Posts by Caedes

23

Key to some universal truths—Queen Jezebel has it!

by venus in

even wicked queen jezebel knew ‘what is good and what is bad’ because she described those who hurt others for no reason as “good-for-nothing.” (1 king 21:10).

from her comment the following universal truths can be discerned:.

1) everyone is endowed with the knowledge of good and bad, which makes god’s communication with humans unnecessary.

Caedes

There have always been atheists, they are not the invention of religion and the church.

17

The Son of God? An Atheists view please.

by Miss Worldly in

jw
friends

please bare with me on this.. firstly, i do not intend to cause offence to anyone.

i apologise if what i am saying is blasphemous to some.

i appreciate your views and mine may differ.

The problem is that most christians see the bible as literal, and in fact some of the more problematic parts of the bible are clearly written as law and instruction. That leads to the problem of what you hope to get from the bible, because if you use it to teach yourself something about life and how to interact with your fellow man then how do you differentiate the parts telling you it's ok to enslave other humans? If that is part of the book then it holds no moral authority.

The comment you made earlier that worldly things tear down and how holy things build up is a good example, on what basis can you make that claim? I would say that the state of a good number of countries put lie to that claim. After all according to you the Scandinavians as some of the most godless and secular countries in the world, must be inundated with crime and corruption? American prisons must be full of atheists hedonistically crime spreeing their way through life?

But we both know that the opposite is true.

98

Evolution Deniers - An Endangered Species

by cofty in

evolution explains how everything descended from a common ancestor over millions of years.

creationists only seem to want to talk about what came before that common ancestor.

just for the sake of discussion let's pretend that the following is true.

Caedes

I'm not entirely sure he understands anything other than how to copy and paste!

John, you might want to go back and reread what I wrote, the basic premise that the experiment is meant to show is not in itself controversial. The methodology used by some researchers was challenged and when the experiment was repeated with more rigorous methodology the results were the same.

Psychological tests have to be very carefully set up and interpreted to ensure that the results do not suffer from confirmation bias.

70

Apologists saying that the JWs shouldn't be banned, what the hell!??

by Crazyguy in

it's been brought to my attention that there are xjw that say they support the witnesses and don't think russia should ban them.

i would just like to remind all of you that jws are guilty of murder, causing higher rates of suicide, covering up child molestation, and keeping members in prisoned because if they leave they loose family, financial support, possible employment etc.. sure their not strapping bombs to their chests but they easily get members to kill themselves with their blood policies.

they are an extremist group!

Caedes

I'm no apologist for JWs and (I was bought up by JWs but never got baptised and never subscribed to their beliefs) I was one of those who argued that they should be free to practice their religion. It is an adult's right to belong to any crazy cult they like. I don't think it is the business of government to dictate to people which bunch of religious nutters that people are allowed to join.

If individual JWs have broken the law they should be held to account by a court. Similarly the JWs rules on reporting child abuse falls woefully short of the standards that we expect and I think the courts should force them to correct them, banning them would not improve the situation for children being bought up by JW parents in any way.

98

Evolution Deniers - An Endangered Species

by cofty in

evolution explains how everything descended from a common ancestor over millions of years.

creationists only seem to want to talk about what came before that common ancestor.

just for the sake of discussion let's pretend that the following is true.

Caedes

As usual you seems to be very ignorant about science. (sic)

Care to show where my posts indicate a lack of knowledge about science?

Congratulations you have mastered 'ctrl' C and 'ctrl' V although I am not convinced that that is a good indicator of intelligence or if you have just been trained very well. Can I ask do you get a treat whenever you copy and paste something?

17

The Son of God? An Atheists view please.

by Miss Worldly in

jw
friends

please bare with me on this.. firstly, i do not intend to cause offence to anyone.

i apologise if what i am saying is blasphemous to some.

i appreciate your views and mine may differ.

Caedes

Its a message of hope, freedom, mercy.

Apart from all the nasty bits of course.

Israel made a decision for the merciful god

Apart from all the killing and slavery of course.

how worldy things pull down and how holy things build up,

Apart from the fact that isn't true of course.

So apart from the facts you are spot on!

17

The Son of God? An Atheists view please.

by Miss Worldly in

jw
friends

please bare with me on this.. firstly, i do not intend to cause offence to anyone.

i apologise if what i am saying is blasphemous to some.

i appreciate your views and mine may differ.

Caedes

I think if you look at the bible from the point of view of an atheist the thing that first becomes obvious is that the books are clearly not all related. If you compare Ecclesiastes to the Psalms or to Revelation and if you compare the gospels to Paul's writings you can see that the different books of the bible have some very different messages.

I think your first conclusion is correct for most of the bible, the second conclusion I am not sure about. I think there probably was a figure that the biblical Jesus was based on but I don't think we can assume what that figure claimed for himself since the new testament was written so long after his life. The first mention of the gospels doesn't happen until the second century. But I would agree that he was certainly popular enough to give rise to Christianity even if I don't believe he was the son of god.

You are definitely correct that believing that you are the son of god would count as a mental illness today. We do have a resident poster who does think this but I don't know what username they use now or if he is still a contributor, he has some very strange ideas and regularly gets told to get help with his condition.

31

Why more highly educated people are less into conspiracy theories

by Mickey mouse in

jw
friends

i've seen discussions here about how jehovah's witnesses seem to be prone to believing conspiracy theories... https://digest.bps.org.uk/2017/04/05/why-more-highly-educated-people-are-less-into-conspiracy-theories/.

this last paragraph seems particularly relevant:.

importantly, van prooijen said his findings help make sense of why education can contribute to “a less paranoid society” even when conspiracy theories are not explicitly challenged.

Caedes

The problem is that historically conspiracies fail, someone always gives the game away in the end. People are very bad at keeping secrets because we are social animals. I have no problem believing in real proven conspiracies. So for example I don't believe that Eisenhower knew about Pearl Harbour before the attack because it makes no sense. A thwarted attack would have had the same effect as a successful one. The previous poster seems unaware that for most people a brief search on the internet is not going to take them to some fringe website but to more traditional online encyclopaedias that make use of evidence rather than hearsay and conjecture.

As per usual, evidence is the thing that makes the difference to thinking people. Contrary to the previous poster I think a more educated person is much more likely to be sceptical than the sort of swivel eyed loon that believes in every paranoid fantasy out there.

98

Evolution Deniers - An Endangered Species

by cofty in

evolution explains how everything descended from a common ancestor over millions of years.

creationists only seem to want to talk about what came before that common ancestor.

just for the sake of discussion let's pretend that the following is true.

Caedes

Are you talking about the mirror test and/or the spot test? They're are very controversial.

They might be controversial to you but I am not aware of any particular controversy in scientific circles. It is a psychological test so it isn't a hard science but there are some very well planned empirical studies out there that show that some animals are aware they are seeing themselves in a mirror. Even human babies don't pass this test when they are young.

98

Evolution Deniers - An Endangered Species

by cofty in

evolution explains how everything descended from a common ancestor over millions of years.

creationists only seem to want to talk about what came before that common ancestor.

just for the sake of discussion let's pretend that the following is true.

Caedes

My view about the origin of consciousness is based on Catholic tradition and the Bicameralism theory from Julian Jaynes.

How do you square that with the really strong evidence of self awareness in other animals?