Terry

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Posts by Terry

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  19

  The Truth is not an ORG.....It's inside of you

  by tor1500 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the truth, the org is the truth...ummm...let's think about that...i was thinking that the bible is the truth & what it does is that it reveals the truth about you...the more you read the bible the more you may see yourself & your actions.

  you may be a person who judges people, the bible will show you what's wrong with that...viola, another truth revealed about you.

  you may be a prideful person, you read a story in the bible about that...again, it's another truth revealed about you.

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• 

  Terry

  Truth isn't a thing. It is a correspondence between reality and a description of that reality.
  
  The logical test of accuracy in describing reality is the absence of internal contradiction. You see this in cross-examination of a witness by an adversarial attorney probing for discrepancy and changes in previous testimony.
  
  Jehovah's Witnesses as "witnesses" have had numerous changes in their testimony which they never admit to being anything less than the Truth. For a JW, Truth is not unlike today's weather.
  They've been forecasting with 100% inaccuracy for over 100 years.
  If confronted by the unreliability of their predictions, they act offended and point to their source authority: scriptures and Jehovah's spirit. What they never seem to question is their definitive presentation and its having been based on mere opinion.
  "God's dates and not ours" is hardly a call for prudent skepticism.
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  21

  RESPONSIBILITY vs. "moral" Responsibility (What is the distinction and what is the difference?)

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  this is not intended to be a highbrow discussion!.

  you ( ought ) to pay me back that $100.

  .. bank loan.

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  Terry

  Right now in America, we have an unravelling of commonality which is reflected in our Political process of selecting candidates for President.

  Roughly half the population is at odds with the other half in regard to Moral Responsibility, as to how it will be practiced through Governmental oversight, enforcement, and social programs.
  
  Both sides are handling this confrontation with deplorable unintelligence!
  
  Name-calling, bullying, chaos are not virtues practiced by Moral Agents.
  The common denominator is reasoned discourse, facts, formal debate or Town Hall meetings with a view to arbitration.
  Nope.
  We have newspapers, magazines, talking heads, and crowds devolved into ignorant blunt instruments of harsh rhetoric, disinformation, and one-sided propaganda.
  
  Both sides assume they alone are totally right and their opponents are not simply wrong-headed but have demonized them with the most vulgar personal descriptions imaginable.
  
  To my way of thinking, this is a demonstration of anarchy and a soul sickness.
  
  Being snotty, foul-mouthed, and loud in response to an opponent who is snotty, foul-mouthed and loud is reprehensible and counter-productive at best, and dangerously revolutionary nihilism at worst.
  
  You cannot practice preaching of Ethics if you are a violator of the rights of others just because you assume you are on the side of angels.
  
  This is just as true for the Liberal as the Conservative.
  
  Let's cut out the bold-face hypocrisy, okay?
• 
  21

  RESPONSIBILITY vs. "moral" Responsibility (What is the distinction and what is the difference?)

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  this is not intended to be a highbrow discussion!.

  you ( ought ) to pay me back that $100.

  .. bank loan.

  1. 
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• 

  Terry

  LEGAL

  MORAL

  ETHICAL

  I took a 101 class in this type of topic

  To learn what the difference is between these three...short answer

  
  When we examine anything in order to better understand it we must go from the GENERAL to the SPECIFIC.
  
  Philosophy was man's first effort at trying to make a rational and logical procedure out of the inquiry into how we know what we know.
  
  Humans survive by the use of their minds as homo sapiens (man + rational ) at the top of the food chain. Figuring out better ways of surviving led to this supreme position.

  Survival among others in a social setting was a practical matter of cooperation with minimal conflict.
  Mankind, in order to survive, must figure out how to make choices determining the purpose and course of life.
  Developing a code of values is the GENERAL heading of "Morality".
  The specific details of those values guiding choices and actions is "Ethics."
  
  Laws are binding rules in the hands of agents who administer force.
  The Laws of Hammurabi and Moses listed offenses and consequences which mostly defined "justice" as a restoration process on behalf of the aggrieved victim by fines or punishments.
  
  The important question to ask and understand is this. Why do humans have Morals in the first place? The answer is simple: if every individual person did what seemed immediately beneficial to themselves alone, only the strong, the cruel, and the sneaky would prevail (as it is among animals.) By using intelligence to gain consensus about fair play, tribes, villages, nations were able to cooperate and manage resources for the common benefit.
• 
  20

  Words omitted from a Watchtower article

  by Doug Mason in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  a short time ago i sought information regarding a quotation in the watchtower of april 1, 2010, which did not identify the exact source of the quotation from professor oskar skarsaune.

  my interest was heightened because words had been omitted from the source.. the wts provided a copy of the original 29-page article, which is in norwegian.. here is my very unofficial personal translation of the passage from professor skarsaune's article that the watchtower is quoting.

  firstly i provide the text as it appears in the watchtower magazine, highlighting where the text has been omitted.

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  Terry

  The "hook" for JW's in luring away Bible believing church members is a basic form of 'bait and switch' in debunking certain proof texts on the one hand, but on the other hand, replacing those foundations with displacement scriptures and contrived contexts.

  The key to all that is the acceptance of an inspired source book.
  JW's must posit corruption only so far, otherwise, they've burned down the barn to rid themselves of rats.

  This requires considerable cognitive dissonance.

  Watchtower indoctrination consists of the death-by-a-thousand-cuts. Trimming, pruning, excising, surgically removing tidbits while replacing, adding, implying, conjecturing, and misrepresenting the replacement ideas.

  Insidious disinformation mixed with wholesale disengenousness is a deadly cocktail.
• 
  21

  RESPONSIBILITY vs. "moral" Responsibility (What is the distinction and what is the difference?)

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  this is not intended to be a highbrow discussion!.

  you ( ought ) to pay me back that $100.

  .. bank loan.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Terry

  I would have liked a bit more participation in this topic, but--alas--no.
• 
  5

  DO BIRDS-OF-A-FEATHER really "Flock together"?

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  my grandfather insisted "birds of a feather flock together" and thought it was some kind of genius rule-of-thumb for understanding life.then i began noticing at school, at parties, in neighborhoods, people who looked the same hung out together and excluded others.then, i became a jw.

  they only hang out with jw's.

  the world was further divided into sheep and goats.

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  Terry

  I think there once was an 'evolutionary' imperative passed on as a trait to create a sense of territoriality. (This land is our land.)
  It is certainly expressed more harshly in some folks than others. This is where nature and nurture dovetail.
  I know it isn't simply bad manners.
• 
  34

  My old computer is dead: long live my new CHROMEBOOK

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i had my previous toshiba laptop plugged into the wall five days ago when a sudden electric storm drove a jagged bolt of electricity earthward and fried my hard drive.

  i posted my sad status on facebook.

  guess who saw it?

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• 

  Terry

  Coco,

  When I first started doing essays in school, I drove the teachers nuts by injecting every possible sesquipedalian artifact of my vocabulary studies into each sentence. Luckily, my instructors' humility gave them a frame of mind to tolerate such hubris.

  There was only one lady, my surrogate mom, who encouraged me to communicate with others on THEIR level and not yours. This was a nice way of telling me I was being a Narcissist :)
  
  Using a fluffy vocabulary word in place of an ordinary one is like trying to read Mandarin instructions on how to program your VCR. (How is that for a stale example?:)

  I used to purposely read books way over my head which forced me to keep a dictionary handy. I had lists galore stuffed in pockets, on small cards and scraps of paper.

  Edgar Allen Poe had quite a sensitive awareness of the texture and resonance, assonance, and dissonance of his word choices. His sentences and that of Ray Bradbury greatly informed my youth's developing tastes.
• 
  20

  Words omitted from a Watchtower article

  by Doug Mason in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  a short time ago i sought information regarding a quotation in the watchtower of april 1, 2010, which did not identify the exact source of the quotation from professor oskar skarsaune.

  my interest was heightened because words had been omitted from the source.. the wts provided a copy of the original 29-page article, which is in norwegian.. here is my very unofficial personal translation of the passage from professor skarsaune's article that the watchtower is quoting.

  firstly i provide the text as it appears in the watchtower magazine, highlighting where the text has been omitted.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Terry

  Thank you, Doug. My grandmother, who had been raised Catholic, use to tell me about sins of omission and sins of commission. The policy of selective support narratives (partial quoting of sources) is an unusual hybrid sin, isn't it :)

  The most evident demonstration of a scholastic inferiority complex by the Watchtower's elite core of 'channelers' is their quote mining.
  It is habit (a bad one) developed before the age of the internet which I would compare to the Catholic Church's use of Latin in the Mass.
  
  Now that anything can be investigated by an armchair sleuth, the curtain is pulled back and the light of day floods in.
• 
  34

  My old computer is dead: long live my new CHROMEBOOK

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i had my previous toshiba laptop plugged into the wall five days ago when a sudden electric storm drove a jagged bolt of electricity earthward and fried my hard drive.

  i posted my sad status on facebook.

  guess who saw it?

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• 

  Terry

  Good advice!

  Any suggestions?
• 
  34

  My old computer is dead: long live my new CHROMEBOOK

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i had my previous toshiba laptop plugged into the wall five days ago when a sudden electric storm drove a jagged bolt of electricity earthward and fried my hard drive.

  i posted my sad status on facebook.

  guess who saw it?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Terry

  When somebody posts something critical of me, the first thing I do is click on their name and see Topics they have started to get a feel for what is important to them. Then, if I have the time and inclination, I'll read their handling of topics and comments.
  I've satisfied myself of certain things in regard to GodZoo.
  GodZoo is not a hater. I feel like what he says comes from genuine feelings and evaluations. He has an unfettered manner of expression. So be it.
  Is he tactful, courteous, friendly, kind, and self-aware? I cannot judge.
  I don't mind reading his animadversions in the spirit of egalitarian comity.