Posts by Coded Logic

103

I'm meeting with my congregation Elders Today HELP PLEASE

by LennaB in

meeting with my congregation elders today.. going to tell them about the things i discovered about c.t russell.

(astrology, racism, ect.

) i don't know how to present this information or what to say.

Coded Logic

I'm not sure how such utter conflicting confusion can be helpful except to confuse even further.

I wouldn't worry too much about it, Lenna clearly has a good head on her shoulders. And confusion is often a natural part of the learning proccess because we only ever learn when we are faced with our missconceptions. It is a good thing that she is being exposed to a wide range of ideas and attitudes - that way she can make up her mind for herself what she wants to believe. And we at this site are not the Borg. We do not all speak in a unified voice telling people what to think. Rather, it is our discord that shows people how to think. It challenges them that not all questions have easy answers. And that if you want to come to knowledge, and rationality, and if you want to be able to build good mental models of how the world works - then you're going to have to do the heavy mental lifting yourself.

Or, if I may use the brutal statement that got the wheels of doubt turning when I was a witness, " There is a huge difference between being " opinionated" vs having an "informed opinion""

Opinionated: conceitedly assertive and dogmatic in one's opinions. Claiming knowledge one does not possess.

Informed Opinion: knowledge of the neccissary facts and a careful consideration of the principles. Making determinations using evidence instead of limited personal experience.

32

Please help....in a dilemma..

by crazyhorse in

please help with this: when i was in college, there was a lot of talk about university and how all who pursue that are wasting their time and all that.

even before going to uni, there was a lot of pressurr on me concerning my decision.

during that time, two elders sat with me for appointment as ms and asked me if i have freedom of speech in the org since i'm going to uni and i said no.

Coded Logic

What should I do?

Crazyhorse, can you please tell us a little more about your circumstances? Why are you still going to the JW meetings?

103

I'm meeting with my congregation Elders Today HELP PLEASE

by LennaB in

meeting with my congregation elders today.. going to tell them about the things i discovered about c.t russell.

(astrology, racism, ect.

) i don't know how to present this information or what to say.

Coded Logic

What about all the answered prayers and experiences in the yearbook/watchtower?

In logic there is a very specific kind of confirmation bias known as Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Imagine an old man who prays to win the lottery and then the next day he wins. The old man might conclude that, due to his one in a hundred-million odds of wining, God must have answered his prayer. However, what he isn't aware of is that 90% of the people who bought lottery tickets ALSO prayed to win. He is suffering from availability error because he is not taking into account how many "unanswered prayers" there were for him to get his one "answered prayer."

Likewise, in many of the yearbook accounts they are only looking at all the good things that happened to the witnesses without addressing all the bad things that happened to the witnesses. This is confirmation bias. We all know that good things happen to people. We also know that bad things happen to people. I could take a random group of 7million people and then write a book about only the absolute best experiances of few dozen of those individuals. Out of 7million people, I would be able to find some pretty good/extraordinary stories. Where the logical flaw comes in - is acting as though that cherry picked sample reprents the norm amongst the entire group. Even worse, would be to draw the conclusion that since a few people had some amazing experiances, the whole group must be Gods chosen people.

The Yearbook is cherry picked data. It would be like driving through Beverly Hills and then concluding that every single American in the USA is a multi-millionare. Most Americans don't live in Beverly Hills. And most JWs don't have Yearbook experiances.

This is done at the Kingdom Hall level too. The elders say, "You should FT pioneer. Look at Joann, she prayed to Jehovah ernestly and she was able to do it. You can do it too!"

What the elders don't notice is that Joann is the exception at the hall. Her parents paid off her mortgage and her husband works a good job and they can afford to not have her work. And the elders completely ignore that most JWs are living pay check to pay check swimming up to their eyeballs in debt because they never got a college education and they can't afford to work part time. Most the JWs who "should be pioneering" drive cars with 200k miles on them because they cann't afford a new car. All the while Joann the FT pioneer is riding around in a brand new $50,000 SUV that is paid off.

Its amazing how Jehovah only blesses those who come from upper middle class homes so that they can pioneer. And that he doesn't bless those who are poor and trodden upon. Joanns sacrafice to FT pioneer is not being able to add a third family vehichal after they purchase a boat this year. Where as the poor JWs sacrafice to aux pioneer two or three times a year is that they can't afford to get that new set of tires their vehichal desperately needs. But everyone acts like Joann has done some amazing feat while the R&F witnesses are just a bunch of slackers who may or may not make it through armageddon because they are so spiritually weak.

103

I'm meeting with my congregation Elders Today HELP PLEASE

by LennaB in

meeting with my congregation elders today.. going to tell them about the things i discovered about c.t russell.

(astrology, racism, ect.

) i don't know how to present this information or what to say.

Coded Logic

AS OF NOW I have no hope for the future, angry at the way I was treted by some of the people in my cong (even though their were some great people), questioning id I can even trust the bible?

Lenna, there are plenty of things worth believing in. But the Bible is not among them. There are plenty of worthwhile persuits in your life. But religious indoctrination is not one them. I don't know if a God does or doesn't exists. But if a God does exist then they will understand you're desire to ask questions and to reject ideas that do not make sense. They would want you to use your brain and to follow your heart.

Be good to your family - because you love your family. Be good to your friends - because you love your friends. Help those in need - because they are in need. Be a moral person for the sake of the positive effects it has on the world around you. And make well informed decisions so that your good intentions don't go astray.

What makes you happy? What makes you feel good? What types of people do you like to be around?

I know that when I was a witness I was spiritually starved. There is a deep seeded cynicism in the JW teachings: Humans can't make the world perfect so we shouldn't even try. Humans don't live forever so whatever we do doesn't matter.

These are the most vile of all their teachings. Because what we do DOES MATTER! It affects the people around us. And if we try we can be a positive force if we want to. We can bring happiness, and joy, and love into this world. We can lean to accept people for who they are and encourage others to do the same. There is not a single person on this planet who can't make the world just a little bit better.

Human dignity is worth believing in. And human well being is a worthwhile pursuit.

103

I'm meeting with my congregation Elders Today HELP PLEASE

by LennaB in

meeting with my congregation elders today.. going to tell them about the things i discovered about c.t russell.

(astrology, racism, ect.

) i don't know how to present this information or what to say.

Coded Logic

AS OF NOW I have no hope for the future, angry at the way I was treted by some of the people in my cong (even though their were some great people), questioning id I can even trust the bible?

Lenna, there are plenty of things worth believing in. But the Bible is not among them. There are plenty of worthwhile persuits in your life. But religious indoctrination is not one them. I don't know if a God does or doesn't exists. But if a God does exist then they will understand you're desire to ask questions and to reject ideas that do not make sense. They would want you to use your brain and to follow your heart.

Be good to your family - because you love your family. Be good to your friends - because you love your friends. Help those in need - because they are in need. Be a moral person for the sake of the positive effects it has on the world around you. And make well informed decisions so that your good intentions don't go astray.

What makes you happy? What makes you feel good? What types of people do you like to be around?

I know that when I was a witness I was spiritually starved. There is a deep seeded cynicism in the JW teachings: Humans can't make the world perfect so we shouldn't even try. Humans don't live forever so whatever we do doesn't matter.

These are the most vile of all their teachings. Because what we do DOES MATTER! It affects the people around us. And if we try we can be a positive force if we want to. We can bring happiness, and joy, and love into this world. We can lean to accept people for who they are and encourage others to do the same. There is not a single person on this planet who can't make the world just a little bit better.

Human dignity is worth believing in. And human well being is a worthwhile pursuit.

32

Science and Philosephy.- God

by HowTheBibleWasCreated in

jw
friends

when i discovered ervs and #2 chromosome i knew there was no personal god.

the rest is history.

i have always since kept updated in science as much as possible.. .

Coded Logic

I personally think its a 50/50 possibility considering the fact that it all boils down to either matter/energy thats always existed and exploded to give us galaxies or its a creator thats always existed . . .

I don't think a 50/50 possibility is a good assesment of the situation. Matter and energy are known to exist. Gods are not. It would be like me saying there is a 50/50 possibility that either the mail man delivered my mail this morning or a flying unicorn delivered it. This is completely irrational. In order to say something is "possible" you either have to have a precident or something of parallel comparison. Without that, you can't know if something is possible or not. And you certainly can't assign a 50/50 variable to it. This is a classic arguement from ignorance fallacy.

A second point is that the universe started out simple and and has become more complex over time (2nd law of thermodynamics). God(s) would have started out complicated (if we're talking about something that is unchanging).

Coded , did those studies accomodate for dark matter and energy which can't be quantified by any scientific instruments?

It was their meassurments that discoverd dark energy (dark matter had been discovered much earlier). As far as your statement that they can't be "quantified" I'm not sure what you mean by that. Both are measurable. We know their quantities. We just don't know what they are. Much like gravity, we don't yet understand what it is. But to say it can't be "quantified" would be to use some pretty sloppy language.

Now on to Seraphim23

God cannot be proven or unproven in objective terms.

It depends upon the God that is claimed to exist. If it's a god that made Adam and Eve out of dust-ribs 6,000 years ago we can objectively say "that specific God does not exist." This is why in most debates Thiest refuse to define God. It prevents them to be pinned down on anything.

If I said, "You're a thief - because you stole a red Ferrari from the dealership down the street yesterday at 12:00."

This is a specific claim that can be investigated and is falsifiable.

However, if I just said, "You're a thief because you stole something."

This is not falsifiable. And I would disregard such a statement as utter nonsense until such a time as I could be provided with more specifics (what was stolen, when it was stolen, how it was stolen, etc). I feel the same with the God hypothesis because, the vast majority of the time, it's NOT EVEN a hypothesis. I think your quote of Wolfgang Pauli was spot on, " It is not only not right, it is not even wrong."

32

Science and Philosephy.- God

by HowTheBibleWasCreated in

jw
friends

when i discovered ervs and #2 chromosome i knew there was no personal god.

the rest is history.

i have always since kept updated in science as much as possible.. .

Coded Logic

I find Panthiesm to be a highly interesting take on the God hypothesis. Though, I find it almost entirely impossible. There have been two experiments done to try and calculate how much energy is in our universe. The first one was done in 1996 by a groupe of cosmologist ( Adam Riess, Brian Schmidt, and Saul Perlmutter) who used the gravitational lensing around galactic clusters to try and figure out how much energy there is. The result was so startling they thought there calculations must have been off but they couldn't find anything worng with their method. So a second experiment was commisioned (WMAPS) which looked at the ancient structure of our universe (the CMB). It too came back with the exact same startling answer. We we account for all the positive and negitive energy in our universe the total sum energy works out to ZERO. There is no energy in our universe.

This to me, seems to make Panthiesm almost entirely impossible. Though, just out of curriosity, have you ever heard of the book Faltland? Theres a Charachter called Pointland who IS his own universe. People can go and visit him but Pointland can't comprehend anything coming from outside of himself so when they try to speak to him Pointland just thinks its coming from himself.

38

First post

by BenRichards in

jw
friends

i've been lurking here off and on for a few years, figured i would introduce myself and share the clif notes version of my story.. i'm in my late 30's and was born in.

mom was a jw, dad wasn't.

got baptized in my teens and started dating my eventual wife.

Coded Logic

Welcome to the site Ben! Thanks for sharing your story. It's good to hear that you and your spouse came out of the orginazation together. I feel for a lot of people on this site who can't speak honestly to their spouse for fear of being outed.

As for your mom, if you really want to be able to reach here I wouldn't recomend just comming out and telling her everything you learned. The WTBTS is pretty good at hardening people against so called apostacy. You have to be away for a little while to gain perspective. I would recomend assuming the Null Hypothesis when speaking to her (not convinced one way of the other about the JWs) and keep the burden of proof on her.

If she asks, "Why did you stop going to the meetings?" You can always say something along the lines of "To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure that I have good reasons anymore for believing the things I used to believe."

If she asks why you feel that way - you can follow up with a question of your choice.

My favorites are:

"How do we know the Governing Body is the Faithful and Discreet Slave?"

Or, "If sin entered into the world through Adam and Eve and death is the price of sin, then why do animals suffer and die?"

Or, "If man cannot rule over man and all badness in the world is being allowed right now to vindicate Jehovah's soverignty, then why did God interfere in the past with things like the flood, and the tower of babel, and all the biblical wars?"

Asking these sorts of questions is a good method to get the person to actually think instead of getting defensive. Inclusive questions are good too. When given an anwer you don't buy you can always say "Yeah, but how do we know that's true?" or, "How could anyone really know that?" or "I understand that's what you believe, but is it actually true?"

If asked a direct question its usually best to either say "You know, I really don't know." or, "I'm not sure anyone could know that."

Just do your best to keep the burden of proof on her. She's the one who thinks she has all the answers - not you. Its a good method to test the waters and if a few of these conversations go well then it might be good to start bringing up some of the things that you have learned. But I definitely wouldn't recomend an all out assualt on first conversation.

Hope that helps :)

31

Disturbing cover picture November 2014 awake!

by stuckinarut2 in

oh wow..... i have just seen the cover picture for the november awake!.

sorry, i don't know how to post a picture here....(perhaps someone else can assist?).

it is just plain creepy.. the article is called "keys to a happy life".... but the looks on the faces say something different!

Coded Logic

I didn't know people smiling could be so creepy. The girl front and center looks like she just killed someone.

22

Help me help my DF'd friend

by OneEyedJoe in

jw
friends

so i got a text from a friend of mine today telling me that he'd been df'd.

since i'm still nominally a witness, this puts me in a tricky spot.

i intend to tell him in no uncertain terms that i will not shun him, but i'm not sure where to go beyond that.

Coded Logic

When one of my witness friends found out I was gay their exact words were, "You know my friendship is unconditional right? There is nothing you can do that will take that away."

That was about four years ago and I still can't help but tear up a bit everytime I think about it. Anyway, I think actually calling them and speaking with them would be MUCH BETTER than a text. Let them know that they have a friend in you and that your going to be there for them no matter what. I would also discourage asking why the got DFd. If they're comfortable sharing they'll bring it up. But chances are since its still so recent they're probably still a little shell shocked.

I would also strongly advise against talking about the society on your initial contact. Right now they need a friend and a sense of normalcy. Talk about that one time you guys were at that one place and that really funny thing happened. Talk about the latest episode of whatever. Just be a friend. You'll have plenty of time to talk about debunking the WTBTS later.