by Francois 38 Replies latest jw friends
What is it D8TA
If I were you I'd lay off the juice, the weed or whatever your flyin' with. do you need a doctor? Too uncomplicated for you eh? well, you can go back to the fantasies which comfort you. I'm merely trying to introduce you to a land less traveled but where the water runs deep and still. Where what you are looking for can be found. where light cleaveth unto light and there is no darkness.
Q THE PEACE MAKER
Edited by - QUANTUM on 9 July 2002 3:42:45
I'm merely trying to introduce you to a land less traveled but where the water runs deep and still
My dear man, though I've not traveled every path there is, nor do I claim to know everything. But; from the 8 years of my study in cultural anthropology and living in countries you've most likely never even heard of, been exposed and studied cultures which I'm willing to bet you do not have a clue about beyond what's in your U.S. newspapers and pop-media channels have told you about, have associates that range from minister of states to the common humble transients on a city or country street.....I do know how to spot someone with the art of "B.S." ...which you, I must say, are nothing more then an amatuer with.
You come to this board, mocking both JW and X-JW with your arrogant claims, with ignorance. Your posts even admit that you have no clue as to what the WTBTS is about, for you have never WALKED that path...yet you accuse and demean the people who have walked such a path by catering with posts that only serve to boost your own ego. You have done nothing more then boast and mock, all with ignorance.
You offer nothing more then what is presently available, and you make outlandish statements offering solutions, with nothing more to cater to your OWN needs and wants....and not for others.
Now, had you shown some humility...I would of not taken notice nor been your critic. But I see an awfull lot of finger pointing and false accusations coming from your posts, as well as putting both X-JW and JW down with negative judgements coming forth from YOUR fingers.
You have made assumptions, about a lot of us on this board. You've made the assumption that everyone will cater to your ego. You assumed wrong. I'm going to be the thorn in your side...simply for your "mocking-egotistical-arrogant and ignorant" attitude. Hope you enjoy the ride. :)
D8TA
I don't know why I'm replying to this, I really don't, but here goes. What the hell.
there is not one square inch that is not filled with life...these are postulates offered many years ago by one who was given the inspiration to understand them and are now being seen and proved by science.
QUANTUM: You are postulating theories that were proved false centuries ago.
Have you ever heard of a vacuum? It's a space in which there is nothing...at all. It's existence was proved by such clever people as Galileo, Torricelli, Pascal and others. Oh yes, and outer space, it's a vacuum too. Nothing can live in a vacuum. Not even God. Except maybe...your brain.
Never mind all this rubbish.
lets talk about the delectable BECK!
(Pris, yes, you are delectable too)
((And Plum..))
(((And....)))
Well, I see the juice still flows. Welcome, welcome.
Hi Marilyn. I've been hoping you'd show up and throw in with us. If you read the original thread, you know we've been having a great time. And lo, the coincidence between you and I. I left the Borg in '77 as well. And I went through a period of agnosticism and, for awhile, atheism. I was in one or other of these states for about 8 years and had landed on my feet as an agnostic.
Then one moonless, clear, cold, black night on the Georgia coast in 1983, I found myself on the end of a dock on a creek in a salt marsh surrounding the island on which I lived. The sky was full of stars, and the Milky Way Galaxy was stretched across the sky. The heavens were so beautiful this night and I was as always filled with the wonder of the universe. And I thought how much I wanted to know. I wanted to know how...and when...and why...and most of all: who. So while looking up into the incredible sky that night, I issued a sort of challenge/request to the cosmos: "I don't know who you are. I don't know IF you are. I do know you're not the god of Jehovah's Witnesses, but I can't further identify you. You must be much more than has ever been conceived of here before. And I want to know you if you exist at all. If you want me to know, show yourself."
One must be careful about what one asks for.
The next few years where filled with tornadic change. As they say when the student is ready the teacher appears. And from nearly 1500 miles away one did; someone I never heard of in my life. And he served as a catalyst only; a pointer. And again for reasons I don't understand there were personal, unassisted, intuitive leaps, rocks I'd never looked under before - or even noticed - I was rolling over and under which I was searching.
Now I realize this presupposes an interventionist God, but from my perspective, that's not what happened at all. The way I explain it is that the real God, the eternal Absolute Reality, was always there ready to respond to even the smallest flicker of assent to the weak leading of even the religions of fear. He was "not far off" from me all the time. However, as I conceive it, I was standing on the human end of the human-divine hose, metaphorically speaking. When I got off the hose, the "water" began to flow, and I was sorely strained to keep up with the volume and quality of the water of life coming from the hose.
And I think that what I experienced is available to everyone, no matter their association with spiritual clubs: religions, or with no organization, or who don't "believe" in God at all, or who are not convinced there is one or not. I don't think there's anything special about me personally except that I got off my end of the hose. Anyone can do that. But this getting off the hose must be sincerely motivated. The hose can be closed by: selfishness, and all other manifiestations of the self, the ego; the chase for money; fame; position; sex; gluttony - you know, the usual stuff. But, you can cease and desist doing these things. So, as stated elsewhere, spiritual growth consists of things you give up doing, not in things that you've never done but start doing. Thus augmenting spirituality is a subtractive process. Anti-intuitive, I know, but that in its self is no bar.
I'd be happy to have a private conversation with you about this topic. You seem particularly interested, and I don't want to bore others who are not interested with it - althought they certainly can abstain from reading. I guess part of my motivation for suggesting that is that the details of this story are highly personal. Let me know.
GSX - Good to see you're here. I'm a little confused by most of your post. I understand that you object to the idea that ancient peoples were ignorant. You may have a point. But I don't think that just because a people was ancient that means they were automatically intelligent. Read the secular history of the Hebrews, you'll find it in your bible. Think about who and what you'd be talking to if you were the "speaker" of the old testament. You'd have to be speaking to a pretty ignorant, and likely gullible, suggestible, and ignorant people to be speaking like that wouldn't you? Apply that line of reasoning to Genesis and what does it tell you? The writer of Genesis was obviously speaking metaphorically, not literally, and that brings us right back to our topic: evolution. Why, if the bible writer knew about evolution at all, would he disclose that fact to a group of illiterate, primitive, savage, desert-wandering Bedouin who had no idea of microscopic life - and whose God was as primitive as they were themselves?
And the record indicates that the Hebrews had no written language until about the time of Soloman. So how were these histories passed from generation to generation? Just like they were passed on by every other culture (for most other cultures, at least) via oral histories. And you know how that works if you ever played "gossip" in the fifth grade.
I'd like to point out that we don't yet know how the pyramids were constructed, nor by whom. We've got many, many suggestions about how it could have been done. But not any verifiable data. Not yet anyway.
Was there some point you are making that I missed? Sorry if that's the case. Can you repeat it?
D8TA - You're doing us a yeoman service, sir. Thank you very much. I hope you can keep it up and be able to participate as well. The more the merrier, you know.
I'm off to the dentist. Back around two this afternoon (it's 7:30 a.m. now). Best to all,
Francois
Edited by - Francois on 9 July 2002 7:32:53
Sorry Frank I don't have my blue creation book on me...how can I offer a well informed comment on a topic such as this without the one and only book I have ever read on evolution?
I could probably go surfing and come back with a few key words and post away like a wannabe-brain, but you would see right through that lol.
What I would like to know is, what is downey chicken? Do we have any in Australia? Where can I find a picture or illustration?
Beck
I just reread my post and realized that it didn't make as much sense as I thought. Hey, it was late and my medical terminology course is kickin my butt along with chemistry. I was merely suggesting that there may have been civilization preceeding the oldest that we know of today, Sumeria. I would wager that the Bible era was a time of dark ignorance which was followed by the Greeks and Romans. I do notice that it seems to be religion that causes these periods of dark ignorance.
Franc- I don't have a bible in my house nor will I allow one in my house. The ancient Hebrews are kind of a bad example because they were nothing more than wandering nomads with a savage God. There were other civilizations ongoing that were far more enlightened than the Hebrews. You will notice in the records of the greater civilizations that the Hebrews are barely mentioned at all so I doubt that there was any real influence from Jehovah. Egyption lore supports the big bang theory believe it or not (man I love the Discovery channel). They believed all things originated from a single tiny source, thus the architecture of their temples which started with a wide opening but its length slowly reduced to a small dark room. This was to represent that all in reality started from the smallest point in darkness then burst forth. I use this example to show that ancient people were allot smarter than we give them credit for. They may have used crude examples and ideas (by our standards) or even mythological story telling but they were on the same track as us today. Just like our day now they had their share of crackpots as well.
The Sumerians started Astrology and Astonomy. They didn't have ways to explain everything but they had basic concepts down and used stories to explain those concepts. One person to read up on, although he is a weirdo, is Zacheriah Sitchin. They even had a map of our solar system containing planets that we only discovered in the 20th century. Although they have 12 planets on their map. They also a have a planet in the place of our asteroid belt and it was only theorized recently that there may have indeed been a planet there at one time. My point is we shouldn't discount what ancient civilizations had to say because we have different words to describe what they may have been thinking. It should be noted that I do not consider the Hebrews or early Christians as civilizations as they were nothing more than scattered tribes. As far as the Bible, it's really not good for anything unless you choose to base your morality on it's mythology. Even then there are better lessons to be learned from other cultures.
gsx1138
There is mounting evidence to suggest that humanity has gone through nuclear warfare AT LEAST ONCE, if not more than that! All that green, fused glass that has been found, entire villages underground in India coated in a fine radioactive powder...underwater cities being discovered left right & center lately ... makes one wonder, doesn't it? Oh, what I wouldn't give for a time machine to see exactly how humanity REALLY came about! Not to mention the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis, which is currently one of my favourite pet theories! (This is purely because I love the sea so much, when I lived on the coast of the Indian Ocean, I was ALWAYS in the water as a kid...I remember being healthier then too...)
There is mounting evidence to suggest that humanity has gone through nuclear warfare AT LEAST ONCE, if not more than that! All that green, fused glass that has been found, entire villages underground in India coated in a fine radioactive powder...underwater cities being discovered left right & center lately ... makes one wonder, doesn't it?
Any sources for this evidence, SYN? It sounds like something from Graham Hancock or Alan Alford or one of their ilk.
