Viviane

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Posts by Viviane

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  2596

  The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

  by cofty in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  yesterday 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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• 

  Viviane

  Viviane, just ignore everything I write, and I'll do the same for you, m'kay? Problem solved.

  You're free to do as you wish.
• 
  2596

  The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

  by cofty in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  yesterday 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.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Viviane

  Adamah, it's clear you think you are smarter than every one else here, that you think of yourself as the self-appointed logic polic, but you aren't and you aren't. You're Barney Fife bragging about your credentials and trying to flood anyone that points out your mistakes when you try to correct others with a wall of text just like Tec, as per the norm, when someone can't really defend their arguments you, like many fallen before you, start the "your're still thinking like a JW" in an attempt to minimize arguments, you make strawmen of others arguments and try to knock them down, blah blah blah.

  You're become the Anti-type Tec. I just need to think of a nifty name for in that regard.

  Anyway, you're wall of text is wrong and boring, Barney. Put your bullet back in your shirt pocket, it's a blank.
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  2596

  The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

  by cofty in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  yesterday 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.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Viviane

  I'm just in from work, will get back to you soon. How about we try to make page 84 an analogy-free zone?

  That's like fixing the barn door after you watched the pot boil!
• 
  2596

  The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

  by cofty in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  yesterday 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.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Viviane

  Huh? Can you clarify?

  Despite the incomprehensibility of the part in bold, I suspect you're simply 'begging the question', rephrasing the very question being asked in the thread. And from your next sentence, I think I get what you're try to say.

  Sorry, it should have read "reasons" in plural, not "reason" in singular. Otherwise, it makes perfect sense.

  However, you went off the rails with the part in bold, falsely concluding my words were prescriptive, and not merely descriptive of the current situation. That's a classic example of the "naturalistic fallacy", confusing the description of 'what is' for an argument that is prescriptive, arguing for 'what ought' to be, as if I was defending theology).

  Then perhaps you ought not write it as if that's what they should be doing, for example "Hence, the theist's refusal and/or inability to answer is NOT a sign of irrationality, but it's actually a step in the right direction, the ONLY rational response they could provide!".

  It's not a fallacy on my part if you are going to retconn strawman your own argument to say what you want it say, not what you actually said.

  That's silly, since as an atheist for the last half-century (who lost my JW family as a result of deciding to adopt a rationalist approach to go to college and eventually earn a doctorate), the odds are great I've likely had more motivation, time, and opportunity to investigate the question of theology than many here, including learning of physiology and psychological roots that explain WHY religious beliefs are so pervasive and tenacious within the human mind (even while many here were still knocking on doors with WT/Awake! in hand, trying to 'save' others!).

  That's an interesting appeal to your own authority and special pleading for yourself all wrapped into one. Like I said before, yes, you're very smart, but so are a lot of people here, at least as smart as you. Your condescending attitude and acting like you are smarter than everyone else won't get you far. (You also commited the anecdotal and composition fallacies in that last statement. Do they give refunds on doctorates?)
• 
  2596

  The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

  by cofty in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  yesterday 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.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Viviane

  Flamegrilled, once you admit you are just make (as I pointed out to you days ago) the "it's a mystery" argument, you just need to go back and read why that was already addressed .

  If you want to start a thread about how long to wait before making a decision, please do that, but it's a little OT here to keep hammering on that when you've already been shown that waiting on a possible unknown ungraspable unknown to make a decision is a flawed approach. If you want to come up with some clear analogies to discuss, you can start a thread!
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  18

  Are Jehovah's Witnesses Scottish?

  by RottenRiley in

  1. social
  2. humour

  my experience with jws, often they were very frugal and cheap, willing to use my car in field circus every weekend.

  why are jehovah's witnesses so dense and obtuse when it comes to sharing costs and contributing?

  has the topic of district convention 'tight-ass cheap-skating' jehovah's witnesses been talked about?

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  Viviane

  Was that supposed to be funny?
• 
  2596

  The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

  by cofty in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  yesterday 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.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Viviane

  If believers are faulted for believing in the unseen are atheists to be credited for believing the unseen does not exist?

  Which side can be said to have an open mind?

  Who is faulting a believer for believing? Certainly not I....

  In any event. I am 100% open to convincing evidence of God's existence. So far I haven't seen any.

  Are you 100% open to doubting the existence of God? Have you truly critically looked at why you believe in God and why others don't and given them equal opportunity?

  If you truthfully answer that, then you'll have your answer.
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  2596

  The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

  by cofty in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  yesterday 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.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Viviane

  If we agree that it's reasonable to reserve making a decision to accept a belief until enough compelling information is presented, then it makes NO sense to criticize theists for claiming, "God's ways are mysterious to us, and there are some answers to questions that we just don't know", since the Bible itself tells them they don't have enough knowledge! Hence, the theist's refusal and/or inability to answer is NOT a sign of irrationality, but it's actually a step in the right direction, the ONLY rational response they could provide!

  Or we could help them to analyze why they've accepted the Bible as a foundation in the first place and how they treat it with special pleading every day and wouldn't treat any other source like that and that it IS irrational, an irrationality built on an irrationality.

  Generally that's true, and I think I mentioned recently when I said the important point is that the "absense of evidence is NOT evidence" claim is valid ONLY if a comprehensive search has been conducted, eg if I say there's a pink elephant in my living room, you can safely conclude I am drunk or hallucinating by simply looking in the living room.

  Or that you have a porcelein pink elephant on a shelf :)

  But your suggestion only raises the question:

  How is a believer expected to obtain information from God, explaining to us WHY God failed to intercede on the tsunami of 2004?

  Oh, it's not JUST doing that, it's casting in sharp relief the real underlying question, WHY is there absolutely no way to get information and why are any potential reason why so uncomfortable?

  It's an invitation to dig, not to stop thinking. That's the only way come up with any potential answer to anything, to keep asking questions. Everything you wrote suggest stopping thinking is the rational answer, and that's the real wrong answer.
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  2596

  The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

  by cofty in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  yesterday 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.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Viviane

  Do you believe that the belief in a superior being who exists outside of our physical boundaries is a danger to mankind?

  Danger in what sense? I don't understand what you are asking.

  Do you believe there is nothing that exists outside of the physical that we can see and touch?

  Your question is too vague. Can you elaborate?

  Are you certain about your beliefs?

  Yes.
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  2596

  The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

  by cofty in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  yesterday 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.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Viviane

  Pelican, right, that's why Tiger Woods, Peyton Manning, Jimmy Johnson all still compete. That's why actors still try to get a Oscar. They're good, why keep trying to prove it?

  Wait, it's the opposite..... people like a challenge and like to debate and compete, so they will. And using your logic, you posting here means you aren't comfortable in your beliefs.