TO ALL FAITH DRUNK CHRISTIAN HEATHENS.
READ IT TWICE SO MAYBE YOU WILL SOBER UP!
Big Jim
JoinedPosts by Big Jim
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Ten Minute Slam on Christianity.(att: FAITH DRUNK)
by Big Jim in(to all faith drunk christian heathens;read this twice and sober up).
a quick ten minute slam of christianity.
we can see that god is powerless to forgive sins without killing something in the process.
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Is this the true story of Jesus,,?
by Okidok injesus was born in the occupied palestine while the roman empire was still in full expansion.
the romans were interested, in the short term, to win the support of the local ruling dynasties.
in palestine the greatest threat to the romans came from the zealots.
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Big Jim
There Are No True Storys.
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Adam & Eve (a story full of questions)
by Big Jim inadam and eve.
most people are probably familiar with the story of adam and eve in the garden of eden.
also, most people consider it to be just a story.
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Big Jim
Yes I was a JW for many years, at the time of my breaking away I was a MS and a regular pioneer. Been away for over five years now.
As far as there answers and there theology, since when can you put any stock in there calculations as to time lines? I know I cannot, especially knowing what I have learned concerning all there failed predictions.
Are you currently still in the non-truth? Are were you ever?
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The Watchtower Organisations Controlling Hand
by Big Jim inthe controlling hand of the watchtower organisation.
jehovahs witnesses are taught that god has always guided his people by means of an organisation and that, although, in times past, jehovah listened to the prayers of individual worshippers, he provided instruction for them through an organisational arrangement.
hence, they maintain that with the establishment of the christian congregation (at pentecost 33ce), jehovah had brought into existence an organisation on earth made up of true christians1 and, as christianity spread and congregations were formed, these functioned under the direction of a governing body made up of apostles and older men [and so] today, jehovah deals with his people through an organized body2 and this organisation exists as the modern theocratic organisation of jehovahs witnesses - the watchtower society.3 through their publications, the jehovahs witnesses are led to believe that jehovahs organization alone, in all the earth, is directed by gods holy spirit or active force (zech .4:6) only this organization functions for jehovahs purpose and to his praise.
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Big Jim
Speaking of Skimmer, you did not even have time to read the post are even skim it.
So do not waiste my time replying without any sort of intelligent response. -
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To JWs: My Unanswered Question
by Skimmer inhere is a repost of a question i asked in another topic that hasn't yet been answered.
are there any real jws reading this who can give a convincing answer?.
if you are a sincere believer of the wtbts, i would like to ask you a fairly simple question that i have not seen answered in any of the wtbts publications.
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Big Jim
The Controlling Hand of The Watchtower Organisation
(This Article May Help You To See They Are Not Divinely Directed)
Jehovah’s Witnesses are taught that God has always guided his people by means of an organisation and that, although, in times past, ‘Jehovah listened to the prayers of individual worshippers, he provided instruction for them through an organisational arrangement.’ Hence, they maintain that with the establishment of the Christian congregation (at Pentecost 33CE), ‘Jehovah had brought into existence an organisation on earth made up of true Christians’1 and, as Christianity spread and congregations were formed, these ‘functioned under the direction of a governing body made up of apostles and older men [and so] today, Jehovah deals with his people through an organized body’2 and this organisation exists as the modern ‘Theocratic Organisation’ of Jehovah’s Witnesses - the Watchtower Society.3 Through their publications, the Jehovah’s Witnesses are led to believe that ‘Jehovah’s organization alone, in all the earth, is directed by God’s holy spirit or active force (Zech .4:6) Only this organization functions for Jehovah’s purpose and to his praise. To it alone God’s Sacred Word, the Bible, is not a sealed book’ and further, the Watchtower organisation is ‘the only organization on earth that understands the "deep things of God"!’ and ‘alone is supplied with "gifts in men."’4
For the Jehovah’s Witness, association with the Watchtower organisation is essential to his/her gaining salvation. In an article entitled ‘You Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth’ The Watchtower magazine posed the question, ‘What does God require of those who will reside forever upon his Paradise earth?’ and then proceeded to list ‘four basic requirements.’ According to this article, the third of these requirements of God is ‘that we be associated with God’s channel, his organisation [for] to receive everlasting life in the earthly Paradise we must identify that organisation and serve God as part of it.’5 (italics theirs) In an even bolder claim, the Watchtower Society went so far as to state that people must ‘come to Jehovah’s organisation for salvation’!6
Many years earlier, in a convention address entitled ‘Face the Facts’ the second president of the Watchtower Society, ‘Judge’ Rutherford, likened the organisation to Noah’s ark. Speaking of the Great Crowd who were to inherit eternal life in paradise on earth, He maintained that: ‘They must find protection in God’s organization . . . The ark, which Noah built at God’s command, pictured God’s organization.’7 Whilst this view of the ark’s symbolic significance has changed, the concept of the organisation as essential to salvation persists.8
According to the Watchtower Society, throughout the physical and spiritual realms, their exist only two, rival organisations - Jehovah God’s and Satan the devil’s. Everyone and everything that is not in association with Jehovah’s organisation is automatically a part of Satan’s organisation. It follows then that, since theirs alone is Jehovah’s earthly organisation, unless people are actively associated with them (ie: as baptised members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses), they automatically constitute a part of Satan’s earthly organisation and as such, are destined for destruction by Jehovah God at Armageddon. Hence, the Jehovah’s Witnesses are conditioned to believe that, regardless of how they may personally feel about certain teachings and/or practices, as The Watchtower magazine stated:
they ‘should meekly go along with the Lord’s theocratic organization and wait for further clarification . . . Theocratic ones will appreciate the Lord’s visible organisation and not be so foolish as to pit against Jehovah’s channel their own human reasoning and sentiment and personal feelings.9
After all, should they leave, ‘Where would they go?’ for only the Watchtower organisation ‘has the sayings of life.’10By stressing the need for an organisation to teach the Witnesses and guide them in their thinking and conduct, the Watchtower Society effectively usurps the role of the Holy Spirit who, as Jesus promised, ‘will teach you all things’ and ‘guide you into all truth.’ (John 14:26; 16:13) Following in the steps of their founder, ‘Pastor’ Russell (who claimed that reading the Bible apart from his books would lead a person into spiritual darkness),11 the Watchtower leaders warn the Witnesses that ‘the Bible is an organizational book’ that belongs solely to the Watchtower Society and ‘For this reason the Bible cannot be properly understood without Jehovah’s visible organization in mind.’12 In fact, they blindly point out that those who ‘say that it is sufficient to read the Bible exclusively’ end up believing what the churches teach!13 Furthermore, the Watchtower Society has gone so far as to blasphemously assert that, whilst their elite number enjoys the benefits of Christ as mediator, Jesus is not the mediator for the millions of other Witnesses throughout the world and hence, they must rely on the organisation to mediate spiritual direction and ultimately, salvation.14
To ensure that each Witness remains thoroughly indoctrinated, one former Witness elder has calculated that the Watchtower Society expects an active Witness to read around 3000 pages from the Society’s publications each year, compared with less than 200 pages of assigned Bible reading (most of which was in the Old Testament)! What’s more, most Witnesses never get around to doing the Bible reading.15
The authority that the Watchtower Society wields over the individual Witness is difficult for many Christians to comprehend. Nevertheless, it is a fact that must be reckoned with if we hope to reach them with the true gospel of Jesus Christ. Outright doctrinal encounters rarely succeed for, as Walter Martin once claimed, the average Witness can make a "doctrinal pretzel" out of the average Christian in about 30 seconds.16 This is so, because each time a particular verse is pointed out to a Jehovah’s Witness, s/he automatically "reads" it through the "lens" of the Watchtower Society.
Therefore, the first step that we must take is to remove the distorted lenses. To accomplish this, we must get the Witness to look at the Watchtower organisation itself. The very foundations of the Watchtower Society’s claims to authority must be undermined to the point of collapse. This can be done by demonstrating that the Watchtower leaders have made repeated false prophecies, have changed doctrines back and forth, and have misled followers to their harm - in other words, that they are not a reliable guide to follow and hence, have no right to demand the Witnesses’ loyalty.
As a growing number of former Witness testify, when the Jehovah’s Witnesses see the Watchtower organisation collapse, along with all the teachings and doctrines that depend on its authority for support, they will then (perhaps for the first time), be free to examine their beliefs and begin to think again for themselves. Then, they will be in a position to "see" what the Scriptures are truly saying about God and his Son, Jesus Christ and come to realise the extent to which God loves them - not as members of some organisation but as precious individuals, as children of God.
ENDNOTES
Reasoning From the Scriptures WTB&TS 1985 p.281
Knowledge That Leads to Everlasting Life WTB&TS 1995 p.161
Whilst the Watchtower Society can refer to one of the legal corporations bearing that name, in this article, the Watchtower Society refers specifically to the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses, housed at their Bethel headquarters in Brooklyn, New York. This consists of an authoritative, elite group of men who are responsible for the entire body of beliefs ascribed to by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. In his book Understanding Jehovah’s Witnesses (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991, pp.49-50) Robert M. Bowman Jr. explains that this distinction is necessary since ‘Some Jehovah’s Witnesses . . . have found it useful to deny that God’s organization is to be identified with the Watchtower Society. The Watchtower Society, they argue, is actually only a corporation that God’s people use to get their work done,’ However, as Bowman rightly notes, ‘The leaders of the Watchtower Society in Brooklyn are not merely administering a corporation, they are controlling the doctrines believed by the millions of Jehovah’s Witnesses world-wide.’
The Watchtower July 1 1973 p.402
The Watchtower February 15 1983 p.12
The Watchtower November 15 1981 p.21
R. Franz Crisis of Conscience Atlanta: Commentary, 1992, pp9-10
You Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth WTB&TS 1982, p.255 pp.14
The Watchtower February 1 1952 p.80 see also The Watchtower January 15 1983 p.27
The Watchtower February 15 1981 p.19
The Watch Tower September 15 1910 pp.298-299
The Watchtower October 1 1967 p.587
The Watchtower August 15 pp.28-29 pp.14
The Watchtower April 1 1979 p.31
D. Reed Jehovah’s Witnesses Answered Verse by Verse Grand Rapids: Baker 1986 p.121
R.Rhodes Reasoning from the Scriptures with the Jehovah’s Witnesses Oregon: Harvest 1993 pp.10-11 -
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The Watchtower Organisations Controlling Hand
by Big Jim inthe controlling hand of the watchtower organisation.
jehovahs witnesses are taught that god has always guided his people by means of an organisation and that, although, in times past, jehovah listened to the prayers of individual worshippers, he provided instruction for them through an organisational arrangement.
hence, they maintain that with the establishment of the christian congregation (at pentecost 33ce), jehovah had brought into existence an organisation on earth made up of true christians1 and, as christianity spread and congregations were formed, these functioned under the direction of a governing body made up of apostles and older men [and so] today, jehovah deals with his people through an organized body2 and this organisation exists as the modern theocratic organisation of jehovahs witnesses - the watchtower society.3 through their publications, the jehovahs witnesses are led to believe that jehovahs organization alone, in all the earth, is directed by gods holy spirit or active force (zech .4:6) only this organization functions for jehovahs purpose and to his praise.
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Big Jim
The Controlling Hand of The Watchtower Organisation
Jehovah’s Witnesses are taught that God has always guided his people by means of an organisation and that, although, in times past, ‘Jehovah listened to the prayers of individual worshippers, he provided instruction for them through an organisational arrangement.’ Hence, they maintain that with the establishment of the Christian congregation (at Pentecost 33CE), ‘Jehovah had brought into existence an organisation on earth made up of true Christians’1 and, as Christianity spread and congregations were formed, these ‘functioned under the direction of a governing body made up of apostles and older men [and so] today, Jehovah deals with his people through an organized body’2 and this organisation exists as the modern ‘Theocratic Organisation’ of Jehovah’s Witnesses - the Watchtower Society.3 Through their publications, the Jehovah’s Witnesses are led to believe that ‘Jehovah’s organization alone, in all the earth, is directed by God’s holy spirit or active force (Zech .4:6) Only this organization functions for Jehovah’s purpose and to his praise. To it alone God’s Sacred Word, the Bible, is not a sealed book’ and further, the Watchtower organisation is ‘the only organization on earth that understands the "deep things of God"!’ and ‘alone is supplied with "gifts in men."’4
For the Jehovah’s Witness, association with the Watchtower organisation is essential to his/her gaining salvation. In an article entitled ‘You Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth’ The Watchtower magazine posed the question, ‘What does God require of those who will reside forever upon his Paradise earth?’ and then proceeded to list ‘four basic requirements.’ According to this article, the third of these requirements of God is ‘that we be associated with God’s channel, his organisation [for] to receive everlasting life in the earthly Paradise we must identify that organisation and serve God as part of it.’5 (italics theirs) In an even bolder claim, the Watchtower Society went so far as to state that people must ‘come to Jehovah’s organisation for salvation’!6
Many years earlier, in a convention address entitled ‘Face the Facts’ the second president of the Watchtower Society, ‘Judge’ Rutherford, likened the organisation to Noah’s ark. Speaking of the Great Crowd who were to inherit eternal life in paradise on earth, He maintained that: ‘They must find protection in God’s organization . . . The ark, which Noah built at God’s command, pictured God’s organization.’7 Whilst this view of the ark’s symbolic significance has changed, the concept of the organisation as essential to salvation persists.8
According to the Watchtower Society, throughout the physical and spiritual realms, their exist only two, rival organisations - Jehovah God’s and Satan the devil’s. Everyone and everything that is not in association with Jehovah’s organisation is automatically a part of Satan’s organisation. It follows then that, since theirs alone is Jehovah’s earthly organisation, unless people are actively associated with them (ie: as baptised members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses), they automatically constitute a part of Satan’s earthly organisation and as such, are destined for destruction by Jehovah God at Armageddon. Hence, the Jehovah’s Witnesses are conditioned to believe that, regardless of how they may personally feel about certain teachings and/or practices, as The Watchtower magazine stated:
they ‘should meekly go along with the Lord’s theocratic organization and wait for further clarification . . . Theocratic ones will appreciate the Lord’s visible organisation and not be so foolish as to pit against Jehovah’s channel their own human reasoning and sentiment and personal feelings.9
After all, should they leave, ‘Where would they go?’ for only the Watchtower organisation ‘has the sayings of life.’10By stressing the need for an organisation to teach the Witnesses and guide them in their thinking and conduct, the Watchtower Society effectively usurps the role of the Holy Spirit who, as Jesus promised, ‘will teach you all things’ and ‘guide you into all truth.’ (John 14:26; 16:13) Following in the steps of their founder, ‘Pastor’ Russell (who claimed that reading the Bible apart from his books would lead a person into spiritual darkness),11 the Watchtower leaders warn the Witnesses that ‘the Bible is an organizational book’ that belongs solely to the Watchtower Society and ‘For this reason the Bible cannot be properly understood without Jehovah’s visible organization in mind.’12 In fact, they blindly point out that those who ‘say that it is sufficient to read the Bible exclusively’ end up believing what the churches teach!13 Furthermore, the Watchtower Society has gone so far as to blasphemously assert that, whilst their elite number enjoys the benefits of Christ as mediator, Jesus is not the mediator for the millions of other Witnesses throughout the world and hence, they must rely on the organisation to mediate spiritual direction and ultimately, salvation.14
To ensure that each Witness remains thoroughly indoctrinated, one former Witness elder has calculated that the Watchtower Society expects an active Witness to read around 3000 pages from the Society’s publications each year, compared with less than 200 pages of assigned Bible reading (most of which was in the Old Testament)! What’s more, most Witnesses never get around to doing the Bible reading.15
The authority that the Watchtower Society wields over the individual Witness is difficult for many Christians to comprehend. Nevertheless, it is a fact that must be reckoned with if we hope to reach them with the true gospel of Jesus Christ. Outright doctrinal encounters rarely succeed for, as Walter Martin once claimed, the average Witness can make a "doctrinal pretzel" out of the average Christian in about 30 seconds.16 This is so, because each time a particular verse is pointed out to a Jehovah’s Witness, s/he automatically "reads" it through the "lens" of the Watchtower Society.
Therefore, the first step that we must take is to remove the distorted lenses. To accomplish this, we must get the Witness to look at the Watchtower organisation itself. The very foundations of the Watchtower Society’s claims to authority must be undermined to the point of collapse. This can be done by demonstrating that the Watchtower leaders have made repeated false prophecies, have changed doctrines back and forth, and have misled followers to their harm - in other words, that they are not a reliable guide to follow and hence, have no right to demand the Witnesses’ loyalty.
As a growing number of former Witness testify, when the Jehovah’s Witnesses see the Watchtower organisation collapse, along with all the teachings and doctrines that depend on its authority for support, they will then (perhaps for the first time), be free to examine their beliefs and begin to think again for themselves. Then, they will be in a position to "see" what the Scriptures are truly saying about God and his Son, Jesus Christ and come to realise the extent to which God loves them - not as members of some organisation but as precious individuals, as children of God.
ENDNOTES
Reasoning From the Scriptures WTB&TS 1985 p.281
Knowledge That Leads to Everlasting Life WTB&TS 1995 p.161
Whilst the Watchtower Society can refer to one of the legal corporations bearing that name, in this article, the Watchtower Society refers specifically to the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses, housed at their Bethel headquarters in Brooklyn, New York. This consists of an authoritative, elite group of men who are responsible for the entire body of beliefs ascribed to by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. In his book Understanding Jehovah’s Witnesses (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991, pp.49-50) Robert M. Bowman Jr. explains that this distinction is necessary since ‘Some Jehovah’s Witnesses . . . have found it useful to deny that God’s organization is to be identified with the Watchtower Society. The Watchtower Society, they argue, is actually only a corporation that God’s people use to get their work done,’ However, as Bowman rightly notes, ‘The leaders of the Watchtower Society in Brooklyn are not merely administering a corporation, they are controlling the doctrines believed by the millions of Jehovah’s Witnesses world-wide.’
The Watchtower July 1 1973 p.402
The Watchtower February 15 1983 p.12
The Watchtower November 15 1981 p.21
R. Franz Crisis of Conscience Atlanta: Commentary, 1992, pp9-10
You Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth WTB&TS 1982, p.255 pp.14
The Watchtower February 1 1952 p.80 see also The Watchtower January 15 1983 p.27
The Watchtower February 15 1981 p.19
The Watch Tower September 15 1910 pp.298-299
The Watchtower October 1 1967 p.587
The Watchtower August 15 pp.28-29 pp.14
The Watchtower April 1 1979 p.31
D. Reed Jehovah’s Witnesses Answered Verse by Verse Grand Rapids: Baker 1986 p.121
R.Rhodes Reasoning from the Scriptures with the Jehovah’s Witnesses Oregon: Harvest 1993 pp.10-11 -
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Noah and the Flood (more questions then answers)
by Big Jim innoah's ark.
noah's ark is the boat built by the biblical character noah.
at the command of his god, according to the story, noah was to build a boat that could accommodate his extended family, about 50,000 species of animals and about one million species of insects.
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Big Jim
Noah's Ark
Noah's Ark is the boat built by the Biblical character Noah. At the command of his God, according to the story, Noah was to build a boat that could accommodate his extended family, about 50,000 species of animals and about one million species of insects. The craft had to be constructed to endure a divinely planned universal flood aimed at destroying every other person and animal on earth (except, I suppose, those animals whose habitat is liquid). This was no problem, according to Dr. Max D. Younce, who says by his calculations from Genesis 6:15 that the ark was 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet deep. He says this is equivalent to "522 standard stock cars or 8 freight trains of 65 cars each." By some divine calculation he figures that all the insect species and the worms could fit in 21 box cars. He could be right, though Dr. Younce does not address the issue of how the big boxcar filled with its cargo rose with the rainwater level instead of staying put beneath the floodwaters.
Those not familiar with the story might wonder why God would destroy nearly all the descendants of all of the creatures he had created. The story is that God was displeased with all of his human creations, except for Noah and his family. Annihilating those one is displeased with has become a familiar tactic of the followers of this and many other gods.
Despite the bad example God set for Noah's descendants--imagine a human parent drowning his or her children because they were "not righteous"--the story remains a favorite among children. God likes good people. He lets them ride on a boat with a bunch of friendly animals. He shows them a great rainbow after the storm. And they all live happily ever after. Even adults like the story, though they might see it as an allegory with some sort of spiritual message, such as God is all-powerful and we owe everything, even our very existence to the Creator. Furthermore, the Creator expects us to behave ourselves. But there are some who take the story literally.
According to the story told in chapter 7 of Genesis, Noah, his crew and the animals lived together for more than 6 months before the floodwaters receded. There are a few minor logistical problems with this arrangement, but before getting to them, there is one other thing that needs commenting on. I think it is obvious that floods are no laughing matter. The destruction of life and property caused by floods has plagued many animals, not just humans, from time immemorial. To watch one's family or home swept away in floodwaters must be a terrible spectacle. To see one's children drown, one's life and dreams washed away in an instant, must be a devastating experience. But if one were to discover that the flood was not a whimsical effect of chance natural events, not unplanned and purposeless, but rather the malicious and willful act of a conscious being, one might add rage to the feelings of devastation. I suppose one could argue that it is God's world; he created it, so he can destroy it if he feels like it. But such an attitude seems inappropriate for an All-Good, Loving God.
the "finding" of the Ark
Yet, as preposterous as this story seems, there are people in the twentieth century who claim they have found Noah's ark. Yes, they say that when the flood receded, Noah and his zoo were perched upon the top of Mt. Ararat in Turkey. Presumably, at that time, all the animals dispersed to the far recesses of the earth. How the animals got to the different continents, we are not told. Perhaps they floated there on debris. More problematic, I think is how so many species survived when they had been reduced to just one pair or seven pairs of creatures. Also, you would think that the successful species which had the furthest to travel, would have left a trail of offspring along the way. What evidence is there that all species originated in Turkey? That's what the record should look like if the ark landed on Mt. Ararat.
Still, none of this deters the true believer from maintaining that the story of Noah's ark is the God's truth. Nor does it deter those who think the ark has been found. For example, in 1977 a pseudo-documentary called "In Search of Noah's Ark" was played on numerous television stations and CBS showed a special in 1993 entitled, "The Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark." The first is a work of fiction claiming to be a documentary. The second was masterminded by George Jammal, who has admitted that the story was a hoax. Jammal said he wanted to expose religious frauds. His hoax was seen by about 20 million people, most of whom probably still do not know that Jammal did not want them to take it seriously.
During his show, Jammal produced what he called "sacred wood" from the ark, which he later admitted was wood taken from railroad tracks in Long Beach, California, which he had hardened by cooking in an oven. He also prepared other fake wood by frying a piece of California pine on his kitchen stove in a mix of wine, iodine, sweet-and-sour and teriyaki sauces. He also admitted that he had never been to Turkey. The program was produced by Sun International Pictures, based in Salt Lake City, and responsible for several pseudo-documentaries on Nostradamus, the Bermuda Triangle, the Shroud of Turin, and UFOs.
the evidence for a universal flood
Stories of floods are not unique to the ancient Jews.* What geological or archaeological evidence is there of such a universal destruction of all human societies, all plants and all animals except for the ones on Noah's boat (or Ziusudra's [Sumeria], or Utnapishtim's [Babylon])? There should be a layer of sediment dating from the same time which contains all the bones of these poor creatures. There should be evidence that all human societies were wiped out simultaneously. No such evidence exists of a universal flood. Evidence of a great flood, perhaps caused by melting glaciers some 7,000 years ago, has been discovered off the coast of Turkey by Robert Ballard (who found the remains of the Titanic) and some have claimed this is evidence of Noah's flood, but this is pure and inane speculation.* As archeological anthropologist John Alden notes
...the story in the Bible is clear -- it rained for weeks before Noah's flood, and after it stopped raining the floodwaters receded. The Black Sea flood wasn't caused by rain, and after the water rose it never went away. And neither [the Sumerian nor the Biblical] story mentions the most dramatic consequence of the Black Sea flood, which turned fresh water into salt. Noah's flood, in short, doesn't sound anything like the inundation of the Black Sea (Alden).
However, for the sake of argument, let's agree that there was a universal flood, but that somehow the evidence got twisted around so that geologically and archaeologically it doesn't appear that the flood occurred. There are still a few questions we should ask before accepting this theory. First, how big was this boat? The answer: really, really big! Would it float? Noah might have been given divine guidance here, so maybe this boat, bigger than any supertanker we've ever seen, could float. Remember that this is all done before the discovery of metallurgy, so the boat is made of wood and other natural materials. How many forests would it take to provide the lumber for such a boat? How many people working how many years would be required? Building a pyramid would be peanuts compared to building the ark. But remember, people lived a lot longer in those days. Noah was 600 years old when the project started. He must have been about 1,200 years old when it was finished. Think of the reputation he must have gained over those hundreds of years building a giant boat in the desert.
But let's say that, however implausible, such a boat could have been built using the technology of wooden-boat building known to the earliest peoples. After all, Noah allegedly had God's help in building his boat. There is still the problem of gathering the animals together from the various parts of the world that, as far as we know, Noah had no idea even existed. How did he get to the remote regions of the earth to collect exotic butterflies and Komoda dragons? How did he get all those species of dinosaurs to follow him home? (Fundamentalists believe dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time.) By the time he collected all his species, in twos and sevens, his boat would probably have rotted in the desert sun.
But let's grant that Noah was able to collect all the birds and mammals, reptiles and amphibians, and a couple of million insects, that he is said to have gathered together on his boat. There is still the problem of keeping the animals from eating one another. Or, are we to believe that the lion was lying down with the lamb on the ark? Did the carnivores become vegetarians for the duration of the flood? How did he keep the birds from eating the insects? Perhaps, the ark was stocked with foods for all the animals. After all, if Noah could engineer the building of a boat which could hold all those animals, it would have been a small feat to add room to store enough food to last for more than six months. Of course, Noah would have to store enough food for himself and his family, too. But these would have been minor details to such a man with such a plan guided by his God.
Still, it seems difficult to imagine how such a small crew could feed all these animals in a single day. There is just Noah, his wife, their three sons and three daughters-in-law. The "daily" rounds would take years, it seems. Delicacy forbids me from mentioning the problems of the "clean-up" detail, but I would have to say that if the noise of all those animals didn't drive Noah insane (not to mention the insect bites), the smell should have killed him. At least they didn't have to worry about water to drink. God provided water in abundance.
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Adam & Eve (a story full of questions)
by Big Jim inadam and eve.
most people are probably familiar with the story of adam and eve in the garden of eden.
also, most people consider it to be just a story.
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Big Jim
Adam And Eve
Most people are probably familiar with the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Also, most people consider it to be just a story. An metaphor or parable about the rise of human civilisation; an early attempt by people to try to make sense of our origins.
There are, of course, people who take the story quite literally. As far as they are concerned, there was a garden called (or in) Eden. God did create Adam from dust, and later created Eve from one of Adam's ribs. And so on. This did happen and we are all their direct descendents, a few thousand years later. Exactly as described in Genesis.
Fair enough. If they want to believe that, fine. However, if they want me to believe it also, then I'll need a few things sorting out first...
Adam
Okay, so God created Adam in his own image. Physically or spiritually, whatever.
Did Adam have the standard male genitals? (most of you are probably familiar with them, one way or another). Now, I could understand God giving Adam a penis; after all, when you urinate it's handy to be able to aim somewhere convenient. But did he have testicles? Unless I've missed something, the sole purpose of testes is reproduction.
( What other use do they have? Maybe in the days before Eve, they served some other purpose. Perhaps they were some sort of alarm system, that lit up and made loud hooting noises if Adam strayed too close to a cliff edge or was about to eat something poisonous? )My point? Well, God created Eve so that Adam would not be lonely. Why did he give Adam testes at the start unless he already knew that he would have to create Eve also? Why not just create the two of them (Adam and Eve, that is) at the same time? What use are male reproductive organs without the complimentary female ones?
Perhaps when God made Eve, he did a little extra surgery on Adam whilst he slept, and furnished him with the appropriate equipment. Imagine his surprise when he woke up!
Eve
Why did God create Eve from one of Adam's ribs? He created Adam from dust, what's the big deal about creating another one without having to do a bit of surgery on poor old Adam? You'd think an omnipotent being would be a bit more organised...
( And, of course, there's the story of Lillith - Eve was not the first woman, she came in second (or maybe even third...)).Death
Was there any form of death before "the Fall"? If there was not, did God intervene to prevent all the flies, bacteria and rabbits from breeding like, well, flies, bacteria and rabbits? If not, the world would have been hundreds of feet deep in ooze. Some people say "Aha, but disease is a result of sin, so there were no bacteria then". Aha back, I say, without bacteria the whole ecosystem collapses. Not all bacteria are harmful, many organisms have symbiotic relationships with bacteria and could not survive without them.
The Apple
Well, fruit of some sort, but we'll call it an apple for now, as that is the traditional image.
So, God creates Adam and Eve, with no knowledge of good or evil, right or wrong - they are truly innocent. He sticks them in a Garden, and for some reason creates a tree whose fruit gives you the Knowledge of Good and Evil (it's not explained how this works, but we'll take their word for it).
"DO NOT EAT OF THIS TREE, OR YOU'LL DIE." says God.
Adam and Eve hear this and dutifully nod their heads. God goes off somewhere (he's a busy guy) leaving these two alone.Now, as Adam and Eve don't have the faintest idea of right and wrong, they don't know it's a Bad Idea to disobey God ("Hey, God just told us not to eat that fruit!", "So? What's your point?", "Erm... I don't know. Save some for me!") The only way they can gain this knowledge is by.... Eating from the Tree!
It's like giving a bottle of bleach to a child who is too young to read the warning labels, and then being surprised when they poison themselves with it. To make matter worse, Adam and Eve were threatened with the punishment of death. How can this be any sort of threat? There was no death in The Garden (see above) - they had never witnessed it, and would probably have a hard time grasping the concept anyway. So, they were told not to do something (and had no way of knowing that disobedience was bad), otherwise something would happen to them (and they had no idea what that was, or whether it was a good or bad thing to happen anyway).. "We'll die? What does that mean? Maybe it's fun!"
It's the original Catch 22 situation.
Bare Naked Ladies (and Adam)
Another confusing aspect involves their nakedness. Apparently, when they ate the fruit they suddenly realised that they were naked, and this was shameful. This seems a little strange, as presumably all other creatures in the Garden were also naked, unless it was populated by Disney cartoon animals. ( "Oh no! We've got no clothes on! How embarassing!", says Adam. "Erm... What are clothes?", says Eve. )
If it was inherently wrong and immoral for these two to walk around naked, then why did God create them that way in the first place? Why would He want them to do something that He considered to be wrong? Did He just like watching naked people or something? Possibly, He wanted them to remain completely innocent and unsullied by such concepts as Right and Wrong. In that case, Adam could have done anything he felt like, being totally oblivious to the fact that some things were right and some were wrong. He could have tested the aerodynamic ability of small rodents, tortured bunnies, and killed and eaten Eve. God would have looked on happily as Adam innocently frolicked around enjoyed himself, unaware that he was committing all sorts of indecent, immoral and Wrong acts.Giving them the Knowledge Of Good And Evil was the only way to prevent this sort of thing happening, so why is the act of eating the fruit considered to be Original Sin? After all, it stopped them from immorally walking around stark naked, didn't it? If Original Sin stems from Eve getting Adam to eat the fruit, in doing so she was preventing his wicked nakedness and any further immoral acts he might accidentally commit in his ignorance, wasn't she?
As for the clothing that they wore, Robert Green Ingersoll had this to say in his essay Some Mistakes Of Moses :
In this same chapter we are informed that "unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothed them." Where did the Lord God get those skins?
He must have taken them from the animals; he was a butcher.
Then he had to prepare them; He was a tanner.
Then he made them into coats; he was a tailor.
How did it happen that they needed coats of skins, when they had been perfectly comfortable in a nude condition? Did the "fall" produce a change in the climate?Of course, God might have simply produced the coats using god-magic, and no animals needed to have been harmed. The Knowledge Of Good And Evil must contain some sort of information regarding animal rights - I wonder how Adam and Eve responded to being given skin ripped from dead animals to wear? Modern animal rights activists would have a thing or two to say about the matter - but then, God Himself seemed to think it was okay; and knowing Good from Evil, so then did Adam and Eve. After all, God seems to have been fairly keen on animal sacrifices throughout the Old Testament and, being immutable, I guess He still is...
Alternatively, he could have woven them perfectly decent clothes from cotton, silk or wool or some other natural fabric. He could have even given them expensive designer outfits or clown clothes to wear, and they would have been none the wiser.
Original Sin and Aliens
Apparently the Vatican has been thinking about this. Problem is, if alien civilisations exist, will they have the problem of Original Sin? As Adam and Eve were created on Earth, Original Sin has passed down from them to the rest of us (apparently). Unless they developed space travel and whizzed off to Betelgeuse for a couple of weeks, aliens should be free from their taint. Aliens will, it seems, be free from sin. They will not have needed Christ to appear to them to get killed by the state, as they have no sin to be saved from.
The kids
Adam and Eve had two children that we know of. Cain and Abel. When they grew up, Cain (or was it the other one?) went off and found a wife. Just where exactly did this woman come from?
And, for that matter, where did everyone else come from? Unless God had been creating loads of people on the sly, the only way for the population to develop from Adam, Eve and the two sons has to involve incestuous relationships.
Not a very good example for the rest of us, is it? (The same also applies when God trashed the world and left Noah and his small family to repopulate the world).
Genesis has more holes in it than Blackburn, Lancashire.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Ten Minute Slam on Christianity.(att: FAITH DRUNK)
by Big Jim in(to all faith drunk christian heathens;read this twice and sober up).
a quick ten minute slam of christianity.
we can see that god is powerless to forgive sins without killing something in the process.
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Big Jim
(TO ALL FAITH DRUNK CHRISTIAN HEATHENS;READ THIS TWICE AND SOBER UP)
A Quick Ten Minute Slam of Christianity
What is Christianity?
Christianity is the belief in an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, eternal God who sits outside of any known reality. He has been around forever, although He transcends time (in some vague, ill-defined way); He is intangible, yet He touches everything; and He is rational and just, though not in any of the ways we mere mortals would consider rational and just. This God, who has been from eternity, has waited for eternity, has suddenly been struck with a great idea: He wants to make a universe.
We don't know why He wants to create the world. It must be out of sheer boredom, even though this God is entirely complete in Himself, and does not need any external refrence to derive meaning. But I think God seems to be without meaning, without purpose, He is lonely, and needs to create beings infintesimally smaller than He is to keep himself company. This is His "Plan for the Ages".
As we can see, this "plan" is a plot to boost God's ego by creating a whole slew of beings who are to worship God forever. God first creates angels. These angels are "messengers" and "helpers" of God, although God, being able to do all things, would never need errand-boys and lackeys in the first place. In addition to their normal duties, these angels are also created to give worship to God forever. However, after some time, God finally figures out that these angels are a little too robotic for His infinite taste, so he decides to spice things up a bit - he gives the angels free-will. Of course, this omniscient God presuamably doesn't realize that if He gives the angels free will, they will get bored with the incessant harp-playing and chanting, and that Satan, one of God's creation, would rebel if he was granted free will.
Bother. Now this God has flubbed it all up. He created these angels to love Him forever, and now a third of them hate His guts. Of course, God, being able to do whatever He wants, could wipe off these beings from his sight with a lift of his finger. But nooooo ... instead of cleaning up the mess He created, He feels the need to prove His infinite grace to the angels, and so he lets Satan go ... and comes up with a better "plan".
This "plan" involves creating man. Of course, He doesn't just create man, he creates a lot of things along the way. A short list of them: the universe, matter and energy, the four fundamental forces, the big bang, chaos, quantum mechanics, relativity, subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, metals, non-metals, semiconductors, organic compounds, inorganic compounds, gases, light, heat, hot gases, stars, planets, asteroids, comets, satellites, solar systems, binary stars, multiple star systems, brown dwarfs, white dwarfs, main-sequence stars, giants, supergiants, novas, supernovas, neutron stars, black holes, quasars, stellar x-ray sources, spiral galaxies, elliptical galaxies, barred-spiral galaxies, galaxy clusters, water, oceans, dirt, land, continents, polar caps, atomosphere, ozone layer, amino acids, neucleotides, proteins, RNA, DNA, cell membranes, cells, bacteria, protists, fungi, plants, poisonous plants, vertabrates, invertabrates, insects, poisonous insects, reptiles, poisonous reptiles, amphibians, birds, fish, the poisonous Japanese blowfish, the Japanese, mammals, primates, hominids, and finally, men. Of course, this all was just child's play to an infinite God, He could have gone on and on and on, but He only had an eternity to waste and He had to stop somewhere. In any case, this process of creating the entire universe was for the express purpose of creating man - nothing else. It took this infinite God about 15 billion years to get it all working correctly, but He figured that it would be just too complicated to explain the entire deal to man. So when God tells his prophet Moses about the origin of the universe, He says that it was all simply created in seven days, BOOM, just like that.
This God, of course, did not bother to destroy all the dinosaur bones and did not even think of setting all the radioisotope indicators back to suggest the world was created only a few thousand years ago. He probably never thought we'd get that smart.
God also explained to Moses a lot of weird things. He told Moses about Adam and Eve and the story about the garden of Eden. As the story goes, after God finished creating a perfect man on the sixth day, he put Adam in a beautiful garden. The first task Adam has to complete is that of naming the animals, presumably in Hebrew. But instead of being happy at God's creation, Adam feels lonely. Imagine that. If you had an infinite God who loves you and takes care of you, would YOU feel lonely? Of course, this is because our all-knowing God, having already made male and female animals, somehow forgot to make a female human. So, to rectify this situation, God creates woman - out of Adam's rib, no less.
Oh yeah -- I forgot to ask. Anyone here disagree that this is indeed Hebrew mythology?
Anyhow, back to the story. God has created a perfect man and woman to worship Him forever, right according to the specifications. But, presumably, this all-knowing God forgot the lesson He learned from Satan, and so He makes the mistake of creating free will, AGAIN, and giving it to man. Of course, being all-knowing, he KNEW that Adam was going to rebel, but He had supossably already worked out a complicated plan of redeeming the whole world already. Unfortunately, this plan involved sending a lot of God's creation to a place called Hell, which God had created long before He created the universe. But God isn't content with just giving man free will, He sets a forbidden tree in the garden for the express purpose of tempting Adam, and He also lets Satan into the garden in the innocent form of a talking snake. Now God's got everything set up.
This is of course sacrilige, to say that God tempted Adam and Eve. It is better to call it a "test" of Adam's faith. However, Adam knew God personally and had no need of "faith" to believe in God. Not only that, God knew the result of the "test" beforehand. What sort of God creates tests he knows his creation will fail?
Anyhow, the snake tells Adam and Eve (presumably in Hebrew) to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree, and Adam and Eve, not knowing good from evil, are dumb enough to do it. God gets so upset that he condemns them to death, throws them out of the garden, curses the land Adam walks on, and curses Eve by bringing pain into childbirth. Why God would let his creation continue in this charade, and let Eve bear children who have the mark of the original sin, is not known. But God made sure to tell Paul that all sin entered through Adam and Eve. Presumably, God, who has created all things, including good and evil, felt the need to blame His creation for the mess He made.
God of course, has no reason to be angry at Adam - Adam had no knowledge of good and evil, besides, compared to God, Adam is a piddling trifle. Why should God care what his creation eats? Why should He care if this thing he has created, exercising the free will God gave him, chose to disobey? This seems to be the celestial equivalent of beating a two-year old baby to death with a baseball bat for stealing out of the cookie jar.
Later on, the first stage of God's miraculous plan for the ages includes wiping out all of his creation except for 8 people he miraculously keeps alive in a boat. Apparently Noah rounded up all the animals from all the way across the globe - penguins from Antartica, kangaroos from Australia, various American animals. He packed them all into a rather smallish boat that would sink alone by the weight of the insects carried inside, let alone birds, mammals and reptiles. After getting off the boat the animals apparently headed straight back to their homelands, crossing wide oceans, blazing deserts, dense jungles. This was all tiring work, but luckily the carnivores refrained from eating other animals until they were sufficiently populated enough to sustain a carnivore-like lifestyle. Upon returning to their homelands, the genetic diversity in every living creature just exploded a billionfold times over, while God was busy at work creating fossils and setting back their radiometric dates, so that it would just APPEAR like they had been living and evolving for millions of years.
Let's not get started on the tower of Babel.
Step two of God's "Plan for the Ages" was to design a barbaric institution in which millions of innocent animals would be slaughtered in order that God could "pretend" He does not see inequity. Why God would invent these theatrics is completely beyond me; I do not see why God needs something to die in order to forgive sin. It couldn't possibly be because that the nations around Israel also performed animal sacrafice? Naw ... Well, I suppose it should come to no surprise that the smell of burnt flesh is "pleasing to the Lord", but one would think, if God really liked that smell, wouldn't He burn His own animals himself?
It seems this Hebrew God is a real stickler for making sure every sin has a corresponding death. Even if the thing that dies is not necessarily the thing that sins. But that's ok. God has the right to be capricious. We can see that God is powerless to forgive sins without killing something in the process.
Step three of His "plan" (which already looks highly overrated as a "plan") includes the nation of Israel. Israel, of course, being lead by the one true God, felt righteous indignation at the baby-killing practices of the poor ignorant idolaters in the Promised Land. And at God's command, the Israelites exercised their divine right to - uh - murder the children of these disgusting idoloters. They also enjoyed the bit about murdering the idolaters themselves: all the men and women too, along with annihlating the cities and destroying the livestock of these disgusting idolators. And the looting, plunder, and raping wasn't too bad either. In any case, I believe the correct term for the systematic killing of an entire race of people because of their religion is "genocide".
So much for "thou shalt not commit murder". Of course, God really had to do all of this because He was completely powerless to convert the ignorant idolators or at least relocate them to far distant lands.
I am happy to report that though, that the spectacle of dead animals doesn't last forever. As it appears, God has had a neat little trick up His sleeve all this time. He sends this guy Jesus who is not only some superintelligent rabbi, but actually God himself. 100% man, 100% God. Remember, folks, this is before government invented statistics. This Jesus lived a sinless life in which he broke nearly all of the Mosaic law (harvested grain on the Sabbath, refused to stone a woman according to the Law as punishment for adultery, took up a whip and went through God's Holy Temple in a rage savagely beating peoples, taught that one should hate their mother, leave their father, follow him, and that the Hebrew cleanliness laws were all obsolete). This Jesus is also the same man (God?) who had the audacity to say that God is Love and that you should Love Your Enemy - despite anything the Old Testament said about annihalting entire cities, destroying houses, cattle, and killing men, women, and children. Eventually, though, Jesus lets himself get killed on a cross, although we don't know how an omnipotent God can die in the first place. This sham death now pacified God enough that all men can be saved from Him sending people to Hell. Well, not exactly ALL men - only those who believe that God is all loving and would kill his only son to prove it. The rest he sends to Hell.
Lemme get this straight: God creates Hell, then kills Himself to prevent Himself from sending everyone to it? It's like pointing a gun at the person you love most in the world, and remarking that you love them so much, you're not going to shoot them. But instead, you shoot yourself.
To quickly finish this diatribe up: in the end, of course, God will do a few more theatrics just to prove to His rebellious creation that He is God, shortly before he throws them into the lake of fire. You see, this God, who has required his creation to take his existance on faith, is very angry at his creation for having faith in the wrong Gods, or no Gods at all. This world was entire guessing game, and those who guess wrong should be punished. But who should care, we're all dust anyway, right? This system of morality, this meaning of life, this hope that we will spend eternity with a very vengeful God who is not very far removed from the Satan He created - it's all meaningless. God is angry for being misunderstood, but it never occured to God that more people would believe in Him if He just would show Himself.
In the end, also, God destroys everything that is evil (God, having created evil, has the right and ability do destroy it at any time - why He has not already done so is such a mystery). He also finally gets around to destroying Satan (another thing He didn't want to do earlier), and calls everything that remains back up to heaven so that He can be worshipped forever, just the way He wanted. Presumably he gets rid of that "free will" thing that He created so that no one has a chance of rebelling ever again. And we all live happily ever after.
Well, I have been accused of many things in my life as being an atheist, but the primary accusation is that I must have some ego trip, that I am just 'too smart for God'. No. That is missing the point entirely. The point is that we don't even know if God had anything to do with writing the Bible. It could be the work of mere men, or angels, or demons. But if were written by God, it would make sense. It would be perfect. God wouldn't make all these blatant mistakes. Give me one good reason why this blithering mess we call the Bible could not be the work of mere, superstitious, scientifically ignorant men? How do you 'rationalize' all these problems? How do you explain them away? The answer is: you don't - you ignore the problems completely, you close your mind and believe on blind faith.
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RE: Busted by Wife (thanks to all for your help)
by Big Jim ini really do appreciate all the advice that i received from you all on this matter.. i even appreciate the ones who gave critical advice and downed smoking.. i took all advice that was given and have resolved the problem with your help.. here is where i am at with the issue now; i have been with my wife for almost twenty years now and we have always had a very strong and good relationship especially when it comes to communication.
well to her i betrayed that special bond by not telling her i was smoking.
so in her mind she figured if i would hide this from her what else could or would i hide from her.. so after digesting all the good advice that i have received from you all, i had a long heart to heart talk with her and reasured her that even though i am no longer a witness that i would never do anything to destroy the family that i love.
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Big Jim
Just bringing it back up to the top to make sure all that replied see my thank you post.