Posts by Billyblobber

238

Another mass shooting, three or four hours ago.

by James Mixon in

san bernardino california.

up to 12 people have been killed.. the center a private non-profit agency that assists people with developmental.

disabilities.

Billyblobber

Aside from the current debate, I can't understand how Americans don't want to do anything about this issue. A guy on a no fly list can still legally buy a gun in this country. Why do we accept this as the norm? If we aren't willing to try anything to stop American citizens from killing each other, why care if terrorists come here to do it?

America is gradually and far too slowly becoming more progressive. As newer generations become more educated (which correlates with being progressive), the far right is getting more desperate in motivating its voter base. At this point, all it can do with that is basically create a fear-based hot button issue rotation that concentrates on those voters -actually- being the ones persecuted or in danger. Therefore:

Regulating guns = taking your guns for you
Being more tolerant of other people = taking away your free speech
Making sure religion is removed from the government = banning Christianity
Allowing equal rights for homosexuals = taking away our way of life

etc.

It's not as bad as it seems, really. The issue is that what is dying screams the loudest, so you're basically hearing the last and loudest flailing of a dying breed as they try their best to hold on to things, and a machine caters to them. But due to how things are framed, and now that the political system is basically soundbyte based, there is just enough of this left to effectively block real movement on many issues.

238

Another mass shooting, three or four hours ago.

by James Mixon in

san bernardino california.

up to 12 people have been killed.. the center a private non-profit agency that assists people with developmental.

disabilities.

Billyblobber

There is no statistical proof that shows that armed people stop mass shootings any more than the counter, that they only add to the confusion and end up shooting innocents/getting themselves shot. Everyone wants to fantasize about being the hero of Die Hard, but in actuality, most gun owners haven't taken an ounce of target recognition training (which military and police have to do a TON of and still fail at), and would just be likely to get themselves and more people around them killed, making it more dangerous for everyone.

If it was even as hard to maintain a "gun license" as it was a car license, that would be a step ahead. Unfortunately, the political right has successfully convinced a ton of under-educated people that there is a false dichotomy of guns/they're taking all our guns so that any talks of ANY type of regulation becomes the "they're taking all our guns" side of the dichotomy to them, making it impossible to move forward on this issue.

Also, note how oddly silent the people who are trying to focus this on Muslim heritage were days ago when a white Christian shot up a Planned Parenthood partially because of falling for the misinformation circling around what those places actually do.

43

Why Rational People Buy Into Conspiracy Theories?

by adjusted knowledge in

jw
friends

my wife is taking a literature course at a local college.

this was her final topic of the semester: why rational people buy into conspiracy theories?i automatically thought of this site and of jws.

the jws i knew, were the kind of people that would believe in conspiracy theories, and i noticed a small following on this site.. the article that was referenced for this course was: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/magazine/why-rational-people-buy-into-conspiracy-theories.html?_r=0.

Billyblobber

Skepticism and conspiracy theory-ing are not the same thing. It's the difference between wondering and making bold statements.

Wondering if there was something more to 9-11 (ie. the government allowing the attacks to happen, whatever) is one thing. As long as it's just "wondering," it's fine. And if actual evidence actually comes out to support that view, then it's not a conspiracy theory, but actual fact.

However, making definitive statements, like, "it was faked" is stupid because there's no real evidence existing for that. The latter is what the point of the topic is, and it mostly comes from people with a lack of success attempting to build their ego in other ways.

27

Evolution and Creation—both are stories!

by lsw1961 in

there are number of nobel laureates and other great scientists in both the camps defending their respective theories of evolution and creation, which means both are just stories, and both suffer from having no eye-witnesses.

if either of them were true, all scientists would have accepted it unanimously as they do with rest of the laws such as law of gravity..

this does not mean that there is no god.

Billyblobber

What being is inferior to human beings? This whole premise is flawed, starting there.

And what the heck does any of this have to do with evolution?

30

"The likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed"

by nicolaou in

presidential hopeful ben carson of course.

this isn't another gun control debate, i just thought it might be fun to have a topic where we can dump all the hysterical quotes from the candidates.. it's a deep and plentiful mine folks!

.

Billyblobber

There were several armed uprisings, like the Warsaw ghetto uprising, that worked as well for the Jews as you would figure. Or, as someone else put it; the U.S. put 100,000 Japanese Americans in camps in World War 2; how do you think it would have turned out if all of them were armed and fought back?

79

Right everyone watch this video its insane!

by username in

i'm just watching this video.

now bare in mind this guy has never been a jehovah's witness so he has no investment in this cult.. https://youtu.be/_ry-onhbkya.

Billyblobber

It boggles my mind how some exjws use critical thinking to escape the cult and then refuse to use it when it comes to GMOs.

A big chunk of ex-JWs DON'T use critical thinking to escape from there. They get mad at the organization for emotional reasons, and then latch on to any "anti" stuff from there, without checking the validity just to justify their emotions. They just happened to latch on to correct information in those instances.

There's a difference between "this doesn't make logical sense," *does research on both ends and gradually finds out most doctrines are lies,* as opposed to, "I'm mad at the organization for whatever reason, or simply don't want to do this any more," *reads third party saying that the organization is basically lies and agrees right off the bat because it supports their feelings." Both lead to a positive outcome in a sense, but both don't come from the same way of thinking.

14

Did anyone learn the truth from having their prayers answered by a knock at the door and then eventually leave the JWs?

by truthseeker in

jw
friends

i know of one person who had a difficult life, prayed for help, got the knock at the door, got baptized and eventually left the jws believing they were a cult.. has this happened to any of you?

and if so, did you still feel your prayers were answered at that time?.

Billyblobber

Am I right in saying JWs teach that god no longer performs miracles? I guess it depends on your definition of miracle (for which there is no consensus, naturally) but surely a knock on the door after praying is a form of miracle if god is behind it? If not, then it is pure coincidence (which of course it is).

JWs teach that God doesn't do OBVIOUS miracles that would actually prove his existence. He "uses the angels and his holy spirit" to do things that can't be proven or seen and are indistinguishable from coincidence, though.

14

Child care and abortion - two examples of the complexity of the issue

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

in a perfect world, one would hope that no woman would need to consider an abortion.

there is unfortunately, no perfect world and there does not seem there will ever be a perfect world.

so consider .... 1. a child rape case in paraguay.. ... but the plot unfolding in paraguay is so dark and twisted that it is currently tearing the south american country apart.it began on april 21 when a mother brought her 10-year-old daughter to a public hospital.

Billyblobber

If the reason for going against abortion is to protect human life, then allowing it in cases of rape or incest make no sense at all and break that logic. The only logical reason to allow a rape/incest clause is if your REAL reasons are that you think people should be punished for their mistakes more. So, no, that doesn't really work either.

Abortion is an unsolvable issue because the yay and nay of it relate to philosophical concepts that have no factual answer. Fetuses/zygotes/embryos/sperm cells/egg cells are all "human life," so none of that is in question. The question is "personhood," which is a philosophical concept, as it relates to when someone else's personhood overrides the mother that it is feeding off of's wishes. And there's no "true" answer to that because everyone doesn't agree on when that starts.

The U.S. Supreme Court set it at viability - when it can reasonably survive outside of the mother, which also happens to coincide with where it actually begins to think and feel. That's a logical stance based on the available actual data that we have.

Really, the biggest issue is so many people being raised in a human-centric religious atmosphere in which they are force-fed the idea that human life is the most important thing ever and must be preserved at all costs, no matter what because it's ultra special because it is. That causes people to think of even something as non developed as zygotes, which think and feel less than worms, as more precious than the self aware, fully feeling dinner they had that night, and assign it more importance than they actually do fully grown people who actually -do- suffer and die constantly around the world.

13

Day Text - Sept. 19, 2015 - Obey even if not appear practical, sound, or strategic from a human standpoint - Reminder from WT 2013 Nov.15

by Muddy Waters in

day text -- saturday, september 19 - "he will certainly bring about deliverance from the assyrian."mic.

today, jehovah certainly has provided an abundance of spiritual men to shepherd his precious sheep, to strengthen his people for the future attack of the modern-day assyrian.

the most practical step that we can take to prepare for the coming attack of the assyrian is that of strengthening our faith in god and helping our brothers to do the same.

Billyblobber

Didn't the Assyrians BEAT God, though?

“And the Lord was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.”

—Judges 1:19

75

Lurker trying to gain clarity

by questioningmyfaith in

jw
friends

hello all, i would like to first say that i am basically questioning my faith in god.

i am not negative towards the wt at all.

so honestly i am to concerned with more ad hominem attacks towards the wt because i still love the organization and the people in it.

Billyblobber

I think that there are good people within the JW organization, and i don't think the Governing Body is as evil as other people here make them out to be, but I still think that if you remove all emotion and look strictly from a "net benefit" basis, Witnesses are hurting people more than they're helping due to many of their rules. If those rules are proven to have no basis, then there is reason to speak out against the organization. Ignoring blood, there are other things that have a huge effect that are basically ignored with a "Jehovah will make up for it like he did with Job in the future" type platitudes.

- With so few numbers, it's nearly impossible to find TRULY compatible romantic relationships. Most people within -force- relationships with whoever is around, and many people miss out on them completely. This causes a lot of unhappiness in people's lives. The could still get the "afterlife" happiness in other religions that don't force that rule on their followers. This also applies to true friendships - in retrospect, I probably had ONE that wasn't fully surface, and it was a guy that's out now as well.

- The disfellowshipping rule, based on one scripture that Paul wrote, that goes against the spirit of Jesus' teachings, has caused pain and suffering for innumerable people. It being stretched in relatively recent years to, "anyone who doubts anything the Governing Body says," is a whole different level of control and pressure.

- If life -is- limited, spending so much time going to multiple meetings a week, assemblies, field service, etc. is a huge waste of it.

...and many more things. That's why people are "against" it, above and beyond just living and let living. Any many have emotional reasons, since they're blocked from communicating with beloved family members because of it.