by Island Man 62 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
The reality the ex-JW community is just bunch self-congratulatory liberal arts d-bags
Dude, take a pill. Why do you take arguments against your positions so personally?
I'm sure you are a fine upstanding human being, even if you have the intelligence of road gravel.
Clambake the JWD forum is currently dominated by militant atheistic natural materialists. I don't think this is representative of ex-JWs generally. There is some irony when Cofty says evolution is the best way to get someone out of the Watchtower, considering he himself originally left because he was saved by Christ, not convinced by evolution.
Personally I think relativism is a better reason for rejecting JWism than evolution. There was an excellent radio programme today about the cultural relativism of Franz Boas.
he himself originally left because he was saved by Christ, not convinced by evolution
Yes it took me another 9 years to reject superstition. I hope I might save others some time.
SBF,
I rarely comment on your musings. You often make a lot of sense. I see rationals and those who are striving to live an evidence based life, regardless of the topic, rather than militant atheists with an agenda.
A very few concentrate on these subjects. I typically just read and rarely participate. It isn't a strength of mine nor a particular interest.
Where we always divide is between the evidence based and those ruled by their emotions. On every topic.
Clammy is clearly in the emotional camp. Thanks for the Dislike CB.
DJS there can be various sources of knowledge:
God, aliens, emotions, mind, instinct, others.
What some people do is seek to elevate the human mind as the only source of knoweldge to the exclusion of all others. I can see why that's psychologically appealing, because we all like the idea of certainty, especially JWs and former JWs, but (and here's the supreme irony) I don't think it's particularly rational or reasonable to say the human mind is the ultimate source of all truth. Either the human mind is the product of undirected evolution, in which case there is no reason to suppose it has a particular capacity for identifying truth. Or else the human mind is the result of divine direction, in which case it is the divine which is the source of truth which the human mind has been designed to be able to identify.
SBF,
There certainly can be multiple sources of knowledge. As an empiricist I follow the evidence regardless of where it comes from. When such is presented for the divine, other than via philosophical musings and questionings, I will believe.
I'm not a religious atheist.
Don't you realise that empiricism is self-refuting?
Ironically creationists have a better grasp of this philosophically than the militant atheists.
http://www.icr.org/article/empiricism-glaring-flaw-new-atheism/
I will observe, however, that empiricism, as a theory of knowledge, is self-refuting. For, however it may be formulated, it must involve some general proposition about the dependence of knowledge upon experience; and any such proposition, if true, must have as a consequence that [it] itself cannot be known. While therefore, empiricism may be true, it cannot, if true, be known to be so. This, however, is a large problem. -Bertrand Russell
Screen clutter. Bertrand doesn't speak for anyone but himself and certainly not me. Empirical evidence is the best we have to follow. Thinking that it is the final unchanging word is what religionists feel and believe. They won't change their minds regardless.
I will. Just give me better numbers. So will all empiricists. Russell is confusing religion and feelings with rational and evidence.
Thanks for the Dislike Clammy. Geesh, ANOTHER stalker. Take a number and queue up CB.
I am not making it an argument from authority. I'm pointing out how empiricism is self-refuting. Think about it, the statement:
"Only statements backed up by empirical evidence should be regarded as true."
What empirical evidence can you use to back up that statement itself? If there is no empirical evidence to back up the statement then does it not refute itself?
