i HAD MEMORIZED the number as 6823 occurances way back in the 60's.
The other day I saw the number had jumped to 6829, and now today I see this new quantity of 6823.
NEED I SAY I'M CONFUSED?
Posts by Terry
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34Current King James Bible now has 6,972 Jehovah's name restored.
by Iamallcool inhttp://www.dnkjb.net/ .
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61
THE IMPONDERABLES TOPIC (Enter at your own risk)
by Terry ini suggest taking this slowly .
.. consider the difference between taking a poll about an upcoming election and the actual vote itself on the day of the election.. the information gathered about what the vote will be is provisional.
the vote on the day of the election is actual and official.. it is the one that counts.. now, carefully ask yourself what the specific difference--if any--there is between the poll information and the election result as an identical knowledge of.
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Terry
You cannot use the mind to define itself!
Why not? All knowledge is constructed by our mind.
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I don't look at knowledge the same as you do, I suppose.
Knowledge isn't something you can reach down and pick up and put in your pocket.
If you own an encyclopedia set it means nothing if you can't read.
-----I was once in the house of an actual BILLIONAIRE and was knocked sideways by the gorgeous Bosendorfer grand piano he owned.
I asked permission to sit down and fiddle with it. (Notice the anomalous word choice.)
AGHHH! He hadn't bothered to tune it!
For me, this is the 'key' to knowledge itself.
We can own it and not tune it.
I can say "quantum particle" and sound savvy. But, Richard Feynman once said "Anybody who thinks they understand quantum physics doesn't."
One of my favorite books of all time is SURELY YOU'RE JOKING, MISTER FEYNMAN
“I have a friend who's an artist and has sometimes taken a view which I don't agree with very well. He'll hold up a flower and say "look how beautiful it is," and I'll agree. Then he says "I as an artist can see how beautiful this is but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing," and I think that he's kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too, I believe. Although I may not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is ... I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean it's not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there's also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes. The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don't understand how it subtracts.”
― Richard P. Feynman“I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.”
― Richard P. Feynman“I... a universe of atoms, an atom in the universe.”
― Richard P. Feynmanhttp://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1429989.Richard_P_Feynman
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61
THE IMPONDERABLES TOPIC (Enter at your own risk)
by Terry ini suggest taking this slowly .
.. consider the difference between taking a poll about an upcoming election and the actual vote itself on the day of the election.. the information gathered about what the vote will be is provisional.
the vote on the day of the election is actual and official.. it is the one that counts.. now, carefully ask yourself what the specific difference--if any--there is between the poll information and the election result as an identical knowledge of.
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Terry
I woke up, you see, about 4 a.m.
That is a VERY boring time to regain consciousness!
For me consciousness is like a speeding vehicle--it needs space in which to travel.
I can't just jump out of bed, dress and start riding my bike.
TV is really not an alternative.
So, I turn inside my head and try to ask questions about the 'obvious' AS THOUGH it was unknown OR somehow WRONG.
I know--it sounds nutty.
_______________________
I've arrived at a kind of viewpoint about most so-called IMPONDERABLES.
I think the reason we get into a tight spot with thinking, analysis, interpretation
and such is this. WORDS are inherently ambiguous.
We are seldom rigorous in separating magisteria.
We trick ourselves unwittingly.
________________
For example, the word RIGHT.
Is it RIGHT to be right-handed?
That question might produce many obvious responses. Being left-handed is sinister, so, why not?
THIS silliness is partly caused by careless use of words, overlapping contexts, transparency accretions, etc.
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Once we bother to DEFINE anything sort of thing at all--WE TRAP OURSELVES in a locked-in context.
It becomes difficult (if not impossible) to extricate the thing from the 'obvious' context.
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I thought we could all clear-the-pipes of rust by discussing "hard" concepts.
Mostly, I gave myself something to do until the dawn crept across the diaphanous fabric of my curtains!
CARRY ON!
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4
TECHNOLOGY and COMMUNICATION: a look back at Watchtower merchandizing
by Terry inthousands of people in america were the beneficiaries of new inventions in technology in the 1870's.. the typewriter, the telephone, and the light bulb transformed something we may have never considered before.. communication was ramped up seemingly without limit for the first time in human history!.
pastor russell's customers were simple folks frightened by monumental changes.. what did these rapid changes really mean?.
pastor russell distilled everything down to the notion everything was understandable as signs of the end.. ____________________________.
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Terry
Thousands of people in America were the beneficiaries of new inventions in technology in the 1870's.
The typewriter, the telephone, and the light bulb transformed something we may have never considered before.
COMMUNICATION was ramped up seemingly without limit for the first time in human history!
Pastor Russell's customers were simple folks frightened by monumental changes.
WHAT DID THESE RAPID CHANGES REALLY MEAN?
Pastor Russell distilled everything down to the notion everything was understandable as SIGNS OF THE END.
____________________________
Studies in the Scriptures, sold door to door like any other product, were said to make the Bible "understandable"
and were
(wait for it . . .) were of greater value than the Bible itself!
_______________________________
Gradually, cashing in on a public fascination with the Great Pyramid, Russell concocted a terminal theology date: 1914.
What would sell more magazines and books than avoiding DOOMSDAY?
______________________________
The number one source of information used by citizens of the world to gain understanding of what was going on; NEWSPAPERS.
by 1913 it was estimated that through 2,000 newspapers Russell’s sermons were reaching 15,000,000 readers!
___________________________
Door to door salesmen (colporteurs)
6 Volume commentary
magazine publishing
newspapers
Russell was able to cobble together a CUSTOMER BASE.
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After Russell's death in 1916, J.F.Rutherford sought to gain access to this customer base for purposes of building his own business interests.
1. He sent emissary's with offers of "help" to independent congregations. This fostered venue change, policy adoption
and this successfully re-organized the many into the one.
2. He created us vs them paranoia. The enemy of my enemy is my friend as the saying goes, so, Rutherford finger pointed to ENEMIES everywhere in Government, churches, demons and among their own brethren--who should be resisted, opposed and removed.
3. He replaced Bible study with phony 'study' of the Bible using official Watchtower publications.
4. He rode the coat tails of Pastor Russell admiration by claiming that Russell himself was supervising from heaven itself!
5. He created a sense urgency and life or death immediacy for End Times. The Products he sold were Time-Sensitive!
6. He crafted a personal theology of ONLY true religion in a world of demon controlled false religion.
7. He turned church members into radical contrarians who did the opposite of mainstream Christianity
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The crazier the beliefs were---the easier it was for ordinary Christians to oppose and persecute them.
The PRODUCT of the Watchtower organization became paranoia, fear mongering, and Apocalypse.
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Mankind was seen as customers served by a Central clearing house of the Jehovah channel.
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This was a closed intranet.
Each subsequent President of the Watchtower Society has sought subscribers for this channel of fear mongering.
1. END TIMES (Armageddon) must always be just about to happen.
This made the subscription to the channel one of urgent emergency information of life-saving importance.
2. The subscribers had to have a password to access their account: the word JEHOVAH (which is the brand) and demonstrating that branding by contrarian activities in regard to holidays and theology and lifestyle.
3. Referrals (new customers) must be added through the word of mouth testimonials of current members.
4. Violation of religious policy would lead to termination of account and blacklisting! (Disfellowshipped).
The product had to be New and Improved from time to time (New Light) and old product discarded
Loyal customers were encouraged to see all competitors as liars with bad faith false claims
Disgruntled Ex-customers were to be regarded as untrustworthy mental defectives. It was the only way to explain dissatisfaction with the Watchtower
management and product.
A Mary Kay cult of weird religious activity.
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In any business, Risk is assessed as an ACTUAL NUMBER.
This is evident in the obsession over statistics in preaching and bible study success of salesmen in the field.
Preaching Goals are merely Sales Goals.
The enemy of business is UNCERTAINTY.
Recent lawsuits have cast a long shadow over risk assessment. As in any business, risk management has followed with the compartmentalizing of each tier of leadership from actual liability.
As in any business, risk management has followed with the compartmentalizing of each tier of leadership from actual liability.
Evidence of Leverage is manifest in pleas for money;"profit and loss" is squeezed out of the shadows by downturn in business futures.
Religion is merely business as usual.
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JW.ORG and the TV channel are merely the latest manifestations of MERCHANDIZING by cutting costs
controlling public opinion, and stabilizing customer base.
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The GB now becomes part of the brand and the face of the product BECAUSE THEY ARE THE PRODUCT.
The 'other sheep' of the 'Great Crowd' look to ORGANIZATION as their MEDIATOR and savior.
Converts are baptized into the ORGANIZATION.
Personal conscience is unnecessary, independent study is unnecessary, elective leisure activity becomes a
mere continuation of incessant congregation activity controlled by ORGANIZATION.
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Merchandizing carts have sprung up like vending machines NOT because sales increase in this manner
but because the BRAND becomes more comfortable in the eyes of the PUBLIC. It becomes a 'given' rather
than a novelty or anomaly.
THE END GOAL of all this:
NORMALIZATION.
To become invisible as an oddball cult, to fade into the mainstream.
The Mormon church has done this. The test of Mormon success was in the number of votes
Mormon candidate for President, Mitt Romney acquired. Mitt Romney (48% 59,142,004) He was the test of mainstreaming.
If the weird theology of Mormonism can be overcome in the eyes of the public at large--the lesson is NOT LOST
on the Watchtower Society!
TECHNOLOGY and COMMUNICATION from the Photo Drama of Creation in Pastor Russell's day, through the
phonograph records spouting "Religion is a Snare and a Racket" under Judge Rutherford, to the radio broadcasts
of WBBR, until today's JW.ORG and TV programming, the Watchtower merchandising initiatives march ever onward
into the consciousness and ultimately subconsciousness of the world itself.
WILL THEY SUCCEED?
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There is an old saying: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
The WTS once fought the Internet; now they've joined it with a vengeance.
So certain are the GB leaders that they've terrified rank and file members away from investigating 'apostate' materials
they can swim with the sharks and bask in the warm waters of impunity.
Let us watch the statistics for this next year (if the books aren't cooked) to appraise whatever success may come.
Will the public image of JW's be erased as a people pressuring for conversion?
Look how laid back they are slouching next to those carts!
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61
THE IMPONDERABLES TOPIC (Enter at your own risk)
by Terry ini suggest taking this slowly .
.. consider the difference between taking a poll about an upcoming election and the actual vote itself on the day of the election.. the information gathered about what the vote will be is provisional.
the vote on the day of the election is actual and official.. it is the one that counts.. now, carefully ask yourself what the specific difference--if any--there is between the poll information and the election result as an identical knowledge of.
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Terry
Self-awareness is not necessary for existence.
Sorry , you have lost me.
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Descartes: I THINK, therefore, I AM.
Self-awareness is not necessary to the person born with a brain-stem only, or to a snail, or to a microbe. Each and all exist, but
are probably not aware (meaningfully) they exist.
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61
THE IMPONDERABLES TOPIC (Enter at your own risk)
by Terry ini suggest taking this slowly .
.. consider the difference between taking a poll about an upcoming election and the actual vote itself on the day of the election.. the information gathered about what the vote will be is provisional.
the vote on the day of the election is actual and official.. it is the one that counts.. now, carefully ask yourself what the specific difference--if any--there is between the poll information and the election result as an identical knowledge of.
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Terry
Even a perfectly operating chess program can be defeated some of the time because underlying principles cannot be reduced to the foreseeable.
What is it about a purpose that is predictable? Life isn't a process whereby we die. Yet, die we do. Life is a co-mingling of infinite variables spontaneously co-existing in a give and take gestalt.
What the chess program can't take into consideration is any other than possible responses which MAKE SENSE according to the valuation of position.
The pieces and pawns have a relative value which can be instantly negated or transformed by change in position (or, pawn promotion.)
Joe Blow has chosen to be the world's greatest doctor. He bends everything toward that end. His life is in order. His goals are set. His path is clear.
Then, he meets Victoria and falls in love. She is moving to a 3rd world country to be a missionary.
Joe isn't even religious. But....he is in love!
All that planning is less than useful at that unforeseen moment of intersection between known and unknown.
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61
THE IMPONDERABLES TOPIC (Enter at your own risk)
by Terry ini suggest taking this slowly .
.. consider the difference between taking a poll about an upcoming election and the actual vote itself on the day of the election.. the information gathered about what the vote will be is provisional.
the vote on the day of the election is actual and official.. it is the one that counts.. now, carefully ask yourself what the specific difference--if any--there is between the poll information and the election result as an identical knowledge of.
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Terry
If we look up into the sky and see a horse while looking at a cloud you wouldn't say that the "horse-ness" of our identification is contained in
the constituency of the cloud itself, would you? I reckon not. It is in the inherent pattern-seeking which the brain has developed.
If we look at twin mountains, like the native Americans did, and name them the Grand Tetons (Big Titties) that would hardly be reducible to
the boulders and soil, would it? Nah.
I am saying we blurt our impressions "as though" they are credible. The deer that blurts a waving plant stalk as a Lion's tail in that waving high grass may be wrong--but--if correct? The actual crouching lion will lose the advantage of camouflage and surprise.
Science is like that. What is an hypothesis but a blurt? The testing of it is the proof of such pudding.
Now...back to GOD.....if you don't mind....:)
We as a species tend to assign causality in the same manner the deer blurts the lion tail out of the waving grass.
Without God the primitive humanoid has no agency to approach for mercy or appeasement--so, how useful if the transaction could be due to invisibility.
After all, Charles Taze Russell thought it solved the 1914 return of Jesus problem. (Psssst....he's invisible!)
God having the FOREKNOWLEDGE to see the end from the beginning is a default of the magnification of human imagination into unnecessary superlatives.
Eternity has no "end" so God cannot possibly see "it".
If God cannot (rather than will not) create a rock so heavy He cannot lift it----well, GAME OVER as far as superlatives is concerned.
The legal precept in latin "Falsus in Unum, Falsus in Omnibus" means "False in one, false in all" and basically means that if an entity (person or government) has lied to you about one thing, it is safe (and legal) to assume that entity has lied to you about everything.
But, you get the picture.
ANY LIMIT on God is as good as pulling back the curtain on the Wizard.
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61
THE IMPONDERABLES TOPIC (Enter at your own risk)
by Terry ini suggest taking this slowly .
.. consider the difference between taking a poll about an upcoming election and the actual vote itself on the day of the election.. the information gathered about what the vote will be is provisional.
the vote on the day of the election is actual and official.. it is the one that counts.. now, carefully ask yourself what the specific difference--if any--there is between the poll information and the election result as an identical knowledge of.
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Terry
I ran out of cream!
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Now why, I ask you, do people (humanity) insist on reading the Bible to discover WHO/WHAT God is?
Our brain has a one on one relationship with the nature of our earthly reality.
Man's sin is a default of his human nature.
God's goodness is a default of God's nature.
Communication and understanding of Man and God take place with words, writing and thoughts irrevocably tied down to an attempt at rational discourse.
Rational is a ratio between verifiable and non-verifiable data whereby we actually determine a DIFFERENCE!
Otherwise, morality is impossible to judge on the basis of understanding what is moral/immoral.
Reductionism doesn't work for certain things such as the MIND sets before itself. The Gestalt is such that the whole is actually greater (more profound) than the sum of its parts.
What you and I perceive as beauty and truth is irreducible yet connected to "that which IS..."
Mozart and Bobby Fischer anybody?
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We know that the brain does work electrically and organically to produce a sort of ghost in the machine which enables the brain's owner to interface with
all perceptible stimulation.
Additionally, the human mind can dabble with its own after-echoes. These resonances become recursive and all attempts
to analyze them create meta-entanglements. If we think about thinking, for example...
Now, I understand that we can stimulate the brain and "cause" precitable reaction. But, how is that different from clapping your hands and frightening off
grackles in the tree in your driveway?
My toothache may be universally and empathetically accessible to others--but--that is an inference objectively appraised. It is a far cry from being identical to MY PAIN which is subjectively experienced by ME.
When a gay guy looks at the very same women I'm lusting after I'd have to hypothesize that an essential difference is happening in our respective brains.
Is this because the woman is somehow different to each of us? Doubtful.
Is our filtering/appraisal/conceptual mechanism that much different? Dunno.
Our personally acquired VALUES determine how we FEEL about what we see and hear and think. Ineffable, intangible and irreducible to specs.
However similar me and the gay guy might well be-- our respective identity as a person makes our values considerably at odds.
Our mind is our nature.
Map it as you will--it is irreproducible for what it actually is as a part of the individual human whose nature lies therein.
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61
THE IMPONDERABLES TOPIC (Enter at your own risk)
by Terry ini suggest taking this slowly .
.. consider the difference between taking a poll about an upcoming election and the actual vote itself on the day of the election.. the information gathered about what the vote will be is provisional.
the vote on the day of the election is actual and official.. it is the one that counts.. now, carefully ask yourself what the specific difference--if any--there is between the poll information and the election result as an identical knowledge of.
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Terry
He knows, therefore, He is. If He cannot know, He does not exist.
The interesting question (well, to ME, anyway) is, what is it we are CERTAIN that God knows in advance when there exist person's who have the power and the will to change, disturb, rearrange, nullify, invent or corrupt?
I assert that God possessing and using Foreknowledge cannot occur beyond a vague or general "best guess". And that is NOT the same thing as seeing the future in advance.
Scientific Prediction deals with non-living physics accurately enough to --say---shoot a rocket containing a robot off through space and land it in a specific area at a precise location in time and space EVEN THOUGH earth is spinning and so is Mars WHILE revolving about the Sun! That is NOT foreknowledge of the same nature that is attributed to God, however. The Rocket cannot will itself otherwise nor is either Earth or Mars likely to decide to change orbit.
God speakers(people who speak FOR God) fall back on magic as their explanation. That's why it's a dead end. Using magic as the answer for such huge, important parts of your life stops thought, real searching and is intellectually lazy.
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61
THE IMPONDERABLES TOPIC (Enter at your own risk)
by Terry ini suggest taking this slowly .
.. consider the difference between taking a poll about an upcoming election and the actual vote itself on the day of the election.. the information gathered about what the vote will be is provisional.
the vote on the day of the election is actual and official.. it is the one that counts.. now, carefully ask yourself what the specific difference--if any--there is between the poll information and the election result as an identical knowledge of.
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Terry
"Why is there something rather than nothing?"
If there were nothing (now follow with me on this) the person who asks this question would not exist either.
The fact that the question exists means there must be something so that the QUESTION can exist.
This topic is intended to focus on KNOWLEDGE. There is no "question" without a mind to do the questioning. The existence of a questioner and a question produces the result. Without a questioner, there is no question, and without existence there is no questioner.
