Pole

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Posts by Pole

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  33

  Serena returns money won in gambling

  by DevonMcBride in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  does the watchtower allow gambling if the winnings are returned?

  http://www.newkerala.com/news.php?action=fullnews&id=15686serena returns money won in gambling .

  new york: tennis star and tv actress serena williams returned her winnings in gambling recently as she is a jehovah's witness and it is against her faith to gamble.. .

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  Pole

  I think she's doing a great job referring to herself as a Jehovah's witness.
  Pole
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  15

  September 1st Watchtower: The Mennonites

  by Ring Wielder in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  in the sept 1st watchtower, an article entitled: 'mennonites search for bible truth', i came across this paragraph...

  ' in bolivia, for instance, an estimated 38.000 mennonites live in numerous remote colonies, each with different rules of conduct.

  some colonies forbid motor vehicles, permitting only horses and buggies.

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  Pole

  Then again, maybe the WTS as a whole really is deluded enough to not see the irony in this article.

  
  Just as every other cult-like religion. Shunning is wrong in other religions because they shun people for leaving a "false religion". However there's nothing wrong about shunning a person who has left the only true real unique TROOF. It's as simple as that. We all used to be that stupid.
  Pole
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  27

  Comments You Will Not Hear at the 8-21-05 WT Study (Faithful)

  by blondie in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  what is "the faith"?.

  the faith?.

  5, 6. what standard do we have for testing whether we are in the faith, and .

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  Pole

  The tautology is obvious if you summarize the article:
  "If you have doubts about the WTS interpretation of the Bible" (this is also known as "the faith" among JWs)and the instructions you get in the WTS publications, then you should read more of such interpretations and you should follow the instructions contained therein even more strictly".
  Most mentally independent people will see what this advice boils down to right away: If brain-washing doesn't work, do some double-brainwashing.
  The only problem the WTS writers have is how to get across a message which is as stupid as that to those who are already having doubts. They achieve it by obfuscating the real problem (they never give the exact reasons for doubts so they don't have to address such issues) and by making seemingly innocent transitions from the Bible to the FDS and back.
  Well, if such eloquent double-washing doesn't work for you, then you must have an attitude problem. Start feeling guilty, now, you goddamn demon-possessed apostates!
  Pole
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  56

  Europe - Do Their Leaders Have the Guts?

  by roybatty in

  1. social
  2. current

  regarding iran's nuke program, the evil george bush stood on the sideline and let the europeans do it their way via diplomacy through the u.n. well, iran has basically told them to screw off and has now re-started it's nuke program and seems to have no intention to stop their development of nukes.

  this u.n. delegation has now given iran the "eleventh hour warning" which they will laugh at.

  soon it will be brought before the u.n. security counsel and a recommendation to impose sanctions against iran will be made and voted upon.

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  Pole

  Here is a link to a BBC article on the Russian contribution to Iran's nuclear program:
  
  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4301889.stm
  
  Pole
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  56

  Europe - Do Their Leaders Have the Guts?

  by roybatty in

  1. social
  2. current

  regarding iran's nuke program, the evil george bush stood on the sideline and let the europeans do it their way via diplomacy through the u.n. well, iran has basically told them to screw off and has now re-started it's nuke program and seems to have no intention to stop their development of nukes.

  this u.n. delegation has now given iran the "eleventh hour warning" which they will laugh at.

  soon it will be brought before the u.n. security counsel and a recommendation to impose sanctions against iran will be made and voted upon.

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  Pole

  roybatty,
  So you only meant economic sanctions at this stage? Then I'd have to agree. I just wasn't sure what you meant when you mentioned "people bitching about Bush doing nothing", with Bush recently mentioning the possibility of carrying out a military operation.
  Tetra:
  ::The Poles?
  Last time I heard they said it was Alberta Indians. ;-) Poland has only a small nuclear reactor used for purely scientific purposes. For the record: the nuclear rods Iran has were designed and provided by one of the most irresponsible states on earth: Russia.
  Pole - of the "I have good reasons to be a russophobe" class
• 
  61

  On a macro level, the Witnesses are pretty harmless

  by logansrun in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  warning: this post may be damaging to your biases.. it seems to me that the "danger" the witnesses pose to larger society is, well, pretty damn small.

  just think about it: the witnesses are almost not involved in politics at all, except the occassional "freedom of religion and speech" issues they take to various courts, issues i am happy to support the witnesses in, even if i strongly disagree with their beliefs.

  you will not see jws supporting banning abortions or gay marriages or a whole host of other civil liberties and freedoms that evangelicals rally around like the village people searching for frankenstein's monster.

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  Pole

  Just a quick note on your rather peculiar terminology which can be used to arrive at morally confusing conclusions. The distinction between "the macro level" and "the micro level" sounds very much like the distinction between "totalinarianism" and "individualism".
  As a person coming from a post-totalitarian state I get anxious when hearing the "macro" argument. It smacks of cynical totalitarianism.
  Using the "macro level" argument I can argue that the David Korash cult was much less harmful than the WTS.
  BTW, I wonder what is the estimated number of ex-witnesses?
  
  Pole
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  56

  Europe - Do Their Leaders Have the Guts?

  by roybatty in

  1. social
  2. current

  regarding iran's nuke program, the evil george bush stood on the sideline and let the europeans do it their way via diplomacy through the u.n. well, iran has basically told them to screw off and has now re-started it's nuke program and seems to have no intention to stop their development of nukes.

  this u.n. delegation has now given iran the "eleventh hour warning" which they will laugh at.

  soon it will be brought before the u.n. security counsel and a recommendation to impose sanctions against iran will be made and voted upon.

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  Pole

  roybatty,
  

  If Iran is allowed to develop a nuke, there is no doubt in my mind that it will use it against Israel. They will.

  
  I think you really need to shake off your stereotype of Iran to come up with a better view of the situation (which I admit does look bad).
  Consider this: How many nukes does Iran currently posses? And does the figure begin to compare to Israel's 300+ nukes? (according to unofficial sources) Of course we don't know the latter number officially because Israel isn't a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty thanks to the double-standards of world politics. Of course Israel is not as dangerous as some totalitarian islamic states, but do you really think Iran would risk using even 1 nuke against Israel at this stage of relative stability?
  

  ::I remember a couple of years ago when that big earthquake hit Iran. Some 40 - 50 thousand people were killed, many were injured and many others were trapped underground. Iran accepted help from every nation except Israel. It's leaders felt that it would be better to allow it's citizens to die buried under rubble then to be saved by a Jew. The hatred for Israel by the leaders of Iran, not the Iranians themselves, is so strong it will use the bomb on them.

  
  YOu seem to be using a piece of Iranian propaganda to prove your point, even making it a bit more dramatic than it was the case. The humanitarian aid from Israel didn't matter that much with the help they had received from all the other countries. The Iranian authorities were able to afford refusing the Israeli help thus achieving a propaganda effect. We have no positive evidence to think otherwise. And certainly this does not constitute positive evidence to invade a big country causing the death of millions of Iranians and tens of thousands of Western soldiers, which (having been to Iran and having talked to the people) I think would be inevitable.
  

  Another possibility is a nuke going off in New York harbor or in a London subway. Then we'll all stand around and bitch about Bush not doing enough to stop Iran from developing nukes.

  
  Islamic fundamentalists from Iran will certainly have nothing to prevent them from doing so if their establishment in Iran gets destroyed by tomahawk missiles. Invade Iran now and you'll produce thousands of suicide bombers who will eagerly detone suit-case nukes in the US and Europe. I'm afraid they already have such weapon if they consider them an option.
  Despite my comments above, I share your general concerns however. And cynical as it sounds I'm afraid a consolidated European foreign policy will only be possible when a suitcase nuke goes off in a European city. Let's hope it doesn't happen anytime soon. I think by invading Iran Bush would only make it happen sooner.
  Pole
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  35

  Any Buddhists here? My sister is interested...trying to get info

  by Eyebrow2 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  my sister and i were talking, and she is interested in buddhism (h or no h?

  i have seen it both ways).. anyhoo...i am looking up some temples in the area.

  i told her she should visit one if she is interested and do some reading.

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  Pole

  logansrun,
  
  
  Forget the rhetorics of my post. It was only used in reply to the amount of hot air (needless sarcasm) that I think your post produced.
  
  The problem with language dictionaries (and making such dictionaries is one of my research areas) is that they provide popular definitions. Such definitions can be used as a starting point to debate concepts, but it'd be a fallacy to assume that dictionaries contain much more than the most popular definitions of concepts. If you need a technical definition of a concept, you usually distrust popular dictionaries (sometimes there are a few competing defintions of the same concept). So rather then try to ridicule my use of the concept of metaphor by showing how it's out of keeping with the Webster's one, you should have asked me first what I understand by a metaphor. And my understanding of the concept is similar to the understanding well established in many modern cognitive sciences.
  
  In short:
  
  Metaphors are not merely figures of speech. They are figures of thought. You can't say, or even conceive of anything abstract without using a metaphor. The metaphor may be implicit, but it's still there. An example:
  
  Time. Can you produce two sentences about time without using a spacial metaphor? No. Even the basic prepositions such as "before", "after", "from", "to" which are used to describe temporal relations are primarily spacial prepositions.
  
  So nearly all abstract thinking is metaphorical. Much of hard science is metaphorical. ("hard" science is another metaphor). Still, science is different from poetry since the former is based on some clearly defined methodology. So, while there's nothing wrong with using metaphors (in fact metaphorization is unavoidable when it comes to abstract thinking), there are more verifiable metaphors and less verifiable metaphors. Example: in astrophysics you talk about "dwarves and giants". In physics time is sometimes conceived as a "dimension". But at the end of the day, we can put a finger on the aspects of reality which such metaphors are supposed to describe and how they are insufficient for the purposes of descritption.
  
  Of course there are branches of science where metaphors go more blurry (hello! another metaphor), but thanks to the metascience of methodology we can still show how these metaphors are only metaphors and that they are only to be used temporarily until more data is collected and framed into other metaphorical constructs. This is what I call the verifiablity of metaphors.
  
  On the other hand, religious metaphors are usually perceived as eternal truths. There is no methodology to help verify them. Most of the time they are verified by other, equally insubstantieted religious metaphors. To give you an example from Christianity:
  
  In explaining "the nature of God" some Christians like to claim that God is our loving father (an anthropomorphic metaphor). When asked why this loving father allows so much suffering, they try to verify this metaphor by saying we are his little children (another metaphor) and so as little children we can't and don't need to know all that our loving father knows. Therefore it makes perfect sense not only that God is our loving father, but also that we are his little children. So you can see that there is no attempt to verify the first metaphor by some independent methodology, or by sensory data. Rather the first metaphor is substantieted by another metaphor.
  
  The tricky thing is, since all our cognition works in terms of metaphors and a few other cognitive mechanisms, most people fall for it, because they get "the pseudo rational feeling" it all makes perfect sense.
  
  Of course you could argue that no metaphors are truly verifiable and you'd be right. But some metaphorical conceptual systems are more concerned with verifiablity than others. In the Western tradition there are different degrees of verifiability of metaphors as they get used in poetry, science, philosophy and religion.
  
  
  
  
  :: By your phrase "unverifiable metaphors" you either are stating that all metaphors are unverifiable (which is true, but pointless in trying to denigrate Buddhism) or that some metaphors are verifiable (which is false, in which case you misunderstand the concept of metaphor).
  
  
  
  
  
  Here is a review of a book which got many cognitive scientists to treat metaphors in a way similar to the way I see them: http://www.norvig.com/mwlb.html (BTW, I've used about a hundred metaphors in this post)
  
  Cheers,
  
  Pole (I'm off to Luxembourg for a week, but I'd like to read your comments when I'm back)
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  35

  Any Buddhists here? My sister is interested...trying to get info

  by Eyebrow2 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  my sister and i were talking, and she is interested in buddhism (h or no h?

  i have seen it both ways).. anyhoo...i am looking up some temples in the area.

  i told her she should visit one if she is interested and do some reading.

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  Pole

  logansrun,
  If the Webster's dictionary is the basic source of what you know about human cognition and western philosophy, then I begin to understand why you are quick to call people pompous assholes.
  You have a lot to learn, dude. Are you ready? ;-)
  (I hope you appreciate my argumentation style).
  Peace,
  Pole
• 
  35

  Any Buddhists here? My sister is interested...trying to get info

  by Eyebrow2 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  my sister and i were talking, and she is interested in buddhism (h or no h?

  i have seen it both ways).. anyhoo...i am looking up some temples in the area.

  i told her she should visit one if she is interested and do some reading.

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  Pole

  The emotional replies to Terry's post amaze me beyond belief. "Pompous asshole", "unhappy person"? Wow, I'm impressed with the relevance of these arguments.
  
  What's wrong with you people? The guy just stated what he thinks about buddhism. He said that buddhist teachings boil down to sets of unverifiable metaphors. This is true of all codified religions. Buddhism may be better or worse than other religions in terms of how it influences people's lives, but it's simply another example of religious philosophy. Christian mysticism, buddhist mysticism, different metaphors same mechanism. We don't know how we know. I love Western philosophy for its respect for epistemology.
  
  I'm eager to see how people respond to Terry's challenge. For now I have to say I'm pretty much in agreement with Terry's view on buddhism (at the teoretical level at least). Now you can call me a pompous unhappy asshole. This will certainly help me understand the beauty of buddhism.
  
  Pole