>> I believe provisionally...
A more important adverb there never was. This should be the outlook of everyone, as regards each and every belief.
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seattleniceguy
JoinedPosts by seattleniceguy
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Do any of us really want the truth?
by Qcmbr ini've been reading some essays concerning disagreement online that got me thinking - i won't even attempt to do them justice but to share some ideas that struck home to me.
we spend most of the time here sharing ideas and thoughts often in response to other posts and as arguements to invalidate or re-colour what someone else said.
there is an implicit drive behind each thread to somehow approximate a 'truth' from the many different viewpoints - almost like a collective conscience ('the forum') weighing and then selecting or rejecting the mood of the thread and as we share in the posts we add just a little weight and influence to its direction.
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seattleniceguy
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Sally Ann
by Poztate ini donated to the salvation army today.
i threw my money into the little kettle outside the store.
i am not telling you this so you can say how kind and generous i am.
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seattleniceguy
Congrats, Poztate!
I can only imagine the looks you might have gotten if there were any Witnesses around. "Oh my goodness, will you look at that! See, leave Jehovah's Organization and the *first* thing you go and do is donate money to poor people!"
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How do you know Satan didn't write the Bible?
by seattleniceguy inthe standard christian story on the bible is that god wrote it to let us humans know what's going on, lay down some rules, and tell us how to get saved from our pitiful state.
as everyone knows, i don't buy any portion of this.
but i have a question for the believers.
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seattleniceguy
>> We have to get together for coffee one morning when yuo can take the whole day off. LOL!
Indeed. It would be interesting. And I have to admit, I still have my suspicions that you are actually a former friend of mine only *pretending* to live in Georgia. :-)
I thought your comments on "thingification" were interesting, although I'm not sure if I agree with your conclusion that magic disappears when something is thigified. One could argue that the magic disappears when it is explained. But personally, I disagree with that as well. Even though I know what causes sunrises and sunsets (and - gasp - I've gone and named them), their beauty does not diminish for me. Even though I understand what the Milky Way is, it is no less beautiful. In fact, understanding that I am looking edge-on through my own galaxy actually makes it all the more beautiful to me.
There is a qualitative difference between believing in fundamental particles - even those that as yet we know little about - and elves and pixies. The reason we believe in the fundamental particles is that observation after observation, experiment after experiment has uniformly indicated their existence. The forces you describe, for example, magnetic fields, behave predictably and reliably, every time. Only a fool would NOT believe in the force of magnetism.
This is light-years away from stories about elves and gods who go traipsing through the world writing a Bible here, making pots of gold here, with no evidence to show for it.
When I said that "when you believe in a magical world, you cannot believe anything," I meant a world in which things happen without physical cause and without leaving any physical evidence. The problem with that type of thinking is that you can just make stuff up and it's okay. "Oh, by the way, God called me last Thursday and said to stop wearing neckties." He did? Okay, then! That's a tad bit different than saying, "We smashed two hydrogen molecules together and they appeared to break apart into several smaller particles. Let's see if we can learn more about their properties."
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How do you know Satan didn't write the Bible?
by seattleniceguy inthe standard christian story on the bible is that god wrote it to let us humans know what's going on, lay down some rules, and tell us how to get saved from our pitiful state.
as everyone knows, i don't buy any portion of this.
but i have a question for the believers.
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seattleniceguy
Narkissos,
Thank you for that link! I will be reading it carefully soon.
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How do you know Satan didn't write the Bible?
by seattleniceguy inthe standard christian story on the bible is that god wrote it to let us humans know what's going on, lay down some rules, and tell us how to get saved from our pitiful state.
as everyone knows, i don't buy any portion of this.
but i have a question for the believers.
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seattleniceguy
IT Support,
Thanks! Yes, I'm in Japan until the end of the year. Woo hoo!
AuldSoul,
I guess the real point in all of this is, if you believe in a world where magic is real, then it's really impossible to believe anything, because no matter what you *think* is true, there's a possibility that the gremlins/gods/devils/spirits are actually just making it *appear* that way.
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How do you know Satan didn't write the Bible?
by seattleniceguy inthe standard christian story on the bible is that god wrote it to let us humans know what's going on, lay down some rules, and tell us how to get saved from our pitiful state.
as everyone knows, i don't buy any portion of this.
but i have a question for the believers.
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seattleniceguy
>> What could Satan possibly gain by writing the Bible as we know it? I perceive Satan as a dark regressive infantile power, infernal, instinct driven, and profoundly contra spiritual whereas the whole message of the gospel aims at elevating man through a spiritual culture, and man's welbeing can't go wrong with that.
>> And why should he enjoy the idea of himself being tormented in the lake of fire and sulphur for ever more?
Well, of course, things don't actually have to work out like the Bible says. I'm suggesting that the *real* author of the Bible is not like either the God or Satan depicted in it, except that he is deceptive (inasmuch as he wrote a fake book to trick people). The stories in the Bible wouldn't have to have any real bearing on reality, but he would try to make them match up with some actual historical events so that later humans would be even further deceived.
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seattleniceguy
Oh, man, this site is AWESOME! It's like an unintentional parody of fundamentalism.
Here are some of my favorite lines:
"Please don't let your loved ones go to hell." It's the ultimate friends and family plan! Don't let 'em go to hell, sign 'em up!
"You may call it your 'personal belief,' but God calls it idolatry." Die, sinner!
"Have you always honored your parents in a way that's pleasing in the sight of God? Ask Him to remind you of the sins of your youth. You may have forgotten them, but God hasn't." Holy crap! These guys are willing to send three-year-olds to hell for temper tantrums!
"Does the fact that you have sinned against God scare you? It should." Hmm. And Christians say they don't appeal to fear.
I noticed another really weird aspect to this site (and this is a contradiction that is probably common to most fundy belief systems). First, they say that since God is perfect in justice, he can't just overlook your sins, no matter how small. You're imperfect, so you're deserving of death (or, according to these guys, not only death but also eternal torment). But then they talk about how a stranger has offered to take the punishment for us so that we can live. How great is that, right?
It's strange to me that they don't see the inherent zaniness in this. Let's say a court decides that a craven murderer is deserving of death. But then some other totally innocent guy shows up and says that he's willing to die instead of the murderer. The judge says, okay, cool. He kills the innocent guy and sets the murderer free. Who in their right mind would call this justice? That's not justice, and it's certainly not benevolence. That's just f***ing crazy, is what that is.
I think the most appropriate thing to say at this point is, Jesus, I'm glad I'm out of that mindset. :-)
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seattleniceguy
Dude, that site is seriously ****ed up. I love the barely concealed growl that underlies the section for unbelievers. Way to attract people to the Christ!
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What's Your Pet Peeve At The Meetings?
by Golf inovertime, overtime!
the thing that was a kill-joy for me was going overtime, just ask my wife and kids.
my entire day would be ruined.
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seattleniceguy
I was in a congregation in heart of downtown Seattle. As you can probably imagine, it was one of the more progressive halls in the, geez, I dunno, state, at least. Our territory was very diverse, so most of the more reasonable people in the hall (read: the ones that still had some thinking faculties left) had come to grips with the idea that most of the people out there were basically decent, smart people. We also had an above-average ability for critical thinking, at least within the framework of JW doctrine.
So the worst thing was when Brother Bumpkin from out in the sticks would come for a Sunday talk and reveal his absurdly narrow-minded view of the world. Since I was usually running sound, there were times I honestly wanted to just cut the power and save everyone a certain death from embarassment.
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seattleniceguy
When I was a Witness, I thought it applied to the new system, too. But the only way a person could possibly think so is to listen to the song with Witness-filtered earmuffs on.
I mean, look at the lyrics. Lennon is describing a world that is free of the major causes of discord: religion, nationalism, differential material wealth. Kind of an idealized form of communism, really.
But I think the Witness reaction in particular is strange, because Lennon clearly devotes a large portion of the song to anti-Witness principles: namely, forgetting about any concept of heaven and hell (future reward/punishment scenarios) and concentrating on living in the now. I think his point is to be a good person, to build a "brotherhood of man," NOW. And you simply cannot do that in the Witness mindset, since you see the vast majority of mankind as sadly misled followers of Satan who are marked for destruction.
I feel like I am much closer to Lennon's ideal from here on the outside of belief.
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