Posts by Gadget

5

An amusing T-Shirt

by TheSilence in

i'm not sure if i've done the picture thing right, but if it works it's amusing ;).

jackie.

Issuing a Challenge to Atheists and Unbelievers, part II (get your popcorn)

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

question for atheists and unbelievers alike part ii in our last discussion, the focus of attention was whether or not.

there existed a possibility that god existed based on the fact.

that there are a number of claims and reports of individuals .

Gadget

Do you think that the possibility exists that there is
life on other planets? What about UFO's?

Of course the possibility exists. Its relatively easy to prove something like this, because all you have to is find one example of it and it is proved without a doubt. However to disprove it you would have to examine every single planet in existance, not realistically possible.

could there be a chance that
God exists as well?

Of course there is a chance that god exists, however I feel that that chance is so small that it is negligable.

19

2520 Years

by goodgifts in

hi,.

2520 years based on the prophetic year length of 360 days = 907200 days.. 907200 days from 607 bce = 1878 ce thereabouts +/- leap months etc and any other bits ive missed.. surely i've not missed that many "bits" to be 36 years off 1914??.

have i got this right?.

Gadget

Doesn't this put it into the same sort of time as the watchtower was formed? I'm just wondering what sort of new light spin could be put onto that!

149

Issuing a Challenge to Atheists and Unbelievers

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

questions for the atheists and unbelievers understandably, individuals who have left the organization did so for.

personal and more than likely good reasons.

and after reading the .

Gadget

Would Jesus the Christ fall under paranormal? He came from the invisible to the earth as man and returned back into invisible and many people saw him return to the invisible. Is that proof of Pararnormal?

Could this not count as UFO's also? He did apparently come down, and return to, the heavens. How many biblical miracles could be explained/recreated by somebody with access to advanced modern technology?

149

Issuing a Challenge to Atheists and Unbelievers

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

questions for the atheists and unbelievers understandably, individuals who have left the organization did so for.

personal and more than likely good reasons.

and after reading the .

Gadget

Yes, it could be true that there is no God. And an
open-minded person would have to accept that. I can
accept that maybe true, however, on the other hand
I leave open the possibility of a higher being.

P.S. I used the Illustration of the paranormal
because if that possibility exists then, perhaps,
there could be a Creator.

Maybe, I should have used UFO's instead. LOL

Peace,

The Wanderer

I suppose this would depend on what definition you put on 'god'. If you go with a traditional religous view of a supreme all powerful god, then verifying the existance of UFO's or the supernatural would have no impact on whether or not I believed god exists.

However, if you define 'god' as a higher being I find that a totally different prospect. I think that to think we are the top of the tree/food chain/supreme being would be a very arrogant belief.

But just because something out there may be a higher being than us humans, does that mean they are our god? Human beings may be a higher being compared to domestic animal, but does that mean my pet cat thinks I'm god?

Basically, I found the topic of discussion
a little disappointing. Why? Because an
individual who claims to be open-minded
would at least allow for the possibility
of a creator or higher power.

And I think most people on here have open minded enough to admit that it is theoretically possible for god to exist, just that they don't think its very likely.

149

Issuing a Challenge to Atheists and Unbelievers

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

questions for the atheists and unbelievers understandably, individuals who have left the organization did so for.

personal and more than likely good reasons.

and after reading the .

Gadget

According to my way of thinking, to deny the possibility that
God exists is a closed-minded position

Damn right. But while I accept the fact that it is possible that god exists, I think the likelyhood of god existing is neglible.

Being an atheist or an unbeliever how do you explain the thousands
of paranormal phenomena that are well documented in nearly every
country in the world?

Just because you can't explain something doesn't mean that god or another higher being is behind it. I couldn't explain the process that makes something I put in the microwave come out hot, but that doesn't make me think that god is heating it up for me.

22

Report of bin Laden's death...

by Funchback in

i don't know if it's true or not.. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14963302/.

french paper says bin laden died in pakistansaudi arabia is convinced al-qaida leader died of typhoid, paper saysupdated: 48 minutes agoparis - a french regional newspaper quoted a french secret service report on saturday as saying that saudi arabia is convinced that al-qaida leader osama bin laden died of typhoid in pakistan last month.. l'est republicain printed what it said was a copy of the report dated sept. 21 and said it was shown to president jacques chirac, prime minister dominique de villepin and france's interior and defense ministers on the same day.

according to a usually reliable source, the saudi services are now convinced that osama bin laden is dead, the document said.. the information gathered by the saudis indicates that the head of al-qaida was a victim while he was in pakistan on aug. 23, 2006, of a very serious case of typhoid which led to a partial paralysis of his internal organs.. the report, which was stamped with a confidential defense label and the initials of the french secret service, said saudi arabia first heard the information on sept. 4 and that it was waiting for more details before making an official announcement.. officials contacted by reuters in chirac's and villepin's offices had no immediate comment.. a senior official in pakistan's interior ministry said: "we have no information about osama's death.".

Gadget

Would this not just turn him into a martyr in the eyes of the extremists, and so make them try even harder?

8

US Extraordinary Rendition Program--good idea or bad idea?

by Merry Magdalene in

toronto, sept. 18 - canadian intelligence officials passed false warnings and bad information to american agents about a muslim canadian citizen, after which u.s. authorities secretly whisked him to syria, where he was tortured, a judicial report found monday.. the report, released in ottawa, was the result of a 2 1/2-year inquiry that represented one of the first public investigations into mistakes made as part of the united states' "extraordinary rendition" program, which has secretly spirited suspects to foreign countries for interrogation by often brutal methods.. .

oh well, he was just a muslim so who cares, right?

more justifiable "collateral damage" in the war on terror.

Gadget

Oh well, he was just a Muslim so who cares, right? More justifiable "collateral damage" in the war on terror.
Just be glad this could never happen to you because you're not one of "them" and everyone knows "they" are all evil or will become so if push comes to shove...right?

To me the problem is not a religious intolerance one, but the fact that this sort of thing happens.

Individually people can strive to do the right thing, but collectively the result can be catestrophic. Through my job I've seen this sort of thing happen in security departments before. People are under so much pressure to get a result, they only look at the information in front of them to make a decision, instead of looking at the bigger picture. Its not nice, certainly shouldn't happen, but does a lot more than people realise. Its cause is more to do with office politics than any racial/religous intolerance. I feel for this man and what he has been through.

78

Muslims demonstrate that they are not violent by firebombing churches

by Elsewhere in

jw
friends

as i said in another post: actions speak louder than words.

muslims were angered by the pope's quoting a 14th century writer who said that muslims are violent in nature.. in order to disprove this statement many muslims took too the streets shouting violent slogans and burned an effigy of the pope.

still more muslims demonstrated that they are not violent by firebombing random churches.. yup... actions speak louder than words.

Gadget

I'm sure that the idea of living under this type of Islamic Law chills us all to the bone but it's not much different to what Ancient Israelites were subjected to.
Not much different to the world we hoped for and so zealously preached about.
Whiskey anyone??
Lowden

I think that this is a good point. Is the problem that the protesters are muslim, or that they are fundamentalists? We all know the damage that fundamentalists can cause from our own experiences with the watchtower, but does that cause us to campaign against all Christianity? The Islamic fundamentalists only represent a minority (even if they can have a large effect), so should we make blanket statements about muslims in general? I think that the problem is not what the people believe, but the way that they practice it. Christian fundamentalists can be just as destructive as Islamic fundamentalists. Perhaps we should concentrate more on peoples actions than their beliefs.

7

Young Baptism Candidates

by Gordy in

jw
friends

had a visit today from my youngest daughter (17) a non-jw.

lives with her jw mother.my wife.. the circuit had their assembly last weekend.

her mother told her they had 12 baptised.

Gadget

the average age was 14

I wonder how their parents would feel if they were getting married instead of getting baptised. My parents would have done everything they could to stop me marrying at such an age because they felt I was too young/emotionally immature to make a lifelong commitment to someone. They had no problem with me getting baptised though.