soft+gentle

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Posts by soft+gentle

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  267

  The true, unsung hero of the Bible....

  by Unlearn in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  my undisputed hero of the bible is known by several names, depending on who you talk to...devil, satan, lucifer, etc.. read it, and you'll find that he was the only one who really stood up for you.. he asserted that you could make decisions for yourself...and told you the very real truth that, just because the piece of meat in your chest stops thumping, you positively do not 'die'.. he was your hero.

  he stood up to a daddy-maniac and said, 'just because you made us doesnt mean you have the right to tell us what to do.

  i thought we were free?'.

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  soft+gentle

  NC - thanks for replying

  The concept of theft did not enter the picture until social contracts could be understood. This was a huge step for humans, and enable us to progress much more rapidly. If you need a tool, and you know it can simply be stolen, how much time would you spend making it? Not much. You'd pick up the first sharp rock and do your thing. But if you knew you could keep that rock, then you could become invested in it. You could learn flint knapping, and improve the design! Others would hear the banging as you worked the stone, but because you know there is a social contract not to take it, you could work on with confidence. And the whole group benefits from your work and any new design concepts.

  the social contracts you mention, how were they implemented and reinforced if not through community religion (this is what I have learned anyway in my study of parts of European civilisation)? I'd agree with you if you said that at one time kinship was the main vehicle for consolidating alliances but this too was governed by outside forces called gods which I would say encapsulates the idea of actions and their consequences (this part I agree with you but would go further and suggest is part of all experience provided we allow for the activities of the gods).

  I agree with what you say about the development of culture but the gods were an enormous part of it.

  Your ideas about the how the concept of theft was conceived only make sense if we apply the present to the past. Is this what you are doing? I want to clarify in case you have some ancient anthropological evidence that corroborates what you say? what I mean to say is that I don't know much about anthropology and would welcome what you have.

  I don't mean to be combatitive even if my reply does sound like that. I really want to understand. However I do respect your personal opinion and if you want to leave it at that then fine with me.
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  267

  The true, unsung hero of the Bible....

  by Unlearn in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  my undisputed hero of the bible is known by several names, depending on who you talk to...devil, satan, lucifer, etc.. read it, and you'll find that he was the only one who really stood up for you.. he asserted that you could make decisions for yourself...and told you the very real truth that, just because the piece of meat in your chest stops thumping, you positively do not 'die'.. he was your hero.

  he stood up to a daddy-maniac and said, 'just because you made us doesnt mean you have the right to tell us what to do.

  i thought we were free?'.

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  soft+gentle

  so where in your view, NC, does evil come from. what is your philosophy regarding evil. Before you ask me what my philosophy regarding evil is, I'll tell you strainghtaway I don't have one in particular, just so you know ;-)).
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  267

  The true, unsung hero of the Bible....

  by Unlearn in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  my undisputed hero of the bible is known by several names, depending on who you talk to...devil, satan, lucifer, etc.. read it, and you'll find that he was the only one who really stood up for you.. he asserted that you could make decisions for yourself...and told you the very real truth that, just because the piece of meat in your chest stops thumping, you positively do not 'die'.. he was your hero.

  he stood up to a daddy-maniac and said, 'just because you made us doesnt mean you have the right to tell us what to do.

  i thought we were free?'.

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  soft+gentle

  enjoy your weekend Sab. By the time you get back, from the looks of things, the bbq will be just about ready for another human sacrifice.

  edit: the beauty of chrisitanity is that jesus died once and for all
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  239

  The Great Debate: "Has Science Refuted Religion?

  by dark angle in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  just want to share this amazing debate!

  caltech cosmologist and physicist sean carroll teams up with skeptic magazine publisher and science historian michael shermer in this epic debate with noted conservative author and king's college president dinesh d'souza and mit physicist ian hutchinson as they go head-to-head over one of the most controversial issues of our age.

  as science pushes deeper into territory once the province of religion, with questions such as why there is something rather than nothing?, where did the universe come from?, how did life arise?, what was the origin of morality?, and others, inevitable conflicts arise over the best approach to answer them.

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  soft+gentle

  oldgenerationdude - great post - welcome to jwn
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  267

  The true, unsung hero of the Bible....

  by Unlearn in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  my undisputed hero of the bible is known by several names, depending on who you talk to...devil, satan, lucifer, etc.. read it, and you'll find that he was the only one who really stood up for you.. he asserted that you could make decisions for yourself...and told you the very real truth that, just because the piece of meat in your chest stops thumping, you positively do not 'die'.. he was your hero.

  he stood up to a daddy-maniac and said, 'just because you made us doesnt mean you have the right to tell us what to do.

  i thought we were free?'.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
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  soft+gentle

  that's a great idea NC - bible stories from different points of view.
• 
  267

  The true, unsung hero of the Bible....

  by Unlearn in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  my undisputed hero of the bible is known by several names, depending on who you talk to...devil, satan, lucifer, etc.. read it, and you'll find that he was the only one who really stood up for you.. he asserted that you could make decisions for yourself...and told you the very real truth that, just because the piece of meat in your chest stops thumping, you positively do not 'die'.. he was your hero.

  he stood up to a daddy-maniac and said, 'just because you made us doesnt mean you have the right to tell us what to do.

  i thought we were free?'.

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  soft+gentle

  I guess the serpent could also be seen as being instrumental in egging man on to engage in destruction (the kind that results from becomming too aware of his own power to lord it over others). So then knowing good and bad could be seen as a warning about hubris the kind of hubris that leads to destructiveness. Overweening man would then have no place in the garden of Eden.
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  115

  Disfellowshipped!

  by Las Malvinas son Argentinas in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  libertad!

  though my story is a bit more complicated than that.

  i live in argentina.

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  soft+gentle

  knowsnothing

  LMSA - what you will quickly find, here on JWN, is that we are willing to be more objective once we have gotten past our beefs.
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  76

  Horrid Time for Me

  by Band on the Run in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  my pain has been in remission.

  i have a morphine pump.

  pain broke through toward the end of the medication.

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  soft+gentle

  band - I'm so sorry - I cannot imagine what it is like to be in so much pain.
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  220

  If you don't know what's wrong it can't be fixed

  by N.drew in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  that is what i heard last night at my yoga class.

  she said for something to be fixed first it must become known what needs fixing.

  it is true for the physical, but also for the spiritual i believe.

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  soft+gentle

  to me the bible is mostly written in "eventful" language. so when it talks about the cowardly, alongside the vile, the murders, the sexually immoral - one has to apprenhend this as if you were on the receiving end - the one against whom the injustices were committed as well as the one committing the acts of injustice.
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  220

  If you don't know what's wrong it can't be fixed

  by N.drew in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  that is what i heard last night at my yoga class.

  she said for something to be fixed first it must become known what needs fixing.

  it is true for the physical, but also for the spiritual i believe.

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  soft+gentle

  Words get broken down to define their meaning better than one generic word for everything. I hear in the far north there are many words for "snow". The way I understand it is auton comes from the word autos, but is more specific.

  okay.

  scandalize from biblos.com says it all. If your right eye scandalizes you pluck it out.