thanks for explaining ST. But then isn't love also like that? though in thinking about it we didn't, at least as witnesses, view God like that - as someone one can fall in and out of love with. If one fell out of love with him one was damned. so bravo I do get your point
soft+gentle
JoinedPosts by soft+gentle
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153
Believing in God - Challenge
by jgnat ini invite king solomon and anyone else that is interested, to discuss if believing in god may be helpful.
i am not restricting the discussion to the biblical god.
i'm ready to look if this belief may be helpful both from a societal and from an individual point of view.
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153
Believing in God - Challenge
by jgnat ini invite king solomon and anyone else that is interested, to discuss if believing in god may be helpful.
i am not restricting the discussion to the biblical god.
i'm ready to look if this belief may be helpful both from a societal and from an individual point of view.
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soft+gentle
thanks for having us to your party jgnat
that youtube really made me laugh slimboyfat because Derrida sounded quite indignant that anyone would presume to say absolutely that they are this or that - thanks for sharing
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153
Believing in God - Challenge
by jgnat ini invite king solomon and anyone else that is interested, to discuss if believing in god may be helpful.
i am not restricting the discussion to the biblical god.
i'm ready to look if this belief may be helpful both from a societal and from an individual point of view.
-
-
soft+gentle
ST, for my part I am not coming at this topic from the point of view of a belief in a higher power such as God but I guess I am interested in Jgnat's intial question which includes asking about whether or not there is a part of us that reaches for what is bigger than ourselves.
I find that I have a lot in agreement with Christopher Hitchens when he turns his attention to the arts as a way of reaching for what is bigger than ourselves (of course I disagree with a lot of what he says as well but not to the extent that I did previously) And in this I find myself at odds with rationalism taken too far as I believe that even after we have taken confirmation bias on board it is still possible see truths that are bigger than ourselves in what is made/invented (wahtever we may want to call it) and that they make us bigger than ourselves. does that make sense?
Taking up your earlier point about emotion and feelings leading to tightly held beliefs - the difficulty I have with your example is that the emotions felt by the woman who was hoaxed are in no way unauthentic because she was deceived and I hope she did not beat herself up too much about her feelings of euphoria. I know that you are not arguing authenticity and inauthenticity but on the other hand I don't want to see emotions being cast in too negative a light either without saying something in defense of them so I want to go back to the point made earlier - that of having enough confidence in our feelings and emotions so as to allow them to guide us more - this especially after our experience with Jehovahs witnesses where emotions were cast in a completely negative light. What I mean to say is that at least in becoming Jehovahs witnesses our beliefs were not tightly held because of emotion as we are/were trained to turn these off.
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153
Believing in God - Challenge
by jgnat ini invite king solomon and anyone else that is interested, to discuss if believing in god may be helpful.
i am not restricting the discussion to the biblical god.
i'm ready to look if this belief may be helpful both from a societal and from an individual point of view.
-
-
soft+gentle
I think it is always good to be faithful to one's gut feeling but I think this has to be kept in torsion with trying to always be rational. But i don't think one should go so far as to ignore one's gut feelings and emotions because imo these are what develop a person's soul and if this is the case then it is hugely important to stay faithful to our feelings. But on the other hand there is the problem of giving in too much to feelings so that they cloud our judgement.
But then again when I was a witness and believed in God I relied heavily on the peace of God - my fav scripture was the one in phillipians "the peace of God will guard your thoughts"...But the problem then was that I tended to let important things, that needed dealing with, slide. So I definitly think there needs to be a sort of torsion going on between feelings and rationalism. I love it when artists and musicians display this tension in their works
One problem I have with morality without God is that people often do what is expedient for themselves first and then for others - behave in a machiavellian way for example and this would probably still be altruistic in an evolutionary sense but definitely not egalitarian. I guess one would need soul to be egalitarian
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153
Believing in God - Challenge
by jgnat ini invite king solomon and anyone else that is interested, to discuss if believing in god may be helpful.
i am not restricting the discussion to the biblical god.
i'm ready to look if this belief may be helpful both from a societal and from an individual point of view.
-
-
soft+gentle
thanks jgnat - murmuration is awsome
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153
Believing in God - Challenge
by jgnat ini invite king solomon and anyone else that is interested, to discuss if believing in god may be helpful.
i am not restricting the discussion to the biblical god.
i'm ready to look if this belief may be helpful both from a societal and from an individual point of view.
-
-
soft+gentle
how odd jgnat, I was thinking cybernetics just a couple of hours ago (post18019) and then also about what Jill Bolte taylor describes after she had her stroke although I was not thinking specifically about her - must have been on your wavelength
edit: I don't think atheists, even ones like KS, are as closed to extrasensory stuff as they sometimes pretend to be although i may have misunderstood them because of their um (dare I say the word) militancy
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Even after reading Crisis of Conscience, one thing (at least) still puzzled me
by kepler init was several years back and from time to time i will look something up in the index.
all manner of things about jw life are revealed - as well as discussions within the leadership, plus historical and contemporary controversies - but there is still something i missed.. please excuse me if this is not a detailed summary.
when the drum roll starts for the purge, it appears that the friends and associates of ray franz are targeted first.
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soft+gentle
my impression from reading crises of conscience was that prior to the purge there was a climate of tolerance toward private discussion on such topics as heavenly life for all - one hope for all christians, 33 CE was perhaps when the kingdom was set up not 1914, the parousia had perhaps not begun yet, the faithful and discreet slave parable was not literal etc. Ray does make this clear in his first book in the chapter headed point of decision and indeed if such was the case at the time of the purge and not just in hindsight, then he did remain the same man that he was because his second book In seach of christian freedom shows how close the topics mentioned above were to his own beliefs.
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5 Reasons Why the DEAF Masturbation Video is different than anything before...
by BluePill2 inas some of you have noticed the asl video warning against masturbation (another guilt trip) is creating waves.
this is not small fry.
1. it is humorous - most topics (like other policies) are serious/depressing (blood, shunning, pedos).
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soft+gentle
right thanks lamallcool. I no longer feel like laughing at him.
The WTS of course is a different matter. they are hopefully finding that the interent is a merciless babbler generating unusual combinations that will cut them down to size or rip them open spreading their innards for all to see.
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241
5 Reasons Why the DEAF Masturbation Video is different than anything before...
by BluePill2 inas some of you have noticed the asl video warning against masturbation (another guilt trip) is creating waves.
this is not small fry.
1. it is humorous - most topics (like other policies) are serious/depressing (blood, shunning, pedos).
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soft+gentle
okay thanks lamalcool.
but you have to admit that the young man (the one we are laughing at) does all his signs with much more vigour and theatricity than the other two presenters we have been comparing his with?
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241
5 Reasons Why the DEAF Masturbation Video is different than anything before...
by BluePill2 inas some of you have noticed the asl video warning against masturbation (another guilt trip) is creating waves.
this is not small fry.
1. it is humorous - most topics (like other policies) are serious/depressing (blood, shunning, pedos).
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soft+gentle
If you compare the three presenters and their way of signing it is quite clear that the young man who everyone is laughing at does all of his signing with greater emphasis and theatricity - not just the masterbation signs. I think I read somewhere on here that he probably is deaf himself. If that is the case it explains the way he signs even more.
I must say the vid did make me laugh and this may be because the scene is isolated from what comes before and what comes after (which if left in would show us that the young man puts his heart and soul into alll of his signing) and as we are seeing this part in isolation it makes it much more slalacious than it actually is. So I guess in its new presentation it is no longer the watchtower society's vid as such that we are watching but it is one produced by the xjw community for a different purpose - one that the watchtwoer society would view as dirty, lewd and disorderly - like all of us