That is quite true, Qcmbr. The Bible itelf commands its adherents to proselytise to the world.
Lion Cask
JoinedPosts by Lion Cask
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65
I find it very hard to believe in a god
by Newborn inbut i find it equally hard to believe in the evolution theory .
so for now, i chose not to believe in anything but myself and love.
that was all.
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52
What was your first vehicle? (pics!)
by sabastious inmine was a 1986 ford courier i got after working a summer and obtaining $600.00.
it was a beater and i named him earl.
like this one just white and more zombified:.
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Lion Cask
This is my seventh car, which I have owned for almost 30 years, the longest I have owned any vehicle. This photo was taken not long after acquisition. It is one of about 1800 open headlight variant S1 E-type roadsters produced by Jaguar in 1967-68. I've blocked out the license plate to try to preserve a modicum of anonymity.
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65
I find it very hard to believe in a god
by Newborn inbut i find it equally hard to believe in the evolution theory .
so for now, i chose not to believe in anything but myself and love.
that was all.
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Lion Cask
Doubt itself is subjective, Newborn. I am a 6 on the Dawkins scale, where Dawkins places himself. A 1 is someone who is absolutely sure there IS a god and nobody can tell him anything different and a 7 is someone who is absolutely sure there IS NOT a god and nobody can tell him anything different. A 6 is, say, 99.999999% sure, but is not so arrogant as to believe there can be no other reality.
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52
What was your first vehicle? (pics!)
by sabastious inmine was a 1986 ford courier i got after working a summer and obtaining $600.00.
it was a beater and i named him earl.
like this one just white and more zombified:.
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Lion Cask
I see you've changed your avatar, sab.
This is not an actual picture of mine, but the same car. It was a red 1961 MG midget, bought used in 1969 and driven very little before giving up on and getting rid of it. It was not only my first car but the one I owned for the shortest period of time. It refused to start on cool, damp days (which, considering it's country of origin was remarkable), leaked rain profusely through the ragtop where it met the windscreen and side curtains (no roll up windows. They were plexiglass sliders), liked to jump out of first gear (which was not synchromesh), had a nasty penchant for attracting the attention of the police when driven by a long haired 17-year-old, even when he was driving under the limit, cost a fortune to insure and was completely unsuitable for dating since it had no back seat. It was a very pretty, totally impractical and unreliable piece of junk.
Edit: I recall paying $225 for it, getting the same amount back.
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STRONG MEN WEEP AND CHILDREN MARCH AS WTS RELEASES NEW PUBLICATION
by still wondering inyes, pure theater as marching columns of children cause strong men to weep when wts releases new publication.. .
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Lion Cask
It is enough to make a stong man weep, with crushing, painful incredulity.
Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not. Jer. 5:21 (King James version) - in other words there are none so blind as those who will not see.
Reading a bunch of posts in here today has left me discouraged. The OP is yet another presentation of crystal clear evidence of the tragic lunacy of the WTS, but it will it change anyone's mind? Sometimes it is just too much to continue beating one's head bloody against the wall with no effect on the people on the other side of it.
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65
I find it very hard to believe in a god
by Newborn inbut i find it equally hard to believe in the evolution theory .
so for now, i chose not to believe in anything but myself and love.
that was all.
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Lion Cask
I have a great deal of respect for a certain scotsman named Richard Holloway. You can google him, if you wish. In fact, I recommend it, particularly to those of you who have posted to this thread, regardless of your intellectual or philosophical bent. In a nutshell, Mr. Holloway was the Anglican Primus of Scotland. He studied Christianity and the Bible at great length, believed it all without reservation, but in his later years has come to see it all in a much different light.
Have you ever just not been able to understand something? What I mean is, have you ever supposed something and then had it explained to you that you don't have it right, but you just don't get what that person is explaining, even when he repeats it and rephrases it? Then, after a few more attempts, the light comes on and you suddenly understand how you were thinking in error? This has happened to me on a small number of occasions, most recently when my 30 year old son was trying gently to set me straight on something, something unrelated to the subject of faith. I was processing information in a way that precluded understanding. It was only after he patiently explained himself over and over again that I at last got it. Crystal clear. And then I felt foolish.
If your brain is firmly set on some things being irrefutable, you will simply not be able to comprehend words or ideas that fit a different model, and you will not even be able to recognise it in yourself. You will much more likely perceive the other to be in error, not you, even if he understands your perspective perfectly.
For those who believe in God, I might ask that you consider this with an open mind and really try to understand it: Some of the posters in here, myself included, have experienced much the same thing as has Richard Holloway. We had a powerful faith. We have believed in God, loved Him, prayed to Him and accepted Him as absolute fact for much of our lives. But our understanding has changed. We might even use the word evolved, but for the negative connotations it brings up automatically in the minds of many.
We have been where you are, so we understand what you believe but you are incapable of understanding what we believe, because you have never been where we are.
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Are they really that bad???
by anonymous4 inhad a good look into the doctrine, beliefs and practices of jws and to be honest, i don't really see anything wrong with it at all.. it's biblical and i've had such an eye opener the past year or so reading some of their books and magazines .
is there really any real reasons why i shouldn't want to get involved further?
:-).
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Lion Cask
Faith is comforting, Qcmbr, and to lose it is akin to experiencing an amputation without benefit of anaesthesia. The first defence against mental trauma is denial. Posters like reniaa and debator, when faced with data most logical people cannot dismiss, have a choice. They can accept the data as fact, either absolute or virtual, and thereafter modify their faith to fit it (thereby wrenching themselves away from the Watchtower) or they can deny it outright to maintain the comfort they feel, or they can embrace it entirely and face up to the amputation.
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65
I find it very hard to believe in a god
by Newborn inbut i find it equally hard to believe in the evolution theory .
so for now, i chose not to believe in anything but myself and love.
that was all.
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Lion Cask
Lion Cask's British English - American English translation service: torch = flashlight, dross = waste.
Faith is comforting. To be able to fill your heart with love and hope and speak to God (especially in the quiet stillness of 3 in the morning, when all those heavy thoughts and fears just won't let you sleep) calms the emotions. It feels good to have faith, and that is why people have faith. But that doesn't mean that faith and truth are synonymous. On the contrary, faith is a spectrum. It is multi-coloured and inequal, in other words, not the same. This means that faith either has a whole lot of different "truths", some of which directly contradict one another, or faith is an illusion. Is there a very, very narrow band within that spectrum that is the true light of faith? That is what the Watchtower claims as their own, but most of us in this board have come to the conclusion from observing the Watchtower closely that it does not, in fact, represent that very narrow band of light.
One of the hardest things I had to give up when the last vestige of faith drained away from my psyche was prayer. Life is heavy and at times it is traumatic and being able to reach out for some spiritual comfort was, well, comforting. But it is also an illusion, and to pray to a god, of whatever name you give it, is escapism. When you at last learn to face up to reality, however cruel it may sometimes be, with courage, a sense of wonder and strength of character, you will find you no longer need the comfort of faith and you will be emancipated.
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Remember the GLOBAL FOOD SHORTAGES of 35 years ago?
by Nathan Natas in.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/12/027844.php.
ha ha ha ha ha!.
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Lion Cask
who says climate change is a new phenomena!
Those of us who have been around long enough to have seen lots and lots of weird weather understand the assertion, BB. There are several interesting proxies for historical weather patterns but water levels in the Great Lakes tell the tale nicely. Weather phenomena are cyclical. Some cycles are relatively short, others long. Europe's historical records go back a long way and also show that the only constant in climate and weather is change. The UK is bracing for its coldest winter in 1,000 years, which many attribute to the global warming phenomenon. It sounds counterintuitive, but it really isn't. The Greenland glacier is melting, which is causing the salinity of the North Atlantic to decline, which in turn reduces the specific gravity of the uppermost layer of water to decline. While the UK is at the same latitude as Hudson's Bay in Canada, which experiences severe arctic winters, its winters are relatively warm because of the Gulf Stream. But the specific gravity of Gulf Stream waters is higher than North Atlantic waters causing them to sink, so less of it is at the surface of the oceon by the time it reaches the British Isles. Historically, colder, snowier winters have augmented the northern glaciers, which ties up a large portion of the planet's fresh water. The real question is, are the historical patterns still relevant, or will hotter summer temperatures due to the buildup of greenhouse gasses cause complete disruption of the planet's weather patterns? And, if that happens, the next question is what will happen to global food supplies?
http://www.great-lakes.net/teach/envt/levels/lev_3.html
http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=other;type=winthist;sess=
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310
Are they really that bad???
by anonymous4 inhad a good look into the doctrine, beliefs and practices of jws and to be honest, i don't really see anything wrong with it at all.. it's biblical and i've had such an eye opener the past year or so reading some of their books and magazines .
is there really any real reasons why i shouldn't want to get involved further?
:-).
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Lion Cask
Interesting, isaacaustin. More than eight months passed between reniaa's last post and debator's first. If they are one and the same person, did she just stay away for all that time or was there an intermediate personna? I'm not interested sufficiently in this to dig into it statistically, but two observations of differences are that Reniaa had a designated avatar while debator's is assigned and debator has never started a thread while reniaa started 14 (not all that many considering she was a member of the board for a year and a half). However, renaiaa's writing style and demeanor are very, very similar to debator's. It would be interesting to run the posts of both personnas through a comparative parser to pull out and count the occurances of identical idioms or particular sentence structures used - but, again, the whole thing just isn't that interesting and probably not necessary, anyway. If these are two different people, their online personalities are so similar it's spooky. Neither seems inclined to concede the smallest point, even one that is clearly lost.
However, I see now why reniaa left. It had to have been difficult taking all that abuse, as unsurprising as it is. As much as she either started the fights or waded into them, it seems she always led with her chin, so to speak.
Debator, if you were reniaa before, so what? I am certain you are not alone in your peculiarity - I mean the peculiarity of having reinvented yourself on this board, rather than the peculiarity of your rationalisation process, which is what makes you stand out from the crowd somewhat.
