Posts by Perry

38

If we are further away from perfection, why are we more moral?

by stuckinarut2 in

as we know, witnesses teach that adam and eve were perfect and then committed the first act of sin and rebellion.. they in turn were cursed,and we all declined as their offspring.

humans supposedly lived shorter and shorter lives, and became more imperfect and sinful.. the further away in time humans go then, they should be getting worse.

so why is it then that as a society, humans have actually improved in so many ways?.

Perry

Judeo / Christian ethics has had an enormous impact on the world.

23

So, any comments from the Memorial?

by NewYork44M in

jw
friends

perhaps i missed the comments, but i did not see a lot of comments from, or about, the memorial.

it happened last night, right?.

in years past the jwn board was hot with comments.

Perry

Does the wt Bible leave out "all of you"? - Carla

No it is the same in the New World Translation

23

So, any comments from the Memorial?

by NewYork44M in

jw
friends

perhaps i missed the comments, but i did not see a lot of comments from, or about, the memorial.

it happened last night, right?.

in years past the jwn board was hot with comments.

Perry

The Lord's Supper as played out according to the Watchtower is a great act of rebellion against God, in at least 2 ways:

And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins. Mt. 26: 27, 28

1. All are commanded to drink of the symbolic blood because it represents an irrevocable contract between the participant and God. Why "all" and not just 144K ?

2. Because the purpose of the contract is NOT for government positions in the kingdom per se, as the WT teaches, rather the purpose is clearly defined as "for forgiveness of sins". Since all have sinned, all must participate in the contract so that a death has occurred on their behalf for their personal sin debt.

When I was a regular pioneer, I used to mock Christians for their seemingly constant harping on the need for a "personal savior".

It finally made sense years later when I read a scripture that I NEVER heard quoted even one time at a Kingdom Hall.

Hebrews 9: 27 It is appointed unto man once to die, and then to face judgment.

The WT teaches a sort of collective judgment based on who is in the Organization and who isn't. The bible teaches that there will be a personal judgment, hence the need for a personal savior.

John 5: 28, 29 - Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.

20

Does God really care about mankind?

by Sour Grapes in

i am dying of cancer.

yesterday i asked my full blown jw wife if she could snap her fingers and make me well would she do so?.

she replied, "yes.

Perry

Very sorry to hear about your illness.

if you ask them, "so you are telling me that your god is going to destroy 99.9% of mankind"; they will say that it is up to god who survives because only he can read hearts.

Where they get the idea that a persons' heart condition has anything whatsoever to do with Salvation is beyond me.

The JW's do indeed worship a god of their own concoction that will kill 99.9 % of the worlds population. Fortunately, the god they worship is just another impotent idol and not the real thing.

In Christianity, prior to the Great Tribulation the Creator promises to evacuate (rapture) .... not those that have a "good heart", (because the bible is clear that there aren't any of those after childhood), but those who put their trust in Christ.

In Christianity, the anti-christ kills billions of people (after most people fall over themselves putting him in power) during the GT, not God.

Christ comes as a rescuer at the end, before he totally wipes out mankind.

Eternal life is available to anyone through Christ, even after the rapture and during the GT. He said he's come back from the dead, and he did it. That event changed the world.

Death has no final authority over those that trust Jesus.

496

This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

by cofty in

sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

Perry

Cofty,

The credulity that is required to believe in miracles

And a self appearing universe from nothing is distinguishable from a miracle how?

This is another example of the inconsistency of atheism.

The moral failings of scripture

How could you possibly know what is moral if your morals are based on your own subjectivity? Even if you got a moral "right" you would not be able to know it because everything is constantly evolving, including morals, right?

496

This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

by cofty in

sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

Perry

Perry - Another pathetic attempt to distract from the challenges of the OP.

Cofty,

Your views have been demonstrated over and over to not be consistent, and thus illogical. You lost the debate. Get over it.

What do you think of the brain suppression study leading to greater incidence of atheism that I posted?

That area of the brain also moderates social behavior which may account for your repeated historical use of the term "WILLFULLY IGNORANT" to describe those not like you; and more recently on this thread the repeated and non sequitur use of the word "pathetic".

496

This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

by cofty in

sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

Perry

Eden, the area in purple according to wikipedia is associated with :

planning complex cognitive behavior, personality expression, decision making, and moderating social behaviour.[3] The basic activity of this brain region is considered to be orchestration of thoughts and actions in accordance with internal goals.[4]

The most typical psychological term for functions carried out by the prefrontal cortex area is executive function. Executive function relates to abilities to differentiate among conflicting thoughts, determine good and bad, better and best, same and different, future consequences of current activities, working toward a defined goal, prediction of outcomes, expectation based on actions, and social "control" (the ability to suppress urges that, if not suppressed, could lead to socially unacceptable outcomes). Frontal cortex supports concrete rule learning.

It is this area that when suppressed caused greater incidences of atheism. The clear suggestion is: Less regional brain function = More atheism.

What do you think of my examples of atheism being linked to and an absent father and emotional pain?

496

This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

by cofty in

sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

Perry

Since atheism is one of the most inconsistent and irrational worldviews that we have to choose from, what are its causes? Here are some thoughts on this:

Freud himself observed that young people tend to lose their religious faith as soon as they lose the authority of their earthly fathers. This can happen in several ways:
1. The father is present, but he is weak, cowardly, unworthy of respect.
2. The father is present, but is physically, psychologically or sexually abusive.
3. The father is absent, whether through death or abandonment.
Another example of a prominent atheist with a poor paternal relationship is Thomas Hobbes. His father was an Anglican clergyman. Although the exact circumstances are unknown, he got into a fight with another man in the churchyard, following which he abandoned his family.
- As for Ludwig von Feuerbach, his father abandoned the family and lived with a married woman in the same town, then returned after the woman died. Feuerbach was twenty at the time of his father’s return. It is also to be noted that his father’s nickname was “Vesuvius”.
- Schopenhauer was rejected by his mother, and his father committed suicide when Schopenhauer was sixteen.
- Nietsche’s father died when he was four. Camus and Hume also lost their father’s in early childhood.
- Our contemporary Madeleine Murray O’Hare also had an unhappy family life. She often fought with her father, and on one occasion tried to kill him with a butcher’s knife. We cannot know the reason for her hatred, but it probably was not without cause.

- Another well-known living atheist is Albert Ellis,...Ellis grew up in New York. His mother did not function well, and his father was a philanderer who abandoned the family when Ellis was twelve. He and his brother had to take care of their mother and themselves. As an adult Ellis is polite to his father, but we can only guess how great the pain of his childhood must have been.

- Dr. Antony Flew is another famous contemporary atheistic psychologist. Some while ago he was at a party and, having had too much to drink, ended up lying on the floor, hitting it and saying over and over, “I hate my father. I hate my father.” (Antony Flew recently changed his mind from Atheism to Intelligent Design.

Perhaps the most prominent bible critic today Bart Ehrman, can trace his hurt feelings to losing his father to cancer while a young church leader tried to get him to confess sins and then tried to anoint him with a bottle of shampoo in a motel room. He was pretty hurt about that.

We know that emotional trauma can shut down certain brain functions. At least one study suggests that when you shut down the part of the brain most associated with logic and reasoning, greater levels of atheism result.

Does religious trauma and/or loss of a father figure (like shunning) predispose someone to embrace irrational atheist views?

I think there is evidence to suggest that personal pain and myopic, self-centered indulgence of is a major factor.

496

This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

by cofty in

sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

Perry

Are you demanding scientific evidence for a metaphysical discussion?
No I'm asking for reasonable responses to a few common sense observations.
But Cofty, your idea of what is reasonable repeatedly appeals to the scientific method. Your materialist worldview is not consistent, but arbitrary. You borrow from the Christian worldview in order to attack it. For instance, as I have repeatedly pointed out to you, a stable belief in what is reasonable is inappropriate where you claim that your reason (and existence) was born out of spontaneous appearance (a miracle), chance, disorder, mutation and social pressures alone.

Reason and logic are the same everywhere regardless of these conditions. Why? And, why would you accept them to be so if they are evolving, like you? And, if they are not evolving anymore, at what point did your reasoned logic "arrive" to where you are now and how do you know it wont evolve in the future making your current logic nonsense? Your position opens up a litany of more questions than satisfying answers.

Like it or not, the Christian worldview is consistent. I can trust the rules of logic and reason because I am made in the image of the eternal, unchanging First Cause. Since God "changeth not" I have a reasonable basis for logic & morals and not situational, arbitrary & inconsistent positions.

The one paltry attempt you did make to directly address the problem was truly pathetic.

Invective like this is a sign of fear & desperation. No need for that. Your belief system is duly noted and well documented on this forum.

I have been trying to think of an example to illustrate the absurdity of arbitrary treatment of evidence.

** If an orphan child presented himself, who would think that just because his father in unknown that the father MUST NOT exist?

Conversely, would only children where the father presented himself, be viewed as having a father?

28

Part of Growing Up - Saying Goodbye to Invisible Friends?

by doubtfull1799 in

i don’t remember having any invisible friends when i was a really little boy, i don’t know if such a thing actually exists, i’ve only ever seen it in movies?

of course it might have looked to others like i was talking to someone on occasions, but i’m sure it would have just been me talking to myself.

the thing is though, i got introduced to an invisible friend in my pre-teens, and i kept the relationship going well into adulthood.

Perry

For me, the jury is still out on that one. I am struggling to accept that a creator wants to be found and wants a relationship with individuals when he makes it so hard to find him and when so many organisations use mistruth, manipulation and deceit

God is easily found. You find him at the end of yourself. In Mt. 25: 26 & 27 Jesus offered everyone a deal. People have free will to accept or reject. Very easy to understand.

As far as organizations using manipulation; why blame God for that? Free will allows for this, otherwise how would you know people had free will?

And I find there to be no difference. I have experienced just as many successes and failures, rewards and setbacks, commendations and complaints as I did before. And what I have learned is that THE ONLY PERSON these experiences were dependent on was MYSELF!

The bible is clear that God has NOTHING TO DO with those that are not in Christ. Because we as JW's rejected Christ (the new covenant), we might as well have been Hindu or whatever.

Romans 8 : 9 "if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his"

Just sayin' that we didn't give God much of a chance by rejecting his Son, so prayers were definitely impeded by our disobedience as JW's,, not to mention our idolatry in reckoning the Wt as "the truth" the sole channel of communication, Ark of Salvation etc. etc., etc.... and other heretical boasting... ad nauseum.

The worthlessness of our prayers as JWs is powerful testimony.