Thank you Bill. I'm sorry. I can't resist a good fight! So I started a new thread. Did you see it?
Atheists..... throwing the baby out with the bath water ?
by snare&racket 403 Replies latest jw friends
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metatron
Uh...... no
Shale gas and oil is already here and growing, so much so that companies like Chesapeake are cutting back because the price of nat gas has fallen. Experts did not expect the export of natgas being developed in the US now. The Bakken drilling is going like crazy - and the US will soon be a net exporter of fuel (but not yet selfsufficent in oil) for the first time in decades.
If you don't think shale gas development is real, then you need to consider the massive protests about fracking in NY and Pa.
"Cold Fusion" is not controlled fusion in the usual sense but is now being confirmed or supported by accepted various authorities. If they can make it practical, everything changes radically.
metatron
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Bungi Bill
Metatron,
This is an extremely interesting subject to expand on, and also a matter of critical importance. However, it is something properly for discussion on another thread, not on this one (lest we get accused by snare&racket of "bumping"!).
Bill.
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tec
Here's another way I've looked at this very question.
What did my faith get right, what did it improve morally (the scientific morality of Harris) how am I better for my previous faith? The answer , oddly enough, was that there was not one single teaching that they got right. The reason being is that every single teaching was predicated on a lie.
Q, was this the clarification on the question that you asked me? Or were you just responding to the OP?
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Billy the Ex-Bethelite
S&R,
Great OP.
Many times I've asked myself "How could I ever have believed that nonsense?" Probably the biggest factor has to be that everyone around me that I was close to and trusted also believed that nonsense.
As an agnosto-atheist, I don't think I'm throwing any baby out with the bath water. It's more a matter that I realize the emperor has no clothes... and I don't want to keep dressing like that emperor.
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shamus100
Metratron,
I imagine if that technology did become feasible big oil would buy it and hide and stash. ;(
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maksym
Dear Snare and a Racket,
I read your OP and thought it was very nice and came from your heart. I often wonder how any person from the religion of the Watchtower could just go from them, to nothing, or Atheism in one swell swoop. However I have noticed a few things in your post that are of concern.
Most people who leave the Wathtower never go and investigate other Christian religions, or more importantly look toward DIRECTED studies of the Bible outside of what they were taught in the Watchtower. Have you done this?
Most people, as I have assumed from your post, read the Bible on their own and try to make a more clear path. This also is a problem. The reason is we enter into THAT Biblical reading with a bias. The Bible cannot be read alone. A person also needs to be aware not to read into those verses with their previous "baggage" or former religion, yet alone with their modern day ethics and morality. Also we cannot read into the Bible by ourselves without having some training on hermeunitics and exegesis. To do so is a story in vain.
When we as a people come to the Bible, before we even open one page, we automatically come to understand certain conclusions before the book is even opened. The example I give is that most witnesses think the Bible is a literal book, and in that what it says is always to be taken literally. Also for that matter, with the exception of symbologies, is a directive book.
We also seem to think that the the good Book is made for our interpretation of ethics and values. When we read the Bible in this way we tend to be lost or confused.
It is easy to be an Atheist when you leave the Society of Watchtower propaganda in a philisophical kind of way. I believe or theorize that it is because everything must make SENSE. We must justify OUR morals today with what we have been taught. I also believe that the Watchtower is a place where empiricism and rationalism rule. The only difference is that in our society today God and the supernatural Biblical world cannot be empiraclly defined. So, if the entire Bible was presented to you in rationalism then, who is to stop a person after finding said teachings contradict, to go to absolute empiricism and rationalism and the defining philisophical positions one holds as the worldview.
It is a no brainer.
You have gone from everything making sense to again everything making sense. The only difference is you have changed your authority figure to define that path for you. It is still empiricism, only under a different tune.
From Watchtower Science to Modern Science.
Maybe you have chosen comfort.
Peace
Maksym
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Bungi Bill
One thing that the JWs did get right is the statement that 'Religion is a Snare and a Racket."
Of course, as somebody has already pointed out, J.F. Rutherord was either unable or unwilling to realize that this applied just as much to his religion as it did to all others.
Bill.
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NewChapter
Interesting Mak. Your theory is that it is 'easy' to go from WT to atheism. Your theory is that the bible cannot be understood without someone wiser to direct us. And who would that be? And who taught them? Who was first?
So your theory is that this entire work was written out as fact, but should not be taken as such, because a rational mind cannot understand it. Therefore we must have faith in the understanding of other humans in order to have faith in the god presented. In other words, god cannot be understood by writings that were inspired by him, but only by more knowledgeable people who think they can offer the best interpretation.
Perhaps you will allow me to interpret the bible for you, since you are unable to understand it on your own. What makes my interpretation any less valid than another's interpretation---afterall---your god left you on your own at the mercy of imperfect humans to help understand him. Even though he probably could have chosen a less messy method.
One does not have to study every Christian faith to conclude it's all false. One only needs to investigate the premise and the truths around us and decide if they hold up. When someone walks up and says, look you don't understand because no one has taught you, let me teach you, and shut down your rational brain---well alarm bells go off big time. CULT my rational brain screams. But your brain says 'listen to those that know better." CULT
I have not patience for a person that tells an atheist they are being too rational. You remind me of another poster. Do you use the term exegesis often? I'll be checking. In the meantime, I will be rational---and that is certainly not easy.
NC