slimboyfat

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Posts by slimboyfat

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  14

  Narcissist challenges culture ingrained with the concept of “saving face” to perform humiliating retreat

  by slimboyfat in

  1. social
  2. current

  oh yeah, this is going to end well.

  hold on to your seats, folks, we’re on the front row of history for, as the chinese might say, “interesting times”.

  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8rgkkl7v8lo.

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  slimboyfat

  
  
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  14

  Narcissist challenges culture ingrained with the concept of “saving face” to perform humiliating retreat

  by slimboyfat in

  1. social
  2. current

  oh yeah, this is going to end well.

  hold on to your seats, folks, we’re on the front row of history for, as the chinese might say, “interesting times”.

  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8rgkkl7v8lo.

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  slimboyfat

  
  
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  3

  Our (JW) genetic mutation

  by Jalisco in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the spiritual dna of our faith was "protestant" for over 100 years, until 1985, after which it changed to a catholic sense.

  for example, for decades we were presented with the example of the bereans who "were more noble-minded than those of thessalonica" because they went to see in the scriptures if what paul preached to them was really like that.

  and then a second to the bereans?

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  slimboyfat

  Interesting post. The change in wording of the baptismal questions you highlight is significant, but I don’t know it can bear the weight of an entire pivot from Protestant to Catholic ethos you outline. For example, the phrase “the Society” rose to prominence already under Rutherford, and functioned somewhat like a Catholic appeal to authority. This linguistic process is documented, and much lamented, in Timothy White’s book A People for his Name. A similarity in structure between the Watchtower organisation and the Catholic Church, especially following the restructuring in the early 1970s, was also already noted in graphic form by Penton and others in the 1980s.

  From a certain perspective, especially for anyone familiar with the Christadelphian tradition, and to a certain extent Brethren and Presbyterian traditions, one of the remarkable aspects of Watchtower history, especially since the 1930s, has been the striking lack of divisions and splits that chronically plague those other groups. How do we account for that? Surely lots of factors are involved but the centralisation of authority and the “faithful and discreet slave” teaching are surely essential ingredients.

  I very much agree with you (I think) that it would be great if JWs could move to a position of accepting differences of opinion and interpretation to a (far) greater extent than they currently do. Whether this sweet spot can be achieved that you hint at, whereby a Catholic approach to diversity may allow differences to flourish without the Protestant penchant for it resulting in divisions and splits, I do not know. I do know that when divisions on matters of doctrine and policy begin to take hold among a faith group it can become chronic, debilitating, and exhausting for all involved. That is something JWs have never had to contend with, indeed it’s so far outside the JW experience that complacency may make it appear in some sense impossible. But if you open the door to greater variability of belief and practice it might open a door to something that is both unfamiliar and not easy to contend with. I don’t say this makes it not worth doing, but if so it would preferably be with eyes wide open to the challenges and possible consequences.
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  14

  Narcissist challenges culture ingrained with the concept of “saving face” to perform humiliating retreat

  by slimboyfat in

  1. social
  2. current

  oh yeah, this is going to end well.

  hold on to your seats, folks, we’re on the front row of history for, as the chinese might say, “interesting times”.

  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8rgkkl7v8lo.

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  slimboyfat

  I think Trump is picking on the wrong people here. If any country has the ability to stand their ground it’s China. They can just sell their goods elsewhere. America may be the largest economy, but it’s in relative decline, and there are plenty of other markets out there. It might be painful but China could survive. In fact they, and other countries might just see it as the wake up call they needed to move beyond US hegemony.

  The worrying thing is that whereas the US is in decline economically, it still has the largest military by orders of magnitude with bases round the globe. They may simply pursue “politics by other means”, as war of domination is sometimes described.
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  14

  Narcissist challenges culture ingrained with the concept of “saving face” to perform humiliating retreat

  by slimboyfat in

  1. social
  2. current

  oh yeah, this is going to end well.

  hold on to your seats, folks, we’re on the front row of history for, as the chinese might say, “interesting times”.

  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8rgkkl7v8lo.

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  slimboyfat

  Oh yeah, this is going to end well. 😮

  Hold on to your seats, folks, we’re on the front row of history for, as the Chinese might say, “interesting times”.

  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8rgkkl7v8lo
  
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  226

  The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?

  as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.

  that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.

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  slimboyfat

  Good point.

  The apple analogy is not a good one anyway, and has been denounced by (thinking) Trinitarians as a way to divide and read scripture for very good reasons. It’s simply impossible to divide all scriptures into a human Jesus versus a divine Jesus. Many verses won’t fit into those orthodox slots.

  Take John 10.18 itself for example. Trinitarians say Jesus is speaking as God when (as they claim) he says he somehow resurrected himself. But they say he is speaking as a human when he says he is commanded by God. So which is it, the human or the divine Jesus talking in this verse? It doesn’t work.
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  226

  The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?

  as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.

  that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.

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  slimboyfat

  I asked ChatGPT if it could be done in 12 minutes, or how long it would take a human to write the text. The response:

  A well-read human with good writing skills and no need to fact-check could maybe crank this out in 90 minutes, 2 hours is more realistic, and 3+ if they’re careful or it requires research.

  So 12 minutes? Still fantasy land.
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  226

  The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?

  as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.

  that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.

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  slimboyfat

  I asked ChatGPT if a human could have written the above post in 10 minutes. This is what it said:

  No, a human didn’t write that from scratch in 10 minutes — not unless they’re some kind of cyborg. And even then, it’s pushing it.

  🚫 Why that’s unrealistic:

  1. Way too long
     It’s over 2,000 words. Writing that much clear, structured content in 10 minutes would mean churning out 200+ words per minute without stopping, thinking, or making mistakes. That’s not writing — that’s copy-pasting or AI-spewing.

  2. Loaded with technical theology
     The text drops terms like hypostatic union, eternal generation, economic Trinity, homoousios, Chalcedonian definition — not casual Sunday-school stuff. That kind of theological name-dropping doesn’t happen in a flash unless the person is just regurgitating stuff they’ve read or had pre-written.

  3. Too polished, too fast
     It’s got a clean structure, smart analogies (the apple/basket thing), Scripture lined up on cue, and zero rabbit trails. Real humans writing fast make mistakes, meander, or go off-topic. This feels algorithmic, not spontaneous.

  4. Feels like a cut-and-paste job
     If someone says they wrote this in 10 minutes, they either:

     • Had a draft already sitting around, or

     • Used ChatGPT or similar, or

     • Are lying to sound impressive.

  ---

  🧠 Reality check:

  This is the kind of content someone produces after hours of writing, or seconds of prompting. It's not coming out of one guy's head fully formed in 10 minutes, unless he’s just copying something and pretending he didn’t.

  So no — a regular human didn’t do this solo in 10 minutes. But an AI absolutely could.

  4o
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  226

  The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?

  as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.

  that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.

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  slimboyfat

  I don’t think it’s efficient to outsource your thinking to a machine. 😉
• 
  226

  The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?

  as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.

  that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.

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  slimboyfat

  You read my post and composed that 1700 word response in less than 12 minutes. 🤔

  A fast typist can type 80 words per minute. (Not taking into account having to compose the text as well as type it) 12 x 80 = 960

  So you managed to type nearly twice as many words as a fast typist in 12 minutes not even taking into account the time it takes to compose the text in the first place. 🤔