If they misquote verifiable sources, why should they not misrepresent mostly unverifiable sources?
Pole
Posts by Pole
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37Do you think the Watchtower makes up experiences by people ???
by run dont walk inin the may 1, 1988 watchtower, on page 22, a witness, matsue ishii, recalls her first encounter with the bible students in 1928: at the back of our house in tojo-cho, osaka, there was a house with a sign: "osaka branch of the international bible students association.
" assuming it to be a christian group, i visited the house.
"do you believe in the second advent of the lord?
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12
The Atheist's Book of Bible Stories - Ch. 21 - Pascal Got It Wrong
by RunningMan inpascal got it wrong
what if youre wrong?
one of my loyal readers (ok, my only reader) recently posed this question to me.
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Pole
Actually I see Pascal's Wager as an extension of the gambling problem which he spent some energy trying to solve. In his letters to Fermat they tried to come up with a fair way of dividing stakes between gamblers where one gambler had just one more chance (dice throw, etc.) than the other.
After a few months of exchanging these interesting epistles Pascal got very religious, joined an order and gave up maths altogether. IMO he then erroneously applied his mathematical genius to "solving" theological problems. How can the Absolute be probailistic? It denies its definition.
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40
Anybody in UK on here please?
by LeedsBradfordEngland in.
if so, i'd like to know.. clive (formerly of hemsworth, west yorks cong in the 1970's)
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153
Why do/don't you believe in God
by LouBelle innow for all the scientists out there this is not a question of proof or anything along those lines.
for my part i choose to believe in a god because i honestly believe there is one (though i did start doubting for a little while) i've always felt that there was more to our existance on earth - and that doesn't stem from me wanting to live forever or as a spirit, as i don't even know if that will happen.
i also believe in him because many many times when i could not carry on, on my own strength, i managed to pulled through.
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Pole
Daystar,
Everything I've studied about gods seem to portray them as a rather amoral lot. JHVH was the god of love, yet massacred or ordered to be massacred millions, according to the bible.
Another way to phrase it is: "Everything I've studied about gods suggests that they are a pure anthropomorphism". Would you agree?
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153
Why do/don't you believe in God
by LouBelle innow for all the scientists out there this is not a question of proof or anything along those lines.
for my part i choose to believe in a god because i honestly believe there is one (though i did start doubting for a little while) i've always felt that there was more to our existance on earth - and that doesn't stem from me wanting to live forever or as a spirit, as i don't even know if that will happen.
i also believe in him because many many times when i could not carry on, on my own strength, i managed to pulled through.
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Pole
LT,
No problem
. I'm sure I'll get a chance to voice some of my lost point again. LOL.
Spook,Anything beyond this seems to beg linguistics to me. As much as I love Chomsky, I realive that beyond language, all logic is tautalogical.
I think Chomskian linguistics is useless when it comes to the Bible. I'd rather go for the cognitive paradigm which recognizes the metaphor as the engine of language. There is almost no abstract reasoning outside the metaphor, and there are no "context-free" meanings or grammars in real language use.
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153
Why do/don't you believe in God
by LouBelle innow for all the scientists out there this is not a question of proof or anything along those lines.
for my part i choose to believe in a god because i honestly believe there is one (though i did start doubting for a little while) i've always felt that there was more to our existance on earth - and that doesn't stem from me wanting to live forever or as a spirit, as i don't even know if that will happen.
i also believe in him because many many times when i could not carry on, on my own strength, i managed to pulled through.
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Pole
LT,I've written a long and winding reply, but then resigned from posting it, because most likely it wouldn't advance the discussion. I see how I may have misused the word "prove" which may have required some hedging. Sorry about that.
I still think I'm more intellectually honest not believing in all the concepts of God I have seen in my short life than I would be believing in them. These include every single concept of God I've seen presented on this board.
Unfortunately I have no access to the "uncoloured" concept of God you've mentioned, so my reply would probably boil down to barking up the wrong tree.
Regards,
Pole
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153
Why do/don't you believe in God
by LouBelle innow for all the scientists out there this is not a question of proof or anything along those lines.
for my part i choose to believe in a god because i honestly believe there is one (though i did start doubting for a little while) i've always felt that there was more to our existance on earth - and that doesn't stem from me wanting to live forever or as a spirit, as i don't even know if that will happen.
i also believe in him because many many times when i could not carry on, on my own strength, i managed to pulled through.
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Pole
LittleToe,
I think your analogy is grossly mistaken. Unless you think God is subject to some form of scientific discovery. Plus, black holes don't care if they get "discovered" beyond doubt. God should care.
As for this:Elaborate illustrations don't undermine the simple precept that whilst there might not be strong evidence for something, that doesn't in and of itself "prove" anything.
You again unfairly throw the burden of proof upon non-believers. Why so? If there is no "strong evidence" for answering the most fundamental question in the universe, then what does it say about the hypothetical God? This is precisely what helped me to break free from the idea of God. If there are good people who consciously refute the idea of God and they have good reasons for it, then how is the idea of God universally necessary?
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153
Why do/don't you believe in God
by LouBelle innow for all the scientists out there this is not a question of proof or anything along those lines.
for my part i choose to believe in a god because i honestly believe there is one (though i did start doubting for a little while) i've always felt that there was more to our existance on earth - and that doesn't stem from me wanting to live forever or as a spirit, as i don't even know if that will happen.
i also believe in him because many many times when i could not carry on, on my own strength, i managed to pulled through.
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Pole
LittleToe,
In fact the kind of metaphors we find in this book prove that the Bible is only a work of men.
"Prove" is kinda a strong word, doncha think?
That depends. The burden of proof is with those who claim extraordinary things. And claiming you have a piece of writing inspired by Almighty God is an extraordinary claim indeed. So imagine this situation:
A friend of mine comes up to me with a book which he says was written under the direction of aliens. The book contains some nice stories about how aliens communicated with humans in the past. It also contains some alien revelations - mostly unintelligible rants about human whores riding mutated aliens from the planet of Pathmox and ending up in their toxic stomachs. I read the book and say to him there's nothing unusual about those stories and each and everyone of them must have been made up by a slightly delusional writer. Therefore, I say my analysis "proves" that this book has no supernatural value. Then he goes: ""Prove" is kinda a strong word, doncha think? ".
Is he right? Perhaps. But why does he make me fulfill such strong criteria of good reasoning while he's disrespecting even the most basic criteria of making a coherent and verifiable argument in that he takes for granted some of the stuff from his little book?
The only way the Bible is different from the imaginary book about aliens is that it has got a tremendous amount of spin and marketing and that millions of people have actually believed in mutually exclusive interpretations of it. Oh, and it has some really good apologists - mostly what I call intellectual obfuscators who specialize in picking holes in most other explanations.
Or am I wrong?
Pole
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New Special Ass'y Day and Circuit Assembly Themes for 2006 Service Year
by TheListener innew circuit assembly program:.
par.1: during the final days of this corrupt old world, it is vital that we maintain our spiritual attire and safeguard our christian identity.
(rev.
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52
Prophecor, the pic i promised ya.
by kls in.
this is the one that has a damn stick in it and i can't drive .
it's a 440 magnum 71 challenger.
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Pole
It's a manual way to change the gears in the car... I think they are more fun to drive!
Just as I thought - I just wasn't sure. I forgot it's a big issue in the US. Here the proportions of manual-automatic are the oppostie of what you have in the US.
prophecor,A more commonly used word for a pole
With my screen name I was asking for it, huh?.
Pole