simon17

Joined

• started 21 topics
• posted 724 times   see topics posted on
• send a message

Posts by simon17

• 
  754

  Theists, why does God allow suffering..

  by The Quiet One in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  ..specifically, the suffering of animals.

  you can talk about free will/sin/people choosing to not listen to god etc to explain human suffering being allowed.. but how can you love a god that allows animals, that haven't sinned or chosen to not have anything to do with god, to have their short lives ended in often long, drawn out, painful ways.

  i could list stories i've read that would probably make you feel ill, but i'm not looking to shock anyone or start an emotional debate.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  simon17

  I sometimed wonder if theists get their natural history fom Walt Disney.

  Even there you'd see Bambi's mother die a very cruel and painful death. Oh wait, was that because Fallen Man started the forest fire, nevermind.
• 
  32

  The tower of Babel- full of holes?

  by highdose in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i was thinking the other day about the tower of babel ( like you do) somthing that always puzzled me about reading the account in our modern day times is that we have today buildings that would have been vastly taller than the tower of babel.

  even if purely because the materials needed to build modern sky scrapers have to be light in order to acheive that height.

  accient heavy bricks just wouldn't have done it.. just why was god so threatened by a building???

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  simon17

  "Why say the end is coming (according to JWs) any day now, when humanity is progressively advancing faster than ever?"

  Stupidhead, don't you know that now is the worst time in human history, that there is more anarchy and sickness and evil in the world now than every before? That every day is worse than the last? That society is rapidly decaying into the darkest oblivion of misery ever even imagined?
• 
  20

  I don't like "taking the lead"

  by I Want to Believe in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  some men probably got off on the power/ego trip being a male jw gets you, but i never cared for it.

  i'm an introvert, and was an especially awkward one at that haveing been reaised in social isolation, so it was about the strangest feeling in the world when as a newly-baptized teenager (back in the day) i started to pioneer.

  i was about as green as you could get in every way but i was told i had to take the lead in the service meetings and the car group.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  simon17

  I remember it was strange being baptized in my mid teens, and all of a sudden, when going out in service in mid-week I'd be "in charge" of pioneer sisters who were smart, experienced for decades, and much more capable of making decisions than I was at that point. It made no sense in this millennium. The most capable should be taking the lead, not the only man in the room de facto.
• 
  31

  Should you ever tell tour aging parents the truth about the truth

  by Star tiger in

  1. forum
  2. announcements

  since finding out the truth about the truth myself and having successfully extricated myself and my parents about the jw's, i find myself with a new dilema that being they still believe the bible as a literal book for their salvation as i has read all of thomas paines works and how the bible is not very good for the human family, as they are of advancing years would it be inappropriate to shatter their illusions of some kind of paradise and let them flounder in a moral precipice and wonder what their lives have been about.

  on the flip side once their time has come how would i feel for not telling them their false views.

  at the moment i am in the deist point of view, with a tendency of the agnostic, it is quite a dilema!.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  simon17

  Agree with all above, at this point in their life it accomplishes nothing to tell them their entire life's structure was a sham. Let them die in peace.
• 
  754

  Theists, why does God allow suffering..

  by The Quiet One in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  ..specifically, the suffering of animals.

  you can talk about free will/sin/people choosing to not listen to god etc to explain human suffering being allowed.. but how can you love a god that allows animals, that haven't sinned or chosen to not have anything to do with god, to have their short lives ended in often long, drawn out, painful ways.

  i could list stories i've read that would probably make you feel ill, but i'm not looking to shock anyone or start an emotional debate.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  simon17

  Christians have the worst "answer" to do this of all the world's religions. At least in Hinduism reincarnation means that the suffering of animals is a punishment for those who were bad in previous, higher incarnations or as a means to earn higher incarnations in later lives. In Islam, god created evil intentionally in a way that is not inherently logically inconsistent (but does seem to make him seem like a bit of a jerk). Christians though, really have no answer at all.
• 
  18

  You have never heard of anyone have a bad day in field service, Right!

  by life is to short in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i grew up hearing that over and over.

  i used to think about those bumper stickers that say i would rather be golfing or fishing.

  jw's should have bumper stickers that say i would rather be going door to door.. once i got old enough to understand it, i used to beat myself up all the time because some of the most hellish days of my life have been out in service.. for so many reasons even more then i will list!.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  simon17

  I have to say, I often had a decently good time in service. If you manage to be with people you like you're in pretty good shape. There were some crazy stories that came out of service so I'm happy about those. I was never with people that were gung-ho, so we basically just said hello-goodbye to householders--nothing too stressful. That was the last thing I stopped doing actually. Sitting silently in meetings or pretending to believe things was that are clearly not true was the brutal part. Of course, a good amount of the time I did NOT want to go out in service Saturday mornings but its not like THursday night or Sunday afternoon when I'd be missing out on big games or school parties and stuff. If service was, say, once or twice a month, I really wouldn't have much negative to say about it.
• 
  32

  The tower of Babel- full of holes?

  by highdose in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i was thinking the other day about the tower of babel ( like you do) somthing that always puzzled me about reading the account in our modern day times is that we have today buildings that would have been vastly taller than the tower of babel.

  even if purely because the materials needed to build modern sky scrapers have to be light in order to acheive that height.

  accient heavy bricks just wouldn't have done it.. just why was god so threatened by a building???

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  simon17

  As far a Babel and its tower was concerned, it at some level interfered with God's overall plan for man to spread out and create nations and nationalities, etc. And forget about the peaceful, one-language concept here. Babylon was corrupt. Nimrod had already begun hunting humans for sport. So this was the beginning of an oppressive society like Nazi Germany, who if they had not been stopped likely would have killed off anybody in the world who wasn't Aryan. So it was that kind of a sick society that God interrupted. They were direct rebels and terrorists and opposed to God's policies so God stepped in and forced them to do as he intended, which is the right of a "god", is it not? When the clay starts to tell the molder how it wants to be molded then the clay learns a lesson.

  No, this is totaly backwards thinking.

  Apparently the clay already challenged its molder and now was given a chance to rule themselves to see if they could do better than God. If we are to believe that God accepted this challenge than he has NO RIGHT to intervene until the results bear themselves out.

  And now you are saying God intervened to PREVENT man mis-ruling himself? Why? Thats precisely what NEEDS to happen for him to win the challenge of universal sovreignty! If man had become totally corrupt and a total disaster that quickly, than this challenge could have been answered decisively THOUSANDS OF YEARS ago. If Babylon was about to be enough to prove mankind needs God's rule, then we would not have had to endure the pain, death and suffering since then. Think about it.

  Either interpretation you conceive of, this action was completely out of line.
• 
  19

  Does anyone have the 2012 Memorial Talk outline?

  by Alfred in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  just wanted to see if they included 1 cor 11:26... or if they elaborate on that text... thnx.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  simon17

  Sounds about right... the biggest part of the outline boils down to: "DON'T PARTAKE DAMNIT! Stop making us look stupid!!!!"
• 
  32

  The tower of Babel- full of holes?

  by highdose in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i was thinking the other day about the tower of babel ( like you do) somthing that always puzzled me about reading the account in our modern day times is that we have today buildings that would have been vastly taller than the tower of babel.

  even if purely because the materials needed to build modern sky scrapers have to be light in order to acheive that height.

  accient heavy bricks just wouldn't have done it.. just why was god so threatened by a building???

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  simon17

  At any rate, it would have poloarized the population there for longer than Jehovah intended so the project was cancelled.

  Wait, hold on... are you suggesting the real reason God disrupted the Tower project is because it might have polarized the population? So he confused the languages and provided the ultimate polarization of population in the history of human kind?????

  Surely this is one of the most ridiculous stories in Genesis (which is saying a lot)

  * Not only does it make no sense that God would be threatened by a tower's height reaching the heavens, but it would be impossible for them to build a tower nearly as high as those built today.

  * Also the reason given is that they must be disrupted because soon "nothing would be impossible" for the builders if they were allowed peaceful under one language. THis is a BLATANT sabotaging of the human race and their potential. Besides being cruel and petty, it also is an entirely unfair handicap to put on humans in God's case for universal sovreignty! If God was trying to show humans couldn't govern themselves, he could NOT have interfered to mess humans up like this and claim this was a fair test. What he introduced (difference due to language) is the #1 cause of humans not being able to get along peacefully through the centuries.
• 
  22

  WARNING.... Extremely disturbing and racist Awake! magazine (October 8, 1977)

  by Alfred in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  warning: offensive and racist awake!

  magazine.... really, how great are racial differences?

  are they of such a degree that people of different races cannot live together as equals, and take real pleasure in one anothers company?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  simon17

  Why would you be offended by this? That makes no sense at all. The point of the article is to say those prejudices are wrong.

  Did they write the article in a bit of a wierd, out-of-touch way? Looks that way. But what they were trying to say was the right thing.