Posts by marmot

35

My Story of Waking Up - in retrospect

by cappytan in

so, many of y'all know bits and pieces of my story of waking up, but i thought it might be nice to have it all in one place.. i was baptized at 11, auxiliary pioneered every summer, regular pioneer at 17, ministerial servant by 19, then went to bethel for a year.. i always had minor doubts from time to time, but nothing serious.

always dismissed doubts and decided to "just have faith.".

after leaving bethel, i was never really firing on all cylinders "spiritually speaking.

marmot

I totally know the feeling of guilt followed by a zeal to research everything, I went through a similar process with the Revelation book. My aunt and uncle are long time multi-generational witnesses that happened to have an amazing library of old literature that I had never seen in person before, and given the society's Orwellian erasing of its own history, I had never had access to through the WT library or my kingdom hall library.

What a revelation, pun not intended! After reading an original issue of The Finished Mystery I knew I was in a crackpot religion, what a bunch of malarkey! Book after book, I was exposed to the false teachings and old light that nobody talked about anymore. My studies at University sealed the deal, and I'm now a dyed in the wool atheist.

Congrats on your awakening, Cappytan.

23

Bible Chronology, Egyptology and the Great Flood

by cappytan in

fact: bible chronology says the flood occurred between 2348 and 2370 bce, depending on which scholar you listen to.

fact: the great pyramid of giza was constructed 200 years before, in c. 2560 bce..

so, if you believe in a literal interpretation of noah's flood, you believe that the egyptians built a great civilization, were destroyed by the flood in 2370 bce, and then somehow, they reappeared immediately after the flood, picked right back up where they left off without skipping a cultural beat.. oh, and isn't it ironic that legitimately studying the great pyramid of giza debunks jw mythology now?

marmot

Half banana, no I did not know that, very interesting.

23

Bible Chronology, Egyptology and the Great Flood

by cappytan in

fact: bible chronology says the flood occurred between 2348 and 2370 bce, depending on which scholar you listen to.

fact: the great pyramid of giza was constructed 200 years before, in c. 2560 bce..

so, if you believe in a literal interpretation of noah's flood, you believe that the egyptians built a great civilization, were destroyed by the flood in 2370 bce, and then somehow, they reappeared immediately after the flood, picked right back up where they left off without skipping a cultural beat.. oh, and isn't it ironic that legitimately studying the great pyramid of giza debunks jw mythology now?

marmot

A big part of my awakening was learning in Native History classes in university of the existence of mammoth kill sites in North America with spear points still embedded in the bone. These sites are reliably dated to almost 13,000 years ago. I'm Native American and I couldn't wrap my head around the idea that the flood supposedly wiped out the mammoths (as the watchtower says) yet there were clearly people hunting them. Would Jehovah(tm) be such an unloving bastard as to wipe out an entire people who never even knew what was coming? Unless Noah magically "preached" in North America, too.

Of course, subsequent classes in geology, atmospheric science and anthropology wiped out any remaining shred of belief in a global flood.

10

With all the WT's eschatology and prophetic interpretation, why is there no mention of Islam?

by marmot in

you'd think that the third major abrahamic religion would be of interest to the witnesses and their fanciful interpretation of just about anything written in the bible, especially with the white-hot relevance islam has in current affairs and the middle east.

not only that, islam had a huge influence on european history, with conquering armies and direct control over jehovah's supposed holy city of jerusalem.. american christian fundamentalists trip over themselves trying to connect all the dots in scripture so why hasn't the watchtower society?

laziness?

marmot

Just read an article on vice.com talking about how ISIS and their Islamic caliphate in Syria and Iraq is here to stay.

Still not a peep from the WT on this. In the old days they'd be falling over themselves to assign prophetic significance to this. Today they're a bunch of wusses more interested in little Sophia's ice cream money and how tight your trousers are.

4

Ehud stabs the crap out of some Dude, literally.

by James Mixon in

judges 3:20-22 (new american standard bible).

"ehud came to him while he was sitting in his cool roof chamber (toilet), and.

ehud said, "i have a message from god for you...ehud.. took the sword.

marmot

I used to love trotting this scripture out when told that "Jehovah hates violence", especially when I was confronted for playing shoot 'em up video games.

76

By “evolution,” we mean “macroevolution”—apes turning into humans, for example.

by FadingTruth in

august 2015 awake .

quote in title taken from article footnote.. anyone have information on who gene hwang and yan-der hsuuw in the article are?.

why do they repeatedly state that apes turned to humans when that's not what evolutionists teach at all?.

marmot

If you accept evolution, then how can you accept the Bible's chronology that states the first man appeared on earth roughly 6,000 years ago?

It IS an either/or situation. Either the bible is true (it isn't) or evolution is.

76

By “evolution,” we mean “macroevolution”—apes turning into humans, for example.

by FadingTruth in

august 2015 awake .

quote in title taken from article footnote.. anyone have information on who gene hwang and yan-der hsuuw in the article are?.

why do they repeatedly state that apes turned to humans when that's not what evolutionists teach at all?.

marmot

SimonSays - "Whereas the assertion of Christian brothers only applies to people that have not become complacent in their beliefs which reflects worlds apart from true understanding by which I associate with."

Can someone translate this into English?

76

By “evolution,” we mean “macroevolution”—apes turning into humans, for example.

by FadingTruth in

august 2015 awake .

quote in title taken from article footnote.. anyone have information on who gene hwang and yan-der hsuuw in the article are?.

why do they repeatedly state that apes turned to humans when that's not what evolutionists teach at all?.

marmot

SimonSays, your skin is thinner than a salamander's, DataDog never called you ignorant.

...although if the shoe fits.

76

By “evolution,” we mean “macroevolution”—apes turning into humans, for example.

by FadingTruth in

august 2015 awake .

quote in title taken from article footnote.. anyone have information on who gene hwang and yan-der hsuuw in the article are?.

why do they repeatedly state that apes turned to humans when that's not what evolutionists teach at all?.

marmot

Cappytan, no joke your post made me smile. I remember when you first started posting about your doubts and now here you are, a staunch evolutionist. Awesome, keep it up.

25

Watchtower Society and Science

by FusionTheism in

is the governing body's methods and practices all that much different from the way scientists work?.

some prominent scientists and big media in the 1970's were pushing imminent disaster from global cooling.

now its global warming and they all sweep the global cooling fiasco under the rug and act like it was just one or two rogue individuals.. other examples can be given: scientists being wrong on the eternal universe, black holes, whether eggs or coffee are healthy or harmful, presenting fake fossils, etc.

marmot

The Myth of the Global Cooling Consensus

Posted by Ross Pomeroy January 13, 2014

"Contrary to what Crichton, Dobbs, and others might assert, climate scientists never agreed that the Earth was destined for long-term cooling back in the 1970s. Yes, the Earth cooled between 1940 and 1970, but it was exceedingly slight. Scientists now agree that the cooling resulted from excessive use of sulfur-based aerosols. Aerosols only remain in the atmosphere for a short period of time compared to other greenhouse gases, so the aerosol cooling effect faded away as atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations rose. Knowing this, the majority of climate scientists at the time still anticipated warming. A review of climate change literature between 1965 and 1979, undertaken in 2008, found that 44 papers "predicted, implied, or provided supporting evidence" for global warming, while only seven did so for global cooling.

"Global cooling was never more than a minor aspect of the scientific climate change literature of the era, let alone the scientific consensus..." the reviewers remarked.

Today, the myth of the 1970s global cooling consensus lives on through blanket statements, often cited back to cherry-picked news media coverage from the time."