two hunters from upper michigan--(true story).
this is from a radio.
report of an incident in upper michigan:.
As much as I hate to correct people this story just isn't true.
See http://www.snopes2.com/critters/cruelty/dynamite.htm for details.
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"The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion." - Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794.
there have been so many bible thumping posts lately, i thought i would offer an anti-bible article from my truthquest website.
i wait with bated breath to see how bible supporters will rationalize and explain this one.. .
atrocities of the bible: the midianites .
FreePeace,
You have to realise that most Bible believers here have already come across these arguments before, and have decided that anything their god does is, by definition, good, so that even though these acts appear to be the most horrendous atrocities, really they are not, even though we don't understand why. It's impossible to argue with people who have decided to believe something based on "faith" when they ignore all the evidence including the supposed source of their faith. Contradictions that can't be explained away by even the most tortuous of reasoning can be made to disappear by the invisible forcefield of faith.
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"The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion." - Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794.
the above phrase is one of the most cherished in the watchtowers huge arsenal of tools for manipulation.
it is used to work the average jehovah's witness into a sort of frenzy and keep them there.
come, lord jesus.revelation 22:20. watchtower, october 1.
And so you're the one with the "brain", the "thinking ability", not "stupid" and "superstitious", huh? Funny that, not me but you, have trouble believing that a spirit creature exists whose name is "Satan" -- that you therefore then, apparently, don't know the origin for death having come over the entire human race. Yeah, you're REAL smart Norm ... REAL brainy. Is the board supposed to assume that you really do KNOW why we all die? Please enlighten us.
I don't want to speak for Norm but I'm guessing he believes the same thing I do, that humans die for the same reasons that all other organisms on this planet die. Do you believe that human death is fundamentally different from the death of other animals? We appear to die from essentially the same causes. Or do you believe that animal (and plant) death is also caused by Satan?
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"The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion." - Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794.
i suppose that if i were an avid reader of the various astronomy magazines available i'd have more of an understanding about this.
for quite some time i've wondered how astronomers must calculate that there are so many galaxies (although obviously they don't know the precise number).
i figure that it apparently has to do with first determining that certain points of light, visible through telescopes, are farther out than our own "milky way" galaxy.
The main ways of determining astronomical distances are parallax, "red shift" and "standard candles".
Parallax is "an apparent change in the direction of an object, caused by a change in observational position." The earth's movement around the sun provides a change in position of around 200 million miles. The degree of apparent change of the observed object depends on the distance. This only works for relatively close objects, as at greater distances the apparent change becomes too small to detect.
Because the universe is expanding, more distant objects are moving away from us at a faster rate. Due to the Doppler effect, the light coming from these objects is shifted towards the red end of the spectrum. The degree of red shift gives a good approximation of the distance.
"Standard candles" are cosmic phenomena (such as supernovae or Cepheid variable stars) which are known to have particular properties. They can be identified by their electromagnetic spectrum so that their absolute brightness is known. Their relative brightness can then be used to determine their distance in parallel with the other two methods.
Hope this helps.
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"The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion." - Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794.
ok this is late, but i'm slow... this first one is with my wife and i, she looks happy for a change.. .
here is just the tree.
never squat with yer spurs on
We took our Christmas tree down yesterday. It was starting to go brown. Needles everywhere too!
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"The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion." - Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794.
the other day, i was messaged by a young jw guy (using yahoo messenger, where i am breezyone2001; chat me up, gang!).
his opening line to me was, "why are you attacking the witnesses?
" i responded by asking him in what way i was attacking the witnesses, and he said that he saw my name in a yahoo club for ex-jw's.
So maybe he does have a stereotype that's incorrect. Who doesn't? Why be so quick to judge when a person is merely misinformed? Why not help educate instead of pass judgement?
Surely, if someone does "have a stereotype that's incorrect" then the best way to educate them is to show them how absurd and ill-informed their stereotype is? If someone is wrong, then somebody should pass judgement. Otherwise, how will they ever be corrected?
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"The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion." - Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794.
the other day, i was messaged by a young jw guy (using yahoo messenger, where i am breezyone2001; chat me up, gang!).
his opening line to me was, "why are you attacking the witnesses?
" i responded by asking him in what way i was attacking the witnesses, and he said that he saw my name in a yahoo club for ex-jw's.
My point is that, not everyone who professes atheism or agnosticism does so out of a background of investigation and contemplation; I would guess, based on my own experience that such persons are not in the majority of those who profess atheism or agnosticism, though they may well be in the majority of atheists who post on boards like this one.
Isn't that also true of believers, probably even more so? Most people will say they believe in god(s) but when pressed, they'll usually admit that they just believe because that's the way they were brought up or because "there must be something out there." As most people are raised to believe in god(s), it stands to reason that most atheists are people who have consciously rejected those beliefs, meaning that the percentage of atheists who have at least given the matter some thought is most likely considerably higher than the percentage of believers who have done so.
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"The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion." - Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794.
the other day, i was messaged by a young jw guy (using yahoo messenger, where i am breezyone2001; chat me up, gang!).
his opening line to me was, "why are you attacking the witnesses?
" i responded by asking him in what way i was attacking the witnesses, and he said that he saw my name in a yahoo club for ex-jw's.
You can say that you see no evidence of God, but that puts you into the agnostic category as far as I'm concerned.
That's an issue of semantics. I consider myself an agnostic atheist. That may sound like a contradiction, but it isn't. I acknowledge that it can never be proved with absolute certainty that there is no god (if the definition of god is loose enough), but for me, the absence of any evidence forces me to assume that there is no god.
Unless you've perceived everything there is to know about the Universe, how can you categorically state that there is no God?You can't of course, if you define the word god loosely enough. You can, however, categorically state (for example) that the Bible is full of contradictions, and therefore could not have been written by the god most of its adherents worship (i.e. an omnipotent, loving god). So you can say categorically that gods with certain attributes do not exist. If you define god as (for example) an omnipotent being who doesn't interact with the material universe in any way, then by definition, its existence cannot be disproven. Of course, such a "god" is hardly worthy of the name, and even if such a being may exist, it may as well not exist.
Basically, I just believe in one god less than you do. I reject your god for the same reasons you reject other gods.
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"The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion." - Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794.
there is a book called "god speaks".
it is a compilation of billboards that were put up around the usa.
in 1998 an anonymous donor wanted an ad agency - smith - in fla. $150,00 to create this advertising campaign to reach people who have "drifted".. it's a great coffee table book.. here's a few of my favourites.. (hope its ok to post these).
How about:
"Just because I don't do anything doesn't mean I don't exist" - God
"Because I said so, that's why!" - God
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"The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion." - Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794.
the other day, i was messaged by a young jw guy (using yahoo messenger, where i am breezyone2001; chat me up, gang!).
his opening line to me was, "why are you attacking the witnesses?
" i responded by asking him in what way i was attacking the witnesses, and he said that he saw my name in a yahoo club for ex-jw's.
From what I've experienced from visiting this board is that many take the path into atheism. Maybe it's because, as you stated, the JW's tend to demonize all other religions.
Or maybe it's because when some people start questioning their religion, they continue the process and question all religion. It's very difficult to remain a believer once you realise there is no good reason to believe.
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"The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion." - Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794.
