the watchtower loves this point.
he not only felt that he was living in the last "days", but in the last hour.
he says at 1 john 2:18:.
Okay, I realised this the other day during the lesson. There used to be 8. Now, there are 7?! And the 7th and the 8th are the same one?! "
You see, friends, we are actually CLOSER to the end than we thought when we wrote the Daniel Book!"
Great Job, writing department. Clap, clap...
of all the issues affecting every person's picture of reality, nothing is more fundamental than questions about god.. is there one god, creator and sovereign of all?could there be more than one god?
or no god at all?if there is a god (or gods), then what is that god (or gods) like?nothing determines your worldview-and the course of your life-more than how you answer those questions.
yet some atheists like to make light of the god question.
@Ixthis: I apologize, then. Apparently, I should read better!
harold camping.
2012. wtbs doomsday prophecy.
maze's ramblings.
There's also the fact that many people (especially dubs) see their religion as the one true reality. People like Maze (and my dad, personally) will see what they want to see in the world. I always here my dad talking about how the end is so close because "you can't watch the news for 5 minutes without hearing about some tragedy in the world." ALL THE TIME, he does this (I'm ranting now, sorry). For one thing, a singular tragedy in one part of the world followed by a another singular tragedy in another part of the world does not mean the entire world is falling apart. A perfect example: Earthquakes in Australia, Japan, etc. I am not undermining the seriousness of those events, but when those things occured, it's not like it happened to the WHOLE world, all at once, and it doesn't happen CONSTANTLY. IF there's a 1 in 100 chance of someone being murdered anywhere in the world, the religious pessimist will interpret this to mean that murder is rampant. But that ignores the 99% of people who DON'T get murdered everyday. Reminds me of recent Watchtowers, actually. There's also the fact that bad news sells. So does religion. Money makes the world go 'round. End-Times religions thrive on keeping followers on edge with CONSTANT and only slightly predictable threats, by creating a scary world scene in the minds of believers, then asking said believers for donations to pay for magazines warning them about all this crap (and which also "nourish" them spiritually).
i'm a sucker for heavy rock .
so long as it's good .
always have been since early 70's.. thought i'd start an entertainment thread so post your fav heavy rockers here.
Ensiferum, Sabbath, Ozzy, Manson, White Zombie, Rob Zombie, Static-X, My Dying Bride, Five Finger Death Punch, Converge, Protest the Hero, Nine Inch Nails, Children of Bodom...
since my homepage is drudge report, i'd have to say that the drudge report is what i often check during the day.. of course, this site is clearly one of my favs..
TED, cracked.com, college humor, dorkly.com, adult swim.com, JWN, Atheist Geek News, ExChristian.net, Brick Testament, Google, Holy Taco, Unreality, The Chive...LOVE me some cracked.
victorian sky has a great thread on music.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/12/57646/1.ashx.
it got me thinking, about tv shows, anything in particular you were told not to watch, being a little kid in the 70's i do remember hearing shows from the platform that we should not watch.
Anything with magic and stuff like that. Also, "violent" super hero shows, anything with any cursing whatsoever.
i remember an alternative song released in the 1980's.. .
nothing has changed since then for the better, only for the worse.
will humanity bring the world to a permanent end if divine intervention wasn't a factor to take into consideration?
@Maze: where are these mysteriously deadly diseases COMING FROM?
with the advances in digital communication, when will society move to paperless?.
nooks/kindles are making books obsolete.
computer/internet is making newsprint obsolete.
I have often pondered this as well. I think it WILL happen eventually, and I think it's a good thing, but, on the other hand, REAL books are the one thing I'll miss in a paperless society. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it's special somehow.
"faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence.
faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.".
"my last vestige of "hands off religion" respect disappeared in the smoke and choking dust of september 11th 2001, followed by the "national day of prayer," when prelates and pastors did their tremulous martin luther king impersonations and urged people of mutually incompatible faiths to hold hands, united in homage to the very force that caused the problem in the first place.".
@Cofty: to be fair, I think Shelby was talking about dependent relationships between organisms, like food webs, symbiosis, and the oxygen/carbon dioxide cycle between plants and animals. That much is true. However, this is like irreducible complexity and fine tuning arguments, wherein the parameters of life being met by the environment are considered evidence of design. The thing is, we EVOLVED (and life originated) to live within the parameters which were there to begin with. Had the parameters been different, life as we know it would be different, not non-existent. @Sab: I would say nature is purposeful in selecting us to be the most highly intellectual beings on Earth, but for reasons not relating to anything SUPERNATURAL. Obviously, there are many advantages to higher intelligence. Intelligent life forms are experts in manipulating the very environments which would otherwise control them. High intelligence allows for complete role-reversal and thus excellent chances for survival. Also, for my two cents about animal suffering, I believe animals suffer just as much as we do physically. The emotional aspect of said suffering is what is questionable. I don't think animals (with the exception of hominids, and possibly chimps and bonobos, as well as other higher primates--"higher", in this sense, would indicate greater capacity for such things anyway, by definition)suffer and think, "Oh, the HUMANITY!"
i'm thinking way outside the box here.... i looked up my thread title before starting this thread and guess what??.
no one appears to have ever considered this question before.... i've seen far, far, far too many people of european/british isles/african/american extraction defending this regional middle-eastern 'god', without realizing that their ancestors would never have willingly consented to give up their own deities to worship this interloper thrust upon them, usually at the point of a roman sword... or occasionally for trading advantages, as in the case of many of the heathen viking - norsemen.... so.
what if the bible had never existed?.
@Zid: this really depends on what we mean by "Bible." Are we talking about:
I think we'd still have religions (Hinduism is older than Judism anyway), but they'd be different, and the first major monotheist one would have come later. Also, women would probably have gotten more respect historically. More fertility and nature Godesses versus more male-superior Middle Eastern aggressive war gods.
