Seraphim23

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Posts by Seraphim23

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  79

  The life differences between a good christian and good athiest

  by EndofMysteries in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  let's compare a christian who goes to a non judgemental / non guilt trip church which focuses really on the gospels, jesus teachings on being non judgemental, anything out of love there is no law against, and they contribute to society.

  then an athiest who if you put side by side w/ the above christian, you would not know any difference unless you asked their beliefs.

  both are good people, who are able to lead lives doing what they want, enjoying their life, and trying to help their neighbors too.

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  Seraphim23

  Cofty it was more than a jumble of words. To love someone enough to die for them means something.
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  79

  The life differences between a good christian and good athiest

  by EndofMysteries in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  let's compare a christian who goes to a non judgemental / non guilt trip church which focuses really on the gospels, jesus teachings on being non judgemental, anything out of love there is no law against, and they contribute to society.

  then an athiest who if you put side by side w/ the above christian, you would not know any difference unless you asked their beliefs.

  both are good people, who are able to lead lives doing what they want, enjoying their life, and trying to help their neighbors too.

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  Seraphim23

  I myself am such a theist. I don’t believe Jesus died for my sins. Not directly anyway. I think he died in order to show a better way of relating to one’s own sins. I.e forgiveness starts with oneself and from the heart due to believing one is loved. Thus I believe that if one can convince someone who doesn’t love themselves that they are loved to the degree they believe it inside, then they can be forgiven in the sense the forgive themselves. So knowing Jesus directly is not necessarily necessary to being saved, but knowing the way and the truth is necessary to being saved and having a full life here and in the next life if there is one, which I do of course but that’s just icing on the cake.
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  62

  Ok, now I know why you atheists get so spittin' mad at some believers.

  by Julia Orwell in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  cuz they feel like they're banging their heads against a wall.. i don't really fall into the category of atheist or believer, but i'll go where the facts lead me.

  that generally leads to atheism, and is why atheists end up getting mad and therefore rude at believers: they will lay out facts, raise questions, play devil's advocate, and reason in an evidence-based, structured way.

  i've seen it many times before on this forum.

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  Seraphim23

  Hi Julia Orwell, I am a believer and I agree with you. I tried to point out that once on some board years ago that excepting the bible as Gods word because it says so was circular reasoning, and therefore not valid logically as an argument. I pointed out that the question of if the bible is God’s word or not would require outside material or evidence of one sort of another in order for the argument to not be circular and therefore valid. Obviously much more could be said on what the bible is anyway in terms of which bit would be valid if such outside evidence checked out that pertained to a certain part and so on but the discussion never got that far because I was kicked off that board.

  Argument construction is a philosophical discipline with many fancy words what would put most to sleep, including myself, but I find that kindness often overcomes this along with genuine humility and ability to acknowledge that one’s own world view could be wrong. However there is an important issue with regard to world views and valid argument construction. All arguments that are logical and therefor valid, which does not mean true of course, occur within the framework of a world view that is already there, in the person, and not directly related to the logic of an argument being made. The logic of an argument in terms of formal construction may work and be valid in form but it might still contradict the logic of a world view that someone has, and this will be not be addressed by the argument itself.

  In a way this a bit like the difference between science and mathematics and why science never deals in proof but instead with theory, theory as the next stage up from hypothesis, whereas mathematics deals with absolute proofs or falsehoods. The two fields of enquiry interconnect but scientific conclusions can always be mistaken or proved wrong. The issue with mathematics is that as a world view it is a bit useless because strictly speaking mathematics doesn’t exist in a physical way as the word does. I guess the best thing to do is to acknowledge that we all have a world view that cannot be proven which means we all need to be very humble with regard to thinking we are correct. However valid argument structure should probably be taught to all children because that might be a perfect world there.
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  38

  What IS the meaning and purpose of EVIL?

  by Monsieur in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  reading about the massacre of the jw family in mexico brought up all kinds of questions again.. from the standpoint of someone who doesn't in believe in 'god' or a 'conventional' god,.

  what is the meaning and purpose of evil?.

  how does it relate to the overall universe and its balance?

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  Seraphim23

  Monsieur I think in answering you question that yes, evil could possibly be done away with. I think an issue to consider though connects with the idea that we are masters of our own thoughts and consciousness, is the idea that thoughts and consciousness are not the same things, because some thoughts come into the mind unbidden. Sometimes the “I” has to veto enacting some thoughts that may not be of our own excepted volition. We all have thoughts occasionally that come from the faculty of desires and imagination mangled together to result in thoughts that can disgust ourselves, which we reject, if we are good at self-control in the case that we like the thought, else disgust seems to be the control on it own without that further faculty. Other thoughts seems to feel as though they are from the “real” us because they feel in harmony with our personality even though no one chooses their personality, and still other thoughts of the rarer variety don’t seem to fit into any internally traceable route, as though they come from elsewhere.

  Imagination for example seems to have two modes. One mode is controlled by something, and we call that something `ourselves` but the other mode is imagination without control, as though we were watching a TV screen passively, to see what happens. Dreams are often of this second type whereas working out a problem in our heads is the controlled type. So I think some thoughts are from the `us` which I do think exists, but other thoughts are not. Both types are experienced by our consciousness, although sometimes at different levels of consciousness, as with sleep. Evil though does seem to fit only the controlled mode of thought, but some people do have issues with the physical brain that means they cannot control certain aspects of their thinking or actions.

  It’s a bit of an overly complex answer because even without evil, bad would still happen considering how this universe is set up it would seem.
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  73

  Maintaining Faith In God As An Ex-JW

  by pronomono in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  as i fade further from the jws, i'm finding it increasingly hard to maintain faith in god.

  i've been exploring many alternatives from atheism, agnostic, apathetic, pagan, and satanism (not devil worship, but the promotion of self-indulgence) to name a few.

  i'm thoroughly intrigued to learn how those of you who remained christian managed to maintain your faith in god and christ, especially after enduring all the lies that we've been told about them.

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  Seraphim23

  I didn’t specifically have that in mind but I would include it certainly in the researching process.
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  73

  Maintaining Faith In God As An Ex-JW

  by pronomono in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  as i fade further from the jws, i'm finding it increasingly hard to maintain faith in god.

  i've been exploring many alternatives from atheism, agnostic, apathetic, pagan, and satanism (not devil worship, but the promotion of self-indulgence) to name a few.

  i'm thoroughly intrigued to learn how those of you who remained christian managed to maintain your faith in god and christ, especially after enduring all the lies that we've been told about them.

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  Seraphim23

  I would advise a detailed investigation into the Turin shroud. For me it has been a critical corner stone is my own belief that A Jesus existed and B had substance in the supernatural clams he is purported to have made. It’s a good objective piece of evidence to investigate and not as prone to same type as issues as are religious texts in my view.
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  38

  What IS the meaning and purpose of EVIL?

  by Monsieur in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  reading about the massacre of the jw family in mexico brought up all kinds of questions again.. from the standpoint of someone who doesn't in believe in 'god' or a 'conventional' god,.

  what is the meaning and purpose of evil?.

  how does it relate to the overall universe and its balance?

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  Seraphim23

  Bad simply put is the combination of two things. One is the processes of nature that deconstruct like decay and the other is tied to sentience and consciousness that can experience such things. Evil on the other hand is tied to motive when related to the context of law and social cooperation and comes from sentience and consciousness. It’s what happens when the physical clashes with that which is not physical. The same is true for good and one step above good which English doesn’t really have a word for that I can think of.

  Bad is what can happen to a sentient consciousness and evil can come from a sentient consciousness. So the meaning and purpose of evil is itself, or rather his or herself. Purpose and meaning can only become real where people exist, particularly in the context of evil.
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  40

  Scratch a Christian and see the Intolerance under the Skin

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. social
  2. current

  a bishop of the apostolic church (grandiose title, isn't it?

  ) in the cook islands, wants to ban local indians who are hindu's from celebrating their diwali festival.. he claims its blasphemy against the christian god, and that because the cooks islands is a christian country, no other form of worship should be permitted.. gotta love your average christian, don't you?

  if they are banned or persecuted, they scream their heads off, but as soon as they control things they want to ban any alternative worship.. cooks bishop condemns diwali celebration as blasphemyupdated 15 november 2013, 14:52 aest.

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  Seraphim23

  I agree speaking as a Christian. It’s a long way from what Paul says:

  Hebrews 12

  2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

  4 In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,

  “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,

  and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,

  6 because the Lord disciplines the one he loves,

  and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”[a]
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  73

  Maintaining Faith In God As An Ex-JW

  by pronomono in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  as i fade further from the jws, i'm finding it increasingly hard to maintain faith in god.

  i've been exploring many alternatives from atheism, agnostic, apathetic, pagan, and satanism (not devil worship, but the promotion of self-indulgence) to name a few.

  i'm thoroughly intrigued to learn how those of you who remained christian managed to maintain your faith in god and christ, especially after enduring all the lies that we've been told about them.

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  Seraphim23

  Hi pronomono, I think one has to start from basics when ones foundation crumbles and the building on top shatters into dust. This being the case one has to decide what the foundation should be made of before the foundation can become better that the one that crumbled. When the foundation is completed and the structure starts to get built on top, such a building will by itself fit into any of the pre-provided labels and world view that are out there. These go by such terms as atheist or theist, Christian and so forth.

  The foundation however is a different matter than the structure, as words like faith and other similar type labels are more appropriate to the foundation rather than the structure on top of the foundation. In many respects the foundation is far more important than the structure as buildings can always be modified where necessary but foundations cannot without the complete destruction of the building. When it comes to faith, I decided that there was a valid distinction between blind faith and faith. So to me evidence was an absolute prerequisite for faith to have any solidity. However faith is also a label which can be dropped in favour of the word evidence. To me they mean the same thing on a basic level. One thus has to decide what constitutes evidence.

  There are many approaches to evidence in this world. Some limit what evidence is according to different things. Of course evidence in order to have any value must by necessity be limited, else all things can be evidence for anything, which is obviously of no value when it comes to the allusive truth about reality, if that is what we are after. Some approaches limit evidence to a materialistic paradigm and others include other things less corporeal. The details of these positions are worth looking at, so we can decide for ourselves which we think has more merit.

  Philosophy is a good discipline in order to try and weigh such things in order to help us look as objectively as may be possible. One doesn’t have to study it in a university to make use of it and it is very valuable for evaluating systems of thought.

  The most important point I would make is this, that what one ends up believing is often a function of what one thinks is important. For instance is one thinks that life the universe and everything has a deeper meaning than the normal everyday meanings we give it ourselves, we will probably build up a world view that reflects that. Of course if we don’t then we won’t and the resulting world view will reflect a different view. So what we believe already and today, deep inside and I mean really deeply, even after and beyond a catastrophic collapse of our mental model or belief system, will modify in time what we eventually replace that old mental model with. The problem here is that our most deeply held beliefs are not a function of evidence but of belief. This applies to atheists and as well as theist’s although many would dispute this as being the case. Don’t get me wrong, most belief can be modified and shaped by evidence, but not all of it, not the most basic ones to which all else revolves in how we relate to ourselves and reality.

  I want you to decide for yourself but speaking for me I am a Christian in the sense of a follower of Jesus. You have the luxury of time to try to get the foundations in place, and also to discover what your inbuilt foundations already are in terms of who you are, that part is already there, but it takes time to combine these two types of foundation and then to build on it. I think someone said `to thine own self be true.`

  Brian
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  64

  Is JWN an unforgiving place

  by usualusername in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  over many years i have looked at jwn.

  in fact barely a day goes by without my fix.. .

  it is a site of contradictions.. .

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  Seraphim23

  The tone to me feels hostile.