Apognophos

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Posts by Apognophos

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  125

  CRAPPING DEAD DINOSAUR MEAT....and the religious implications...

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  before man....before the adam/eve saga.......how would you explain the nature of life on earth in terms of sin?

  millions of years passed before man and sin.

  (let that sink in a few seconds.........).

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  Apognophos

  Well. I have nothing cogent to say about that WT article, except: Did they really begin a sentence with "Another thing,"?!?
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  125

  CRAPPING DEAD DINOSAUR MEAT....and the religious implications...

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  before man....before the adam/eve saga.......how would you explain the nature of life on earth in terms of sin?

  millions of years passed before man and sin.

  (let that sink in a few seconds.........).

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  Apognophos

  You know for a fact that plants do not have a consciousness ?

  I won't pretend that I have absolute certainty, but plants are generally considered to have sensations, but no "feelings" in the sense of emotions. This can be tested for, and has been, with no scientific results. Since they lack a central nervous system, it should not be possible for them to be aware of their own suffering. However, since plants have sensations, it's been suggested that they deserve compassion as living things. So I guess I really just feel that plants are lower on the totem pole than animals because of the lack of a mind. Plants being eaten does not bother me, but animals do. Perhaps I'm just a bigoted kingdomist ;)

  Again, not being a creationalist these things do not bother me that much, that life evolved that way it did (regardless of how we view the good, the bad and the ugly of it) is to me an amazing sign of something far beyond "blind chance".

  Well, I tend to agree that things feel too designed, but then again, we're still coming to understand the fundamental nature of the universe.
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  125

  CRAPPING DEAD DINOSAUR MEAT....and the religious implications...

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  before man....before the adam/eve saga.......how would you explain the nature of life on earth in terms of sin?

  millions of years passed before man and sin.

  (let that sink in a few seconds.........).

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  Apognophos

  To suggest that fear and pain serve no benefical purpose is, IMO, incorrect.

  I was suggesting no such thing. Obviously those feelings serve to prolong a prey animal's life. But as Terry stated, why not just create life that lives off solar power? Grass doesn't have consciousness, so just herbivores would have been fine too.
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  125

  CRAPPING DEAD DINOSAUR MEAT....and the religious implications...

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  before man....before the adam/eve saga.......how would you explain the nature of life on earth in terms of sin?

  millions of years passed before man and sin.

  (let that sink in a few seconds.........).

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  Apognophos

  Of course the issue with that view is that Terry has to prove WHY God can't be a God of love is He created carnivores.

  Maybe I can reply to this. I would suggest that carnivores disprove that a God of love could create the world, or even allow it to exist, because, as I already stated, many animals feel fear and pain. Scientists today agree that they are conscious, as we are. There is tentative evidence that the more intelligent social animals also feel familial bonds in the way that humans do, and mourn the loss of a loved one. How could a loving god allow feeling animals to die violent deaths for untold generations?
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  125

  CRAPPING DEAD DINOSAUR MEAT....and the religious implications...

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  before man....before the adam/eve saga.......how would you explain the nature of life on earth in terms of sin?

  millions of years passed before man and sin.

  (let that sink in a few seconds.........).

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  Apognophos

  Even as a Witness, I thought that those scriptures must be symbolic (lion-like ones will lie down beside lamb-like ones, children will be safe in the new world). I believe the Society has even suggested that interpretation in a recent article (although I think they were still hinting at holding onto the literal interpretation at the same time).
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  37

  Awake says in Eden lions ate apples and Crocodiles ate Pinapples...are they crazy?

  by Witness 007 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible
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  Apognophos

  Apparently after Man sinned, Jehovah reprogrammed the brain of the lion to stop hunting delicious grains and berries, and start stalking and chasing down animals, then biting them in the right spot to kill them. This is as opposed to the ancient Smilodon that lived before Adam and Eve, which had extra-large fangs for... punching holes in coconuts so they could drink the milk? Something like that. And the reason they are found in packs surrounding mammoths in the tar pits is that they were very generous to their fellow animals, and were merely attempting to pull the mammoth out when he got stuck!

  Since humans could not control themselves peacefully, it is no surprise that the animals are in the same condition.

  Of course that's our fault too! This is where we get the expression "monkey see, monkey do"! Why, even the animals of the sea, such as sharks and anglerfish, were all about eating plankton until they peeked up out of the water and saw men killing each other! That's when they finally said to themselves, "Screw the rules, since Man is doing whatever he wants, we're going to eat other fish now!"
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  17

  Anyone else in "limbo?"

  by KitchenWitDinah in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i've been out of the organization for about 4 years now, but have been in limbo since i've left.

  the more i learn about world religions, the less apt i am to accept anything as truth, since there are so many similarities between so many religions.

  i know many cultures have flood myths involving 40-ish days and 8 survivors (the chinese written language has many surprising allusions to biblical stories).

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  Apognophos

  Hi, KitchenWitDinah, welcome. I'm in limbo too, but it doesn't bother me. I just figure that if there's something essential for me to know, I'll know it. There's no reason to think that there's some ultimate truth out there, known to only a few, that requires Herculean effort to uncover, at least not if you believe in a loving God.

  So why not just try to be a good person and enjoy life? Witnesses sneer at this suggestion because (and keep in mind that this applied very much to me, when I was one) they enjoy feeling more righteous than others, and because their fears (whatever those may be, different types of Witnesses have different types of fear that they are coping with) require them to hold definite, unwavering beliefs.

  But the fact is, the only truths I need to know are "drive on the righthand side of the road, but lefthand if I visit Britain", "save up money for the future", and a few specialist facts that let me do a job which makes money which puts food on my table. Oh, and where to buy groceries. Truths about God are probably unattainable, so why stress out over that, when you already know everything you need to know in order to make a living, and you live in the most secure time in history so far? Look, you have access to food, clothing, shelter, and even luxuries like the Internet! Aren't your needs already met?
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  125

  CRAPPING DEAD DINOSAUR MEAT....and the religious implications...

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  before man....before the adam/eve saga.......how would you explain the nature of life on earth in terms of sin?

  millions of years passed before man and sin.

  (let that sink in a few seconds.........).

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  Apognophos

  I think it's important to distinguish WT teaching from general Christian theology here, Terry.

  The Society taught (this is never written in modern publications, but it is still passed down verbally from generation to generation of Witness) that animals were once vegetarian. This is easily disproven by looking at fossils of T. rex, saber-toothed tigers, etc., as well as by simply looking at the world around us and how well-adapted some animals are to eating other animals (heck, even some plants eat animals!). Presumably this teaching originated from, as you suggested, the fall of mankind into sin, except there's no real reason why Man's sin would affect the animals.

  If, as a Christian, one doesn't subscribe to this ridiculous notion, then the only thing needing explanation is why God would allow animals to kill each other. Any vertebrate is sufficiently advanced (and probably some invertebrates like cephalopods) to feel fear when being hunted, to feel agony when being killed or devoured alive, etc. Many are killed slowly before being eaten. Some animals even feel grief at losing their mate. However, I do not believe most theologians have suggested that the Original Sin had any connection to this aspect of nature.

  Nowadays, I would also suggest that Witnesses are not particularly concerned with this issue one way or another. The "vegan lion" is a nice way to placate your child when they start asking uncomfortable questions about why animals kill each other, but it still doesn't answer why they are mortal in the first place. However, the average adult Witness simply can't give a crap about animals, so this teaching matters little to them one way or another. Generations of animals eating each other has no bearing on a JW's day-to-day struggle to live up to the onerous teachings of the WT Society on, being heaped upon the bewildered, hairless ground apes that we are.
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  16

  Time Magazine Quote Of The Day

  by Bangalore in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  time magazine quote of the day.. http://www.time.com/time/quotes/0,26174,1964660,00.html.

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  bangalore.

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  Apognophos

  Heh, machine translation is still so pathetic in 2013. The translated article title and subtitle makes it sound like Maribel is a "different woman" in more ways than one.
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  21

  JW.org publishing Urban Legends in their News section

  by Gorbatchov in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  crazy, those fellows at jw.org pr news.

  they publish their urben legends!!

  http://www.jw.org/en/news/by-region/world/saved-from-suicide/.

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  Apognophos

  Wow, that's quite an experience, cobaltcupcake. But your mother ended becoming a JW too, didn't she?

  I was going to say, "I was saved from suicide" isn't quite an urban legend because statistically speaking, this has no doubt happened to many people who ended up joining various religions. As blondie mentioned, the real question is how many people prayed to God and heard nothing back, then went through with it. That we can't know.

  Besides, why would God see fit to save one person in that situation and not another? It's one thing for someone to say that they were depressed and wanted to kill themselves, then were helped by the Witnesses. It's another to imply that God miraculously delivered help to their door at the right moment.