King Solomon

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Posts by King Solomon

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  697

  Why aren't you an Atheist?

  by Bloody Hotdogs! in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  long time lurker, first time poster.. .

  i'm an ms (accounts servant) in a large congregation in canada.

  over the last several years i've faught a hard-won battle to rid my mind of all religous and supernatural beleifs.

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  King Solomon

  EP said to Sab:

  Ah, so you think YOU are the true Christian above all others.

  Damn shame Christ said he who is first is last. You seem to think you are above all others, meaning, according to Jesus, you are the least thing to him. According to Jesus, you should get away from him because he doesn't and never will know you.

  I have mentioned your hubris, your pride, your superiority ideas many times. Perhaps now you will realize how you are forcing Jesus to abandon you for your puffed up ways, your pride, your presumption that you are above others in in your devotion, when, in a sad version of reality, you are only devoted to the demented ideas of your own making.

  Jesus will accept you back, all you have to do is humble yourself. Can you do it is the only question.

  Yeah, it's amazing how many minds have been bent past the breaking point by a few seemingly-meaningful (but quite meaningless) paradoxes, eg "he who is least is the greatest".

  Remember, self-flagellation was/is a part of the priest/monk lifestyle of religious practice to punish oneself, stemming back to at least Egyptian times (Goddess Isis).

  In the Christian religion, flagellation found many rationalizations. It was used as an official punishment for priests and monks, a self-inflicted penance, and a dramatization of the sufferings of Christ. There was an epidemic of flagellant sects in Europe during the tenth and fourteenth centuries, associated with penance and love of Christ, and the Catholic authorities took extreme measures to suppress what they considered a morbid enthusiasm for the act. In Latin American countries, flagellation still occurs at religious processions of penitentes.

  Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/flagellation

  The paradox being that to be a successful penitent, you must beat yourself until you feel like you're lower than whale poop, until you realize that feeling that way makes you better than those who DON'T experience such a shaming experience or you get some satisfaction out of it (masochism), and then you invalidated the practice so you have to do it some more.....

  Rinse and repeat.

  

  Reading the Bible is basically self-flagellating your brain, stripping down the ego to feel inferior to others, hence feeling superior to others. Then you feel guilty for that, so have to read some more.

  Silly religious practices!
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  78

  How can anyone really be a 100% confident atheist given the paranormal and occult?

  by yadda yadda 2 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i don't believe the bible is inerrant nor do i hold a 'christian worldview' any longer as my profile details say (which i am unable to update on my profile), but i just can't see how anyone can be absolutely 100% confident there is nothing out there we can call a 'god' or spirit creature in the face of endless first-hand accounts of paranormal and occult experiences that felt as 'real' to the person who experienced them as anything else in their lives.. there are untold reports of ghosts, faith-healing, ouija boards, seances, spirit mediums, stigmata, mystical born-again experiences, speaking in tongues, and then there's hypnotism, ufo sightings, poltergeists, remote viewing, etc, etc.

  ok, so its mostly only anecdotal evidence, but the amount of it is so overwhelming it is practically corroborating evidence.

  in the face of all this, how can anyone categorically assert that there is nothing out there that is beyond ourselves that we might call a 'god' or spirit creature?

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  King Solomon

  Dane Cook on a chain-car accident caused by a ghost (in fog):

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQY_Mvv6k3w
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  78

  How can anyone really be a 100% confident atheist given the paranormal and occult?

  by yadda yadda 2 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i don't believe the bible is inerrant nor do i hold a 'christian worldview' any longer as my profile details say (which i am unable to update on my profile), but i just can't see how anyone can be absolutely 100% confident there is nothing out there we can call a 'god' or spirit creature in the face of endless first-hand accounts of paranormal and occult experiences that felt as 'real' to the person who experienced them as anything else in their lives.. there are untold reports of ghosts, faith-healing, ouija boards, seances, spirit mediums, stigmata, mystical born-again experiences, speaking in tongues, and then there's hypnotism, ufo sightings, poltergeists, remote viewing, etc, etc.

  ok, so its mostly only anecdotal evidence, but the amount of it is so overwhelming it is practically corroborating evidence.

  in the face of all this, how can anyone categorically assert that there is nothing out there that is beyond ourselves that we might call a 'god' or spirit creature?

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  King Solomon

  Nambo said:

  I work at the Houses of Parliament Yadda, if you ever come visit, I will tell you a few evidences to back up your world view, I personally have seen one, smelt another and had £1000 worth of damage done to my car by another that I managed to upset. - Nambo

  Heh-heh, that's one I'll have to remember to use: blaming a really bad smell on a ghost...

  THANKS!
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  20

  Okay, I admit it. Mormons are WAY weirder than we were

  by Fencing in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6udew9axmdm.

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  King Solomon

  Anyone else notice the banner ad for Billy Graham, advising that you vote for "Biblical values"?

  Apparently Graham's organization couldn't quite bring themselves to describe Mormons as "Xians" (!), but apparently the Book of Maroni" is close enough to the Bible to consider it pretty much the same....
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  78

  How can anyone really be a 100% confident atheist given the paranormal and occult?

  by yadda yadda 2 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i don't believe the bible is inerrant nor do i hold a 'christian worldview' any longer as my profile details say (which i am unable to update on my profile), but i just can't see how anyone can be absolutely 100% confident there is nothing out there we can call a 'god' or spirit creature in the face of endless first-hand accounts of paranormal and occult experiences that felt as 'real' to the person who experienced them as anything else in their lives.. there are untold reports of ghosts, faith-healing, ouija boards, seances, spirit mediums, stigmata, mystical born-again experiences, speaking in tongues, and then there's hypnotism, ufo sightings, poltergeists, remote viewing, etc, etc.

  ok, so its mostly only anecdotal evidence, but the amount of it is so overwhelming it is practically corroborating evidence.

  in the face of all this, how can anyone categorically assert that there is nothing out there that is beyond ourselves that we might call a 'god' or spirit creature?

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  King Solomon

  We all know that JWs ascribe ANY paranormal event (ghosts, apparitions, voodoo, black magic, etc) to attempts by "SAY-UN!" to mislead humans away from Jeehovuh, so that's the category they use to explain. Of course, JWs HAVE to believe in all of it, since obviously the entire premise of God rests on supernatural beings; dismissing ghosts would be throwing out the baby (God) with the bath water (the paranormal).

  Yet again, another situation where I repeat the mantra, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence (hell, even ANY evidence would be an improvement). I need an actual reason to believe, and evidence on which to build faith in a belief. What I'd HOPE to be true, based on rampant wishful thinking and fanciful speculation, doesn't cut it: I could read science fiction/fantasy to get that, and get enjoyment from it by temporarily suspending disbelief.

  The very real danger for SOME PEOPLE who watch fantasy shows (say, the SyFy channel) is that they turn disbelief off temporarily, but then are unable to turn it back on: they cannot discern their own (and others') fantasies from reality, and lapse into a World of hallucinations, delusions, and forces of their own imagination (spurred on by natural phenoman which they don't understand, eg night terrors).

  The dangerous part is, sometimes they create fantasies based on others, ascribing irrational and illogical explanations for what they observe (eg claiming others are "possessed by demons", rather than being mentally-ill) and then subject them to horrible treatments, or put then to death as 'witches'.

  THAT'S the kind of nonsensical behavior that often results when a large group of people allow their shared fantasies to shape their thinking, and a hysteresis loop of hysteria is created.

  Shame that some people don't leave that behind with the JWs, only to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire with the same crapsicle thinking, just a different flavor of it.
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  29

  Are We the Only Life in this vast Galaxy?

  by frankiespeakin in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  .

  well i say the same condition for life evolving are relatively repeated over and over again in perhpas billions of solar systems with different combinations of chemical reactions producing all kind of self replicating molecules not just carbon based or dna based.

  many stars having a much earlier formation and intelligent life much more before our earth was formed billions of years ago.. .

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  King Solomon

  Well, if I DID believe in God and the Bible (and I don't), I'd also HAVE to believe that we were all there is in the Universe, since the Bible lists a cast of characters, and 'space aliens' aren't in the list of credits.

  Remember, the threat from the heliocentric theory of Galileo was that it challenged the concept of mankind being center stage, the focus of Gods creation, with heaven right above so God could observe mankind and be intimately involved in every detail of our lives, giving us his undivided attention. The thought that we WEREN'T center stage offended the Church, as an affront to the collective ego. However, THAT'S the assumption under which the Bible was written, and introducing the idea alien life (other children God didnt tell us about?) is going off-script of the Bible.

  The sheer great odds of life elsewhere challenges the narcissism of thinking we're the best this universe has to offer ("the end all, be all", as Leslie said).

  Leslie said:

  "If it got here by a big bang or some other theory of choice, I still don't see how this would negate the possibility of some form of life out there. Just because we haven't discovered it YET, does not mean it doesn't exist. (commence booing and throwing tomatoes now lol) - Leslie -"

  No tomatoes thrown, as I agree: the time to worry about things like whether alien life forms exist is where there's a good reason to believe they actually DO exist, and not a moment before. Why worry about life that MAY be on a distant planet when there's no evidence to suggest it? And the minds of us humans have been so besottled by thoughts of alien invasion threats in sci-fi movies, some yahoo is going to shoot the darn things, triggering interplanetary war, anyway!

  Thats also the reason why I don't believe in God(s), etc.

  You don't worry about things which, even if the odds are great that they DO exist (eg life on other Planets, which is magnitudes more probable than an all-powerful being who always WAS, and without a maker), aren't worth considering until there IS evidence to suggest that they DO exist (and an old series of scrolls hardly qualifies, no more than a stack of 200 yr old postcards referring to the same God do).
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  697

  Why aren't you an Atheist?

  by Bloody Hotdogs! in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  long time lurker, first time poster.. .

  i'm an ms (accounts servant) in a large congregation in canada.

  over the last several years i've faught a hard-won battle to rid my mind of all religous and supernatural beleifs.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  King Solomon

  ESP when elsewhere the Bible speaks of Moses as being "powerful in words and deeds".

  Even when people speak the same language, existing at the same time, thats no guarantee that they all agree on what words mean.

  NOW, consider the perils of trying to interpret written language that is 3,000 yrs old, when looking thru the eyes of a modern person who knows next to NOTHING about the context in which it was written (and watching old gladiator movies doesnt count). Unless you understand the language, culture, customs, even slang, etc some of which is lost to moderns, it's going to be impossible to understand the original intent of the writers.
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  697

  Why aren't you an Atheist?

  by Bloody Hotdogs! in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  long time lurker, first time poster.. .

  i'm an ms (accounts servant) in a large congregation in canada.

  over the last several years i've faught a hard-won battle to rid my mind of all religous and supernatural beleifs.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  King Solomon

  Uh, outlaw, ya' think Sab MAYYY be projecting just a teensy-weensie bit when he offers his "interpretations" of Bible passages? It's almost as if the Bible is actually a written version of a Rorschach Inkblot test?

  

  (Oh, that one clearly is a beheaded angel with wings that is being forced to have... OMG, that one is downright pornographic!)
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  54

  What is Nothing? A Mental Construct?

  by frankiespeakin in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/nothing.

  http://science.discovery.com/tv/through-the-wormhole/episodes/season-three/what-is-nothing.html.

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  King Solomon

  Yeah, it's goes the point as to why creationists have such a hard time wrapping their head around the question of who made matter? Who says it had to have a maker, or be "made"?
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  697

  Why aren't you an Atheist?

  by Bloody Hotdogs! in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  long time lurker, first time poster.. .

  i'm an ms (accounts servant) in a large congregation in canada.

  over the last several years i've faught a hard-won battle to rid my mind of all religous and supernatural beleifs.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  King Solomon

  Sab, in Exodus, the Bible explicitly tells us that YHWH hardened the heart of Pharoah. God did it. He hardened his heart. God. YHWH used God magic to harden his heart. To make him say, "no sirree, no can-d

  The Bible even tells us why: to give YHWH an opportunity to display some miracles (those plagues, crop failures, frogs, boils, etc, not to mention the Red Sea parting, etc). All miracles were done, pointing to the glory of YHWH. He's like a kid who says, "Mommy, look at me! No hands!!". God is kinda like that, likes to be the center of attention, demanding everyone watch the magic show.

  Pharoah was likely a reasonable guy, and he may have even WANTED to have Moses take the Israelites-to-be out of Dodge, but God said, "NOPE, I'm gonna use him to be the heavy in a great story that someday will be made into a movie, starring Charlton Heston and Yul Brenner."

  So if God is willing to harden the hearts of mere mortals, interfering with their "free will" in order to put on a magic how and kill them and others, what else will this God caricature/character do, as an excuse to show off (for his glorification)? Perhaps he'd create an arch-nemesis to do battle with and overcome, giving action movie makers tons of ideas for really cool story-lines in the future?

  Face it, Sab: if YHWH is the God on offer, it's a really GOOD THING that he doesn't exist. The universe is better off without a 5 year old calling the shots!

  Rod Serling made a Twilight Zone episode about a young boy (played by Billy Mummy) who terrorizes his family and the towns-people with his God-like powers. The episode was called "Its a Good Life" i think, and it shouldn't be too hard to Google for it and find on YouTube. Worth a watch, as he obviously had God in mind when they made the episode.

  EP, tuck Sabby in when you're done playing with him. The lil' guy gets tuckered out after battling with you, his archnemesis.