I think Christopher Hitchens has a number of "Dangerous Ideas" .
Posts by Perry
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10Christopher Hitchens at the "Festival of Dangerous Ideas"
by Finkelstein inhitchens has some provocative thoughts about where much of today's monotheist beliefs originated which came out of inarguable human ignorance and how potentially dangerous and redundant they are in this modren day.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwihkm126bk.
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The bread pan illustration is totally flawed
by purrpurr init just suddenly occured to me today.... you know the jws always say about adams sin being passed on to his descendants that its like you have a bread pan with a dent in it and that every loaf of bread will then have a dent?
well that's fine for bread, cos your using the same pan.
but that's not how genetics work?.
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Perry
Bible writers are confused over this. In one place it would say 'the sins of the father will be poured out on the offspring to the third and fourth generations' and in another place it would contradict it, as given in Deut 24:16; Eze 18:20.
Not really confusing. The phraseology is different. Ezekiel 18: 20 specifically states that we are only punished for our own sins, not those of our fathers. So then, how are fathers' sins "poured out" on future generations?
Back then (and now) usually gross sin had to do with idolatry (in one form or another) and ran in families. I was a third generation JW on Dad's side and 4th generationon my Mom's side. The idolatrous sins of my fathers in worshiping a NY corporation got poured out on me. I GREATLY suffered because of their idolatry.... which later became mine.
Most here can testify that the Lack of love, robotic mechanical upbringing, & social dysfunction, led to drug, alcohol, failed marriages and a number of other self-destructive behaviors and ideologies that in turn get passed onto new generations. Multi-generational or Trans-generational Trauma is well known & studied today.
Idolatry is very hard to get rid of once ingrained in a family. It is rarely pretty or easy. It has not been pretty or easy in my personal experience.
Piper has this to say:
1. The sins of the fathers are punished in the children through becoming the sins of the children.
I the Lord...visit the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.” (Exodus 20:5; cf. Numbers 14:18)
The generations to come who experience the penalty of the fathers’ sins are those who hate God. We are not told how the fathers’ sins become the children’s sins. But what we are told is that when the father’s sins are visited on the children it is because the children are really sinful. That is the form in which the fathers’ sins are visited. Therefore, all judgment is really deserved by the person who is punished.
2. Because of God’s grace, which is finally secured by Christ, the children can confess their own sins and the sins of their fathers and be forgiven and accepted by God.
But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers...if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, then I will remember my covenant with Jacob” (Leviticus 26:40-42).
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Christopher Hitchens at the "Festival of Dangerous Ideas"
by Finkelstein inhitchens has some provocative thoughts about where much of today's monotheist beliefs originated which came out of inarguable human ignorance and how potentially dangerous and redundant they are in this modren day.
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwihkm126bk.
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Perry
Hitchens has some provocative thoughts about where much of today's monotheist beliefs originated which came out of inarguable human ignorance
And Hitchens was able to acheive a life of human ignorance all on his own as a drunk and chain smoker.
His wife said he was “obviously an alcoholic”.
"Accounts of his drinking, usually in the form of all day lunches, where one wine bottle followed the next, are the stuff of legend among his fellow writers. They invariably describe themselves as being unable to keep up with Hitch"
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11
What would happen?
by Esse quam videri ina thrift store down the street is run by members of a small, local christian congregation.
evangelical but not sure what religion they are affiliated with.
they have set up the store as a non-profit and have a specific use for the funds they acquire.
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Perry
They probably would want to somehow be in control of the whole operation. Likely local elders would be counseled to give the funds directly to the society and they would then figure out what is in the best interests of everyone involved.... in due time of course.
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The bread pan illustration is totally flawed
by purrpurr init just suddenly occured to me today.... you know the jws always say about adams sin being passed on to his descendants that its like you have a bread pan with a dent in it and that every loaf of bread will then have a dent?
well that's fine for bread, cos your using the same pan.
but that's not how genetics work?.
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Perry
purrpurr, I think you are suggesting that God punishes people for something Adam did, Is that right?
If so, that is not what the bible teaches. Each of us is responsible for our own sins. Ezekiel 18:20 tells us, “The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son.”This verse clearly shows that punishment for one’s sins is borne by that person.
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Child sacrifice and Jesus' sacrifice
by Whynot injeremiah 7:31 says, "they have built the high places of toʹpheth, which is in the valley of the son of hinʹnom, in order to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, something that i had not commanded and that had never even come into my heart.’".
according to this scripture it's unthinkable for jehovah to be pleased with child sacrifices.
but yet he sent his son to be killed as a sacrifice for all?.
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Perry
Pistoff: The idea of a sacrifice by Jesus is only valid if god
is in the background demanding blood and death.
Exactly. Shocking? Hardly. This is what God has stated as the price of life from the very beginning. It is no secret. God himself provided the first animal sacrifice to cover Adam in the form of animal skins. Adams pitiful efforts to cover himself were done with fig leaves. So we see both mans efforts and what God requires for sin to be properly covered right there in the Garden of Eden.
The wages of sin is death. Like it or not, that is the Law. But notice how that the death penalty does not necessarily have to be your own. That is a little loophole with big implications.Now, before someone cries out in outrage, claiming unfairness and brutality; consider that there are inmates on death row right now where the State Justice system is "demanding blood and death", same as God does.
Predictably, the inmates many times are in disagreement with the justice system. They see that their life still has value. They reason that they are still capable of various forms of good works etc. However, what governs their fate is not their own biased reasoning, but what the Law states.
So, while we live in societies that mirror God's justice in the requirement of blood, and we willingly give our support to such law and order, God's requirement for perfection may seem unreasonable to us, the inmates seemingly running the asylum. Like the protesting inmate on death row, our biased reasoning is not what dictates our fate. The Law is what dictates our fate. A death must occur. But whose?
Jesus knew that to accept his substitutional sacrifice a person would have to FIRST atom bomb their own Ego, Pride, and personal estimations of justice. This would create a sharp divide in how Jesus was perceived, hence his prediction here:
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Matthew 10:34
So, while the Law "is what it is"; the ultimate response of God to sin is NOT JUDGMENT, but MERCY:
But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Hebrews 9:26
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” John 6:51
“…waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” Titus 2:13-14
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour.” John 12:24-27
For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” Luke 19:5, 9-10
“For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.” Ephesians 2:14-18
The purpose of Jesus sacrifice is abundantly clear.
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Child sacrifice and Jesus' sacrifice
by Whynot injeremiah 7:31 says, "they have built the high places of toʹpheth, which is in the valley of the son of hinʹnom, in order to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, something that i had not commanded and that had never even come into my heart.’".
according to this scripture it's unthinkable for jehovah to be pleased with child sacrifices.
but yet he sent his son to be killed as a sacrifice for all?.
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Perry
venus,
I looked up the scriptures you site and I don't see where you are coming from. . My bible reads in many places where Jesus predicted his own death.
But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son.
38 But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance.
39 And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him. - JesusFrom the very beginning, Jesus was introduced as the "Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world". Everybody knew what function the passover lamb provided. The message was clear. And, still is. Paul's writings are replete with this teaching of substitution "for us", not Adam..
Combatting heresy from almost the beginning, the author of the Letter to Diognetus written around 130 AD makes these declarations after affirming man's inability to justify himself :But [God] was patient, he bore with us, and out of pity for us took our sins upon himself. He gave up his own Son as a ransom for us, [NOT ADAM] the holy one for the lawless, the innocent one for the wicked, the righteous one for the unrighteous, the imperishable one for the perishable, the immortal one for the mortal. (9.2).
Undoubtedly, the author views the work of Christ on the cross as an exchange, a ransom, a swapping, of the righteous for the unrighteous, that we might be saved. And he says plainly that Christ “took our sins upon himself.” He stood in our place and bore God’s wrath for us individually, BECAUSE THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH. But, the GIFT God gives is everlasting life.
God’s response to our sin, though deserving of death, is not to bring judgment but to show mercy. Now that God has CLEARLY shown what his response to OUR sin is; it is now our turn to show what our response to him is.
In their efforts to deceive (either knowingly or unwittingly) this is why is was so critical for the WT to keep harping on their teaching that Jesus died and ransomed Adam because it hid the fact that Jesus substituted his death for ours .... his righteousness for our unrighteousness..... and his inheritance for our inheritance.For the receiver, Jesus offers a PERSONAL RANSOM. Not a corporate one like the WT teaches.
This is why so many Christians that we met at the doors zeored in on the subject of whether or not Jesus was our PERSONAL SAVIOR. The reason is because that is the ONLY kind of savior he his. To reject that is to reject him. -
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Is There Life After Death
by Brokeback Watchtower ini think this is a well developed discussion, of ian stevenson's work in investigating people's past lives claims.
it's a little long.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0attm9hgcdw.
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Perry
There is death after death, but you are still conscious.
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new JW Online Bible Study Lessons
by neat blue dog inhas anybody seen the new online bible study yet, just posted yesterday i believe?
it's the first thing you see now when going to the home page.
the online bible study lessons on jw.org are free, have no obligation, and are easy to use.
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Perry
Hopefully, they are preparing for the time they will announce a complete liquidation, sell all the properties and grab as much cash as possible.
This way they can close the doors, keep all the money while saving face.
Slowly people will realize they have been duped.
thats the way I see it
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Why a Belief or Non Belief in the existence of "A God" or "The God" is Futile {In My Opinion}
by smiddy3 inbecause their are so many different god`s worshiped in the world today and none of them have made themselves known to us in this 21st century for all of mankind to see and verify .. all of the gods worshiped today are from hundreds and even thousands of years ago derived from ancient writings and texts in languages that are no longer in use today.. that of course brings up problems of another sort translating an ancient language into its modern day equivalent.. and nobody is in total agreement that such translations are accurate or correct anyway.. and their is no god coming to the rescue of translators to say which is the right interpretation.
they are mute.. i`m not just talking about christianity/ judaism either, the same goes for all non christian religions too.. its a total cop out to say one must have faith to believe in god .
"faith, belief in religious doctrines divine truth without proof" and no verification from any god christian/islam/judaism or otherwise ..
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Perry
If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life - 1 John 5
Belief in God is related to the subject to unending life, because God is the First Cause, has life within himself and freely gives unending life to his children. I personally have such a knowing not only of God, but of my eternal security in him....all born again Christians have this. And I agree, that it must be a bit unnerving to unbelievers.
Materialists are required to deny that anything can be known except through that which is collected through the 5 senses. Here's three non religious examples of revelation.“In a dream I saw a table where all the elements fell into place as required. Awakening, I immediately wrote it down on a piece of paper.” - DMITRI MENDELEEV, 1834 TO 1907 - Chemist who wrote the Periodic Table.“While asleep, I had an unusual experience. There was a red screen formed by flowing blood, as it were. I was observing it. Suddenly a hand began to write on the screen. I became all attention. That hand wrote a number of elliptic integrals. They stuck to my mind. As soon as I woke up, I committed them to writing.”SRINIVASA RAMANUJAN, 1887 TO 1920Mathematician who produced almost 4,000 proofs, identities, conjectures and equations in pure mathematics. Although he died in 1920, the richness of his ideas and conjectures in fields such as Elliptic Functions and Number Theory – nearly all of which were correct – were ahead of his time, and continue to inspire and direct research carried out by mathematicians today.In 1903 Otto Loewi had the thought that nerve signals were possibly transmitted using chemical instructions. He could not think of how he could prove his new idea.In 1920 Loewi had a dream about the problem. He woke excitedly during the night and scribbled notes about the dream.
In the morning, he could not remember the dream, and he could not read his nocturnal notes either!
The following night, he dreamed about the problem again. The dream was about an experiment he could use to prove his idea, and this time he remembered it.
He carried out research based on his dream and published the work in 1921, establishing that signalling across synapses was indeed chemical, as he had suspected.
The father of neuroscience, in 1936 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for work that came to him in a dream!
A revelation is proved true or not if the thing predicted comes true. Saving faith in Jesus Christ produces peace, and a number of other things promised in the NT. I have personally experienced this over the past 15 years or so. I have seen the same results in the half dozen or so other people I have led to Christ as well.
God is real, and can be known on a personal level ..... through "revelation".
In 1903 Otto Loewi had the thought that nerve signals were possibly transmitted using chemical instructions. He could not think of how he could prove his new idea.