Posts by FireNBandits

11

My apology and No it's not funny at all

by FireNBandits in

jw
friends

my grandnephew is visitng and i left the computer on, and also on this web-site.

i apologize for the pornographic photo that was briefly up as my icon, thanks to said grandnephew.

he thought it was a real scream.

FireNBandits

My grandnephew is visitng and I left the computer on, and also on this web-site. I apologize for the pornographic photo that was briefly up as my icon, thanks to said grandnephew. He thought it was a real scream. I am far less amused than even you are that's for damn sure. I now have to get a pic of my wife's face off my profile. I was in such a hurry to get the pornographic photo off that I clicked on the first thing I saw in my files. Sheesh. NEVER leave a kid unattended with your computer! Martin

9

Are you excited!!

by cultswatter in

there is much blow on the joes coming in the near future.

1. the memorial partakers - up or down?

- will they publish the number?.

FireNBandits

LMAO Finally Free! Prolly a lot of people didn't get the reference. See ya in Jonestown.

41

Creationism hiding in plain sight

by FireNBandits in

a friend pointed out to me that "theistic evolution" is, in essence, no different than intelligent design.

both postulate a creator that is behind creation.

both use the words "creation" and "creator.

FireNBandits

Hi Bernadette. I love your name by the way. It reminds me of Bernadette Peters. What a cutie. Anyway, you wrote: "My question is to do with how God was involved in evolution. Do you leave that aspect open because at present it isn't/can't be understood ? Do you have an inkling of it mystically?"

I leave all sorts of questions open. The more I come to understand this relativistic quantum universe the more doubt enters my mind concerning such things as the Cartesian Split, Aristotelian logic, and even basic epistemology. Relativity and quantum

mechanics...especially some of the new advances in String Theory...have imbued the cosmos with a sense of mystery again. Now, how was God involved in evolution? What I am about to write has nothing at all in it that is scientific in nature, but neither is it faith in some doctrine or dogma that someone laid on me and said "Believe this or burn in hell." It's based on my own intuitive/mystical experiences during several decades of intense and regular meditation.

The supreme reality is not the universe. Pantheists are mistaken. The universe is magnificent, mysterious, awe-inspiring, and downright beautiful. Yet it's also violent, uncaring, and life can only arise from death. For you and I to live SOMETHING ELSE HAS TO DIE. That's how the universe is made. The supreme reality of which I have a subjective experience of is absolute Love, the very principle and power of love. Selfless love. It isn't the universe nor did It create the universe. The universe has always been and always will be. String theory has made that idea not only intellectually respectable once again, but has added new twists such as an infinite number of eternal universes. Parallel universes.

God is God, the universe or universe are the universe or universes. Yes, it's classic Dualism. In traditional Gnostic thought, the god that fashioned this universe is called, in Greek, the "demiourgos" or "demiurge. The half-maker or Artisan. That god merely gave form to already existing matter. Most modern Gnostics don't literalize the demiurge, but understand the demiurge as a personification of the forces of nature which are good and evil, light and darkness, beauty and stark ugliness, birth and death, kind and cruel, etc. The demiurge is a symbolic being, representing Nature. Gnostics love the natural world as much as anyone...myself probably more than most...but we do not venerate it as divine or semi-divine. It isn't God. Some Gnostics see the universe as a distant emanation of an emanation of an emanation of an emanation from the final and supreme reality--God for want of a better term--but would still be very careful not to confuse the universe with God. (If you meet someone who claims to be "Gnostic" but they're a pantheist, they're not a "Gnostic" in the historical/classic sense. "Gnostic" has become an umbrella term under which mysticism of all kinds are placed. The word has become almost useless because it's lost it's original usage.)

So, the forces of nature operating in "matter" have no beginning, nor does matter itself have a beginning. God...and I REALLY don't like the word God due to it's asinine anthropomorphic associations...is not it's originator, not it's creator or sustainer or any of that. God is "beyond" nature yet is discoverable as the ground of our own sentient consciousness. (Not all conscious entities are sentient; a frog is conscious but lacks sentience: self-awareness and the ability to reflect and reason) Gnosis is a personal experience not an item of faith. Most Christians believe whatever they're told to believe by the church they grew up in or converted to. Gnosis dares us, challenges us, to turn within and "have faith" only in our OWN inner Light. Not someone else's words and testimony. Most religious people are herd mentality types who find safety in numbers, in groupthink. A genuine Gnostic stands alone. We champion "Doubting Thomas" whereas the Book of John rebukes Thomas for his "show me" attitude and pronounces as blest those who "do not see and yet believe." To a Gnostic, that's being infantile. We want to EXPERIENCE the Truth DIRECTLY for OURSELVES. We're spiritual skeptics.

I sure hope that answered your question Bernadette. If not, I'll try again. Martin

41

Creationism hiding in plain sight

by FireNBandits in

a friend pointed out to me that "theistic evolution" is, in essence, no different than intelligent design.

both postulate a creator that is behind creation.

both use the words "creation" and "creator.

FireNBandits

You wascally Wabbit! When my Uncle Frank and I snapped out of fundyism, that was our first thought. "Maybe God just created the universe, set it on autopilot, and went off to do other stuff." Man we thought we were really Original Thinkers by golly. It wasn't long until we discovered Deism and that "there's nothing new under the sun" at least religiously. I get a bang out of showing fundies that our floundering fathers were Deists for the most part, not Bible believers. Their eyes blink, the data is rejected, and they continue on spewing the same nonsense. Martin

7

Has anyone ever accepted a evil slave tract at an assembly?

by PinTail in

i did once, it was in ogden, utah events center.

it was after the afternoon talk and me and my ex-wife was walking to our car, and nice fellow asked if i would like to look at a tract, i said yes thank you.at that very moment this other fellow jehovah's witness came over and rudely jerked it our of my hand, and told me did you not hear the brother from bethel, to not accept tracts from them and to just look straight ahead.

needless to say this embarrassed me a great deal, cause there was many other witness's walking with me as well as my daughters seen me being disrespected, so i slugged that so and so, right smack on his nose and it knocked him to the ground, and i reminded him that i live in the good old u s of a, and i will read what i want!

FireNBandits

When I was a dub, off into dubbery, the "evil slave" were the various Bible Students who clung to Russell. I read some of their stuff and it seemed just like dubbery.

41

Creationism hiding in plain sight

by FireNBandits in

a friend pointed out to me that "theistic evolution" is, in essence, no different than intelligent design.

both postulate a creator that is behind creation.

both use the words "creation" and "creator.

FireNBandits

Hi Bernadette

I think my responses make my position quite clear. Evolution is fact, science. God is a belief, and a mystical experience. That's not science, except insofar as neuorology is mapping the brain, discovering which parts of the brain are responsible for various mystical experiences. Might there be more to it than simply neurochemistry? Perhaps...but that's faith, not science.

Martin

67

The Great Tribulation is picking up speed!!!!!!!!!!!!

by unbaptized in

the tribulation is really starting to speed up it's pace.

i just read that atleast 3 types of animal and plant life go extinct every hour.

global warming threatens the entire planet, crimes against women and children are at a all time high, honeybees dying off for unexplained reasons, the threat of nuclear war, the ravage of infectious disease.

FireNBandits

LOVE ME OR DIE!

41

Creationism hiding in plain sight

by FireNBandits in

a friend pointed out to me that "theistic evolution" is, in essence, no different than intelligent design.

both postulate a creator that is behind creation.

both use the words "creation" and "creator.

FireNBandits

Hi Alan. Thank you for the compliment!

You're most likely 100% correct about my words falling on deaf ears. Greater minds with more persuasive pens than mine have tried to break through the meme-induced fog in a fundies mind and have failed.

Martin

41

Creationism hiding in plain sight

by FireNBandits in

a friend pointed out to me that "theistic evolution" is, in essence, no different than intelligent design.

both postulate a creator that is behind creation.

both use the words "creation" and "creator.

FireNBandits

That's really lame Shepherd. The Bible says "I am Yahweh I change not." (Malachi) Show me this god raising the dead, healing people, etc. GIVE ME EMPIRICAL DATA that demonstrates the prayers you speak of are answered. You would need a cross section of people who did not pray about their problems and those who did, and then compare if there is a significant difference in the number of people whose problems were solved. Then you would need to interview each person to see if the problems were solved via natural means, or showed some sort of evidence of supernatural--in other words, nonhuman--intervention. There is no such study and the writer of that book you put so much stock in knows it.

Bring on the EVIDENCE that your Great and Powerful Oz answers prayers!

Why isn't your god still rasing people from the dead and performing miracles? Is he too old to "get it up" supernaturally speaking? What's his prob, man? What's his prob? "Perhaps he is away and had to use the privy."

Hey! Call down fire from heaven on a local chapter of Planned Parenthood! Dance around the building "calling [up}on the name of Jehovah." Surely Jehovah God will answer a humble one such as yourself!

Martin

41

Creationism hiding in plain sight

by FireNBandits in

a friend pointed out to me that "theistic evolution" is, in essence, no different than intelligent design.

both postulate a creator that is behind creation.

both use the words "creation" and "creator.

FireNBandits

Hi Moshe. Maybe "God" is a real SOB. That's my take based on my observations and experience of my own life and the lives of everyone else. If there's a God, that God is a real SOB and unworthy of anything but contempt. That's a basic insight of Gnosis.