I live in the lofts next to the Kingdom Hall right across from Ford Field, so I'm right there. I even let a JW friend of the family use one of my parking spots in return for him helping out with my mom so much in the past.
Witnesses walking in the middle of the street made me late for work this morning, so I'm already aggravated. My street isn't the "narrow road" that was being referred to, idiots.
Pacopoolio
JoinedPosts by Pacopoolio
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LIVE from Ford Field international DO
by darth frosty injust wanted to show the activity in downtown detroit from the convention.
trafic is on jam!.
lots of people .
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Pacopoolio
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Reconciling animals and suffering
by Pacopoolio inwe know that christians generally go through ridiculous mental voodoo to explain why a benevolent god allows human suffering, and none of it makes any sense, or is filled with bunk logic.
that's what happens when you try and retrofit a jewish "god is good and evil" religion into a benevolent religion.. .
one of the biggest "trips" to a jw/christian in continuing this line of thought is asking them why god would create animals simply to suffer and die, then, after they try to blame everything on adam (whose brain god supposedly created, and who put him into the exact situation that had an influence on that brain to cause him to sin).
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Pacopoolio
We know that Christians generally go through ridiculous mental voodoo to explain why a benevolent God allows human suffering, and none of it makes any sense, or is filled with bunk logic. That's what happens when you try and retrofit a Jewish "God is good and evil" religion into a benevolent religion.
One of the biggest "trips" to a JW/Christian in continuing this line of thought is asking them why God would create animals simply to suffer and die, then, after they try to blame everything on Adam (whose brain God supposedly created, and who put him into the exact situation that had an influence on that brain to cause him to sin). Answers and their rebuttals include:
- Animals didn't kill each other in the Paradise - sin messed that up.
*There is TONS of evidence that dinosaurs killed, fought, and ate each other, and they still suffered and died in painful ways even without that.
- Animals don't think and work on instinct unlike us superior humans.
*Any pet owner would tell you that's idiotic. They feel, have emotions, predict pain, avoid pain, etc. on various levels. They recognize "self." Apes, dogs, dolphins, pigs, and other animals "feel" on a level close to humanity. The "animals are stupid robots" idea has long been phased out.
Then, if you want to REALLY attempt to hit home, ask them, "In fact, knowing that animals suffer, why do you EAT them and add to their suffering?"- God told Noah he could eat animals.
*So why would God ADD to animal suffering on top of what they already experienced by creating one more predator for them? Why would a loving God cause suffering like that?You will never, ever, not get a blank stare where you immediately see the cognitive dissonance breaking and them walking away. In fact, in JW land, this is one of the easiest ways to get someone to stop talking to you - as it's something they encounter on a day to day basis and can't really reconcile. It generally bothers them to come to this realization, so they think that this "bother" is coming from the Devil as opposed to their natural logical senses seeing an obvious contradiction.
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Go to Detroit DC video
by bruh2012 inlocal needs part tonight ---featuring a 5 min.
talk and showing the congregation a video (approx.
15 mins) from the gb to encourage all to go to detroit for the dc.. why?
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Pacopoolio
I literally live across from where that convention will be held, and it's perfectly safe and clean. It's right in the middle of downtown, which is the only area in the city proper fully policed and such. The only people in that area are upper middle class yuppies and hipsters.
If anything, the convention-goers will be bringing the neighborhood down.
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Where Do You Shop For Good Deals/Lower Prices?
by minimus ini know some people swear by ebay.. i like to actually see the product i am buying.
i'm not a big internet shopper.. places like job lots or discount stores like dollar tree are what i usually like.
k&g men's clothes and dsw shoes are other great spots to get big discounts.. where do you shop?.
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Pacopoolio
http://www.fatwallet.com is, hands, down, the best way to shop. If you want to save and aren't using fatwallet or similar, you're doing it wrong.
- Firstly, the site lists a bunch of ridiculous deals constantly (it's an aggregate coupon site).
- Secondly, if you sign up (which is just entering name, address, etc.), you can get cash back on almost any purchase you make. So, for instance, if you use amazon or orbitz or whatever, you click on the amazon link FROM Fatwallet, and get 2.5% cash back or whatever on every purchase, which gives you auto savings on top of whatever savings you're already getting from the mark down.
There's no reason not to shop without filtering through a cash back process. I've done ridiculous stuff like get good 40" 1080p televisions at 120 refresh rate for ~250 total with aggregate coupon sites, timing, and cash back.
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What was the "logical straw" that broke your camel's back?
by Pacopoolio ini had a bunch of tiny little nags that always bothered me about the bible/god/etc.
that eventually led to me drifting away, but this was my personal, singular issue that no one could address.
i think i mentioned it before here, but, for summation again:.
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Pacopoolio
Pacopoolio,
Sounds like you came across, independently perhaps, with the idea of determinism. You might enjoy reading this book: Freedom Evolves by Dannel Dennnet.
Yes, I did start coming across determinism (as many thinking people often independently do) when young, which JWs ignore (because free-thinking is discouraged). Freedom evolves does not get around this, really - it just stresses the illusion of free-will that everyone has when making a decision and presents it as the actual definition of free will. It's basically a semantic change that doesn't really have an effect on much.
From a Biblical/God/JW standpoint, however, the semantics don't mean anything, because the truth of the matter always puts the onus on Jehovah. JWs saying were only fleshly bodies and ignoring the "immortal soul" concepts of other religions -completely- destroys their teaching of a wise, perfect God, because he directly created fleshly bodies that would sin. It's a completely broken concept. -
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What was the "logical straw" that broke your camel's back?
by Pacopoolio ini had a bunch of tiny little nags that always bothered me about the bible/god/etc.
that eventually led to me drifting away, but this was my personal, singular issue that no one could address.
i think i mentioned it before here, but, for summation again:.
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Pacopoolio
sspo; That was one of my favorites too.
144,000? That's literal. The twelve tribes they're drawn from in the same context? Figurative because there are tribes that aren't actual Israelite tribes!
The worst part about my personal Bible Study were the attempts at getting me at, like, 8 to understand where the Society got 1914 from (counting "Times" and stuff from Daniel prophecies that made no sense). Even then, numerology didn't ring true to me.
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How do Bible believers get around this question.... ??
by Phizzy inbible believers of the literalist persuasion like the wt and other weird fundies actually believe the bible stories and chronology and therefore believe that adam and eve were the first humans.. those of us of european ancestry all contain within our dna a percentage of neanderthal dna.
the neanderthals died out 30,000 years ago.. how will the wt and other bible literalists (an untenable position by the way) get around the facts ?.
i suppose by simply ignoring the facts, as with the flood of noah and a myriad other things ?.
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Pacopoolio
- Humans are imperfect, as are scientists, and we can't accept what they say as fact now as it is always changing. Only the Bible has been proven true to be fact via fulfilled prophecies and showing the right way to live one's life. Dating methods are not exact, and we can't trust them as-is.
- Neanderthals are obviously part of the human "kind" and were probably a tribe of humans like Cain's family, or possibly even a relationship to Nephilim and such. Neanderthals existing does not disprove the Bible.
The only way out of this is to show that the Bible is -not- either the "best way of living" or have fulfilled prophecies, which will auto-apostacize you in their minds and either get you DFed or ignored.
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What was the "logical straw" that broke your camel's back?
by Pacopoolio ini had a bunch of tiny little nags that always bothered me about the bible/god/etc.
that eventually led to me drifting away, but this was my personal, singular issue that no one could address.
i think i mentioned it before here, but, for summation again:.
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Pacopoolio
I had a bunch of tiny little nags that always bothered me about The Bible/God/etc. that eventually led to me drifting away, but this was my personal, singular issue that no one could address. I think I mentioned it before here, but, for summation again:
As a late teen, I got into web programming. That got me to think more logically, as I was constantly dealing with logical rules that followed logical progression. It began training my brain to completely think in those kinds of terms.
One day, I had to give a #4 talk about Adam and Eve or something, and the simplest thing just clicked:
1) What makes a person is a combination of their biology, experiences, and how their biology impacts their experiences. Our brains are essentially really, really complex computers, our programming is set by a mix of our initial birthing and the experiences it is exposed to.
2) As such, we have no -actual- control over what we do because our actions are dictated by how our brains work, which is dictated by our biology and experiences up until the point in which we make a decision.
3) While us making mistakes and "going bad" falls under the umbrella of "imperfection" with certain Christian theology, Adam, Eve, and Satan were created "perfect" and did not have that starting flaw.
4) If God created their biology (or spirit biology), and created the environment that they were placed in, then God is by default, at fault because he made something that would inevitably turn out badly. It is EXACTLY the same as me programming an application, and it failing, and me blaming the application for failing because "I made it perfectly, it decided to fail on its own."
5) Therefore, God makes mistakes and isn't as smart as Christianity makes him out to be, correct?
I raised these (irrefutable) points to parents and elders, and got the same ridiculous answers from all. Basically, in answer to all of my questions:
1) "Yes, that is what makes a person."
2) "We do have control over our decisions because we're free moral agents with free will."This is the first break. I would always respond with, "But you just said, as biological organisms, we are a result of our biology and environment. That means all of our choices are illusions by default; an intelligent enough brain that saw every bit of our biology and influence would be able to predict every single thing we did before we did it for that reason!"
The response would always show a bit of anger or irritation, and then a shift in questioning. "Are you saying people aren't responsible for their own actions?" would be the general response. I would normally say something non-committal like "I'm not saying anything, I just raised two points in combination with each other that we all agree on, so how does that work?"
The same with 3/4/5. Same exact breaks. The repeat of the catchphrase "free moral agents." "But God created them, he MADE how their braisn work, he made a brain that would inevitably go wrong if placed in that environment!" And the response, "Are you saying God isn't perfect?!" And the same refusal to get caught in a future disfellowshipping-trap.When I -did- give the talk; I tried something. I basically stated; "Hey, when it all comes down to it, no matter how fair or not fair things may seem - we are God's creations, and as creations of his, he has the right to get rid of us if he feels like it. It's just him being kind enough not to just get rid of all of us that keeps us here." This is basically an accurate representation of the OT God, in my opinion, and says that people are just whims he can get rid of via "might makes right."
...People in the audience nodded, and after the talk a couple of people came up to me and said I made a great point, and they had never thought about it that way, and it made them feel even better about staying in Jehovah's graces. I was incredulous.
That was when the scales were lifted from my eyes more than anything that I can recall. After that, cognitive dissonace and a lot of the logical contradictions in the Bible and Christianity, including and especially JW beliefs and practices, fell completely into place. And it was that road that led me to where I am now.
How about you guys? Any logical issues that just ended up being the "lightning bolt" that finally hit you?
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One aspect of evolution that does not make sense.....
by EndofMysteries inthe part that does make sense are how bodies adapt over time to surroundings and use.
for example because of eating habits changing, our jaws have become smaller and we don't need wisdom teeth.
or the effect of the sun on our skin, etc.
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Pacopoolio
Apognophos: You have the Internet, and should be able to track down early/layman level introductory articles and books about various aspects of evolution.
In fact, that's how my "fading" started. I liked debate, and would go online ad debate with atheists with stupid stuff I got from the Creation Book. The Creation Book completely misrepresents evolution, but does so in a sneaky way in which it doesn't seem so with a basic school Biology 1 learning of the concept. Because of this, I was always debating with a strawman or false premise, which I started to realize by people constantly asking me what the heck I was talking about (and me having to "cheat" to win arguments, even when I knew inside that I was using distraction tactics and fallacies). However, I couldn't stand knowing that I was being dishonest in my debating, and used the Internet to read more about the subject.
EOM is doing that exact same thing. Every once in a while, he gets an idea in his head that he has a "gotcha" where he can finally trip up those pesky atheists with a logical trap, and then posts on here trying to "gotcha" people. However, his "gotchas" never work because he doesn't understand the premise of what he's arguing, and then once he gets dogpiled with that, he transparently tries to distract and shift attention off of himself because he's cornered in a subject he's not that educated on. At some point, you have to stop coddling as you start wasting your own time - he needs to go and read up on these things on his own as opposed to getting the basics explained over and over. -
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Jehovah's Witnesses Street recruiting thwarted by "Apostates"
by Watchtower-Free inhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fylyfc_0we.
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Pacopoolio
"Apostates" like that only strengthen the apostate-paranoia that is taught within the organization. It's partially because of people like that (and people who go from not being Witnesses to attempting to draw attention to themselves or get their own "flock") that it took me so long to even read up on opposing viewpoints.
The worst part is, people like them start to represent the "whole" because of the loudest people being the most noticed, and only serve to keep people within the organization.
The best thing to do is to constantly avoid talking about the religion except to raise questions every blue moon that will attack the cognitive dissonance.