Posts by flamegrilled

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

I am simply pointing out a dilemma for theists. (Cofty)

Sure. I accept that it's a dilemma, or at least a question that is necessary to ask. I also accept that we may not have the capability to answer it and therefore we cannot draw conclusions. Since you claim that you are not drawing conclusions, then you and I are in the same boat.

And since you seem determined to keep this thread tight, so that I cannot bring in additional evidence for God, and you do not claim that suffering disproves God, then are agreed. The 2004 tsunami proves nothing in and of itself.

Your only point is that it creates a dilemma. And what do you do with other dilemmas that you may be faced with Cofty? Leap to a conclusion that dismisses the dilemma? It's certainly one option. I say it is a lazy one if it doesn't deal with the whole body of data. But in the interests of keeping this thread within your parameters no one is allowed to stray outside of your perceived dilemma.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

Cofty - I don't particularly wish you had asked any specific question. My response is not a hijack of the thread based upon the directions the conversation has taken.

You've ignorred the point that 250,000 people doesn't equal 250,000 problems. It is simply one problem. If you cannot grasp that then you are already dealing with the issue illogically.

My point applies whether it is "all suffering" or a subset of suffering caused by what you term as "natural evil". Unless you can demonstrate that you have all the information then you are likely to reach a flawed conclusion.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

The only answer that is not allowed is anything that sounds like "its a mystery". That is ruled out as dishonest sophistry.

In my pet illustration I imagine that you would say from the pet's point of view "it's a mystery". But from the POV of the owner you would say that the pet isn't fully capable of grasping it. There is a difference.

You want to rule out any version of events that involves something that we are not fully capable of grasping at this time. Is that logical?

I submit this:

1) It is possible that something is going on that we are not fully capable of grasping.

2) If something is going on that we are not fully capable of grasping then it would be wrong to reach firm conclusions based upon only things we are capable of grasping.

However, you are attempting to reach a firm conclusion based upon only that which we fully understand. For us to reach a right conclusion we MUST therefore presuppose that we understand everything.

I believe that this is a flawed presupposition.

I think PelicanBeach was angling for this point in the first few pages, but didn't quite follow through.

Note that this is not just a “cop out”. Either we state as a starting premise that we can be sure we fully understand every factor – what is at stake, the options available, etc – or we cannot be certain of that. Only one can be true. And I think it is a bold individual who claims such knowledge, since there is no way that it can be substantiated.

See youtube: Louis CK Punches Dog in the Face to Save Her Life-Conan O'Brien

Humbled

That was very funny. Thanks.

No, the reaction of the receiver(s) of the treatment has very little to do with my point. It was not intended to be one of those illustrations which works whichever way you stretch it. My point is simply as put to Cofty above – if we reach a firm conclusion despite knowing that we do not have all the information then we stand a good chance of reaching a flawed conclusion.

Let's take the original point. The 250,000 people is really irrelevant as a number. The same principle applies whether God allows 1 preventable death or 1 billion. So I think the tsunami itself is a red herring. The question is whether there is any conceivable reason why a loving God would allow ANY person to suffer and/or die. And just because we cannot conceive of one that makes absolute sense to us, it does not mean that there isn't one.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

flamegrilled

I confess I haven't read every comment on this post. I have read the first 5 pages, and the last 3 as well as some in between just to see which direction things were going.

I am a believing theist. I believe God is love.

It is true that an all powerful God could stop suffering. One solution would be to kill everything – quickly and completely painlessly. Applying the same logic we could say that all suffering could have been prevented by not bringing into being any beings capable of suffering in the first place.

I wonder if Cofty is so certain that if he was all-powerful that he would have a way to bring into existence creatures with absolute free-will that were not capable of causing or experiencing suffering. For those who think there is a trivial answer to that, I suggest that there is not, and furthermore I do not think that you and I are capable of fully fathoming it.

For those who have domestic animals that show a reasonable degree of awareness and can (to a lesser degree than humans) reason on certain situations (I might trim that back to “mentally react” for those who wish to take issue with the word “reason” in this context, but animal lovers who have had smart animals will understand what I mean) have you ever experienced having to put them through distress in order to do what you believe to be the best thing for them? Have you seen an animal having needles stuck in it by a vet, experiencing extreme discomfort, and clearly not understanding why (if you are present) you are allowing him/her to go through this, but at the same time you are sometimes aware of a sense of trust even in these extreme situations. It depends on the animal. I have certainly experienced this.

The point is that you know something the animal does not know. In fact you know something that the animal is probably not capable of knowing. But let's run with the idea that the animal was capable of asking a simple question - “is my owner cruel?” How would the animal answer? Again I say it depends on the animal and the relationship that you have with it. You might indeed be an uncaring owner in other ways and the animal might have no reason to think you were anything but cruel. However if you were a loving owner in all other ways and yet the animal experienced these “out of character” periods with no way of knowing the reason, then what should it conclude?

It is my firm belief that we are like that animal. Now, if you allow for the possibility that there might be a God, then you may draw your own conclusions as to whether he is a cruel owner or not.

But that is not my primary point.

My primary point is that our perception of negative things that we may go through as humans is neither proof that there is no God, nor is it proof of what his character MUST be if he were to exist.

In the pet analogy your pet would ALWAYS be right to conclude that you were a cruel owner whenever you allow “bad things” to be inflicted on it. The conclusion would be flawed based upon limited information. And so it is with us and God.

36

Letter About Blood Fractions

by Bangalore in

letter about blood fractions.. .

.

bangalore.

flamegrilled

Or you can just right click and "view image" if you don't want to save it.

10

Free Bible Study or Indoctrination Session?

by VM44 in

...and are the jws forthcoming at the start what the "study" really is?.

.

flamegrilled

They're done alone as well, even spouses are split into separate studies, so you're less likely to spot problems.

To be fair this isn't really true. Studies with couples together, or even whole families are encouraged. There would have to be a special circumstance to study with spouses separately.

You are right however that they wouldn't want group discussions like Alpha. The whole format is based upon controlling the environment and the questions and answers. Sure, people are allowed to ask questions outside of the material, but it isn't encouraged.

4

Blood Transfusion Issue In Mumbai,India

by Bangalore in

http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/1885965/report-dna-special-maharashtra-should-intervene-when-faith-rules-over-life-say-legal-experts.

.

bangalore.

flamegrilled

I now read this article through 3 times and new points jump out each time. I read Franz on the subject, and Martin Shilmer has good stuff to, but I've never seen the law of Moses delt with so thoroughly:

http://meletivivlon.com/2013/09/10/jehovahs-witnesses-and-the-no-blood-doctrine/

45

OMG Have you seen this?? This site is sooo hysterical. It reminds me of The Onion, but for exJW's

by noni1974 in

jw
friends

http://jehovahstrumpet.com.

i read the cat baptisim article and i doubled over laughing.

one time when i was a kid i asked why my kitty couldn't go to the kh with us and my mom told me that animals were perfect and didn't need to go to the kh.. .

flamegrilled

Some of it is funny. To me some of the baby/blood transfusion article was a little OTT and postentially very offensive. Shoot me down. It's ok by me. But if parents had been misled to take a stand on this doctrine and then read the joke that they were hoping to get some fame out of it, then I think that would be very hurtful. The whole blood thing is just crazy IMO and I recently posted a link to a good articel I read about it. however I know people who are hurting over this and I don't think rubbing peoples noses in the dirt if theyve lost a child is very kind.

As I say, I honestly thought some or the site was funny, but I just think that some sensitivity is appropriate.

Just my opinion though.

12

Great New Article on Blood

by flamegrilled in

i just got through reading this.

it's long, but worth the read.

it nails the arguments with many points that i hadntt previously thought of.

flamegrilled

Hi TD, are the inacuracies about the doctrine itself? I haven't kept up with the finer point of what is believed so I can't tell. I wanted to share the article with a relative so I would rather know if something is not acurate. FG

293

AGM 5 OCTOBER 2013 (UNOFFICIAL RUMORS)

by WatchTower87 in

- 23 day to go .. annual meeting unofficial rumors.

- new bible.

- new nwt (revision).

flamegrilled

I can also confirm that a reliable source has confirmed 1) a new Bible release, and 2) there is likely to be some significant doctrinal change. The implication was that it will be bigger than last year's FADS=GB