This is as far from religious faith as it would be possible to imagine.
Now you have narrowed down your semantics. Do you believe religious faith isn't a good bet?
-Sab
sabastious
JoinedPosts by sabastious
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169
The "Tree of Life and its meaning"
by EdenOne inhi all.. just letting know that i've published a new article on my website, titled "the tree of life and its meaning".. you're welcome to visit, read and discuss it.. eden.
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sabastious
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169
The "Tree of Life and its meaning"
by EdenOne inhi all.. just letting know that i've published a new article on my website, titled "the tree of life and its meaning".. you're welcome to visit, read and discuss it.. eden.
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sabastious
supercalifragilistikexpealidocious...
Semantics!
-Sab
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169
The "Tree of Life and its meaning"
by EdenOne inhi all.. just letting know that i've published a new article on my website, titled "the tree of life and its meaning".. you're welcome to visit, read and discuss it.. eden.
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sabastious
No Sab you are playing silly semantic word games again.
It's a curious phenomenon being accused of something the accuser is guilty of. I never quite get used to it. You have turned the word "faith" into a buzz term which encapsulates an idealogy about it. Then you debate that term with a specific description which is just semantics.
When ever you describe "faith" you always describe blind faith and then mischaracterize the concept. That's why I gave the example of faith in a marriage mate. At any time they can use free will and breach the marital agreement. If you have faith in your mate you can say things like, "I know my mate won't cheat on me, they are not that type of person." If the statement is not based in any evidence then it's simply blind faith and will likely end in heartbreak. However, if the statement comes from careful observation while experiencing life with that mate and understanding their personality and humanity then it's not blind faith, it's REAL faith. Which is a beautiful and powerful thing.
The faith that is required to fill the gap where there is insufficient evidence is not the same as faith that is a synonym for trust.
Yes, like how marriage mates don't actually know if the other will be faithful or not. Scientists make leaps of faith all of the time, but they must be attached to something tangible, or else it won't produce anything. For example, many people had faith that Mr Higgs was right about his elementary particle class. They had to have a measure of belief because they didn't have empirical proof. However, many still funded research that accounted for the particle even though it wasn't scientifically demonstrable. It turns out it was a good bet to make.
Is it wrong to bet on God?
-Sab
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169
The "Tree of Life and its meaning"
by EdenOne inhi all.. just letting know that i've published a new article on my website, titled "the tree of life and its meaning".. you're welcome to visit, read and discuss it.. eden.
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sabastious
faith is the enemy of truth
Faith is the trusted companion of truth. If your spouse says, "I will not cheat on you" on what basis do you have to believe them? What if you know that they have sexual problems from growing up in a repressive cult? What if you know that given the perfect circumstance, they WILL have to deal with temptation? How can you conclusively say that under all circumstances infidelity is never a possibility?
You are confusing blind faith, or faithless faith, with the real deal. Your statement operates on a logical false equivalency. You are equating a hollow exoskeleton with a living, breathing creature. It's a common mistake you make and it doesn't appear that you have the ability to grasp the concept given the amount of times you assert this misconception upon others.
-Sab
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169
The "Tree of Life and its meaning"
by EdenOne inhi all.. just letting know that i've published a new article on my website, titled "the tree of life and its meaning".. you're welcome to visit, read and discuss it.. eden.
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sabastious
and your point is....?
Sometimes I don't explicitly state it. Welcome to one of those times.
-Sab
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169
The "Tree of Life and its meaning"
by EdenOne inhi all.. just letting know that i've published a new article on my website, titled "the tree of life and its meaning".. you're welcome to visit, read and discuss it.. eden.
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sabastious
Band, sounds to me like our world is getting patched up.
A patch is a piece of software designed to fix problems with, or update a computer program or its supporting data. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs, and improving the usability or performance. Though meant to fix problems, poorly designed patches can sometimes introduce new problems (see software regressions). In some special cases updates may knowingly break the functionality, for instance, by removing components for which the update provider is no longer licensed or disabling a device. Patch management is the process of using a strategy and plan of what patches should be applied to which systems at a specified time.
-Sab
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I miss the in depth topics about WTS false teachings....
by wallsofjericho inare we bored with the wts now?
have we heard it all already?.
or is the wts just not printing "deep" articles anymore?
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sabastious
I am currently doing a JWN posting series on Watchtower false teachings. I don't have the life circumstances to devote as much time as I want, but stay tuned for some interesting discussions. Here are the first two posts (many more to come when I have time).
-Sab
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Are Jehovah's Witnesses a hierarchical religion? And does it matter?
by cedars inthis is the title of my latest article, which is available on the link below.... http://jwsurvey.org/cedars-blog/are-jehovahs-witnesses-a-hierarchical-religion-and-does-it-matter.
inspired by the illustration in the april 15th watchtower (above), i thought it would be worthwhile to further explore this facet of the society for two reasons.... because the society has spent decades criticizing the catholic church for being hierarchical, andbecause the society has recently become more open about its hierarchical nature than ever before.below is a diagram i have prepared which shows the organizational similarities that watch tower society now shares with the catholic church.... .
until recently, the governing body could place the "faithful slave" above it at the top of the pyramid, but as of october 5th this fuzzy doctrine was scrapped - thus removing the final distinguishing factor between the governing body and popedom.. as always, i would be interested in your thoughts.... .
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sabastious
You'd never know if you asked a member, but the Watchtower has always aspired to be like the Catholic Church. They use hierarchical structure as a model instead of Christ.
-Sab
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133
GENESIS- Adam, Eve, Noah, etc. and Original Sin
by Band on the Run inthere was a distressing thread concerning this topic recently.
there is no way i can believe these stories as literal truth or even use them as any signpost to the nt jesus/god.
these scriptures make judaism and christianity look silly.
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sabastious
So you work for free? You sold your businesses at a loss to be nice?
I am for a free market system and I do not believe we currently have one. I am an advocate of the open source model.
I don't understand it because there is no such thing as "your science". It's just more evidence that you would rather complain about the world rather than work to improve yourself. It's intellectually lazy.
Now this is an interesting accusation. From my own perspective the reason I am in this thread is because I am following the words of the Dalai Lama when responding to Elisabet Sahtouris, Ph.D., evolution biologist . He said that the world needed critical thinking followed by action. As you have seen in the past I am highly critical of scientists such as Dawkins and Krauss because of their anti-God agenda (they'd probably deny they have one, however). Now we have great minds such as Karen Armstrong joining this petty dispute. The Jews have been saying they are chosen for thousands of years and they are never going to stop saying it. They will always be the People of the Book in my humble opinion. That "book" was a precursor to what brought forth the Messiah that sparked Christianity. What you see as "intellectually lazy" is actually just my science that opposes your own. It's my science vs your science and one wins out in the end. We should be able to be civil about it while remaining confident in one's own work. I don't really believe that science should ever have a capital S nor should nothing have a capital N.
I don't want the Nothing to overtake the universe, I'd rather eat rocks.
So you work for free? You are a writer, you just defined yourself as a greedy sheep to the slaughter. What do you write? When? How often? Is it proofread? Fact-checked?
I work for free for myself. I already said if I ever choose to publish something it will be in the form of a blog. Details are for ironing out.
-Sab
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133
GENESIS- Adam, Eve, Noah, etc. and Original Sin
by Band on the Run inthere was a distressing thread concerning this topic recently.
there is no way i can believe these stories as literal truth or even use them as any signpost to the nt jesus/god.
these scriptures make judaism and christianity look silly.
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sabastious
Really, Sab. That scriptures doesn't say publishing houses are devils. If you were a decent person and could get a deal so easily, you could 100% direct the money to a charity. Please don't pretend the Bible says things it doesn't, like publishing houses are devils or that the Torah mentions genetics.
You are really good at this I have to admit. No, I couldn't direct all the money at charities, I could only direct the money the publishing house gave me. My issue is with the whole process and giving my money to charity would not satisify the moral dilemma (ie I still wouldn't be able to sleep at night). Also, I never said that 1 Timothy speaks specifically about publishing houses. Publishing houses are greedy and always will be no matter how much they try not to. This is because of the model they operate on. When someone wants to publish something they should just write it and then publish it on the internet for free. They will make substantially less money for their work, but it will be available to anyone with the internet around the world. That's the world I work towards, a world without greedy people. The love of money means taking more than is reasonable.
That is not true. Ignorance is yours to change. Instead, you choose to complain about others and wallow in the ignorance.
YAH HUH!
Outside of a drunken bar argument, there really is no single authoritative opinion. He's a man in that genre, not THE man. And really, it should be person, not man, unless you want to be sexist about it.
*snicker*
This shows that you have zero understanding of how science works.
The reason why you don't understand my science is because it's beyond yours. Almost like I am from the future and you are from the past. It would be like telling people in the past to stop bleeding people to death while trying to save their life. They would say, "you don't understand science" and then their patient would expire.
No one is stopping you from educating yourself for free except yourself. You are literally all the bricks in the wall. It takes work on your part to better yourself, and it's hard work. The easy and lazy path is to bitch about how everyone else is the problem.
I am educating myself for free and have been for quite some time. Even so, I sometimes purchase DVD's like this one which are worth the education for the money spent. I don't get your point, do you have one?
1 Timothy 6:10. Money, Sab? You will sell out for money? EVIL!
That scripture is about the love of money, not just making it. Publishing houses LOVE money and this can be seen by the propaganda they spew out on a regular basis. Like sheep to the slaughter writers greedily aim towards the New York Times Best Seller List. Such as the book being reviewed in this thread for instance. It's targeted at a secular audience that wish to confirm their bias about the Torah in relation to Christ. They want to divorce YHWH from Christ by saying he's just like any other bronze age savage god. Agenda, agenda, agenda, tsk tsk. I personally try to avoid junk food, but we all have free will.
-Sab