Finish the job the Jehovah's Witnesses started on you!

by Terry 37 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Terry

  I have read a few of your posts. You are a brilliant man. But I dont see much connection with anything spirituall. Am I wrong? Please dont take this as an attack. You facinate me. I would like to know what made you who you are today.

  Terry isn't brilliant. He is average or just a little under.

  I think our only means of knowledge is our rational mind. We gain information through our five senses about the real world.

  The problem starts once those perceptions go inside our mind. What we DO with our perceptions becomes an issue.

  In a rational mind NO CONTRADICTIONS can be allowed between the real world and our conclusions about the real world.

  A thing is what it is. A=A

  With Spiritual matters you throw away your only means of gathering facts: rational thinking. You abandon A=A.

  Spiritual thinking is a wild card approach. Instead of A=A you can end up with A=toenail.

  When you go "Spiritual" you can't trust YOUR OWN MIND to think (you can't be rational) you give up your autonomy and your self AND TURN IT OVER to some outside source such as a priest, a guru, a shaman, a preacher, a buddha, a Jesus or a Fred Franz.

  With SPIRITUAL things there is no way to test the non-contradiction because "spritual" thinking doesn't deal with the REAL WORLD!

  You become a sucker and a dupe for whatever crazy thing somebody wants to pour into your head.

  Believing a group of old men in Brooklyn New York receive direction from an invisible Jesus when they write Watchtower articles seems like the absolute TRUTH if you are a "spiritual" thinker! IT CAN'T SEEM LIKE A LIE when you click OFF your rational (non-contradictory) thinking.

  You see?

  Why turn off your burglar alarm and let the burglars steal you blind??

  I live in the real world now. You other folks can have your "spiritual" playground to yourselves.

  I got my mind back and I'm not giving it up again!
• 

  Terry

  "You have absolutely no problem with a God who came from nothingness?"

  I always thought God had no beginning or end. Am I wrong?

  So he didn't "come" he just was.

  You can easily say the same for the Universe itself. It had no beginning or end. It just was.

  Why is it easier to accept a SuperPerson who is invisible always existing than accepting stuff you can see always existing?

  Stuff doesn't have a mind or plans or a purpose or a battle with a talking snake.

  Isn't it more rational to accept a universe of stuff always being here?

  Come on.....think about it......why do you have to have a guy in the sky before you can relax?
• 

  journey-on

  Isn't it more rational to accept a universe of stuff always being here?

  No. It isn't.

  I enjoy reading most of what you post, Terry. But, lately, I have realized that while you accuse others of being illogical and irrational for believing in a higher power, you yourself display these traits many times, but you don't see it that way.

  Answer this question: What proves something is conscious? Can you see consciousness itself? No. You see the results of something being conscious...the results of an intelligence at work...

  Because you don't actually "see" the intelligent consciousness that wrote the music, or designed the building, or put together a fantastic 7-course meal, you know the notes came together to form a great symphony, the brick and morter joined perfectly to form a fantastic cathedral, and the ingredients were blended in just the right amounts to make the 7-course meal to die for. Your logic and rationality tell you something or somebody had the conscious intelligence to create these things...put them together in just the right way paying the closest attention to its perfection.

  Go a step further. Who/what created the Idea of music, architecture, cuisine. Where is the domain of true creativity. You will probably say the physical brain, but you would be wrong. Scientists are more and more beginning to realize that much of consciousness may actually lie outside the individual brain. But that's a whole different topic for discussion.

  You also, imho, have the wrong idea of what faith really is, as do most people. But, that, too, is a different topic. But, nevertheless, I still enjoy your topics even though you yourself sometimes refuse to use the tools of ration to see past the wall you have constructed to keep "whatever" out (or maybe to keep "whatever" in.) JMOFWIW
• 

  Terry

  Answer this question: What proves something is conscious? Can you see consciousness itself? No. You see the results of something being conscious...the results of an intelligence at work...

  When you abuse language you confuse yourself and others.

  Consciousness isn't a thing. Consciousness is a concept about a process.

  So, "Seeing" consciousness is an absurd notion. Not being able to do an absurd thing is proof of nothing. The premise is just silly.

  To further illustrate my point:

  Your logic and rationality tell you something or somebody had the conscious intelligence to create these things...put them together in just the right way paying the closest attention to its perfection.

  You are here referring to the WATCHMAKER fallacy which is a false analogy, of course and a popular non-proof.

  The hidden premise makes the trick seem to work. A piece of music or a work of architecture are KNOWN creations of man already. Nobody would need proof of that. You try and bootstrap a KNOWN into proof of an UNknown and that doesn't fly either rationally or logically.

  You aren't the master of your reasoning process because you don't treat words with precision. If you don't treat words with precision you muddle your conceptual works and your loose ends unravel!

  If you look up and see a cloud pass by that looks like an alligator does that make the cloud an actual alligator? Just wondering.

  It was raining one day and some soft drink bottles had been left out on the front porch by my kids. As the random raindrops entered the open empty bottles a distinctive musical "plop" was heard. As the bottles began to fill up with rainwater the pitch changed. Each bottle had a different pitch each time and all together a sort of spontaneous tune was playing!!

  Now follow with me here......

  It was my brain's interpretation mechanism that gave the random raindrop-in-a-bottle sounds the context of MUSIC or a TUNE. Nobody was composing it. No consciousness was at work......except my own.

  Get the point?

  I enjoy reading most of what you post, Terry. But, lately, I have realized that while you accuse others of being illogical and irrational for believing in a higher power, you yourself display these traits many times, but you don't see it that way.

  The traits I display are illogical and irrational? Just because I don't postulate automatically that GOD was PLAYING A TUNE with rain in some Dr.Pepper bottles????

  Really now, that's a bit far fetched.
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  journey-on

  Telling someone something does not make it so, Terry. You actually made my point. Consciousness is no thing, yet it is something. You are failing to think past your NEED to be right, Terry. Before you even thought thoroughly about my presentation and viewpoint, you were already pulling up the reply box and typing. Your "set in stone" way of perceiving things, does not allow you to open up to new ways of looking at the possibilities.

  Before I go any further, I need to know: Are you open to the possibility that Consciousness can exist outside the physical brain? If not, read more cutting edge scientific literature to understand what is being considered in view of the new physics and allow yourself to think outside the box, as they say.

  Also, the Dr. Pepper bottle was put there by someone or something...it's matter. It has substance. BTW, it may randomly fill up with water, but to fill up with Dr. Pepper falling out of the sky would require a whole different alchemy or set of physics ;-)

  Perhaps if you can get past the idea that "God" is a sky daddy of some sort and look at the Creator through a more scientific lens (they have improved scientific eyesight tremendously over the last three decades...they can actually "see" things that they never knew existed before...:-)

  I'll bet when you turned 45, you were one of those that refused to get reading glasses for your presbyopia and kept pushing the page further and further back till your arms couldn't reach the distance. Sorry, that comment was in response to yours: "You aren't the master of your reasoning process because you don't treat words with precision. If you don't treat words with precision you muddle your conceptual works and your loose ends unravel!" Methinks the pot is calling the kettle black, but doesn't even realize it.
• 

  Terry

  Before I go any further, I need to know: Are you open to the possibility that Consciousness can exist outside the physical brain? If not, read more cutting edge scientific literature to understand what is being considered in view of the new physics and allow yourself to think outside the box, as they say.

  I have no idea what you are going on about.

  You say something and I consider it and I reply. If it doesn't agree with what you hold to be true you accuse me of knee-jerk response.

  Think what you like. A fact is a fact. An assertion is just an assertion.

  You ask if I am "Open to the possibility" of .......

  Let me stop you right there.

  I'm open to evidence and a reasoned argument about evidence that is instantiated. I'm not really all that interested in fringe hypothesis per se.

  You seem to be interested in CONSCIOUSNESS.

  I'm more interested in IDENTITY. What impact does identity have on existence and consciousness, for example?

  Existence exists— consciousness being the faculty of perceiving that which exists.

  If nothing exists, there can be no consciousness: a consciousness with nothing to be conscious of is a contradiction in terms.

  A consciousness conscious of nothing but itself is a contradiction in terms: before it could identify itself as consciousness, it had to be conscious of

  something.

  If that which you claim to perceive does not exist, what you possess is not consciousness.
• 

  cyberjesus

  In this Page:

  Terry is brilliant

  Terry is average

  Terry is Illogical

  Terry is Irrational

  mmmm Thats all perception

  Terry is Terry
• 

  journey-on

  I'm not really all that interested in fringe hypothesis per se.

  Then thank God you aren't a scientist and probably weren't in your previous lives!

  Many a discovery was made because a visionary scientist dared to think about the "what if" possibilities.