Hello reporter,
The religion has many problems, not the least of which is arbitrary and often uncompassionate handling of things like you mention. Most of us have experienced it in one form or another.
Welcome to the board!
SNG
seattleniceguy
JoinedPosts by seattleniceguy
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is this religion decscriminating?
by reporter123 ini have some family in iowa that is having trouble with in thier religion.
the father was a good man who raised his children and was both father and mother to his kids while the wife yelled and screamed and hit all of them.she is also disabled so the father did his best to help her but still she would constintly hurt all three of them and well after years of this abuse it seems the father felt it would be safer for his children if he and his wife split up.
he eventually found a another girl and well one thing leads to another and he is disfellowshipped for not breaking up with this girl.
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DNA - belief destuction
by donkey inthe single largest reason to decimate my belief in jw?s and all biblical faith occurred when i discovered some facts about our cells.
specifically a part of the cell called mitochondria.
mitochondria are sometimes described as "cellular power plants" because their primary purpose is to manufacture adenosine triphosphate (atp), which is used as a source of energy that the cell uses.. as humans one inherits one?s mitochondria only from one's mother, this finding implies that all living humans have a female line of descent from a woman whom researchers have dubbed mitochondrial eve.
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seattleniceguy
a Christian:
You must have me mixed up with someone else here. I accept all the facts of evolution. I believe God used evolution as His means of creation. I believe all life on earth evolved from a common microscopic ancestor which first appeared on earth some 3.8 billion years ago.
My apologies. Looks like I was preaching to the choir on that one. My bad. :-) How'd you like my revamped Genesis?
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DNA - belief destuction
by donkey inthe single largest reason to decimate my belief in jw?s and all biblical faith occurred when i discovered some facts about our cells.
specifically a part of the cell called mitochondria.
mitochondria are sometimes described as "cellular power plants" because their primary purpose is to manufacture adenosine triphosphate (atp), which is used as a source of energy that the cell uses.. as humans one inherits one?s mitochondria only from one's mother, this finding implies that all living humans have a female line of descent from a woman whom researchers have dubbed mitochondrial eve.
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seattleniceguy
a Christian:
Actually, I was "laboring" under neither of those impressions, but I found it interesting to have it cleary enunciated that 1) you do not expect the Bible to be understandable by all readers, and 2) you do not believe the Bible is written in such a way that would prove to readers it is the word of God.
I've heard this argument about the Bible only being understandable with the help of God's Holy Spirit, to those with hearts inclined toward God, etc, etc, more times that you can possibly imagine. And I'll tell you what: it's baloney. I tried to be a Christian in the most sincere way possible, I prayed to God regularly, and I read the Bible diligently, but it was this book itself that forced me to stop believing it was anything else that a bunch of hogwash, to put it so bluntly.
Secondly, you openly say that the entire Bible is written the way Jesus spoke: in parable. If that's the case, why do you arbitrarily choose to take some sections of it literally? Why not just take the creation account as a parable and play nice with science? Methinks the only reason you choose to take the creation account literally is because you don't want to accept the facts of evolution. Or, in your terminology, "your heart is not inclined toward reality."
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DNA - belief destuction
by donkey inthe single largest reason to decimate my belief in jw?s and all biblical faith occurred when i discovered some facts about our cells.
specifically a part of the cell called mitochondria.
mitochondria are sometimes described as "cellular power plants" because their primary purpose is to manufacture adenosine triphosphate (atp), which is used as a source of energy that the cell uses.. as humans one inherits one?s mitochondria only from one's mother, this finding implies that all living humans have a female line of descent from a woman whom researchers have dubbed mitochondrial eve.
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seattleniceguy
Okay, here's my Modified Genesis version of evolution.
1 And God saw that the earth was formless, and he caused his spirit to move to and fro upon the surface of the waters. 2 And he brought forth small creatures, like grains of dust for smallness, in the waters. 3 And he caused the creatures to multiply and to bear offspring after their kind. Each one would bear its young, the young being similar in appearance, as a boy takes after his father and his mother, but being slightly different, each one, even as brothers resemble each other but are different, and as sisters bear a likeness but differ individually.
4 And God caused mountains to rise out of the sea to form the land masses of earth. And the land was desolate and barren, and the creatures lived only in the sea. 5 And as the creatures multiplied, each having a likeness to one another but being different in various ways, some were better able to live and bear offspring. So the stronger creatures mated with their stronger counterparts and produced stronger youth, each one continually different in various ways. 6 So the LORD caused the creatures to change gradually, over the course of many generations, into different types of creatures that could live in different ways, in different parts of the sea. 7 In this way, God caused life to flourish and shoot forth all over the sea, in the coastal shores, and in the depths.
8 And God caused the life in the sea to begin to move about on the earth. And the creatures gradually differentiated into the salamanders and the frogs and the birds and the livestock. 9 They were all of one stock, of one lineage, for the LORD had made them all, even as the LORD has brought forth the great nation of Israel from the loins of Jacob. 10 That is why even today it is said, "You must treat the stork and the frog and the she-goat with compassion, for they are your brothers."
To me, this is accurate and understandable. Sure, it might be a bit surprising to an ancient people, but surely no more surprising that being told they were built out of dust, and that Woman was crafted out of a rib from old dust-boy!
The funny thing is, if only Genesis were written this way, no one would have a problem with teaching evolution. Science would be seen as merely elucidating what the Bible already says. Instead, the Bible describes all kinds of madness that Christians must sort out and decide which to accept literally, which to take as figurative, and which to pretend simply isn't there.
Sigh.
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DNA - belief destuction
by donkey inthe single largest reason to decimate my belief in jw?s and all biblical faith occurred when i discovered some facts about our cells.
specifically a part of the cell called mitochondria.
mitochondria are sometimes described as "cellular power plants" because their primary purpose is to manufacture adenosine triphosphate (atp), which is used as a source of energy that the cell uses.. as humans one inherits one?s mitochondria only from one's mother, this finding implies that all living humans have a female line of descent from a woman whom researchers have dubbed mitochondrial eve.
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seattleniceguy
City Fan wrote:
I think people living 3 millenia ago would have understood a sentence such as "and Elohim made the Moon to circle around the Earth, and the Earth to circle around the Sun".
Someone on this board once re-wrote Genesis 1 as it should have been if truly inspired, i.e. easy for ancient people to understand and yet at the same time be scientifically correct. Unfortunately I can't remember who it was or which thread it was in.
Awesome. That's the thing I really marveled at when I left the organization. It is possible to write clearly and accurately, such that people in different lands, in different cultures, in different times can still understand what you are talking about. Even evolution can be described simply by using analogies of heredity and breeding, things that early people would be aware of. If the Bible were truly God's word, I would expect it to be written like that.
I'm not just talking about the science. I'm talking about the entire Bible, in general. Why is it that readers are left to fill in the gaps, explain away apparent plot holes, make excuses for God, and so on? Why can't you just read tho book and have it make sense? If this book were really the work of an intelligent, benevolent Creator-person, s/he should have been able to write simply, clearly, and accurately. To me, the Bible is plainly just not anything special.
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DA-ing Announcement in the Society's New Book
by Mark inthe society's new book 'organized to do jehovah's will', to be released in the congregations .
on the 20th of march, introduces a change in the df and da announcements.
announcements will read the same: "[name of person] is no longer one of jehovah's .
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seattleniceguy
I like the question of what it means that so-and-so is no longer a Witness. Does that mean, then, that he is treated just as any other non-Witness? If indeed the purpose of this change is to stop getting in trouble with European courts, then surely they will have to stop printing commands to treat as disfellowshipped "someone who was a Witness but is not a Witness anymore." It may still be enforced by word-of-mouth instruction, but Witnesses are good at switching between legalism and reading between the lines when it is convenient to them. If they want to associate with someone, they will look at the printed material as the last word, and finding no clear directions on the matter, will conclude that the person is to be treated as any other non-Witness.
So I think it may be good news.
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DNA - belief destuction
by donkey inthe single largest reason to decimate my belief in jw?s and all biblical faith occurred when i discovered some facts about our cells.
specifically a part of the cell called mitochondria.
mitochondria are sometimes described as "cellular power plants" because their primary purpose is to manufacture adenosine triphosphate (atp), which is used as a source of energy that the cell uses.. as humans one inherits one?s mitochondria only from one's mother, this finding implies that all living humans have a female line of descent from a woman whom researchers have dubbed mitochondrial eve.
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seattleniceguy
a Christian:
The point I was making was that the origins of our universe are not so clearly defined as some would lead us to believe. For instance, scientists are still not unanimous in their opinion as to how exactly our moon came into being. Various theories have been proposed.
This is a misleading comparison. You are choosing a question for which there is little evidence. Also, the various "theories" you mention are not theories; they are hypotheses. A scientific concept does not become a theory until there is a preponderance of evidence pointing to a coherent, internally consistent system well supported by the facts. We have gravitational theory and evolutionary theory, but not moon theory.
Questions regarding earth, on the other hand, can be answered with much more confidence because we have boatloads of evidence to examine, all around us. The age of the earth and its various periods can be established in many, many ways: radiometric dating, ice core sampling, strata reading, wear patterns on mountains, etc, and they are all consistent.
Obviously, any question in science is open to reanalysis if novel evidence emerges. And in very new, cutting edge fields, there are sure to be lots of new discoveries that shape our fledgling understanding. But to suggest that science goes back and forth wildly would be grossly misleading.
In short, the fact that we have comparatively little data on the origin of the moon does not relate in any way to the amount of data we have on earth or its geological or biological systems.
SNG
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DNA - belief destuction
by donkey inthe single largest reason to decimate my belief in jw?s and all biblical faith occurred when i discovered some facts about our cells.
specifically a part of the cell called mitochondria.
mitochondria are sometimes described as "cellular power plants" because their primary purpose is to manufacture adenosine triphosphate (atp), which is used as a source of energy that the cell uses.. as humans one inherits one?s mitochondria only from one's mother, this finding implies that all living humans have a female line of descent from a woman whom researchers have dubbed mitochondrial eve.
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seattleniceguy
Wow, I just have to say, the placement of a Christian's post right after some really good posts from funkyderek and Midget-Sasquatch was a really awesome juxtaposition of science and religion. As science is providing real answers to interesting questions, religion continues its boring rehash of the same tired concepts.
Secular humanism for me!
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Last night at the book study 5 minutes spent on discussion about apostates
by PaNiCAtTaCk inthings that were said.
apostates want everyone to believe jehovah doesnt care about them and this was referred to as a satanic lie that apostates want you to believe and this satanic lie was even referred to in the prayer.
(i really dont know where they got this or what exactly caused the society to publish this but this is what was said in the "draw close to jehovah" book).
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seattleniceguy
LOL...It's really over the top to me that anyone could possibly swallow that junk. Just the act of saying that all people who disagree with the Witnesses believe a specific thing or act in a specific way should be enough to show anyone that it's a desperate lie. That's like me saying, "All Americans have dogs. And they all want you to buy a dog. And they encourage their dogs not to believe in God." Gimme a break.
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Apostates...New Light
by wanderlustguy inapostate - .
deserter: a disloyal person who betrays or deserts his cause or religion or political party or friend etc.
not faithful to religion or party or cause .
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seattleniceguy
Me too. Actually, I like being called an apostate now!
Right on! To me, the label "apostate" is a badge of honor, worn only by those courageous and honest enough to look reality square in the eyes and do the right thing.
SNG