cantleave

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Posts by cantleave

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  31

  Who has made an unforgivable sin against the holy spirit?

  by atomant in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  we all sin and some sins are worse than others but blasphemy against the holy spirit is said to be unforgivable.what is considered to be an unforgivable sin?

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  cantleave

  A radio DJ fading out the guitar outro on Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb......there is a place in hell for him.
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  21

  Commercial activism.

  by Ben131895 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  in his last couple of vlogs, john cedars is wearing a t-shirt saying shunned.

  some people liked it and asked him if they could purchase one.. in his last vlog (#111) he is advertising it and mentioned the link www.apostee.com, based in the us.

  comments attached to vlog # 110 mentioned the fact that this company will close in april and that the business will be continued by cedars itself, who has also a stock of anti-witness items.. besides that, he was not the owner of jwsurvey.org, but since january 16, 2016 he is.. it looks (as mentioned before by simon in an earlier thread), this guy is making a living from his activism, a paid career.. one should seriously question his true motives, demonstrated in his activism.

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  cantleave

  If people are stupid enough to donate or buy crap from an activist, that's their choice.
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  53

  Disturbance during Memorial 2016.

  by Ben131895 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  two documented disturbances during memorial 2016. type 'memorial 2016' on youtube.

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  cantleave

  The guy is so inarticulate that he is unable to construct an effective argument. What is the point of what he is doing? He's nothing but a lout and a total asshole.
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  59

  Sweet 16 - Happy Birthday to Us !

  by Simon in

  1. forum
  2. announcements

  it's the forum's 16th birthday today!.

  amazing that not only have we lasted so long but we're still thriving and growing.. thanks to all the people and often colorful characters who've contributed to the site over the years.

  some are still here with us, some have since moved on, but all have touched each others lives in some way along our different journeys.. .

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  cantleave

  It was our daughter's 16th on 22nd March, it's never dawned on me before that two of the the biggest game changers in my life came into existence in March 2000.
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  20

  Chitty

  by StopTheTears in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i've learned that many years ago, there was a man named brother chitty of some prominence in the jehovah's witnesses organization.

  it fact, chitty was a member of the governing body.

  chitty was asked to resign his position after serving for many years and nothing much was ever said about it to jehovahs witnesses.

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  cantleave

  Edwin Chitty and Leo Greenlees were both members of the GB, both were removed from some kind of sexual impropriety - Greenlees allegedly molested a 10 year old boy..

  http://www.randallwatters.org/Bethel/markpalo.htm

  Holy Spirit sure seems to be a crappy judge of character.
  
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  56

  Why Do Intelligent People Believe in God?

  by cantleave in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  one of the most common thing thrown at atheists is - lots of intelligent people believe in god.

  this darkmatter 2525's video is an excellent explanation as to why very logical people possess religious belief systems.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y201qzddzbg.

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  cantleave

  Luther bertrand

  However, admittedly the irreducible complexity argument does make me wonder if some kind of organizing feature is out their that is indeed intelligent.

  A completely debunked piece of creationist propaganda playing to ignorance.
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  18

  Evolution, fine. Still a missiion....

  by Phaedra in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i buy into the theory of evolution.. where does it's "mission" to do what it does (programming) come from?.

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  cantleave

  Life is what chemistry does!
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  56

  Why Do Intelligent People Believe in God?

  by cantleave in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  one of the most common thing thrown at atheists is - lots of intelligent people believe in god.

  this darkmatter 2525's video is an excellent explanation as to why very logical people possess religious belief systems.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y201qzddzbg.

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  cantleave

  That video is absolute crap.

  It's always nice to get feedback, whether positive or negative.

  
  What do you consider intelligent?
  

  There are many types of intelligence. Take me for example. I am slightly autistic, and have little social intelligence -but am a logical thinker. I am not a great politician but understand enough about internal politics at work to spend as much time away from colleagues as possible. I certainly have no ability to do sports (that's a type of intelligence) but I can make excellent technical presentations and have the ability to absorb knowledge on all sorts of subjects.

  I have a 130 IQ (tested several times professionally throughout my life), my highest scores aside from knowledge were on puzzle, problem solving, and critical thinking.
  

  You should see my score - it will make your eyes water. My problem solving and critical thinking are pretty good too. See we have found common ground :)

  I also used to be a programmer.
  

  I used to be a JW and stayed one for 42 years.
  

  honors degree that included religious studies and basic biology, genetics, astronomy, etc.
  

  In my case a first degree in Chemistry, and Masters in Business Administration as well rather vast general knowledge. This mutual bragging is great fun but I am not quite getting your point.

  An IQ can be quite broad...

  Not the way it is measured for MENSA. The tests do not measure things like Social Intelligence, Emotional Intelligence, Sporting Prowess, political astuteness etc. - all of which are signs of intelligence as stated above.
  
  

  An 'intelligent' person, if considering one a 'thinker' vs a 'feeler' wouldn't still believe in God because of social pressure or emotional attachment.
  

  Obviously your education did not extend to psychology! There have been some great social experiments that conflict with your statement. One of them was a bit of fun, where Derren Brown managed to get an Atheist, working in the field of genetics, to feel a deep religious experience. Look it up - its brilliant!

  The lack of critical thinking is very evident when they as many others claim that believe in God must mean acceptance or belief in ANY religion on this planet.

  The point of the video is show how social conditioning allows ridiculous ideas such as religious belief to take hold in society. The original belief in god was not ridiculous because it arose from early man trying to make sense of a chaotic world. You could say it was an early hypothesis to explain what seemed unexplainable. However many of the things that were back then "mysterious" are now fully understood. Gods were not required to make thunder, cause Earthquakes or create disease (why in your world did an intelligent designer create disease EOM?)

  Very narrow minded thinking. Even though God is a religious term, if you take the concept then there need not be any religious ties to it. God also is understand in many different ways throughout beliefs and religions,

  As the video explained religiosity was created around the god construct to reinforce adherence to it. The evolution of non-religious to religious believer is pretty well summed up in the video. Is it not possible that people believe but show no religiosity are a counter reaction to the increasing intrusiveness, hypocrisy and outright corruption of the religious systems that arose?

  the only exact specific is our life is the result of 'intelligent design'.......Why do I believe in God? First, my only 100% certain belief is "intelligent design".
  

  What is this intelligent design of which you speak? Are you saying your God used evolution to carry out his / her designs? Are you denying evolution (I really hope a person with a 130 IQ has a basic understanding of this subject).

  I am not 100% certain what form this intelligent design is from, where they are, if still around, etc. Having been a programmer, researching into AI, genetics, etc., I see intelligent design in all life.

  No you see something that resembles design that arose by the process of natural selection

  I am even considering learning programming again to try to create AI since faster computer processors, memory steadily rising in capacity but shrinking in physical size, cloud computing, camera, audio devices, and the new industrial revolution all have the right conditions to begin to develop this technology.
  

  That's great - I am building a world wide distributor network to sell speciality ingredients for the cosmetic industry, hoping to make serious amounts of money and say "screw you" to the WTS cult. Neither my work ambition or yours has anything to do with this thread.

  What is my take on life? Like computer programs, we can see the code and see the programs.

  I hate computer programmes but my son who is even more on the Autism spectrum than me loves them.

  But without the platform and appropriate software, we cannot create our own programs from scratch. Some intelligent lifeforce designed life, using DNA as the language. Designed it to replicate, and to adapt to its environment. The adaptations are the evolution we see.
  

  The platform on which life is based are self replicating chemicals. Chemicals do what chemicals do - without any direction. It just so happens that nucleic acids build protein structures.

  None of those things has anything to do with social pressure or how I was raised. It doesn't tell me what to expect when I die. It doesn't tell me the nature of God, spirit or physical or something else.

  It doesn't tell the colour of Unicorns, the nature of fairies or the size of Russel's teapot either.
  

  It doesn't tell you the colour of a unicorn's eyes, or the sexual behaviour of fairies, or the exact orbit of Russel's teapot (or is it a cup?)

  If man can ever replicate instead of by trillions of random chances for a cell life to just emerge, then group up to develop heart, brain, lungs, kidneys separate from each other or spontaneous at the same time, and into other life forms, then I might change my mind. If all those things w/ DNA developed by chance over millions or billions of years due to random chemical mixes, etc, then surely with man intervening and mixing the right things at the right time it should happen a lot quicker.

  Why should it have happened a lot quicker? The scientific method doesn't work to time frames. It uses evidence elicited from carefully constructed experiments. The time required....is the time required!
  

  And if all the varieties of life all happened by chance too, then we should be able to design and create customized life forms as well. (That may soon be possible w/ genetic engineering, but the key is to do it all from scratch and not use anything existing).

  Who says that we won't be able design and create customized life from scratch in the future? The fact we can't now doesn't mean we will never be able to. Just because we don't at present know what the secrets of abiogenesis are, doesn't mean we never will. And whilst we don't know, we shouldn't be jumping to the conclusion that it is has to be supernatural - in the same way that we now see pestilence and disasters as entirely natural...now we that we understand them.
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  7

  Eggs - how would you like them done?

  by berrygerry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  post on another forum prompted this one.. wt is flip-flopping on the "no marriage for you" (voice of seinfeld soup nazi) to placate the 50% of jw women who will never marry "in this system.

  https://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/w20140815/jesus-sadducees-marriage-after-resurrection/.

  however, we do know that wt also taught that marriage was for procreation.

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  cantleave

  I like my eggs in the most unhealthy recipes....

  
  
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  56

  Why Do Intelligent People Believe in God?

  by cantleave in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  one of the most common thing thrown at atheists is - lots of intelligent people believe in god.

  this darkmatter 2525's video is an excellent explanation as to why very logical people possess religious belief systems.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y201qzddzbg.

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  cantleave

  Sam - I am not making any ridiculous claim. I am simply saying that I wait for science to find the answer to abiogenesis, which I firmly believe will be found in lifetime, and not filling the gaps with supernatural nonsense. ...........Anyway I hope all is well with you :)