Clean the JUNK out of your vocabulary and it follows, you will clean up your ability to THINK

by Terry 37 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Terry

  There are certain "junk" words that litter our brain, pollute our vocabulary, and play fast and loose with our reasoning.

  One of those junk words is SPIRIT.

  The words means nothing, but extrapolations of its metaphorical pretense are everywhere!

  We have five sense connected with our body link to brain.

  Hearing, vision, taste, touch, sense of smell.

  WITH THOSE FIVE we are in touch with THINGS AS THEY EXIST.

  Reality is what it IS.

  Through technology, science has been able to AMPLIFY our senses with microscopes, telescopes, x-rays, MRI's, space probes, atom smashers, etc.

  But--I assure you--none of this has produced EVIDENCE of "spirit."

  ________________________________________________________

  The last thing that happens when you die is this. You EXHALE.

  This is respiration. Peek into that word and find 'spir'.

  That is breath.

  From that all the nonsense begins!

  God "breathed" into his nostrils the "breath" of life . . .

  The 'spir'it of God moved over blah blah blah . . .

  SPIRIT is a poetic, non-scientific metaphor for breath, breathing, invisible air (you can feel it, but not see it. Ohhhh, spoooky.)

  Early man did not understand how it was possible to FEEL the wind and yet not SEE the wind.

  Early man did not understand how it was possible to FEEL his breath and yet not SEE his breath.

  The human imgination, in all of its ignorance, concoted a faulty hypothesis which science had disproved time and time again.

  Early man concoted an idea:

  THAT INVISIBLE BUT PALPABLE THING WHICH COMES OUT OF US WHEN WE DIE IS A SPIRIT.

  From that it is easy to go hog wild inventing spirits, demons, Jinn, ghosts, etc. etc.
• 

  Phizzy

  Got rid of that junk years ago, but I have an important question, how far does this "cleaning" go ?

  Am I permitted still to swear like Trooper Terry ?
• 

  cofty

  Great post Terry.

  On a closely related point, it's worth taking note of how often people (ok I mean theists) think they are saying something but in fact they are using a metaphor. When you ask them what they mean by that they use another metaphor and so on and so on...

  Behind all of the metaphors it turns out there is no actual content.
• 

  Terry

  I hear ya!

  Let me use an analogy.

  Every single day I run three apps on my laptop to clean out the junk.

  CCLEANER, GLARY UTILITIES 4 and MALWAREBYTES anti-malware.

  Why do I mention this? Because, even though I clean up every single, cotton-pickin' day--there is always SOMETHING to clean out!

  How much more so do you think our BRAIN needs cleaning up and defragmentation every single day?

  I am very, very careful about my vocabulary. I try not to use fake words when I need real ones. Why not?

  It causes rapid deterioration in logic and rational thinking.

  Take the word 'RIGHT'.

  You have a left hand and a right hand.

  You also have right and wrong.

  Did you know many civilizations consider the right hand to be the only RIGHT hand?

  Did you know parents punish their children for using the left hand and force the kid to use the right hand because it is RIGHT?

  Did you know Jesus' disciples wanted to sit at his RIGHT hand?

  This kind of sloppy vocabulary can wreck your ability to think!

  Did you know we base our ENTIRE IDEA of the BIBLE having come directly from God on a word the "Apostle" Paul made up out of thin air?

  Paul took two separate words and glued them together Theos (god) pneustos (breathed). Theopnuestos "god-breathed" = INSPIRATION.

  There was no such vocabulary word in Greek until Paul invented it!!

  theopneustos: God-breathed, i.e. inspired by God

  Original Word: θεόπνευστος, ον
  Part of Speech: Adjective
  Transliteration: theopneustos
  Phonetic Spelling: (theh-op'-nyoo-stos)
  Short Definition: God-breathed, inspired by God
  Definition: God-breathed, inspired by God, due to the inspiration of God.

  (http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/281578/1/God-breathed-Scriptures#.U71xyfldVeA)

  Paul single-handedly introduced a phony concept into ordinary writings and turned them into numinous hands-on miracles of divine "inspiration."
• 

  cofty

  There was no such vocabulary word in Greek until Paul invented it!!

  I didn't know that.

  This is the sort of thread that keeps me coming back to JWN. Thanks
• 

  AndDontCallMeShirley

  Paul single-handedly introduced a phony concept into ordinary writings and turned them into numinous hands-on miracles of divine "inspiration."

  .

  And WT continues that fine tradition
• 

  Pinku

  Terry,

  Great post! I agree with your blaming the religions for bringing in the concept of spirit with a view to exploitation of the illiterate.

  However, truth could be discerned without the help of religion.

  When one goes to the bed in the night, sleep settles on one’s body, the pulse falls, the blood flow is slackened and all the organic functions slacken. HOWEVER, you might have noticed the energies and movements of the waking state DO NOT come to a dead end. The heart beats, the lungs breathe and repair-work starts on the tissues. Ordinarily as the sensations which describe environment fade away, attention begins to wander and one begins to relax the control by will and critical intelligence which operates during FULLY conscious life. The number of thoughts grow less and less as sleep approaches. Finally the room (as though) melts away and vanishes into nothingness as one’s consciousness is mysteriously and entirely isolated from the physical world, it sees nothing, hears nothing, smells nothing, feels nothing and tastes nothing, and then DREAM ENTERS IT.

  SIMILARLY, at the instant of death, consciousness loses touch with the same organs i.e., sight, sound, taste, smell and touch and one goes into deep slumber or a state of dream and sleep before one becomes conscious or enters the next world i.e., the world of desire or astral world.

  That time, Terry, you will remember what you wrote here in this thread and laugh!
• 

  Terry

  I'm eager to be wrong about a special "floating intelligence" without instrumentality. (i.e. the 'spirit world') as long as it is escapable by

  suicide.

  That's what really SCARES ME--that I'll end up conscious some place without escape.

  You see, in this life, if things become unbearable you can always blow your----brain meat---out of your head.

  But--in a spirit world-- there is no escape from consciousness. Now under any circumstances, not having a way out is horror, pure horror.
• 

  villagegirl

  There are certain "junk" words that litter our brain, pollute our vocabulary, and play fast and loose with our reasoning. - Terry

  Here are some Scientific Terms and Words that littered and polluted our vocabulary

  and played "fast and loose with our reasoning" right up into the 20th and 21st Century.

  Luminiferous aether:Assumed to exist for much of the 19th century, the theory held that a “medium” of aether pervaded the universe through which light could propagate. The celebrated Michelson-Morley experiment in 1887 was the first to provide hard evidence that aether did not exist, and the theory lost all popularity among scientists by the early 2oth century

  Stress theory of ulcers:As peptic ulcers became more common in the 20th century, doctors increasingly linked them to the stress of modern life. Medical advice during the latter half of the 20th century was, essentially, for patients to take antacids and modify their lifestyle. In the 1980s Australian clinical researcher Barry Marshal discovered that the bacterium H. pylori caused peptic ulcer disease, leading him to win a Nobel Prize in 2005.

  Immovable continents Prior to the middle of the 20th century scientists believed the Earth’s continents were stable and did not move. This began to change in 1912 with Alfred Wegener’s formulation of the continental drift theory, and later and more properly the elucidation of plate tectonics during the 1950s and 1960s.

  Phlogiston: Arising in the mid-17th century, physicians conjured up the existence of a fire-like element called “phlogiston”, which was contained within combustible bodies and released during combustion. Charcoal, for example, left little residue upon burning because it is nearly pure phlogiston. Experiments in the mid-1700s led chemists to conclude the theory was false, giving birth to the field of modern chemistry.

  The “four humours” theory of human physiology:From Hippocrates onward, the humoral theory was adopted by Greek, Roman and Islamic physicians, and became the most commonly held view of the human body among European physicians until the advent of modern medical research in the 19th century. The four humours of Hippocratic medicine were black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood.

  Static universe: Prior to the observations made by astronomer Edwin Hubble during 1920s, scientists believed the universe was static, neither expanding nor contracting. Hubble found that distant objects in the universe were moving more quickly away than nearby ones. Very recently, in 1999, scientists unexpectedly found that not only was the universe expanding, but its expansion was accelerating.
• 

  villagegirl

  More 'JUNK" for the pseudo-scientific community on this board:

  Junk "scientific terms" that are commonly used:

  Proof
  
  "proof" is the most widely misunderstood concept in all of science. It has a technical definition (a logical demonstration that certain conclusions follow from certain assumptions) that is strongly at odds with how it is used in casual conversation, which is closer to simply "strong evidence for something."
  
  Theory
  Scientific theories are entire systems of testable ideas which are potentially refutable either by the evidence at hand or an experiment that somebody could perform. The best theories (in which I include special relativity, quantum mechanics, and evolution) have withstood a hundred years or more of challenges, either from people who want to prove themselves smarter than Einstein, or from people who don't like metaphysical challenges to their world view. Finally, theories are malleable, but not infinitely so. Theories can be found to be incomplete or wrong in some particular detail without the entire edifice being torn down.
  
  Natural
  "Natural" is a word that has been used in so many contexts with so many different meanings that it's become almost impossible to parse. Its most basic usage, to distinguish phenomena that exist only because of humankind from phenomena that don't, presumes that humans are somehow separate from nature, and our works are un- or non-natural when compared to, say, beavers or honeybees.
  
  Survival of the Fittest
  Topping my list would be "survival of the fittest." First, these are not actually Darwin's own words, and secondly, people have a misconception about what "fittest" means. Relatedly, there's major confusion about evolution in general, including the persistent idea that evolution is progressive and directional (or even deliberate on the part of organisms; people don't get the idea of natural selection), or that all traits must be adaptive (sexual selection is a thing! And so are random mutations!).
  
  Organic
  Entomologist Gwen Pearson says that there's a constellation of terms that "travel together" with the word "organic," such as "chemical-free," and "natural." And she's tired of seeing how profoundly people misunderstand them:
  I'm less upset about the way that they are technically incorrect [though of course all] food is all organic, because it contains carbon,etc. [My concern is] the way they are used to dismiss and minimize real differences in food and product production. Things can be natural and "organic", but still quite dangerous.Things can be "synthetic" and manufactured, but safe. And sometimes better choices. If you are taking insulin, odds are it's from GMO bacteria.