a friend of mine who is atheist gets all wound up when the subject of noah's flood comes up.
he doesn't rely on scientific discoveries or explanations to deny that the flood happened, he uses his own logic.
some of his statements(some of em are hilarious): .
AnswersInGenesis.org linked to this page http://www.icr.org/pubs/btg-b/btg-130b.htm containing this little gem of a conclusion:
And such is the case for all the details of the Flood account. Its global magnitude may astound us, but taken as a whole and at face value, the difficulties always resolve themselves as we study and believe.
So we can pretty much believe whatever we want to believe as long as we "believe".
Dave
in genesis it mentions the "tree of life" that adam & eve were never to partake of... they ate off the "tree of knowledge" and then god forbid them from everlasting life.
he stationed angels and a flaming sword there to protect the tree.. what happened to that tree, the flaming sword, and the angels?
do you think the story was literal or like other misunderstood things, symbolic?
a friend of mine who is atheist gets all wound up when the subject of noah's flood comes up.
he doesn't rely on scientific discoveries or explanations to deny that the flood happened, he uses his own logic.
some of his statements(some of em are hilarious): .
Colorado Plateau about 50,000 years ago.
Typical JW: "Those lying scientists... anything to get published. Did you know there are actual cases of scientific fraud? How do we know that this isn't what Jehovah used to start the tectonic whats-it'ing needed to make the flood waters abate?"
my mom has lost her zeal.
she has understood that the "brothers" are nothing special.
they are mere men.
Hey Min,
Does your mom have something to replace it with? You said she's lost her zeal, so she needs to get her zeal onto something else. Otherwise she's just going to sit around not doing stuff. I hope she has something.
My mom's church keeps her busy, she's a deaconess (which means she teaches sunday school and bakes alot) and she's on some sort of prayer circle thingy. My dad writes Visual Basic programs (his latest is a computer version of Careers) and fixes broken stuff on their farm. They are active, happy folks.
I hope your mom has or can get something like that going for herself.
Dave
my mom has lost her zeal.
she has understood that the "brothers" are nothing special.
they are mere men.
Maybe Minimom should write her own letter to the Society, tell them what really happened...
I love this idea, as long as she's comfortable with the consequences. Wow, they really work hard to show their members what jerks they are, and yet they still have members. Amazing paradox.
i was just wondering a few things:.
what is the average take?
how much of it is sent on to the society?
I never got to actually touch the money -- can't blame them, I wouldn't trust me either -- but I did "enjoy" the "privilege" of getting to stand guard and only let in the brothers that had the special badge. One jerkwad elder made a move to barge in without his badge, so I stopped him and asked to see his badge. He smiled broadly and said, "Good job. I was just testing to see if you'd stop me." So he sat back down at his little station and I sat down all happy that I'd proven I was the man for the job. Later, a brother came out of the room, then returned some time later. He of course had left his jacket (with his badge) in the room that you can't enter without your badge. I stopped him, he explained that I'd seen him walk out and now he was walking back in. I didn't remember him, of course, so I offered to follow him in and let him show me his badge. He did, all the while saying, "Will somebody please tell this brother I'm allowed to be in here?!"
Arrogant jerks. I never did "guard duty" again. When they offered it, I said I'd prefer something else, which always earned me the "rejecting an assignment from Jehovah?" look. Screw their look, I was never doing that again.
Dave
a friend of mine who is atheist gets all wound up when the subject of noah's flood comes up.
he doesn't rely on scientific discoveries or explanations to deny that the flood happened, he uses his own logic.
some of his statements(some of em are hilarious): .
As a dub, I played the "[insert miracle here]" game to justify/explain the Noah story. Jehovah miraculously brought him the animals, Jehovah miraculously put them all back where they belong. The Bible says the animals ate vegetation (doesn't it? Can't recall now) so Noah stocked up on straw for them. (Straw has little nutrition value, he probably brought hay instead. "C'mon, mouse, eat your hay now...")
He didn't need to bring fish, the Bible says only the animals on dry ground expired. (No word on how the fresh water fish and salt water fish [and cold water fish and hot water fish]) survived the mixing of their environments.)
And of course you know the dub/fundy line on how the earth was different before the flood; water canopy, shallow seas, shortish mountains, all that guff.
I even read where some believe God shrunk the animals (or Noah took baby animals) so they would all fit on the ark.
I've never heard anybody try to explain where all the animal waste would have gone. The only opening was on the top deck, so somebody had to haul it all up from two lower decks and shove it out the window. (How would you like to be a survivor, riding in a row boat, waiting to starve to death, only to have a bucket of elephant dung flung onto you!)
Of course, all of this falls completely apart when you ask, "If God was willing to open his 'miracle bag' to make the ark thing possible, why bother with the ark at all?" (Elder: "So don't ask!")
Dave
i got an interesting reply from an elder friend when i admitted that i had issues with the wts.
i had listed the failed predictions, the changing doctrines and the mistakes made by the wts.. he came back with the examples of the israelites in the wilderness and under the various kings.
the nation of israel was still god's people despite their hardheadedness and sins.
The Israelites saw the 10 plagues, the Red Sea parting, the pillar of fire by night/smoke by day. They KNEW they were in God's organization.
Even the 1st century christians had miraculous signs to convince them, in addition to all the alleged messianic prophecies pointing to Jesus.
What's the GB today got? Nuthin'. No miracles, no signs, nothin'. So without those sorts of miracles, Jesus said we'd know them by their fruits. The Watchtower fruitage stinks. (non-scriptural doctrines, failed prophecies, cover-ups, dishonest mis-quoting) They aren't faithful to the Bible, they haven't been discreet enough to get away with it, so I have to say they fail to impress me as a faithful and discreet slave.
Of course, I think the whole Bible thing is a bunch of baloney. But that's beside the point.
Dave
many times i have asked my jw relatives questions that they've been unable to answer with anything other than, "good question, i'll get back to you on that.
" for some reason, they never actually do get back to me on them.
so, now here's the opportunity for the jehovah's witnesses and their supporters on this forum to either answer some of these questions or concede that they have no answer.
nicotine addiction does definitely affect the mind
Have these guys never taken a cold pill? Cough syrup? And don't even bring up prescription narcotics. If spiritism's the issue, why are these drugs ok? "Serve a medicinal purpose" is a pretty weak excuse for opening yourself up to demon possession!
Of course, they would counter that a christian shouldn't become "enslaved" to these things, either. And if a Christian did find he was addicted to such things and refused to break the addiction, he would be subject to disfellowshipping. (Though I don't know offhand of any cases of a brother being DF'd for Contac abuse.)
Not to say smoking's a good thing. But there's lots of bad things that aren't forbidden by God's word.
Thanks for bringing up the spiritism side of things, Blondie. I forgot about "druggery".
Dave
i have been trying to get ahold of copies of 4 specific issues of the golden age magazine.
does anyone have scans available they would be willing to email to me?
the issues are:.
I think "Golden Age" was renamed to "Consolation" in 1937.
You can search google, there are a few offers for sales, but I didn't check them out:
http://www.google.com/search?q=awake+%22golden+age%22+consolation
I wonder if that link will work... :-/
Dave
