If you want to read other authors who may be more palatable, I strongly suggest works by Carl Sagan, Timothy Ferris, and Stephen Jay Gould, Fred Alan Wolf, Frijof Capra, and Gary Zukav.
gaiagirl
JoinedPosts by gaiagirl
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28
Is Dawkins the answer?
by Peppermint ini watched the second part of richard dawkins program yesterday evening -the root of all evil?- i really have enjoyed this program and have found dawkins to come across as genuine and humane.
the problem i have with the program is that i do not want to believe his point of view, but i am feeling more and more drawn towards it.
the point i notice most about his stance is that he feels religion and science just cannot sit side by side, you have to believe one or the other.
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No sex in NS.
by IMustBreakAway ini have been a jw all of my life and i have never heard anyone say anything about not having sex in the ns.
did the wtbs ever actually say that?
or is a bit of wittness folklore?
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gaiagirl
Resurrected ones "like angels", therefore no desire for sex? Ummm, wasn't there a story about angels strongly desiring sex, and creating some kind of problem which Jehovah had to deal with personally?
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Gimme your best excuses
by justsomedude inok folks, i know there are some creative people on this board so help me out here.
i'm successfully fading so far, but every now and again i get some well meaning zealot ask me about my missing the 5 weekly brainwashing sessions and the priviledge of hocking crap door to door.
as sort of a reverse reasoning book, lets see some good conversation stoppers that wont give away my position.
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gaiagirl
"Sorry I haven't been to church lately. I've been busy practicing witchcraft and becoming a lesbian". (Bumper sticker found at www.evolvefish.com).
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Monothesism is the probelm
by silentWatcher ini saw this article on the web, link below, and the basic premise made me wonder: is there some basic "end-of-the-world" mentality inherient in monotheism?
and why is it that both christians and muslims with these warped views are coming to power at the same time.
scary stuff.
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gaiagirl
Monotheism as we know it appears to have started in Egypt, when one of the pharoahs (Akenaton?) reformed Egyptian religion to worship only the Sun God. This didn't agree with the priests, and some years later, after the pharoah died, the priests convinced the new pharoah to reinstate their former poly-theism. Some Egyptians apparantly preferred monotheism, and left Egypt, similar to Puritans leaving England centuries later. This may have been the historical basis for the biblical story of Exodus. The Greeks also were moving in the direction of monotheism, by the first century it was widely held that Zeus was not simply the ruler of the other gods, but the embodiment of them as well, i.e. that they was all simply manifestations of Zeus. Similar beliefs eventually came to be held with regard to Isis. The key thing is that I don't see monotheism as the problem, rather, I would say that fundamentalism is the problem. Fundamentalists appear to believe that only they have the truth, whatever religion they are part of, and that the rest of the world is going to be destroyed anyway. All the problems one reads about in the newspaper or watches on the evening news appear to be FUNDAMENTALIST muslims, christians, etc. All these problems would simply go away if, instead of forcing their views on everyone else, fundamentalists would adopt a "live and let live" ideaology. For an example, contrast living conditions in a liberal nation such as Denmark or the Netherlands, with any nation in which fundamentalists control the government.
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JWS GONE WILD!!!
by minimus inhave you ever seen "girls gone wild"?
imagine seeing "jehovah's witnesses gone wild!!!
"----can you picture witnesses taking a bite out of that blood sausage just because they're dared to??
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gaiagirl
One I'd like to see: Brothers and sisters greeting and speaking to a disfellowshipped one.
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Is Jesus the Messiah?
by scout575 inas christianity is based on jesus' fulfilment of 'old testament' messianic prophecies, does anyone know of any convincing scriptural evidence that he did?
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gaiagirl
There were many who were believed to be the Messiah before and after the time of Jesus, and every single one of them had their own group of followers. The reason Christianity ultimately succeeded was because a Roman emperor whose mother was a Christian made Christianity the official state religon in the 4th century. A very good show which deals with this was on PBS, entitled "The First Christians". It should be available on video from the PBS/Nova website.
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Was Jesus predestined to die?
by ringo5 inaccording to wts, the first prophecy in the bible (gen 3:15) applies to jesus and was partially fulfilled when the he died on the cross stake.
so how did jesus or anyone that had anything to do with his death have any freewill if he was predestined to die?
say the jews had decided they kinda liked him or thought he was at least entertaining and decided to let him hang around?
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gaiagirl
Without a doubt, Jesus would have died within the next 70 years or so, no matter what had happened. As presented, the story is simply illogical. In essence, God makes arrangements to sacrifice himself TO himself, so that he can change rules which he made in the first place, and forgive humans for something their ancestors did? And because this was all Gods plan, Judas and Herod and all the others who helped God carry out his plan are GUILTY of something BAD? If God really IS Love, as claimed, why could he not simply say "I forgive you"?
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The Butterfly Effect
by Rabbit init has been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly's .
wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world.
--chaos theory
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gaiagirl
I've seen two endings for the movie. The first (theatrical release) was kind of bittersweet, the second was quite depressing. The idea for the movie came from a short story by Ray Bradbury, titled "A Sound Of Thunder". In the story, a group of people travel into the past to hunt dinosaurs, and unintentionally change the direction which history takes from the time of their adventure in the Mesozoic. They return to a very different world in the 21st century.
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How do you think the world will end?
by free2beme ini was watching this national geographic program called "the end" the other day.
it showed different events that could end mankind and possibly the planet.
in each one, there is true in possibilities and they never showed an example of god destroying the world.
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gaiagirl
In the most likely scenario, the human race will be long extinct by the time the planet is burned up by the expanding Sun, five or 10 billion years from now. Most animal species only last a couple of million years anyway, although there are some very durable exceptions i.e. cockroaches, sharks, some bivalves. However, many do not simply hit a dead end and leave no descendants, but they evolve into something else. Eventually, humans SHOULD evolve into something else, hopefully more intelligent, more compassionate, less likely to kill other members of the same species. Our descendants will hopefully spread to other habitable planets, and witness the final days of the Sun from a safe distance.
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How many actually watched or owned adult material when they were Witnesses?
by free2beme ini was at a book study when i was in my teens and went to use the bathroom, and the family who owned the home said to use the one in their bedroom, as someone was already in the other one.
so i did and as i was in there i noticed a magazine on the counter that was only partly covered.
i could not help myself, and looked to see what it was and it was a penthouse.
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gaiagirl
Watched a few films with spicy content or language, such as "Body Heat" with Kathleen Turner, and "Galaxina", "Animal House", "1941", and a few others.