Posts by OneEyedJoe

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

Its a bit like UFO/Alien sightings, which always seem to have an up-tick when people start drinking.

There's also a number of relatively strange physical phenomena that, if you didn't know about them, they could cause you to present them as 'proof' of sprits. For example, when in the presence of low frequency sound waves (inaudible for humans) that match the resonance of the human eye, it can often cause you to see ghostly figures that pop in and out of your periphrial vision. This has been confirmed as the cause of a number of 'haunted' buildings.

Fortune tellers are just con artists taking advantage of the human weakness called confirmation bias, or in some cases, they do lots of prior research on clients in order to appear as though they posses supernatural knowledge. There's been so many examples of these folks being debunked that I feel like your inclusion of them in your question may indicate that you're attempting to troll us a bit. Just because someone doesn't believe in god, doesn't mean that their mentally acute and able to recognize when someone is taking advantage of them and manipulating them.

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

In cosmology, many common theories require something to have existed prior to the big bang. In theology, the requirement prior to the universe is to have a sentient, powerful god that's always existed. In cosmology, the pre-universe state is typically a relatively simple environment. Depending on the theory, it could be essentially nothingness, or it could be large blobs (think of a soap bubble) floating around in 11 dimmensional space. Whatever the theory, though, you must agree that it seems more likely than a sentient, all-powerful being who's just 'always existed.'

Interestingly (and couther-intuitively) enough, our universe appears to be made up of a net sum of zero energy. This means that it can essentially spring from 'nothing.' There will likely always be questions to be answered by science, but saying that there are questions that science will never be able to answer is a bit pessimistic considering all the so-called unexplainable things that now are well-understood.

If you want to learn about science, don't only watch you-tube videos that seem to confirm your preconcieved notions, challenge yourself and challenge your confirmation bias. However, if you wish to remain a theist, best not look too deep.

32

Have you ever been called for Jury Duty? before or after registering to vote?

by EndofMysteries in

jw
friends

i've never been called for jury duty and i'm not yet registered to vote, although i'm hoping to get that done this month.

i know someone who within a few months of registering to vote was called for jury duty.

i've read some articles that said voter records 'used' to be used to call on people but that was a thing of the past.

OneEyedJoe

My sister had to do jury duty and (like any good JW) had never registered to vote.

19

Do Witnesses still go door-to-door??

by MsShockJock in

jw
friends

just wondering if they still go door-to-door?

i never see groups of people walking around the neighborhoods all dressed up or out in fastfood restaurants on saturday mornings or groups of people driving around in cars.

.

OneEyedJoe

I say its mostly tract work, but that may be a bit of a strech depending on how you want to measure it. It seems like we do 3-4 month long campaigns a year so it's still mostly magazines by that measure. However, I suspect there are more hours put in during those 3-4 months than the other 8-9 months. They reduce the barrier to getting the pioneer title everyone wants and everyone who does it pressures everyone else, so hours go up. Plus its so much easier since you don't have to put together a presentation or, really talk to anyone.

19

Do Witnesses still go door-to-door??

by MsShockJock in

jw
friends

just wondering if they still go door-to-door?

i never see groups of people walking around the neighborhoods all dressed up or out in fastfood restaurants on saturday mornings or groups of people driving around in cars.

.

OneEyedJoe

Mostly these days it's a 20 minute meeting for service, followed by a half hour of d2d* then a half hour at McDonald's, followed by 20 minutes of doing one of the old guy's calls, since no one else has calls on account of all the special campaigns.

*these days it seems like d2d more often than not is some special campaign that doesn't require that you do anything more than shove a tract at someone when they open the door, then run away.

12

Does the President of the WT have any power?

by BU2B in

i thought about this after reading incognito's thread.

i was wondering if anyone here has any idea what the president of the wt actually does or if he truly has any real power, or if he is merely the gb puppet..

OneEyedJoe

My understanding (which could very well be wrong) is that the presidency position is contingent on the president being an active, baptized member of the JWs. So if he got DF'd he'd be implicitly removed from the presidency as well.

14

Half Of US Can't Come Up With $400

by metatron in

jw
friends

http://wealthydebates.com/half-americans-cant-come-400/.

there are a number of such observations being recently made - such as a large number with debts subject to collection and people facing retirement with no savings.. i advise the wts to 'take the money and run'.

hard to see this situation getting better.. .

OneEyedJoe

I can't remember the last time I had less than $400 in savings. Probably would've been just before college.

I've known a few people that probably fall into that category. You stop at a gas station, and they'll buy a bunch of random crap they don't need. They always have a new TV/phone/whatever, but the moment they get a flat tire, they're looking for a loan.

28

What would you do if JW's lifted the shunning policy?

by bsand20 in

jw
friends

have you guys asked yourself that question?

what if the gb decided that "new light" revealed to them that disfellowshipping was wrong and they would do away with it for current dfd members as well...... .......16 years of my life.

would i welcome my family back?

OneEyedJoe

Where I out and shunned as long as you've been, it wouldn't change a thing for me. I'm not sentimental, though, and I don't have too much trouble moving on from disloyal friends/family.

In my situation, where they to fully remove shunning* I'd have a conversation with my wife about it but I'd almost certainly DA myself immediately.

*By this I mean people who leave aren't shunned anyway, as is the case today with "spiritually weak" ones who aren't even DF'd. Realistically, even if they abollished DFing, the individual members would almost certainly continue to shun for a generation following.

9

does the BORG follow OSHA standards at KH/ASSEMBLY builds?

by goingthruthemotions in

jw
friends

had a discussion with my wife about kh/assembly hall builds and i told her i don't believe the watchtower society follow osha standards on there build sites.

she trumpted it up that the borg follows stringent pratices and there standards would be more strict.

i laughed and said....ya i don't think so.

OneEyedJoe

Not entirely on topic, but I remember one of the JWstruggle interviews a while back where he talked to an ex-bethelite that said they bragged about not having to follow OSHA standards at bethel for one reason or another.

I haven't been on a lot of construction sites, but the safety does seem a little more lax on the KH builds than the construction sites that I have been on.

12

Does the President of the WT have any power?

by BU2B in

i thought about this after reading incognito's thread.

i was wondering if anyone here has any idea what the president of the wt actually does or if he truly has any real power, or if he is merely the gb puppet..

OneEyedJoe

From what I've read from other folks on here, he has some power, but if the GB doesn't like what he's doing they can DF him, which would cause him to lose his position. So, in reality, they have the power to do whatever they want. Of course, if it's too obvious they're DFing him without grounds, that could cause enough of a scandal that they'd lose some membership, so they probably don't want to play that card if they don't need to.