Memphis:
I think you have a beautiful and compassionate way of approaching it, without taking it too personally. Rock on!
CG
Country Girl
JoinedPosts by Country Girl
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16
haha, I do exist (interesting experience)(long but interesting)
by BlackSwan of Memphis inok yesterday i was on my way to bally's and thought i would stop at target to get a coffee (they have a new starbucks in there) and get a few things first.. thing is, on my way there i noticed that there was just something in the atmosphere that day.
pretty weird.
couldn't put my finger on it.. target is located at the west end of a strip mall.
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Jesus Papers?
by Carmel inhas anyone seen the new book out called "the jesus papers".
sounds facinating!
carmel
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Country Girl
One of the authors was on a recent television interview show, and he basically said throughout the interview that he had NOTHING to base his theories on, not one shred of evidence. I like the work, but just as fiction.
CG
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Ever go back to a meeting "just for fun"?
by WLG in.
thinking about going sunday...just to see it once with my "new eyes".. what do you think?
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Country Girl
As long as it was "porcorn and porno" night.
CG
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LAST NIGHT'S MEMORIAL.........
by Mary ini tried logging on here last night after i got home, but i kept getting a message saying that there was an error and i couldn't get on.
anyhoo, i walked in the hall last night with my parents, who also roped my inactive brother into going.
lol!
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Country Girl
Does it ever occur to anyone, like it does me, that there are MANY saviors, and all have a special holiday? The major religions of the world all have their special holidays, and their special saviors, written on the HOLY books of their particular religion. The Buddhists have BUDDHA, the Christians have Christ, and the Muslims have MOHAMMED. All fo these religions do no less, or no more, than say that if you don't believe in THEIR savior, you are not saved? However, all the SAVIORS say something different: they say that if you are a good person, and you love God (whatever God that may be), and live by the more of "the golden rule" that salvation shall be yours.
CG
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LAST NIGHT'S MEMORIAL.........
by Mary ini tried logging on here last night after i got home, but i kept getting a message saying that there was an error and i couldn't get on.
anyhoo, i walked in the hall last night with my parents, who also roped my inactive brother into going.
lol!
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Country Girl
I was born & raised in the truth. My mom was babtized in 1970, and my dad always remained an 'unbeliever.' I was able to stop going to the meetings in my teens because my mom was no longer able to physically make me go. I haven't been back in about 10 years. My mother and I now have a very close relationship. I have found a personal place with God, but I just can't find a religion that I agree with. Throughout the years, my mom has mentioned the memorial to me, but I've never really given her a response. Last year, she forgot to get me the invitation in time. This year when she mentioned it, I apparently suggested that I'd think about going. I figured I could go for her, especially if it meant a lot to her. I planned on attending the memorial up untill about an hour before. I guess I chickened out. I feel bad for letting her down, but all these thoughts and emotions kept running through my head. I didn't want to show up and have everyone think that I was interested in coming back. I was interested in how everyone would treat me, but I was afraid some would shun me, even though I've done nothing wrong. I feel really guilty now because I feel that I let my mother down. I told her last night that maybe I'd attend a Sunday with her. Now she is planning on me going with her this Sunday, and that's a 2 hour commitment! I don't mind spending the time with her, and having a little 'godly time,' as long as she knows I'm not interested in going to meetings all the time or bible studies. I think I'll tell her that just to set things straight.
I had forgotten about how 'important' the memorial is to JWs. I remember when I was a child how excited I'd be because it was something different from the normal boring meeting. I can't beleive how excited I got to see the crackers and wine passed in front of me. Imagine that being the highlight of the year!
Point being: a "personal place with God." That's how it's meant to be: no organization was meant to replace the personal place with God that you have. If you find fellow believers, that is good, but if not, you still have that personal place, that place called "Christianity" which is nothing more than the belief in Christ as the savior, and your personal relationship with him.
CG
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Decline to add to their numbers
by NYCkid ini stopped going to memorials a few years ago, partly since it was such an inconvenience but partly because i don't want add to their numbers of attendees.
now, it's solely for the reason that i don't want to add to the numbers of attendees (plus the talk is always the same: why only 144,000 partake, what's the role of the great crowd, why [a fake passover] is the only religious commemoration true christians should be observing, what's the meaning of the bread and wine...blah blah blah) .
at least i closed that chapter with fond memories.
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Country Girl
At least I closed that chapter with fond memories. The 2nd to the last time I went to the memorial was at the Jersey City assembly hall, when Prince flanked by his body guards walked in and sat down in the row in front of me. The last time I went I brought my partner.
You mean.... Prince, flanked by his "godly bards" don't you? <grin>
CG
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I DIDN'T GO!! I DIDN'T GO!!!!
by Bumble Bee ini can't believe it, but i missed my first memorial!!!.
i wasn't sure what was going to happen, until it was past the time to get ready and leave.
i left it up to my husband, and he made no effort to get ready and go.
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Country Girl
New Worldly Translation: LOVE your name!
This isn't the first year I didn't go, but it's the first year my JW relatives didn't *ask* me to go. Instead, they put a sister that I know real well from their congregation up to it. They were too afraid to ask me, since in previous years I just said "You gotta be outta yer ever lovin mind" or "You want to me to go to a celebration of Christ, that doesn't celebrate Christ, what're you crazy!?" I was very polite and acknowledged her thoughtfullness at inviting me and said I appreciated that she was thinking of me.
Actually, it's my 16th year of not going, and it feels gooooooood!
Question: (This would be for those of you that are Christians). My husband brought up a point and said that some Christians believe that someone shouldn't eat the bread, or drink the wine, if they were in a state of sinfulness. Well, if you are born again, you are saved and your sins are forgiven, so why shouldn't you?
CG
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16,000,000 Attend memorial??
by breeze in.
i attended the memorial last night and the speaker announced that last year 16,000,000 people attended the memorial.. i have a hard time believing that!!!!.
breeze
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Country Girl
The lady that invited me told me that they were having studies with a bunch of people from a nursing home and that the nursing home had hired a shuttle bus to take them all there and, "well.... we're excited about that!" She obviously wasn't as excited as I was <cough>. How do these fruitcakes get into these nursing homes to confuse and abuse people that are supposed to be living their last days out in peace and serenity? Don't these nursing home administrators realize that this is a *cult*? Of course, on the other hand, perhaps these nursing home residents, some of them at least, are happy to get out and have some socialization if they don't have family visiting them.
CG
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Country Girl
I feel ya, Gespro! Luckily, I have some down in the refrigerator. Here's to you Reverand Moon!
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Did Jehovah destroy millions with a flood in Noah's day?
by fish in.
jesus seemed to believe in the story of noah's flood.
i wonder if god really drowned millions of people like the bible says for simply eating and drinking and not taking any note?
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Country Girl
From Skepdic.com:
Copyrighted material
Noah's ark*
Noah's ark is the boat built by the Biblical character Noah. At the command of God, according to the story, Noah was to build a boat that could accommodate his extended family, about 50,000 species of animals, and about one million species of insects. The craft had to be constructed to endure a divinely planned universal flood aimed at destroying every other person and animal on earth (except, I suppose, those animals whose habitat is liquid). This was no problem, according to Dr. Max D. Younce, who says by his calculations from Genesis 6:15 that the ark was 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet deep. He says this is equivalent to "522 standard stock cars or 8 freight trains of 65 cars each." By some divine calculation he figures that all the insect species and the worms could fit in 21 box cars. He could be right, though Dr. Younce does not address the issue of how the big boxcar filled with its cargo rose with the rainwater level instead of staying put beneath the floodwaters.
Those not familiar with the story might wonder why God would destroy nearly all the descendants of all of the creatures he had created. The story is that God was displeased with all of his human creations, except for Noah and his family. Annihilating those one is displeased with has become a familiar tactic of the followers of this and many other gods.
Despite the bad example God set for Noah's descendants--imagine a human parent drowning his or her children because they were "not righteous"--the story remains a favorite among children. God likes good people. He lets them ride on a boat with a bunch of friendly animals. He shows them a great rainbow after the storm. And they all live happily ever after. Even adults like the story, though they might see it as an allegory with some sort of spiritual message, such as God is all-powerful and we owe everything, even our very existence to the Creator. Furthermore, the Creator expects us to behave ourselves. But there are many who take the story literally.
According to the story told in chapter 7 of Genesis, Noah, his crew, and the animals lived together for more than 6 months before the floodwaters receded. There are a few minor logistical problems with this arrangement, but before getting to them, there is one other thing that needs commenting on. It is obvious that floods are no laughing matter. The destruction of life and property caused by floods has plagued many animals, not just humans, from time immemorial. To watch one's family or home swept away in floodwaters must be a terrible spectacle. To see one's children drown, one's life and dreams washed away in an instant, must be a devastating experience. But if one were to discover that the flood was not a whimsical effect of chance natural events, not unplanned and purposeless, but rather the malicious and willful act of a conscious being, one might add rage to the feelings of devastation. I suppose one could argue that it is God's world; he created it, so he can destroy it if he feels like it. But such an attitude seems inappropriate for an All-Good, Loving God.
the "finding" of the ark
Yet, as preposterous as this story seems, there are people in the twentieth century who claim they have found Noah's ark. They call themselves "arkeologists." Yes, they say that when the flood receded, Noah and his zoo were perched upon the top of Mt. Ararat in Turkey. Presumably, at that time, all the animals dispersed to the far recesses of the earth. How the animals got to the different continents, we are not told. Perhaps they floated there on debris. More problematic is how so many species survived when they had been reduced to just one pair or seven pairs of creatures. Also, you would think that the successful species that had the furthest to travel, would have left a trail of offspring along the way. What evidence is there that all species originated in Turkey? That's what the record should look like if the ark landed on Mt. Ararat.
Still, none of this deters the true believer from maintaining that the story of Noah's ark is the God's truth. Nor does it deter those who think the ark has been found. For example, in 1977 a pseudo-documentary called "In Search of Noah's ark" was played on numerous television stations. CBS showed a special in 1993 entitled "The Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark." The first is a work of fiction claiming to be a documentary. The second was masterminded by George Jammal, who has admitted that the story was a hoax. Jammal said he wanted to expose religious frauds. His hoax was seen by about 20 million people, most of whom probably still do not know that Jammal did not want them to take it seriously.
During his show, Jammal produced what he called "sacred wood" from the ark, which he later admitted was wood taken from railroad tracks in Long Beach, California, which he had hardened by cooking in an oven. He also prepared other fake wood by frying a piece of California pine on his kitchen stove in a mix of wine, iodine, sweet-and-sour and teriyaki sauces. He also admitted that he had never been to Turkey. The program was produced by Sun International Pictures, based in Salt Lake City, and responsible for several pseudo-documentaries on Nostradamus, the Bermuda Triangle, the Shroud of Turin, and UFOs.
the evidence for a universal flood
Stories of floods are not unique to the ancient Jews.* What geological or archaeological evidence is there of such a universal destruction of all human societies, all plants and all animals except for the ones on Noah's boat (or Ziusudra's [Sumeria], or Utnapishtim's [Babylon])? There should be a layer of sediment dating from the same time which contains all the bones of these poor creatures. There should be evidence that all human societies were wiped out simultaneously. No such evidence exists of a universal flood. Evidence of a great flood, perhaps caused by melting glaciers bursting through the Bosporus strait some 7,000 years ago, has been discovered off the coast of Turkey by Robert Ballard (who found the remains of the Titanic) and some (like Ryan and Pitman) have claimed this is evidence of Noah's flood, but this is pure and inane speculation. The Biblical flood is due to rain, not a bursting dam. As archeological anthropologist John Alden notes
...the story in the Bible is clear -- it rained for weeks before Noah's flood, and after it stopped raining the floodwaters receded. The Black Sea flood wasn't caused by rain, and after the water rose it never went away. And neither [the Sumerian nor the Biblical] story mentions the most dramatic consequence of the Black Sea flood, which turned fresh water into salt. Noah's flood, in short, doesn't sound anything like the inundation of the Black Sea.
However, for the sake of argument, let's agree that there was a universal flood, but that somehow the evidence got twisted around so that geologically and archaeologically it doesn't appear that the flood occurred. There are still a few questions we should ask before accepting this theory. First, how big was this boat? The answer: really, really big! Would it float? Noah might have been given divine guidance here, so maybe this boat could float. Remember that this is all done before the discovery of metallurgy (or was it?), so the boat is made of wood and other natural materials. How many forests would it take to provide the lumber for such a boat? How many people working how many years would be required? Building a pyramid would be peanuts compared to building the ark. But remember, people lived a lot longer in those days. Noah was 600 years old when he built his giant boat in the desert.
But let's say that, however implausible, such a boat could have been built using the technology of wooden-boat building known to the earliest peoples. After all, Noah allegedly had God's help in building his boat. There is still the problem of gathering the animals together from the various parts of the world that, as far as we know, Noah had no idea even existed. How did he get to the remote regions of the earth to collect exotic butterflies and Komodo dragons? How did he get all those species of dinosaurs to follow him home? (Fundamentalists believe dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time.) By the time he collected all his species, in twos and sevens, his boat would probably have rotted in the desert sun.
But let's grant that Noah was able to collect all the birds and mammals, reptiles, and amphibians, and a couple of million insects that he is said to have gathered together on his boat. There is still the problem of keeping the animals from eating one another. Or, are we to believe that the lion was lying down with the lamb on the ark? Did the carnivores become vegetarians for the duration of the flood? How did he keep the birds from eating the insects? Perhaps the ark was stocked with foods for all the animals. After all, if Noah could engineer the building of a boat which could hold all those animals, it would have been a small feat to add room to store enough food to last for more than six months. Of course, Noah would have to store enough food for himself and his family, too. But these would have been minor details to such a man with such a plan guided by God.
Still, it seems difficult to imagine how such a small crew could feed all these animals in a single day. There is just Noah, his wife, their three sons and three daughters-in-law. The "daily" rounds would take years, it seems. Delicacy forbids me from mentioning the problems of the "clean-up" detail, but I would have to say that if the noise of all those animals didn't drive Noah insane (not to mention the insect bites), the smell should have killed him. At least they didn't have to worry about water to drink. God provided water in abundance.
Finally, belief in the universal flood or even belief in the building of the ark are not nearly as strange as the belief that this event of mass destruction was the direct work of the Creator to show anger at people who would dare to enjoy this life and have a good time rather than spend all their free time worshipping the Almighty.
See also faith, miracle, and wishful thinking.
- Problems with a Global Flood
- 'Noah's Flood': off the edge of scientific speculation by John R. Alden (review of Noah's Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries About the Event That Changed History by William Ryan and Walter Pitman) removed from www.sunspot.net/content/archive/story?section=archive&
pagename=story&storyid=1000000229416 - Sun Goes Down in Flames: The Jammal Ark Hoax by Jim Lippard
- Has Anyone Discovered Noah's Ark?
- RON WYATT: ARE HIS CLAIMS BONAFIDE? by Bill Crouse
- The Search for Noah's Ark
Cerone, Daniel, "Admitting 'Noah's Ark' Hoax," Los Angeles Times, October 30,1993, p. F-1.
Moore, Robert A. "The impossible voyage of Noah's ark," Creation/Evolution 11:1-43.