everytime i hear someone say anything about how there are 'no transitional fossils' (fish-amphibians, amphibians-reptiles etc.
), i generally ignore it.. why?
because if they say that, it tends to indicate the person saying it has restricted their research to pro-creation sites that generally repeat one of the classic fifty or so creationist arguements.
I'm changing the bloody photo! I thought people were taking the piss when they refered to me as a female, as to me, I look like a guy, which I am.
Guess I'm very in touch with my feminine side.. mmmmmm
People living in glass paradigms shouldn't throw stones...
in my opinion, it's one thing to not agree with organizations that impose certain rules upon it's members, but it's quite another to turn one's back on god himself because of disagreements.
is there not still some higher power out there who has the best interest of humans at heart?
how can it be denied, especially in these terrible times, that something or someone is gonna have to step in and take over and end this havoc.
nowaytess; great to see that despite the presence of some nice Christian here, the self-rightous one's who give Christianity such a bad name are still in abundance. I suppose you think you've escaped the Pharasinical maliase that the WTBTS reside in, but you seem to be saying how rightous you are on a cyber-street corner here, and I wouldn't want to live on the difference between that and the WTBTS.
Is that rude? I do hope so. You were.
Your tired reiteration of previously refuted claims just show the fruit of the 'love' you have, which is a love that looks for distinction between 'us' and 'them'. Jesus didn't do that. He ate with sinners, you look down your nose at them, and do not realise that you are as in much need of salvation as those you sneer at, if there is a god.
You say "I created the Christian Ex-Jehovah's Witnesses Club On Yahoo (Link is Below) is a place for those of us who still hold Conservative Christian Values and won't be riducled for expressing them."
Sorry, you seem to be ridiculing us, so obviously I am going to have to get my "Den of Apostates" going sooner than I had anticipated, as we will be able to practise your double standards there.
And, whether you admit it or not, it someone told you that they worshipped the toothfairy, you'd make fun of them. A dumb arguement is a dumb arguement. If you do not want to be made fun of, make better arguements! It's easy; as you will note if you read some threads, that is the way it goes here AND in real life.
People living in glass paradigms shouldn't throw stones...
i have been reading terry pratchett's "small gods" and finding myself either laughing outloud or reading protions outloud to anyone within earshot.
what a great, funny, truthful indictment of religion and the messes it gets us all into.
go out and buy a copy, you won't regret it.. i keep thinking i should post some passages on this board.
The latest book by Prachett is 'The Truth'.
This nearly made me choke on my breakfast when I heard the title, but it's about journalism... 'Small Gods' is a fun enough view of religion, the idea of Pratchett on cults is delicious.
However, the guy is amasing; 25 books, and the last few have been as strong as the first few - there were a few that were less funny, but the consistant level of quality is so high.
Does anyone like Bill Bryson? Harry Harrison? Julian May? Larry Niven? George McDonald-Frasier?
People living in glass paradigms shouldn't throw stones...
something has puzzeled me for a long time since i came to this board.
first i would like to say i'm not judging any in what i'm about to say as we all are at different places in our lives and i respect that.. here it is: at what point in your life did you no longer believe in god or believe the bible?.
how many came to this conclution after coming to this db?.
ALthough I am trying to ignore the little pest, when he starts making false statements, either deliberately all through lack of learning or good old fashioned stupidity, I feel I have to say something...
Erich seems ignorant of the fact that the tetragrammaton is transcribed as YHWH.
This is because he speaks German; in German, Y is substituted by J. The word 'Jehovah' was coined by a German I believe. If they had had a native tounge with a Y in it, it would have been Yehovah.
How someone who prides himself on his level of learning can not know such an elementary fact (one you can actually find in Society publications it is so simple), I do not know.
No doubt he will respond in his normal fashion, all mouth, no trousers...
People living in glass paradigms shouldn't throw stones...
to those who have been before a judicial committee for apostacy.. the elders will ask you questions not for the purpose of finding out the truth, but to make sure they can df you.. at my appeal hearing serveral months ago i was questioned by the appeal committees to their satifaction, they even thanked me for my honesty, as it helped them get what they were looking for to make the original dfing stand.. after they were finished with their questions i ask if i could now defend myself and prove that i was telling the truth and not a biblical apostate.. the chairman informed me that i would not be allowed to defend myself.. i looked at all 8 brothers(2 committees 5 & 3) in total amazement at his refusal to allow me to defend myself.
to them(8) it seem perfectly alright not to allow me to defend myself.. wow.. the chairman said they really were not a judicial court and did not need to be that concerned about doing things in harmony with what is concidered to be fair and right by worldly courts or the bible.
in fact the chairman spent about 10 minutes trying to explain why they didn't have have to be fair in the legalistic way of courts.. .
That's a ghastly experience D wiltshire... I think there are few things worse than not being able to defend yourself.
I actually never got DA'd or DF'd. I was fortunate in that I deliberately delayed any JC action until I had not been associating for over eighteen months, and then argued I was, in fact, by SOciety definition, a Jehovah's Witness; there's a Watchtower quote somewhere to the effect that you can't call yourself a Jehovah's WItness unless you Witness in a six month period.
As such, I was able to profess regret and repentence for my actions, say I didn't feel I was ready to start back at meetings and that my wife and I were not getting back together, abd as such they couldn;t DF me as I had repented.
I dare say if their cumulative IQ had been over 100 they could have got round it, but they went away and have never bothered me since.
Oh, I did bump into an elder from an old cong once. The bastard contrieved to make me feel guilty, looking me up and down and acting all quiet and disappointed.
I'm sorry your experience was so negative.
People living in glass paradigms shouldn't throw stones...
abaddon said:.
whether you believe in the theory of evolution, and if not, why not?.
this is the dichotomous aspect of the argument i mentioned a couple of weeks ago.
sunscapes; I am interested in your response. You seem very eager to believe in or to discuss invisable benefactors. By invisable, I mean things that are unprovable.
God, aliens, neither of these are provable in any way.
My arguements regarding god you have read above. My arguements regarding aliens are as follows;
1/ Unless travel at superluminial speeds is possible, we are unlikely ever to meet aliens. If we do, it will be in the form of an automated probe, or if the alien race's technology and biology allow it, a scout ship which would hold it's crew in some form of suspended animation whilst travelling between stars. Alternately, this has or is already happening, and we are going to meet the alien equivalent of the Mayflower at some point. This will be unpleasent for us.
However, if FTL travel is not possible, it is unlikely, given the likely frequency of planets of similar habital qualities, that aliens would bother to invade a planet with sophont life, as it would just make the extraordinary difficulties of such an enterprise even more extraordinary.
It has to be said there is no evidenece for such scouting activity or automated probes, other than that of the most anecdotal nature.
2/ If FTL travel is possible, then we will meet aliens at some point, unless by some vastly unlikely chance there are no others, or we destroy ourselves before meeting them. Some people argue this has already happened.
These claims vary in their nature; a) aliens guided human evolution, and may still be watching; the '2001: A Space Oddessy' idea; b) aliens are infiltrating human society or spying on us, preparing for an invasion; c) aliens are observing humans to decide when to allow us to join a peaceful federation of planets; d) aliens are studying us as we would study chimpanzees; e) teenage aliens are stealing their parent flying saucers and are parading up and down in front of pig farmers in Alabama wearing alien suits and going 'gleep geep' as a form of prank or teenage high-jinks, probably taping the encounter and sending it to the 3D show "Z'kj;kj;kj;~gdiw#qefho@iwe22+afesas", which consists of such clips.
a) is making god into aliens and is unprovable.
If FTL travel is possible, there is a realm of manipulation of physical laws yet to be discovered. A civilisation that could wharp space could observe unobserved. Thus b), c) and d) are unlikely, and there is no evidence for them.
The only one that matches the available 'evidence' is the last option, e), but all such evidence is anecdotal.
Based on this, we probably haven't met aliens yet. If we do, they will probably contact the UN formally first, or if they are not friendly, make the kick-ass delivered to the Taliban in Afghanistan look like a blow..., er, like something very nice.
I find gaining a greater understanding of what can be known to some extent accurateley far more profitable and enjoyable than basing my hopes on things that live in the sky we can't prove (a loose term that fits god and aliens). Of course, idle speculation can be fun, but I keep bouncing off walls of likelihood.
However, when I see someone jumping from a discussion of one insubstansiatable belief to another, I find myself wondering what is so terrible in their life they have to stare at shadows. I hope I am wrong.
People living in glass paradigms shouldn't throw stones...
everytime i hear someone say anything about how there are 'no transitional fossils' (fish-amphibians, amphibians-reptiles etc.
), i generally ignore it.. why?
because if they say that, it tends to indicate the person saying it has restricted their research to pro-creation sites that generally repeat one of the classic fifty or so creationist arguements.
I completely missed some of these replies, sorry...
Nice point about the bones in a coffin, I'd heard the same lie. Haven't got past No.12 as I've had a busy week at work and spent far too much time here. I 've also been thinking about forming a club online where we can bitch about morons. The morons would be allowed to join too, but could hardly complain if they got offended. And booting would occur ONLY if someone was boring. Just like a decent party.
I've actually set it up at Yahoo!, but haven't had time to do anything to it yet.
unclepenn; don't be an ass. There is a difference between a person's intelligence and a person's education. I have known very intelligent people without good educations. I've also known well educated fools. You want to deliberately distort what I say, go ahead. I think most people are intelligent enough to see that for what it is.
Rex; oh, please. Didn't you run away from the last evolution discussion? And the last discussion about the existence of god? Why don't you post something concrete, you have this huge amount of evidence, give us URL's or abstracts of material not available online. If you don't, you're a liar, and who's your Daddy then?
People living in glass paradigms shouldn't throw stones...
Wow, what a convincing argument.
I see the error of my ways.
God put the jump leads on my ickle fetal heart and jump started my life, and a little fairy angel runing on a treadmill keeps it beating...
Sorry to be sarcastic IWish4Truth, but if you post drivle, you get what you deserve. The truth is you need to read a few books.
The heart starts beating at x weeks of pregnancy. It's a natural biological process, as it it continued beating.
People living in glass paradigms shouldn't throw stones...
something has puzzeled me for a long time since i came to this board.
first i would like to say i'm not judging any in what i'm about to say as we all are at different places in our lives and i respect that.. here it is: at what point in your life did you no longer believe in god or believe the bible?.
how many came to this conclution after coming to this db?.
gumby, you put that quite nicely, so let me answer you in a moderate way;
At what point in your life did you no longer believe in God or believe the bible?I left in '93, basically as I was unhappy and it felt all wrong. I still believed in god and prayed.
I started examining my worldview that same year, as I went to College, and started four years of science education. This proved to me, fairly conclusively, that the standard set of criticisms about evolution were usually made by people who did not have a science education of any depth, or by people who had an initiating mindset that meant they selectively interpreted data to support that initiating mindset.
I first encountered other JW's online at www.support4xjws.org in '96 or '97. By this point I was an atheist. This opinion has simply deepened. I have never seen a creationist 'win' an online debate; these debates tend to follow a pattern.
Very often they end with the creationist entrenched in circular logic, or with the creationist refusing to accept scientific reasoning or methodology, or with the creationist citing false or misleading evidnece (that they may belieev genuine), or with the creationist simply running away from the arguement. Examine the threads and form your opinion, but do so with an open mind, otherwsie there is no point. Evaluate each arguement on its own merits, not on whether it agrees with your current beliefs. Remember, god will not exist just because you believe in it.
May I point out your question betrays elements of the cultic mindset you are seeking to escape? You ask "How many came to this conclution AFTER coming to this db?" as though you still believe that 'bad associations' spoil useful habits, as if our 'apostacy' might contaminate others by simply coming here.
Truth does not need to be hidden or protected. If you come here, and read what you find here, and still believe in god, it is because it is right for you and that is wonderful. If you come here and come to a point in your life where you realise that there is no god, that is equally wonderful. Look at this thread http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.asp?id=16693&page=3&site=3 - that's actually the last page of it, but read it through. It shows typical creationist arguementation AND the fact one can retain a belief in god (my discussion with Frenchy).
I understand you have the best motives in wishing to protect those you hold dear, but surely by doing this you are making a decision THEY should make. Remember, you don't need to protect truth. As the Beatles said 'living is easy with eyes closed'. Open your eyes, I don't care if you end up believing in god or not, just as long as you are not fooling yourself.
Please do not fall into the easy, cultic mindset or supposing that xJW's who become atheists do so for any other reason other than there being no evidence for god. Also, realise that believing in evolution or creation has NOTHING to do with whether you believe in god or not. My disbelief in god is seperate from my belief in eviolution. Do not assume the Bible is a literal book; you made other mistaken assumptions, and one way to marry your belief in god and a reasonable scientific viewpoint is to realise that at best the Bible is a glimpse of something greater, in the language of the times it was written
Read the threads, ask questions, keep an open mind.
(edited for mangled sentence, sorry for typos, time limited)
People living in glass paradigms shouldn't throw stones...
in my opinion, it's one thing to not agree with organizations that impose certain rules upon it's members, but it's quite another to turn one's back on god himself because of disagreements.
is there not still some higher power out there who has the best interest of humans at heart?
how can it be denied, especially in these terrible times, that something or someone is gonna have to step in and take over and end this havoc.
RR; You funny guy! You shoot self in foot! You not feel it as brain on holiday!
As to my being Christians, consider, because of my beliefs, most orthodox christians will still consider me a cult member.No, no, most 'orthodox' human beings (the ones who talk out their mouths) would consider you a cult memeber as your arguement for the existence of god consists of saying there is one.
C o g n i t i v e D i s s o n a n c e ! !
Do you even know what that means?
My problem is not so much with ex-witnesses "throwing out the baby with the bathwater" it's more with those who want to blame the Society for EVERYTHING gone wrong in their life.Ah, but we weren't talking about that, were we? We were discussing about how not believeing in god and not believing that JW's are the truth are two different things.Beating their chesting crying out "woe is me!" Hey, the Society made rules, either you broke them, or decided not to play by them, and so you all paid the price. Everyone has rules, you don't like it leave, and stop whining about what your life could have been, and GET A LIFE!!!!
One thing. Two things. Different. See?
Now, you introduce a third thing, that xJW's blame everything on the WTBTS.
Nobody was talking about that, silly, or are you trying to change the subject as you have no-where to go with the initial lame postulate of this thread?
Also, it's not even true. I don't detect any great amount of chest beating by people saying 'woe is me'. I think you're lying, as well as changing the subject as your losing. It seems people are jumping up and down saying 'I've never been happier', or 'how can we help people still in that damned cult', both indications of having a life.
Your logic regarding rules is truely dire; I suppose Jews in Nazi Germany should have just left. Please make sense or go away.
Sean; Yahoo!! I lovely post!!
"Perhaps he was saying it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you're acting divinely, or being God."
Yup, I agree, and very nicely put, AND I'm an atheist...
People living in glass paradigms shouldn't throw stones...
