Bible comes alive if we look for meaning behind the symbols it uses

by Ireneus 53 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  jp1692

  Ireneus: Look at the Periodic Table which is the perfect symbol of order, and it is typical of the universe.

  Hmmm, not sure what you mean by that statement.

  I'm guessing you mean the Periodic Table of the Elements (PTE). I'm wondering how familiar you are with it, its history and usefulness.

  In what way is the PTE a "symbol"? And how is it "perfect"? In what sense do you mean?
  

  Hopefully you understand that the PTE is a human invention attempting to help us to understand physical reality such as it is. It is a model that many scientists have contributed to in order to makes sense of things. As a tool, it is particularly useful, not just for its explanatory efficacy but also for its predictive power. But again, it is a human invention, not a product of nature. It was not discovered wrought whole, but was put together piece-by-piece and bit-by-bit over several centuries.
  

  There is no question that we humans have come to understand much of nature's secrets and mysteries. And yet much remains ... no doubt more than we can imagine.

  Even with all that we know, there are things that yet defy explanation as to why. For example, despite the clear overall patterns that underlie the organization of the PTE, there are many things that are exceptions. Why? Who knows. They just are. For a relatively easy example, can you explain why both chromium (Cr) and copper (Cu) have only one valence electron when all others in the d-block of the 4th period have two?

  I would say THAT is "typical of the universe" -- just when we think we see a discernible pattern, there's an exception. Better get used to it.
  

  Let's take up another example from math and music: the Pythagorean Comma. It is rumored that this was a thorn in Pythagoras' side because it didn't fit his simplistic worldview. Did you know that it was one of the secrets of his little cult and that to reveal it could result in the death of the betrayer of said secrets? Legend has it that Pythagoras personally drowned Hippasus because he developed a proof that showed that the square root of two was an irrational, never-ending number. Pythagoras had taught that all numbers could be expressed as ratios of integers, and Hippasus had proven his divine teacher wrong.

  Cult leaders don't like to be proved wrong.
  

  We humans strive to understand things. But often we try to make the world and the universe fit OUR views, beliefs and understandings rather than simply letting things be as they are and then adjusting our knowledge and understanding accordingly.

  Most humans do not do well with ambiguity or cognitive dissonance.

  Learn to embrace it ... or continue seeking meaning in the myths and legends of the Bible or the pareidolian manifestations of "god" such as "the face of the Virgin Mary on a toasted cheese sandwich." — New Scientist, 24 December, 2011

  

  Hail Mary, full of cheese,
  the Lord is with toast.
  Blessed art thou amongst sous-chefs,
  and blessed is the fruit of thy grill, Cheese-us.
  Holy Mary, Mother of Toast,
  pray for us grillers,
  now and at the end of our fast. Amen.
  
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  jp1692

  Here's a butter version of the pareidolian prayer to the Extra-Virgin (VOO) Mary, Mother of Cheezus:
  

  Hail Mary, full of cheese,
  the Butter is with toast.
  Blessed art thou amongst sous chefs,
  and blessed is the fruit of thy grill, Cheezus.
  Holy Mary, Mother of Toast,
  pray for us grillers,
  now and at the end of our fast. Amen.
  
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  Ireneus

  Hi Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho,

  There are many ways for you to find out answers for your questions. To mention a few:

  1)Now you are in Gama brain frequency. In meditation, you can gradually move into Beta, Alpha Theta, and Delta. When you reach Delta you try to see the history backward. You will find earth was a paradise to start with filled with even more provisions (with all the now extinct species).

  2)or you can go to a professional Past Regression Therapist and tell him you want to see your own past births. He will take you into Delta frequency and you would see the same things what I said above—with yourself being present there through each phases earth moved. He will also give you a CD with recordings of things of what yourself said while watching your indefinite number of past lives.
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  Ireneus

  Hi jp1692

  You start with Hydrogen (1) and when you reach gold (79) you add one proton you find mercury (80) [wow, what an amazing difference!] and it goes on … showing you perfect order. Now let us try a different thing with an element having 6 protons. Diamond and graphite both of which are forms of carbon [with atomic number six]. Diamond is very hard, transparent to light, and does not conduct electricity at all whereas graphite is slippery, gray, opaque and can conduct electricity reasonably well. Such differing properties are because of the differing way carbon atoms are arranged in both of them. In graphite the carbon atoms only form three covalent bonds, creating hexagonally packed sheets of carbon and the sheets of carbon become bonded by weaker intermolecular forces. However, “the diamond lattice contains tetrahedral carbon atoms in an infinite three-dimensional network.” (Chemistry Encyclopedia,http://www.chemistryexplained.com/A-Ar/Allotropes.html) In diamond, each of them would look like a triangular pyramid, composed of four triangular faces, six straight edges, and four vertex corners. This accounts for diamond’s hardness, extraordinary strength, durability, a higher density and a great resistance to compression, scratch…etc.

  Such order and beauty brought about by slight modifications gives me an idea what the past of our earth was, and what would be its future. I appreciate the conclusions you derive from science. That is the beauty of life. Among scientists themselves you would find both the groups--one group whose faith in God increases as their knowledge in science increases and the other group whose faith in the non-existence of God increases as their knowledge of science increases.
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  doubtfull1799

  I was going to reply to your comments on my post @Ireneus but then you had me at "Past Regression Therapist" and I realised there was no point.

  I'm very sorry, but I don't understand how you left the pseudoscientific and theological nonsense of the WT Society only to become entrapped by more of the same.
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  Ireneus

  Hi dubtfll1799,

  I tried past regression out of curiosity, but it turned out to be a huge fortune because I got some hidden information which led to the recovery of ancestral inheritance for me.
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  doubtfull1799

  OK, explain please how that works?
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  jp1692

  Ireneus, so it’s clear you don’t really understand chemistry as a science. I asked you several very specific questions and you ignored every single one. Every one.

  Nice attempt at a diversion with the allotropes of carbon but the fact is the periodic table of the elements does nothing to explain that. Why aren’t there silicon based lifeforms, or tin-based? You won’t find an answer in the PTE.

  Can you explain the difference between alkanes, alkenes and alkynes? Why does the boiling point of long chain hydrocarbons change as the length of the parent chain increases?

  You also made a lame attempt at pointing to the orderliness of protons—1, 2, 3 ... 79, 80. But why stop at 80, there’s so much more. And you never even attempted to explain how or what you think this proves. Tell me, why is every element electrically neutral but the number of neutrons don’t always correspond to the number of protons. Hydrogen doesn’t even have a neutron. Why not? And alpha particles consist of a proton and a neutron without any electrons at all. How does that work?

  Are you familiar with leptons, quarks, neutrinos and bosons? I’m thinking you’re really out of your depth and should just stop talking about things you don’t know about.

  You can’t possibly know what things MEAN if you do not even understand what they ARE.

  Go back and reread my last post and respond to each and every question, then respond to every question in this post. If you can’t, then admit you don’t know and quit pretending to know about things you don’t.
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  jp1692

  Ireneus,

  Since you quoted an internet source about carbon and it’s allotropes, I’ve a question for you: which form of carbon is more stable, diamond or graphite? Explain your answer discussing Gibbs free energy and the concept of spontaneous and non-spontaneous reactions.

  No fair looking it up. If you don’t presently know and can’t explain why one form is more stable than the other then you need to stop talking about things you don’t understand as if you do. That’s what cult members do.
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  Ireneus

  Hi jp1692,

  When someone brought the subject of galaxies on collision course, sun exhausting its supply of hydrogen …etc as evidences of God’s non-existence, I had to take something which shows order and evidence for a higher intelligence, thus I took Periodic Table. This is because I have always felt envious about the Chemistry people because they simply summarized pretty much everything important about their subject with one, single page of information. There is nothing wrong in taking Periodic Table as an evidence of order because it is a table with so much of predictability that certain elements and their properties were 'predicted' by research chemists to belong in a certain spot within this table even before they were proven to truly exist!

  So much for periodic table. Our subject is benefiting from symbolic information found in the Bible.