Fantastic, Paul, well handled.
I too am in a place where I feel it's cruel to try and take away the blissful delusion religious people are under...
Interesting discussion with some Witnesses at my door today
by jwfacts 59 Replies latest jw experiences
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james_woods
He then asked what I believed would happen to the earth. I said that sometime within the next few billion years the sun will become a red giant and destroy the earth. He said "you are kidding, the sun is going to last forever." I explained the sun is like a fire, except instead of wood being consumed, the heat comes from hydrogen turning to helium, and eventually it will burn out. The wife again nodded thoughtfully, but the husband looked dumbfounded.
This is, pathetically, probably the majority view with Jehovah's Witnesses. I have heard it over and over.
The very few that have enough scientific knowledge to understand the hydrogen cycle of the sun and other stars cop out by saying - (but Jehovah will just refuel the sun to somehow take care of that).
Right - JUST the sun - out of all the billions upon billions of stars in the universe.
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King Solomon
James Woods said:
Right - JUST the sun - out of all the billions upon billions of stars in the universe.
But they already accept the belief that God created all those other stars, and view those billions upon billions of stars as evidence to the Almighty Power and Glory of God. Hence it would be trivial for Him to refuel our measly Sun, a task no harder than ordering a few angels to do it, and it gets done.
That's the power of magical thinking, where learning of the awe-inspiring elements of Nature only increases the enormity of His powers, in their minds.
Further, there's a strong element of narcissism and arrogance required to believe this Almighty Being wants to have a personal relationship with you.
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james_woods
Hence it would be trivial for Him to refuel our measly Sun, a task no harder than ordering a few angels to do it, and it gets done.
To which I would respond - it would therefore have been trivially easy for him to have created it to be everlasting in the first place, correct?
(it is hard to reason with people who think the sole purpose of the dinosaurs was to create petroleum reserves)
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King Solomon
James Wood said:
To which I would respond - it would therefore have been trivially easy for him to have created it to be everlasting in the first place, correct?
You place me in the position of serving as the opposite of the Devil's Advocate, as it were (whatever the term for THAT would be; someone help me out, here....). I accept your challenge, so en garde!!
Here goes:
Who are we, as mere humans, to question the ways and means of God?
Where were YOU when He created all of this, when He set the foundations of the Earth, when He caused the waters to separate and said, "OK, that's enough, turn the hose off down there! The 'Great Waters' tank up here is filled up to the brim?"
Didn't think I'd do it, did ya'? I went a played the "Job" card on your ass, heh-heh-heh....
King Sol is the Winner, with a first-round knockout!
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james_woods
King Sol is the Winner, with a first-round knockout!
Yes, like the witnesses, King Sol is a legend in his own mind...
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jwfacts
- Do you really believe the new "Overlapping Generation" teaching?
- Do you really believe this is God's Organization?
- Etc. ... insert your favorite Doctrine of Contention here ...
That is a great idea. Maybe next time I should just ask some questions. If you say you are an former JW they want to know why. They then dismiss your reasons. However, getting them to open up to their own concerns will cause far greater discomfort to them, and get them thinking.
Hence it would be trivial for Him to refuel our measly Sun, a task no harder than ordering a few angels to do it, and it gets done.
Maybe that is what the 144,000 will be doing. Shovelling hydrogen into the sun, anchoring the moon to the earth etc. As easy as it sounds, it still makes no sense. The Watchtower harps on about how amazingly the earth has been created for life, with the correct tilt, distance from the sun and so forth. However, that is all only at this period of time. As the mass of the sun changes, the gravitational forces on the earth will change, and the heat generated, and so will living conditions on the earth, upon which it will no longer be inhabitable.
As James-Woods states, if all things are possible with God, than he could have made life on earth infinitely sustainable in the first place.
Who are we, as mere humans, to question the ways and means of God?
I think that is what the book Believing Bullshit calls "going nuclear." Just blow an argument away with a meaningless comment to prevents any further discussion.
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biometrics
Are you going to do a reverse return visit?
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King Solomon
jwfacts said:
Who are we, as mere humans, to quest
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King Solomon
jwfacts said:
Who are we, as mere humans, to question the ways and means of God?
I think that is what the book Believing Bullshit calls "going nuclear."
Oh, yeah. The part I like best is when YHWH appears in a whirlwind and verbally berates Job by quoting a list of His accomplishments in making the World, told from the perspective of someone who learned their climatology and cosmology in 500 BCE. It's laughable, really, since what is read as stark poetic elegance is actually just ol' fashioned ignorance of how the World operates....
Just blow an argument away with a meaningless comment to prevents any further discussion.
Almost as good as when a Xian pulls out the Bible to show an atheist the scripture that says, "the fool in his heart says there is no God"....