Posts by unshackled

16

Professor Falcon Asks: Why Such Variety in Religion?

by Mr. Falcon in

if i remember correctly, the current watchtower teaching claims that the reason why there is such a diversity of religion today is due to the incident at the tower of babel.

upon confusing their languages, yahweh scattered them abroad and consequentaly they carried off with them a variety of "false religious beliefs and practices".. i would like to hear your thoughts on this.

is there archeological evidence to support this?

unshackled

Yo yo Mr. Millenium Falcon...ah The God Delusion, great read. That book set off a tornado of thoughts and ideas for me. What do you think of it so far?

Having been breast fed WT doctrine from birth, can't say I recall thinking that religious diversity was directly because of Babel. But for the reasons already stated above the WT probably consider it a starting origin.

Of course they're full of sh*t on that because Babel is just fable. The Bible places the events of its Tower of Babel story around 1000 BCE. Reality is there were many spoken and written languages prior to the Tower of Babel events. The oldest known text in the Sanskrit language, the Rigveda, dates to 1700-1100 BCE. Egyptian hieroglyphs date back to about 3100 BCE and Sumerian writings date as far back as 3200 BCE.

46

Apostates Shut the door of everlasting life in Men's Faces

by mankkeli in

jw
friends

i was discussing with an elder today, and as usual the conversation drifted towards apostates and their line of reasoning, he angrily looked into my eyes with the scriptures in his hand and told me:.

(1) that apostates are destructive peddlers who shut the door of everlasting life on people as they are very sure they have no portion in there.

he quoted matt 23:13- 13 woe to you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites!

unshackled

Wondered that too cptkirk. Think three of his threads start with: "So I was talking to an elder about ________ and he said this..."

72

New Statesman: famous atheists explain why they don't believe in God...what is Hawking saying?

by unshackled in

http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2011/07/god-evidence-believe-world.

found this new statesman article linked in a sam harris tweet.

it is a collection of comments on reasons for non-belief from such ones as richard dawkins, daniel dennett, sam harris, jerry coyne and stephen hawking...to name a few.. what caught my eye about the tweet was this comment by harris, his actual tweet:.

unshackled

Here I thought this thread had fizzled….

binadub: Those are some great quotes you dug up. You think it would be fair to say that Einstein was a pantheist? Interesting you bring up his work that led to the atomic bomb. I recently stumbled across this quote by him on that:

"The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."

Shelby: Yes, that is a fair point that Hawking's latest comments should be considered, and don't necessarily have to reflect what he previously said. I'm not sure of the chronological order of his comments either. But I suppose the possibility he changed his view can't be ruled out.

But the thing is, we've done a good job of breaking down what he said, I'm still not entirely sure what he meant. Or as Tammy put it…"the only person who knows what Hawking meant for sure is Hawking himself." For being labelled an atheist, Hawking seems much more ambiguous than say a Harris or Dawkins.

Or maybe Hofer is on to something…Hawking was drunk!

13

Seven Habits of Highly Incompetent People

by man in black in

this article was sent to me.

i could not help but think about the witnesses while reading it.. .

number 1 they think, say, & do negative things.. yup.

unshackled

Good article and better comments, MIB. Number 1 should be called The Job Complex...they're so persecuted by Satan.

46

Apostates Shut the door of everlasting life in Men's Faces

by mankkeli in

jw
friends

i was discussing with an elder today, and as usual the conversation drifted towards apostates and their line of reasoning, he angrily looked into my eyes with the scriptures in his hand and told me:.

(1) that apostates are destructive peddlers who shut the door of everlasting life on people as they are very sure they have no portion in there.

he quoted matt 23:13- 13 woe to you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites!

unshackled

What zoiks said. And the only ones to shut the door of everlasting life in anyone's face is the WT, because they made it up.

22

I want to fade but ...

by Dudu in

jw
friends

i need an advice.... has been 2 months since i went to a meeting and or field service, i received a call from an elder saying that he wants my monthly report , i dont know what to do coz he is been calling me for 4 days now i dont want to answer the phone, but at the same time i feel like just sending the report.

the question is, should i fade slowly or just stop ?

my family isnt jw only my mom is inactive..

unshackled

If you don't have family in, sounds like your road is paved for a fade. What other consequences could there be? Any other important people in your life that would be jeopardized? If not, just ignore him. Or simply say you have nothing to report. Either way, they have no power over you unless you let them.

78

God exists? God doesn't? God is a different concept? Convince me!

by punkofnice in

i am in a spiritual void at the moment after a year out of the borg and 50 years in.. i'd like to hear 'brief' evidence for the existance or non existance of god/s without an argument between members here.. i'd like to get fresh view points as mine is now so critical it's telling me to be an agnostic or atheist.

why?

i am in want of evidence, not just words from a copy/paste troll & no links.. i just want to open up to new possibilities but with evidence to support it not just 'faith'..

unshackled

journey-on brings up a good point. Somewhere along the way you also need to question what kind of "god" are you pondering. A personal God, that is directly involved in the affairs of humans, one that hears prayers? Or a God that is a supreme being that created the universe, set it in motion with laws of nature and sat back and watched? Or can you simply refer to the universe and the laws of nature as God, but not a supreme being? If I'm not mistaken, I think Einstein alluded to the last one. If the first two options are invoked, then the next question is: where and how did that God come into existence?

39

on the subject of elders reading this message board

by cptkirk in

i'm still laughing to myself thinking about elders/bethelites reading this messageboard.

yet another contradiction to throw in the basket.

didn't they always say how dangerous it is to read anything that contradicts the teachings of the wts?

unshackled

Felt like I was doing something obscene, browsing here.

Know what you mean Miz. It wasn't this forum that made me feel that way though, my eyes were already half open before coming here. It was book about Mormons that lead me to scrutinize the WT. I distinctly remember pausing before typing 'Charles Taze Russell' into the Google machine. I had been out for years, but still had something wired in my head that this was "wrong", if only for a second or two.

51

My judicial commitee is tonight at 7pm!

by TimothyT in

im not going!

im almost free!.

timmy xxx.

unshackled

Congrats Timothy on your new life...its all yours now. Good call on not attending, not worth wasting any more breath on those drones.

78

Science TV Show - AGuest and bohm please jump in

by EntirelyPossible in

i started this thread to get a fresh start.

i know, there is another thread, but it was all over the place.

to that end, i would am going to paste a quote of shelby's from the other thread and try to stick to hashing that out.

unshackled

Ah okay bohm, about as clear as this pale ale I just poured. I can almost see through it but it is a bit dark and fizzy. Cheers though.