The vote is in: SCIENCE vs RELIGION......who won?

by Terry 171 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  onacruse

  My dear disabused Terry, you observed:

  What you are describing in your self-imposed "Greyness" is the fallout from having once been absolutely certain and having lost that.

  That is certainly true, and, as I described earlier, that began with my experiences in the religious arena. I still had the refuge of the scientific arena, and thus I was more than happy to pursue a career in engineering. But, as I mentioned, that college experience was where I happened upon some "disturbing" observations, for example:

  It has often been said, and certainly not without justification, that the man of science is a poor philosopher. Why, the, should it not be the right thing for the physicist to let the philosophizer do the philosophizing? Such might indeed be the right thing at a time when the physicist believes he has at his disposal a rigid system of fundamental concepts and fundamental laws which are so well established that waves of doubt cannot reach them; but, it cannot be right at a time when the very foundations of physics itself have become problematic as they are now. At a time like the present, when experience forces us to seek a newer and more solid foundation, the physicist cannot simply surrender to the philosopher the critical contemplation of the theoretical foundations; for he himself knows best, and feels more surely where the shoe pinches. In looking for a new foundation, he must try to make clear in his own mind just how far the concepts which he uses are justified, and are necessities.

  The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking. It is for this reason that the critical thinking of the physicist cannot possibly be restricted to the examination of the concepts of his own field. He cannot proceed without considering critically a much more difficult problem, the problem of analyzing the nature of everyday thinking.

  Our psychological experience contains, in colorful succession, sense experiences, memory pictures of them, images, and feelings. In contrast to psychology, physics treats directly only of sense experiences and of the "understanding" of their connections. But even the concept of the "real external world" of everyday thinking rests exclusively on sense perceptions.

  Now we must first remark that the differentiation between sense impressions and images is not possible; or, at least it is not possible with absolute certainty.

  --Albert Einstein (Physics and Reality, from The Journal of the Franklin Institute, Volume 221, No. 3, March 1936)
• 

  Terry

  I was one of Jehovah's Witnesses and I stood proud and tall and utterly convinced I had the only true religion.

  I dedicated my entire life to the one God in all the Universe who could rescue mankind from death and sin.

  I learned His name was Jehovah and that He had a purpose for my life.

  The purpose was spreading his Kingdom messege house to house. This messege was that Jesus, king of mankind, was separating sheep-like humble believers from goat-like obstinate unbelievers before all wicked systems of man were utterly destroyed at Armageddon.

  All my information came from my loving brothers and sisters in the local Kingdom Hall, the Watchtower publications and the faithful and discreet slave; the only pure mouthpiece of God.

  Then, I met real life on the road and it kicked the shit out of me. The shit was the Watchtower lies.

  I was horrified.

  Not only had I wasted my time, my youth, my mind and my finances on spreading nonsense into my community; I damaged my thinking by becoming irrational and indoctrinated.

  I had to start life all over again like a refugee. I moved from the fantasy of apocalypse into the real world of ordinary people doing the best they can to make a good life for themselves and their families.

  My neighbors transformed from stinking goats into caring, genuine people.

  My mindset morphed from ideology of hate and tunnel vision into a functioning skepticism and hope based on personal responsibility.

  Jehovah deteriorated from Universal Soverign into a mispronounced tribal deity clutched by superstitious ancient patriarchy as an amulet to shield them from the modern world.

  My "brothers and sisters" became narrow minded cult members who turned their back on me after decades of professed "love".

  The Watchtower devolved into a propaganda rag that uses unpaid labor to inflitrate illogical doctrines of mind-control into unsuspecting minds.

  My fear of invisible evil melted away into a smile at my immature gullibility.

  My purpose became building a decent life and repairing the damage to my thinking.

  My venom is for the precious time I was insane and did NOT need to be after being injected by poison from a best friend who robotically went about his preaching duty.

  I come on strong. But, I'm objective and fair. I'll listen. I'll examine and argue. But, I will give a fair hearing. I'll test other ideas and sniff them out for superstition, mysticism and fantasy content before injesting them.

  I expect and demand that others are as fair with me.

  I could be more pleasant. But, not after my confinement and brainwashing at the hand's of Jehovah's hand puppets.

  I was eaten alive by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society and crapped out the backend of a Kingdom Hall.

  If I'm pissed; it is because of the journey from fang to fart.
• 

  RWC

  I apologize for the typing Terry. The hypothetical I gave in my last post came from the news. The Astronaut was from Houston.
• 

  Terry

  http://godisimaginary.com/i24.htm

  Check it out and...............think!
• 

  RWC

  I looked at some of these and I think they can be summarized as follows:
  
  
  God is imaginary because God is imaginary
• 

  Satanus

  If a person stops his thoughts, what happens?

  S

  coma

  Not enough for my money, no (not that i paid much, but anyway). Would these statements accurately reflect your thought: if one stops thinking, they will pass out? All that keeps a person conscious is thought? Without thought, there is no consciousness? S
• 

  AK - Jeff

  I was one of Jehovah's Witnesses and I stood proud and tall and utterly convinced I had the only true religion.

  I dedicated my entire life to the one God in all the Universe who could rescue mankind from death and sin.

  I learned His name was Jehovah and that He had a purpose for my life.

  The purpose was spreading his Kingdom messege house to house. This messege was that Jesus, king of mankind, was separating sheep-like humble believers from goat-like obstinate unbelievers before all wicked systems of man were utterly destroyed at Armageddon.

  All my information came from my loving brothers and sisters in the local Kingdom Hall, the Watchtower publications and the faithful and discreet slave; the only pure mouthpiece of God.

  Then, I met real life on the road and it kicked the shit out of me. The shit was the Watchtower lies.

  I was horrified.

  Not only had I wasted my time, my youth, my mind and my finances on spreading nonsense into my community; I damaged my thinking by becoming irrational and indoctrinated.

  I had to start life all over again like a refugee. I moved from the fantasy of apocalypse into the real world of ordinary people doing the best they can to make a good life for themselves and their families.

  My neighbors transformed from stinking goats into caring, genuine people.

  My mindset morphed from ideology of hate and tunnel vision into a functioning skepticism and hope based on personal responsibility.

  Jehovah deteriorated from Universal Soverign into a mispronounced tribal deity clutched by superstitious ancient patriarchy as an amulet to shield them from the modern world.

  My "brothers and sisters" became narrow minded cult members who turned their back on me after decades of professed "love".

  The Watchtower devolved into a propaganda rag that uses unpaid labor to inflitrate illogical doctrines of mind-control into unsuspecting minds.

  My fear of invisible evil melted away into a smile at my immature gullibility.

  My purpose became building a decent life and repairing the damage to my thinking.

  My venom is for the precious time I was insane and did NOT need to be after being injected by poison from a best friend who robotically went about his preaching duty.

  I come on strong. But, I'm objective and fair. I'll listen. I'll examine and argue. But, I will give a fair hearing. I'll test other ideas and sniff them out for superstition, mysticism and fantasy content before injesting them.

  I expect and demand that others are as fair with me.

  I could be more pleasant. But, not after my confinement and brainwashing at the hand's of Jehovah's hand puppets.

  I was eaten alive by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society and crapped out the backend of a Kingdom Hall.

  Terry - I could have written that. I took a different road at the crossroad though.

  My appreciation of where you come from has increased.

  Yes - It is a compliment, damn it!

  Jeff
• 

  bernadette

  (((((((((((TERRY))))))))))))

  I have gone scuttling back to re-read my copy of The God Delusion. I've also discovered an interesting site - Human Spirit - don't laugh or groan. Take a look if you have time.
• 

  Terry

  Not enough for my money, no (not that i paid much, but anyway). Would these statements accurately reflect your thought: if one stops thinking, they will pass out? All that keeps a person conscious is thought? Without thought, there is no consciousness?

  Okay, here is your basic primer on THINKING. You'll probably fall asleep reading it.

  Thinking is the act of placing before the mind objects of consideration.

  Thinking consists of isolating identities, discovering causal connections, separating "something" from the everything and defining it.

  Thinking is not an automatic function. Man is free to evade this effort. Thinking requires a state of full, focused awareness.

  Focusing one's consciousness is volitional; you must decide to do it and actually maintain the doing of it.

  Simply put, when we think; we are human.

  Consciousness requires consciousness of "something". How much of something is a matter of paying attention to details.

  When we sleep the brain activity we call dreaming is inchoate, illogical and often absurd because there is no true awareness.

  Thinking is man's only basic virtue. On the other hand, the source of all of man's evils is the act of blanking out. This is the deliberate failure to pay attention to what is real in all its detail while substituting what one wishes was real in its place and then basing decisions on the falsereality.

  The refusal to think, the refusal to see, the refusal to reason and the refusal to define accurately only leave the imagination to supply information and facts for consideration.

  By choosing not to think (for whatever reason) you engage in an act of annhilation; negating existence and wiping out reality.

  When you have shut out reality you leave room only for UNreality. The irony here is enormous!

  Instead of choosing to think about what IS and what is real and true and actual the abandonment of the intellect leaves us prey to daydreams, wishful thinking, hallucination, whim and disconnection from rational conclusions. We are then in the grip of our subconscious primitive brain (reptile brain) which is mostly reactive. (Emotional in the extreme with fear, hatred, ecstacy, transcendance and profound physical resonances. Mental masturbation.

  It is much easier to abandon our higher rational focus than it is to turn inward and masturbate a bio-feedback response of "oneness" with the Universe.

  Non-thinking stretches concepts away from true definitions and retrofits them with fuzzy non-definitions where anything can mean anything.

  There will be lots of amorphous language used to describe "feelings" as profoundly meaningful while actually saying nothing.

  If a person stops his thoughts, what happens?

  Three levels: 1.Conscious focus 2.Detached unawareness (daydream) 3. Unconscious random images and dreaming

  Meditation detaches you and allows you to generate any hallucinated state you care name. Mystics assert all knowledge is already self-contained and turn inward to achieve "enlightenment". This is like keeping your textbook closed and imagining what it must say and then declaring what you imagine to be superior to the text itself!

  Devotion to truth is the hallmark of morality. Distorting reality by evading it is the hallmark of immorality because we abandon what is real and build our on substitute and call it transcendant.

  There is no greater, nobler and heroic act of human morality that the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking!
• 

  Terry

  Thinking is a delicate, difficult process, which man cannot perform unless knowledge is his goal, logic is his method, and the judgment of his mind is his guiding absolute.

  A man cannot think if he places something--anything--above his perception of reality. Why? Because he cannot follow the evidence unswervingly or uphold his conclusions with integrity.