"Faith is not a virtue. Faith is an attack on the rational mind. No God of wisdom could value faith as a virtue. Faith is the religious charlatan's snare of choice. The charlatan wraps credulity with in a pretty packaging called "Faith" and he sells it to his victims, little do they know that they're buying a psychological trojan horse that will destroy their rational, critical thinking, paving the way for them to be exploited by all manner of deceit."
Island Man
JoinedPosts by Island Man
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22
" Sayings and Quotes" Thread.
by new hope and happiness ini wad thinking how certain quotes and sayings have such a positive effect on our life.
so i thought a quotes and sayings thread could be very inspirational.it would be nice if the saying or quote isn't origional to quote the author.. "not untill we are lost do we begin to understand ourselfs" henry david thoreau.. " better to never start, once started better finnish" the way of the peaceful warrior.. " health is wealth" source a friend once said.. .
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2596
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty inyesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
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Island Man
"what if a person cannot enjoy their life? what then?"
Then they don't enjoy it. Simple. Life is fragile, fleeting and sometimes even unfair. Life is what it is. There is no rule that states life has to be meaningful, fair and enjoyable to everyone. As intelligent humans we can and should work toward it. But a universe without a just and benevolent creator/controller doesn't owe us anything. There is no law that states life must be fair and enjoyable by all. The fact that some endure unhappiness or even suffering, is no reason to believe that there must be some greater architect out there to right matters in the long run. You're projecting your own human sense of purpose and justice on an impersonal universe. The universe doesn't have to operate according to your own desire for justice and purpose. Accept life for what it is instead of hoping for it to be what you want, or what you have been brought up to think it has to be.
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104
How to Avoid the Faithless Spirit of most here-
by DocHouse in1- pray to god (whomever you may imagine him to be) asking for understanding.
2- study the background about the bible (from non-religious sources) to see where it came from.
3- discard (or at least set aside) chuyrch claims and dogma.. 4- read it, looking up archaeological/historical sources about the places and peoples referred to.
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Island Man
And why do men have nipples?
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104
How to Avoid the Faithless Spirit of most here-
by DocHouse in1- pray to god (whomever you may imagine him to be) asking for understanding.
2- study the background about the bible (from non-religious sources) to see where it came from.
3- discard (or at least set aside) chuyrch claims and dogma.. 4- read it, looking up archaeological/historical sources about the places and peoples referred to.
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Island Man
And why do men have nipples?
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108
Was droping bomb on Hiroshima in 1945 evil?
by new hope and happiness insorry for such a depressing question, but i was moved by a picture i saw of the consequences.
( a woman carrying her child) and i realised:-.
a) it was a civillian population.. b) i don't see how a nuclear holocaust can ever be right.. c) they could have bombed tokyo where all the generals lived but chose hiroshima.. d) the irony after the bombing america conceeded to many of japans terms.. your opinion would be valued..
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Island Man
But I find the religious side of this story to be quite fascinating. Before the bomb, the Japanese emperor was believed by most Japanese to be God. Imagine yourself as being one such deluded Japanese individual and one day that illusion is completely shattered by a weapon of such great power unleashing cataclysmic, Armageddon-like destruction and consigning unfortunate survivors to days of a painfully hellish existence, pleading with others to put them to death, then your God surrenders and admits that he isn't a God. If ever a story came close to the humiliation of the Egyptian's Pharoah God by the plagues brought on Egypt . . .
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108
Was droping bomb on Hiroshima in 1945 evil?
by new hope and happiness insorry for such a depressing question, but i was moved by a picture i saw of the consequences.
( a woman carrying her child) and i realised:-.
a) it was a civillian population.. b) i don't see how a nuclear holocaust can ever be right.. c) they could have bombed tokyo where all the generals lived but chose hiroshima.. d) the irony after the bombing america conceeded to many of japans terms.. your opinion would be valued..
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Island Man
C) They could have bombed Tokyo where all the generals lived but chose Hiroshima.
Actually, there was a significant military outfit in Hiroshima and that fact may have played a significant part in the decision to target Hiroshima. But I'm not saying this to justify it. I believe it was in fact an evil and unecessary act. They could have demonstrated the destructive power to the Japanese by nuking a nearby uninhabited island or dropping the bomb some miles offshore in sight of the populace so all can see the tremendous power and maybe get a little taste of the winds created by the blast miles away - just enough wind to unsettle them but without the loss of life. I think such a warning could have been sufficient to motivate the Japanese to surrender.
I think the real motives for dropping the bomb had more to do with testing this new novel weapon in the field to see the effects on life and property; and maybe to frighten other nations like the Russians. Ending the war was just a weak excuse for PR purposes.
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2596
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty inyesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
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Island Man
"Expressions of love are good. But then, just like suffering, if we are to experience these things and go on and disappear into nothingness in a manner in which there is no difference whether we ever existed or not, what good is there in that? These expressions of love no matter how long or fleeting they will last, will just be a joke in the end, and a cruel one at that. It doesn't matter, if we are just accidents"
The error in this reasoning is in the unstated assumption that our life has to be permanent or have some permanent legacy in order for it to be meaningful. Stop equating meaningfulness with permanence. This is a fallacy. Life is meaningful and purposeful while you are alive. The fleeting nature of life does not make the expressions of love we experience any less enjoyable. Expressions of love do not have to be a means to some greater eternal end. They are a means to an end in this temporary life - if not an end in and of themselves.
Life is precious and to be savored while you are alive. Make the most of the precious life you have. The purpose of your life is how you choose to live it and enjoy it. Isn't it enough that we get to experience being alive? Isn't that a tremendous treat in and of itself? Isn't it something very precious? Why waste opportunities to enjoy it fully (in a responsible way, of course) in order to follow the draconian restrictions and rules imposed by gods whose existence are wholly unproven?
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JW.org to be regarded as fulfillment of the signs of the last days.
by jwfacts ini struggled as a jw to accept that the good news of the kingdom was ever going to be preached in all the inhabited world by jws, as there were many parts of the world with few to no jws.
there are not enough to cover the 3 billion plus people in asia to allow everyone to get a chance to hear the message.
it also was offensive to me that jehovah would kill those billions that had never had a chance to accept the watchtower message.
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Island Man
I think the org wants to stop printing the public magazines altogether so as to drastically cut costs. The reduction in size of the magazines by half, and changing from a bi-monthly to a monthly magazine, speaks to their desire to cut printing costs drastically. However the org can't be seen as taking such a drastic step of stopping the printing of lifesaving spiritual food at this time, so deep in the "time of the end" - not without a very compelling reason. This is where the promotion of JW.org comes in. I suspect that this promotion is all about getting the public to go to jw.org instead of accepting the magazines. The org hopes that with the site widely promoted, the printed magazines will naturally become obsolete (why clutter your home with paper when you get the same info. online?). Then one day the org will inform all JWs by a letter that the promotion of the site has been so successful that most people now prefer to download the magazines and read the articles from jw.org and as a result there is no longer a need to print the large volume of magazines as before. They'll probably still continue printing them for a few more years but maybe a much smaller volume for distribution in areas where internet access is not widely available. The focus of the house-to-house jw will shift to placing cheap tracts geared at encouraging people to start a bible study, and actually doing bible studies.
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the insanity of Sam herds talks at the convention
by purrpurr ini've picked up two that stood out to me but i'm sure others will have noticed more:.
he gave an illustration about fearing god and he said it is like a wife who has spent all day preparing the evening meal for her husband and she hears him come home and perhaps she is trembling a bit out of fear that he might not like the meal she has cooked for him....!!!!!!!!????.
the other was about verbal abuse and how it should not be used but rather than site the effect it has or the forms it can take he said that we shouldn't call each other " dumb dumb" or "knuckle head" .
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Island Man
"he said that we shouldn't call each other " dumb dumb" or "knuckle head" . now maybe its a culture thing but I've never heard anyone called that???!!"
Sounds like Sam is an avid watcher of The Flintstones. LOL
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27
I Offer You This Choice
by simon17 insuppose the following choice were offered you, and you had to choose one or the other.
which would you pick (and perhaps why):.
1) you can continue living your life as it is, die when you might, and that's that.. 2) you can instead agree to die in 1 year in exchange for this: you will be granted access to the entire past and future history of intelligent life in the universe.
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Island Man
I would take 1.
The second option will bring great frustration. How frustrating it will be to gain all that knowledge and have to bottle it up inside, being unable to share it with anyone else. And having just 1 year to live would mean you don't have enough time to really benefit from that knowledge. What use would all that knowledge be if you can't share it with anyone else. If you want to die feeling frustrated by having tons of valuable information that you can't share, then choose 2.