Apognophos

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Posts by Apognophos

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  14

  A really great video on the original pronunciation of Shakespeare (only about 10 1/2 min.)

  by MeanMrMustard in

  1. social
  2. entertainment

  this is a really great video about how the original pronunciation of a language, during the time a play was written and performed, can affect the feeling and meaning.

  i thought it was interesting.

  enjoy!.

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  Apognophos

  In the future, 50% of all performances of Shakespeare will be in Klingonese.
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  34

  A JW apologist writes about VAT 4956

  by VM44 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  a jw wrote the following in an attempt to discredit the evidence provided by vat 4956. comments on the author's logic would be appreciated.

  does vat 4956 prove 587?.

  many point to vat 4956 as proof that jerusalem was desolated in 587bce.

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  Apognophos

  You have to start out by navigating to the subforum you want to make the thread in. Click the forum banner or the Home link below it, then pick a subforum, and you'll see the New Topic button in the forum's button bar.
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  8

  The Last NWT in America

  by NeverKnew in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  so, my non jw cousins have been telling me about a couple of jws that have been "coming over a lot and talking about their religion" (it's hilarious that my cousins don't see these sessions as "bible studies").

  it seems that i've been hearing about these ladies for at least a year but i doubt that my cigarette smoking, pants wearing, no-dress owning, flip-flop wearing, verbal swearing cousin they come to meet with isn't always available.

  i was told that the last time they were there, they asked my cousin to get her bible.

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  Apognophos

  Well, it may be, but some of it is definitely a screed against Rome. By the way, really enjoying this story, NeverKnew! Somehow I don't think we'll be hearing this Bible study experience from the platform any time soon! I imagine the sister would have long since stopped coming if it weren't for the hours she's getting.
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  37

  The year 1914

  by Kool Jo in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  ok...so after this new light came out in the watchtower study over the weekend...a couple questions:.

  1. why is the year 1914 still relevant to the doctrine?.

  2. what would the effects be in they were to ever drop the 1914 teaching in the future (let's say 20 years from now)?.

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  Apognophos

  Oops, I capitalized "Bible Students" in my last post, how odd. Obviously I meant "Bible students" of JWs, not the IBSA, who are the ones that made the actual prediction in the first place.

  Well, Jeffro, your suggestion in that thread is certainly possible. In a way I hope it happens, because if they water everything down as having a spiritual or invisible fulfillment, they should lose a lot of their urgency, and I would expect them to become less dogmatic and close-minded too.
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  14

  Did your parents force spiritual goals on you?

  by Comatose in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i was thinking today about my childhood.

  i knew from a young age that the proper response to a question about what i wanted to be when i grew up was pioneering, missionary, bethel, or c.o.

  i was taught from childhood not to want to be a fireman or astronaut.

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  Apognophos

  I know of someone from a redneck family whose parents were thrilled she got into college and made something of herself. I also know another woman whose redneck family is constantly trying to hold her back and who set an awful example for her growing up. Some people of the lower class are defeatist in their mentality and put that onto their kids, but some are quite happy when their kids rise above their own station. I can't say that is true of most JWs.
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  43

  Not all believers in a creator are dumb, may be deaf, so accomplished atheist explain this:--

  by prologos in

  1. forum
  2. tech-support
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  Apognophos

  As soon as you make any reference to the supernatural you have abandoned the quest for knowledge.

  Incorrect. As soon as one relies on the supernatural for an explanation and lets that stop him from searching for a scientific answer, one has abandoned the quest for knowledge. References and idle speculation do no harm. Surely you can see the distinction.

  Saying "God Dun It!" to everything is intellectually lazy, since the next question is, "So where did this omnipotent, omniscient being that didn't have a beginning and an ending come from"? It's a non-answer that temporarily kicks the can down the road, and answers nothing.

  You're right. That's completely different from believing that a timeless field with enough energy potential to create the universe sprang into being on its own and then perturbed itself into an ordered universe. What was I thinking.

  It ALSO coincidently relies on the well-known-tendency of the human brain to question the merely improbable, but to be shocked-and-awed by the totally and completely impossible, allowing the latter to be accepted as a distinct possibility (when all the known laws of thermodynamics would have to be violated for such a being to exist).

  You should know better than to use those bold words. Now who's being intellectually lazy? You've decided something is impossible with no basis in knowledge, simply because science can't currently describe such a thing. Also, the fact that you think God would exist inside the universe he himself created, and thus be subject to the laws he created, is rather odd.
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  13

  Could remembering what kept us captive in the WBTS prison help us spring our loved ones?

  by Fernando in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  is it essentially unscriptural fear of death and fear of the big a that keeps wbts/gb followers captive, passive, unthinking, unquestioning and blind?.

  is it the unscriptural promises of organisational salvation and baptismal salvation and works salvation that keeps wbts/gb followers on a treadmill to nowhere?.

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  Apognophos

  A lot of it probably boils down to those two points. I think some of us (such as myself) are prone to be self-flogging individuals and for us, it's the second point, because we don't feel good enough to be saved otherwise. For some (such as one of my JW relatives), the fear of dying is bigger; these people tend to have issues with paranoia or survival anxiety in general. It's definitely a good idea to try to "diagnose" a JW loved one according to these types, in order to figure out what their prison walls are made of.
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  19

  The Journey of Humans, Across the face of Planet

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. social
  2. current

  i've culled these articles from past horizons to illustrate the few things we can know about a journey that was unrecorded, its only modern science that let's us discern some of the details and the path via the study of the human genome.

  at this stage i've culled seven articles that indicate some evidence of this journey:.

  the journey is still thought to commence in africa,.

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  Apognophos

  Pretty interesting. I've always wondered about the people who spread out across the earth way before the Europeans got to the same places -- the American Indians, island dwellers, Aborigines, Ainu, etc. Not surprising if it turns out that the Aborigines are the oldest of the bunch.
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  20

  This WT book allows one raised as a JW to do a critical review of the religion and elders can't go against it.

  by EndofMysteries in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i love this gem, it was taken off the jw.org website, it seems only material after 1990 is up now, but it's here, http://www.scribd.com/doc/5472988/the-time-for-true-submission-to-god .

  page 6, "the need to search for the truth".

  says this....and i couldn't agree with it more!

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  Apognophos

  Ha, very nice. I've seen similar sentiments in the literature -- people post the quotes here all the time -- but I've never seen this sentiment written out so thoroughly by the Society, nor have I seen them use the point that if you were born in Burma, you would be a Buddhist, etc. This is good material for posting on Facebook.
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  43

  Not all believers in a creator are dumb, may be deaf, so accomplished atheist explain this:--

  by prologos in

  1. forum
  2. tech-support
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  Apognophos

  Occam's razor seems dull when you need to invent a trillion universes model to just get one proto bacterium to start living.

  I just don't think there's enough information for us to actually say whether a creator is more or less likely than an accidental multiverse.

  How complex is the situation that would be needed for our universe to happen accidentally? Perhaps it stems from a really simple chain of events, like a fractal drawing uses a simple iterative algorithm to create an infinitely complex shape.

  Or perhaps God is not as complicated as we think. Atheists typically claim that belief in a God is less simple than belief in a chance universe, but they have absolutely no basis for this assertion. It's been suggested by some that we will create God ourselves by the time this universe ends, and time will wrap back around to the Big Bang that we create at that time. While this may seem to violate causality, I don't think it can be ruled out simply because it defies common sense. Science has taught us many strange things that we wouldn't have imagined possible.