Is asking questions of logic about a Global Flood effective in waking loved ones?

by BU2B 32 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Bugbear

  I have been trying this tactic, asking sly qeustions to my wife. It ended up with that the elders in her Cong. told her not to speak "spiritual" word with me. So now we have a very quite home, but I can see that my wife stil longs for having those "tricky" talk with me. She sort of is misses the intellectual challenge that her partner should be able to give to her. All humans are always seeking "THE ANSWER" on their qeustions. I guess She also don´t belive either in the time span of the bible provides and or the "flood", but she prefers to stay in the shelter that the cong. provide. This becouse she has all her friends and all the social activities. I am hoping that someday she will wake up and understand, that by preaching a lie, she will become a part of that lie.

  Human conscience is rather peculiar

  Bugbear
• 

  adamah

  Marmot said-

  Case in point, my uncle has a phD in psychology but consistently dismissed any evidence I brought up against a global flood. The irony is he knows full well what cognitive dissonance is. My dad, too, is a smart man but his answer is always "wait on Jehovah." Sigh.

  They're both not likely relying on cognitive dissonance suppression techniques (which generally operate on the subconscious level).

  Instead, they both sound like they're consciously choosing NOT to think about it, since they KNOW it's illogical, but have made a conscious decision to act in a manner inconsistent with the evidence.

  That's willful and intentional dogmatism, where they're consciously aware of the illogic, but they just don't give a flip about it.

  Xians call it "faith", where being bull-headed and firm in one's beliefs is considered a virtue, which one must even ask God to be given it as a "gift".

  Hence believers don't need an excuse to be unreasonable, since faith gives them carte blanche to not use reason when it comes to their religious beliefs.

  DeWandellar said-

  It is much easier to ask them why the hell animals need to die? One of the core beliefs is the fact that Death came into the world because of Sin. But how the hell can animals sin if they have no knowledge?

  Actually, according to Jewish beliefs, animals CAN sin (they can't repent, though), and are to be held accountable for their actions: that's the whole idea behind holding animals accountable for bloodshed they commit against humans, by putting the animal to death (as described in the Torah by decribing the oxen that gores someone to death, where the owner is to be put to death too, if the animal had a prior history of violence but he didn't take steps to prevent it). More OT goofiness, reflecting the old out-dated beliefs of ancient culture.

  The thing that's inexplicable is what the plants did wrong to deserve getting wiped out: it may have been the fault of those carnivorous plants, LOL!

  Adam
• 

  FadeToBlack

  Hey Adamah,

  I'm not an expert in this field, but I have been doing a lot of reading recently to conduct English language conversation lessons with students who have some expertise in this area (thus I had to educate myself - enjoyed reading about Freud and Jung) but is seems like instead of using the term as you did (subconcious) most professionals prefer the term unconcious. Any thoughts on the matter?
• 

  wallsofjericho

  "radiocarbon dating is stupid. They have no idea what they're talking about."

  "8000 years old? PHHH! You KNOW that isn't accurate"

  "Obviously its only 4000 years old. As if scientists know anyting"
• 

  adamah

  FTB said-

  (subconcious) most professionals prefer the term unconcious. Any thoughts on the matter?

  Coming at it from the medical angle, the term 'unconscious' is used as an adjective to refer to what happens when a patient is loses consciousness, eg following a blow to the head, or given a general anaesthetic during surgery, etc. 'Subconscious' is used as a noun to refer to that cognitive processing which occurs below the level of conscious thought, while consciousness continues.

  At least, that's the way I was trained to think of those terms, and I'm not aware of any changes, other than psychoanalysts use it differently than in the medical profession. Here's a discussion of the difference between unconscious and subconscious, but the point is it remains a source of confusion:

  http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/unconscious-or-subconscious-20100801255

  My point is even though the person makes a conscious (or willful) decision to ignore the contradiction, they needn't necessarily inform everyone else that it's what they've decided: instead, they may offer a thought-stopper, conversation killer, a royal kiss-off response, eg "God works in mysterious ways" or "maybe we'll get the answer from Jehovah in the New System, so we'll just have to wait to find out and maybe ask Noah", etc.

  Adam
• 

  FadeToBlack

  From the great source:

  The unconscious mind (or the unconscious) consists of the thoughts in the mind that occur automatically and are not available to introspection, and include thought processes, memory, affect, and motivation. [1] Even though these processes exist well under the surface of conscious awareness they are theorized to exert an impact on behavior. The term was coined by the 18th-century German romantic philosopher Friedrich Schelling and later introduced into English by the poet and essayist Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The concept was developed and popularized by the Austrian neurologist and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. Empirical evidence suggests that unconscious phenomena include repressed feelings, automatic skills, subliminal perceptions, thoughts, habits, and automatic reactions, [1] and possibly also complexes, hidden phobias and desires. In psychoanalytic theory, unconscious processes are understood to be expressed in dreams in a symbolical form, as well as in slips of the tongue and jokes. Thus the unconscious mind can be seen as the source of dreams and automatic thoughts (those that appear without any apparent cause), the repository of forgotten memories (that may still be accessible to consciousness at some later time), and the locus of implicit knowledge (the things that we have learned so well that we do them without thinking).

  and from the same:

  The subconscious is commonly encountered as a replacement for the unconscious mind and therefore, laypersons commonly assume that the subconscious is a psychoanalytic term; it isn't. Sigmund Freud explicitly argues:

  “

  "If someone talks of subconsciousness, I cannot tell whether he means the term topographically – to indicate something lying in the mind beneath consciousness – or qualitatively – to indicate another consciousness, a subterranean one, as it were. He is probably not clear about any of it. The only trustworthy antithesis is between conscious and unconscious." [3]

  ”

  In Freud's opinion the unconscious mind has a will and purpose of its own that cannot be known to the conscious mind (hence the reason why it is called the "unconscious") and is a repository for socially unacceptable ideas, wishes or desires, traumatic memories, and painful emotions put out of mind by the mechanism of psychological repression.

  Charles Rycroft explains that the subconscious is a term "never used in psychoanalytic writings". [4] Peter Gay says that the use of the term subconscious where unconscious is meant is "a common and telling mistake"; [5] indeed, "when [the term] is employed to say something 'Freudian', it is proof that the writer has not read his Freud". [6]

  Freud's own terms for thinking that takes place outside conscious awareness are das Unbewusste (rendered by his translators as "the Unconscious") and das Vorbewusste ("the Preconscious"); informal use of the term subconscious in this context thus creates confusion, as it fails to make clear which (if either) is meant. The distinction is of significance because in Freud's formulation the Unconscious is "dynamically" unconscious, the Preconscious merely "descriptively" so: the contents of the Unconscious require special investigative techniques for their exploration, whereas something in the Preconscious is unrepressed and can be recalled to consciousness by the simple direction of attention. The erroneous, pseudo-Freudan use of subconscious and "subconsciousness" has its precise equivalent in German, where the words inappropriately employed are das Unterbewusste and das Unterbewusstsein.

  Again, obviously I am not an expert in this area (using wikipedia as a source), but is seems like the subconcious mind is not the prefered term. Anyone in this field professionaly want to share their thoughts?
• 

  BU2B

  Ok so I brought it up a little with her last night, and I phrased things, not like I didnt believe things happened, but in a way like "imagine all the miracles the Bible does not mention that would have had to have happened for the flood" For instance, nimls like Pandas who only eat Bamboo, or Pandas, who only eat eucalyptus. I brought up what a miracle it had to be for Koalas to have migrated from an Island, and travelled many thousands of miles. I said that they would have had to have been miraculously provieded with eucalyptus leaves along their journey, becuse their systems cant tolerate anything else. Also I brought up the timeline in the new WT, and how it shows that the tower of Babel was built only 99 years after the flood. I asked her to guess how many workers it took to build Solomons temple, a building much smaller than "a tower to the heveans" She guessed around 8000. I told her that 2 Chronicles says there were 70,000 laborers 80000 stone cutters and thousands more directing it all. it sure is amazing that the insight book says there were around 4000 males alive at that time. If that guess was true, how could 4,000 people actually less becaause of populations spreading, young children, etc.. How could less than 4,000 people build a civilization, city, and tower to the heavens not to mention the farmers needed in less than 100 years. I also brought up the Egyptian society, and how even if the dates were wrong, and the society started after the flood, that would have taken even more manpower away from the Babel project.

  She seemed most amazed by how quickly Noahs decendants went right back to badness right after the flood! How right after the waters receded, they went about building in opposition to Jehovah.

  I dont think she really sees the imposibility of a tower like that being built just 99 years after the worlds population was reduced to 8. I do hope I planted at least a little seed. I also need to continueing to work on aking only QUESTIONS, not making STATEMENTS! It is sometimes hard to do but I know it is the only way to truly make people think.
• 

  adamah

  BU2B said-

  She seemed most amazed by how quickly Noahs decendants went right back to badness right after the flood! How right after the waters receded, they went about building in opposition to Jehovah.

  Interesting, as she's seemingly responding not to the logistical impossibility of the account (typically a male trait), but to the moral angle (more of a female trait). The same type of recidivism happens in Exodus, when even AFTER supposedly seeing Jehovah's miracles (the plagues, the passover, the parting of the Red Sea, etc), the silly Israelites build a golden calf to worship Ba'al. Most JWs write it off as simply the stupid Hebrews who are too dense to see the visible evidence of God, i.e. they blame the victims (they are killed for worshipping Ba-al).

  However, Genesis itself is ripe with examples of morality that are ONLY justified with a "might makes right" excuse, and you don't need to go any further than the first eight books of Genesis to run into many serious moral issues (starting with the Adam and Eve account).

  Here's some ideas which may stimulate some useful approaches to use with her:

  http://awgue.weebly.com/the-paradox-of-adam-and-eve-and-how-the-new-world-translation-fruitlessly-attempts-to-keep-it-hidden.html

  Adam
• 

  BU2B

  You are right Adamah, I noticed the same thing. She couldnt care less about the logistics and science of it, but went right to the morality angle (which isnt ideal because nothing on that end can be conclusive") But hey whatever works for her, I will try to use. Thanks for the link buddy, I will check it out.
• 

  besty

  http://corior.blogspot.com/2006/02/part-1-general-description-of-flood.html

  this did a lot of damage to me when I was leaving - fantastic resource

  good luck with your wife - see how she feels about The Mediator issue as well...