Qcmbr

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Posts by Qcmbr

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  398

  Jwfacts, Why Do You Equate Miracles With Magic?

  by Recovery in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i have a question for the author of the website jwfacts.

  as i was reading the sparlock article, i couldn't help but notice something seriously wrong:.

  "the bible abounds in vivid fantasy, such as its many celestial descriptions, or the portrayal of warring kingdoms with imaginary beasts.. the sparlock message is confusing, as much for an adult as for a child, as the bible shows that god's followers practice magic, even if they are usually referred to as miracles.

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  Qcmbr

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_the_Magician

  The charge that Jesus was a magician did not originate with Morton Smith. It was previously voiced by the philosopher and critic Celsus (The True Word c. 200 CE) as we know from the rebuttal authored by the Christian apologist/scholar Origen: “It was by magic that he was able to do the miracles” (Contra Celsum 1.6). Clearly, for Celsus to have repeated the story, it must have had long currency before he came to write his book. Hans Dieter Betz (1994) observes that "from early on even Jesus of Nazareth was implicated in that he was said to be mad or a magician possessed by Satan" and R. Joseph Hoffmann writes (1987) that "that the early Christian mission was advanced by the use of magic is well attested."

  Discovery News reported in 2008 the discovery by French marine archaeologist Franck Goddioof a bowl dating "to between the late 2nd century B.C. and the early 1st century A.D." which refers to Jesus as a magician: "DIA CHRSTOU O GOISTAIS," which, the article tells us, "has been interpreted to mean either, 'by Christ the magician' or, 'the magician by Christ.'" Assuming this references Jesus, this is the earliest known reference to Jesus as a magician. [citation needed] Depiction of Jesus describes how Jesus was artistically portrayed in early Christian art.
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  398

  Jwfacts, Why Do You Equate Miracles With Magic?

  by Recovery in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i have a question for the author of the website jwfacts.

  as i was reading the sparlock article, i couldn't help but notice something seriously wrong:.

  "the bible abounds in vivid fantasy, such as its many celestial descriptions, or the portrayal of warring kingdoms with imaginary beasts.. the sparlock message is confusing, as much for an adult as for a child, as the bible shows that god's followers practice magic, even if they are usually referred to as miracles.

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  Qcmbr

  What's more worrying is why the supposed creator of a vast cosmos thought that turning a stick into a snake was all that impressive. The OT god is a cheap magician who kills the people who don't immediately get the message. I'm presuming God wanted to punish Egypt so he deliberately hardened Phaoroh's heart while showing a very obtuse set of parlour tricks that could be replicated by court magicians - ergo not very impressive stuff. He repeats this pattern when Jesus' first miracle is to make booze rather than something vaguely useful like cure the world of malaria. The bible god is portrayed as a poor showman ( walking on water, spit magic, healing hankies, columns of fire etc.) with an overriding love of blood and death rather than a wise, divine being converting humanity to his will by acts of miraculous benevolence.
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  398

  Jwfacts, Why Do You Equate Miracles With Magic?

  by Recovery in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i have a question for the author of the website jwfacts.

  as i was reading the sparlock article, i couldn't help but notice something seriously wrong:.

  "the bible abounds in vivid fantasy, such as its many celestial descriptions, or the portrayal of warring kingdoms with imaginary beasts.. the sparlock message is confusing, as much for an adult as for a child, as the bible shows that god's followers practice magic, even if they are usually referred to as miracles.

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  Qcmbr

  We can go even further. Gods people, according to the bible, record their dealings with god, their instructions on how to live, their revelations from god not simply for their benefit but as a testament to the world. If the JWs aren't producing any scriptures, no written records of their dealings with Jehovah, then how can they be said to be testifying of him. If the Israelities of biblical times were happy to simply preach we would have no OT, no knowledge of Jehovah, if the early xian authors didn't record their dealings with God via Jesus but simply preached we would have no NT and by definition we would have no JWs since you are a product of the book. It looks like JWs are trying to make a virtue of having nothing to write about, the lack of divine interaction means the JWs can produce no scripture, they can make no lasting impact, their testimony is simply the spoken word alone, a spoken word that has no defined stance. JWs have no publications of their own that are inspired of God.
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  398

  Jwfacts, Why Do You Equate Miracles With Magic?

  by Recovery in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i have a question for the author of the website jwfacts.

  as i was reading the sparlock article, i couldn't help but notice something seriously wrong:.

  "the bible abounds in vivid fantasy, such as its many celestial descriptions, or the portrayal of warring kingdoms with imaginary beasts.. the sparlock message is confusing, as much for an adult as for a child, as the bible shows that god's followers practice magic, even if they are usually referred to as miracles.

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  Qcmbr

  Recovery - I see you ignored my post. Fine.

  If you wish to say that miracles are the manifestations of your version of Jehovah then you also have to explain why you don't believe that any miracles are occurring today because that is tantamount to saying that your Jehovah is not manifesting his power via the JWs. In short you are unable to receive revelation, inspiration, new light, gifts of the spirit, answers to prayers, guidance from prayers. It's just you, a canon of scriptures copied, codified and ratified by bishops from other faiths ( they certainly weren't JWs) containing numerous interpolations of men and no divine way to verify what is authentic and what is false. Your case fails.
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  398

  Jwfacts, Why Do You Equate Miracles With Magic?

  by Recovery in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i have a question for the author of the website jwfacts.

  as i was reading the sparlock article, i couldn't help but notice something seriously wrong:.

  "the bible abounds in vivid fantasy, such as its many celestial descriptions, or the portrayal of warring kingdoms with imaginary beasts.. the sparlock message is confusing, as much for an adult as for a child, as the bible shows that god's followers practice magic, even if they are usually referred to as miracles.

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  Qcmbr

  Recovery, since I have no belief in Jehovah nor any other bronze age gods the term miracle and magic, as applied in myths is one and the same, they are both supposed suspensions of the laws of physics and the occurrence of an event emanating purely from willpower. I don't think the term 'miracle' is a preserve of Xians alone so why do you claim that it is? I find your wordplay a fairly common JW style. Are you trained to 'strain at a gnat' to make a point when really the important stuff is about love and actions ( at least that was my overall reading of the NT) , so for example if you wished to discuss how JWs do lots of charitable public service ( say soup kitchens, saving lives by giving blood, litter picks, battered women's refuges, hospitals etc.) then I'd be more impressed than what you've said so far. To summarise.

  JWs don't have any miracles going on.

  JWs believe magic is ongoing ( odd - I've not seen any fire from heaven, sticks turning to snakes but maybe it's just only in secret places )

  JWs are desperate to be right and will push the primacy of JW thought even if they themselves get new light and reverse a teaching ( so showing that they were zealously preaching falsehood ). Since JWs cannot be trusted to remain steadfast on any doctrine ( they may receive new light at any time ) then it seems rather silly to make a tenuous semantic stand on the definition of a miracle, a definition you JWs don't own.

  You are not providing a good witness nor are you supposed to associate with apostates so you are simply dishonouring your own faith anyway. I will discuss your example with JWs next time they are at my door.
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  8

  American Theocracy

  by Band on the Run in

  1. social
  2. current

  i am currently reading this book.

  the author is opinionated and not a fundamentalist or evangelist for certain.

  my experience is so eastern american.

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  Qcmbr

  Is the education link fundamental because Mormonism , second generation onwards , can't be called uneducated?
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  11

  JWS vs LDS

  by tresdecu in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i came across a mormon "sisters" blog...reading through some of her missionary experiences, it sounded so much like jw pioneer "sis" relating hers.

  just swap out some of the cult-language words and it's suddenly a jw experience of sharing "bible truths" with some poor worldly sap.. here's an taste of it:.

  1)we were also led by the spirit this week to a former investigator's home.

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  Qcmbr

  The closeness of the shared LDS/JW cult experience is one thing that draws me here. This forum was a fundamental part of my awareness that the LDS world was not very unique at all.
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  8

  Dawkins and Killers frontman clash over Book of Mormon

  by cedars in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  here is the video... (the interesting bit starts at 07:30 or thereabouts).

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjwsg36xtz8.

  and here is the article covering it.... http://www.gigwise.com/news/76350/watch-brandon-flowers-rows-with-richard-dawkins-about-religion.

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  Qcmbr

  It's got a much better story than other strands of xianity. Theologically it is much cleverer than traditional xian theology. It is much easier to understand. The culture is much more practical, useful and devoid of obvious xian crazy ( speaking in tongues, falling on the floor etc.) it has a mixture of all the fun parts of religion ( grand architecture, self improvement, strong cultural activities, competitive ethic, self sufficiency, education, pragmatism etc.)

  Need I go on? I found it ridiculously easy to believe in. What I lacked was what all religious believers lack. We all know what makes our belief 'true' what we don't know is what would make it untrue.
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  153

  Believing in God - Challenge

  by jgnat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i invite king solomon and anyone else that is interested, to discuss if believing in god may be helpful.

  i am not restricting the discussion to the biblical god.

  i'm ready to look if this belief may be helpful both from a societal and from an individual point of view.

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  Qcmbr

  I can see some basic benefits of god belief:

  1 - Without the tools with which to inquire about the world around them and with limited food resources it was of low survival benefit to contemplate the unknown methodically but of high survival benefit to believe in supernatural forces, to conceptualise those forces as other living things and to delegate the evidential requirements for belief to a faith based heuristic that stood in for teh unknown or the feared.

  2 - Socially, religion provides a shared conceptual space in which to perform exchanges. Just like money acts as a means of exchange and a store of value, religion and belief in a God can act as a means to create relationships, pass on information and to engender action.

  3 - Evolution required us to go through most of our development keenly hooked to our adrenal systems alert to the need to fight or flee at the merest hint of danger. As civilisation took over our brains are not well dapted to relatively benign environments. To adapt our evolutionary fear of the physical world while allowing us to pragmatically live within a safe society the concept of God can be seen as an excellent compromise (an external threat requiring constant vigilence) to channel our instinctual overreactions into more civilised social behaviour.

  4 - Belief in a supernatural being can be a source of great hope in a condition of despair (such as lonliness, slavery, addiction etc.) and also as a great aid in hiding the inherant lack of justice in a natural world.
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  125

  A question for Athiests

  by EndofMysteries in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i really do not understand how any can be athiests from thinking real hard about it.

  how can you think everything on this earth just happened?.

  from my understanding, to be athiest, this is pretty much how it goes.

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  Qcmbr

  Nomad - like all other poorly thought out arguments this one will fade when the first permanent Mars bases are up and running and we prove that Mars is also habitable with the right tech. What's amazing to me is how much of the earth itself is downright hostile to life.