Bttt.
Excellent thread by Cofty. See page 74 if you want the summary.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/experiences/269000/74/The-Pastor-of-my-Old-Church-Tried-to-Re-Convert-Me-Yesterday#4933397
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty 2596 Replies latest jw experiences
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defender of truth
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cofty
Thank you defender of truth. When I get time I will do an updated summary for future reference.
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HeyThere
Thanks DOT that is fascinating stuff.
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villagegirl
Tsunami events that involve loss of life are preventable by early warning systems.
Also the indigenous people survived what killed the 250,000 Cofty thinks God should
have saved. They survived because they saw the sea recede, as it does everywhere before
a Tsunami, the difference was, the indigenous people read the sign and had four hours to
flee inland and all escaped death. Proving the value of tribal myths and observations of nature.
"The Andamanese and other six indigenous groups in Andaman and Nicobar Islands survived the tsunami by taking shelter in the highlands. The myth tells that, before the giant wave comes, the sea recedes. Then the waters flood the earth, destroy it, and make it clean again. On these islands the cicadas are usually loud, but suddenly went silent before the tsunami hit. Saleh Kalathalay noticed the silence and warned everyone about the tsunami. The Moken started to flee toward higher ground long before the first wave struck and were saved." This was speaking of the 2004 event.
From a New York Times Article , Dec 6th, 2004
"There's no reason for a single individual to get killed in a tsunami," Dr. Murty said. "The waves are totally predictable. We have travel-time charts covering all of the Indian Ocean. From where this earthquake happened to hit, the travel time for waves to hit the tip of India was four hours. That's enough time for a warning."
Phone calls were hurriedly made to countries in the Indian Ocean danger zone, she said, but not with the speed that comes from pre-established emergency planning.
"Outside the Pacific these things don't occur very often at all so the challenge is how to make people and government officials aware," she said.
Actually, it doesn't cost all that much to do this properly. Compared to the cost of the damage, this is a no-brainer. -
tootired2care
@villagegirl - A key point that you are not factoring into your rebuttal, is that those tribal people had to figure that out on their own through generations of trial and error. How many died through the ages because of this booby trapped world? God certainly did not give these people insight on how to preserve life in the face of such dangers. Since the begininning of time mankind has had to figure it all out on our own anyways (earthquakes, volcanoes, disease etc.), why is this god you have worthy of any worship given there is zero evidence that it has provided a shred of help to mankind?
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cofty
Villagegirl blames the 250 000 victims for their own violent deaths, thus confirming that there is no necessary connection between theism and compassion.
It's like listening to a drunk driver who killed a crowd of schoolchildren protest that it is their own fault, because his engine was making a hell of a noise as he drove towards them.
Phone calls were hurriedly made to countries in the Indian Ocean danger zone, she said
Millions of humans have been wiped out by natural disasters for hundreds of thousands of years. Remind me when the telephone was invented?
It has taken 108 pages to get an excuse this pathetic. It was worth the wait.
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defender of truth
"Or perhaps free will would be relevant if human negligence always played a role. There will be some who say the scale of the tragedy in natural disasters is partly attributable to humans. The world has the choice to help its poorer parts build earthquake-resistant structures and tsunami warning systems.
A still smoking Krakatoa in 1883, which caused a devastating tsunami
But the technology has not always existed. Was prehistoric man, with his sticks and stones, somehow negligent in failing to build early warning systems for the tsunamis that were as deadly back then as they are today?"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8467755.stm -
cofty
Thanks DOT. That's a good article by David Bain of Glasgow University on the challenge of theodicy following the Haiti earthquake.
The comments below the article contain many of the usual theist responses.
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villagegirl
Who do think God is? If you believe, or did believe.
The WT talks about a New World
but if it is according to the way they run their
present organization, it will be a highly
controlled environment. How much control do
you really want in your life ? How much responsibilty
are we willing to assume for ourselves and for our
neighbors ? How much predictability do you think
is going to make you feel both safe and free ?
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tootired2care
it will be a highly controlled environment.
And the fantasy heaven you hope to go to isn't? If this heaven place is so much better than a WT run North Korean like world, then why according to the book that you profess to believe in was it not good enough for 1/3 of all who ever resided there? The god of christianity is a narcissist. Bravo to the mythical beings of the bible fiction, that had the courage to decide to not spent the rest of eternity on their knees in slavery bowing to the petty god jokehova for their existence.
How much responsibilty are we willing to assume for ourselves and for our neighbors ? How much predictability do you think is going to make you feel both safe and free ?
All of it. It's time we stop burdening, and confusing future generations, and ourselves, with these damaging and foolish notions that there is an all powerful god out there who is taking sides with true believers (tm), and is somehow going to fix everything, and right every wrong.