A counterfeit $100 bill looks virtually the same as a genuine bill.
Ask yourself what ACTUAL difference exists between them?
A really good Elvis impersonator may look and sound pretty darned close to the real Elvis--but, is "close" the same as genuine?
reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined.
Reality trumps imagination for actual existence. Captain Kirk "exists" but not actually.
So, you have to know what game you are playing: Standard or theoretical. Fact or Fiction. Actual or imaginary.
I use to be in the Art business where there are Originals and then there are reproductions. The reproductions can be very well done but they are not considered equal to the original in any way other than mere appearance.
Why?
Authenticity tests reality at its deepest level of meaning.
What if your son or daughter were kidnapped but a different child of the same age were returned to you instead? Would it make any difference?
Of course it would.
But--why?
Authenticity. Reality. Value stems from our deepest convictions about these things: reality and authenticity.
An interesting thing about all this centers on human willingness to believe what "appears" to be true, real or authentic.
Non-skeptical people can be fooled!
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Frank William Abagnale, Jr. is an American security consultant known for his history as a former confidence trickster, check forger, impostor, and escape artist. He became notorious in the 1960s for passing $2.5 million worth of meticulously forged checks across 26 countries over the course of five years, beginning when he was 16 years old.
In the process, he became one of the most famous impostors ever, claiming to have assumed no fewer than eight separate identities as an airline pilot, a doctor, a U.S. Bureau of Prisons agent, and a lawyer. He escaped from police custody twice (once from a taxiing airliner and once from a U.S. federal penitentiary), before he was 21 years old.
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In the final analysis, if you never discovered you were being fooled by a trickster you might be fat, dumb and happy with a pocket full of counterfeit bills,
watching an Elvis impersonator thinking it was the original while at home you have a reproduction of the Mona Lisa on your wall that you bought at auction
with real money for millions of dollars.
Ignorance is said to be "bliss" or ultimate happiness.
As a matter of fact, most of us here on JW-net actually WERE that person when we sat in the local Kingdom Hall or went knocking on people's doors offering
them a life or death choice because Armageddon was coming in 1975!
You've heard the expression: Shit happens! Well, I have a better one for you: REALITY HAPPENS!
Making a vigilant stand for the authentic and the actual and the real means the difference between a life of self-deception or a genuine life of value, honesty and integrity.
Jehovah's Witnesses don't live honest christian lives. They THINK they do.
Thinking that way is not the same as BEING real.
Their method of determining Truth (or authentic thinking which matches reality) is to settle for the tricksters and confidence men they call the Governing Body--all those Frank Abagnales in suits who direct worldwide Elvis impersonations.
Counterfeit Truth corresponds with virtual reality: the imagination of bullshitters who make it up and publish it under the Watchtower banner.
Publishers who go door to door are like counterfeiters passing bad bills and fobbing it off as currency and legal tender.
This makes members of this religion unwitting criminals with zero personal integrity.
Reality is a real bitch!
...OUTLAW