i was talking to mrs cedars earlier about one of the things that really frustrates me about our situation as "faders" - namely the fact that we are looked down on by our respective parents, not to mention other older generations of our family.
it strikes me that the incessant attempts to drag us back into unquestioned loyalty to the organization is actually extremely selfish, even though (in their minds) they have only our best interests at heart.. i think of it this way.
they made a decision when they were younger to follow in the footsteps of their own parents' faith - without doing objective research into the beliefs or history of the organization.
I have been plagued by old people my whole life and I'm 68. It's one thing to have problems with your old parents. It's another thing to have problems relating to your x-hippie/beatnik peers.
I told my kids if they feel they ever have to put me in a home I would prefer it to be an insane asylum or prison.
why am i closing all the threads.
i am so sorry if i dont give the right answer.
You need to post more on the creation/evolution theist/atheist threads.
As far as I'm concerned they all need to be shut down.
Tired of opinion swaps.
long time lurker, first time poster.
i'm really glad i can join your community because i've been in the wts for the last 14 years and now i'm on my way out and it's great to meet like-minded people!.
about me: i started learning jw ways when i was in my teens.
It's like a huge fog clears and you're looking around thinking how on earth did you not see it!!!
Keep working at it. The next level is understanding that that Christian Church down the street is also in the fog.
todays scientists can and do insert their trademark into dna.. why couldn't jehovah anticipate scientists learning this technique and stumbling across a strand that says "human by yhwh"?.
that would have answered a lot of questions.. he could have even included a model number human2.0.
Apog: The Bible doesn't say what it doesn't say. Here is the state of reproductive knowledge in the early 1800's
French chemist Jean-Louis Prévost and Swiss physician Jean-Baptiste Dumas show that sperm are the active agents of fertilization in sexual reproduction. The two researchers notice that spermatozoa are present in sexually mature males across all species, but absent in males that have not yet reached sexual maturity. They also notice that mules do not produce sperm, which explains their sterility. Prevost and Dumas correctly theorize that sperm enters the egg during sexual reproduction. This speculation would be confirmed by Martin Barry in 1843. Prior to Prevost and Dumas’ findings, it was widely believed that sperm were either preformed embryos or parasites that live in semen.
People don't realize the advances in knowledge in just the last 200 years. The Bible is based on all humans being inside Adam when he sinned and therefore they all sinned and have to die.
Every human bone found before 6000 bce is a witness against the bible idea of original sin. Ancient bones = Ancient deaths.
todays scientists can and do insert their trademark into dna.. why couldn't jehovah anticipate scientists learning this technique and stumbling across a strand that says "human by yhwh"?.
that would have answered a lot of questions.. he could have even included a model number human2.0.
Apog: Signing our DNA would indicate that someone had access to our genetic code a long time ago. Of course 100% accurate detailed unambiguous fullfillment of prophecy would be significant.
But what can you say about a book that is based on ignorance of the reproductive process in animals. The Bible thought that males squirted a little person (male or female) into the womb and that the woman was merely soil in which the seed grew. Women were fertile or infertile and had no genetic influence on offspring. They had no knowledge of female "eggs".
todays scientists can and do insert their trademark into dna.. why couldn't jehovah anticipate scientists learning this technique and stumbling across a strand that says "human by yhwh"?.
that would have answered a lot of questions.. he could have even included a model number human2.0.
APOG: Why do you assume that God, if he does exist, wants us to know he exists?
It is a natural question that emerges from institutional religion.
The Christian God (Islam and Jews also) supposedly wrote books or inspired men to proclaim revealed "truth".
The DNA idea is an example of the minimum a god might want to do and it would have been more convincing than so called pronouncements from human intermediaries.
Of course there is so much more that a loving god might do to make his "children" secure. Frequent open forums with regular visits by actual materialized angels might be one. You could list thousands of things an almighty being could do that would persuade humans to carry out justice.
todays scientists can and do insert their trademark into dna.. why couldn't jehovah anticipate scientists learning this technique and stumbling across a strand that says "human by yhwh"?.
that would have answered a lot of questions.. he could have even included a model number human2.0.
I never thought this pathetic post would get this much traction.
The fact is that no designer has inserted an unambiguous signature into human DNA (yet).
There is no God except by definition. And by definition evolution is god.
You've never met evolution. Evolution is still an unsolved mystery as is most of the universe. Evolution reveals some of it's information. It seems to be mirauclous in its effects. Evolution doesn't literally speak audible words but it has an active force that resonnates with anyone devoted to the scientific method. Evolution has a prophetic function. Evolution teaches us how to behave based on what works. Evolution helps people who help themselves. If you want to pray to evolution you can. You can beseech evolution. You can set up tests to discover its intentions. Evolution talks through petri dishes to those who have learned how to read them. The results it gives forth may puzzle you at times. But you can have faith to keep searching knowing the reward is often great. Evolution cures some of the sick but not all. Evolution is teaching us how to build organs from stem cells. Evolution tells us how to deal with evolving viruses. Our brains and thought processes are tiny worlds of evolution following a path of billions of little trial and error experiments.
But don't insult evolution by thinking it is a person. God of religion is by definition a person (personality). You ought to expect something a little more personal from "a person". Person's have a social environment held together with audible voice, visible smiles, angry glares, kisses and hugs on a continuing basis. This is what is called the "social fabric". God of religion does not participate in society. He doesn't even text us. And when I say "us" I mean our social milieu. Those who have conditioned themselves to think that god communicates telepathically are simply crazy. Such a god is defined by the egotism of the person who believes they are so "special".
I am convinced that the only thing that can settle this is for God to actually appear.
Or else aliens will finally arrive here through some as yet unknown physical law and announce to mankind that most advanced civilizations gave up a belief in God several million years ago.
todays scientists can and do insert their trademark into dna.. why couldn't jehovah anticipate scientists learning this technique and stumbling across a strand that says "human by yhwh"?.
that would have answered a lot of questions.. he could have even included a model number human2.0.
God and Religious Experience
There are theists who say they do not need to offer arguments for God's existence because they
experience Him directly. What precisely is meant by this "experience"? It is either similar to ordinary
sense experience (i.e., seeing, hearing, and the like) or it is not. Let us consider first the possibility that it
resembles ordinary sense experience. This would be the strongest position for the theist to take because
we generally trust our senses. Let us suppose there is an isolated group of people who occasionally
experience a feeling which they describe as "a devil hitting the inside of my head." Would this experience
tend to prove that there were in fact devils inside their heads? Or does the phrase 'a devil hitting the inside
of my head' simply describe a feeling that could just as easily have been described by the word
'headache'? This example demonstrates the problems we encounter in ascribing otherwise unverifiable
causes to experiences which are private to each individual.
In response to the above example, a theist might point out that we would normally believe a
friend's claim that he had seen a wolf in the woods. Therefore, we should believe him if he claims to have
encountered God. Of course, his claim to have seen a wolf would be based on his eyesight - and we
would first have to know if his eyesight is reliable. We would not want to believe an eyewitness's visual
report if we knew him to be nearly blind. Furthermore, our person who says he saw the wolf should be able
to tell the difference between photographs of dogs and those of wolves. We would not trust someone's
report if he could not tell a wolf from a dog. If the theist's experience of God is like sense experience, then
how do we know that the theist is not like a nearly blind man who is unable to distinguish wolves from
dogs? To know that the religious sense is reliable, we would have to test it to see if it could be used to tell
the difference between gods and other types of things a theist might be sensing instead. The reliability of
our eyesight is tested every day. If we do not walk into walls or over furniture, and if we are capable of
distinguishing one person from another, then our eyesight is considered reliable. But how do we test this
supposed religious sense? We would have to already know that God exists before we could find that the
religious sense was reliable in detecting him. This is because a test would consist of discovering whether
God was in fact near when a theist sensed His presence. And to know this we would have to have some
independent means of knowing that God exists.
Now let us consider the possibility that religious experience is not like ordinary sense experience.
We know the conditions under which ordinary sense experience is considered reliable. But how do we
know that God-experiences are at least as reliable as these sense experiences? We have no way of
knowing that an "intuition" of God accurately confirms His existence. To test such an intuitive "sense" we
would have to demonstrate that whenever we have an intuition of God's existence, God in fact does exist.
But in order to show this, we would have to have an additional intuition. A further, independent intuition of
His existence could not serve to confirm the accuracy of the first kind of intuition because it too would
have to be confirmed for exactly the same reasons.
In summary, either religious experience is like ordinary sense experience or else it is not. If it is
not, we have no way to test whether it is as reliable as sense experience. If it is like ordinary sense
experience, then we have no way of testing its accuracy without assuming God's existence independently
of the evidence.
____Atheist Debaters Handbook
todays scientists can and do insert their trademark into dna.. why couldn't jehovah anticipate scientists learning this technique and stumbling across a strand that says "human by yhwh"?.
that would have answered a lot of questions.. he could have even included a model number human2.0.
Faith is a place holder for knowledge.
If you have the knowledge then you can use faith for obtaining more knowledge.
Do you want a Doctor that you can have faith in or do you want to get cured of your disease.
todays scientists can and do insert their trademark into dna.. why couldn't jehovah anticipate scientists learning this technique and stumbling across a strand that says "human by yhwh"?.
that would have answered a lot of questions.. he could have even included a model number human2.0.
Jehovah is occult - hidden.
The Bible is full of possibilities where Jehovah could have done things more intelligently.
Why have the Israelites die while fighting their enemies when a single angel could kill 185,000 in one night?
Why have the trauma of killing men women and children with the sword as was done to the Amorites?
Why weren't the Israelites given a command to boil the water?
Why not cure a stadium full of down syndrome children and couple that with a pronouncement of some sort?
Since his prime objective is to make his name known throughout the earth couldn't he have found amazing ways to accomplish this?
