Posts by Terry

33

whats so bad about believing people go to heaven?

by sowhatnow in

it occurred to me today, that so often, my mother will make the comment that .

"those false religions teach that everyone is going to heaven when they die, oh sure, .

all you have to do is be a good person, and off you go to heaven.

Terry

My grandmother was the only religious influence I had until I was a teen.

She was reared as Catholic. She introduced me to the concept of heaven.

I never once understood it.

I still don't.

Too weird.

133

What are the biggest holes in evolution?

by shadow in

how honest are the proponents of evolution?

idk but curious to see what type of response there is on a topic like this or does their study only seek to confirm their preconceptions and ignore uncomfortable facts?

Terry

EVOLUTION is a "result" and not a Plan.

RELIGION is a plan with many implied personal results.

Unless you can straddle both worlds without bias, it is impossible to be fully neutral in your thinking about Evolution.
______________________________

Science is about numbers and measurements while Religion is about words and language.

Separating the emotion content out of language is almost impossible.

Language isn't scientific. Language is filled with many pitfalls, traps, analogies, and emotional blockades!

The source of meaning is emotional even though thousands of denominations are examining basic texts shared by all.

Science relies on numbers, measurements, inquiry and end results.

Religion relies on emotions, interpretations, promises and fallback positions.

RELIGION is all about non-questioning acceptance.

SCIENCE is dispassionate. Science is Take it or Leave it.
SCIENCE is a methodology of testing in order to disprove itself.

___________________

Cognition is recognition.
None of us come out of the womb KNOWING.

Patterns are introduced into our thinking which we associate with "meanings" directly impacting our pain and pleasure.

The source of almost all of our thinking for the first decade of life is SELF oriented interpretations of everything.

UNLESS we disconnect our intellect from our emotions at some point, we are fated to filter phenomena through a lens of "HOW DOES THIS HELP / HURT ME?"

_________________

EVOLUTION is the same body of facts everywhere on the planet as a result of
the application of combined intellects probing, testing and shaping the numbers.

CHRISTIANITY is not the same anywhere but is a fractured set of impressions, opinions, and bodies of Dogma filtered into 40 thousand denominations.

Which bookkeeping firm would you hire to manage your finances?

9

CONSPIRACY THEORISTS at your door

by Terry in

isn’t the watchtower society valuable because it gets people talking about important issues in our world?.

hell no!.

this argument presupposes that jehovah’s witnesses are ethically neutral–that if the core doctrine (the truth) is not true, its untruth is harmless, but if (by wild coincidence) the governing body of this organization happen to aim a wayward arrow at some real-world issue that needs addressing, the watchtower is a net positive because it directed, at least, some energy toward addressing essential issues of life.

Terry

The 'interesting' phenomenon of the entire Watchtower religion's success rests on the shoulders of two men, Russell and F.Franz, who were highly skilled and prolific at creating a weird buffet table of other people's ideas, distilling them into a package of razzle-dazzle.

The inventor of SCIENTOLOGY, L.Ron Hubbard, did the same thing--except, he had a terrific imagination until his mind deteriorated.

Watchtower Theology is so-o-o-o unimaginative, dull, exasperatingly convoluted and anti-social. The engine driving the Org is paranoia, mind control, and fear.

9

CONSPIRACY THEORISTS at your door

by Terry in

isn’t the watchtower society valuable because it gets people talking about important issues in our world?.

hell no!.

this argument presupposes that jehovah’s witnesses are ethically neutral–that if the core doctrine (the truth) is not true, its untruth is harmless, but if (by wild coincidence) the governing body of this organization happen to aim a wayward arrow at some real-world issue that needs addressing, the watchtower is a net positive because it directed, at least, some energy toward addressing essential issues of life.

Terry

Fred Franz lifted wholesale from Seventh Day Adventist spirit guidance by "seer" Ellen G. White in her Book series THE GREAT CONTROVERSY (1858).

Franz also sucked the marrow from many of Martin Luther's writings as well. He lavished much attention to silly details of Babylonish corruption due to the writings of Alexander Hislop's feckless THE TWO BABYLONS.

14

The Heresy of Neutrality

by Perry in

the one thing that keeps jw's worshiping the watchtower corporations more than (or as much as) anything else is the issue of neutrality.

neutrality is such a benign sounding word isn't it?

it even sounds religious.

Terry

The history of Christian attitudes and behavior toward government and military service is as diverse as were the Christians practicing them.

There were no hard and fast rules until St. Augustine came along and concocted a more or less logical treatise on Just War theory for the (Catholic) Church.

With the Church authority making decisions for its members, there was no need for a "personal" conscience until the Protestant Reformation and individual Christians were given an alternate theory: Sola Scriptura. This was the "invention" of personal Christian conscience because the "one" would pray and read his/her Bible and (according to theory) God's Holy Spirit would direct them.
Catholics had the Pope, Protestants had Holy Spirit (and prayer and Bible) and Jehovah's Witness have . . . the whims of their Governing Body.
From about 1929 to 1963, the official interpretation of the GB was the diametrical opposite of historical/Biblical reading of Romans 13:1,2.
Naturally, 34 years of claiming otherwise spoiled JW's into a weird NEUTRALITY which was arbitrary, capricious and robotic.

I was the only young Brother in my local Kingdom Hall to claim that "neutrality" and suffer prison. The irony? This was in 1967! The interpretation being handed to me by my congregation's Elders (Overseer) had been out of date 3 years!

17

Gems From the WT

by Slidin Fast in

just noticed this gem of a definition in the current (no 1) wt.

"lying.

saying something false to someone who is entitled to know the truth.".

Terry

What a cult does best is rearrange reality by redefining the tools of thought and speech.
Reality is how things really are.
Denying any person their right to reality is sinister and manipulative.
Creating a context of the "right to know"by a religion calling itself "The Truth" is quite stunning, really.

This is a bald-faced admission of sorts:

"We reserve the right to determine what you will know according to our view of you."

Was there ever a more insidious policy?

This is the core foundation of Elitists: We are special and everybody else is not.

Cults create elitists capable of summary judgments of personal worthiness.

9

CONSPIRACY THEORISTS at your door

by Terry in

isn’t the watchtower society valuable because it gets people talking about important issues in our world?.

hell no!.

this argument presupposes that jehovah’s witnesses are ethically neutral–that if the core doctrine (the truth) is not true, its untruth is harmless, but if (by wild coincidence) the governing body of this organization happen to aim a wayward arrow at some real-world issue that needs addressing, the watchtower is a net positive because it directed, at least, some energy toward addressing essential issues of life.

Terry

Isn’t the Watchtower Society Valuable Because It Gets People Talking About Important Issues in Our World?

No.
Hell no!

This argument presupposes that Jehovah’s Witnesses are ethically neutral–that if the core doctrine (The Truth) is not true, its untruth is harmless, but if (by wild coincidence) the Governing Body of this Organization happen to aim a wayward arrow at some real-world issue that needs addressing, The Watchtower is a net positive because it directed, at least, some energy toward addressing essential issues of life. That’s not the case because the great deal of damage that its untrue and disingenuous depictions of societal issues cause far outweighs any marginal benefit this religion’s indoctrination might have by “accidentally” aiming at a valid target.

Let me give you an example.

Conspiracy Theorists endeavor to change issue-sensitive people into activists working toward make-believe solutions to life’s problems. The Jehovah’s Witnesses door to door activism requires reeducating curious persons to somehow realize that everything they’ve ever heard is a falsehood and that competing religions have misled them. If they’re already interested in working toward moral and ethical life solutions, it’s likely whatever stimulus sets them on a more productive path could have interested them in mainstream real-world solutions at the get-go, which means the fact that Jehovah’s Witness propaganda turned them on to Governing Body reliance is totally irrelevant.
In fact, JW Bible studies in this example have been counterproductive, because it wasted the would-be activist’s (and society’s) time by encouraging naïve interested people to tilt uselessly at the windmills of imaginary “divine” intervention.
This is not a net positive.

The issues Jehovah’s Witness leadership cares most passionately about are loyalty to the Governing Body and their churning and fanciful conspiracy theories. Consequently, what little “activism” it can hope to ignite will almost invariably be directed at rooting out potential enemies to the cause, especially within their own ranks. That is not a net good for society. It’s a net negative because conspiracy thinking is part of the problem and is not a solution to anything.

In the final analysis, the only thing ever produced by The Watchtower and its leaders is a dysfunctional, depressed, paranoid social movement of coerced mind-control puppets, transfixed on saving their collective asses from destruction by their imaginary tribal God, Jehovah. They trust nobody but the Governing Body leaders. The net result is a weird social movement of self-conscious elitists with a hive mentality who are absolutely committed to weeding out who will live and die.
This summary judgment is based entirely on each person’s embrace or rejection of feckless magazine articles spewed out in a never-ending fable of contradictory nonsense.
To be a Jehovah’s Witness is to be nothing less than a Conspiracy Theorist hell bent on spreading their viral infection to the farthest reaches of the Earth.

31

A True Story: PORTRAIT OF A GIRL and her dog

by Terry in

portrait of a girl and her dog.

(a true story by terry edwin walstrom).

her name was cheryl ann draper and she was about 11 years old the day she begged her daddy, who worked at a gas station, to let her go with him to work.

Terry

I spent two days going through my remaining keepsakes. Each time I have moved in the past I've winnowed down to more manageable size the memorabilia.

Several EXTREMELY sentimental keepsake photos are missing!

I'm hoping I know what became of them. My ex-wife may well have them in some old albums of mine. She never threw anything away in her life--so I'm not too concerned about that.

I need to sort through those albums. I pray I find the missing images. They are irreplaceable in the extreme!

10

HOMECOMING (The story of two people I met in a bar)

by Terry in

homecoming.

my good friend bob and i usually try to get together on friday to listen to live music someplace and decompress from the week's pressures.

robby knew betty back in high school.

Terry

It's human nature to want things to work out.

We choose to believe so many things in life.

I'm a romantic-minded fella and I totally bought it.

Besides--it could be exactly correct. Possible and probable

are next door neighbors.

9

THE OAF and the ONE-LEGGED MAN

by Terry in

the oaf and the one-legged man.

spatters of rain dribbled into unsettled silence.. the man with the prosthetic leg dropped the umbrella from his shoulder and shook it onto the sidewalk in front of the bookstore.

his scooter chair roosted nearby like a guide dog for a blind man.. steadying himself, he exchanged tattered raingear for his cane and wobbled uneasily toward the door handle.a tall man with a van dyke beard held the door open for him with a neighborly grin.. "you get caught in this downpour on that thing?

Terry

Thank you, BB!

Thanks, CoCo!