:They did it to me and I was just having the home bible study .
LOL. Maybe you were entering the stage of the bible study when you're no longer expected to ask those questions. At the very beginning you can ask any question, and they'll just treat you as an idiot who's never seen the light of the TRUTH, but once you are presented with it, you're not supposed to disagree. Oh yeah, you may have doubts, but it's your fault, not Jehovah's.
Off topic, so:
BTTT!!!
Pole
Posts by Pole
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24Apology of cults
by Narkissos incharles(chasson)' thread about alain garay made me think, more generally, about what we often perceive (rightly or wrongly) as an apology of cults under the banner of "freedom of worship".. it seems only natural that cult members, officials and their attorneys should take such a stance; it is also understandable that communities which have similar interests, like small churches who tend to see anti-cultic policy as a potential threat to their own existence, support them to an extent.
so we have seen, in france, the protestant federation criticising the heavy taxation of jws by the fiscal administration.. i wonder about the motivations of some other voices joining in the chorus.
i suspect they may do so for very different, even antagonistic reasons.. one noteworthy example is the us department of state, whose yearly report on freedom of worship regularly criticises the governmental attempts to control cult activity in other countries (notably, in the eu, france, germany or belgium).
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Pole
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24
Apology of cults
by Narkissos incharles(chasson)' thread about alain garay made me think, more generally, about what we often perceive (rightly or wrongly) as an apology of cults under the banner of "freedom of worship".. it seems only natural that cult members, officials and their attorneys should take such a stance; it is also understandable that communities which have similar interests, like small churches who tend to see anti-cultic policy as a potential threat to their own existence, support them to an extent.
so we have seen, in france, the protestant federation criticising the heavy taxation of jws by the fiscal administration.. i wonder about the motivations of some other voices joining in the chorus.
i suspect they may do so for very different, even antagonistic reasons.. one noteworthy example is the us department of state, whose yearly report on freedom of worship regularly criticises the governmental attempts to control cult activity in other countries (notably, in the eu, france, germany or belgium).
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Pole
:Are you thinking, Pole, of the Neo-Nazis, for instance?
Sure, that's one example. Of course it's only an analogy to illustrate the point that tolerating those who don't really recognize the notion of tolerance is similar to granting full freedom of speech to the WTS as a priviledged religious organization who manipulate people into joining an organization where there is no room for freedom of speech.
Can you imagine a Jehovah's Witness standing up at a meeting and saying "Dear brothers, I don't quite agree with the Faithful and Discreet Slave's view on this issue"? Unless you make it clear to the elders that you truly regret your intervention and promise never to do it again, you will be treated as an apostate with all the social consequences. Should we really bother about the special priviledges of such organizations?
Pole -
24
Apology of cults
by Narkissos incharles(chasson)' thread about alain garay made me think, more generally, about what we often perceive (rightly or wrongly) as an apology of cults under the banner of "freedom of worship".. it seems only natural that cult members, officials and their attorneys should take such a stance; it is also understandable that communities which have similar interests, like small churches who tend to see anti-cultic policy as a potential threat to their own existence, support them to an extent.
so we have seen, in france, the protestant federation criticising the heavy taxation of jws by the fiscal administration.. i wonder about the motivations of some other voices joining in the chorus.
i suspect they may do so for very different, even antagonistic reasons.. one noteworthy example is the us department of state, whose yearly report on freedom of worship regularly criticises the governmental attempts to control cult activity in other countries (notably, in the eu, france, germany or belgium).
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Pole
It's interesting how many cults build their PR on the appeal to freedom of speech, while suppressing any 'unauthorized' forms of it among their own members, whose rights they claims to stand up for.
I wish some governments could actually see how freedom of speech is exercised within some cults and cultic organizations.
I mean the question of whether freedom of speech should be granted to all religious entities equally is similar to that of whether we should tolerate those who don't give a hoot about tolerance by definition, because they base their agendas on religious or racial hatred.
Pole -
38
GENUINE PROOF OF PSYCHIC ABILITY!!!
by Mary ini never used to believe in psychic ability or reading my horoscope, but i've found indisputable evidence that whoever is writing the horoscopes are geniune and not fakes.
take a look at the list below, find out which one is you and then try and tell me that psychic ability is all faked:
aquarius (jan 21 - feb 19): you have an inventive mind and think you are progressive.
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Pole
Mine too!
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38
GENUINE PROOF OF PSYCHIC ABILITY!!!
by Mary ini never used to believe in psychic ability or reading my horoscope, but i've found indisputable evidence that whoever is writing the horoscopes are geniune and not fakes.
take a look at the list below, find out which one is you and then try and tell me that psychic ability is all faked:
aquarius (jan 21 - feb 19): you have an inventive mind and think you are progressive.
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Pole
So, what's your sign Mary?
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10
The meme theory
by osmosis inhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/meme
the basic idea of the meme theory is that thoughts and information have a life of their own.
they are born, they evolve, they die.
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Pole
:Has anyone else ever given this theory any serious consideration? Personally, I think meme theory "works", and goes a long way toward explaining certain beliefs.
The meme theory is probably little more than a nice metaphor suggested by Dawkins to explain how ideas emerge in societies. There is even a subfield of sociology called 'memetics' which deals with identyfying the origins and evolution of ideas ('memes'). I happen to be involved in one project that gives this 'theory' some consideration, but - as I said - we don't treat it as a real theory, but rather as an inspiring metaphor. So what we do is we compile a large database of transcripts of parliamentary debates spanning 15 years or so. Then we use statistical methods of language processing to determine which MPs first came up with certain ideas and how these ideas propagated and evolved ever since.
Pole -
32
If the New Testament included only the Gospels.....
by Spectrum in.... what would christianity be like today had the rest of the nt been rejected or turned into apocrypha?
was christ's teaching enough to give momentum to this religion beyond the first christians?
or did christ's teaching need augmenting with pauline doctrines?
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Pole
XJW4EVR,
:Again, I reiterate, that as a general rule, Islamofascist "martyrs" tend to kill others (mostly innocent) in order to attain their "martyrdom." Compare that to Christian martyrs who, as a general rule, do not kill innocents, in their martyrdom. That is a level of distinction that I, and others, apply to martyrdom. Maybe I "simplistic", and to be quite honest, I am glad that I am, because to make all religious martyrs equal is a level of sophistication that I really find morally reprehensible.
I see your point and I want to make it clear that I'm only comparing different martyrs in terms of their readiness to die. Whether their death is morally acceptable or justifiable is as you point out another story.
Cheers,
Pole -
290
607
by Zico incan anyone provide me with any evidence (links to other sites is fine) that jerusalem could not have possibly fallen to the babylonians in 607?
thanks again for your answers.
zico
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Pole
Looks like we're at it again ;-). LOL.
Scholar,
When did you stop including "BS and MA in religious studies" in your posts? I miss this phrase a lot ;-)
Cheers,
Pole -
32
If the New Testament included only the Gospels.....
by Spectrum in.... what would christianity be like today had the rest of the nt been rejected or turned into apocrypha?
was christ's teaching enough to give momentum to this religion beyond the first christians?
or did christ's teaching need augmenting with pauline doctrines?
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Pole
:Your are confusing what martyrdom is, in my opinion. I pointed this out, and now you give me some long drawn out lecture about the irrelevance of doctrine. Without the understanding of doctrine you cannot fathom why people choose martyrdom. So either you don't know what martyrdom is defined as or you are deliberatly confusing. The thought on the second paragraph was an attempt to show the isolation of the Apostles. They had no idea what the others were doing or saying, but they all died believing the Jesus rose from the dead, or decieving themselves and the ones that followed them. You took the last sentence out of it's context. Because in context, I was referring to the Apostles. It does not make sense to me that the Apostles would die the deaths they did for something they KNEW was not true. As far as "being in their right mind." If they went to their death believing in the fact of Jesus' death & resurrection then yes, they were. People don't die for a lie, especially when they know it is a lie.
Read Narkissos's last post and give me your extra-biblical evidence documenting the martyrdom of "the Apostles" (and not early Christians in general). How do you know all of the Apostles (and how many) were real people? How do you know they witnessed what is described in the Gospels? Which Gospels? How do you know what they knew was true and what they thought was true? How do you know they suffered and died for what they "knew was true"? Then multiply your probabilities. Don't add them. At the end of the day you will see that the doctrinal details are totally irrelevant and that even if many Christians died for their faith there is no way we can know what they knew was true and what they thought was true. At the psychological level (and not adoctrinal one) I see no reason for distinguishing between the martyrdom of Christians and the martyrdom of other people who die for their beliefs.
Making these simplistic disctinctions between lie vs truth in this case is what you base your apologetics on. Which reminds me of the fact that I was at this stage some time ago too. If you look at this thread:
The apostle Peter - an honest Christian or a cynical manipulator?
The answer given by Leolaia was very simple and I had to accept it after some consideration:
2 Peter was not written by Apostle Peter.
Isn't it sometime easier to accept the most likely answer rather than multiply endless chains of probabilities?
Pole -
32
If the New Testament included only the Gospels.....
by Spectrum in.... what would christianity be like today had the rest of the nt been rejected or turned into apocrypha?
was christ's teaching enough to give momentum to this religion beyond the first christians?
or did christ's teaching need augmenting with pauline doctrines?
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Pole
The flaw in your thought appears to be that you think the martyrdom of an Islamofascist and a Christian are the same things. When an Islamofascist martyrs himself he usually takes additional innocent people with him. In most of the cases of Christian martyrs, they went to their deaths alone, and took no innocents with them.
You mentioned the JWs blood doctrine. Remember, that JWs have no assurance of salvation. They believe that only be remaing faithful to Jehober's commands that they will have the possibility of resurrection in the New System. In other words, only by their works (abstaining from blood, etc.) can they possibly entertain thoughts of living in the New System. Compare that to the Christian's view, which is that his/her entrance into heaven is guaranteed by the act of someone else and not as a result of his martyrdom.
The doctrinal details are totally irrelevant to what I was trying to say. In no way was I comparing equating, or passing judgments about one religion or another. I only suggested that people are ready to die for their beliefs even if they're made up. So, what's the flaw again?I do agree that the martyrdom arguement is a weak argument if placed in the context of modernity. Back in the early days of Christianity, the Apostles did not have the luxuries of Fox News, CNN or the internet. Most of them were alone in countries far from their homeland.
I'm not sure if I see your point here, can you elaborate?It just doesn't make sense to me that people, in their right mind, would die for a belief that they knew was false.
You seem to make a false alternative: why did they have to "know those beliefs were false", or "know those beliefs were true"? Why not "they thought their beliefs were true"? In the past, millions of people have thought their beliefs were true and they died for them. Were they "in their right mind" or not?
Pole