seattleniceguy

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Posts by seattleniceguy

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  49

  Honest mistakes? The Governing Body's excuses for their actions

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the governing body tells us they are not false prophets because they admit their mistakes.. they only err because they are zealous to see the new order commence.. they are on the watch and warning everybody just like they are supposed to.. their doctrines change (new light) because they see and admit their errors.. what more can we expect of them?.

  is the governing body honestly doing the best they can?

  they are only human; how can we expect them to be perfect?.

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  seattleniceguy

  Wow! Extraordinary! AlanF, that was amazing! Thank you for your excellent research.

  Also, SAHS, that's a great analogy. Thanks for sharing.

  And johnny cip, thanks for that reference.

  SNG
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  49

  Honest mistakes? The Governing Body's excuses for their actions

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the governing body tells us they are not false prophets because they admit their mistakes.. they only err because they are zealous to see the new order commence.. they are on the watch and warning everybody just like they are supposed to.. their doctrines change (new light) because they see and admit their errors.. what more can we expect of them?.

  is the governing body honestly doing the best they can?

  they are only human; how can we expect them to be perfect?.

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  seattleniceguy

  Pole:

  I wonder if any of the authors they misquoted has ever sued them or at least crtiticised them.

  I don't have direct evidence on this, but I have heard that many people have done so. It only makes sense. I would be outraged if my work was misused in such a way. I'd be interested if anyone has any information on this.

  SNG
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  25

  Only possible things happen. Is free choice an illusion?

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  things are what they are.. everything acts according to its nature.. nothing escapes its own nature.. we cannot be other than what we are and our "choices" follow our nature.. consequently, can we not say correctly that free choice is merely our ignorance of the fact that all our actions and choices are predetermined by our nature?.

  example: if i offer you dog piss or a dove bar is that really a choice?.

  only possible things happen.

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  seattleniceguy

  Every effect known in the universe has a cause. This includes every action we may perform, and every thought we may think. We may "choose to go against our nature" but the "choice" is really a series of neurons firing in response to a particular stimulus. If our thoughts and actions are caused, then there is no free will.

  I guess this is really the crux of the argument. Either you believe in a universe where things happen for a reason, or you don't. I happen to agree with that strongly. If effects have causes, then every micro-decision we make is a result of a domino-effect of gates flipping open and shut in our brain, leading to a single state that would be possible to deterministically predict given the input state.

  It is difficult to accept, though, because the illusion of control is so strong. But I suppose we have accepted things that are difficult before. I will need to think some more about this. Thanks for the interesting thread!

  SNG
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  49

  Honest mistakes? The Governing Body's excuses for their actions

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the governing body tells us they are not false prophets because they admit their mistakes.. they only err because they are zealous to see the new order commence.. they are on the watch and warning everybody just like they are supposed to.. their doctrines change (new light) because they see and admit their errors.. what more can we expect of them?.

  is the governing body honestly doing the best they can?

  they are only human; how can we expect them to be perfect?.

  1. 
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  seattleniceguy

  what might lead you to suspect the Watchtower leaders are dishonest, conniving and intellectually corrupt?

  They intentionally misrepresent the views of scientists in books such as Life-How Did It Get Here? For example, (this one is courtesy of drwtsn32) in one source, a scientist asked, "How could something as complex as the eye develop through evolutionary means?" He then went on to explain at length how such a thing was possible. The question was just a lead-in to the explanation. But the WT quotes the scientist with the line, "Even respected scientists have doubts about evolution's ability to create complex organs." This is a total misrepresentation.

  Here's an example from my own direct experience. In several publications, the Society quotes Chet Raymo. I happened to purchase a book by Raymo, The Path, about a year ago, and it contained a line quoted by the WT in Does God Really Care About Us? The quote was part of a montage designed to make it appear that various respected scientists felt that life was too wonderful to have originated by chance. Chet Raymo is a wonderful writer with a boyish fascination with the natural world. But it would be a total misrepresentation to say that he meant anything like what the Society tried to make him say. In fact, in the very book the Society is quoting, Raymo talks about evolutionary processes at length and is quite a supporter of evolution.

  Misrepresentations such as these are as low as I can possibly imagine any organization stooping, let alone one that calls itself "the Truth." To allow such things to be written and published should have been unconscionable. Instead, it has been standard operating procedure. This is shamefully corrupt!

  SNG
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  49

  Honest mistakes? The Governing Body's excuses for their actions

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the governing body tells us they are not false prophets because they admit their mistakes.. they only err because they are zealous to see the new order commence.. they are on the watch and warning everybody just like they are supposed to.. their doctrines change (new light) because they see and admit their errors.. what more can we expect of them?.

  is the governing body honestly doing the best they can?

  they are only human; how can we expect them to be perfect?.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  seattleniceguy

  what might lead you to suspect the Watchtower leaders are dishonest, conniving and intellectually corrupt?

  The fact that they consistently sanitize and retell their history. When I was a Witness, I never much cared for people drudging up old arguments about 1914, 1918, 1925, etc. However, when I left and I realized what actually happened during those times, and how utterly differently the WT portrays them now, I became angry. Recasting history as it is convenient for you is totally dishonest.

  SNG
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  49

  Honest mistakes? The Governing Body's excuses for their actions

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the governing body tells us they are not false prophets because they admit their mistakes.. they only err because they are zealous to see the new order commence.. they are on the watch and warning everybody just like they are supposed to.. their doctrines change (new light) because they see and admit their errors.. what more can we expect of them?.

  is the governing body honestly doing the best they can?

  they are only human; how can we expect them to be perfect?.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  seattleniceguy

  they admit their mistakes.

  They absolutely do not. Try getting a straight answer regarding 1975 and the ruined lives resulting therefrom. Their culpability is quite clear by any outside account, but they have consistently covered it up and heaped the blame and guilt on the Witnesses who followed their lead. This is totally dishonest.

  SNG
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  49

  Honest mistakes? The Governing Body's excuses for their actions

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the governing body tells us they are not false prophets because they admit their mistakes.. they only err because they are zealous to see the new order commence.. they are on the watch and warning everybody just like they are supposed to.. their doctrines change (new light) because they see and admit their errors.. what more can we expect of them?.

  is the governing body honestly doing the best they can?

  they are only human; how can we expect them to be perfect?.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  seattleniceguy

  Hello Terry,

  I think if you read Crisis of Conscience, you'll get a totally new understanding of who and what the GB really is.

  The quintessential example of their dishonesty (aside from the recent UN thing) is the Mexico-Malawi contradiction. Two opposite choices foisted on different nations - one excused bribery of goverment officials so as to avoid military duty, the other caused tens of thousands to be plundered and raped for the sake of not buying an identification card. When you think about the hardships caused to the thousands of families in Malawi, over something so meaningless, it just makes one's heart ache.

  But apparently not for the GB, since they held to their hard line for 30 years. The persecution in Malawi continued into the 1990s, overlapping the time when the Society became an NGO member of the UN.

  SNG
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  95

  EVIL LOUTION? Why do you still resist? Science doesn't work?

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i resisted it for years.

  i was dragged kicking and screaming into the evolution theory camp.. i would rather have had my arm lopped off at the elbow;but, facts are facts.

  i had to be intellectually honest.

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  seattleniceguy

  Who created every thing Evolution?

  This question doesn't even make sense. It's like saying, "Who created everything, gravity?" Evolution is just the name for a phenomenon. Evolution is not a person. It did not create anything. It is simply a process by which living organisms change over time. The theory of common descent holds that all living things that we know of descended from common ancestors, but does not rule out the existence of other organisms whose origins are completely different. Furthermore, it doesn't even try to describe how life came to exist, although there is a separate theory, abiogenesis, that grapples with that.

  So the answer to the above question is, no. Evolution did not create everything. However, it seems to have been the mechanism by which life has come to exist in its present diversity.

  SNG
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  25

  Only possible things happen. Is free choice an illusion?

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  things are what they are.. everything acts according to its nature.. nothing escapes its own nature.. we cannot be other than what we are and our "choices" follow our nature.. consequently, can we not say correctly that free choice is merely our ignorance of the fact that all our actions and choices are predetermined by our nature?.

  example: if i offer you dog piss or a dove bar is that really a choice?.

  only possible things happen.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  seattleniceguy

  Hello Terry,

  Very interesting topic. If there is no actual free choice, it would lead me to see all life, and indeed the entire universe, as components mechanically working out a solution, deterministically crunching numbers to find some final state. Kind of like working pi out to the trillionth digit: it is a tremendoubly computationally intensive task, and we do not know what the solution is, but there is a single, discreet answer or state.

  I'm not convinced that this is true. But I'm interesting in hearing arguments for predeterminism.

  Now to respond to a couple of points in your post:

  Only possible things happen. The things that happen are the result of events following their own natural bent.

  Isn't it probable that at any juncture there are multiple possible paths? The world is not binary. My sense is that any juncture has multiple possible paths with varying probabilities, many of which are well within the bounds of "possibility."

  You cannot program a computer to generate an actual "random" number. There is always an algorithm underlying it.

  That's because a computer is an abacus, nothing more. If I told you to make an abacus appear to generate random numbers, you would be forced to use pseudo-random numbers, too. Pseudo-random number algorithms were developed to work in applications where the appearance of randomness is sufficient, but they don't prove that there is no such thing as real randomness.

  Randomness is our ignorance of the nature of inevitable consequent events.

  I'm sure this is true much of the time, but isn't it possible that real randomness also exists?

  SNG
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  28

  Well you all surprised me

  by Lady Lee in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  here i thought people would be pming me galore with suggestions of what to include on the best of series.. 1 count em 1 suggestion.

  come on people.

  any person i should look at?.

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  seattleniceguy

  Lady Lee,

  One I'd like to see in the Best Of series is PeacefulPete.

  SNG