Absolutely what Terry said.
Those who think God answers their prayers please tell me why he doesn't answer the prayers of Nigerien children.
Do they even know how to say their prayers? Oh, yeah, I forgot it's their fault.
Or the fault of their parents.
Or at least the children's politicians are to blame.
Or at least our politicians are to blame because "it was pointless to wait until pending famine in Niger turned into a humanitarian catastrophe."
No?
Ok, so it all doesn't matter because God gave these children an immortal soul, right?
So we shouldn't give a damn when they are born and starve to death at the age of 2?
We should? I get it now - we should, God shouldn't. Let me see what I can do... Ok, I'll wire 20 bucks to this charity which organizes food supplies for Niger. And what will the Almighty do?
Oh I see he's busy answering 100% of your prayers.
Makes perfect sense now.
Now, why can't you people be honest for a second? Just admit you have no idea why your God at least comes across as such an uncaring and hardhearted b****?
Is this too blasphemous for you? Sure - go back to making up more lies and self-delusions. As Terry said: BLAME THE VICTIM!
End of the post
Pole
Posts by Pole
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25Is God Uncaring and Hardhearted?
by Blueblades inmany people think that the answer to that question is yes.
( from the new book released at the dc.
) forget about what the watchtower teaches, what do you think about the question yourself, if you believe in god?
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Pole
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To fahrvegnugen
by Farkel inyou simply must get a name that resembles something at least close to the english language and away from something that sounds like a beer!
or maybe a fatal disease!
i thought this topic was relevant enough for its own thread.
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Pole
Farkel wrote:
Take a deep breath and a fresh piece of blank paper and make your decision without the blinders of the Bible, the dubs and the other psychos who tell us what we should believe and what we shouldn't believe. We have freedom of thought and freedom of choice and that is inalienable (God/Source/Creator-given and therefore no one on this planet can take it away from us)
In reply to fahrvegnugen's post:
When you look honestly at biblical texts in the light of their historical setting, it eventually becomes apparent that they are the product of the time and place where they originated. They are not "inspired of god" but simply human products filled with all the tell-tale signs of human manufacture. Later when I attended a college course on comparative religious studies, I was amazed to see the parallels to this in the world's major religions. If you investigate the origins of all these religions, the stories of how they were founded never quite jibe with the historical facts. They are all the product of man, rather than any divinity.
I think fahrvegnugen's point is that his study of the Bible was what lead him to him to do some comparative religious studies and conclude that the role of anthropomorphisms in religions ad religious thinking in general in ubiquitous. In other words, all religions have something in common: they are full of anthropomorphisms and metaphors, and therefore it is fair to say that they are "a product of man rather than divinity" with a reasonable amount of certainty. BTW, they are not necessarily a "conscious product" with every doctrinal detail carefully debated by a religious governing body. Rather, they reflect the common traits of human cognition and subconsciousness.
God is a father, we are his children. Gods dwell in light, demons dwell in darkness. Knowledge is light, living in sin is darkness. The reason these "explanations" are so similar throughout religions is because all religious thinking is so thoroughly anthropomorphic. Not only religions are anthropomorphic but religious thinking in general. And yet these anthropomorphisms are presented as Absolute truth by each and every religion.
If this is more or less what fahrvegnugen is saying, then I wholeheartedly agree.
If Farkel was to actualy verbalize his beliefs in a "Creator" in a less mystical way, he'd end up with a bunch of silly metaphors based on the same mechanism as the Bible metaphors. The content would be different, but it would all come down to an attempt to explain "the spiritual" in terms of "the material". And so would end up any human attempting to rewrite the book of Genesis using it's basic methodology (appeal to the Supernatural). If I'm wrong prove me wrong.
Of course religious thinkers tend to come up with theories which are just as difficult to refute for their contemporaries as it is currently possible. They use their access to scientific theories to obfuscate their metaphors as much as possible. Hence, you have modern creationists and their "biotic messages" carried by viruses.
Saying that all "religion is a snare and a racket" is insufficient. Most people starting new bs religions began by rejecting all other religions as inferior. We need positive evidence which cannot be classified as anthropomorphism and which holds water in a decent number of contexts.
End of the post.
Pole
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Pole
Hey Turtle, are you trying to copy and paste from WORD? Copy and paste it to "Notepad" first and then c&p it here. Reformat as necessary in the post editing screen.
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66
Why 1914 is utterly true (and so is 607 B.C.E.)
by Terry in1914 is a very significant date for true believers.
faithful and eager students of the scriptures figured out (and "proved") jesus would return to kill the wicked and reward the meek in 1874. the signs were obvious.
but, it didn't happen.
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Pole
Just one more comment, because there's a nice observation worth bringing up:
We won't indulge in charity activity, won't build schools or universities or hospitals. We'll do important things instead. Like what? Ummm, we'll sell the Awake! and Watchtower with all this "eager" stuff in it.
If you think of it, being a JW is such a huge and miserable waste of lifetime and human resources in general. You study WTS publications in order to be able to pledge allegiance to the worthless stuff they contain. Then you become a preacher of this eager stuff and train others to read and preach it. Both you and the new converts donate time and money to this world-wide work of printing the "eager" stuff, whose factual contents gets completely rehashed every 10-15 years or so.
At the end of the day all of the "eager stuff" you bought when you were becoming a preacher of it turns out to be bullshit. And you know it not only because it was bullshit, but also because it is totally different from the current "eager stuff". So you are double-sure that the stuff you fell for originally was bs. But the new "eager stuff" is always good. And the old "eager stuff" is always bad. Remember that and you'll be living in a spiritual paradise. Remember that and thou shalt be saved for everlasting happiness.
End of the post.
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EX JW numbers
by teela(2) infor those out there that play with figures we can calulate the number that have joined and left but how does the number that have left over say twenty years compare to the numbers still in.
are we starting to out number them in some places?
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Pole
In any case, if the current tendencies don't change it won't be very unlikely for the ex's to outnumber active dubs at some point in the nearest future.
And this will be an interesting situation in a way. Can you imagine there are 1 billion catholics and 1.5 billions ex-catholics? LOL. What a crazy world it would be.
One last thing. Some ex-witnesses are not mentally out. Actually disfellowshipping does not make you necessarily free from the WTS. Sometimes it causes feelings of guilt and more committment to return to the WTS. So not all ex's are likely to be ex's forever.
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Still clinging to 1914 a significant year in the new book.
by Blueblades in1914 ---a significant year in bible prophecy.
page 215 -- 218 in the appendix section which start on page 194. i won't bore you with the same old same old interpretation of 607 b.c.e.
the seven times, 2,520 years.
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Pole
They officially changed the generation doctrine in 1995, right? This is what you could still read in Awake! in 1994:
*** g94 11/8 p. 10 The Real Significance of 1914 ***
AS INDICATED on page 4, "this magazine builds confidence in the Creator’s promise of a peaceful and secure new world before the generation that saw the events of 1914 passes away."
(...)
This time of the end is, however, to be a relatively short period—stretching over one generation. (Luke 21:31, 32) The fact that we are now 80 years beyond 1914 indicates that we can soon expect the deliverance that God’s Kingdom will bring. This means that we will see “the lowliest one of mankind”—Jesus Christ—take complete control of “the kingdom of mankind” and bring about a peaceful and just new world.—Daniel 4:17.
So, they only gave dubs 1 year's notice before totally and ultimately dismissing the generation doctrine. In other words, as late as 1994 they were still spouting the old rubbish in the most definitive way possible. (I can't see any hedging in the passage above).
The 1914 prophecy is perhaps a bigger deal, but if changes come, they will come as a "surprise". After all it's not so urgent to change it as it was in the case of the fast passing generation of 1914.
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Pole
What z said. ;-)
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Why 1914 is utterly true (and so is 607 B.C.E.)
by Terry in1914 is a very significant date for true believers.
faithful and eager students of the scriptures figured out (and "proved") jesus would return to kill the wicked and reward the meek in 1874. the signs were obvious.
but, it didn't happen.
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Pole
Hi Terry,
Great post. You'd only need to include the generation thing to make it complete.
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Jehovah's Witnesses as "a people......"
by ScoobySnax inwho out of all you nasty old apostates (tm) will agree with me, that if you take the gb that you dislike so much, and the watchtower that you hate out of the picture, will agree with me that at the end of the day, and on the whole, jw's really are a good bunch of people.
i did my same old rekky last sunday at the gillingham convention, and will have a good look around next sunday at twickenham convention.
i've been in lots of crowds, at stadiums and arenas, but an assembly is something else, it is somehow unique, its somehow different from any other crowds, there is a deep sense of "togetherness" i've not see any where else.
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Pole
Some JWs must be good people. However, there is nothing genuine about their "sense of togetherness" as you put it.
As EF pointed it out, this feeling is totally conditional. Your best witness friend starts shunning you the moment you question the authority of a bunch of old men in Brooklyn.
What's so special about this? Typical cult mechanism.
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Pole
polecat