by stan livedeath 36 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
When I was a child, my dad (a non jw) taught me about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. I never saw Santa or the Bunny but on Christmas and Easter they always made their presence known by leaving me presents and candy!
Also when I was a child, my mom (an uber jw) taught me about god and jesus. I never saw god or jesus but on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday they made their presence known by giving us meetings to attend at the KH!
Same, same!
just saying!
At least ole St. Nick (I loved him so) made you happy for one day out of the year and he always had a substitute filling in e/xmas. Peter Rabbit was always generous w/chocolate/candy and beautiful baskets stuffed with goodies. The Baptist Church had fun Easter egg hunts and party for the children. Those were happy memories unlike attending the morbid bunkers (halls) with all the evil taking place - no good memories there.
Sorry - I keep forgetting that god always has the GB clowns and Pope, etc., filling in on their behalf.
Iriddle80 - I linked into Michael Heiser's youtube but fell asleep. What little I gathered he's coloring outside the lines re/mainstream dogma and the overall subject how the Bible was written for a different world/people thus we can't understand much. I wish some of the scriptural intellects onboard here would take a peek (theists and atheists) for their opinion or a new topic. I only watched some of the first youtube - he seems to have a following and is quite educated in theology, Hebrew, Greek - the Bible in general and stepped outside his comfort zone.
I kind of believe the ancient God's were ancient aliens from another planet. I mean fiery flying chariots, wheels inside wheels spinning and ladders going up to heaven. All these make believe God's are nothing more but things the ancients saw but only explain them in ways they could understand. Still Totally ADD
If god is all seeing, all knowing etc etc then god must be evil, greedy, self centred all the "negative" traits as well as the positives that xians centre on. That's logical....
This is highlighted in the Book of Job where Job shows immense love, patience (the god traits) with the childish, immature, egotistical, competitive, quck to anger Jehovah who uses humans like pawns in a game of chess with Satan. Interesting too that Jehovah tortures Job to the point of insanity/death in a test of "faith" but freely allows Satan to wander around constantly taunting him in front of his heavenly hosts.
Unjust much?
Does anyone remember the video of the two men in sun glasses coming to the door and telling the man that Stan ?? will give him a million $ if he leaves town and then the man asks has anyone ever got the million and they say how would we know they left town.
then the talks about the rules like nothing on hot dogs
they did two parodies . It was so funny i can't seem to find it.
But a idea was stan or what ever the name was, was God. Please if you remember please please post I will write it in my book this time thanks....It has been posted a few times a few years back.
I can fall asleep listening to Michael Heiser, too, lol! His book is good! The Bible Project Podcast on God is what linked me to Michael Heiser. It's all really fascinating and fun to think about. I just try to live by the whole believe in Jesus and love others message these days. It's less complicated and very rewarding!!
just to clarify Scary 21's reply...i'm not god. never have been.
but Satan........thats a different matter.
I rather like this.....I hate that I once believed in a concept as awful as god..............
“A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage.”
Suppose … I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you’d want to check it out, see for yourself….
“Show me,” you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle—but no dragon.
“Where’s the dragon?” you ask.
“Oh, she’s right here,” I reply, waving vaguely. “I neglected to mention that she’s an invisible dragon.”
You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon’s footprints.
“Good idea,” I say, “but this dragon floats in the air.”
Then you’ll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.
“Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless.”
You’ll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.
“Good idea, except she’s an incorporeal dragon and the paint won’t stick.”
And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won’t work.
Now, what’s the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there’s no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it is true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I’m asking you do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so.
The only thing you’ve really learned from my insistence that there’s a dragon in my garage is that something funny is going on inside my head. You’d wonder, if no physical tests apply, what convinced me. The possibility that it was a dream or a hallucination would certainly enter your mind. But then why am I taking it so seriously? Maybe I need help. At the least, maybe I’ve seriously underestimated human fallibility….
Now another scenario: Suppose it’s not just me. Suppose that several people of your acquaintance, including people who you’re pretty sure don’t know each other, all tell you they have dragons in their garages—but in every case the evidence is maddeningly elusive. All of us admit we’re disturbed at being gripped by so odd a conviction so ill-supported by the physical evidence. None of us is a lunatic. We speculate about what it would mean if invisible dragons were really hiding out in garages all over the world, with us humans just catching on. I’d rather it not be true, I tell you. But maybe all those ancient European and Chinese myths about dragons weren’t myths after all…
Gratifyingly, some dragon-size footprints in the flour are now reported. But they’re never made when a skeptic is looking. An alternative explanation presents itself: On close examination it seems clear that the footprints could have been faked. Another dragon enthusiast shows up with a burnt finger and attributes it to a rare physical manifestation of the dragon’s fiery breath. But again, other possibilities exist. We understand that there are other ways to burn fingers besides the breath of invisible dragons. Such “evidence”—no matter how important the dragon advocates consider it—is far from compelling. Once again, the only sensible approach is tentatively to reject the dragon hypothesis, to be open to future data, and to wonder what the cause might be that so many apparently sane and sober people share the same strange delusion.
—Carl Sagan
Stan, I don't remember the name but 2 men in sun glasses walking up to a door . knocking on the door and telling him that he will get a million dollars if he lives town . The man at the door asks how do you know. Has anyone GOT the million $ ?? Well So and SO says so ( can't remember the name ) Funny..... Like so and so was God offering them heaven. It was a funny parodies They also redid it but liked the 1st one better. Guess I will keep looking..... but surprised no one remembers .
