Intolerance - a new breed of ex-JW (page 24)

AuldSoul

The very fact of the sting is not an opinion and cannot be.

Except it could be imagined as opposed to actual. Ever talk with a severe alcoholic while they are getting off the sauce?

AuldSoul

Rabbit

You are more precisely correct here than you might have intended! ; It isn't the passive nor the aggressive which is real; it is the BEHAVIOR.
So..
We've concluded detante at last!
Three cheers for agreed upon definitions!
Hip Hip----------
Hip Hip
Hip Hip

Terry,

The Fest is about 33 miles East of Ft.Worth. It would be very interesting to meet you. For instance I was wondering if you YELL in REAL CONVERSATION IN REAL LIFE...LIKE YOU DO IN REAL PHOTON LIFE ?

I was only askin', so, I'll know whether to bring my "Noise Canceling Bose Headphones". heheh

See you there !

Rabbit

Terry

Terry,

The Fest is about 33 miles East of Ft.Worth. It would be very interesting to meet you. For instance I was wondering if you YELL in REAL CONVERSATION IN REAL LIFE...LIKE YOU DO IN REAL PHOTON LIFE ?
I was only askin', so, I'll know whether to bring my "Noise Canceling Bose Headphones". heheh
See you there !
Rabbit

I'm fun in real life. I'm mild-mannered (like Clark Kent).

I don't yell. Don't need to.

I need more precise directions than 33 miles east of Ft.Worth. I need a cross-hairs. When/where. An address and a Yahoo map would be nice. What Day and What Time?

Love to meet you and anybody from the JWDG.

funkyderek

AuldSoul:

I am not trying to convince you that you must believe everything someone says. I am trying to convince you that unless you have compelling contrary evidence you must allow them their belief while being as skeptical as you like, pursuant to acknowledging they may know something you don't know.

If I can't definitively prove something wrong, I will allow that technically there is a nonzero probability that it is true. However, in practice, that applies to any number of fanciful and absurd beliefs and someone who holds such a belief without a good reason does not deserve any respect or consideration for their beliefs.

Aren't all my percetions, by definition, subjective?
Not to you, Only to anyone with whom you try to share them. Subjective versus objective is only a clinical distinction. In everyday life it is almost meaningless.

Now I'm confused. I thought your whole paradigm was based on dividing everything into the two categories of subjective or objective.

But is it not your personal perception, from the framework of knowledge and experience that you possess, as to whether one framework is a more accurate measure than another?

No, one framework is more accurate than another if it more closely represents demonstrable, measurable real reality.

If so, there is no basis, as far as I can tell, for ridicule. You've already admitted that your knowledge and/or the facts may change.

That does not mean all beliefs are equally valid. Some have a very solid basis, others are speculative but plausible, others are ridiculous but technically possible and some are flat-out impossible. The strength with which a belief is held combined with the amount of evidence (even circumstantial or subjective evidence) for that belief are the factors which determine the relative sensibility of a belief. Beyond a certain point (strongly held beliefs with no plausible evidence) they become laughable, and when rational argument fails, ridicule or outright dismissal become the only options.

Rabbit

Terry,

Here is the "Sweatfest" link: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/19/113540/1.ashx

The partee will be at Hemp Lover's, PM her to get directions. The exact details of the side trips are getting worked out.

Rabbit

Terry

Okay. I'll be there.

I'll get the directions from HempLover.

When I go in to work on Sunday I'll request July29th off for the shindig.

I've never been to one of these before.

How long do they last?

Sunnygal41

I, for one don't have a beef with atheists. Quite honestly I don't have a beef with anyone. What I have a beef with is the hypocrisy, scorn, ridicule, and condecension.
If you post honestly, then good for you. However, I have seen too many acidic remarks from the "anti-God squad" to really believe that they are either honest or fair.

Yes, why is it that we must be so quick to jump down someone's throat? Do we get extra points for being nasty? My momma always said you get more bees with honey than with vinegar. When someone attacks me, I immediately close my mind and go into defense mode, so what makes someone think by being sarcastic and cutting that you will cause that person to listen to what you are saying?

Terri

LittleToe

Terry:

You'll probably not have to take the whole day off if you don't want.

Since only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun, I understand it's starting around 6pm (so I'm looking for things to occupy my day with). It could last until anytime between 10pm and 4am, I guess. Most other times I've been, a few of us have headed downtown afterwards. Who can forget the 4am Whattaburger incident of two years ago?!!! (clue: It's like the 60s - if you were there you can't remember it!)

Depending on how late it finishes, etc., it may be a late morning, Sunday

I generally don't talk JW or God-stuff unless someone else initiates it, and even then it's short. Usually there are enough people there milling around that it's hard to have a meaningful discussion for more than 5-10 minutes in a sitting, anyhow

It's just a great excuse to chill out and meet some of the faces behind the [often misunderstood] words. You'll love it

HEALTH WARNING: Valis and Rabbit's wife pinch real hard, just when ya don't expect it!

AuldSoul

Now I'm confused. I thought your whole paradigm was based on dividing everything into the two categories of subjective or objective.

Alright, maybe I inadvertently missed a bit in my explanation. With the bee sting analogy, I tried to demonstrate (and I think I did demonstrate) that a personal experience that can be be placed in circumstances where it cannot be verified or falsified (by definition not clinically objective fact), can nonetheless be objective fact from the perspective of the one who experienced it. They need no further proof. It is also possible that they imagined it. So anyone else would possibly require further proof. Anyone other than the person who experienced it would be justified in a measure of skepticism, although from the perspective of the person who experienced it, a bee, in objective fact, stung them.

This is not just a matter of perception, but it is only at the point when the person attempts to convince someone else they were stung (demonstrably prove) that the question of objectivity versus subjectivity enters the picture at all. Prior to that point it is entirely irrelevant whether a bee actually stung the person, whether it was instead a briar, or whether it was imagined. The person who experienced it has no reason for skepticism that the bee actually stung them, and would reasonably perceive the event as an objective fact. Even though it was only an experience perceived by the brain.

In the case of the driver and passenger, only one of the two accounts of what happened was accurate. Only one matched reality. However, what if the gas station attendant was lying about having removed the stop sign? Then the drivers perception becomes more accurate. But what if another of the townspeople actually removed the sign? Then the passengers perception becomes more accurate. Since conditions can be introduced to easily falsify or prove either account, the factuality of either viewpoint is open to interpretation. Making the actual reality for each of the people in the car equally correct.

This demonstrates that the framework used to do the interpretting is also subjectively derived, and may itself change with changed facts. Since this is the case, all facts are to a degree subjective.

If you know for certain that your framework may not be accurate, because you know for certain that you may not know enough, you have no basis for determining that the framework will not change to allow for a belief you are ridiculing to be more probable than at first supposed. Would you like to examine some historical examples of this happening?

I only used the belief you came up with as an example because you framed it differently than it is held by me. But there are quite a few facts that have become falsehoods and ridiculous notions that have become fact. I don't think we are anywhere close to the finish line with that process, do you?

1,000 years go, light didn't travel. 100 years ago, nothing traveled faster. Where will our facts position our understanding of light in another 100 or 1,000 years? Which facts will no longer be facts in that span of time?

Since your framework will change, your certainty about how ridiculous someone's belief is may also change. If people weren't certain that Nikola Tesla's ideas were ridiculous and dangerous (deserving of rough treatment, per Terry's definitions) we might be buzzing around in Jetson's style cars by now without a second thought to an "energy crisis". As long as the earth spins there will be kinetic energy between the ionosphere and the surface. Tesla believed he could tap into it.

Maybe the inventor if the Tesla coil, primary contributor to the technologies that spawned the wireless telegraph and FM frequency radio, early pioneer of practical usage for solid state electronics, and the inventor of the AC turbines at Niagara Falls shouldn't have been ridiculed. But I suppose that is a matter of perception, isn't it?

Respectfully,
AuldSoul

Terry

You'll probably not have to take the whole day off if you don't want.

My usual workday begins at 2:30 and ends at 10:30...so...I'm only too happy to take the day off!

Besides no party is fun if it doesn't bleed into the next day(s)......

Intolerance - a new breed of ex-JW

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