Trevor:
Just working aournd some of your comments, in my mind.
If we are prepared to allow for this possibility, we have to ask whether universal consciousness is the same as believing in God.
If such a universal consciousness were not "conscious" in the sense that we might normally attribute it, why might it exhibit many of the mannerisms of a conscious entity?
Trevor:
Hillary is correct. I'm just running with his humour. It tickled me
Hillary:
1) No person can prove that something comes from nothing. Simple as that.
True, in fact all natural laws would contradict it, excepting one - the prime cause.
2) BWAAAAHAHHAAHAHHAHAH is something, but He did not come from nothing as He always existed. Simple as that.
Something evidently has always existed, unless you want to take a Taoist route, which works for me.
3) How do we know that BWAAAAHAHHAAHAHHAHAH has always existed?
We have no objective way of proving this one way or another.
4) Because BWAAAAHAHHAAHAHHAHAH inspired a bunch of primitive Middle-Eastern sheep-herders, fishermen and farmers to write a book and in that book BWAAAAHAHHAAHAHHAHAH states that he always existed. Simple as that.
It seems that every mystic in every generation comes to some variation of this statement. It isn't restricted to just the ancients.
5) If you cannot see the simplicity of this argument, then you are all dullards. Simple as that.
I agree that he is both oversimplifying and over-complicating the issue with little reference to logic. Oftentimes simplicity is good, unless it goes beyond the level that is needed for functionality
6) I win the battle against atheists yet again. With BWAAAAHAHHAAHAHHAHAH help I have been able to ignore any question that I cannot answer or understand. Simple as that.
Simple, isn't it?
7) Thank you BWAAAAHAHHAAHAHHAHAH for giving me the strength to face my opposers and win my battles against our enemies again. Simple as that.
Ah, the childlike prayer of [blind] faith!
sorry for the edit.
this may have been a topic before.. i got the idea for this from crumpets thread "if i could make your dreams come true what would they be?".
i have been asked many times "if i could go back in my life and change it, what would i do?
Regrets, I've had a few, but then again too few to mention...
Aside from that my experiences have shaped and molded me, and I don't genuinely think I'd change one, not even the more bitter ones.
predestination is something ive been thinking a bit about of late, mainly due to a wt article on the subject printed in the may awake, which i read after skimming through the magazine at the weekend.
i believe the wt reasoning on the subject is that god has the ability to see into the future, but that he chooses not to look into the future, as it would negate our free will, although the recent may article was more a criticism of predestination, and although they didnt assert their own position, what struck me from reading the article, and contemplating the wt article in general is that they seem to focus on time a lot, and its this part where the wt idea of predestination seems to fall down to me.
if god created the universe and everything in it, as a jw would assert, this would also mean he would have had to have created time (which is a product of our universe) and so before god created time, it, obviously, wouldnt have existed, and without time, there cant be a past, present and future.
And yet even as humans we have to allow for the concept of "infinity".
I have two opinions on the subject of biblical theology. One bound by the canon of 66 books and one that is not.
When I bind myself I come to the conclusion that God exists in an omnipresent fashion that transcends known time and space. From this perspective the universe with its "time" is just a teardrop in the infinite expanse (the use of the word "expanse" is an intentional oxymoron) of eternity. In this view a Panentheist view is also permitted. Taking a strictly Chriso-biblical view, Calvary becomes the focal point for this long-running "event", where perchance it might be expressed that time touches eternity when the unstoppable object of "God the Son of God" meets the immovable object of Death. Returning to the subject of the thread and Zico's original premise I believe that predestination makes the best sense of all the diverse texts. This leads me, broadly speaking, to a Calvinist theological position.
When I free myself from such strictures I realise that its a load of hogwash that provides a mental framework from which I can observe and make some kind of "labelled" sense of the world seen and unseen. Many religions and philosophies attempt to do exactly the same thing, with remarkably similar results. But it leads me to the question "does it actually matter?" Whether God dwells in eternity or not is surely irrelevant to my current existance? Whether I actually have freewill and choice, or merely imagine that I do surely has little effect on the outcome? Whether death is actually an end or merely a transition might perhaps be something that concerns me but is inevitable anyway.
I've debated such topics for well over five years on this forum, and I still enjoy the exercise, though only find it meaningful if you apply certain bounds and strictures, such as exemplified in option one above. But inside of me there continues a thirst that is not sated by this. Intuitively I believe that "God" is bigger than all of this, uncontainable in terms of human reasoning. But even this view is hogwash, as its impossible to approach labelling something with which there is nothing to compare. How do you realistically visualise the labels "eternity", "infinity", "Universe", "God"?
Substitute "hogwash" with "vanity, vanity, all is vanity" and you have a few extra lines from Ecclesiastes. Thus I remain an "unorthodox Christian" to those who would ask my religious persuasion. I remain a moderate Calvinist" to those who would ask me my doctrinal persuasion. But to all others I would suggest that I am merely a reasonably freethinking "human".
Ross, at his philosophical best and simultaneous worst.
HS:BWAAAAHAHHAAHAHHAHAH has always existed
Popper:My mind shuts down when I see such large posts. It has to be particularly engaging for me to even attempt to read something that long on a screen. Alas...
SteveNYC:That seems a reasonable distilation, from what I could glean before my brain shutdown
SLH:
Doncha just hate that circular thang?
WAC:
I don't like that definition of "freethinker". If a freethinker is exposed to some kind of revelation then are they instantly excluded from the title?
if after the appeal meeting, they tell you it will 2-3 weeks before a decision, wtf takes so long?
mr flipper
It would definitely be a correspondance thang. When that isn't required there is usually an answer given on the night, and an announcement made at the next Service meeting.
Appeals are rarely successful. If they have to enter into correspondance then it is evident that there must be some loophole that is tying up the Appeal committee, so the final determination will be down to someone in Bethel flipping a coin...
why do people go to church.
what is the purpose?
you don't have to go to a certain place to worship god.
I always find these threads interesting for the number of posts evoked where people are told what they feel by people who have never been in their shoes. Its an interesting concept, that empathic telepathy thang...
perhaps this paradoxical "topic" is one with which we here have dealt a little more, or a little more consciously, than the average population.. we used to have our heads full of beliefs (which we called "truth") in every direction: on theology, on cosmology, on paleontology, on past history, on so-called prophetic future, on heaven above, on earth, on she'ol beneath.
on many things -- current events, traditions, other peoples' beliefs and behaviours -- we had strong opinions which were directly or indirectly (the famous "conscience" matters) part of the same deal.
and of course our life was filled with activities and relationships, a community of "friends," people to "help" or "teach," etc.. then, gradually or suddenly, we came to suspect, often with a measure of terror, that all of this was not what we had thought and might sooner or later turn into... nothing.. this "nothing" is perhaps one of the most scary thoughts to people contemplating leaving the org one way or another.
Wu Chi
Vinny:
Attempting to ridicule your detractors instead of rationally debating the questions will only demean you and your ideas. Just a word to the wise, bro.
All we can prove scientifically is that things change from one thing to another. Energy converts from one type to another, including the incredible energy that constitutes the atoms from which we subsist. Thus the universe has always existed, albeit perhaps in a different form (aka a singularity). If you presuppose that the universe may have some form of consciousness then what would differentiate it from all the answers above that label it "God"?
