i'm taking a university astronomy course, and i must say it's really fun to read about this field.
anyway, i remember the jws used to use jupiter (and probably still do) as an example for how unique and special our solar system is (and thus designed) -- namely, that jupiter protects the earth from astroids, comets, and meteors.
convincing if one doesn't know any better, especially circa 1994 when jupiter stepped in front of a comet for us... but this isn't the full story!
Twitch here is a sequence that resembles a chromosome, with fixed ends at both ends, pronounced as useless by many astronomers, like a decoration superflouis but fitting, and compatible with what emerged out of the big beginning (ba..)
Ah, I see.
I tis really out there, , t()wich can not be said about wt way out doctrines)
I've little doubt it's really out there.
i'm taking a university astronomy course, and i must say it's really fun to read about this field.
anyway, i remember the jws used to use jupiter (and probably still do) as an example for how unique and special our solar system is (and thus designed) -- namely, that jupiter protects the earth from astroids, comets, and meteors.
convincing if one doesn't know any better, especially circa 1994 when jupiter stepped in front of a comet for us... but this isn't the full story!
Lordy, not the Titus Bode thing again. Almost consistent to prediction does not a law make.
a friend of mine (a jw) delivered a premature baby, and the outlook is grim.. she is posting updates on facebook, and where everyone else is offering prayers for them both, and how "jehovah loves them both very much", and i got...nothing.
nothing that would be comforting.
big man in the sky has zero to do with this, only medical science and chance will have any bearing on this.i wish i could lie convincingly to her and to myself and have something nice to say.
I just don't have the lies to give...
Then give your honesty You'll sleep better...
this "world event" is a few years away but i'm in the field so i work everyday to prepare for it.. our technology is advancing at an exponential rate.
shit will hit the fan because of it.. even as a jw i knew this was coming.
in fact, i thought that's what the bible was talking about.
Maybe I feel weird about it because I've always been a super alarmed state because "Armageddon was coming".
Johnny, tell our good poster what they've just won, would you?
while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.
because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".
i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.
But...if that happened, some people would lose their purpose in life
True but much like the Hindenburg, you can't help but watch the thing go down in flames.
Oh the humanity
while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.
because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".
i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.
What is the purpose of life?
To live.
and how long will it last?
and who will come after that, yahweh, as the old testament says or jesus, as the new testament says?
the scriptures say he'll come to the mount of olives, but surely that's a spiritual mount of olives.
What SBF said...
you found out about ttatt way back in the 70's or maybe the 80's (basically before the internet) and you thought that you were all alone in this knowledge?
what do you think would have happened to you?
no jehovahs-witness.com, no john cedars, no arc, no jwfacts.com and no crisis of conscience to fall back on.
For those of you who have actually experienced this for real, please share your experience.
Well, I guess I qualify.
I was essentially born in and was raised with the beliefs but even as a kid I had questions whose answers didn't really make sense. Such as when I wondered about all the children and babies of so called "wicked tribes" that were slaughtered in the name of YHWH and those that died in the flood. I reasoned that these were innocent and were executed for no better reason than being born to "wicked" people and not because they were deserving. Even then I found it a bit hard to imagine every person in the world other than Noah's family were beyond redemption and forgiveness. Why would a loving god do or command such things? As a kid I questioned and the answers didn't make sense, this problem of evil. There seemed to be much that was just accepted and not discussed, such as the creation account and Adam/Eve being at apparent odds with evolution and the fossil record (I was big into dinosaurs and the history of animals)
As a teenager, such questions festered and caused me some amount of distress as more blatent and obvious inconsistencies arose. Tthe nature of god, jesus, angels and demons, all of which there seemed no real evidence for other than hearsay. The number of different beliefs based on the same book and the number of non christian beliefs had me questioning why I thought what I believed was true. Why any of it was true. It seemed there was an evolution of belief as well. Why would god confuse his children so? Again the problem of evil reared it ugly head when considering the immient destruction of the vast majority of humankind, and again I reasoned that not all non witnesses were deserving of destruction for no better reason than not being witnesses. By this time I had a bit more experience and knew people that I didn't think deserved such a fate. And of course, being a teenager I yearned for a path to make my own and rebelled against the fate I was told was inevitable.
Anywho, I made up my mind that whatever the result I wanted no part of the fate foretold by desert nomads. I moved out when I turned 18 and stopped going to meetings, over a short period of time. I made friends and dated whomever I wished. I did drugs and partied hard. I learned to play bass guitar and played in hard rock bands. I never looked back, though I was in a hall twice since age 20, once for a memorial and once for my brother's baptism (he's since left as well). This was by the mid 80s, well before the internet, I never read any "apostate" literature or met another xjw until around 2004, when I joined a meetup group, then this site.
So, I basically just decided to live a life I wanted and roll the dice. LIke anyone.
in recent years significant progress has been made in solving the question of how life originated on our planet.. how do you think theists will respond when it finally happens?
as a former christian i know my reaction would have been something like "well that just goes to show that it takes intelligent life to make life", but for two reasons that defense doesn't work.. firstly it would prove that life is not an ethereal force that originates with god.
there is no 'ghost in the machine', no elan vital.
Well said Sanchy
if you were a computer programmer and you were to create a simulated automated world, that would constantly evolve and self run after initial designs.
first you would have to code the rules, laws, and core elements of this world.
while this is being coded, the program is not run yet, so none of it exists.
Well, if this simulation idea is true then someone should upgrade the thing because there's some serious bugs happening. Someone's code might crash...
