Won't get fooled again ...Moon Landing.

by The Rebel 579 Replies latest jw friends

  • Viviane
    Viviane
    Rebel, I look forward to your comments on "lost original footage" after you've looked into the matter.
  • freemindfade
    freemindfade

    Island man thank you, and I agree the evidence seems to point to the fact there was a moon landing, and I live my life believing such. There is a reoccurring idea that I hear that bothers me that is baseless and I am not picking on any one person, just in general. Vivi excluded. She deals in facts, and frighteningly well I might add.

    I am not advocating believing conspiracy theories, but not being to harsh on the act of entertaining them if only to disprove.

    It would actually have been easier to land men on the moon than to successfully fake landing them on the moon. Faking the moon landing with so many people involved and keeping it quiet would be a much more daunting feat than actually landing people on the moon.

    This idea to me is absurd, especially to call it common sense. Its pretty broad and it assumes one major thing, everyone involved in such a "cover up" "conspiracy" etc, would have to know it was such. I think it is great to consider all the real evidence, to me the practice of deception is often much much less complex than we think. Anyone who has ever been privy to or involved in some large scale deception knows this and some other "conspiracy ideas" are not as far fetched as we make them out to be. The implications are much bigger than the execution. Ask any con artist. Deceiving people, even vast numbers is not not an out for entertaining a conspiracy.

    I already mentioned the Manhattan Project. That was a secret project, dare we say a conspiracy of sorts for national security. Anyone interested I suggest do a little research on the staggering amount of people involved in he first atom bomb. Of course that conspiracy ended when they dropped the bomb, what was once a giant secret was out, and the intention was always to let that secret out.

    Another example, something we all share, being a Jehovah's Witness. Lets not hang ourselves up on thinking that once got us in trouble. "How could 8 million good hearted people be in a CULT!" "Thats absurd." "how could so many people be involved in something untruthful". Well there you have it, most of here were. We weren't conspiring, but we lived part of a lie. Jehovah's Witnesses fall in my opinion, not into conspiracy but conspiracy theory definition.

    con·spir·a·cy the·o·ry
    noun
    1. a belief that some covert but influential organization is responsible for a circumstance or event.


    Jehovahs Witnesses undue influence is conspiracy theory to about 8 millions people, and completely ridiculous in their mind. To those in Conspiracy theory, to those out, TTATT.

    Lets take one more that some of us may share in some way or another. The american cosa nostra. Or mafia. until 1960 the "Mafia" was a conspiracy theory. When Joe Velachi spilled the beans in the biggest rat move of all time, that all came to a stop. In the 50's you would have been mocking people for believing a high powered criminal organization was involved with the CIA, Big business, and government officials. Now its not a conspiracy theory, its history.

    So what I am getting at is the attack on the size of the lie is a foolish debate. I am sure if i did a little more digging I could find more large scale deception examples.

    You see I think it is healthy to entertain the idea the status quo is not what it seems. That doesn't mean that moon landings and 9/11 theories are right, but they help you see if you are biased because of the size of the lie, or group.

    Jon Stewart said in closing of his show this week, "bullshit is everywhere" and I could not agree more, I have had many experiences I can't get into on here that have shown me that day to day life is built largely on "not what you think it is". I am not talking about illuminati, loch ness monster stuff, but much more mundane BS. They are not paranormal, they do not involved some mysterious secret society as much as just people that will do whatever it takes to get money, power, whatever, or just keep the system working. Most people if they knew half the crap in their lives that is built on lies they wouldn't be able to sleep at night, but people also feel the same way about god. For me its not that big of deal, because as Jon Stewart was also saying, much of bullshit is for good, and necessary to hold society together. ie; "what a cute baby... maybe someday it will grow into that head".

    So not all bull shit is bad, or the illuminati making you buy JayZ albums.

    But again the evidence always has to rule, just like in court, sometimes the evidence is also a guilty parties best friend if 1. it doesn't exist (in the court) or 2. its been faked. Anyone here ever forged a document? You made evidence.

    Conspiracy theories are fun, they are too attractive too, like doomsday cults, its good to check them out, but we should not criticize those that do, just make sure they don't get off the train and stay too long on one that is not confirmed such as a moon landing hoax. We can challenge them with facts to help them move past it, but not call them brain dead for questioning the system/institution/status quo and so forth.

    Don't get stuck in the rut of believing too much without evidence, but don't stop questioning everything,

    Now if you guys will excuse me...


    P.S. Edit, Viv speaking of footage did you find my lost color footage from the moon? ;)

  • TD
    TD

    Another example, something we all share, being a Jehovah's Witness.

    We don't all share this. Some of us are "unbelieving" spouses of JW's...

    Lets not hang ourselves up on thinking that once got us in trouble. "How could 8 million good hearted people be in a CULT!" "Thats absurd." "how could so many people be involved in something untruthful". Well there you have it, most of here were. We weren't conspiring, but we lived part of a lie. Jehovah's Witnesses fall in my opinion, not into conspiracy but conspiracy theory definition.

    Conspiracy theory has gradually become a derogatory term describing the outward manifestations of a form of paranoia were people see the world in terms of covert and malign influences.

    And this directly pertains to JWs. After the death of Russell, a handful of very, paranoid individuals gained control of the Bible Students/Jehovah's Witnesses movement and since then, it has epitomized conspiracy theory in enough ways to fill a large book:

    "It is not surprising how quickly and efficiently the [Aluminum] trust gets on the job to cover up the truth in every one of these cases of aluminum poisoning? All that was necessary to conceal the truth was to use the word "bacterial" instead of the word "aluminum," and the trick is done as neatly as any hangman ever tied a nose. But will those who arrange and support this diabolical propaganda to suppress the truth be able to answer to Almighty God for the suffering and misery of which they are the direct cause?" (Golden Age, August 23, 1936 p. 803 emphasis mine)

    It's one thing to have misgivings about the safety of aluminum cookware, or anything else that is new or different at the time. It's quite another thing to inflate those misgivings into a delusional David vs. Goliath conflict between a tiny, select group that knows the "truth" and a much bigger and stronger group that seeks to suppress it. Note that the author made that claim three times in three sentences, which approaches what I would call, babbling. That form of paranoia and is not usually confined to one thing either:

    “Vaccination never prevented anything and never will, and is the most barbarous practice....We are in the last days; and the devil is slowly losing his hold, making a strenuous effort meanwhile to do all the damage he can, and to his credit can such evils be placed." (Golden Age, October 12, 1921 p. 17)

    Nearly 70 years later, that thinking was not only alive and well, it had spread into every area in which Jehovah's Witnesses depart from the mainstream:

    “The faith of Jehovah's Witnesses is under attack from all sides—by the clergy of Christendom who hate the Kingdom message we take from house to house, by apostates who collaborate with Christendom's clergy, by medical authorities who want to impose blood transfusions on us and our children, by atheistic scientists who reject belief in God and the creation, and by those who try to force us to compromise our neutrality. All this opposition is orchestrated by Satan, the ruler of darkness and ignorance, the enemy of accurate knowledge. (The Watchtower December 1 1989 p. 12 emphasis mine)

    This paranoia inevitably became an intrinsic part of JW theology as well:

    "Today we are face to face with the greatest world conspiracy of all time. In what sense? In that the nations completely ignore Jehovah’s arrangement for bringing in lasting peace, and they even oppose the representatives of the “Prince of Peace.” The conspiracy is really against the Heir of the Kingdom covenant, the “Prince of Peace.” (The Watchtower, April 1 1987 pp. 12-13)

    So when I point out that Jehovah's Witnesses are one of the biggest conspiracy cults on the face of the planet, I'm not trying to be mean. It's not possible to have been one of Jehovah's Witnesses without accepting and believing that you are the target of a fairly insane conspiracy theory.

    Obviously this doesn't speak to the question of whether man actually walked on the moon. I'm frankly not qualified to debate that. It does however, speak directly to a weakness in the human mind. A few years ago, I was doing series of posts here called, "JW Science Quote Of The Day" which were intended to show that JW's muck up matters of basic science regularly and often. Part and parcel of their collective paranoia is the belief that experts in any given subject are overblown windbags and that any layman can not only quickly and easily understand a complex subject like organic evolution or hematology, they can uncover the basic errors that have eluded all those pompous experts. JW mistakes on matters of basic science are therefore symptomatic because they are the unavoidable result of laymen trying to pontificate on things they don't really understand.

    Again, this doesn't speak directly to the title of this thread, but it should give anyone who has voluntarily opened their mouth and allowed a JW "Dentist" to drill those holes out even deeper a little pause.

  • freemindfade
    freemindfade
    It's not possible to have been one of Jehovah's Witnesses without accepting and believing that you are the target of a fairly insane conspiracy theory

    That's what I was saying as well. To anyone who was a witness and accepted for a moment it as the truth, the apostates were out to get us in the name of satan.

    What that means, to a witness, is the idea of truth outside of the organization becomes it's own conspiracy theory as you described it has become.

    To a witness believing anything outside of the org is the truth is like believing in a fanciful conspiracy theory itself. So unless they give themselves permission to entertain the idea. They might never wake up.

  • prologos
    prologos

    DJS:

    Prologos: "Perhaps they [retired Moon shot engineers] retired on the hush money NASA had to pay after the successful fake?"

    this was meant to be sarcasm. in response to a non-sense "theory" The moon shot retired Engineers I knew lived within sight of the biggest building in the world (by volume) designed to assemble the Saturn rockets. What sane analyst would think that this expense was incurred to add credence to faked pictures of [not] actually making it to the destination?

  • Viviane
    Viviane
    Hopefully Rebel will make it back.
  • freemindfade
    freemindfade
    Did he go to the moon?
  • cappytan
    cappytan
    This idea to me is absurd, especially to call it common sense

    You're right. The idea that it was easier to land on the moon than to fake it isn't common sense. But it's true.

    In the context of the time, rocket technology was far far ahead of film technology. It was technologically impossible to fake the moon landing in 1969. But it was technologically possible to land on the moon. Armed with just that knowledge alone, you can make the logical conclusion that the moon landing wasn't fake.

    Now, the only reason this conclusion doesn't qualify as common sense is because the technology disparity isn't common knowledge.

    In the context of technology today, it would be easier to fake the moon landing. But we aren't talking about today. We're talking about 1969.

  • Finkelstein
    Finkelstein

    What is critical thinking?

    Critical thinking is the ability to think clearly and rationally about what to do or what to believe. It includes the ability to engage in reflective and independent thinking. Someone with critical thinking skills is able to do the following :

    • understand the logical connections between ideas
    • identify, construct and evaluate arguments
    • detect inconsistencies and common mistakes in reasoning
    • solve problems systematically
    • identify the relevance and importance of ideas
    • reflect on the justification of one's own beliefs and values

    Critical thinking is not a matter of accumulating information. A person with a good memory and who knows a lot of facts is not necessarily good at critical thinking. A critical thinker is able to deduce consequences from what he knows, and he knows how to make use of information to solve problems, and to seek relevant sources of information to inform himself.

    Critical thinking should not be confused with being argumentative or being critical of other people. Although critical thinking skills can be used in exposing fallacies and bad reasoning, critical thinking can also play an important role in cooperative reasoning and constructive tasks. Critical thinking can help us acquire knowledge, improve our theories, and strengthen arguments. We can use critical thinking to enhance work processes and improve social institutions.

    Some people believe that critical thinking hinders creativity because it requires following the rules of logic and rationality, but creativity might require breaking rules. This is a misconception. Critical thinking is quite compatible with thinking "out-of-the-box", challenging consensus and purusing less popular approaches. If anything, critical thinking is an essential part of creativity because we need critical thinking to evaluate and improve our creative ideas.

    §1. The importance of critical thinking

    Critical thinking is a domain-general thinking skill. The ability to think clearly and rationally is important whatever we choose to do. If you work in education, research, finance, management or the legal profession, then critical thinking is obviously important. But critical thinking skills are not restricted to a particular subject area. Being able to think well and solve problems systematically is an asset for any career.

    Critical thinking is very important in the new knowledge economy. The global knowledge economy is driven by information and technology. One has to be able to deal with changes quickly and effectively. The new economy places increasing demands on flexible intellectual skills, and the ability to analyse information and integrate diverse sources of knowledge in solving problems. Good critical thinking promotes such thinking skills, and is very important in the fast-changing workplace.

    Critical thinking enhances language and presentation skills. Thinking clearly and systematically can improve the way we express our ideas. In learning how to analyse the logical structure of texts, critical thinking also improves comprehension abilities.

    Critical thinking promotes creativity. To come up with a creative solution to a problem involves not just having new ideas. It must also be the case that the new ideas being generated are useful and relevant to the task at hand. Critical thinking plays a crucial role in evaluating new ideas, selecting the best ones and modifying them if necessary

    Critical thinking is crucial for self-reflection. In order to live a meaningful life and to structure our lives accordingly, we need to justify and reflect on our values and decisions. Critical thinking provides the tools for this process of self-evaluation.

    Good critical thinking is the foundation of science and democracy. Science requires the critical use of reason in experimentation and theory confirmation. The proper functioning of a liberal democracy requires citizens who can think critically about social issues to inform their judgments about proper governance and to overcome biases and prejudice.

  • LisaRose
    LisaRose

    One factor in the ability of the U.S to make a moon landing was the contributions of many german rocket scientist who worked for Natzi germany prior to and during world war two. The U.S. made an considerable effort to recruit these scientists to prevent Russia from getting the technology, they called it Operation Paperclip. The knowledge and expertise these men gained (most notably Werhner Bon Braun) during the war was invaluable in advancing the U.S. space program.


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