abiather

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Posts by abiather

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  10

  Belief in God is our intrinsic and permanent nature, shows new findings!

  by abiather in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  there are many theories about the origin of belief in god, such as (1) ancient illiterate people feared forces of nature, which were then personified as gods and worshipped for protection.

  (2) invention of agriculture and food surplus led to a new way of life, which included culture and religion..

  yet such views are strongly being challenged today by various developments in our times.

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  abiather

  Cofty,

  I wrote about this new findings just like you wrote about gene-connection of theists. Disagreement is natural between us as I am a former atheist and you are a former theist, and it is understandable. I am in no way making a comparison between the West and the East with regard to spirituality. I was just reproducing what is being observed, in total dispassion.

  Also, I am not against atheists. In fact, even those who are not sincere about their belief in God are also called “atheists.” (Hindu Scripture Shrimat Bhagavatam 12.3.32). 
• 
  10

  Belief in God is our intrinsic and permanent nature, shows new findings!

  by abiather in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  there are many theories about the origin of belief in god, such as (1) ancient illiterate people feared forces of nature, which were then personified as gods and worshipped for protection.

  (2) invention of agriculture and food surplus led to a new way of life, which included culture and religion..

  yet such views are strongly being challenged today by various developments in our times.

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  2. 
  3. 
• 

  abiather

  There are many theories about the origin of belief in God, such as (1) Ancient illiterate people feared forces of nature, which were then personified as gods and worshipped for protection. (2) Invention of agriculture and food surplus led to a new way of life, which included culture and religion.

  Yet such views are strongly being challenged today by various developments in our times. Huge temples were discovered reportedly thousands of years older than agriculture. This take on civilization’s true dawn suggests that culture arose from spiritual hunger (not full bellies), declares David Robson inNew Scientist. (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029370.700-hunter-gatherer-architect-civilisations-true-dawn.html) Why would supposedly starving hunter-artists waste their lives decorating caves with magnificent paintings which give insight into (among other things) his religious beliefs of that time? Interestingly, those hunters were more humane than many of modern humans (who thrive primarily on arms-industry) as they at least felt the guilt of slaughter, which they tried to expiate through rites and art. Modern humans brought many isms (socialism, communism, capitalism and consumerism …..) which also gave them depression, suicides, widening disparity, conflicts that kill primarily the innocents …! No wonder millions from the developed countries (most of them highly educated ones) flock to the East in search of spiritual solace, disproving the theory that belief in God arose out of fear of forces of nature!

   That means humans—whether in poverty or in material abundance—would seek spirituality, our inherent nature. Just like water has TEMPORARY nature [becoming vapor when heated above 100 degree] and PERMANENT nature [liquidity], humans too have temporary nature [materialistic, atheistic or agnostic] and permanent nature [seeking God, their source, and being in tune with Him]! Until humans revert to their permanent nature, they cannot be in peace and contentment! What is temporary can give only temporary happiness! Yet man is not happy with temporary happiness that comes from Materialism, Atheism, and Agnosticism! Once experienced what those isms provide, adherents are forced to look for something better, thus actually become a means to spirituality [as shown by people who reached the zenith of material prosperity like Buddha, Bill Gates …….]

  It is true that some worship God by superstition, some by instinct/tradition, and it is also true that many acknowledge some sort of relationship with the Divine on account of REASON—a fact that is often forgotten by atheists! Interestingly, Mahatma Gandhi had this to say: “God is even the atheism of the atheist, for in His bountless love God permits the atheists to live. Even to those who hesitate to accept His existence, He says: ‘So be it, my sun will shine no less for you; my clouds will rain no less for you.’ The very existence of atheists is thus the proof of the greatness of God!” Also, atheists are freely taught a lesson by God: ‘Conquer the opponent with love. The more you do this, the more you feel delight in life!’
• 
  15

  No Black or woman became Pope or WT President—reveals what?

  by abiather in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  sending a messenger nearly 2000 years in advance to preach the coming of gods kingdom, and leaving the message to be carried out by his followers who would practice just the opposite of his message [eg.

  catholics cannot accept a pope if he is from a black community or if sex is female, just like jws could not tolerate a black/woman wt president, which is in sharp contrast to what jesus himself practicedhe showed no partiality with regard to sex or communityhe elevated a samaritan woman sharing with her great truth, even before he did it with his own male-disciplesjohn chapter 4].

  claiming something as his own, and then allowing it to decay do not befit gods superlative style!.

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  abiather

  Simon,

  That's an interesting question, yet carries the same wieght as the title!

  Thank you for that humerous, yet thought-provocking question.
• 
  15

  No Black or woman became Pope or WT President—reveals what?

  by abiather in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  sending a messenger nearly 2000 years in advance to preach the coming of gods kingdom, and leaving the message to be carried out by his followers who would practice just the opposite of his message [eg.

  catholics cannot accept a pope if he is from a black community or if sex is female, just like jws could not tolerate a black/woman wt president, which is in sharp contrast to what jesus himself practicedhe showed no partiality with regard to sex or communityhe elevated a samaritan woman sharing with her great truth, even before he did it with his own male-disciplesjohn chapter 4].

  claiming something as his own, and then allowing it to decay do not befit gods superlative style!.

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  abiather

  Sending a Messenger nearly 2000 years in advance to preach the coming of God’s Kingdom, and leaving the message to be carried out by his followers who would practice just the opposite of his message [eg. Catholics cannot accept a Pope if he is from a Black community or if sex is female, just like JWs could not tolerate a Black/woman WT President, which is in sharp contrast to what Jesus himself practiced—he showed no partiality with regard to sex or community—he elevated a Samaritan woman sharing with her great truth, even before he did it with his own male-disciples—John chapter 4]. Claiming something as His own, and then allowing it to decay do not befit God’s superlative style!

  Logic suggests that message about system change should happen in the last generation, after which New World would start! Interestingly, this is the style adopted in the Eastern Scripture (Bhagavt Gita 4:7) Bhagavat Gita is the summarization of all the other Hindu scriptures. According to Gita, God of the universe take measures only in the last generation of Human Rule—when the irreligiousness and moral decline reach their climax, and when humans themselves destroy each other—and then He recreates Heaven on earth (which people are free to maintain it or to reshape it into Hell again)!

   
• 
  15

  Truth behind the arrogance

  by abiather in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  in our personal lives we have experienced that it is the inner elements (thoughts, feelings, emotions ...) that ultimately influence a relationships rather the outer elements (what we say or do)!

  these inner elements are more powerful and faster than the outer elements!.

  when i was with jws, it is their stubbornness and arrogance that i felt more than the outer elements.

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  abiather

  Truth by definition is that which remains forever, that which never changes, hence by it very nature is self-evident--is in no need to be endorsed by Faithful and Discreet Slave nor by anyoneelse (this is what I meant by external agency)
• 
  70

  Be nice to theists - they are victims of their genes

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  identical twin studies show there is a strong inheritable component to religiosity.

  thomas bouchard studied identical and fraternal twins raised apart and tested them on religious attitudes.. the correlation for the former turned out to be 62% compared to just 2% for the latter.

  his colleague.

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  abiather

  Just like water has TEMPORARY nature [becoming vapor when heated above 100 degree] and PERMANENT nature [liquidity], humans too have temporary nature [atheistic or agnostic] and permanent nature [being in tune with their source]!

  Yet atheists and agosics will not be satisfied till they revert to their permanent nature—like people who reached the zenith of material prosperity like Buddha, Bill Gates ….

  Tryig to link theism with gene is an act of self-consolation!
• 
  16

  What will JW.org / Watchtower be like in 15 years?

  by jw07 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  over the past few days i've been reading and watching bill and melinda gates speak about their plans for a better world by 2030. they bet that due to technology and the compassion of people the world should improve more in the next 15 years than it has in all of history.

  specifically lower child mortality rate, eradication of polio and guinea worm among other diseases, improvement of standards of living, greater access to education etc.. i'm a realist, so i'm not looking for miracles, but i believe most of these things are possible given the level of success they have reaped in other endeavors, and naturally emerging tech being used to make some of these projections possible.. you can see that the world is actually improving in many areas if you seek out the good news stories and statistics and look beyond the watchtower friendly fear porn about terrorism, and potential dangers from culturally diverse nations around the globe.

  for instance 2014 had the lowest fatal airline accident rate in history despite the hyping of the ill fated malaysian airlines crashes.

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  abiather

  They will declare:

  You may all go back to your old religions!
• 
  70

  Be nice to theists - they are victims of their genes

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  identical twin studies show there is a strong inheritable component to religiosity.

  thomas bouchard studied identical and fraternal twins raised apart and tested them on religious attitudes.. the correlation for the former turned out to be 62% compared to just 2% for the latter.

  his colleague.

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  abiather

  I agree with KateWild—sounds logical and more reasonable.

   My case is similar.

  1)      I was raised as an atheist,

  2)      Then I tried JWism for sometime half-heartedly because of environmental factors.

  3)       Then I was influenced by Einstein’s views on religion and God—and I believe in God and in the reason He has endowed me with, but not in any religions!

  Yet my twin-brother remains where he was in the beginning!
• 
  15

  Truth behind the arrogance

  by abiather in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  in our personal lives we have experienced that it is the inner elements (thoughts, feelings, emotions ...) that ultimately influence a relationships rather the outer elements (what we say or do)!

  these inner elements are more powerful and faster than the outer elements!.

  when i was with jws, it is their stubbornness and arrogance that i felt more than the outer elements.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  abiather

  In our personal lives we have experienced that it is the inner elements (thoughts, feelings, emotions …) that ultimately influence a relationships rather the outer elements (what we say or do)! These inner elements are more powerful and faster than the outer elements!

  When I was with JWs, it is their stubbornness and arrogance that I felt more than the outer elements. This is a great irony in the case of those who claim that they have monopoly over the truth!

  Speciality of truth is that it is always revealed at the right moment and at the right place-most of the time without the help of an outside agency. One doesn’t need to be concerned about proving it. You need only to be concerned with being it and living it. Trying to prove truth reveals stubbornness. 
  
  It’s everyone’s experience:

  If we have doubt in what we believe, we feel the need to prove it.

  If we do not have any doubt in what we believe, then we are not concerned of proving it to others. 
• 
  14

  Whom can we trust? Where can we turn to for protection?

  by abiather in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  though we can easily dismiss many of jws teachings on many counts, the sad part is that we do not have any alternative.

  1) 1) though some of the things bible said may have gone wrong (most of which would not even touch our day-to-day lives), the worst thing it foretold (which very much affects our day-today-lives) has come true: people will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world.

  (luke 21:26).

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  abiather

  Though we can easily dismiss many of JWs teachings on many counts, the sad part is that we do not have any alternative.

  1)     1)  Though some of the things Bible said may have gone wrong (most of which would not even touch our day-to-day lives), the worst thing it foretold (WHICH VERY MUCH AFFECTS OUR DAY-TODAY-LIVES) has come true: “People will faint from TERROR, apprehensive of what is coming on the world.” (Luke 21:26). Despite all-out résistance and fighting by nearly all the Governments—including the Super Power and NATO forces, terrorism is on the increase!

  2)      If we turn to Science, it is also equally DOGMATIC! For example take a very major subject: the age of earth and life on it. They often prefer to speak in terms of Billions of years as age of earth, and Millions of years as age of life on it. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution). Yet when we do some home-work on what scientists claim, we are disappointed! If Homo Sapiens appeared on earth millions of years ago, what could be the present population on earth? Would it not be UNIMAGINABLY greater than the present 7.12 billion? Let us start from something concrete, and go backward! According to United States Census Bureau, world population was 2 Billion in 1927 and 4 Billion in 1974 and will be 8 Billion in 2026. That means population almost doubles about 50 years. 
  

  Now let us make a simple calculation! Though a couple can produce four children in about four years, let us give a too liberal 160 YEARS TO PRODUCE JUST FOUR CHILDREN! Suppose the human tree starts with just 8 people (or 4 couples), and each couple produces 4 children each in 160 years (and then the original couples/parents pass away). Now the history is 160 years old and population of the earth is just 16 (or 8 couples). These 8 couples produce 32 children (or 16 couples) in another 160 years, and the parents pass away. Now the history is 320 years old, and population is 32. If we go on calculating like this, earth’s population will be 17.17 Billion in just 4960 years (160 years x 31 = 4960). [Yet the present population is only 7.12 Billion, and the excess of over 10 Billion would adequately provide room for all those who remained childless for various reasons and all those who died prematurely due to war, accident, diseases … etc]

  No of couples	No of children	No of years
  4	16	160
  8	32	320
  16	64	480
  32	128	640
  64	256	800
  128	512	960
  256	1024	1120
  512	2048	1280
  1024	4096	1440
  2048	8192	1600
  4096	16384	1760
  8192	32768	1920
  16384	65536	2080
  32768	131072	2240
  65536	262144	2400
  131072	524288	2560
  262144	1048576	2720
  524288	2097152	2880
  1048576	4194304	3040
  2097152	8388608	3200
  4194304	16777216	3360
  8388608	33554432	3520
  16777216	67108864	3680
  33554432	134217728	3840
  67108864	268435456	4000
  134217728	536870912	4160
  268435456	1073741824	4320
  536870912	2147483648	4480
  1073741824	4294967296	4640
  2147483648	8589934592	4800
  4294967296	17179869184	4960

   

  Their claim of “millions of years” makes no sense!!!

   Whom can we trust? Where can we turn to for protection?