Posts by seattleniceguy

37

The Watchtower's Unbalanced View of the Internet

by VM44 in

in articles concerning the internet, some of which have been titled "a balanced view of the internet", the watchtower devotes the first paragraph or two to the benefits that the internet offers and has provided.

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then for the rest of the article they go on and on about the dangers and evils of the internet.. they have been consistent in writing in this manner in all the articles they have written concerning the internet.. can the watchtower itself truly be said to have a "balanced" view of the internet?.

seattleniceguy

is that the official copy? i hope they got the OK from Redmond to use the "windows" window frame.

LOL! That's hillarious! They are clearly using Windows XP. But I doubt a screenshot would constitute copyright infringement.

SNG

11

Miracle Cures

by daniel-p in

jw
friends

for those who recognize quackery in the medicinal form: .

do you find a disproportionate amount of witnesses - primarly older women - promoting and peddling miracle cures?

or do you think the occurence is the same as outside the organization?

seattleniceguy

Hey daniel-p,

Spot on. Medical zaniness has a long history in the organization. Check out these quotes from WT publications:
http://quotes.watchtower.ca/medical-miscellaneous.htm
http://quotes.watchtower.ca/vaccination.htm
http://quotes.watchtower.ca/aluminum.htm

If you peruse those quotes, you'll start to notice that some of the ideas still persist among Witnesses. I personally remember mistrust of aluminum, for example. And the idea that ordinary things like milk or olive oil can become cure-alls is common in most halls. I think there are several factors behind this. First, historical inertia. Even after the Society stops denouncing aluminum in print, there are still going to be hundreds of thousands of people who have been indoctrinated for years that aluminum is the root of all medical problems. So they continue to spread the idea. They avoid aluminum purchases. They talk about how the world is suffering because of its wonton aluminum use, and so on. This creates a culture where other similar forms of quackery are embraced and flourish. Another, probably more fundamental, factor is that JW culture does not encourage critical thinking, which creates an environment where such ideas easily spread.

Certainly makes for interesting reading, though! :-)

SNG

27

Blatantly deceitful use of secular sources

by AuldSoul in

i am looking good repository of instances where the watchtower or awake!

have quoted secular sources in such a way to make it appear the source supports their argument when it is blatantly obvious that the secular source disagreed with them.

if it doesn't exist, i am about to make one.

seattleniceguy

AuldSoul,

Awesome! My friend drwtsn32 tells me that looking up source material in the 1985 Creation book yielded (much to his dismay, at the time) bountiful misquotes, some staggering in their deception. You might want to check that out.

Your web site will definitely fill an awesome need. I can't wait to see your results!

SNG

15

Satan Vs. God: Tally of Destruction

by acuragirl in

ok i was just thinking about horrible satan and loving god.

can anyone rack up the death and destruction of these two for comparison?.

god has the destruction of all life on earth save for noah and his family and 2 of each animal.

seattleniceguy

Maybe its all supposed to be like the NBA: No Harm, No Foul. After all, from that really great moment way back when, we all die.

It's funny how people have to rationalize God's behavior. Try killing someone and using this excuse. "They were going to die anyway. Sheesh, what's the big deal?"

Lest anyone misunderstand, I'm not actually disrespecting God in this thread because I don't believe he exists. Certainly not the Bible version, anyway.

SNG

15

Satan Vs. God: Tally of Destruction

by acuragirl in

ok i was just thinking about horrible satan and loving god.

can anyone rack up the death and destruction of these two for comparison?.

god has the destruction of all life on earth save for noah and his family and 2 of each animal.

seattleniceguy

Biblically Satan is the root and ultimate sustainer of all evil in this world fiercely opposing any attempt by God to bring love and peace to mankind.

Well, obviously, this is the Christian position. Can't very well go around saying God is responsible, can you now!

The point is, the Bible itself barely gives Satan a passing mention. If you look at the number of actual passages in the Bible which depict Satan hurting people, they are far fewer than the ones where God is commanding his followers to cut open the pregnant women and trample down the old men.

A person can make up ornate explanations for why this is the case all day long. But when you take a look at what the Bible actually says, Satan just isn't a major player. Seriously, break out a concordance and look up Satan. In the entire OT, I bet he barely breaks 50 times, and those should be almost entirely in Job, where he miraculously appears for 50 pages and then disappears again for another 1000. You'd think if Satan was "the root and ultimate sustainer of all evil in this world fiercely opposing any attempt by God to bring love and peace to mankind," the Bible would say so explicitly.

SNG

(Edited to correct misspelling.)

15

Satan Vs. God: Tally of Destruction

by acuragirl in

ok i was just thinking about horrible satan and loving god.

can anyone rack up the death and destruction of these two for comparison?.

god has the destruction of all life on earth save for noah and his family and 2 of each animal.

seattleniceguy

Going by the Bible alone, I think Satan's death toll is 10. He is directly responsible for killing Job's ten kids.

God's death toll has got to reach into the millions. If we're to believe the Bible, he sponsored the wholesale annihilation of countless cities througout Canaan. Talk about ethnic cleansing!

Of course, Christians will be quick to point out other ways that Satan is responsibile for all manner of mayhem. But the Bible doesn't explicitly say anything like that. It does explicitly talk about a lot of God-sponsored bloodshed, though. Now that I think about it, it's kind of weird that Satan gets such a bad rap. I mean, he's hardly mentioned in the entire Old Testament. He only appears a few times in the New Testament, and he doesn't really do much of anything there.

SNG

22

Chill out music

by seattleniceguy in

jw
friends

what music do you listen to when you want to chill?

i'm talking about kicking back, sitting in a dark room, maybe sipping on a lovely adult beverage, kind of stuff.

death cab for cutie: plans.

seattleniceguy

Wow, great suggestions here....can't wait to check all this new music out....

jeff buckley

Ah! How could I forget Mr. Bucklesworth? Grace has got to be close to the perfect CD. Shame that the guy died so young.

SNG

9

Check out this Audio Link from Drew Carey...

by Compgrl99 in

.

i am not really a fan of drew carey, however, even he can see the plain truth!

http://members.cox.net/dwsilver/drewcareywhitehousedinner.mp3.

seattleniceguy

Actulally there is a difference between celebrating Easter, Christmas, Halloween, etc. than say Summer vacation, wedding ceremonies, anniversaries, wedding rings etc.

Sure, I'll grant that. My point was that the argument that "if it has pagan (read: non-Christian) origins, it's bad" doesn't make sense.

I'm not religious, so I don't celebrate Easter. But I don't see anything devious about it. It's not as if anyone is trying to hide the origins. Just because there are people who don't know about them doesn't mean it's a conspiracy.

Besides, there are a lot of things in the gospel accounts themselves with "pagan origins." Take baptism, for example. John the Baptist shows up baptizing people. Did he just whip this idea up from nowhere? Of course not. It was a common practice in many religions. What that means is that Christianity adopted a religious idea from other religions and added their own particular significance to it. There's nothing devious about it - that's just the way religion works. It works with existing ideas and gives them a new spin.

Here's a link about pre-Christian baptism practices:
http://www.bible.ca/ef/topical-baptism-a-prechristian-history.htm

I should mail this to Drew Carey. Maybe he'll start railing against baptism now. :-)

SNG

22

Chill out music

by seattleniceguy in

jw
friends

what music do you listen to when you want to chill?

i'm talking about kicking back, sitting in a dark room, maybe sipping on a lovely adult beverage, kind of stuff.

death cab for cutie: plans.

seattleniceguy

What music do you listen to when you want to chill? I'm talking about kicking back, sitting in a dark room, maybe sipping on a lovely adult beverage, kind of stuff. Lately, I'm all about:

Death Cab for Cutie: Plans
I'm loving this new album from Death Cab. If you've never heard of these guys, they're a local band (Bellingham) that has just made it to the big time. Their album We Have The Facts And We're Voting Yes is also awesome, but Plans feels a little more mature.

Royksopp: Melody AM
This Norwegian duo puts out an awesome electronica groove. This album demands a dark room and a thoroughly relaxed body. Chill. Enjoy.

Beck: Sea Change
Beck moves out of his normal party-monger scene into a slower, more reflective mood for this thoroughly enrapturing album. I love this one, start to finish.

So what do you all listen to? Expand my mind!

SNG

9

Check out this Audio Link from Drew Carey...

by Compgrl99 in

.

i am not really a fan of drew carey, however, even he can see the plain truth!

http://members.cox.net/dwsilver/drewcareywhitehousedinner.mp3.

seattleniceguy

Sounds like old Drew was talking to a Witness. :-)

The thing is, the whole argument is based on a faulty premise. Sure, Christmas has nothing to do with the Bible. Who cares? Summer vacation has nothing to do with the Bible either, and yet you don't see any glum faces when June rolls around. Wedding ceremonies, anniversaries, wedding rings - none of that stuff has anything to do with the Bible. So the idea that "if it isn't in the Bible, we shouldn't be doing it" is totally bunk.

SNG