i'm having the whole heaven & hell discussion again w/ the wife...brought up matthew 25:41-46 as proof it exists,then the wife balked & looked to the friends for help.
the good news is that my wife now respects the fact that i won't read anything printed by the filthy slave, but the fight's still not fair.
can anyone give me more scriptures of the bible to use?
I think hell can be proven or disproven with the bible, it all ends up in trading proof-texts.
Eternal punishment, even the newer, softer church of England version, is morally bankrupt.
It has been a very powerful tool to keep the minions in line and the coffers full.
"As soon as the coin in the coffers ring,
a soul from purgatory springs" - John Tetzel 15th Century
i realize whether you believe in god or the non-existence of god it has to be taken on faith since both positions are unknowable and unprovable.
however, i can understand faith in god as basically a hope for something better.
i can also understand agnosticism; admitting it's unknowable but still leaving the door open (perhaps the only intellectually honest option).
romans 10:9 (new international version)9that if you confess with your mouth, "jesus is lord," and believe in your heart that god raised him from the dead, you will be saved.. ever hear a jw utter this statement?.
ever seen a jw live like jesus their lord?.
here's a couple of verses on this theme.
An excerpt from an article I wrote soon after I left the borg
In view of this sample of texts quoted above, it would seem reasonable to say that Jehovah's Witnesses do not speak about Jesus in the same manner as early Christians did. The apostles described themselves as witnesses of Jesus, they called him their only owner and Lord, and the one to whom they belonged. They were baptised in his name, led by his Spirit, rejoiced in his blessing and overflowed with praise for him. All of these statements are incompatible with the beliefs and practice of Jehovah's Witnesses. Even if an individual Witness may feel comfortable with such expressions they could never voice such sentiments in the hearing of others. There can be no doubt that if a Jehovah's Witness were to go back to a meeting of early Christians they would feel profoundly out of place.
follow this brief convolution for a second:.
bex and i are friends from the kh we had attended.
i found a friend of bex's, leesa, also from that same.
I have never known a bigger bunch of rumor mongers especially when it comes to ex members
i realize whether you believe in god or the non-existence of god it has to be taken on faith since both positions are unknowable and unprovable.
however, i can understand faith in god as basically a hope for something better.
i can also understand agnosticism; admitting it's unknowable but still leaving the door open (perhaps the only intellectually honest option).
Also, the only thing that I enjoy about life is connection. Those brief moments when I feel connected to someone that cares about me and that I care about. Also those moments that when I contemplate that there may really be a God that loves us and has something better in store than this torture I experience now. If it's all not true, if love doesn't exist and is just a "neuro-chemical part of our survival mechanism" what's the point of living? Why not just die now? I don't understand.
Paul I am really sorry to hear you feel that way right now. It is easy for some of us who went through this adjustment a long time ago to be flippant about how transient life is. We may forget times of despair and angst coming to terms with the huge psychological leap from a view of eternity to acceptance of our own mortality.
I have been there, where you are now. I know the sense of panic at a life half lived that I thought would never end. It will pass and as Flipper said so wisely there is so much purpose and meaning to be had in life. Nihilism is not the inevitable alternative to faith. When life is no longer viewed as a rehearsal many find that life becomes more real.
Of course love is real, your experiences of love and relationships are all that matters, I never waste time worrying about whether there is a sound philosophical foundation for it, just live it.
It is of course comforting to hope that there may be more, as long as it does not cause you to opt out of finding purpose and joy in this life there is likely no harm in that. Don't bully you heart into following your head, it may catch up in its own time, I always find there is a considerable gap in time between what I know and what I feel, there is no hurry. - Bill
thank you for joining this site.
your inner knowledge is simply fascinating.
please tell us more!!!!
How amazing that the writing department use Stott's commentaries, I'm sure he would be surprised! After I left I got myself quite a few commentaries, mostly published by IVP, and one or two systematic theologies. I was impressed by the genuine efforts at scholarship that went into them compared to wt publications.
I wonder how most elders would react if they visited a bro or sis and saw a whole collection of NT commentaries on the shelf? How ironic.
for years i believed that god had created all the plants and their elements and nutrients specifically for us.
yesterday as i was walking at the getty museum was smelling the garlic plants in the garden and made me wonder.
if we are a product of evolution and the survival of the fittest, why do we depend on a wide variety of plants to survive?
What makes you think I'm not excited about biology and physics?
Because the genesis account is diametrically opposed to biology and physics. You cant have your cake and eat it Sylvia.
for years i believed that god had created all the plants and their elements and nutrients specifically for us.
yesterday as i was walking at the getty museum was smelling the garlic plants in the garden and made me wonder.
if we are a product of evolution and the survival of the fittest, why do we depend on a wide variety of plants to survive?
Sylvia - I'm new around here, please tell me your being sarcastic? Surely "goddidit" is just a caricature of a special kind of willful ignorance?
If there is a god then science is the study of stuff god did, why are you not even more excited by biology and physics than I am?
for years i believed that god had created all the plants and their elements and nutrients specifically for us.
yesterday as i was walking at the getty museum was smelling the garlic plants in the garden and made me wonder.
if we are a product of evolution and the survival of the fittest, why do we depend on a wide variety of plants to survive?
So in a way plants do think, correct? or what makes them self preserve and thus generate food?
No evolution does not happen that way. The development of a fruit for example starts as a totally random event, no doubt just a few cells attached to the seed. If that improves the chance of that seed being eaten by a bird or animal and subsequently excreted to grow into a new plant complete with the mutated gene for fleshy seeds, then that gene will do better in the gene pool than those that produce seeds with no flesh.
Over generations multiple mutations accumulate to produce the kinds of fruit we see today. We often speak about elements in the natural world being "designed" for this or that but it is only a shorthand way of speaking. The "watchmaker" is blind. Nothing plans to evolve anything; changes happen by chance, those that are beneficial are selected by natural selection which is not random.
Its helpful to see it from the perspective of the gene as Dawkins proposed in "The Selfish Gene". Bodies of animals, humans, vegetables, trees, apostates are gene reproducing machines. Those genes which cause the body or phenotype to do better at reproducing get copied more often than genes that don't.
some jws have told me that blood transfusions cannot save lives in the case of catastrophic bleeding (for example, resulting from an auto accident) because blood cannot carry oxygen for 24 hours after it has been transfused.
is this in print in wt publications?
it must be, because i've heard it on multiple occasions from different jws.. i find it very hard to believe that such a statement is true.
Thanks for that explanation TD.
Typical of the borg to be deliberately misleading.
