Half banana

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Posts by Half banana

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  78

  Animals were created without needing Toilet Paper ... but not Man ... Why???

  by RubaDub in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  my dog and other pets do their "business" and run away and are happy.. man does not have that luxury.

  any thoughts on why animals were created with the "poop and go" capacity while man has to go through more steps?

  was this perhaps an additional issue that god added on when adam and eve sinned (such as eve having significant more birth pains)?

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  Half banana

  Chimpanzees have been known to use leaves especially when afflicted with diarrhea (or is that dire rear?)
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  92

  Only a few days ago I was entirely lost and without hope the rug was pulled out from under me

  by elderess in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  only a few days ago i was walking around the house in a mindless wander thinking if i needed to seek professional help.

  then i got the courage to seek the comfort of complete strangers on the internet and found a world of support here on this website.

  thank you simon and whoever else has made this website possible.

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  Half banana

  Just a brilliant post Elderess. How about approaching your children in the same way as you spoke to your husband?
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  23

  New June Awake with Misleading Statements about Evidence for god

  by ttdtt in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  the article (faith) is all about why you should have solid evidence based reasons for belief in god.

  it's not good enough to believe in god just because you were raised to believe in god.. (from the article).

  but god wants those who worship him to have genuine confidence in his existence and in his love.. then it goes on to tell us how we can get that genuine confidence that there is a god.

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  Half banana

  Jehovah's Witnesses are a dim-witted cult. They are brought up to believe that quoting the scriptures is the finest thing a person can do and all you need to do.

  They wouldn't know a fact if it hit them in the face. To draw conclusions from evidence (such as the geological record to demonstrate evolution for example) would overstretch the thinking ability of most JWs.
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  98

  OKAY, GAME OVER! The number one reason the New Testament amounts to bunk

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  for me, the dead giveaway is this.

  jesus wrote nothing.. stop and think about that.. if jesus were the authentic messiah, his ministry would not simply be local.. his instructions, his mission, the details of his teachings would be too precious to risk leaving it in the hands of "men unlettered (illiterate) and ordinary (blue-collar yokels).".

  jesus, were he the one and only hope of mankind, would be absolutely certain to write down with great simplicity and specificity the exact owner's manual necessary to rescue mankind.. never happened!.

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  Half banana

  Sorry to appear brutal for the things I am going to say; but I wish someone else had informed me of these when I was a young JW.

  It was due to the political demands of the ruthless but superstitious Roman Emperor Constantine the Great who for political gain declared the Jesus cult to become the state religion. This was because his mother (as Finklestein alludes) came from the peasant class and had adopted the rustic Jesus cult. Constantine’s authority established the Catholic faith as the official religion with its chosen texts which later came to be called the Bible. All modern Jesus-belief, including JWs and yours Michelle, sprang from this Roman source.

  There never was a primitive uncorrupted Christianity, there never was a real person called Jesus.

  He was the saviour- god-man character of pagan theatre. The Jesus story evolved from paganism and was politically managed as the central figure of the establishment religion of Imperial Rome in the fourth century CE.

  If you believe that Jesus is the son of God, you are parroting the Catholic church and ignorant of the pagan origins of Christianity. Besides how could anyone know who the invisible son is of an invisible father?

  Constantine did not care a fig about the teachings of the Bible, as I said, it was for him a superstition; it brought him “good luck” in warfare. The fusion of all pagan belief in the new Roman Catholic Church; politically united the pious in a cosmopolitan Roman Empire. This religious and political unison was a platform of strength for the emperor. As it turned out, as history shows, the new religion out-lived the Roman Empire.

  The Catholic fusion of beliefs in the fourth century Rome involved taking the folk literature centred on the universal astrological stories and clothed them in reverential language. The figure or character of a god-man saviour was recorded from the earliest writings in Babylonia and Egypt. Thousands of years before Jesus, Osiris (also called Krst) healed the sick, raised the dead, was born of a virgin mother called Meri, had twelve disciples, walked on water and raised his ‘friend’ Lazarus from the dead. Space does not permit me to list the rest of similarities.

  So why not have Osiris in your heart as your saviour instead of one of his later imitations? Perhaps you might like the sound of Dionysus “The true vine” was born of the Virgin in the stable with oxen in midwinter, who turned water into wine at the wedding feast, was crucified went to the grave and was resurrected after three days. Or perhaps you might prefer the Virgin-born Great Shepherd Mithra, symbolized by a cross who was crucified and whose body and blood was commemorated every year at the spring equinox by a ritual last supper.

  Christianity is pure pagan belief dressed up in a literary confection to obscure its origins. Jesus is just an imitation of the older God-man beliefs. There is no concrete evidence, no first hand eyewitness account of him...and my goodness! if a man could raise the dead he would have immediately become known and celebrated for his remarkable skills in the interconnected and literate Roman world.

  Alas! True resurrectionists have always been a bit thin on the ground.

  Since therefore Jesus is a literary figure not a literal one, the likely-hood of Jesus being a real person is at the same betting odds as Harry Potter becoming a breathing human being in the future and doing all of the things written about him. Please think about it.

  Why didn’t somebody tell me these things when I was at school?
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  98

  OKAY, GAME OVER! The number one reason the New Testament amounts to bunk

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  for me, the dead giveaway is this.

  jesus wrote nothing.. stop and think about that.. if jesus were the authentic messiah, his ministry would not simply be local.. his instructions, his mission, the details of his teachings would be too precious to risk leaving it in the hands of "men unlettered (illiterate) and ordinary (blue-collar yokels).".

  jesus, were he the one and only hope of mankind, would be absolutely certain to write down with great simplicity and specificity the exact owner's manual necessary to rescue mankind.. never happened!.

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  Half banana

  How utterly misleading the Bible is.

  Why base your life on ancient stories written for the illiterate by authority figures? So much better not to have had your life snagged and stunted by believing in talking snakes, invisible beings and saviours from heaven. These are called myths not facts...myths are not real, just in case you wondered.

  Better to get a proper education and study life's realities instead. Our lives are too precious to throw away on childish fairy tales.

  And yes mythical people like Jesus can't write but as in any story, they can have words attributed to them.
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  41

  Could we ever see a GB member disassociate?

  by pleaseresearch in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  we saw it with raymond franz.

  but do you think we could ever see one of the current gb members or future ones, make the same choice?.

  to leave, and expose it..

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  Half banana

  Even with all of the incentives to stay; the social, the financial security and the power wielding, I think it likely that one or two of them will be awake to TTATT. As a historical norm, leaders of all sorts and most especially religious ones have cared more about status than personal integrity.

  I think that it is quite likely that one of the JW GB has awoken to the fact that they are not exclusively chosen by God as Jackson has already publicly announced. The rule for govenors is to govern...this does not go hand in hand with heartfelt belief. Because they demand things from the compliant flock does not mean they are "true believers" themselves. They are dutifully playing the role they were entrusted with namely to keep the WTBTS on the rails and bringing in the cash.
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  66

  THE LINGERING SHADOW OF '75

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  none of you are old enough to have been there, i suspect.

  i had been in prison two years as a jw conscientious objector when the exciting news about 1975 spread like wildfire.i was paroled from prison in 1969 and immediately began pioneering.

  the pressures began mounting throughout the organization.

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  Half banana

  Thanks for your story Terry and a sad one it is. The Jehovah's Witness religion destroys lives, breaks up families and emotionally and intellectually stunts the rest of them. How much longer will it be before the world wakes up to this reality? Fortunately the internet is infinitely better than God at revealing secrets.

  I remember 1975 and the let-down that followed. I also remember the Watchtower "apology" a few years later (about 1979?) which as I recall claimed that some were reading more in to it than they should have, followed up by a pathetic consolation; "But we still have our friends don't we?"

  The WTBTS never man-up to mistakes because they are acting the role of God's appointees and God would never make mistakes would he?

  In retrospect Fred Franz was a Bible thumping hound from hell. He was behind 1975, he held the JW doctrinal reins. As the chief Bible interpreter he was in the position to push and publish his private beliefs...(ooh, the power and the glory) which malady he had inherited from the religious certainties of Russell. Such is the bread and butter of doomsday cults!
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  26

  Bets on when the UN prophecy will be dropped?

  by marmot in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  now that i'm free to bet, i figured it would be neat to start a pool on when the watchtower is going to change light bulbs on the prophecy about the united nations turning on worldwide religion.

  there is no doubt in my mind that this prediction will be dropped.

  not only is this the longest-running unchanged prediction in the wt's history (1925 and 1975 had much shorter gestations) it's the last detailed concrete prediction the society has left in its bag of tricks.

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  Half banana

  The one thing the GB fear in their paranoid bunker is for a government to attempt to extinguish them. If they saw this beginning to happen they could declare it was prophesied. The drones would all respond appropriately and cough up more cash.

  It is in their interest to keep this cheap prediction available on tap.
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  33

  Can any believer make a case for the superiority of faith over knowledge?

  by Half banana in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i find it curious why so many here on this site, in the face of factual evidence for things such as evolution and the impossibility for anyone to make a coherent interpretation for the bible, would still prefer faith to knowledge?.

  can any believer attempt a defence of this position?.

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  Half banana

  @Dog gone, of course I am begging the question but I sincerely hope for an insight into faith nevertheless! Even as a JW I didn’t have much faith, just a stupid trust in what others were believing to be true. “Brand loyalty” I think described it better than faith.

  Your comparison with the popular story narrative is interesting because it reflects a particular aspect of the human psyche; the wish for “love” to triumph. No decent human would deny the sentiment. Humans want love... and religion can supply a simulacrum of it.

  To relocate the idea and place human love for a sprit father and son, is an abstraction of familial love and yet historically it has been socially accepted as honourable and desirable. I suggest this is the very mistake which needs to be understood. We are capable of falling “in love” which is very healthy in most families but to apply the same psychological triggers to an invisible putative “saviour” and be loved in return; is a delusion. By this I mean there is no evidence outside our mind (or collective minds) that we are loving or are being loved by a spirit being. We may be talking love with our fellow believers and we might feel it very strongly and enjoy the feeling. But whatever you do don’t bring reason or logic to the party as the drug will soon wear off.

  The time has come to put away these childish things as one writer said.

  @David Jay, yes belief and worship has been whittled down to an expedient called “faith” since the texts as you say, don’t encourage blind faith as a religious act.

  You also give an example of the faith which Abraham had without scripture. This is another example of the utter incoherence of the Bible since religion in patriarchal times had an entirely different and polytheistic approach whereby a man might acceptably talk and argue with a god. If such a man was a patriarch or culture hero, it would be an object lesson for the listeners to the story.

  So you are saying that whereas faith is not the goal scripturally speaking; it has taken on a life of its own and become perhaps the identifier for modern Christianity?

  @Perry science only means knowledge, it is nothing special and human knowledge as yet cannot describe with the needed evidence the precise origin of life. This by no means invalidates scientific methods, it simply exemplifies our present limits. Scientific methods are only four hundred years old after all. This is no argument here which says that faith is superior to science.

  A good question Luther b, but as Bertie Russell said; philosophy lies somewhere between science and religion. Do you have a good reply to your own question?
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  33

  Can any believer make a case for the superiority of faith over knowledge?

  by Half banana in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i find it curious why so many here on this site, in the face of factual evidence for things such as evolution and the impossibility for anyone to make a coherent interpretation for the bible, would still prefer faith to knowledge?.

  can any believer attempt a defence of this position?.

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  Half banana

  I find it curious why so many here on this site, in the face of factual evidence for things such as evolution and the impossibility for anyone to make a coherent interpretation for the Bible, would still prefer faith to knowledge?

  Can any believer attempt a defence of this position?