FINE-TUNING our thinking by clarifying our VOCABULARY of conscience

by Terry 8 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Terry

  Are you confused?
  Is your thinking and reasoning ineffective because of ambiguity?

  Do you sometimes find yourself unclear about what certain words mean?

  Do you confuse them? Does this confusion lead to wrong conclusions?

  For example: Let's consider the word FIT.

  

  You "fit" a puzzle piece into its proper niche completing a puzzle, but alternately
  your body can be "fit" with exercise, diet and attention to health.

  

  Is the word "fit" the SAME in both sentences? Is it accurate to say the definitions are identical?

  NO.

  In an enviornment of contestants in a Mr.Universe bodybuilding championship, the man who has acquired the best physique survives the competition and wins the prize.

  

  Not only is he FIT but he FITS into the paradigm of winner who takes the prize.
  HOWEVER . . .
  If that winner reproduces, does he pass bodybuilder physique genes to his son?

  NO. But, for many centuries this idea was definitely believed!

  Jean-Baptiste Lamarck wrongly believed and published in his Philosophie Zoologique of 1809 the folk wisdom that characteristics which were "needed" were acquired (or diminished) during the lifetime of an organism then passed on to the offspring.

  

  He was wrong, but he was influential because his ideas were carried forward confusing generations of thinkers.

  False ideas enter society's vocabulary to infect rational discussion.

  A Double confusion:

  In a larger enviornment (beyond bodybuilding competition) of survival in the world what do we find?

  If a bodybuilder had to run for his life (chased by a predator) he might find his large body mass a distinct DISadvantage.
  Survival is complicated by how you FIT into the moment by moment changing challenges of life itself.

  You can BE fit and yet NOT fitsurvival circumstances.

  FIT vs FIT

  In Evolution, the enviornment in which a species exists is of great importance to survival.
  If a species can FIT into its enviornment and survive, its FITNESS for that enviornment secures it against
  competing species less FIT. Context is everything.

  However, if there is a dramatic enviornmental upheaval (volcano, meteor, flood, ice age, etc) the species which cannot adapt (FIT) goes extinct.

  It no longer FITS.

  It is one thing for a member of a species to survive by BEING FIT and another thing for that FITNESS to be carried forward in subsequent offspring.

  Is it then, survival by fitting or merely being fit?

  Do you see a difference or does it all sound pretty much the same to you?

  Does the slight ambiguity infect or affect your reasoning and understanding of Evolution, for example?

  SURVIVAL OF THE________________ (Choose one: a. Fitness b. Fittest)

  Please read the following chain of events.

  1. Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1864 (one year before the end of the Civil War in America.)

  2. Herbert Spencer, after reading Darwin's book, coined the term "Survival of the fittest," as his opinion of what Darwin's "natural selection" process was. Spencer's economic theories of Capitalism became entertwined in the mind of the public and confused with Darwin's at this point. (1864) Spencer held to the ideas of Lamarck.

  VOCABULARY PROBLEM

  An old joke illustrates the competition aspect of survival and the nature of FITNESS and FITTEST.

  There are two friends, the first one is skinny and the second one is a well-muscled body-builder.
  If you stripped both of them down to shorts and asked people at random who looked the most FIT, the answer is a no-brainer.
  Now let's look closer . . .
  The first friend is a skinny guy is a jogger who runs 10K events. The second guy is a body-builder who just won Mr. Universe. (Remember how Arnold Schwarzenegger looked as Conan the Barbarian? There ya go!)

  Now, let's do something interesting.

  Let's drop these two guys into a well-known joke as characters and see what happens.

  Two campers come upon an angry bear. The first says, "I'm glad I wore my running shoes." The second says, "you can't outrun the bear." The first says, "I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you."

  LET'S ASK THE QUESTION: Who is the Fittest in THIS scenario?

  Herbert Spencer applied Darwin's "natural selection" to wrong contexts such as economics and morality. He CONFUSED PEOPLE.

  This confusing of genetics with social issues goes by the term SOCIAL DARWINISM.

  

  Natural Selection only applies to genetic science--not economics and morality.

  Spencer muddied the VOCABULARY of EVOLUTION for everybody by dragging false notions of LAMARCK in with that of Darwin's natural selection.

  This confusion has far-reaching effects on philosophy, education and politics!

  What is this key to UN-confusion about the science of evolution?

  The key to clearing up confusion about FITNESS and the FITTEST has only to do with two things.

  1. Can the traits which help FIT the species to the enviornment be PASSED ALONG genetically?

  2. If they can be transmitted to offspring--will the enviornment change? If it does, a further sorting out of FITNESS commences again.

  Further Philosophical, Sociological and Political confusion

  Humankind has developed rational thinking up to a point where technology, science, medicine, engineering, physics and mechanics has made

  it possible for a social enviornment to LESSEN THE IMPACT of survival on our own species.

  You can be stupid, wasteful, unhealthy, wrong-headed and non-productive and still survive.

  Instead of competing by fitting in or being fit you can survive by being NEEDY and DESERVING.

  Social Justice is what it is called politically.

  At the same time, our species has become dumb and dumber about how it damages the enviornment for other species.

  Even that has become a political platform for exploiting votes and extracting money for pressure groups.

  WHAT we think about these issues determines how we FEEL.

  But, more importantly, how we are ABLE to think clearly is the most essential question at the root of it.

  We are convinced, swayed, captivated and manipulated by our VOCABULARY.

  Confuse a word and you confuse an idea.

  Confuse an idea and you corrupt a species by hacking its mind!
• 

  Phizzy

  We Pedants are fast becoming extinct Terry, most people simply do not care about correct usage, we Pedants are obviously not fit, or the fittest, or something. (?)
• 

  Vidiot

  Over the course of my life, I've found it more effective to get points across to people by - whenever possible - using words and terms that only have one meaning.

  Less ambiguity, less chance of misunderstanding or misinterpretation.

  An example: I call the WTS an "authoritarian high-control group" rather than a "cult" (even though it's far wordier) because it's less likely to trigger a knee-jerk negative reaction, and (more importantly) it's arguably more accurate and therefore way harder to mistake for anything else.

  Hell, break it down into its individual components, and I think that even a lifelong, dyed-in-the-wool JW would have hard time refuting that designation.
• 

  SAHS

  A poignant example of confusing a word (which certainly all of us here are too well aware of) is the use of the word “TRUTH” by presumptuous religious groups. We all remember how the Watchtower organization has kept drumming out such provocative phrases as: “We’re in ‘the truth,’” “How long have you been in ‘the truth,’” “The light of ‘the truth’” gets brighter, and “So-and-so has left, or gone out of, ‘the truth.’” Of course in all these examples, the reality is that the term they use – “the truth” – should really be read as “OUR truth” (or at least “our truth of the day”; i.e., check again tomorrow).

  In terms of the Watchtower being “FIT,” it may be “fit” in the sense of being able to continue keeping afloat and financially solvent enough to exist based on its unique “corporate” structure model (i.e., free labor and tax-free revenues!), and it may also be “fit” in terms of the effective power it’s able to secure over its members through its authoritarian machine of fear-based coercion and streamlined control. But, does that parochial, fundamentalist, draconian, and terminally capricious organization FIT into the evermore progressive human society of today’s world? I mean, generally the first things people readily associate with the Jehovah’s Witnesses are the words “blood,” “shunning,” “celebrations” (as in not), “control,” “pedophilia,” “Armageddon” (also as in not, . . . or at least not yet), and, of course, “cult.”

  So basically, looking at it with a pair of reality glasses, the Watchtower organization has “truth,” but it is THEIR truth, and it has “fitness” enough to continue surviving (at least for now), but it still just doesn’t FIT into the world around them. And things that just don’t fit into human society eventually end up being pounded or melted (morphed) into fitting as they ought, or they end up just being discarded as more of society’s unnecessary baggage.
• 

  TTATTelder

  Good Post...thanks for expanding my thinking today
• 

  scotoma

  In any serious discussion the two most important questions are:

  1. What do you mean? That handles the easy part. People can define things anyway they want. Even if they have some obscure meaning to a word you can accept that to move the argument along. Legal documents will start off defining the way terms will be used.

  2. How do you know? This usually involves an If-Then statement of relationship or a series of causes and effects.

  Most theories collapse at the "How do you know?"

  Take any Watchtower and read every sentence and precede it with "How do you know..." Then do that with every explanation.

  You don't have to spend much time on religious concepts because you quickly arrive at a tautology.
• 

  quellycatface

  Terry, I told you not to put my picture on here. It's embarrassing.
• 

  twice shy

  Hmmm. Love the examples of the fat person and the camper. Still laughing my butt off. Makes a lot of sense.

  You FIT into the watchtower environment if you accept their doctrines and never veer or question their teachings. You are unFIT if you can see thru them like a bad piece of cellophane.

  I stop being FIT when I called them on the lack of LOVE shown in the congregations and by letting them know that they didnt FIT in my category of being Spiritually strong. I don't think you are spiritually strong if you give lip service and just show up out in service on Sat. or cant find common scriptures. Most of all if you dont know all 12 of the commandments and can't recite them all, but don't live by the 12th one... You just don't FIT into my level of high spiritual awareness.

  ROTFLMBO
• 

  Terry

  Jehovah's Witnesses took mainstream Christianity and replaced each part of it, one at a time, into its contrary.

  Holy Spirit became holy spirit = from a person into a mere forceful gesture.

  Cross became torture stake.

  Soul went from ethereal spirit to a mere hunk of flesh and bone.

  Salvation by Grace became earning your salvation one door-knock at a time.

  Jesus went from Divine to errand boy.

  Communion went from frequent celebration of Jesus allowing humanity back into devine favor, to boring audience non-participation.

  Pontius Pilate asked Jesus "What is truth?" and Jesus was silent, but you can't shut JW's up about every inane mindf*ck from the Tower mags.

  It is as though two thousand years of Christian worship was a farting contest until the Pyramid charts and invisible Jesus rants were published!