Posts by Galileo

"Curved towards your mouth". Lol. It's curved towards his mouth because he chose to hold it that way. It could be pointing away from his mouth, to the side, or even at the ground if he chose to hold it differently. What a genius.

As Leolaia pointed out, that banana is the result of human engineering and resembles a "natural" banana about as much as a Capuccino resembles a coffee bean.

60

What were you doing 25 years ago today....

by Magwitch in

jw
friends

when the challenger exploded?.

i was dutifully going door to door to door, when a lady came to the door crying about the cahllenger.

she invited me in and i placed a set of magazines.

Galileo

leavingwt, we must be the same age. I was in 5th grade, I had a "joint class" with 2 teachers and twice the usual number of students. As an adult looking back I realize that's because one of my teachers was ancient and practically senile, but it's impossible to fire a teacher in the U.S. and there are laws about how many students can be in a class, so this was a neat solution as to how they could cram 50 + students into one classroom. Anyway, I remember my teacher (the one that was still all there) hearing about it from a student, asking the senile one "Is this true?" And then wheeling a TV into our class so that we could watch the news coverage. I remember my teacher was crying. I remember I was surprised, because I assumed that going into space was a dangerous business and I had just assumed that the space shuttles probably blew up all the time.

18

Were the Jews ever in Egypt?

by VM44 in

what evidence is there that the jewish people actually resided in the land of egypt at one time?.

Galileo

I've posted on this before, and I am not a scholar. Leolaia is clearly far more versed on this subject than I. She has posited some very plausible hypotheses on how the legend came about. For many of us, myself included, the origin of how the myth could have come about is interesting, but not nearly as important to us personally as is the question of whether or not the biblical account could possibly be accurate.

I have done some reading on the subject and listened to a college course on ancient Egypt (published by The Learning Company). It was very eye opening and I reccommend it to anyone with an interest in ancient Egypt. It is quite clear from what I've learned that the bible's account is nowhere near true. As I've stated, I am not a scholar, so here are some quotes from people that ARE scholars:

"Despite the mass of contemporary records that have been unearthed in Egypt, not one historical reference to the presence of the Israelites has yet been found there. Not a single mention of Joseph, the Pharaoh's 'Grand Vizier'. Not a word about Moses, or the spectacular flight from Egypt and the destruction of the pursuing Egyptian army."

– Magnus Magnusson, The Archaeology of the Bible Lands - BC, p43

"Neither Moses, nor an enslaved Israel nor the event of this Exodus are recorded in any known ancient records outside the Bible ...

Although its climate has preserved the tiniest traces of ancient bedouin encampments and the sparse 5000-year-old villages of mine workers there is not a single trace of Moses or the Israelites."

– John Romer, Testament, pp57/8.

56

This blew me away"The distant between Egypt and the promise land"

by jam in

i was reading a article about a national acclaim charles lummis for.

his poetry.

in 1884, while working at a newspaper in ohio, he was offered.

Galileo

3,000,000 still sounds like an awful lot of Israelites to me in that day and age - especially wandering around that long without a trace of confirming archeology or historical reference...

Yes it would have been. More people, in fact, than the entire population of Egypt. Egypt at it's peak never had more than 800,000 residents. Scholars say the land couldn't have supported any more than that. It was while listening to a college course on ancient Egypt that my doubts about the bible finally reached the tipping point. A few other problems with the Jewish Exodus that I remember:

1. Not only is there no written record of any of the events in Exodus in Egypt, there is no written record of any Jewish slave ever having set foot in Egypt, ever. This from a culture that has left us one of, if not the most extensive written records of any culture. We have recipes, childrens' diaries, letters, political documents, almost anything you can imagine. Yet No Egyptian ever once mentioned his Israelite slave. Ever. This seems very unusual considering that, if the bible's three million number were accurate, Jewish slaves would have been about eighty percent of the population. Which brings me to the second point:

2. The Isralites left no evidence behind in Egypt. No broken pottery, no written records of their own, no mezuzas on door frames. Nothing. Not a scrap. When they packed up to leave, they must have been very thorough.

3. Not only was the distance they were traveling relatively short, it was full of Egyptian outposts. The soldiers stationed there kept records of the merchants and other travelers that past. Can you imagine the conversation that happened every time three million Jews passed by?

"Excuse me officer. Not sure if you remember me. My name's Moses. I led my people by here about 6 months ago..."

"Nope. Sorry. Doesn't ring a bell".

"Really? It seems like the type of thing you'd remember. We're the largest pilgrimage in the history of mankind after all. It's not like six months ago was the first time we came by. We've been walking by here for twenty years now..."

"Sorry Mo. Just isn't clicking."

"Pillar of fire lighting up the sky at night? Nothing?"

"Nope".

"Well maybe this time you should write it down!"

"Nah. I'll remember. Can I help you with something?"

"Yes. I'm pretty sure these directions you gave me are wrong..."

There is a lot more wrong with the account, but like I told the Elder's that tried to help me with my "doubts", if you can't explain those problems, why bother going into the rest?

147

Do You Hate The Jehovah's Witness Religion?

by minimus in

jw
friends

i see some here who seem to despise the religion.

others seem to feel that witnesses are wacky but they don't hate them.. do you hate this religion?.

Galileo

Yes. I hate it.

41

"Top 10 Grievances Against the Bible"

by leavingwt in

lady atheist.

my top ten grievances against the bible .

1. authority -- not -- it was compiled, copied, edited, codified and translated by men.

Galileo

1. The New Testament did away with the one good thing about the Old Testament laws: Multiple wives and concubines.

Also, as long as men were allowed to have multiple wives, lesbianism was just fine (the OT never mentions it), for obvious reasons I think (Menage A Trois, anyone?). As soon as it's one wife to a man, all of a sudden lesbianism is specifically forbidden. "If us men can't be involved, there's no reason you women should have any fun either!"

43

Can you recommend some movies/videos?

by OnTheWayOut in

jw
friends

an ex-jw meetup group i attended just watchted worlds apart together and the host wants to do this type of thing more often.. i would love to see religulous, but the group would be divided on such a movie.. i suggested the documentary, jesus camp and september dawn.. do you have any suggestions i can pass along?.

Galileo

The Invention of Lying was going to be my suggestion. It feels a little long in parts but the message is fantastic. Also "Creation" about the philosophical struggle Darwin went through wrestling with the implications of the impact of his theory on religious people, especially is wife. Incredible and widely overlooked movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkgoS3vSE0k

30

Did you have a relationship with...

by stillin9 in

when you were in the org, did you ever really have a relationship with jehovah?

if so, how did this relationship manifest itself?

was it just a warm fuzzy feeling when you prayed?

Galileo

So a Universe with 3 Trillion galaxies and planet earth is NOT enough evidence?

No it isn't.

How do you know that he existed? A book told you that he existed and was one of America's presidents? How do you know that for sure, you never met him....
Have you ever even met your great, great, great Grand dad? How do you know he existed? How do you know for sure he was your great, great, great Grand dad?

This is a variation on the "How do you know Iceland exists" logical fallacy. The existence of Iceland or Abraham Lincoln is established by so much evidence that it would take a truly astonishing explanation and mountains of evidence as to how it's possible that those things actually don't exist. Invisible all powerful beings are not supported by the same degree of evidence. The same line of reasoning could be used to establish the existence of bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, or unicorns: "So what that you've never seen Bigfoot riding a unicorn. You've never been to Iceland and you believe that exists!"

20

Get 'deleted' or resign as a ministerial servant?

by trevorbv in

jw
friends

i'm a ministerial servant for some years now, but reached to the conclusion that i must get out of jws as soon as possible.

i can no longer waste my time in field service, at the kh or doing menial jobs for the congregation.

for some months now my field report is with one digit at the hours section and with empty spaces in magazines, brochures and the others.

Galileo

I went the route of waiting for them to delete me due to the fact that I was married to a very zealous pioneer. I acted like I was doing everything I could do to turn in four or five hours a month. In truth even those 4 or 5 hours were totally fabricated and by the time they actually deleted me I hadn't actually been out in service for over two years. They finally met with me to warn me about my potential deletion when the CO rolled around, then waited another six months for his next visist before they actually did it. At that time I was giving a lot of Sunday talks and had other responsibilities in the hall so they didn't want to delete me. It took forever. If I had it to do over again, I would follow the advice of the others here and just resign. A lot less wasted time.