Ed - Just to clarify - I am not a fundamentalist.

However, I am totally for the fundementals of picnicking and camping!

Mar 17, 2012 -- 9:45PM, Newtonian wrote:

Ed - Just to clarify - I am not a fundamentalist.

If you say so, Newtonian:

fundamentalist

A usually religious movement or point of view characterized by a return to fundamental principles, by rigid adherence to those principles, and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism.

Ed...if you see anything even remotely religious in post #123, that must really be the filter you are looking through.  That was just some of my personal thoughts on grubs, crickets, and cutting up 'eww' raw chicken!  ( I did get over that, eventually, btw, the cutting up, but I still would have to hide inside as I did as a girl when it was head-chopping time.)

Purpose of the Bible, in short, is to help us draw close to God.  Part of that is 'cleansing our hands' because God is holy.  Our attitude must be humble, as the tax collector's was, 'be gracious to me, a sinner' he prayed, and we must pray likewise, knowing only the atonement makes it possible.

(James 4:8) 8 Draw close to God, and he will draw close to YOU. Cleanse YOUR hands, YOU sinners, and purify YOUR hearts, YOU indecisive ones. . .

So yes, our 'mode of behavior' plays a huge role in this 'drawing close.'  However, the behavior God asks of us, is the behavior that will benefit us the most anyway. 

Mar 18, 2012 -- 2:16PM, Goodtobehomestill wrote:

Ed...if you see anything even remotely religious in post #123, that must really be the filter you are looking through.  That was just some of my personal thoughts on grubs, crickets, and cutting up 'eww' raw chicken!  ( I did get over that, eventually, btw, the cutting up, but I still would have to hide inside as I did as a girl when it was head-chopping time.)

Well, what you said was in post #122, however, this is what Newtonian said in post #123 in a conversation that included you(emphasis is mine):

Mar 17, 2012 -- 2:06PM, Newtonian wrote:

Mar 17, 2012 -- 12:01PM, Goodtobehomestill wrote:

I interfere with predation too, if I see it going on.  I think it is a natural instinct, at least for me it seems to be.  If you see a cat about to pounce on a bird, do you just sit there or scare off the bird or the cat?   So why not do the same for insects?  It's not like they aren't going to catch their flies or whatever later, but I don't have to watch.

Indeed, goodtobehome!   In fact that is one reason I switch some nature programs off.  They actually film one animal killing another - disgusting!  

How far we go is a matter of conscience in our religion, of course.

I go further than most, though.   If I see a butterfly caught in a spiders web, I will release it. 

Once when I was driving in my landscaping truck on Long Island, a yellow jacket (insect) flew into my cup of juice and drowned quickly.   I pulled over and got the yellow jacket out of the juice but it wasn't moving.   So I brought it outside on my truck hood and used a pencil - eraser side - and pushed in and out on its abdomen - gradually it began to move and to breathe on its own - eventually if fully recovered and flew off!

I doubt many others have given artificial respiration to an insect!

Yes, it made me late on my landscaping schedule.   But I can't stop it all - we really need God's Kingdom!

To me that yellow jacket had made a better choice, as some choose to kill while it chose fruit juice - I couldn't simply ignore its plight - but that's my personal conscience.

I think it all boils down to the fact that God is love, and violence is not loving.

I don't go as far as the Jains in India who sweep their path so they avoid stepping on insects - I simply try to avoid stepping on them.  

Of course, how far we go is a matter of conscience - but hunting for sport is definitely bad in our religion.

Therefore, even though your comments about your behavior was not religiously related....Newtonian made it clear that his comments were.

But I thought the purpose of the Bible was about how God's Kingdom was suppose to rectify the evil that exists in the world today...and to restore earth to paradise conditions. Which is why I posted a link to post #70 in the 'Number 5:11-22' thread in my post #134. And the reason being is that in that thread, it looks like Christians throughout all the centuries have been led to believe that the 'Kingdom was near' and that the end of the world was nigh...which even you admitted was for the purpose of getting them to live as good Christians.

Therefore, what I have concern about in all this is that if God is the one who inspired men to write the words that are in the Bible, then I am concerned that God had to use subterfuge as a means to an end.

Also, in post #126, you said: "I'm more interested in knowing what I am supposed to do, than in what ate what in the Garden, or what will eat what in the Paradise." However, if one cannot find truth and scientific accuracy in 'Paradise' scriptures such as Isaiah 11:6-9 and Isaiah 65:25, then how can one rely upon the truthfulness of the Bible and/or the truthfulness of JWs' interpretation of the Bible?  

Mar 19, 2012 -- 6:10PM, Goodtobehomestill wrote:

But I thought the purpose of the Bible was about how God's Kingdom was suppose to rectify the evil that exists in the world today...and to restore earth to paradise conditions.---

Through the means of the atonement, which is the message of the reconciliation, which means restoring us to our proper relationship with God.  (Which is huge evidence for God's personality, how much effort he has gone through to reconcile with us!)

(2 Corinthians 5:19) . . .that God was by means of Christ reconciling a world to himself, not reckoning to them their trespasses, and he committed the word of the reconciliation to us.

truth and scientific accuracy in 'Paradise' scriptures such as Isaiah 11:6-9 and Isaiah 65:25,

will you reject the message on this basis, when the message is not for the purpose of a science lesson?

Hmmm. Well, as I had said in another thread, it nows seems as if the scienticfic accuracy of the Bible that many Christians and JWs(such as our own Newtonian) boast about to prove the authenticity of the Bible....just doesn't seem very important anymore.

Interesting.