Posts by Village Idiot

754

Theists, why does God allow suffering..

by The Quiet One in

..specifically, the suffering of animals.

you can talk about free will/sin/people choosing to not listen to god etc to explain human suffering being allowed.. but how can you love a god that allows animals, that haven't sinned or chosen to not have anything to do with god, to have their short lives ended in often long, drawn out, painful ways.

i could list stories i've read that would probably make you feel ill, but i'm not looking to shock anyone or start an emotional debate.

Village Idiot

@ cofty: "Why did your god - who Jesus claimed cares for every sparrow - design a world to maximise suffering?"

It's really simple. A talking snake told a naked lady to eat a fruit and share it with a naked man with a missing rib then all hell broke loose. Lions stopped eating grass and started devouring baby lambs; tyrannosaurus stopped eating palm trees and started munching on Brontosaurs; Galaxies started crashing into each other and we started having discussions such as this.

Now think of all the cruelty down below where a gazillion species are having their planets getting ripped out of their stars orbit plunging into a freezing death or a fiery one from two stars crashing into each other.

Overlapping Galaxies NGC 3314

21

New Mascot - Translator Robot

by Slave4_38y in

this is the latest offering from the caleb/sophia duo - lesson 16, preach in a foreign language.

.

Village Idiot

Face it fellow apostates, Caleb and Sophia are going to grow on us. It will be a love/hate relationship.

26

Are the USA and Russia the key actors in end time prophecy?

by scotoma in

jw
friends

what's the problem with prophecy?prophecy primarily requires a pattern recognition or insightful strategy not an analytical strategy.

prophecy rarely gives names whether of empires or their rulers.

even the name of the messiah - yeshua -wasn't foretold.

Village Idiot

@ Perry: "This writer below offers some possible reasons why Russia might want to invade Israel:"

That question was very simple. Couldn't you give a simple answer instead of a mere link?

I read that link and it is pure conjecture. It implies that energy sources may be one thing that Russia covets but the truth is that Gazprom is likely to hold far more in reserves than a miniscule nation like Israel may have in yet to be discovered reserves. Israel is not much in the way of competition when someone looks at a map of energy sources. In comparison Russia has 6.6 million square miles compared to Israel's 7,800+. That comes out to approximately 850 times more land area.

26

Are the USA and Russia the key actors in end time prophecy?

by scotoma in

jw
friends

what's the problem with prophecy?prophecy primarily requires a pattern recognition or insightful strategy not an analytical strategy.

prophecy rarely gives names whether of empires or their rulers.

even the name of the messiah - yeshua -wasn't foretold.

Village Idiot

@ Perry:

"...Russia, in alliance with several other countries, will amass a huge army against Israel, with a view to plunder the Jews’ land."

What will tiny Israel have that the Russians will want to plunder?

22

Memorial Date this year, why so far out ?

by Phizzy in

we have debated for many a long year on jwn about the "proper" date for the passover/memorial and my conclusion is that jw's get it all wrong for a number of reasons, but as the gospels are contradictory, nobody can say for sure.. most years they are close to the time by a day or so, signalled by the full moon occurring about then.. i believe this year they have chosen saturday april 11th.. this is a full week, near enough, away from the full moon.. what has gone on with their calculation ?.

Village Idiot

Phizzy: "I believe this year they have chosen Saturday April 11th."

According to JW.org it will be held on April 3 this year.

Edit: Oops, sir82 beat me to it.

102

A couple questions for atheists on Suffering

by little_Socrates in

who told you that the world should be free from suffering?.

do you find any value in suffering?.

do you think it is possible to experience all the beauty and goodness and pleasure the world offers without also experiencing the bad?

Village Idiot

@ little_Socrates:

"If you where God and could eliminate suffering what would the world look like?"

If I were to play god I would do the following:

Eliminate all psychopaths and the genes in non-psychopaths that determine, when mixed with the other parent's genes, the type of brain psychopaths have. Yes it is neurological.
Eliminate the genes for congenital diseases and eliminate all organisms that cause diseases in human beings (although they might re-evolve again).
Increase a sense of altruism within humans.
Restructure society to a more humane one that eliminates alienation and increases a sense of community.
I would still allow suffering for grieving and other situations were it would be appropriate. A person who doesn't suffer under those circumstances is not fully human.

"The Atheists argument is... the world does not appear as though it has been created by a loving God so therefore no God."

The Universe shows signs of order and disorder but not intelligence. Think of all the suffering that life forms on other planets would go through when two galaxies crash together or when a supernova incinerates everything within several light years. There is no "love" in that. Any god who would have created that must be callous and above, or beneath, a sense of love and morality.

There you have it.

5

Socially awkward

by tamagotchi in

jw
friends

growing up a jw has made me some what socially awkward.

i would often push people away due to my weird traits.

this was made worse by surrounding myself with certain people within the congregation who didn't have my best interest at heart, who now i know where trying to bring me down, this has invoked in me trust issues with people i meet.

Village Idiot

I have been socially awkward since childhood, before I became a JW. The Witnesses made me worse. I was lucky to have a friend who was not a JW who listened to my tale of woe after my disfellowshipping. The JW friend that I had abandoned me before a judicial committee was formed.

I see my problem as a combination of innate personality and the negative effects of growing up as a JW during the formative years of my adolescence. As to overcoming them I have yet to do that fully. Working with people in retail stores helped me to socialize my self and practice my communicative skills but that depends on the type of work that you have.

24

Jehovah's Witnesses Are Believers But Know Not What They Teach

by minimus in

jw
friends

they simply belong to a religion.

they cannot explain why they follow all the dictates of the organization.

they live in blind faith.

Village Idiot

"Jesus didn't come to make bad people good, he came to make dead people live."

35

Before knowing TTATT did you really believe in things as...

by roberto avon in

jw
friends

did you really believe in things as ;- the earth is only 6000 years old- the 144.000- 1914, based upon the destructiono of jerusalem- harmagheddon or the end of the world coming soon???

?i married a jw when i was an interested person and studying with the jw's ( not the way they wanted) but i told my wife before marrying her that " most probably " i would never have been a jw.she accepted me as i was and married me.

after that i had interrupted the study for one year, i started all over again with an elder of my wife's cong.

Village Idiot

Roberto avon,

I was an atheist at 10 who suddenly got an interest in the Bible at 13. At 14 I converted to JWs wholeheartedly believing it was the "Truth" completely. Then, as the years went by, I started getting disillusioned because of the egotistical, pathological organization worship - doctrine did not come up even at my disfellowshipping though I was beginning to wonder.

It was soon after I was disfellowshipped that I became an atheist with a Carl Saganesque awe of the Universe. It wasn't until some years after that I read books like the Gentile Times Reconsidered and Crisis of Conscience. After that I lost all interest in JW issues.

35

Before knowing TTATT did you really believe in things as...

by roberto avon in

jw
friends

did you really believe in things as ;- the earth is only 6000 years old- the 144.000- 1914, based upon the destructiono of jerusalem- harmagheddon or the end of the world coming soon???

?i married a jw when i was an interested person and studying with the jw's ( not the way they wanted) but i told my wife before marrying her that " most probably " i would never have been a jw.she accepted me as i was and married me.

after that i had interrupted the study for one year, i started all over again with an elder of my wife's cong.

Village Idiot

"...the earth is only 6000 years old-..."

Actually they teach (or taught) that the Earth was 48,000 years old. They said that the creative days were 7,000 years long and that the present one - the seventh creative day - was 6,000 years old.

"...the 144.000-..."

Yes and I even made a list of the individual scriptures that lead up to that conclusion. My list was more effective than the book they used to have to explain all doctrine (Make Sure of All Things, Hold Fas to What is Fine).

"...1914, based upon the destructiono of Jerusalem-..."

Yes and I was not impressed by the 1975 teaching so I was not disappointed when it came and went.

"...Harmagheddon or the end of the world coming soon????"

Yes and I based that on the 1914/Generation teaching.