Hillary you are so far gone that even the students at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA would repudiate your thinking and rebuke you.
That's telling him! [8>]
-- Bad times, hard times - this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times. - St. Augustine, 354-430
i learned tonight that the rugby, warwickshire kingdom hall has been attacked with some type of incendiary.. not sure how extensive the damage is but sufficient enough so that all meetings there are suspended.
no public talks for a while - watchtower studies to be held at the group centres.. there is a lot going on in rugby circuit at the moment!.
-- Bad times, hard times - this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times. - St. Augustine, 354-430
as the borg hammered us into thinking that anyone who had contact with the dead were in fact speaking to the demons, however, now we know that a lot of their teachings are full of sh*t.. i lost my dad at the start of this year.
a couple of months later i bump into a close friend who has known dad for many years.. this guy was stoked that he was getting married and mentioned how it was a shame dad wasn't around for the wedding.. yesterday i called in to see him and he told me something that had happened to him.. he was talking to his sister, who lives in another town, and she is active in some spiritual group.
she said she had never met jack, my dad, but that she has been talking to him and that he had a message he wanted given to this friend, her brother.. dad wanted him to get out of this relationship fast.. he never took it seriously and carried on as usual.. not long after that, this fiancee of his smashed up his 4x4, was on a restricted drivers licence and spent the money he gave her for his hire purchases.. so, his truck is wrecked, he can't claim insurance to get it repaired, he still has to pay it off, a lot of his possessions have been repo-ed and that basically he is in sh*t street without a shovel.. do you think it was a message from my dad ??.
If dead people do communicate, they're generally not very good at it. Why don't they just say hello, instead of dimming lights and knocking books off shelves? Personally, I find it difficult to believe that there is a spirit doppelganger of our physical selves which separates from the body at death but somehow keeps the personality and memories of the person, especially when all the available evidence suggests that mind, personality and memory are functions of the physical brain, and suffer damage when the brain is damaged. There are many cases of people whose personalities have radically changed due to brain damage. When they die, do they have their original personality or the new one?
-- Bad times, hard times - this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times. - St. Augustine, 354-430
i guess i've lurked around long enough - it's time to join my new family and tell the condensed (thank goodness) version of my experience.. my parents came into the org.
when i was 10. it was a scary congregation in a small town.
the po was my dad's boss and he had complete control over everyone.
I don't remember hearing anything about that. I was at the opposite end of the country though, in Wexford.
-- Bad times, hard times - this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times. - St. Augustine, 354-430
i'm in the middle of reading jesus and the lost goddess: the secret teachings of the original christians and after this i would like to read the jesus mysteries.. i happened to come upon this book by accident, but i was surprised to see just how much christanity has possibly borrowed from pagan religions (i knew that ot stories like the flood were borrowed, but figured the nt was made by some cultic jews).
i also didn't realize that certain letters of paul may be forgeries, or that certain passages in the "genuine" letters could be allusions to pagan things.
are there any other or books or websites on the topic that anyone could recommend?
...Christanity has possibly borrowed from pagan religions (I knew that OT stories like the flood were borrowed...
Sure it's not the other way around??
Well, the Gilgamesh epic is far older than the Noachian account. It dates to before 2000 BC. So it seems more likely that "Moses" was the plagiarist.
-- Bad times, hard times - this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times. - St. Augustine, 354-430
after the roman church had consolidated its power in the early middle ages, heretics came to be regarded as enemies of society.
the crime of heresy was defined as a deliberate denial of an article of truth of the catholic faith, and a public and obstinate persistence in that alleged error.
at this time, there was a sense of christian unity among townspeople and rulers alike, and most of them agreed with the church that heretics seemed to threaten society itself.. however, the repression of heresy remained unorganized, and with the large scale heresies in the 11th and 12th centuries, pope gregory ix instituted the papal inquisition in 1231 for the apprehension and trial of heretics.
-- Bad times, hard times - this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times. - St. Augustine, 354-430
i guess i've lurked around long enough - it's time to join my new family and tell the condensed (thank goodness) version of my experience.. my parents came into the org.
when i was 10. it was a scary congregation in a small town.
the po was my dad's boss and he had complete control over everyone.
At 20 I went to Ireland to serve where the need was great. I thought this would change everything. It did. I was placed in a completely apostate congregation that was disbanded.
Cool! Where and when was this, zenpunk? I'm thinking Dublin in the early 1980s, the time of the "Great Apostacy" . Am I right?
-- Bad times, hard times - this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times. - St. Augustine, 354-430
Atheism vs. Christianity, A Response to Unanswered Questions
Most of those questiones are not only unanswered but unasked. How many people don't believe in God or the Bible because they think 2 Peter 3:5 says that the earth was made out of water? [8>]
-- Bad times, hard times - this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times. - St. Augustine, 354-430
Shakira - "Whenever, Wherever", also for obvious reasons!
-- Bad times, hard times - this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times. - St. Augustine, 354-430
No, MY PERCEPTION is that God created, so that is my reality. If my PERCEPTION was that a SPORTS TEAM created, that would be my reality. My fulfillment in God comes from my perception that God created all and saved me, it's the absence of this faith that would be so distracting to me.
So you get meaning from believing or "perceiving" that you were created by God? What meaning though? OK, you think you'd be "distracted" without your belief but I still don't fully understand your assertion that "life without a God is a meaningless existence."
What I want to know is: 1. How does the existence of a god give your life meaning that it could not have without a god? 2. What is that meaning?
-- Bad times, hard times - this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times. - St. Augustine, 354-430