Rapunzel

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Posts by Rapunzel

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  60

  Dispelling Watchtower Myths of RC Beliefs

  by Amazing in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  over the last two years, as i moved back to the catholic church, i have been confronted with objections by several people regarding certain catholic teachings.

  these concerns are almost always the same, and are founded in mythology created by the watchtower society, and some evangelical denominations.

  god can and does use fallible men to do infallible things?

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  Rapunzel

  Christianity, itself, has "pagan" origins. The story of Jesus is merely a "re-hashing" - a "re-cycling", or reinterpretation - of the myth of Horus and other "pagan" narratives. Does anybody recall Jesus' miracle of "transforming" water into wine in the second chapter of the gospel of John? That was already "old hat" in that era. It was a common practice among the priests of Dionysus. In fact, Jesus is often referred to as "Dionysus in new clothing."

  And what of the notion of the "virgin birth"? Again, this is merely an old "pagan" idea. The commonly quoted scriptue at Isaiah 7:14 - "a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son..." - is, in fact a mistranslation. As Strong'sConcordance points out, the term in question "can refer merely to the unmarried status of the one so described. The child immediately in view was the son of the prophet and his wife who (cf Isa. 8:3) who served as a sign to Ahaz that his enemies would be defeated by God." In the Hebrew scriptures, there is no indication whatsoever of an expected or awaited "virgin birth." Why would there be, when the Jews were supposed to be hostile to any such pagan notion? The very thought of a virgin birth is utterly risible and ludicrous. But it is also pagan. In the pagan tradition, gods born of a virgin were a dime a dozen. In fact, a virgin birth was almost a required aspect of a pagan god's "pedigree."

  Everything aboutthe Jesus myth - from his dying and reviving, to his halo - is merely a "re-working" of pagan narratives. And don't forget the wandering "star" that greeted his birth. Yet another pagan myth grafted on to the narrative.
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  20

  Elitist Blueprint For World Government Revealed

  by What-A-Coincidence in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  http://www.jonesreport.com/article/05_08/01elitist_blueprint.html.

  elitist blueprint for world government revealed.

  new book written by insider - 6,000 globalists control the planet and plan to completely end national sovereignty, manifesto for dealing with "antiglobalist" resistors unveiled.

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  Rapunzel

  David Icke represents the epitome of delusional paranoia; his psycho-pathological "theories" don't even approach the level of half-way decent science fiction. And his talk of "Jewish bankers" in search of world domination constitutes hate speech. There is something drastically wrong with the guy. He may well be suffering from some neurological impairment. I think that all conspiracy theorists suffer from some degree of clinical paranoia. It's their choice, I suppose, to either seek help or not. However, there are limits to free speech. When Icke [or anyone else] crosses the line and starts spouting hate speech, I think that they should be held accountable.

  If anyone has a strong enough stomach, he/she can google "Icke paranoia,"
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  39

  Where do you start to find the answers to God?

  by Hope4Others in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i thought i have relatively had everything figured out, like life, death, god does he exist or does he not.

  is the bible make believe?.

  can we really be sure that it is inspired, after all we were not around to see the process being done.

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  Rapunzel

  Hope-4-Others - I didn't quite understand your first post about "space" being the fourth dimension and "time" being the fifth. In fact, height, length, and width constitute the classical [Newtonian] three dimensions. It was Einstein who discovered that time was the fourth dimension. He discovered that time could be warped or distorted; it was not a constant, as had been previously conceptualized.
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  4

  1919 home coming letter (from prison) pdf

  by bereanbiblestudent in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  this is a letter send out when rutherford came out of prison.

  a pdf of this was already available at watchtower documents llc, but this is the canadian branch version.. to download click the link and there will be a download link available there.

  http://www.sendspace.com/file/s8qdfa.

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  Rapunzel

  I just get a message that IE cannot display the message
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  50

  Atheist need to start fighting fire with fire LITERALY

  by 5go in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i was watching some program on the inquisition.

  you know that thing christianity would love for you to forget happened.. when the court system of rome failed the christian courts took over they instituted trial by ordeal.. simply put any accused of a crime would be tortured tested to see if they were innocent by many forms of painful test to see if god would come to the accused's defence.

  if they were innocent then no harm would happen to them because of their faith, of course pretty much 100% of the time they were hurt an were summarily executed punished with all the love of jesus in mind.. atheist should due the same accuse all of christians of crimes and force them into trial by ordeal to prove their innocence and backed by god.

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  Rapunzel

  5go - You should have written: "I and the world will accept no other proof." Again, you display an obvious difficulty in handling homophones. You should go back to school and learn how to right rite Wright write! Your writing is as inane as your logic.
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  50

  Atheist need to start fighting fire with fire LITERALY

  by 5go in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i was watching some program on the inquisition.

  you know that thing christianity would love for you to forget happened.. when the court system of rome failed the christian courts took over they instituted trial by ordeal.. simply put any accused of a crime would be tortured tested to see if they were innocent by many forms of painful test to see if god would come to the accused's defence.

  if they were innocent then no harm would happen to them because of their faith, of course pretty much 100% of the time they were hurt an were summarily executed punished with all the love of jesus in mind.. atheist should due the same accuse all of christians of crimes and force them into trial by ordeal to prove their innocence and backed by god.

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  Rapunzel

  5go - Your sentence should read: "Atheists should do the same. They should accuse all of Christians of crimes and force them..."

  The words "atheist" requires an "s" to make it plural.

  Although due and do are homophones [they are two words with the same pronunciation], they are in fact totally different in meaning and are by no means interchangeable. Due can used as an adjective or a noun, but it cannot be used as a verb. The modal, should, requires a verb to follow it. Therefore, due cannot be used with should because due is not a verb.

  You can't say "all of Christians" because all of refers to an uncountable quantity ["I ate all of the cake"], whereas "Christians" is a countable noun [one Christian, two Christians, three Christians, four Christians, etc.].
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  70

  If you believe in nothing, then how do you know JW's are wrong?

  by slimboyfat in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  many who leave the witnesses go on to affirm other recognisable sets of beliefs.

  some become christians of various sorts, others tend toward patriotism as a kind of rejection of the anti-patriotic stance of the watchtower, while yet more simply affirm in general the secular values of mainstream society.

  do you believe jehovah's witnesses are wrong?

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  Rapunzel

  Dan - I appreciate your citing Protagoras of Abdera - "Man is the measure of all things..." I always liked reading the pre-Socratics, even though the quantity of their surviving written works is, for the most part, rather paltry. But ii is still a pleasure to read those ancient words of wisdom.
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  70

  If you believe in nothing, then how do you know JW's are wrong?

  by slimboyfat in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  many who leave the witnesses go on to affirm other recognisable sets of beliefs.

  some become christians of various sorts, others tend toward patriotism as a kind of rejection of the anti-patriotic stance of the watchtower, while yet more simply affirm in general the secular values of mainstream society.

  do you believe jehovah's witnesses are wrong?

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  Rapunzel

  DD - I believe the expression is: "Those who stand for nothing will fall for anything." I take it to mean that people who have no scruples or principles will find themselves easily manipulated by other dishonest and insincere people.

  Narkissos - I haven't read the particular work that you cite, however I have read a little of the author. I read his ideas on irony. Perhaps it would be worthwhile for me to read the work that you mention.
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  70

  If you believe in nothing, then how do you know JW's are wrong?

  by slimboyfat in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  many who leave the witnesses go on to affirm other recognisable sets of beliefs.

  some become christians of various sorts, others tend toward patriotism as a kind of rejection of the anti-patriotic stance of the watchtower, while yet more simply affirm in general the secular values of mainstream society.

  do you believe jehovah's witnesses are wrong?

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  Rapunzel

  Slim - I have to say that I find the notion of someone believing nothing to be absurd and logically untenable. If someone were to believe nothing, they would say: "Nothing is true." As Andre Comte-Sponville states in The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality, "[The proposition that nothing is true] is logically untenable. If nothing is true, then it is not true that nothing is true; the phrase destroys itself without refuting itself (if nothing is true, then no refutation is possible).This is the defeat of reason. You can think nothing at all - or rather, you can think anything at all, which amounts to the same thing. Anything goes, but nothing is meaningful (in philosophy as in the sciences, thought can progress only by encountering impossibility, which is the proof of objectivity; even if there is no such thing as absolute truth, we need to be able to reject errors - that is, statements that cannot be true). Reality itself becomes ungraspable. [...] If nothing is true, no one is either innocent or guilty of anything, and we can formulate no reproach against negationists, liars, mass murderers, (since it is not true they are such), or ourselves."

  It might be best to consider Immanuel Kant's three degrees of belief and assent, as enunciated in his Critique of Pure Reason. Kant distinguished between:

  1.) opinion, which that it is both subjectively and objectively insufficient

  2.) faith, which is subjectively sufficient but not objectively sufficient

  3.) knowledge, which is both subjectively and objectively sufficient

  Everyone who thinks has an opinion in regard to almost everything; and many people have faith in many notions, ideas, concepts etc.
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  46

  American-isms

  by White Dove in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  what are some words or phrases that people outside of the usa find amusing or interesting?

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  Rapunzel

  In some European countries, they use the English word, cock, to refer to a "faucet" or a "tap". I'll never forget an incident that happened when I was on campus at the university. There was a guy who came from some country in central or eastern Europe. One day, he had a problem with his faucet and wrote the following note to his landlady: "Dearest Madam: I wish to inform you that my cock is leaking."