That's it, B_t_L.
Just trying to see reality.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
nvrgnbk
JoinedPosts by nvrgnbk
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64
Why I post about atheism
by nvrgnbk inoftentimes the accusation is made that there is some sort of conspiracy on jwd amongst the atheists to convert, humiliate, spit on, or otherwise degrade the believers.
it's been suggested that their tone is condescending and arrogant.. it's hinted at that they're angry and bitter about their own lives and want to take it out on god and his humble servants.. others think it's all just an excuse to lead what they judge to be a morally depraved life.. regardless of what we believe about god's existence or lack thereof, most rational adults understand that when we attempt to judge the motives of others we can miss by a mile.. so here's the reason i post about the topic of atheism.... i was born as one of jehovah's witnesses, fourth generation.
i was being indoctrinated with jehovah while i was still in the womb.
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When you were a Jw did you have a relationship with God?
by Fisherman indifficult to understand how even heavys that taught about having a relatinship with god now proclaim that it was imagined after leaving the truth.
puts into question appointments and people serving.
i can understand if some one new leaves the org.
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nvrgnbk
Nope, but I wanted to. I never felt I was good enough... not trying hard enough or something.
Amen.
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Why I post about atheism
by nvrgnbk inoftentimes the accusation is made that there is some sort of conspiracy on jwd amongst the atheists to convert, humiliate, spit on, or otherwise degrade the believers.
it's been suggested that their tone is condescending and arrogant.. it's hinted at that they're angry and bitter about their own lives and want to take it out on god and his humble servants.. others think it's all just an excuse to lead what they judge to be a morally depraved life.. regardless of what we believe about god's existence or lack thereof, most rational adults understand that when we attempt to judge the motives of others we can miss by a mile.. so here's the reason i post about the topic of atheism.... i was born as one of jehovah's witnesses, fourth generation.
i was being indoctrinated with jehovah while i was still in the womb.
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nvrgnbk
Oftentimes the accusation is made that there is some sort of conspiracy on JWD amongst the atheists to convert, humiliate, spit on, or otherwise degrade the believers.
It's been suggested that their tone is condescending and arrogant.
It's hinted at that they're angry and bitter about their own lives and want to take it out on God and His humble servants.
Others think it's all just an excuse to lead what they judge to be a morally depraved life.
Regardless of what we believe about God's existence or lack thereof, most rational adults understand that when we attempt to judge the motives of others we can miss by a mile.
So here's the reason I post about the topic of atheism...
I was born as one of Jehovah's Witnesses, fourth generation. I was being indoctrinated with Jehovah while I was still in the womb. My perceived relationship with God would come to affect every aspect of my life. I was taught that everything that was good came from Him. I was also taught, quite logically assuming that He was omnipotent, that whatever bad happened was permitted by Him, but never sent by Him, just permitted.
Barring some "normal" familial dysfuncionality and the pitfalls of growing up in a cult, I had a childhood that many would envy. I have had a good life. I have no major complaints. I know I enjoy advantages that millions of my fellow humans will never experience.
Why the atheism then?
I realized one day that when I worked hard and made good decisions, things would work out, most of the time.
When I "waited on Jehovah" and thought little about the future and my livelihood, I was oftentimes in trouble.
It was a vicious cycle.
If I didn't depend on God, tried to use whatever resources were at my disposal, and took some positive action, I'd probably not feel much need for Him.
If I let things in His hands, made poor decisions, or worse yet was indecisive, I'd be looking for Him to bail me out all the time.
So life was better without Him.
But the real reason for my lack of belief in an omniscient, omnipotent, caring, fatherlike entity is the suffering that I see others experience.
I'm not talking about emotional pain. I've experienced plenty of that. Regrettably, I know I've caused it in others. A lot of that kind of pain has to do with personal growth and after time has passed, we can be stronger and better for it.
The kind of suffering that I'm talking about is the kind that has no positive outcome.
I'm talking about the rape and murder of defenseless children.
Ethnic cleansing.
The Holocaust.
The Nakba.
The humiliation and near extermination of the Native Americans.
Cancer.
Birth defects.
Mental illness.
The list goes on.
If there is a God watching it all, what good is He?
If He's real, why don't those that believe agree on His nature, His identity, His name, His purpose?
Why isn't everyone favored with a "special" experience so that they too can have faith?
I post about this openly on this forum because I'm sure that some Witness that is lurking may have the same questions and may be going crazy trying to make sense of it all.
I have no answers, but I found it comforting when I was lurking here to know that others had struggled with the same.
Why the sometimes blasphemous tone?
I learned that from the Bible.
Jehovah and His supporters were forever calling out and taunting the other deities.
When their blasphemy was met with silence or inactivity, that was pointed to as proof of the competing deity's nonexistence.
So maybe the blasphemous atheists are just trying to imitate Jehovah and the prophets, trying to wake up a sleeping, defecating, or otherwise occupied God.
Most atheists I know say that they'll become believers when evidence that supports belief is presented.
Till then...
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nvrgnbk
Andddd there aren't that many atheists in the first place.
LOL!
There are plenty.
They're just not as vocal or "loud" as you've suggested they are.
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nvrgnbk
I think a lot of it has to do with how someone arrives at their non belief in the first place
Very true.
If it was a calm, rational, painfully honest, and cumulative realization that just wanting God to be real isn't enough to make it so, the lack of belief will likely persist.
However, if the conclusion was reached due to a series of tragic events or a reversal of fortune in one's personal life, then a positive turn of events might be enough to bring back belief.
The majority of atheists I know belong to the former group.
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nvrgnbk
An epidemic of fatherlessness, an epidemic of Atheism
?
If my father is dead, I'm fatherless.
If my father abandoned me, has shown no interest in my welfare, and has taken no responsibility for my wellbeing, I'm fatherless in another sense of the word.
If my father only has dealings a few of my siblings that he deems "special" enough to deserve his affections, I'm fatherless still.
Are you suggesting that God was a simply Cosmic Sperm Donor or a Deadbeat Deity?
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Are you a Democrat, a Republican, or a Southerner?
by zeroday inare you a democrat, a republican, or a southerner?.
here is a little test that will help you decide.. .
the answer can be found by posing the following question:.
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nvrgnbk
I've never seen an "Islamic Terrorist with a huge knife" on any U.S. streets in my short 35 years of life.
But I wonder what an Iraqi or a Palestinian or an Iranian (they're not all Islamic terrorists, BTW) would do presented with the same situation, this time an American soldier with a big gun pointed at his family.
This kind of "kill all the sand ni***rs" mentality is only perpetuating the violence, on both sides.
Unashamed Liberal American Democrat Construction Worker
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How to Build a Human Bomb
by nvrgnbk inhow to build a human bomb.
guantanamo bay is killing people thousands of miles away.. .
by george monbiot.
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nvrgnbk
How to Build a Human Bomb Guantanamo Bay is killing people thousands of miles away.
by George Monbiot
Published in the Guardian (May 13 2008 )
When we learnt last week that Abdallah Salih al-Ajmi had blown himself up in
Mosul in northern Iraq, the US government presented this as a vindication of
its policies. Al-Ajmi was a former inmate of the detention camp at
Guantanamo Bay. The Pentagon says that his attack on Iraqi soldiers shows
both that it was right to have detained him and that it is dangerous ever to
release the camp's prisoners {1}. On the contrary, it shows how dangerous it
was to put them there in the first place.
Al-Ajmi, according to the Pentagon, was one of at least thirty former
Guantanamo detainees who have "taken part in anti-coalition militant
activities after leaving US detention" {2}. Given that the majority of the
inmates appear to have been innocent of such crimes before they were
detained, that's one hell of a recidivism rate. In reality it turns out that
"anti-coalition militant activities" include talking to the media about
their captivity in Guantanamo Bay. The Pentagon lists the Tipton Three in
its catalogue of recidivists, on the grounds that they collaborated with
Michael Winterbottom's film The Road to Guantanamo. But it also names seven
former prisoners, aside from Al-Ajmi, who have fought with the Taliban or
Chechen rebels, kidnapped foreigners or planted bombs after their release.
One of two conclusions can be drawn from this evidence, and neither reflects
well on the US government.
The first is that, as the Pentagon claims, these men "successfully lied to
US officials, sometimes for over three years". {3} The US government's
intelligence gathering and questioning were ineffective, and people who
would otherwise have been identified as terrorists or resistance fighters
were allowed to walk free, despite years of intense and often brutal
interrogation. Should this be surprising? Without a presumption of
innocence, without charges, representation, trials or due process of any
kind, there is no reliable means of determining whether or not a man is
guilty. The abuses at Guantanamo Bay not only deny justice to the inmates,
they also deny justice to the world.
Al-Ajmi, the authorities say, initially confessed in the prison camp to
deserting the Kuwaiti army to join the jihad in Afghanistan {4}. He admitted
that he fought with Taliban forces against the Northern Alliance. He later
retracted this confession, which had been made "under pressure and threats"
{5}. When the Americans released him from Guantanamo, they handed him over
to the Kuwaiti government for trial, but without the admissable evidence
required to convict him. Among his defences was that neither he nor his
interrogators had signed his supposed testimony {6}. The Kuwaiti courts,
without reliable evidence to the contrary, found him innocent.
All evidence obtained in Guantanamo Bay, and in the CIA's other detention
centres and secret prisons, is by definition unreliable, because it is
extracted with the help of coercion and torture. Torture is notorious for
producing false confessions, as people will say anything to make it stop.
Both official accounts and the testimonies of former detainees show that a
wide range of coercive techniques - devised or approved at the highest
levels in Washington - have been used to make inmates tell the questioners
what they want to hear.
In his book Torture Team (2008), Philippe Sands describes the treatment of
Mohammed al-Qahtani, held in Guantanamo Bay and described by the authorities
(like half a dozen other suspects) as "the twentieth hijacker". By the time
his interrogators started using "enhanced techniques" to extract information
from him, al-Qahtani had been kept in isolation for three months in a cell
permanently flooded with light. An official memo shows that he "was talking
to non-existent people, reporting hearing voices, [and] crouching in a
corner of the cell covered with a sheet for hours on end" {7}. He was
sexually abused, exposed to extreme cold and deprived of sleep for a further
54 days of torture and questioning. What useful testimony could be extracted
from a man in this state?
The other possibility is that the men who became involved in armed conflict
after their release had not in fact been involved in any prior fighting, but
were radicalised by their detention. In the video he made before blowing
himself up, al-Ajmi maintained that he was motivated by his ill-treatment in
Guantanamo Bay. "Twelve thousand kilometers away from Mecca, I realized the
reality of the Americans and what those infidels want", he said {8}. He
claimed he was beaten, drugged and "used for experiments" and that "the
Americans delighted in insulting our prayer and Islam and they insulted the
Koran and threw it in dirty places" {9}. Al-Ajmi's lawyer revealed that his
arm had been broken by guards at the camp, who beat him up to stop him from
praying {10}.
The accounts of people released from Guantanamo Bay describe treatment that
would radicalise almost anyone. In his book Five Years of My Life, published
a fortnight ago, Murat Kurnaz maintains that one of the guards greeted him
on his arrival with these words. "Do you know what the Germans did to the
Jews? That's exactly what we're going to do with you." There were certain
similarities. "I knew a man from Morocco", Kurnaz writes, "who used to be a
ship captain. He couldn't move one of his little fingers because of
frostbite. The rest of his fingers were all right. They told him they would
amputate the little finger. They brought him to the doctor, and when he came
back, he had no fingers left. They had amputated everything but his thumbs."
The young man - scarcely more than a boy - in the cage next to Kurnaz's had
just had his legs amputated by American doctors after getting frostbite in a
coalition prison in Afghanistan. The stumps were still bleeding and covered
in pus. He received no further treatment or new dressings. Every time he
tried to hoist himself up to sit on his pot by clinging to the wire, a guard
would come and hit his hands with a billy-club. Like every other prisoner,
he was routinely beaten by the camp's Immediate Reaction Force, and taken
away to interrogation cells to be beaten up some more {11}.
Fathers were clubbed in front of their sons, sons in front of their fathers.
The prisoners were repeatedly forced into stress positions, deprived of
sleep and threatened with execution. As a senior official at the US Defense
Intelligence Agency says, "maybe the guy who goes into Guantanamo was a
farmer who got swept along and did very little. He's going to come out a
fully fledged jihadist." {12}
In reading the histories of Guantanamo Bay, and of the kidnappings,
extrajudicial detention and torture the US government (helped by the United
Kingdom) has pursued around the world, two things become clear. The first is
that these practices do not supplement effective investigation and
prosecution; they replace them. Instead of a process which generates
evidence, assesses it and uses it to prosecute, the US has deployed a
process which generates nonsense and is incapable of separating the guilty
from the innocent. The second is that far from protecting innocent lives,
this process is likely to deliver further atrocities. Even if you put the
ethics of such treatment to one side, it is surely evident that it makes the
world more dangerous.
www.monbiot.com
References:
1. Josh White, 8th May 2008. Ex-Guantanamo Detainee Joined Iraq Suicide
Attack. Washington Post.
2. Department of Defense, 12th July 2007. Former Guantanamo detainees who
have returned to the fight.
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/d20070712formergtmo.pdf
3. ibid
4. Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants
at US Naval Base, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Department of Defense, No date
given. Abdallah Salih Ali Al Ajmi: summary of evidence. Pages 8-9 of the pdf
file. http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_arb/000201-000299.pdf#38
5. Department of Defense, no date given. Summarized Administrative Review
Board Detainee Statement. Page 47 of the pdf.
http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt/ARB_Transcript_Set_17_22822-23051.pdf#466.
6. No author given, 26th May 2006. Five ex-Guantanamo detainees freed in
Kuwait. Associated Press.
7. Philippe Sands, 2008. Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of
American Values, extracted in Vanity Fair, May 2008.
8. Quoted by Alissa J Rubin, 9th May 2008. Bomber's Final Messages Exhort
Fighters Against US. New York Times.
9. ibid
10. Ben Fox, 7th May 2008. Ex-Gitmo prisoner in recent attack. Associated
Press.
11. Murat Kurnaz, 2008. Five Years of My Life: An Innocent Man in
Guantanamo. Palgrave Macmillan. Extracted in the Guardian, 23rd April 2008.
12. Quoted by David Rose, 26th February 2006. Using terror to fight terror.
The Observer. Copyright (c) 2006 Monbiot.com http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/05/13/how-to-build-a-human-bomb/ -
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Total # of ppl killed by God is about 2,270,365
by chrisjoel inif we made a chart, it would look like this (steve wells skeptics annotated bible check him out: www.skepticsannotatedbible.com):.
number killed.
cumulative total.
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nvrgnbk
Since God is the giver of life, He is justified in taking that life.
Thankfully, there are millions of humans that have seen this for what it is.
In catholic school
As vicious as Roman rule
I got my knuckles bruised
By a lady in black
And I held my tongue
As she told me, "Son,
Fear is the heart of love"
So I never went back - from I Will Follow You Into the Dark by Death Cab for CutieYour vile God is dead, Deputy.
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Way to go, Dubya!
by nvrgnbk inbush's comments in israel fuel angerlinking of nazis, iran seen as jab at obama.play-btn-box346x270 {position:relative;width:346px;height:270px;}.play-btn-box346x270 .play-btn {position:absolute;width:78px;height:48px;top:111px;left:134px;background:url(http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/mmedia/images/player/play-button-med.png) no-repeat;_background:none;_filter:progid:dximagetransform.microsoft.alphaimageloader(src=http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/mmedia/images/player/play-button-med.png,sizingmethod=scale);cursor:pointer;}.play-btn-box346x270 a {position:absolute;top:0;left:0;}.play-btn-box346x270 b {display:none;}videobush: america stands with israelpresident bush, in jerusalem to help celebrate the 60th anniversary of the state of israel, told israeli lawmakers that the united states is firm in its commitment to the friendship between the two nations.
launch video playerby michael abramowitzwashington post staff writer .
friday, may 16, 2008; page a08 .
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nvrgnbk
Bush's Comments In Israel Fuel Anger
Linking of Nazis, Iran Seen as Jab at Obama
Video
Bush: America Stands With Israel President Bush, in Jerusalem to help celebrate the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel, told Israeli lawmakers that the United States is firm in its commitment to the friendship between the two nations. ยป LAUNCH VIDEO PLAYER By Michael Abramowitz Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 16, 2008; Page A08JERUSALEM, May 15 -- On an emotional visit to mark Israel's 60th anniversary, President Bush on Thursday compared people seeking talks with Iran and radical Islamic groups to the Nazis' appeasers, provoking a political storm at home and accusations that he was politicizing the celebration.
Bush's address to the Israeli parliament also stirred intense debate between Israelis and Palestinians. His strong words of empathy for Israel brought lawmakers in the tiny chamber to their feet.
Palestinians expressed disappointment afterward that Bush did not use the occasion to press the Israelis forcefully to make compromises toward the creation of a Palestinian state. While Bush has frequently promoted that goal, the only reference in the speech came when he looked forward to the 120th anniversary of Israel and the prospect of a changed Middle East.
"The Palestinian people will have the homeland they have long dreamed of and deserved -- a democratic state that is governed by law, and respects human rights, and rejects terror," Bush said.
Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian negotiator, called the speech a missed opportunity. Bush should have used the forum to address the urgency of ending the conflict, he said: "We shouldn't have to wait 60 more years for a Palestinian state."
Bush's comments about appeasement reverberated across the U.S. campaign trail, offering a new platform for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to sharpen their lines of attack.
In the speech, Bush warned that the United States must not negotiate with Iran or radical groups such as Hamas.
"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush told the Israeli lawmakers. "We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."
Democrats angrily called the comment a veiled shot at Obama, who has advocated dialogue with Iran and Syria, but not the Palestinian group Hamas.
"We have a protocol . . . around here that we don't criticize the president when he is on foreign soil," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). "One would think that that would apply to the president, that he would not criticize Americans when he is on foreign soil. I think what the president did in that regard is beneath the dignity of the office of president and unworthy of our representation at that observance in Israel."
Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, used an expletive to describe Bush's comment. He went on to say: "For this president to leave the country and unleash a political attack on Senator Obama and the Democrats cannot go unanswered. We're not going to tolerate this swiftboating," he said, referring to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign in 2004 to impugn the war record of Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), the Democratic nominee.
Democratic leaders demanded that McCain repudiate Bush's comments, but McCain joined in on Bush's side. "Why does Senator Obama want to sit down with a state sponsor of terrorism? What does Senator Obama want to talk about with [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad?" McCain asked reporters while campaigning in Ohio.
"Yes, there have been appeasers in the past," McCain added. "The president is absolutely right." Asked whether he thought Obama was one of them, he said he didn't know.
In a statement, Obama responded to what he called "a false political attack," saying, "George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the President's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel."
White House press secretary Dana Perino dismissed the Democrats' complaints, saying that Bush's remarks were not directed at Obama. "This is not new policy that the president announced, and it should come as no surprise to anybody that the president would talk about this," Perino said.
Obama is far from the only politician who has advocated a renewed dialogue with Iran to try to get it to give up its nuclear-enrichment programs. A smaller number of U.S. politicians, including former president Jimmy Carter, have said the United States should talk to Hamas.
In his speech to the Knesset, Israel's parliament, Bush said the incendiary language of Hamas and the armed Lebanese Islamist group Hezbollah must be taken seriously. He invoked the legacy of the Holocaust, citing Hamas's call for the "elimination" of Israel, Hezbollah followers' chants of "Death to Israel, death to America" and the Iranian president's vow to wipe the Jewish state off the map.
"There are good and decent people who cannot fathom the darkness in these men and try to explain away their words. It is natural," Bush said. "But it is deadly wrong. As witnesses to evil in the past, we carry a solemn responsibility to take these words seriously. Jews and Americans have seen the consequences of disregarding the words of leaders who espouse hatred."
The Knesset address was the centerpiece of Bush's two-day visit to Israel, timed to coincide with the 60th anniversary. Bush also paid a visit to Masada, the Dead Sea fortress where Jewish rebels are said to have killed themselves almost 2,000 years ago rather than submit to Roman rule. He brought the Knesset audience to its feet when he vowed, "Masada shall never fall again, and America will be at your side."
Many Israelis admire Bush for his strong support of their actions against militants and his unwillingness to pressure their government in negotiations with the Palestinians, though there is also considerable sentiment here that the administration should have pushed harder for a peace deal during the past seven years.
Administration officials counter that conditions have not been ripe for a settlement because, in their view, the Palestinian leadership has been an unreliable partner for peace until recently.
The speech to the Knesset gave Bush an up-close view of Israel's raucous politics. His appearance was boycotted by the Arab members of the legislature, who number about a dozen, though three did appear with protest signs reading "We Shall Overcome." Two members who oppose creation of a Palestinian state left in protest when Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in introducing Bush, spoke of a two-state solution to the conflict.
Bush also heard from opposition leader and former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who drew applause from some quarters of the chamber when he declared that any peace deal would have to leave Jerusalem "intact under Israeli sovereignty" -- a controversial point because Palestinians also lay claim to a city considered the third holiest in Islam.
"It's a rare privilege to address the Knesset," Bush said, when it was finally his turn to speak, "and the prime minister told me there was something even rarer. To have just one person in the chamber speaking at a time."
Correspondent Griff Witte in Jerusalem and staff writers Michael D. Shear and Jonathan Weisman in Washington contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/15/AR2008051500733.html?hpid=topnews