Posts by OneEyedJoe

17

Did not Attend Mid-Week Meeting but Felt Good - Strange Feeling?

by ProfCNJ in

jw
friends

hi folks.

the usual feeling for me - when i missed mid-week meetings - is to feel guilty, sad or depressed.

it normally involved negative feelings.

OneEyedJoe

It's been a long time since I felt guilty for missing a meeting. I think it was about the time that I realized that I hadn't learned anything new or enlightening that wasn't arbitrary "new light" at the meetings since my teens. Since I have a pretty good memory, I didn't feel the need to go and have stuff repeated to me ad nauseum.

Since learning TTATT, it's gone from being something of a relief the days that I miss to being either a greatly joyous or very frustrating occasion on the days that I miss meetings. Joyous when my wife stays home with me, frustrating otherwise.

44

Freaking out a Jehovah's Witness

by jgnat in

as you know, my husband has physically left the witnesses.

he nevertheless clings to many of the beliefs like a protective cloak, and every once in a while i trigger a dissonant episode where my reality clashes with his.

recently he listened in on my work research, a video of a futurist describing the a potential "disruptive change" event in the next fifteen years, as our culture shifts to autonomic (driverless) vehicles.

OneEyedJoe

What facts are those DH? You gave a list of excuses for the FACTS. My favorite is "To think crime is reducing is to be an idiot." You don't even try to provide a fact contrary to the statement above, you just plug your ears and say "yeah, well you're stupid" and run away.

I wish nothing but the best for you, but I do hope one day that you'll wake up to the facts, and I hope it goes as gently as possible.

42

2014 MEMORIAL ATTENDANCES FOR REST OF THE WORLD

by steve2 in

the october kingdom ministry for the united states reported the 2014 memorial attendances for the us branch office that has subsequently been well discussed in a separate thread.

in that thread, a poster asserted that in some parts of europe the attendance had been higher than last year - but to date no source evidence has been provided.. so, have memorial attendances for other parts of the world been reported in any of the publications such as kingdom ministryyet?.

if so, could you direct me to the source(s).

OneEyedJoe

Immigrants are typically more susceptible to cult indoctrination. They're a fish out of water, looking for something stable and along comes a couple "well dressed" (in cheap suits) folks who are nice to them. Of course they're going to talk to them and go to a meeting, why wouldn't they? What else do they have going on? They don't know anyone here, and this is a way to make friends.

Immigrants also tend to be a little more family oriented from what I've observed, and it makes sense that they would be. This means that when one becomes a JW, they're more likely to pull in their entire family.

I know in my area, the only congregations that I can remember having any significant growth in the last 15 years where foreign language congregations. Even those seem to have dropped off lately though. It's probably been about 20 years since an english congregation has split in my area, but the number of foreign language congregations approximately doubled (maybe more) over that time.

25

The Internet Proves JWs Are a Joke Now

by jw07 in

i'm a born in, born in the 1980s and old enough to remember studying beefy (albeit full of crap) material like the the evolution book and revelation book (which we studied over and over and over and over).

books and brochures were wordy and chock full of legalistic language explaining away teachings and policies, some explanations slightly above the iq of the average person.. watchtower studies were longer (30 paragraphs sometimes), talks were longer and thus meetings were longer, pioneering was harder (70 hours if i remember correctly), assemblies and conventions were longer, and there were intricate food provisions to feed thousands of people (for a cost of course).. the average jw could recite watchtower propaganda for hours to indoctrinate others or defend their faith.

jws were interested in having meaty discussions at the door and challenging even pastors on doctrinal points.. i know this has been said many times, but the organization has gone through a massive dumbing down.. i can't figure out if it's due to the oblivious nature of the current governing body, a premeditated attempt by them at dumbing down the organization, or just the effects of life becoming easier around the globe due to reliance on technology.. i can only speak on my era, and i know that from the early 90s until around 2004 the organization was allot more doctrine savy.. over the past decade or so i'd say the collective iq of the followers has moved from 105 to 85.. indoctrination and blind belief has allot to do with being prone to be emotionally manipulated, but thinking ability has a say in that too.. social media is a decent gauge of how and what the average person within a certain demographic is thinking, and doing a simple hashtag search on twitter, instagram, or facebook reveals allot about how the current generation of young jws (15-28 or thereabout) are thinking.. many have become self obsessed, internet obsessed, hubris filled and passive, i can see an even bigger decline in growth over the next 5 years.. take a look:.

OneEyedJoe

I think you might be over estimating the IQ of the average JWs in the 90s. I don't think average was ever above 100 for them... I think the prevalence of really obviously unintelligent people in the org was my very first concern about the religion.

84

Satan and the demons, ghosts, spirits, fortune tellers. Are they real?

by KateWild in

i believe in god.

i don't believe he punishes or rewards people.

so by the same extention i don't believe any spirit beings can communicate with or influence humans.. many who do not believe in god though, have gone to fortune tellers.

OneEyedJoe

sowhatnow, it sounds like your mother suffered from sleep paralysis:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

That phenomena is resonably well understood, and is probably to blame for most experiences of visions and "being held down" that occurs while waking or drifting off to sleep. Definitely nothing supernatural there.

I have to agree with cofty on this, each one of those accounts can be explained with no appeal to the supernatural

51

The limits of science.

by Seraphim23 in

jw
friends

for a long time i have accepted that when a theist inserts god into some as yet not understood scientific matter, it constitutes a god of the gaps argument.

as a theist myself, the problem with this for me, is that it implies an arbitrary limit on gods ingenuity.

for example, the idea that god created automatic processes to do certain things in nature, and yet with other things the need for a direct hand to either tweak or directly organise!

OneEyedJoe

Science often does a good job of explaining how. However some of us also want to know "why".

For the types of "why" questions that I suspect you're talking about (why is the universe here, etc) science has an answer. The answer to "why did x happen" is "because x can happen." Just because you find it unsatisfying doesn't invalidate the answer.

51

The limits of science.

by Seraphim23 in

jw
friends

for a long time i have accepted that when a theist inserts god into some as yet not understood scientific matter, it constitutes a god of the gaps argument.

as a theist myself, the problem with this for me, is that it implies an arbitrary limit on gods ingenuity.

for example, the idea that god created automatic processes to do certain things in nature, and yet with other things the need for a direct hand to either tweak or directly organise!

OneEyedJoe

Lets not overextend the metaphore. The point is, one is solid and proven, the other resides only in a land of fantasy and wishful thinking.

There will always be some problems that are mathematically impossible to solve, but barring that, I don't think there's any practical benefit to debating the limits of science, since we've certainly not reached them, and it doesn't seem likely to happen in our grand children's lifetime (or, as defined by the WTS, in 'this generation'). Asserting that god must exist simply because someone's hypothesized a limit to what science can review is asinine.

51

The limits of science.

by Seraphim23 in

jw
friends

for a long time i have accepted that when a theist inserts god into some as yet not understood scientific matter, it constitutes a god of the gaps argument.

as a theist myself, the problem with this for me, is that it implies an arbitrary limit on gods ingenuity.

for example, the idea that god created automatic processes to do certain things in nature, and yet with other things the need for a direct hand to either tweak or directly organise!

OneEyedJoe

Thank you, but I'm happy with my ladder. Turns out it's an extension ladder that's getting taller all the time!

51

The limits of science.

by Seraphim23 in

jw
friends

for a long time i have accepted that when a theist inserts god into some as yet not understood scientific matter, it constitutes a god of the gaps argument.

as a theist myself, the problem with this for me, is that it implies an arbitrary limit on gods ingenuity.

for example, the idea that god created automatic processes to do certain things in nature, and yet with other things the need for a direct hand to either tweak or directly organise!

OneEyedJoe

your stance is akin to someone who's shopping for a ladder, and keeps complaining that they might one day live in a house that's got a lightbulb that would still be out of reach while on any particular ladder. They then go off in search of a magic carpet that can fly you to any height instead.

Many theists want to see their religion as compatible with science and complain when there appears to be some sort of 'religion vs science' debate. The problem is, though, that religion is the polar opposite of science. Science presents evidence and draws conclusions, whereas religion relies on blind faith.

In short, I wish you the best of luck with your search for a magic carpet.

51

The limits of science.

by Seraphim23 in

jw
friends

for a long time i have accepted that when a theist inserts god into some as yet not understood scientific matter, it constitutes a god of the gaps argument.

as a theist myself, the problem with this for me, is that it implies an arbitrary limit on gods ingenuity.

for example, the idea that god created automatic processes to do certain things in nature, and yet with other things the need for a direct hand to either tweak or directly organise!

OneEyedJoe

Well, science may have it's flaws, but what's religion done for us lately? Nothing that I can put my finger on aside from making it a little easier to scare kids into behaving. Meanwhile science has given us practically every improvement in our standard of living for the past several centuries. That's not a preconcieved notion, it's an evaluation of the merits of science and religion.