'We worship the incarnate God who will come to judge the living and the dead'............... he should vist all the families he destroyed in Joplin Mo. and apologize.......
The Watchtower, Christianity and Cultism
by Nickolas 46 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Nickolas
I am proud to belong to the cult of Christianity.
Another yes vote. A very honest one. Thank you for your thoughtful post, BotR.
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godrulz
designs: what makes you think God was behind the tornados? They could have been demonic (see NT) or natural events. God is not omnicausal and there are likely stories of miracles and grace coming out of these things. Try reading Job. You are too puny to be shaking your fist in God's face and impugning His flawless character and ways that you know little about.
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still thinking
Is science a cult?
Ethics of Using Medical Data From Nazi Experiments
There is no question that Nazi doctors used human beings as guinea pigs for their experiments during the Holocaust. But the question has arisen, should information from these experiments be used as foundations for modern research?
- Freezing / Hypothermia
- Genetics
- Infectious Diseases
- Interrogation and Torture
- Killing / Genocide
- High Altitude
- Pharmacological
- Sterilization
- Surgery
- Traumatic Injuries
Facts about Animal TestingThere are live animal experiments authorized and around the world, animals are now used as objects of experiments, to test a variety of products. The product range is as diverse as skin creams and shampoos to cancer prevention drugs and vaccines.
In certain countries, the law specifies that a new drug should essentially be tested on at least two different species of live mammal, one of which must be a large non-rodent!
Even though the Animals Act specifies that there should be no animal experiments conducted if there is a realistic alternative and yet, almost every medication in the market has been tested on animals. Animals have been used in the development of anesthetics to prevent human suffering during surgery!Understanding the extent of damageIt is very important to be sensitive to the treatment meted out to these lower species. In fact, it is our power of discrimination and reasoning and sensitivity that actually makes us superior. It is disgusting to note that less than 2% of all human illnesses are on record in the animal kingdom, and yet we use them to find cures to self inflicted illnesses that have been invited upon us with unhealthy and re-structured living and eating habits.
Research reveals that only 5 to 25% of the animal tests and human results are agreeable! Most of the drugs passed by animal tests are now discarded as useless to humans – then why test in the first place?
The effects of animal testing on animals
The conditions under which the animals are subjected to human experimentation have caused tumors in rodents, while the animal test results were declared to be of little relevance for humans! The only explanation being offered for this declaration is the fact that there are anatomical and physiological differences between animals and humans. It is important to note that although animals are almost always used in cancer research, they never get the human form of cancer which affects membranes like the lungs. Almost 9% of the anaesthetized animals in the laboratory die!How Long Have We Got?
Luckily for us, strange matter can only be created in high-energy particle collisions, and nothing like that ever happens here, right? Oh, wait.
Meet the Large Hadron Collider. Again.
That's right, our friends at the LHC project expect a lot of weird things to pop up when they start smashing atoms together, and strange matter is one such possibility. That's why scientists have written papers with boring titles such as Will Relativistic Heavy-ion Colliders Destroy Our Planet?, the rebuttals to which were basically, "Let's turn them on and find out!"
No it didnt kill us.....but hey they were willing to put our lives on the line to find out weren't they? Put your faith in Christianity...or in Science...which cult do you prefer?
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Nickolas
The difference between science and cult is science constantly strives to prove itself wrong in search of new discoveries or greater understanding of what it holds to be true. When it finds those new things it rejoices and it changes its beliefs. Cults, on the other hand, strive only to maintain what they hold to be true and ignore anything to the contrary. Here's an example, provided by everyone's favourite atheist, Richard Dawkins. He uses the word "fundamentalists" but it's pretty much synonymous with "cultist".
"Fundamentalists know they are right because they have read the truth in a holy book and they know, in advance, that nothing will budge them from their belief. The truth of the holy book is an axiom, not the end product of a process of reasoning. The book is true, and if the evidence seems to contradict it, it is the evidence that must be thrown out, not the book. By contrast, what I, as a scientist, believe (for example, evolution) I believe not because of reading a holy book but because I have studied the evidence. It really is a very different matter. Books about evolution are believed not because they are holy. They are believed because they present overwhelming quantities of mutually buttressed evidence. In principle, any reader can go and check that evidence. When a science book is wrong, somebody eventually discovers the mistake and it is corrected in subsequent books. That conspicuously doesn't happen with holy books."
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designs
godrulz-
As I suspected the Trinity god is not Almighty, or your god just can't control things very well.....Loser anyway you cut it.
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PSacramento
He uses the word "fundamentalists" but it's pretty much synonymous with "cultist".
See, THAT is where we get to the heart of the problem of using the term "cult".
As per the definition I spoted from dictionary.com, and other sources it is:
cult
noun /k?lt/
cults, plural- A system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object
- - the cult of St. Olaf
- A relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister
- - a network of Satan-worshiping cults
- A misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing
- - a cult of personality surrounding the leaders
- A person or thing that is popular or fashionable, esp. among a particular section of society
- - a cult film
And under that umbrella, even science can be a "cult".
The fact is that we tend to use cult as defined by option number 2, and that is fine since that is what most of us think about when we hear the term "cult".
As per option#3, atheisim can be a cult as can someones excessive admiration for Dawkins ;)
- A system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object
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AK - Jeff
Mormonism and JWs are pseudo-Christian cults especially on their defective doctrine of God/Christology.
Of course! It couldn't be that they are right and you are wrong, or that they are half-right and you are half-wrong, or that both of you are right, or both wrong, now could it?
It is amazing the amount of subjective self-serving judgementalism can be delivered as 'objective fact' when we are covering our ears and crying 'Na,na,na,na,nah' while interpreting everything to fit our world-view. Jesus! [And I don't mean Jesus literally of course, just as a cuss word.]
Jeff
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designs
AK-
godrulz would be a special pioneer as a JW or a jihadist as a Muslim, religious myopic with double blinders.
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AK - Jeff
I love the Dawkins' quote Nick. I might concur with Sab on this though that substitution of cult and fundy might not reflect the opinion of the author in this case. Though a check with Dawkins might reveal that he agrees. Or that he doesn't.
Certainly it could be said that many fundies are cultish by many definitions. And many cults are perhaps fundamental depending on that definition. Still, I am not sure it is entirely interchangeable.
Jeff
