-furnaces" of the stars, his calculations indicated that it is very difficult to explain how the stars generated the necessary quantity of carbon upon which life on earth depends. Hoyle found that there were numerous "fortunate" one-time occurrences which seemed to indicate that purposeful "adjustments" had been made in the laws of physics and chemistry in order to produce the necessary carbon.
Hoyle sums up his findings as follows:
A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintendent has monkeyed with the physics, as well as chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. I do not believe that any physicist who examined the evidence could fail to draw the inference that the laws of nuclear physics have been deliberately designed with regard to the consequences they produce within stars.
Adds Dr. David D. Deutch: If anyone claims not to be surprised by the special features that the universe has, he is hiding his head in the sand. These special features ARE surprising and unlikely.
These are just a few that are readily available.
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Mastodon
Perry: You see things how are convenient to your train of thought, or lack there of. Everything you replied is nothing more than your opinion, skewed by your beliefs, of course, because you don't know me or how I live my life and how I relate to others. Oh, and I don't need a book to tell me what's right and what's wrong. The use of reason and common sense are a much better 'guide'. Calling, what I consider freedom, 'slavery' is just another example how people like you think they know everything. How can a person be a slave to oneself?... that notion makes as much sense as being bound to man-created beliefs, contained in an ancient, men compiled book and calling it 'freedom'. That is my opinion. :)
Of course I replied to your request in the way that I see the subject, which is not my opinion, it's my life. Now please, instead of replying with mere opinions or speculations to such trivial posts like mine, I would love to read your answers to Spook and Elsewhere.
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Mastodon
repost.
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jws
Won't anyone please describe the goodness of it?
How about these.
Once you accept that some magical being isn't going to get you out of every jam, tell you what's right and wrong, etc., you take responsibility for your own actions and grow as a person. Even if there is a God, don't you think he'd be much more proud of you if you learned to behave well and treat each other well without having to read a manual on how to live?
If you believe this life is all there is, you will make the most of it and appreciate every day.
If there is a God, what if it's Allah and not Jesus or Jehovah? Would you still be all hyped up about believing in God? No. Because it's your God or nobody elses. If we didn't believe in our own Gods, we wouldn't fight as much. Even within Christianity, you have people fighting. Jehovah's Witnesses follow roughly the same Bible and you have more in common with them than say, Muslims, yet you blast them.
Each religion has it's own holy book. Some people imply that the Bible says the earth is man's to use-up. With that thinking, they give no concern to whether their SUV's harm the earth. Whether they are harming ecosystems by deforestation, pollution, or excessive hunting. After all, all of the animals are ours to eat. Until there aren't any more. If we got away from these silly ideas, we would work to preserve our resources and our Earth, knowing it's the only home we have.
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Perry
What's the difference in that belief and the belief that the annointed members of the 144,000 "know" they are of the chosen?
Easy. For one thing, the children of God will speak truth not participate in the denying of millions of people the judgment escaping blood of Jesus. If the phony children of God could provide even one scripture showing how a person can have their sins forgiven outside of the New Covenant and without Jesus as their Mediator, maybe they'd have something to look at. But they can't because they're aren't any. This is easy to spot. Others are much harder. Jesus himself said that the wheat and the tares would grow up together. It is an individual knowing. That is why it is advisable that a person ask God if He views him as his Child. God knows and will bear witness internally.
How can one ridicule JWs for their Memorial beliefs and doctrines, then spout this for proof of a god?
Easy. Because their practices are not in his Word.