So in this topic, I mentioned I had a conversation with an elder "D." This elder said that the Catholic church admitted the Trinity is unscriptural. I'm pretty sure this is not true. The doctrine of Trinity is the most fundamental belief in the Catholic church. It doesn't seem plausible to me that they would denounce this doctrine. So I think that either someone (some JW) made this up and then spread the false news, or someone (some JW) misquoted, either intentionally or not, a Catholic source to prove that the Trinity doesn't exist. It seems to me like someone misquoted some Catholic source to show that the Catholic church no longer believes in the Trinity. If that's the case, does anyone know how that happened? Was it published in some publication or something? I'm really confused...
Saename
JoinedPosts by Saename
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Elder "D": Catholics No Longer Believe in a Trinity
by Saename inso in this topic, i mentioned i had a conversation with an elder "d." this elder said that the catholic church admitted the trinity is unscriptural.
i'm pretty sure this is not true.
the doctrine of trinity is the most fundamental belief in the catholic church.
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If Jesus had to choose his earthly organisation NOW, who would win?
by stuckinarut2 inwe all know that the society claims that jesus invisibly chose the bible students (forerunners of jw) in 1919 to be his organization here on earth.. yet, as we know, so much of what they then taught and did was wrong according to current teaching and practice.. the reply witnesses will give is something like "they were the most sincere seekers of truth blah blah...and jesus could see their potential".
so, pretend for a moment that the current organization and the 1919 organization were both in concurrent existence at the time he invisibly came to choose.... which would he choose?
the current or former?.
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Saename
If there is a god who cares about people who actually want to do good, he'd choose the secular community. We at least want to do moral things even if there is no god. Religious people who interpret their holy books literally? They do things because they are told to do them. They're told to shun? They shun. They're told to hate? They hate. They're told to love? They love.
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An apostate's Public Talk at KH (video!), harrassing JWs, ARC update, new light on footnotes and Q&A time
by darkspilver init's tuesday morning 16 may 2017!.....
australia: royal commission has led to more than 100 child abuse prosecutions.
the guardian, 15 may 2017. .
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Saename
The most important three points the speaker made are these:
1) Thomas and his need for proof.
2) Apostasy in the organisation + hidden reference to Ray Franz.
3) No need for an organization, for anyone who believes in Jesus will be saved: "[...] because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. [...] For, 'Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved'" (Rom. 10.9, 13).
After he mentioned these three things, it was no surprise the elders realised what was going on.
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Let me get this straight according to today's wt a person can make his own decisions
by poopie inon whether or not she chooses to shun?.
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Saename
Straight from the article:
It is up to each of us to make decisions, and the wise, right choices are based on sound Scriptural knowledge [emphasis added].
This quote means that even though we have to make our own decisions, those decisions should be based on the Bible. According to [the Governing Body's interpretation of] the Bible, we must shun those who are disfellowshipped or disassociated. Therefore, this is actually exactly like NewYork44M said:
Of course, as long as the decision is to shun.
You have the right to make your own decision as long as the decision is based on the Bible—namely, as long as you decide to shun. If you decide not to shun under the premise that we have to make our own decisions, and if you cite this article in support of your position when questioned by the elders, the elders will simply tell you that your decision is not the right choice because it is not based "on sound Scriptural knowledge." As the quote says, "right choices are based on sound Scriptural knowledge."
To summarise, this article is just doublespeak and evasion. Its purpose is to make it look to the public as if Jehovah's Witnesses could make their own decisions when in reality their decisions must be based on
the Biblethe Governing Body's interpretation of the Bible. Don't fall for it. -
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Review of Awake Magazine: Philosophy 101: How to Construct a Logical Syllogism
by Saename inthis morning my brother and my mother (whom i mentioned in my previous topic when we had a conversation about evolution) visited a jehovah's witness, and when they returned, they returned with the awake!
magazine that they received from the witness.
the magazine is entitled, "is the bible really from god?
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Saename
waton - The existence of all these gumballs argues in favour of a creator, one more or less is just icing on the cake.
This is a misunderstanding of the analogy. The analogy is there to demonstrate why one cannot make appeals to faith. It is not indicative of God's existence.
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Lets be honest, not a little leery of the resurrected ones????
by James Mixon inmaybe i have watched too many zombie movies but i would sleep with one eye open, inquire to see what is your favored menu,do you sleep walk, are your body parts functioning properly (i would hate to shake your hand and it fall off).
your wife never married after 10 years and now you are back, can you perform in the marriage bed?
?it would be hard for me to sleep at nights with someone that have been dead for over one year sleeping next to me.
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Saename
If we tackle this question rationally and under the assumption that we still live in the current world and not in the Paradise as described by Jehovah's Witnesses, your concerns are sound. If we are to assume one such hypothetical scenario in which Mark's wife suddenly is resurrected after being dead for a year because of lung cancer, Mark could be quite worried about the consequences of this, and reasonably so.
This is because we have never seen a resurrection take place, and if it could actually happen in reality, not only would it be an amazing discovery, it would also be a cause for worry because of the unknown. We would have to further research whether the body is functioning properly, whether the person is of sane mind, whether this is even the same person as before, etc.
Overall, this would be an amazing discovery, I think. People would fear the unknown, but this is nothing new. People are afraid of that which they don't know all the time. This is why some people still hold the belief in intelligent design.
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Review of Awake Magazine: Philosophy 101: How to Construct a Logical Syllogism
by Saename inthis morning my brother and my mother (whom i mentioned in my previous topic when we had a conversation about evolution) visited a jehovah's witness, and when they returned, they returned with the awake!
magazine that they received from the witness.
the magazine is entitled, "is the bible really from god?
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Saename
This morning my brother and my mother (whom I mentioned in my previous topic when we had a conversation about evolution) visited a Jehovah's Witness, and when they returned, they returned with the Awake! magazine that they received from the Witness. The magazine is entitled, "Is the Bible Really From God?" dated No. 3 2017. I was curious about what arguments the article made, so I told my brother I would read it, too, and I did. It's a very short article, so it took me about 10 minutes only, which is the first point I want to raise.
If you want to provide evidence for such an extraordinary claim, the evidence must also be extraordinary. If the text that you provide me with to read is of such small word count, it is actually a very good indication of how good the points you make are. Even several-hundred-page books written by scholars cannot substantiate this claim convincingly enough, so to expect a 16-page magazine to do the same is indeed beyond ridiculous.
Secondly, all the arguments the article provides are actually non-sequiturs. A non-sequitur is an argument which asserts a certain conclusion to be true while this conclusion does not actually follow logically from the previous proposition. The three lines of evidence this magazine provides are the scientific accuracy, the precision of predictions about the future, and the answers the Bible provides for life's profound questions. Even if we were to assume that the premises are correct, which they are not, in reality, they still would not lead to the conclusion that the Bible is inspired by God, and to say otherwise is to acknowledge that one does not know enough about logic.
To illustrate how this concept works, it is best to first understand how logical syllogisms operate. A syllogism is a logical argument which applies deductive reasoning and leads to a conclusion based on two or more premises (propositions.) Such a syllogism also must be both valid and sound. If an argument is valid, it means that if all the premises are true, they cannot lead to a false conclusion. If an argument is sound, it means that it is valid, and that all its premises are true. The most basic and popular example of a valid and sound syllogism is this:
1) All men are mortal.
2) Socrates is a man.
3) Socrates is mortal.
In the above syllogism, all (2) premises are unquestionably true. All men are indeed mortal, and we have never seen anything which would indicate the contrary. Socrates was, if he existed, also a man. Inevitably, those two premises lead to the conclusion that Socrates was mortal when he was alive. It is valid because if the two premises are true, which they are, they cannot lead to the false conclusion. If all men are mortal, and if Socrates was a man, you cannot conclude that Socrates was immortal. Moreover, the argument is also sound because it is valid, and its premises are true.
The problem with the syllogisms which are implied in the Awake! magazine is that they are not valid. This means that even if all the premises are true, they can still lead to a false conclusion. This is the first line of reasoning the article uses:
1) The Bible contains prophecies about the future.
2) All of the prophecies about the future contained in the Bible are accurate.
3) Therefore, the Bible was inspired by God.
The obvious problem is that the premise #2 is not true, but this is not the most important problem with this syllogism. The most important problem is that it is invalid. If both premises are true, they can still lead to a false conclusion. For example, while we do not know whether it is possible that humans can independently make correct predictions about the future until it is proven that it is possible, we do know that it is perceivably possible. Because of that, another conclusion that these two premises can lead to is that the Bible is not inspired by God but was actually written by humans who could independently make accurate predictions about the future.
The above applies to every syllogism implied by the article. The second argument is about scientific accuracy, and the third one is about the answers the Bible provides to life's profound questions. The problem with these arguments is that there are other perceivably possible conclusions. The Bible, if scientifically accurate, could be so because the authors of all books were wise enough to know science that we only begin to discover today. Additionally, if the Bible could provide answers to life's profound questions, it could be so because the writers were wise enough to know these answers themselves. While those conclusions are not likely to be true, not only are they more likely to be true than the conclusion that God inspired the Bible, but they also prove that the God conclusion is not the necessary conclusion, which is a huge problem if you want to construct a valid syllogism.
For this reason, if one cares about truth, and if one uses reason, logic, and evidence to get to true conclusions, this is not a reliable pathway to truth. If premise #2 were proven accurate, which has not happened as of yet, the conclusion which leads us to God would have to be taken on faith. As Matt DIllahunty puts it, "Faith is the excuse people give for believing when they don't have a good reason. If you have good reasons faith is superfluous" (source: https://twitter.com/Matt_Dillahunty/status/350305123945299970). The past has proven time and time again that without reason, logic, and evidence, one cannot reliably believe that the conclusions he or she has reached are true.
For now, the only reasonable position is the skeptical one: the rejection of the proposition that God exists. While it may be perceivably true that God exists, we cannot provide reliable reasoning and evidence for this assumption. Hence, the acceptance of this proposition is unreasonable and can only be taken on faith. According to Hitchens's razor, however, "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." So if we don't have evidence that God exists, and if we don't have evidence that God doesn't exist, do we really have to have a position, or can we reject all unsubstantiated statements?
Matt Dillahunty gives a perfect example in order to explain this concept, and to show how it is possible to reject all unsubstantiated statements that make an assumption of their truth. Imagine that I'm holding a jar of gumballs in my hand. Neither I nor anyone else has any idea of how many gumballs are inside the jar. The jar doesn't have a label which would indicate the correct number. Now, if I were to tell you that inside the jar, there is an even number of gumballs, would you believe me? Most likely you would not, and this would be because of lack of evidence. However, would that mean that you believe the number of gumballs is odd? No, you would not. You would reject both statements until more information were found. You would say, "I don't know." You would be unconvinced as to whether the number is either even or odd.
Nonetheless, if you actually cared about whether the number is even or odd, you could theoretically open the jar and count the gumballs yourself. By applying this method, you could find out which statement is factually true, and you would do so without making an appeal to faith. However, if you did not open the jar to count the gumballs, either because you do not have the desire to do so, or purely because you do not have the possibility to do so (as is currently the case with the existence of God and his influence upon the universe and life), you would withhold your judgement, would you not? Either way, you would not make an appeal to faith as you could see it is clearly unreasonable.
If we can apply this to such trivial scenarios, why would we have to make up answers when the questions are more profound and serious? If we want to know how life began, how the universe began, or whether God inspired the Bible, do we have to make appeals to faith in order to have a position? I am completely comfortable with saying that I don't know to either question while being quite convinced, when it comes to the last one, that God has not inspired the Bible. I don't need faith. I only need reason, logic, and evidence, and when there is a lack of either, I don't make claims which are impossible for me to justify. If the tools to research the supernatural realm were finally found, and if we could finally prove the existence of God—this is to say if we could finally open the jar of gumballs—then we could make meaningful statements about truth in regards to the existence of God and his influence upon us.
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Confused trying to understand JW GF or soon to be EX
by James87 ini dont know where to start so why not at the beginning.
i was seeing this girl and we hit it off great chemistry.
it went from a physical to a deeper relationship.
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Saename
I'm gonna be honest with you. She's an insecure abuser. Repeat after me: "She is emotionally abusing me."
Do you want to be with an abuser? If not, break up. I can tell it's not easy for you, but it's simple. Abusers rarely change.
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JW Guide to Critical Thinking
by Saename injust found this chart on reddit here: reddit.
and here's a copy:.
what i find scary is that... it's accurate.
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"The James Randi 1 Million Dollar Challenge Finally Terminated"
by unsure inthe one million dollar paranormal challenge was an offer by the james randi educational foundation (jref) to pay out one million u.s. dollars to anyone who can demonstrate a supernatural or paranormal ability under agreed-upon scientific testing criteria.. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/one_million_dollar_paranormal_challenge.
aaaaand discuss!.
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Saename
But then... how would his activity be supernatural or paranormal if simple nature (namely static electricity) could interrupt that?
