Posts by Norm

54

Death of innocent people

by Norm in

jw
friends

again we have been witnessing a hideous, horrible act of terrorism where cowards and maniacs have blown up innocent people.

it is thoroughly distressing and revolting.

being a bit cynical about it this it is in all probability a payback to britain for blairs staunch support to george bush.

upside/down, I do not know you from Adam/Eve. But posting your "kneejerk" reaction to my original post and giving me attitudes and opinions that I do not have doesn't help much. Read carefully and do some thinking before you reply, that would benefit you greatly. Do you agree that the killing of innocent people is wrong no matter who does the killing? A simple yes or no would suffice. Norm

54

Death of innocent people

by Norm in

jw
friends

again we have been witnessing a hideous, horrible act of terrorism where cowards and maniacs have blown up innocent people.

it is thoroughly distressing and revolting.

being a bit cynical about it this it is in all probability a payback to britain for blairs staunch support to george bush.

Norm

Very well put googlemagoogle, so far all that has been done is to make the matter far worse then it originally was. Norm

54

Death of innocent people

by Norm in

jw
friends

again we have been witnessing a hideous, horrible act of terrorism where cowards and maniacs have blown up innocent people.

it is thoroughly distressing and revolting.

being a bit cynical about it this it is in all probability a payback to britain for blairs staunch support to george bush.

Norm

Where do I say that the end justify the means? Indeed my position is the opposite, I happen to think that killing innocent people is wrong no matter who does the killing, apparently that seems like a very disturbing thought to you?

Norm

54

Death of innocent people

by Norm in

jw
friends

again we have been witnessing a hideous, horrible act of terrorism where cowards and maniacs have blown up innocent people.

it is thoroughly distressing and revolting.

being a bit cynical about it this it is in all probability a payback to britain for blairs staunch support to george bush.

Norm

Again we have been witnessing a hideous, horrible act of terrorism where cowards and maniacs have blown up innocent people. It is thoroughly distressing and revolting.

Being a bit cynical about it this it is in all probability a payback to Britain for Blair’s staunch support to George Bush. Indeed all of those who let themselves be sucked into the company of the US and joined the Iraq disaster are probably up for a few nasty experiences. The world was turned into a far more dangerous place the day the idiot attack on Iraq started.

It is also quite depressing to watch Blair and Bush with stone faces talk about evil people killing innocent people. The sad fact is that Bush, Blair and Putin has caused the death of far more innocent people then any terrorist group can ever hope to kill. Of course this is hardly ever mentioned anywhere. Until those leaders and those powers realize that it isn’t their right to go around the world bombing and killing whomever they don’t like, nothing will ever change. I think it’s a miracle that most European capitals and the US haven’t been hit much harder by terrorism for many years already considering how badly they have “fucked” with the people in Asia, the Middle East and in Africa for at least the last hundred years.

Norm

9

The Da Vinci code

by sym in

hi there - has anything been discussed/announced on this book by the jw's - i know other religious groups have.

i kind of think it backs up some jw beliefs that the church is built on ideas formulated by rome and not christ but that also it undermines the very basis of all christianity as well - i just imagined it being the type of book the elders would tell you not to read.

i remember when i used to go, there where lots of things we should not read or become educated on.

Norm

Hi there,

You said:

"Let's not forget The DaVinci Code is a work of fiction. The front of the book lists the few things that are facts. The rest is fantasy. I laughed my head off when the history channel had the "Debunking DaVinci" documentary on....wow, debunking a work of fiction...big accomplishment."

I couldn't agree more. Imagine someone "debunking" Lord of the Rings. There is no Middle Earth!, Gondor doesn’t exist!" How silly.

Yet it is really hilarious what they find so offensive, Jesus was married and had children! How preposterous! Lies, lies, they scream. Yup, I mean it stand to reason and common logic that he walked on water, waked up dead people and performed all kinds of miracles, but I mean a guy getting married and having children? Come on, have you ever heard anything as absurd as that?

Norm

10

Does the wt literature support lying?

by Check_Your_Premises in

.

just a quick question.

i have heard it alluded to before that jw's think it is ok to omit, or to feign ignorance, or even lie when "theocratic warfare" is at stake.. if so, can you give citations of examples where they condone giving less than "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth".

Norm

Considering their whole religion is a lie, I think we can safely say that the WT literature support lying. JW's can hardly open their mouths without lying. What is more the Bible do to. Lying is an old and honored Bible tradition. As with so many other things lying was only wrong when others did it. This the same all over the place. Just take a look at something I whipped up in my spare time back in the days when I still cared about this bullshit:
-----------------------------------------------------------

Stupidity, lies and cheating

In a post in another thread our friend aChristian talkes about ?apparent? contradictions, not bad considering the Bible is full of the most glaring contradictions all over the place, but they say that faith can move mountains. Anyway, let us take a look at one of the stories from the Bible, which demonstrate the twisted logic and completely relativistic ?morals? of God and his ?chosen heroes?. Take Abraham for instance.

*** Rbi8 Genesis 20:1-18 ***
20 Now Abraham moved camp from there to the land of the Neg'eb and took up dwelling between Ka'desh and Shur and residing as an alien at Ge'rar. 2 And Abraham repeated concerning Sarah his wife: ?She is my sister.?

As we can see Abraham is acting like a craven wimp, lying to save his coward skin while putting his wife at risk of being sexually assaulted by Abimelech. What an outstanding act of bravery and what a wonderful sign of his trust in God Then the story gets even weirder:

*** Rbi8 Genesis 20:1-18 *** With that A?bim'e?lech king of Ge'rar sent and took Sarah. 3 Afterward God came to A?bim'e?lech in a dream by night and said to him: ?Here you are as good as dead because of the woman whom you have taken, since she is owned by another owner as his wife.? 4 However, A?bim'e?lech had not gone near her. Hence he said: ?Jehovah, will you kill a nation that is really righteous? 5 Did not he say to me, ?She is my sister?? and she?did not she too say, ?He is my brother?? In the honesty of my heart and with innocency of my hands I have done this.? 6 At that the [true] God said to him in the dream: ?I too have known that in the honesty of your heart you have done this, and I was also holding you back from sinning against me. That is why I did not allow you to touch her. 7 But now return the man?s wife, for he is a prophet, and he will make supplication for you. So keep living. But if you are not returning her, know that you will positively die, you and all who are yours.?8 So A?bim'e?lech got up early in the morning and proceeded to call all his servants and to speak of all these things in their ears. And the men got very much afraid.

Instead of giving Abraham, the craven liar a stern reprimand, God is leaning on the innocent Abimelech, who is the victim of Abraham and his wife?s despicable trickery. Abimelech is rightfully upset about Abrahams dishonesty and expresses

*** Rbi8 Genesis 20:1-18 *** Then A?bim'e?lech called Abraham and said to him: ?What have you done to us, and what sin have I committed against you, in that you have brought upon me and my kingdom a great sin? Deeds that should not have been done you have done in connection with me.? 10 And A?bim'e?lech went on to say to Abraham: ?What did you have in view in that you have done this thing??

Abrahams lame excuse sounds like this:

Rbi8 Genesis 20:1-18 *** 11 To this Abraham said: ?It was because I said to myself, ?Doubtless there is no fear of God in this place, and they will certainly kill me because of my wife.? 12 And, besides, she is truly my sister, the daughter of my father, only not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife. 13 And it came about that, when God caused me to wander from the house of my father, then I said to her, ?This is your loving-kindness which you may exercise toward me: At every place where we shall come say of me: ?He is my brother.??

Not much of an excuse, eh? He seem to rationalize that she is actually his half sister, same father but different mothers, and apparently this lie was Abraham?s and Sarah?s standard procedure when they encountered strangers. Talk about a courageous and upstanding patriach?

But this story is quite inexplicable for another reason too:

*** Rbi8 Genesis 20:1-18 *** 17 And Abraham began to make supplication to the [true] God; and God proceeded to heal A?bim'e?lech and his wife and his slave girls, and they began bearing children. 18 For Jehovah had tightly shut up every womb of the house of A?bim'e?lech because of Sarah, Abraham?s wife.

One wonders what kind of twisted and insane reasoning is behind God?s punishment of an innocent man, for being tricked by the coward and lying ?Great Prophet? Abraham.

We know that Abraham had used the same stupid subterfuge before in Egypt:

*** Rbi8 Genesis 12:10-20 ***
10 Now a famine arose in the land and A'bram made his way down toward Egypt to reside there as an alien, because the famine was severe in the land. 11 And it came about that as soon as he got near to entering Egypt, then he said to Sar'ai his wife: ?Please, now! I well know you are a woman beautiful in appearance. 12 So it is bound to happen that the Egyptians will see you and will say, ?This is his wife.? And they will certainly kill me, but you they will preserve alive. 13 Please say you are my sister, in order that it may go well with me on your account, and my soul will be certain to live due to you.?
14 So it happened that, as soon as A'bram entered Egypt, the Egyptians got to see the woman, that she was very beautiful. 15 And the princes of Phar'aoh also got to see her and they began praising her to Phar'aoh, so that the woman was taken to the house of Phar'aoh. 16 And he treated A'bram well on her account, and he came to have sheep and cattle and asses and menservants and maidservants and she-asses and camels. 17 Then Jehovah touched Phar'aoh and his household with great plagues because of Sar'ai, A'bram?s wife. 18 With that Phar'aoh called A'bram and said: ?What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, ?She is my sister,? so that I was about to take her as my wife? And now here is your wife. Take her and go!? 20 And Phar'aoh issued commands to men concerning him, and they went escorting him and his wife and all that he had.

Of course God punished Pharaoh, which had been tricked into the whole mess. Not one word to the idiot Abraham that he should quit lying. What an example of outstanding moral discernment on behalf of God.

But this weird history doesn?t end here. Imagine, the Bible tell us that exactly the same thing happened again, this time with Abraham?s son Isaac:

*** Rbi8 Genesis 26:1-11 ***
26 Now there arose a famine in the land, besides the first famine that occurred in the days of Abraham, so that Isaac directed himself to A?bim'e?lech, king of the Phi?lis'tines, to Ge'rar. 2 Then Jehovah appeared to him and said: ?Do not go down to Egypt. Tabernacle in the land that I designate to you. 3 Reside as an alien in this land, and I shall continue with you and bless you, because to you and to your seed I shall give all these lands, and I will carry out the sworn statement that I swore to Abraham your father, 4 ?And I will multiply your seed like the stars of the heavens and I will give to your seed all these lands; and by means of your seed all nations of the earth will certainly bless themselves,? 5 due to the fact that Abraham listened to my voice and continued to keep his obligations to me, my commands, my statutes, and my laws.? 6 So Isaac went on dwelling at Ge'rar.
7 Well, the men of the place kept asking with respect to his wife, and he would say: ?She is my sister.? For he was afraid to say ?My wife? for fear that, to quote him, ?the men of the place should kill me because of Re?bek'ah,? because she was attractive in appearance. 8 So it came about that as his days there extended themselves A?bim'e?lech, king of the Phi?lis'tines, was looking out of the window and taking in the sight, and there was Isaac having a good time with Re?bek'ah his wife. 9 At once A?bim'e?lech called Isaac and said: ?Why, she is no other than your wife! So how is it that you said, ?She is my sister??? At this Isaac said to him: ?I said it for fear I should die on her account.? 10 But A?bim'e?lech continued: ?What is this you have done to us? A little more and certainly one of the people would have lain down with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us!? 11 Then A?bim'e?lech commanded all the people, saying: ?Anybody touching this man and his wife will surely be put to death!?

As you can see Isaac apparently did just the same thing as his father with exactly the same people. One wonders what the Philistines were thinking about this family of pathological liars and cowards.

Norm.

15

Respect - what is it?

by Norm in

aretha franklin sings about respect and the word is frequently used in all languages.. the definition of the word can be : respect, esteem, regard -- (an attitude of admiration or esteem, held in esteem).

many people seem to think that respect automatically follows a position or office, like for instance a president, a bishop, a prime minister or similar lofty titles.

others hold that respect has to be earned and shouldn't be automatic and points to the often obvious fact that some people holding high offices often show themselves to be utter bastards and corrupt crooks that deserves no respect.

Norm

Hi Sabrina,

You said:

I think that while a religion or features of a religion may garner disrespect, there are individuals who do not practice the negative extremes of their religion. They rise above and practice the good found in their religion. In my opinion, these can be respected though disagreed with.

I agree with you, that's what I said this in my original post:

If we get to know a good and kind person, which earns our respect as a human being, s/he invariable is so in spite of his/hers religion, it is never ever because of it. We can only relate to each other in any meaningful way on a personal level and only on that level can we give each other respect. We can never truly respect a person's religious superstition, fantasies and more or less insane ideas about some imaginary invisible realm.

Norm

15

Respect - what is it?

by Norm in

aretha franklin sings about respect and the word is frequently used in all languages.. the definition of the word can be : respect, esteem, regard -- (an attitude of admiration or esteem, held in esteem).

many people seem to think that respect automatically follows a position or office, like for instance a president, a bishop, a prime minister or similar lofty titles.

others hold that respect has to be earned and shouldn't be automatic and points to the often obvious fact that some people holding high offices often show themselves to be utter bastards and corrupt crooks that deserves no respect.

Norm

You said,

always remember my granmother's words, "Never make fun of people in a derogatory manner, it will come back to haunt you."

Respect to me is ALLOWING you to believe that Donald Duck or Bugs Bunny is your God. I will NOT impose my views on others.

Respect means minding your own business.

Guest77

No one can hinder anyone believing whatever no matter how insane it might seem. The problem with any true believer is that he will indeed impose his faith (views) on you. Some times he will kill you if you don't convert. I do not respect any religion even when they manage their own business. Unfortunately they only mind their own business as long as they are in a minority, when they are in a majority, they will mind your business too, if you don't like it, you will suffer and die. I think your grandmother should have thought a little longer about it all.

If you don't challenge such "handed down wisdom" the world will never move on. Instead of passivly listening to complete drivel we must challenge it and ask the people who repeat all the age old nonsense to explain it all. They will soon discover that they can't, simply because it just don't make sense and then maybe they will actually start to think. If people hadn't challenged such beliefs we would still think the wold is flat.

Allowing people to wallow in superstition and fantasy without challenging them in a polite and nonconfrontational manner is showing that you don't care and that's disrespect in my book.

Norm

15

Respect - what is it?

by Norm in

aretha franklin sings about respect and the word is frequently used in all languages.. the definition of the word can be : respect, esteem, regard -- (an attitude of admiration or esteem, held in esteem).

many people seem to think that respect automatically follows a position or office, like for instance a president, a bishop, a prime minister or similar lofty titles.

others hold that respect has to be earned and shouldn't be automatic and points to the often obvious fact that some people holding high offices often show themselves to be utter bastards and corrupt crooks that deserves no respect.

Norm

Hi xena,

You said:

I will however, continue to believe in others' rights to believe in things they have found solace in along the way. If it works for them, let them have it. This road it tough enough.

Indeed, people have the right to believe in whatever they want, but I don't have to respect their belives. I see no reason to respect people who belive that they can have sex with 9 year old girls because their God somehow think it is a good idea.
I don't respect people who think they can dictate to others wheter they should accept blood components as a medical treatment either.

Norm

15

Respect - what is it?

by Norm in

aretha franklin sings about respect and the word is frequently used in all languages.. the definition of the word can be : respect, esteem, regard -- (an attitude of admiration or esteem, held in esteem).

many people seem to think that respect automatically follows a position or office, like for instance a president, a bishop, a prime minister or similar lofty titles.

others hold that respect has to be earned and shouldn't be automatic and points to the often obvious fact that some people holding high offices often show themselves to be utter bastards and corrupt crooks that deserves no respect.

Norm

Aretha Franklin sings about respect and the word is frequently used in all languages.
The definition of the word can be : respect, esteem, regard -- (an attitude of admiration or esteem, held in esteem). Many people seem to think that respect automatically follows a position or office, like for instance a President, a Bishop, a Prime Minister or similar lofty titles. Others hold that respect has to be earned and shouldn't be automatic and points to the often obvious fact that some people holding high offices often show themselves to be utter bastards and corrupt crooks that deserves no respect. Those on the automatic respect side then usually falls back to the argument that you have to respect the "office" even if it is currently occupied by a scoundrel.

It seems like the word respect means different things to different people and many don't seem to have any conscious idea of what it means but throws it around because they have heard others using it.

I would like to look at the use of this word in relation to religion. The recent Tsunami disaster in Asia did as usual in cases of tragedies of such magnitude cause the inevitable "God" question to the forefront. The more intelligent representatives of various religions was very quiet and didn't say much but mostly limited themselves to comforting people in a more general and noncommittal way. The people leaning towards more fundamentalist ideology made their usual endearing ideas of divine punishment for some kind of particularly sinful behavior on the part of the victims or even hinted that they had the wrong kind of faith. As usual they all had in common, the view that God is fantastic and what a marvelous thing faith is and how much comfort God gives all in their "hour of need." As usual it seems like God is only interested in helping and comforting people AFTER such a disaster, before it happened he appears to have been sleeping or had his attention elsewhere, perhaps monitoring peoples various use of their genitals, which judging from many religious leaders constant rants, seem to be his major interest.

Another and perhaps less known example of the complete lack of interest from this wonderful God is taking place in Ethiopia. In the paper New York times issue of May 16, 2003 there appeared an article with the title: "Alone and Ashamed". I quote:

"Dr. Catherine Hamlin, 79, is an Australian gynecologist who has spent the last 44 years in Addis Ababa, quietly toiling in impossible conditions to achieve the unimaginable. She has helped 24,000 women overcome obstetric fistulas, a condition almost unknown in the West but indescribably hideous for millions of sufferers in the poorest countries in the world.
It typically occurs when a teenage girl cannot deliver a baby because it is too big for her pelvis. After several days of labor without access to a doctor, the baby dies and the girl is left with a hole between her bladder, vagina and sometimes rectum. The result is that urine and sometimes feces drip constantly down her legs. In some cases, she is also left lame from nerve damage.
Women with fistulas stink and leave a trail of urine behind them. They are often abandoned by their husbands and driven out by other villagers."

I happened to see and interview with Dr Hamlin on some show on US television, where she was doing some fundraising to this extremely worthy cause. It all went well until someone started to bring God into the equation and as usual how people should pray for these unfortunate children and how God would help them. No one did of course ever breached the obvious subject that maybe God would best help these poor children if he could do something about the attitude of the deeply religious bastards that impregnates them. Maybe do something about the despicable religion that holds females to be mere property and regards children as legitimate sexual objects, a religion that is little more then institutionalized pedophilia. Speaking of pedophilia, in Iran, a female is considered a woman from the age of 9, as is the case in many Moslem countries. I think we can all imagine what might happen under such circumstances."

One thing is for certain though, God doesn't seem to be much concerned about such matters as they have been going on for thousands of years, but according to his devoted followers, he's quite fantastic with the victims, but alas only after the fact. Prevention of such incredibly evil and inhuman behavior seems to totally lacking in priority from Gods agenda.
Now of course most religions have some good sides, otherwise they would hopefully not exist, but are those good sides enough to balance out such horrible atrocities? I think not.
Do such religions deserve any respect? I think not. So what am I saying, shouldn't we respect peoples religion? No, we shouldn't. We should never respect any religion in any way. Do we respect the ideology of a Nazi? Well, most of us don't. That's because we have been educated to a large degree about the evils of that particular ideology. Religion seems to have been able to escape from such scrutiny and actually demand that all people should "respect" it just because it falls under the category of religion. So it has become a kind of mindless mantra that "we must respect" his, hers, their religion. No we must not, indeed we should not!

If we get to know a good and kind person, which earns our respect as a human being, s/he invariable is so in spite of his/hers religion, it is never ever because of it. We can only relate to each other in any meaningful way on a personal level and only on that level can we give each other respect. We can never truly respect a person's religious superstition, fantasies and more or less insane ideas about some imaginary invisible realm.

Norm