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.
So God went through the process of becoming a human when Adam & Eve sinned just so that he could subsequently die to remove the GUILT of Adamic sin but not the CONSEQUENCES of Adamic sin?
Yeah, that's doesn't sound right to me either. It would be like if someone was pardoned for their crimes by a ruler but still had to stay in prison. What's the point of the pardon?
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.
Your response is fascinating. Hence the question(open to all, of course): Are beliefs merely a function of the intellect? For if they are, then those are understandably subject to changes. Else, they are impervious to external, transitory factors.
I would say it's wise to have beliefs that are subject to change. Beliefs should change as new information and evidence emerge, else one is simply deluding themselves.
i often wonder if the current crop of witnesses, especially the youth and younger ones simply don't care about facts?.
i mean for some, even with knowledge of the past scandals, misleading teachings, mistruths, etc etc, they simply don't care.
"it is the truth after all".. they are so intertwined in the operations and activities of the society, that they cant see anything outside of it.
Also, many of them refuse to accept such information as facts. They prefer... alternative facts, to coin a phrase.
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.
I was just relaxed. No drugs, alcohol, nothing. Normal conditions, inside my house, no depression, etc..
I'm a little late on this, but are you certain you didn't simply enter the hypnagogic state?
It's not uncommon for people to believe that they see ghosts and spirits and such in this state and be convinced that they were real. However, because you're relaxed your brainwaves have moved from Beta to Alpha which can trigger this state as one approaches light sleep.
i'm currently disfellowshipped and living at home with my parents, but because they are both still devout jws i have to keep going to the meetings and crap because i don't want to risk getting thrown out until i finish college or find a job that will let me support myself and go to college.. yesterday, my mother rode with me to the meeting and told me how much my best friend and my oldest sister are missing me, and it just tears me apart because during the meeting i was practically counting the minutes till it was over.
it didn't help matters that i had to sit with my family because the library was closed off, thus forcing me to follow along with the meeting on my tablet instead of reading something useful or interesting like i normally do.. when i got home i just cried out in frustration because it feels like no matter what i do, i am making the wrong choice.
either i have to keep pretending to support an organization that has caused so much pain to so many people, or i have to abandon my family and friends to it so i can save myself.
May I ask how old you are, and the basic reason for disfellowshipping? (no real details needed)
I'm currently 21, and I was disfellowshipped for doing something with my girlfriend that I considered wrong at the time, so I convinced myself that I needed to go to the elders about it. I'm glad I did, though, because getting disfellowshipped ended up being the catalyst I needed to finally face the doubts I had accumulated over the years and mentally escape from the religion before I spent decades of my life on it.
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.
I know the question wasn't directed at me, but I do in fact wish that I could have a belief in a personal deity that cares about me and will allow me to continue my conscious existence after I die.
But like cofty I see so many things that I can't just disregard in order to hold on to that belief, no matter how much I would like for it to be true.
jws re-name things so they seem like they are different than other religions.
(of course we know they are different but that's another story).
i was just thinking about those things where they are like most everyone else in christendom but the re-name it to seem different.. for example god forbid they have a church, it's a "kingdom hall".. they don't have pastors and deacons they have "elders" and "ministerial servants".. they don't have tithing but they will have family heads fill out a paper saying how much they can contribute on a monthly basis (not sure if there is a name for that...unless it's tithing.
Mass = Lord's Evening Meal
Bishop = Circuit Overseer
Cardinal = Branch Overseer
Waste of time = Field service
Cross = Stake
Oh, an interesting tidbit, according to my college history instructor, during the time Jesus supposedly lived, the Romans executed their prisoners by having them carry one piece of the cross to another piece which was already planted in the ground. Meaning that while Jesus may have carried a "stake" he would have been executed on a cross. Making this both a pointless distinction and technically inaccurate.
i'm currently disfellowshipped and living at home with my parents, but because they are both still devout jws i have to keep going to the meetings and crap because i don't want to risk getting thrown out until i finish college or find a job that will let me support myself and go to college.. yesterday, my mother rode with me to the meeting and told me how much my best friend and my oldest sister are missing me, and it just tears me apart because during the meeting i was practically counting the minutes till it was over.
it didn't help matters that i had to sit with my family because the library was closed off, thus forcing me to follow along with the meeting on my tablet instead of reading something useful or interesting like i normally do.. when i got home i just cried out in frustration because it feels like no matter what i do, i am making the wrong choice.
either i have to keep pretending to support an organization that has caused so much pain to so many people, or i have to abandon my family and friends to it so i can save myself.
Thanks, I appreciate having some support through all of this, and I'm just sorry that the average JW will probably never know what kind of people you really are. Instead, they will forever think of you as "wicked apostates" that want to mislead them.
I was already applying some of the practical advice given here, but all the same, I appreciate that you took the effort to relay it. Additionally, it helps me to feel a little more at ease with the plans I already have in place.
hey there.. if this point has been covered before please forgive me.. i have had the principles of noahs flood used by jw's to encourage me to attend meetings recently and this has got me musing about the flood....again.. genesis states that a river flowed from eden and branched out into four rivers, two of which being the tigris and the euphrates.. heres the baffling part; if it had never rained before, how is it that rivers existed before the flood?!!?.
a brief google search tells us that the euphrates begins its journey as snow melt and rain ( as most rivers do) in mountains in turkey.. ecc chapter 1 mentions the water cycle and describes the rivers flowing into the sea but the sea not becoming full.
how did it work pre-flood?
Commendable effort my friend, but unfortunately I've never had bringing something like this up about the Flood be met with anything more than a dismissive hand wave and a "Jehovah could have handled that." So questions and observations like this never went anywhere:
How did animals like koalas, penguins, kangaroos, etc get from their respective environments to Noah's Ark? (God got them there)
It would be mathematically impossible to fit all of the animals, and food and water needed for every animal onto to the Ark described in the Bible, even if they were dived by the poorly defined "kinds." (Miracle)
Even if all the ice on Earth were melted there wouldn't be enough to reach the top of Mt. Everest. (The Flood caused some tectonic plates magic that lifted the land up higher out of the water, despite the total lack of geological evidence for this theory.)
Even if the amount of water needed to cover Mt. Everest were spirited into existence, the kinetic energy caused by its falling over a span of forty days would release so much heat that the entire planet would boil and the Ark would burn. (God rigged the physics.)
All of those herbivore animals that traveled over 12,000 miles to reach Noah now have to walk back with no food because all the plant life has been ravaged by a flood. (God cared for them)
All of the now carnivores (because apparently before the flood there weren't any, despite the clear fossil records of animals with other animals in their mouths and stomachs) can't eat anything either without wiping out an entire species. (God can control His creation.)
When the person you're telling this kind of stuff to can just invoke magic at any time, you may as well be debating a brick wall.
even thinking about born-ins here.
at what stage of your 'bible teaching' were you taught about the practice of disfellowshipping?.
reading john cedars book and the section about when the more crazy shit gets introduced to you is very telling.
Born-in here, hmm I was in a fairly small congregation but I think my first experience with being told not to talk to someone because they were disfellowshipped was when I was around 9 or 10 with a young woman in her late teens or early 20s who got reinstated years later. Later her brother also got disfellowshipped and reinstated a year later, oddly enough that man was on the judicial committee that disfellowshipped me.
