Posts by OneEyedJoe

22

Former Jehovah's Witness admits: We targeted grief-stricken as 'ripe fruit'

by Londo111 in

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/80708572/former-jehovahs-witness-admits-we-targeted-grief-stricken-as-ripe-fruit.

jehovah's witnesses target grief and see the recently bereaved as "ripe fruit" for conversion, a former elder of the faith says.. vince and michele tylor spoke out after reading the story of wellington woman jean sergent-shadbolt, who received a handwritten letter from a jehovah's witness three months to the day after her step-cousin, friend and flatmate died.. a current senior elder of the faith says it has no policy to target grieving, and those who do so are acting on their own initiative.

however, he concedes such people may feel guided by jehovah's witness literature.. but vince tylor said he knew of members who would trawl though obituaries to find grieving people, or visit cemeteries.. "not only do we see watchtower printed material suggesting and supporting writing letters from obituaries such as what jean received, but we even have reports and articles of encouragement for jws to go to cemeteries to look for people as well.".

OneEyedJoe

I am not trying to defend the WT but I recall a number of years ago how some sister got my ex wife to go through the news paper obituary and write to people who had just lost a loved one. After one elder told my ex that this was frowned on by the WT but then like everything else when it comes to the WT, it is possible their policies have changed on this issue.

That's the sort of thing that will vary from congregation to congregation based on the elders. Since there's no official encouragement to do this (yes, there are examples given, but I'm not aware of it being actually encouraged that JWs do this - i.e. nothing in the KM suggesting it as a method for preaching like they do letter writing or phone calling in general), it will depend on the individual elders and how they balance the urgency of preaching against the need to be considerate to non-believers. Some elders will see that this practice probably will put off more than it'll recruit and others are going to be driven solely by the possibility of reaching that one person at the moment they ~~are most vulnerable~~ have the right heart condition.

15

Orwell's 1984- a text book for the GB?

by purrpurr in

jw
friends

i'm in the middle of studying 1984 by george orwell .

it's a frightening book but more so for me because it's describing the borg to the letter almost just by another name.. right down to the changing of history to suit bb doctrine, the younger generation not believing anymore but finding ways around the rules to live their own lives.

the culture of squealing on others and kids being taught to do that even to their own parents.

OneEyedJoe

I don't think they use the book as a guide, but rather, any and all oppressive and totalitarian systems generally follow the same pattern. "1984" reflects that pattern in a fictional setting, but the pattern exists and has existed independently for centuries.

I tend to agree with this. I think cults like the JWs often evolve slowly (though, admittedly, some cult leaders seem to have a more purposeful approach to using BITE control on people) by the leadership trying various things and the stuff that works they keep and the stuff that doesn't they discard. Due to commonalities in the way people's brains are wired, cults tend to evolve following certain trends that most of us know to follow the BITE model for control.

Animal farm is another great book if you enjoyed 1984. That one is uncanny in similarity to the JWs as well - particularly in the way they capture new light and the unsaid rules of the cult.

22

Former Jehovah's Witness admits: We targeted grief-stricken as 'ripe fruit'

by Londo111 in

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/80708572/former-jehovahs-witness-admits-we-targeted-grief-stricken-as-ripe-fruit.

jehovah's witnesses target grief and see the recently bereaved as "ripe fruit" for conversion, a former elder of the faith says.. vince and michele tylor spoke out after reading the story of wellington woman jean sergent-shadbolt, who received a handwritten letter from a jehovah's witness three months to the day after her step-cousin, friend and flatmate died.. a current senior elder of the faith says it has no policy to target grieving, and those who do so are acting on their own initiative.

however, he concedes such people may feel guided by jehovah's witness literature.. but vince tylor said he knew of members who would trawl though obituaries to find grieving people, or visit cemeteries.. "not only do we see watchtower printed material suggesting and supporting writing letters from obituaries such as what jean received, but we even have reports and articles of encouragement for jws to go to cemeteries to look for people as well.".

OneEyedJoe

The faith typically had weaker control over its members than other religions, and pushed members to take the initiative in soliciting conversions.

I don't understand what they're saying here.

It's cool to see an article that's relatively well researched, complete with links to their publications. I just wish that if they're going to point to the shunning FAQ they would've done the same research in the online publications and pointed out the contradiction.

12

A philosophical question

by Coded Logic in

on the internet i keep bumping into people who are extremely insistent that our universe could be a simulation.

while i think it may, in the future, be possible to simulate a high fidelity universe - i don’t think we should confuse the ability to model a universe with the ability to actually build a universe.. .

for example, we can model weather patterns inside a computer.

OneEyedJoe

It doesn't mean it will be able to experience pain, or feel pleasure, or love.

Why not?

Simulating an earthquake inside a supercomputer doesn't cause actual tremors inside the server room. Simulating a blizzard doesn't produce actual snow. And I have yet to hear a good reason why simulating a brain would produce actual consciousness.

But if you simulated that roach brain (or a human brain, or an entire human body) in that earthquake simulation, how would the simulated entity tell what is real (the still of the server room) from what is simulated (the tremors) ? You're still missing the point - the simulation doesn't impact reality outside the simulation, it's just that anything inside the simulation will have no way to tell that the simulation isn't reality.

If a brain is just a computer, I have yet to hear from you a good reason why simulating a brain wouldn't produce consciousness. The only reason (so far as I can see, correct me if I've missed something) a sufficiently detailed simulation of my brain wouldn't be conscious is if you asset the existence of some immaterial component like a soul that is responsible for consciousness. No evidence points to that being the case, though.

12

A philosophical question

by Coded Logic in

on the internet i keep bumping into people who are extremely insistent that our universe could be a simulation.

while i think it may, in the future, be possible to simulate a high fidelity universe - i don’t think we should confuse the ability to model a universe with the ability to actually build a universe.. .

for example, we can model weather patterns inside a computer.

OneEyedJoe

I really feel like everyone who has taken the time to reply (and thank you guys for doing so) has genuinely missed the point which I was making. Why would we assume that simulated roaches would experience anything? Simulating a roach is not the same thing asbeing a roach. I don't see any evidence that simulating something in a computer would ever give the simulation the actual properties of its real life counterpart.

Well just for fun they've actually put the simulated roach brain into a little robot that had artificial antennae and other senses that emulated the roach's body, and sure enough the robot behaves like a real roach did. What's to stop someone from simulating that same sensory input to the roach brain without the robot body? How would the roach know the difference?

The argument isn't that the simulation actually takes on the properties of the simulated, but that to anything in the simulation, the simulation itself is indistinguishable from reality.

20

JWs aren't stupid

by cognisonance in

the title is a bit of click bait.

but here's the alternative title: what stupid beliefs/ideas did you have while an active jw.. i think the majority of jws that don't have obvious mental health issues are not stupid, just un/under-educated.

for example, i now accept evolution as a thing, not a controversy or conjecture.

OneEyedJoe

I think steve hassan has said something about intelligent cult members - they're not necessarily easier to wake up because they can invent more convoluted defenses and rationalizations for the cult beliefs. You can have all the intelligence in the world, but if its goal is to defend the irrational it's not worth anything. Without intellectual honesty, intelligence is useless.

Regarding evolution, my favorite defense (relying on the age old strategy of conflating evolution with abiogenesis) was that scientists hadn't been able to make life in a lab so how much less likely is it to happen randomly? Then, for follow up: Even if scientists could use their intelligence to create life - who made the scientists? Looking back though I was just regurgitating and not really thinking. Luckily I stopped trying to defend the creationist stance at around 14 or 15 and just hoped that it was true in spite of the fact that evolution made so much more sense.

The stupidest belief, though, was my long held stance of rational ignorance. I often thought of investigating the cult, but the indoctrinated belief that all I'd find is angry bitter liars kept me from even taking a moment out to look because it would just be a waste of time. Once I shed the certainty that so-called apostates were 100% wrong and motivated by anger and hatred, it didn't take long to shed the few remaining stupid beliefs I had left at that point.

12

A philosophical question

by Coded Logic in

on the internet i keep bumping into people who are extremely insistent that our universe could be a simulation.

while i think it may, in the future, be possible to simulate a high fidelity universe - i don’t think we should confuse the ability to model a universe with the ability to actually build a universe.. .

for example, we can model weather patterns inside a computer.

OneEyedJoe

Well it's a non-falsifiable hypothesis and as such does not belong in any scientific debate, though it is somewhat interesting to think about.

Scientists have been able to fully map and simulate the neurons of a roach - how would their simulated roach tell that it was in a simulation? I agree that there's a tangible difference between a simulation and reality, but this difference is not something that could be discerned from inside the simulation.

There's evidence that our universe has a finite "resolution" (plank scale) like you'd expect from a simulation. There appears to be tricks going on to avoid rendering things until it becomes necessary (quantum superposition; uncertainty principle) and there are interesting things like black holes that appear to potentially be holograms - in fact our entire universe may be a hologram. All this is circumstantial evidence that points to us being in some sort of simulation. But like I said - it's a non-falsifiable hypothesis - any contrary evidence can simply be claimed to be part of the simulation.

It's an interesting idea, but one that really has no bearing on anything. What does it change if I told you with 100% certainty that we were all just bits in a giant computer? You could argue that even if everything is "real" (whatever that means in this context) that we're still just parts of a cosmic computer that's simply calculating how the universe will unfold. It really doesn't change anything on a practical level since nothing that we do can impact the world outside of our simulation. At least so far as we know - and how would we know if it did?

48

From yesterday WT, don't have kids and if you do then don't see them often nor the grandkids either

by purrpurr in

unbelievable paragraph in yesterday's watchtower was "encouraging" the sheep to not have kids.

most of their growth comes from the born ins and they are still on about not having kids?.

then it went on to "encourage" those that do have kids or grandkids not to spend to much time with them and instead to spend their time serving kingdom interests!.

OneEyedJoe

It's statements like this that make me suspect they really believe their own nonsense. If they were cynical about the end times and more interested in growth, there's no way they would discourage having children, is there?

I wouldn't go that far - discouraging children makes good sense regardless of whether the GB really buys their own BS. They're older and if they're just in it to keep themselves cared for, they would only be worried about the cult's sustainability through the end of their lives. So, 20-30 years is all they really need. If they were to encourage parents to have kids, most of those 20-30 years the parents are going to be investing in their children and not in the cult, and the children that stay in the cult (a small percentage of those born-in) would barely have a chance to yield any return on that investment before all of the current GB is dead.

Furthermore, it appears that most of the things they've been doing lately are narrowly focused on maintaining short-term viability at the potential expense of long-term sustainability. This would just be another such move. For me, it's extremely difficult to tell if the GB are really true believers or not.

100

Is it Time to Declare that The Great Tribulation Has Started ?

by OnTheWayOut in

i don't really engage in doctrinal discussions about jw's anymore.

they seem to say some pretty crazy stuff.

but i have read some threads discussing doctrinal changes and how watchtower is really out of ideas and money at the same time.

OneEyedJoe

Once they dare to declare it...it would mean a relatively short countdown to big A. Since 1879, God's people would finally be able to bite that carrot!
Can you imagine the astronomical proportions of such a prophetic epic fail if big A wouldn't come? No more tricks to play! Would any sane person buy it? It would be time for the GB to disappear to some unknown, deserted island.

They've made "the last days" stretch for over 100 years now, they could make the great tribulation run long enough to live out the rest of their lives on the cult. I'm not saying I think they'll do it (I agree that they're just reacting and won't make big moves like this) I'm just saying there's no reason that the failure of the end to come in a timely manner hasn't stopped them yet, declaring the GT to have started won't make a difference there.

47

I just don't understand this, what am I missing???

by Greybeard in

jw
friends

as i am watching this video about changes at bethel, the speaker said, "aren't we glad the faithful and discrete slave continues to make adjustments when necessary.

what about this change?

"finally, we examined why jesus’ arrival to appoint the faithful slave over all his belongings did not occur in 1919 but will take place during the great tribulation" that is from this online watchtower article last paragraph: https://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/w20130715/jesus-prophecy-last-days/ .

OneEyedJoe

I think you might be conflating the appointment over all the Master's belongings (i.e. The reward for remaining faithful over the long haul, even when the Master doesn't seem to be in any big hurry to return...) with the alleged faithful and discreet status at any given moment prior to that return.

But the appointment over the master's belongings was reward for being faithful and discrete. They go hand-in-hand, as is demonstrated by the fact that one of the 3 slaves did not use the money wisely and was cast out, not to be appointed over all the belongings. This means that they could potentially be cast out at a future time in the GT (according to the article pointed to above) if they do not behave in a manner Jesus deems to be faithful and discrete. They haven't earned the title yet so they haven't been appointed. The two go hand-in-hand.

Not that it really matters in the grand scheme of things. It's a cult based on an ancient nonsensical book...