Everything happens for a reason. Physics is the study of those reasons.
OneEyedJoe
JoinedPosts by OneEyedJoe
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22
Everything Happens For A Reason
by Charles Gillette indoes everything happen for a reason?
i hear this from so many people without any explanation as how this is so.
what do you think about this belief?
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On leaving JW's and hating religion...
by Jehalapeno init's been nearly 4 years now since i completely woke up to the watchtower lies.. thinking back on my jw life, during the time i believed, the organization truly did teach us to hate all beliefs that were contrary to the watchtower's.. i hated "false" religion.. so, when i finally woke up and applied critical thinking to my beliefs, i just went on hating religion in general...only this time i added jw's to that list.. a few months of waking up, i decided to base my beliefs on evidence.
i didn't want to have a set of beliefs unless there was some logic or evidence behind it.
so, now i consider myself an atheist.. and i kept on hating religion.. within the last six months or so, something has changed.
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OneEyedJoe
JWs (probably accidentally) really managed to instill in me a love of truth. I took that part really literally when I was younger, and it may have something to do with my love for science and learning that has persisted down to this day. So it's primarily on that basis that I object to religion. It generates in me no small measure of disgust when I encounter someone purporting to dispense truth to followers, when they really have no way of substantiating their claims.
The usefulness of the ethical (or, perhaps, less unethical) versions of religion out there is something that I often find difficult to pin down. I'm tentatively settling on the comparison to the many heuristics that humans use in thinking, for example, the availability heuristic - estimating the likelihood of an event based on how easily you can call to mind an example. This was once probably very efficient ways to get really close to the truth, but due to the many layers of selection bias in our modern society (i.e. what gets reported in the news, what gets talked about in the office, etc) this heuristic now leads people to greatly over-estimate their likelihood to get murdered or die in a terrorist attack vs dying from heart disease or a car accident.
I now mostly view religion in this way - in the past it was a powerful force for bringing together a tribe and focusing people on the collective good of said tribe, especially in times when scarcity and violent conflicts with neighboring tribes were common. But in modern society we've gone a long ways of figuring out things like efficient land use and diplomacy that have driven religion to obsolescence in these areas, and worse it can often be a hindrance. In some places, maybe in driving local community involvement, it can perhaps still be an effective tool that has fewer drawbacks if its tendency to drive tribalism is kept in check - in much the same way that the availability heuristic can be very useful if we are careful not to apply it to things that have undergone the filters of selection bias. All that said, though, it is also true that there is absolutely no occasion where, given the choice, the availability heuristic would never be the best approach to estimating probability if you had the time or mental resources to fully take into account all the data at hand and rigorously analyze it with properly developed (Bayesian) statistical tools. I see a strong parallel here for religion as well.
Religion is often used as a shortcut to meaning - do these things and you will have lived a good life. In my view, constantly examining your life, motivations, intentions, and your actions and their outcomes, is a far more effective and generally applicable way of leading a good life. In just the same way that heuristics have zones where their not applicable, but the full theorems of statistics don't, so too does religion have holes - rules listed as a path to a good life often include things that are unnecessarily troubling (e.g. excessive control on sex, excessive reliance on gender roles and male authority, etc) that the generally applicable principle does not (I make no claim that I've discovered such a principle, just that it likely exists). But at the same time it's easier to say "don't have sex unless you're married" than it is to teach someone the risks of having sex, how to mitigate them, and how to respect your partners and your own emotional health in the process.
So, all this said, I'll admit that (non-cult, friendly, less unethical) religion is likely useful in some cases. The biggest problem with it, in my mind, is that it doesn't encourage the religious to recognize when their religion isn't useful. If people could simply realize that their religious rules might have exception, or might lead to erroneous scientific beliefs, unnecessary tribalism, or rules that might be injurious to some, it would go a long way to eliminating most of the problems that I attribute to religion. But, I suppose, if people realized that their religious dogma could, even in principle, fail them, then it would cease to be religion.
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I Ain't Got No Religion No More ... (But I Like to Get Myself Some Gospel Music)
by Simon ini love gospel music.
i don't feel like i need to believe in "jebus" to appreciate the music.
i can't go into a gospel church because i might just get religion again - that or i'll be grabbing the mic on be on the stage waving my hands and praising the lord.. i particularly like dylan's gospel period.
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Antiwitnessing: cowards
by john.prestor inso i'm downtown and i see two jws hanging out on a bench by a cart.
i approached them and said, i saw you guys on the news, there was a child abuse cover-up in philadelphia.
they don't respond and just look at me.
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OneEyedJoe
This approach seems unlikely to accomplish anything other than giving you a feeling of superiority.
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OneEyedJoe
Why do they need a picture to let someone apply to work for free? That's just creepy.
Always nice to see that the org's sexism is still in tact - why do they need to specify that a sister applying to volunteer needs to make arrangements for any minor children? Wouldn't a man with minor children need to make exactly the same arrangements? Is this something that a man would automatically plan for but when a woman is involved it might just slip her mind?
It's pretty sad when you have to send a letter to a bunch of grown adults to remind them to actually finish filling out a form before sending it in...
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A&E - Cults and Extreme Belief - Jehovah's Witnesses
by Incognito ini haven't seen this posted.. tuesday may 29, 2018 @ 10pm (new york time zone).
cults and extreme belief - jehovah's witnesses.
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OneEyedJoe
I thought this was really well done. It might've been good to add a little more about how they control members, but obviously there's only so much time for the episode. I think this is the first thing I've seen on JWs in the media where they I didn't catch minor mistakes that'd turn off normal JWs... I'm not sure if that means it was especially well done (I think so) or that I've just been out long enough that I'm not so sensitive to mistakes. In any event, it's wonderful to know that, at the very least, lots of non JWs are now inoculated against this cult.
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Random Musing of an ex-JW between a rock and a hard place.
by StarTrekAngel inmany of you may recall pass postings of mine where i mentioned my plans of moving away from my current neighborhood.
mainly because my office got moved and now my commute is about one hour each way.
my employer is pretty flexible so showing up on time, for now, is not an issue.
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OneEyedJoe
I'm sorry you're put in such a difficult situation. You're clearly a very generous and giving person, trying to take care of your mother-in-law as you have been and are endeavoring to continue doing. It's terrible that she's trying to take advantage of that altruism to manipulate you even further. Honestly, though, she's an adult and she ought to be well acquainted with the concept of living with the consequences of her actions. If she should decide not to move with you, then that in no way obligates you to provide her alternate housing, especially when doing so would be a large burden on your finances. You've given her a generous offer and she's spat in your face and asked for more. You're not required to take care of her, and if she doesn't want your generosity unless it's on her unreasonable terms, then she should have to live with the consequences.
Try and remind yourself regularly that not everything in the world is your responsibility. A lot of people see problems and feel that if they don't solve them, no one will - even if those problems aren't really theirs to solve. Just like when parents are too quick to solve the problems of their child, it results in over-dependence on the parent, the same can happen in any relationship. It often happens that children supersede their parent's maturity and responsibility, and when the children feel an obligation to ensure their parents' lives don't go awry, the relationship can invert and the child ends up parenting the parent...it sounds like that's what's happened here. Just like a good parent ensures that children learn to solve their own problems and take responsibility for their mistakes, your mother-in-law is unlikely to ever stop relying on you (and still manipulating you) until you force her to face the consequences of her actions. So, my best advice to you would be to free yourself from feeling obligated to anyone's unreasonable demands.
I definitely understand how you're feeling with regard to the cult being inescapable. I remember at one point when I was going through the process of trying to get an agreement from my exwife to finalize the divorce, she forced me to jump through several cult hoops and in that moment it felt like such a setback - I'd made so much progress removing myself from the cult but it was still controlling my life. But I promise you, you can get completely free. Unfortunately, though, that might just require finally letting go of the manipulative and abusive people in your life that seek to control you and take advantage of you.
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The emotionally manipulative techniques JW families use.
by stuckinarut2 ini am really disturbed by some methods that jw family members try and use to emotionally manipulate us back into the organization.. one of our fellow posters here has had a family member send several photos of them as a child either out witnessing, and at an assembly.. no words - just those pictures.. it seems such an infantile and manipulative technique to employ?!.
do they think that we will all simply ignore the logical and factual reasons we no longer attend, just because we see some sentimental picture?
do they not see that this actually may reinforce our understanding that we were raised as children in a high-control religious group where we had to please our parents.
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OneEyedJoe
Haha well I'm glad my inane ramblings could be of use to someone.
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The emotionally manipulative techniques JW families use.
by stuckinarut2 ini am really disturbed by some methods that jw family members try and use to emotionally manipulate us back into the organization.. one of our fellow posters here has had a family member send several photos of them as a child either out witnessing, and at an assembly.. no words - just those pictures.. it seems such an infantile and manipulative technique to employ?!.
do they think that we will all simply ignore the logical and factual reasons we no longer attend, just because we see some sentimental picture?
do they not see that this actually may reinforce our understanding that we were raised as children in a high-control religious group where we had to please our parents.
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OneEyedJoe
While the emotional manipulation that we become subjected to upon leaving is, obviously, in large part due to explicit encouragement of manipulative tactics from the cult (i.e. shunning, telling people "we miss you" all the time, only calling when there's some special meeting we're supposed to go to, etc) I suspect that another significant component is just the level of emotional immaturity that the cult fosters in people in order to control them. Things like the culture of "stumbling" teaches people to blame others for their emotions - if someone does something that's not prohibited and you have a negative emotional response, they've stumbled you. Their advice for dealing with strong emotions is also terrible - essentially JWs are told to push their emotions aside and wait for god to fix it. So, instead of learning to take responsibility for their emotions and face/address them head-on, a culture of hiding their own emotions from themselves and blaming others for any negative feelings arises.
All this comes into full swing when they deal with people that have left. They refuse to acknowledge that they're sad because they're being artificially restricted from seeing someone and take responsibility for their own choices and feelings - instead they feel a bad feeling and blame the supposed proximate cause (which, by habit, is another person) and that person becomes labeled as bad. Then, when they engage in the instinct to seek empathy, they're so out of touch with their emotions that they can't tell you how they're feeling and take responsibility for it - instead they simply try to make you feel how their feeling via emotionally manipulative letters, phone calls, emails, etc. And because they've already labeled you as 'bad' and 'guilty' they'll refuse to acknowledge their immature behavior even if it's clearly pointed out to them because they're on "god's side" so they can't possibly be even partially wrong in the situation.
As I'm getting out more into the world and interacting with a range of new people, I've run into some other sorts of very controlling people outside of the JW cult - the more exposure to this sort of thing I get, the easier it is to see how a controlling cult-like system could spring up completely unintentionally out of a combination of emotional immaturity, insecurity and veiled narcissism. Some people just learn subconsciously that they can get people to do what they want that way, and don't even realize they're doing it. With JWs it's explicitly trained into them, but that doesn't mean they're any more aware of what they're doing.
So, while I refuse to have people in my life that are going to treat me in such manipulative ways, more than anything I feel sorry for these people that are floating through life with the perception that their emotional state is completely out of their control - being blown about by the winds of the world around them. We're all quite lucky to have escaped that.
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Banned words in the organization
by Addison0998 ini was talking to my sister in law the other day about death, and i mentioned something about the afterlife, i don’t remember what i said but it was nothing shocking .
but she squealed, “we don’t believe in the afterlife!
!” and i reasoned, well we kinda do...life after death is the after life..and she just insisted no no it’s not the same thing.
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OneEyedJoe
Hell my ex-wife once scolded me for saying "god" too many times in a conversation. "Why do you keep saying 'god?' His name is Jehovah!"