Posts by simon17

15

New Video - Jehovah's Witnesses and Higher Education

by sabastious in

some musings about higher education, hope you enjoy.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk_r11t3otw.

simon17

Great post. The university issue is a bit regional, as in more wealthy areas its silently tolerated or even slightly encouraged by locals, though derided by travelling brothers, etc. But I know the further out you go into rural or middle-class areas, the more this starts to turn.

But the point at the end is a great one. THings like pant suits and beards and social networking and R-rated movies and on and on and on are all things that are not specifically banned. But the culture of negativity has changed our very perception of these things so that we naturally avoid them.

29

evolution

by inbetween in

since my awakening from the mind control of the wts, it has been an exciting also frigthening journey of exploration and free thinking.. i would say, today i try to be open to anything, i ll go whatever direction facts show.

while i`m no scientist, i think i have a glue about the scientific method.

i also agree with the statemant, that some extraordinary claim needs extraordinary proof.. so far, it is a difficult question whether god exists or not, and probably in my lifetime i will not get a conclusive answer.. however, my concerns are about evolution, since even a confirmation of evolution does not necessarily exclude the existence of a god, it just proivdes an alternative explanation, in case there is no god.. even though i did not really read a book yet about evolution, i read other books of people, whose reasoning i can agree to, and they believe in evolution.. .

simon17

Regarding your question on evolution and missing links.

Most times if A+ is better than A, then A dies out and A+ takes over. Then when improvement A++ comes along, it takes over and A+ is slowly eliminated from the population. Also when populations are separated by some barrier into "islands" they diverge along different lines. So suppose population A is split into A1 and A2. Well as A1+++++++ and A2++++++++ evolve, and then you look back and compare the two results, there will be huge differences AND no middle ground between the two new divergent species.

24

Which do you think is the most pernicious teaching of the JW's?

by Chariklo in

as i turn things over in my mind, one jw lie stands out.. that god doesn't listen to all prayers.

unless i have it wrong, and i don't think i do, jw's believe, and have been endlessly, ruthlessly taught, that only those living by "jehovah's righteous standards"...that awful glib phrase again...will get their prayers listened to.

in other words, god looks at the number the person is calling from, so to speak, checks who it is, looks him up in his book of misdeeds, and angrily slams the phone down.. the jehovah god of the wt is petty and mean-minded.

simon17

That God doesn't listen to all prayers. Unless I have it wrong, and I don't think I do, JW's believe, and have been endlessly, ruthlessly taught, that only those living by "Jehovah's righteous standards"...that awful glib phrase again...will get their prayers listened to. In other words, God looks at the number the person is calling from, so to speak, checks who it is, looks him up in his book of misdeeds, and angrily slams the phone down.

Actually I don't think this is really true. God doesn't "listen" to all prayers in that he doesn't take any action if they are not in accord with his will, not in that he refuses to literally hear what is being said. So if Sinner X prayed for the 49ers to win Sunday morning, God would hear and ignore. If Sinner X then prayed for a Bible Study Sunday afternoon, he'd send Gabriel a-runnin' to direct pioneer Y to his house. I believe thats how it works.

6

Will there be a SECOND Armageddon in the year 2914?

by Alfred in

ok... i know the answer... absolutely not..... but where does the watchtower get this idea that satan will be released in the year 2914 (1914 + 1,000) to test the faith of jws who have been cleaning up the planet for a thousand years?

which bible texts have they taken out of context to arrive at this bizarre and exclusive jw teaching?.

also, what are they saying will happen to the those who fail this "final test"?

simon17

Read the account in Revelation: the end of 1000 years test is going to be just as bloody a bloodbath as Armagehddon according to that. It says the number of opposers will become "as numerous as the grains of sand" and that the opposers led by Satan will "completely encircle the few holy ones left" before being exterminated for all time.

It makes one wonder about the challenge of Universal Sovreignty, right? After Manking is given his chance to rule for several thousand years, 99.9% of the population rejects god. And after GOD gets his chance to rule for a thousand years, it appears most people STILL don't chose his way of rulership!! How in the world does that = Win for God????? Who DECIDES the challenge of who is the best ruler for mankind? If its the ruled (humans) then the choice is clear. If its the ruler (God), well, then he should have made that decision a long ass time ago.

39

"Awake" 1973 says Witnesses should not play CHESS it's EVIL!!!

by Witness 007 in

awake 73 march 22 p.12 "the spirit of competition between players can lead to unplesant circumstances...in some homes tensions linger long past checkmate...chess has been a game of war since it originated...the games conection to war is obvious....a play substitue for the art of war...there is a danger of stirring uo competition with one another even developing hostility with one another something the bible warns against....what effect does playing chess have on one?

is it a wholesome effect?

....there are questions regarding it that each one who plays chess should consider.".

simon17

Elders have made the case for "Monopoly" instead of "Chess", anyone detect the insanity of this argument, I can tell a story about a nasty argument, two elders came close to "blows" over this subject. What is the goal of "Monopoly? What is the goal of Chess?

That IS ridiculous. If there is any game I've ever actually gotten pissed with someone over, its Monopoly! The Awake magazine railing against the dangers of Chess is laughable.

754

Theists, why does God allow suffering..

by The Quiet One in

..specifically, the suffering of animals.

you can talk about free will/sin/people choosing to not listen to god etc to explain human suffering being allowed.. but how can you love a god that allows animals, that haven't sinned or chosen to not have anything to do with god, to have their short lives ended in often long, drawn out, painful ways.

i could list stories i've read that would probably make you feel ill, but i'm not looking to shock anyone or start an emotional debate.

simon17

I sometimed wonder if theists get their natural history fom Walt Disney.

Even there you'd see Bambi's mother die a very cruel and painful death. Oh wait, was that because Fallen Man started the forest fire, nevermind.

32

The tower of Babel- full of holes?

by highdose in

i was thinking the other day about the tower of babel ( like you do) somthing that always puzzled me about reading the account in our modern day times is that we have today buildings that would have been vastly taller than the tower of babel.

even if purely because the materials needed to build modern sky scrapers have to be light in order to acheive that height.

accient heavy bricks just wouldn't have done it.. just why was god so threatened by a building???

simon17

"Why say the end is coming (according to JWs) any day now, when humanity is progressively advancing faster than ever?"

Stupidhead, don't you know that now is the worst time in human history, that there is more anarchy and sickness and evil in the world now than every before? That every day is worse than the last? That society is rapidly decaying into the darkest oblivion of misery ever even imagined?

20

I don't like "taking the lead"

by I Want to Believe in

some men probably got off on the power/ego trip being a male jw gets you, but i never cared for it.

i'm an introvert, and was an especially awkward one at that haveing been reaised in social isolation, so it was about the strangest feeling in the world when as a newly-baptized teenager (back in the day) i started to pioneer.

i was about as green as you could get in every way but i was told i had to take the lead in the service meetings and the car group.

simon17

I remember it was strange being baptized in my mid teens, and all of a sudden, when going out in service in mid-week I'd be "in charge" of pioneer sisters who were smart, experienced for decades, and much more capable of making decisions than I was at that point. It made no sense in this millennium. The most capable should be taking the lead, not the only man in the room de facto.

31

Should you ever tell tour aging parents the truth about the truth

by Star tiger in

since finding out the truth about the truth myself and having successfully extricated myself and my parents about the jw's, i find myself with a new dilema that being they still believe the bible as a literal book for their salvation as i has read all of thomas paines works and how the bible is not very good for the human family, as they are of advancing years would it be inappropriate to shatter their illusions of some kind of paradise and let them flounder in a moral precipice and wonder what their lives have been about.

on the flip side once their time has come how would i feel for not telling them their false views.

at the moment i am in the deist point of view, with a tendency of the agnostic, it is quite a dilema!.

simon17

Agree with all above, at this point in their life it accomplishes nothing to tell them their entire life's structure was a sham. Let them die in peace.

754

Theists, why does God allow suffering..

by The Quiet One in

..specifically, the suffering of animals.

you can talk about free will/sin/people choosing to not listen to god etc to explain human suffering being allowed.. but how can you love a god that allows animals, that haven't sinned or chosen to not have anything to do with god, to have their short lives ended in often long, drawn out, painful ways.

i could list stories i've read that would probably make you feel ill, but i'm not looking to shock anyone or start an emotional debate.

simon17

Christians have the worst "answer" to do this of all the world's religions. At least in Hinduism reincarnation means that the suffering of animals is a punishment for those who were bad in previous, higher incarnations or as a means to earn higher incarnations in later lives. In Islam, god created evil intentionally in a way that is not inherently logically inconsistent (but does seem to make him seem like a bit of a jerk). Christians though, really have no answer at all.