Are you sure God is complex?
Again, are you sure fairies are not complex?
Nickolas
JoinedPosts by Nickolas
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186
Questions From Thinkers
by Perry inhow do you explain david's graphic portrayal of jesus' death by crucifixion (psalm 22) 1000 years before christ lived?.
how do you account for the odds (1 in 10 to the 157th power) that even just 48 (of 300) old testament prophecies were fulfilled in jesus christ?.
in what sense was jesus a "good man" if he was lying in his claim to be god?.
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186
Questions From Thinkers
by Perry inhow do you explain david's graphic portrayal of jesus' death by crucifixion (psalm 22) 1000 years before christ lived?.
how do you account for the odds (1 in 10 to the 157th power) that even just 48 (of 300) old testament prophecies were fulfilled in jesus christ?.
in what sense was jesus a "good man" if he was lying in his claim to be god?.
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Nickolas
God is a spirit.
Please cite your references.
Can spirit be created?
Please define spirit and present evidence to support its existence. To paraphrase your contribution: God is a fairy. Can fairies be created?
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186
Questions From Thinkers
by Perry inhow do you explain david's graphic portrayal of jesus' death by crucifixion (psalm 22) 1000 years before christ lived?.
how do you account for the odds (1 in 10 to the 157th power) that even just 48 (of 300) old testament prophecies were fulfilled in jesus christ?.
in what sense was jesus a "good man" if he was lying in his claim to be god?.
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Nickolas
How can something as small as a brain understand extremely complicated aspects of the universe, even though it is (supposedly) just a bunch of chemical reactions and electrical signals? But at the same time, this brain can’t create another brain like itself, so how can nature, that has no brain, create a brain?
Why can't this brain even create a simple living twig?
Why is the simple cell likened to the complexity of large functioning city by experts?
Respectfully, Perry, these questions betray a blind spot in your thinking. No, our still evolving brains are not smart enough to create its equal, but that's not surprising. The watch is not as complicated as the watchmaker, the pot as the potter, the house as the builder. It requires a more complex thing to create a complex thing. Agreed. How complex, then, must be the creator of the Universe? It follows that if something as complex as the Universe could not have come into being without something even more complex to create it, then the creator must be very complex indeed. Your questions may be categorised under "The Argument from Complexity" which suffers from the problem of infinite regress and the arbitrary assignment of God as its terminator. Who or what created God? The assumption that God is immune to the regress you illustrate is, alas, entirely unwarranted.
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Eschatology of Jehovah's Witnesses - wikipedia
by Band on the Run ini read this article last night.
it was confusing.
the parade of dates long before i was born 1790, 1876, 1914, a whole profusio of them with backtracking and sorry excuses was mind boggling, even for one raised a witness.
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Nickolas
The article may be too long. Franzy may be an incorrect source for wikipedia. Wikipedia has countless rules about sources. He wasn't relied upon for any main statement b/c the WT statements are so damning. In a very well sourced article, mention of Franz was de minimus and incidental.
I've read only Crisis. The other book holds out no interest. From someone standing outside Christian faith or any other faith for that matter I judged Franz' story credible. WT statements about Franz are so damning because his testimony is so damning. How else are the GB to react? Then they simply declare Mr. Franz personna non grata and his writing verbotten and poison the mind of every Jehovah's Witness just a little bit more, to the extent that an honest, wonderful man is demonised. As powerful as Franz' testimony is, however, it is not needed. There is so very much physical evidence out there it is devastating to the Watchtower, if only its adherents could put their cognitive dissonance aside for awhile.
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Eschatology of Jehovah's Witnesses - wikipedia
by Band on the Run ini read this article last night.
it was confusing.
the parade of dates long before i was born 1790, 1876, 1914, a whole profusio of them with backtracking and sorry excuses was mind boggling, even for one raised a witness.
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Nickolas
I could not bring myself to read it all the way through. There is only so much incredulity I can bear. What I read seems to be a fairly well represented presentation of things, as much as it could be subtitled "Anatomy of a Delusion".
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Cut from the same cloth
by Nickolas inadherents know that they are right and those who believe otherwise are wrong.
black and white.
that there are many such books in existence is problematic insofar as they condemn one another either directly or by inference as heretical - or at best earlier, defective revelations.
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Nickolas
No, actually, it was a pedantic rant from an old man who had had too many sleepless nights and too many single malts. Carry on.
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Where did AGuest - and others - go?
by Qcmbr inhi - i almost miss sparring with her.
what happened ?
did i miss something?
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Nickolas
A hypothetical. At some point or another someone trying to escape the Watchtower paradigm completely might come to realise that escaping JWN represents the end of the process. Letting go is always difficult but always necessary. This is a great place to land once you finally come to understand the truth about the Truth. Lots of support and insights here, but still lots of residual irrationality amongst its denizens. How could it be otherwise? Things end. At some point you may just decide it is time to move on.
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Cut from the same cloth
by Nickolas inadherents know that they are right and those who believe otherwise are wrong.
black and white.
that there are many such books in existence is problematic insofar as they condemn one another either directly or by inference as heretical - or at best earlier, defective revelations.
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Nickolas
Most of the seven or so billion people in the world believe the Creator of the universe has either dictated or inspired the writing of a sacred book. Adherents know that they are right and those who believe otherwise are wrong. Black and white. That there are many such books in existence is problematic insofar as they condemn one another either directly or by inference as heretical - or at best earlier, defective revelations. By definition, therefore, not all devout believers can be right. By definition, in fact, the great majority must be wrong. It can be no other way. All believers simultaneously understand and misunderstand this fact. Yes, most believers are wrong, they will agree, but not them. It is not possible that they can be mistaken because their interpretation of their sacred book cannot possibly be mistaken. This is the definition of circular reasoning and selective consciousness. This is indisputable. A fundamentalist Muslim believes with all his being that the Koran is the literal word of Allah and that anyone who doubts this is worthy of death and subsequent eternal torture in Hell. His belief is utter and irreconcilable with any other. At an extreme he may demonstrate his conviction by immolating himself and others for the glory of Allah. Could there possibly be a more sincere demonstration of faith than this? Such displays of absolute conviction are commonplace, but should they persuade you or me to look to the Koran for Truth? The question is rhetorical and the answer obvious, but only to the non-Muslim. Islamic faith is a perfect, impenetrable barrier to open and honest discussion. To an Islamist the Koran is the infallible word of God. Period. Any evidence that contradicts what is written in the Koran is therefore wrong and thrown out, either reflexively or through cognitive dissonance. There is no talking to an Islamist if you are going to demonstrate to him that what he believes cannot possibly be true. From what we have seen demonstrated time and time again, his reaction will vary from polite indignation to murderous outrage. Is belief in the Bible different? Substitute fundamentalist Christian for Islamist and the picture takes on much the same coloration. Apropos to the theme of this board, from the perspective of a Jehovah's Witness if I am not myself baptised a Jehovah's Witness and remain faithful to the proclamations of the Governing Body there is an almost absolute certainty that I will either die at Armageddon or will suffer death a second time after Judgement Day. At least the Watchtower doesn't have me burning in Hell for all eternity, which is an improvement in many respects over what the other fundamentalist Christian congregations espouse. But a Jehovah's Witness nevertheless believes with all his being that the Bible is the inerrant and literal word of Yahweh. Jehovah's Witnesses compromise the quality of their lives and those they love but they are incapable of seeing it. They have come to believe that what they sacrifice in order to worship Jehovah is not a hardship but a joy because the best is yet to come. Eternal life on Paradise Earth. They are so convinced they alone have The Truth they go door-to-door in a sincere desire to inculcate others. They believe so completely they are willing to die to honour a particular facet of their belief involving blood as the sacred symbol of life, unique to them as Yahweh's chosen people. With such displays of complete honesty and sincerity, why am I not persuaded to look to the Watchtower to find Truth? The answer is the same. If you are a Jehovah's Witness, you believe the Watchtower's interpretation of the Bible is a perfect and accurate representation of what the Creator of the universe wants you to know. Any argument that contradicts Watchtower teaching is dismissed - most often, from the perspective of someone standing outside the Watchtower faith, by squaring the circle. Presented with contradictory evidence, no matter how compelling, it is always without fail the evidence that is thrown out, never the passage and verse and interpretation thereof. If a non-Witness speaks on matters of faith he is either mistaken or he seeks to deceive, no matter how sincere he may appear to be. If he attempts to speak confidently and knowledgeably on secular or scientific matters that challenge Watchtower beliefs, he is to be perceived as pitifully mistaken and then studiously ignored. An overwhelming body of evidence will be thrown out and disregarded because it cannot possibly be true. The Watchtower has already proven logically that The Flood, for example, was a factual, historical event. There is no need to go into it.You may, in fact, be disfellowshipped and shunned should you dare go into it. Any evidence presented that the Watchtower is not what it represents itself to be is summarily dismissed, except the mechanism in this case is righteousness rather than obscurantism, and the tactic changes. The messenger, rather than the message, is attacked. The evidence itself is ignored as irrelevant and obviously in error. He who challenges the legitimacy of the Watchtower is assigned a label. He is a "spiritual danger", an "opposer", an "unbeliever" or, worse of all, an "apostate" whose person must be avoided and whose message must fall on deaf ears. I think we can agree, no matter who we are and what we believe, that Watchtower faith, like Islamic faith, is a perfect barrier to honest and open discussion. It is an adherence that allows discourse only within a very small box that the Watchtower itself prescribes, and even then the discussion is necessarily in only one direction. If you are a Christian, as many on this board are, I offer the following. As I carefully read the Bible and weigh its teaching, its wisdom, its insights and provisions for morality in the clear and honest light of evidence for and against, I come away bewildered that after 2,000 years there are still sincere and intelligent people who actually subscribe to it as factual truth, if only selectively. But that is the phenomenon of faith, after all. Faith in the Koran has endured almost as long. I see in Christian faith many of the same qualities and defects I see in Muslim faith. You are not the same, but you are the same. You are cut from the same cloth. Only your bias is different. But you are similarly immovable.You share a common and fatal deficiency of being incapable of perceiving yourselves and what you hold dear in the clear light of reality.
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Atheism 2.0
by Qcmbr inapologies if this has been posted before or even discussed.. this ted talk gets at the heart of what atheism is missing and my wife an di discussed this for a long time last night.
in short religion provides a framework for meeting, for ritual, for art, education and sociality.
without this framework atheism can seem lonely harsh and certainly disorganised (the general idea that education and culture can replace the gap may well be true but without a formal structure the route to personal mental fulfillment is somewhat piecemeal and patchwork.
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Nickolas
Given the inate intelligence of human beings hasn't changed much over the past tens of thousands of years, if not for the stifling influence of tribalism, monarchy and religion we might have had the internet a couple of thousand years ago. Back then they'd be arguing passionately about the existence of Jupiter and Neptune while some tiny, fervent sect was putting forward the brand new cult of Jesus of Nazareth.
You can't help but draw parallels. Here and now on this board we have majority members of a very large but disparate group of believers (nominally followers of Christ), each who essentially believes the same thing but who is convinced that his or her individual faith is the most accurate relative to truth. It must be so, because he strives so sincerely to understand. He may unconsciously ascribe degrees of accuracy to what others believe - as in, the Pentecostals have it right only 50%, and the Jews and Muslims have it almost all wrong - and he may just figure that the atheist is just the most wrong of all because what an atheist believes is completely antithetical to what he believes, at least when it comes to something as overwhelmingly important to him as the existence of God.
That same person, as mainstream Christian as he really is, may have already fallen victim to a modern day cult, like the Watchtower, not recognising that he is still a victim and has been a victim all along. What has been ingrained in him by his society, his parents and the accident of his birth remains.
If we could look back and read the squabbling of believers a couple of thousand years ago we'd be amazed at how little things have changed. I wish we could just get over it and move on. Time our species grew up a little.
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384
Atheism 2.0
by Qcmbr inapologies if this has been posted before or even discussed.. this ted talk gets at the heart of what atheism is missing and my wife an di discussed this for a long time last night.
in short religion provides a framework for meeting, for ritual, for art, education and sociality.
without this framework atheism can seem lonely harsh and certainly disorganised (the general idea that education and culture can replace the gap may well be true but without a formal structure the route to personal mental fulfillment is somewhat piecemeal and patchwork.
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Nickolas
Yes, but historically theists have had a written law that was designed to uphold moral values. Atheism explains morals with science which is lack luster, imo.
The written law to which you refer would have you put to death children who insult you, people who are intimate with one another outside of marriage, homosexuals, those who say "goddamn" and other disrespectful utterances, those who are apostates, those who are found guilty of thought crime like covetousness, and a host of other imaginary crimes. Those are not moral values. They are moral corruptions dressed up in flowing white robes. Atheism does not explain morality with science at all. Atheism espouses morality on the basis of good and harm, done to other people and other species and by extension the world on which we live. There is much in religion that is immoral, much of which is driven by the untestable notions about what happens after death. To quote Sam Harris, "What one believes happens after death dictates much of what one believes about life, and this is why faith-based religion, in presuming to fill in the blanks in our knowledge of the hereafter, does such heavy lifting for those who fall under its power. A single proposition—you will not die—once believed, determines a response to life that would be otherwise unthinkable." Belief in that proposition also determines how people view the lives and wellbeing of others. It is no coincidence that the only western society still putting people to death is American and that Americans by and large are theists who subscribe to the written law, more or less, of the Bible. We haven't even begun to discuss the morality espoused in the other holy books inspired by God, like the Koran.
I must be off. Real life priorities are beckoning.