Posts by slimboyfat

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

slimboyfat

Good explanation of the reasons why the problem of evil doesn't necessarily disprove a loving God, especially the third video.

https://youtu.be/V4z9Y2u30Qs

https://youtu.be/prWSGbDW3LU

https://youtu.be/L67dlpMgDa4

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

However, believing we "know enough", is often precisely a symptom of not knowing very much at all. It's recently been called the "Dunning-Kruger effect", where our confidence of knowledge or expertise in a subject is inversely proportional to our mastery of the subject. John Cleese made this popular video explaining it.

https://youtu.be/wvVPdyYeaQU

We may think we've got a handle on the nature of reality, the universe, how things worked and likely developed. Who is to say?

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

slimboyfat

Because stuff happens? Seriously, I think total nothingness would be a far trickier goal for the universe to achieve.

I didn't so much mean a universe consisting of nothing. But why a universe at all? Why not no universe, why not nothing?

4

JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES & THE MANDELA EFFECT

by jwdoctrine in

click here for full article.

the mandela effect seems to be at the root of all problems the watchtower publishing corporation seems to be running into recently .if you don’t know what the mandela effect is then you have been hiding under a stone for the past 2 years .it is the hottest topic in conspiracy theories at the moments with thousands of videos dedicated to this phenomenon on youtube alone.

slimboyfat

Ha this is priceless. I need to watch this when I get home if it is still up.

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

slimboyfat

Is it? Why? Given the two conditions you set up I'd expect just the sort of reality that we find ourselves in; one that is impersonal and not centred on the needs of the only* observers capable of understanding it to a reasonable extent.
*There may of course be other observers in a galaxy far, far away . .

There is nothing. Then there is a universe, then there is life, then there is consciousness, then there are humans who ask, "why am I here?" And you find none of this mysterious? Why all this instead of nothing?

If anything, a reality without a supreme being seems even more mysterious to me!

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

slimboyfat

I also want to throw out there the idea that there is still a "problem of evil" to grapple with even if we rule out a supreme being. Why does a self-producing reality result in beings that care about justice and yet experience pain? "It just does", and "reality doesn't care"? Are these answers really all that different from, "it's a holy mystery"? They are the secular equivalent.

Whatever way you look at reality it is deeply mysterious. If there is a supreme being, then his reasons for making the world as he did are mysterious. If there is no supreme being, and the world naturally produces our predicament, all by itself, for no apparent reason, this is also deeply mysterious. Reductive naturalism does not solve the mystery of existence or make it go away.

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

slimboyfat

A ha, you are correct the maths problem analogy is not a perfect match. Another analogy might be to say that children are forbidden certain things by their parents. If there are reports of serial killer in the neighbourhood, for example, a child may not be allowed out, even to the garden, to play. On a sunny day this may cause suffering to the child who is not able to understand the explanation even if offered. There are problems with this analogy too of course. People don't like to be compared with children. They may say that not being allowed out to pay is not really "suffering", or that the child could understand the situation if it was explained in their terms. You could argue all those points either way, but the point is that we can conceive of situations in human interactions where people with greater power (such as parents) impose real suffering on others for reasons they can't understand, but that with greater perspective is for the good.

I am not saying this is definitely the situation with God. Or that I know what the hidden reasons may be. All I am saying is, given that we may not know everything about the situation, and given the possibility that a supreme being may have greater understanding of the situation than we do, it is at least possible that God is acting both from a position of power and goodness in creating the world and sustaining the world in the way in which he does. Therefore the argument I am making is not that there is a God, or that there definitely is a good answer to the problem of evil. All I am saying is that the problem of evil does not logically rule out a loving Christian God. Especially given the fact that the same Bible that says God is powerful and good, also says that humans cannot fully understand the reasons why God acts the way he does.

You're proof-texting. If you're going to blatantly ignore scriptures that are inconvenient to you, then the argument is not aimed at you. It's aimed at people who are willing to consider all of the evidence.

Actually I was going out of my way not to proof text. That's why I talk about God's inscrutability as a "dominant theme" of the Bible rather than incontrovertible teaching. I can't actually think of any scriptures that claim God is perfectly intelligible to humans, but modesty requires I don't rule out the possibility. Do you know of any? What I do know, and I've shown above, is that many parts of the Bible indicate that humans can't hope to fully understand God and why he does things the way he does. So to say that the God of the Bible doesn't exist because we can't account for his actions in terms of goodness ignores a large part of what the Bible has to say about God's inscrutability.

No, I'm certain you would claim God is Good, and would likely use the same scriptures Cofty quoted as evidence.

Actually I consider myself agnostic, tending toward atheist. But the more I think about the reasons for disbelieving God, the more I realise it is a choice rather than a result of sound logic or argument. The problem of evil does not disprove God, especially not an inscrutable God such as the God of the Bible. The human mind, even in a universe without a divine being, is surely not the perfect judge of all that does or can exist. We are living in an age where human reason has been elevated almost to the level of Godlike status. That's why arguments that involve relying on human reason as the arbiter of what can exist go unchallenged. It's the dominant ideology of our time.

Raymond Tallis argues that the notion of God is self-contradictory. He explores many reasons for rejecting God says that perhaps a God exists who humans cannot grasp, but he considers it not worthwhile to pursue the possibility. Like trying to understand a "square circle". I think this is ultimately where a reasonable exploration of the arguments for and against God can lead.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/73/Why_I_Am_An_Atheist

4

Using Pokemon Go to spread apostasy!

by slimboyfat in

i tried to post this yesterday but the picture must have been too big.

i don't know how to choose a smaller option.,.

anyway, for any pokemon go players here: i noticed there is a pokemon go gym in the city right next to the where jws have their trolleys.

slimboyfat

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

slimboyfat

If God is inscrutable, why did he make humans without the ability to comprehend him and/or the problem of evil?
Is it a design flaw? That makes him less than omnipotent.
Could he have designed us differently but chose not to? That makes him rather a jerk (i.e., not perfectly loving).

Among the things that we don't understand is, presumably, the reason why God made us in such a way that we don't understand. Is this compatible with goodness? Frankly it is hard to see how. But once again, that is precisely the point. Given that we don't know everything, is it impossible? I don't think we can say it is impossible that God has good reasons that we don't know.

If we encounter a maths problem we can't understand we might say, "I can't work out the answer to this".

It may be that there is no answer to the maths problem. It may be meaningless for all we know. Or it may have an answer, but we simply don't know what the answer is.

What would make no sense would be to say: "I can't work out the answer to this maths problem, therefore there is no answer to this maths problem".

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

slimboyfat

I no longer believe that the Bible is consistent with itself. So I won't argue that there are parts of the Bible that claim God has revealed himself in various ways, especially Jesus. What I do know however, is that the inscrutability of God is a dominant theme of many parts of the Bible. Such as the following:

Romans 11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

Job 26:14 Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways, and how small a whisper do we hear of him! But the thunder of his power who can understand?”

1 Corinthians 2:11 For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

Isaiah 55:8, 9
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Pslam 147:5 5
Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;
his understanding is beyond measure.