WOW-Simon!
I've got to get the hang of that.
I very frequently visit the boneyard of my past posts to resurrect the ideas and try again for discussion.
If I can sort by topic it will help immensely!
look up in the right-hand corner of this page.. find where it says welcome (name).. did you locate that?.
now click on your name and observe the new page loading takes you to a top blue bar with a menu.. it should read:.
active topics search members topics started .
WOW-Simon!
I've got to get the hang of that.
I very frequently visit the boneyard of my past posts to resurrect the ideas and try again for discussion.
If I can sort by topic it will help immensely!
i 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.
I revel in the strange realization I was attracted to Jehovah's Witnesses because I was LEARNING things
I'd never heard before!
What is clear today is the mechanism of the revelation.
In teaching a Newbie Bible study, there is a gradual DEBUNKING of mainstream Christianity and Bible corruption.
This is shocking, thrilling and a big set-up for what happens next!
The Newbie confirms mainstream Christianity has a vast "conspiracy" of crooked history and bald assertions.
HOWEVER--JW'S REPLACE THE DISCARDED BELIEFS WITH EQUALLY FALSE ASSERTIONS.
The Newbie TRUSTS the JW because so much has been 'revealed'.
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The incredible feat of exposing the 'tampering' of scripture with an insistence the Bible is inerrant, is no mean accomplishment.
For all practical purposes, a bait-and-switch transpires: WATCHTOWER INTERPRETATION is substituted for scripture.
I think of that sign on the side of the building in Bethel: READ THE BIBLE DAILY.
It really means: READ OUR INTERPRETATIONS and PRETEND YOU'RE READING THE BIBLE.
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The sense of vast "discovery' JW's have must be intellectually exciting. Why else do they so look forward to NEW LIGHT?
Isn't it because they have been tricked into thinking the OLD LIGHT wasn't FALSE?
Surely!
An insidious tampering with rational thought erodes and destroys honest inqury.
From the get-go the Newbie is given no opportunity to QUESTION---only the false sense of freedom to inquire.
How so?
The Questions are given BY PROXY and the PREFABRICATED answers follow.
The Society publications foster that false sense of Q&A and it is illusory.
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Free Inquiry becomes dangerous Independent Thinking in a very short time.
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To be a JW is to view any personal inquiry as a betrayal of the bond of LOYALTY to their surrogate brain: THE GOVERNING BODY.
my favorite follow-up question to jw deniers:.
"okay, then what exactly was special about 1975, then?".
and another follow-up, "what was wrong with the first time it ended?".
My favorite follow-up question to JW deniers:
"Okay, then what exactly WAS special about 1975, then?"
And another follow-up, "What was wrong with the FIRST TIME it ended?"
Reference to the fact that this SAME statement was first given about the date 1873/74.
(The Watchtower, 15 July 1894, p.1675)
The Watchtower Reprints, July 15, 1894, p.1675
Also note: http://mmoutreachinc.com/jehovahs_witnesses/prophecy/christreturn1874.html
the wt society pointed to 1975 as the date for the end of the world.
when the date came and went they changed their publications to remove themselves from the fiasco.
need proof?
My favorite follow-up question to JW deniers:
"Okay, then what exactly WAS special about 1975, then?"
And another follow-up, "What was wrong with the FIRST TIME it ended?"
Reference to the fact that this SAME statement was first given about the date 1873/74.
(The Watchtower, 15 July 1894, p.1675)
The Watchtower Reprints, July 15, 1894, p.1675
Also note: http://mmoutreachinc.com/jehovahs_witnesses/prophecy/christreturn1874.html
the disconnect from the family of humanity......the snap of that fellow feeling......the cold indifferent shrug as each person dries up and hardens into a mere thing in a kingdom hall.....is a withering away of all that is noble, pure and innocent.. and when that icy moment sets in the rest of the world vanishes into an invisible nothing in the heart of that strutting and proud lump of human flesh called jehovah's witness.. it is the first of many deaths they will endure.... where does it begin and where does it end?.
perhaps by defending huge lies?.
if you are complicit in a crime against humanity you have two basic ethical choices:.
The disconnect from the family of humanity......the snap of that fellow feeling......the cold indifferent shrug as each person dries up and hardens into a mere thing in a Kingdom Hall.....is a withering away of all that is noble, pure and innocent.
And when that icy moment sets in the rest of the world vanishes into an invisible nothing in the heart of that strutting and proud lump of human flesh called Jehovah's Witness.
It is the first of many deaths they will endure...
Where does it begin and where does it end?
PERHAPS by defending huge lies?
If you are complicit in a crime against humanity you have two basic ethical choices:
CONFESS or COVERUP.
Jehovah's Witnesses imagine themselves to be heroic, noble and blessed when, in fact, they are wallflowers, under-achievers and morally indifferent to the actual needs of humanity (whom they despise.)
The way you can tell if a JW is lying? If their mouth is moving!
LOOK AT THIS REAL WORLD IMPACT and ask yourself how it is 39 years after PROVING YOU ARE A FALSE PROPHET
you can hold a straight face and claim: WE NEVER PREDICTED THAT!
The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life
The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life was a Bible study textbook published in 1968 and revised in 1981 (now out of print).
The 1990 edition of the Guinness Book of Records included this book under its heading "Highest Printings".
According to the Guinness Book, by May 1987 it had reached 106,486,735 copies, in 116 languages.
http://imgur.com/a/e6dos.
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"... we ought to be reluctant to assign an antitypical application to a certain person or account if there is no specific Scriptural basis for doing so."
I have been suspecting for awhile now, the Org is setting up a total abandonment of 1914.
Why?
It is absurd, unverifiable, and it paints a target on the entire theology.
What would be the consequence?
REBOOT!
Why?
The organization could become--not unlike the Worldwide Church of God--more mainstream and respectiable.
It has the added benefit of shaking loose all the mugwumps and retaining the die-hards.
Darwinian survival, how delicious the irony!
A cataclysmic MEA CULPA would clear them of responsibility of all past sins and errors.
They could declare amnesty on DF'd disaffected JW's and decimate a battalion of critics simultaneously.
http://imgur.com/a/e6dos.
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There is a logical absurdity to the notion of "more,"when it is applied to being "faithful"for what appears to me
to be a simple binary reason. You ARE faithful or you are NOT.
You are PREGNANT or you are NOT.
Just because a baby is developing inside a mother doesn't mean she is more and MORE pregnant.
This kind of reasoning on the part of the "Faithful" and discreet slave is very demonstrative of total amateur incompetency as
interpreters or analysts.
This calls into question what 2+2=3.5 might indicate to this religion.
IS IT JUST AN EARLY STAGE OF INCREASING MATHEMATICAL ACCURACY?
Is Watchtower 'Truth" merely a series of estimates resembling an asymptote?
http://www.dnkjb.net/ .
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?
i 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.
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. Feynman
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1429989.Richard_P_Feynman
i 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.
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.
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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.
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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!