Excellent, Terry! A little more narrative in between the dialog and it should fill in the voids for those who know nothing about those two guys or the doctrines their doctrines as well as their personal lives. It's good enough to entertain a general public. Keep it up!
Posts by Etude
-
24untitled
by Terry inniight has fallen at the beth sarim mansion.. president joseph franklin rutherford (the "judge") sits calmly sipping whisky from a flask on the edge of his silk sheets at bedtime.
he sets the glass on the night stand.
he begins cleaning his nickel-plated pistol to high gleam.
-
-
-
95
What was it about Bethel that woke you up?
by cognisonance inone the how many exbethelites thread it was mentioned that some think one either leaves down the path towards apostasy or as a 100% true believer.
i'm curious what experiences did you face at bethel that woke you up (or started to at least)?.
.
-
-
Etude
leavingwt: "There is absolutely no procedure to have your legitimate greivances aknowledged and dealt with by the powers at Bethel." You absolutely, 100%, shit-sure hit the nail on the head (post 14996). At least that was my experience.
Examples? I got the first clue when Knorr gave us the "new boy" talk and told us that Bethel was our home, while in the next sentence told us we couldn't do what we wanted, like putting up a family picture on a wall or bring in some piece of furniture without asking. "OK", I thought. That's fair. Well, I put that to the test by wanting to post a bulletin board on wall in order to keep reminders of dish duty, watchman duties, etc. Shit, what a battle! The reason I was denied was that some brothers post "unchristian" items on those boards, like the comic strip "Love is like..." from the newspaper. When I specifically promised I would not do that, well, the argument only escalated, basically stating that they couldn't acquiesce even though they grandfathered those people who already had an installed bulletin board. In essence, they were saying that they didn't trust me, even though I was willing to abide by their rules.
Now, picture this: I came into Bethel during Knorr's reign. I once heard him over the breakfast broadcast throughout Bethel berate a sister because she didn't show up for text reading. It turns out she was pregnant and had severe morning sickness. He really didn't give a shit. The dude was tyrant.
One of my beefs was about the blue jeans. In Brooklyn, Knorr discouraged bethelites from wearing blue jeans because in Brooklyn Heights it seemed to him that homosexuals wore blue jeans. Consequently, when you sent your laundry to wash they wouldn't press your jeans. However, you could pay (from your meager allowance) to have your jeans pressed at the dry cleaners (a separate department in Bethel). When I moved to the farm I made a similar request to the dry cleaners. They said they wouldn't do it because of the view or opinion in Brooklyn about homosexuals. So, never mind that we lived in a place far removed from Brooklyn. When I pointed out that Brooklyn would allow for jeans to be pressed by the dry cleaning department, their answer was: Well, we're not Brooklyn. The infuriating part was not that I had to go around with unpressed jeans. It was the twisted logic they used to explain not doing it.
That is just one example of the frustrating situations for which there was no support, defense or venue to fight. I remember one time while working on the night shift at the Brooklyn bindery when the "supervisor" told me I could not read the Bible on my tea break (I used to sew signature to make Bibles), because the Society had deemed it proper for me to have a break to enjoy and not read the Bible. I couldn't believe it. But looking back that guy's asshole was more like a black hole. It was so tight, nothing escaped it.
I have so many stories like that it's almost painful to bring them up. Later on, when I heard stories from my "Bethel" nephews about the things they could do, I was so incensed that everything I worked for to realize and made me a "bad attitude" was now the accepted practice.
I was at "the hub of the organization". I really had expected more by way of spirituality and faireness. From the second day at Bethel (I never saw him on the first day), my roommate turned out to be an asshole. He said: "I was here first and you have to adjust to me and not me to you." What that meant is that he could pick anything he wanted in the room to be just so and I had to have sloppy seconds. Well, fuck him. As soon as I found a chance (within days) I moved in to the roach-infested Towers Hotel with another new boy from California. It was the best move I ever made.
As far as policy is concerned, everything went downhill from there. Eventually, my eyes were opened and I realized I could no longer stay there. When I went into Bethel, the contract was for a minimum of 4 years and being single. Somewhere along the line, it was changed to a one-year service promise. I guess the saw the handwriting on the wall. By then Knorr was dead. So, I left after 2 and a half years.
I wrote about this nine years ago (http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/experiences/45819/1/The-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly). Before I ever went to Bethel, way back in the early 70s I asked Ray Franz and Tom Cabeen what Bethel was like. Tom's clever answer after a snicker from both him and Ray was: "It's like no other place on Earth." Man, did I find out what that meant a few years later. Like someone at Bethel once said to me: "I wouldn't take a million dollars in exchange for the experience of Bethel. But I wouldn't give a penny for a second more of it." But for that experience, I'm not sure I'd be where I am today. That was the start of my road out of the Borg.
Eventually I got to describe Bethel as a combination of being in the Army, college and prison all rolled up in one.
-
142
CO Disfellowshipped in UK
by konceptual99 inso, i have it on very good authority that a co has recently been disfellowshipped in the uk.
he has just finished serving the north west london area.
i don't know any details but perhaps there is someone who does know what happened.
-
-
Etude
Maybe he was disfellowshipped because of what ziddina suggested he would do and already did: started drinking heavily, turned to drugs and committed acts of sexual immorality.
Really, I hate to specualte on that. It makes me feel just like the witlesses who just repeat gossip about some disfellowhipped person. I was a victim of that type of gossip even though I had not been disfellowshipped. Come to think of it, I probably agreed with and abeted some opinions about someone who was disfellowshipped without having all the information. Stupid me.
I don't know if providing a name would help the guy. It just may add to his embarrassment and shame, which is the last thing I would want for him and the first thing the witlesses desire. It should be up to him to come out with the truth. But for the cloak of piousness cast by the witlesses, there is inherently nothing wrong with drinking, smoking something and occasionally getting your rocks off.
-
15
What's It Like To Be Normal
by EmptyInside inyes,that is a strange question.
but,i always felt like the odd one out.
and as a witness,i felt like i had some secret from all the "worldlies" about the big secrets of the universe.
-
-
Etude
Being odd is cool and hip. To be normal, you should strive to be different, just like everybody else.
A life wasted can be another life rediscovered. Whatever you went throught, think about what that has contributed to who you are now and think about the positives those experiences have given you in terms of perspective. Would you think as clearly and decicively now if it weren't for your previous intellectual encarceration? At least you seem to be asking important and interesting questions.
The questions about the universe are quite fundamental. For me, the answers were critical. After my major shake up as I slipped away from the witlesses, I felt Catholic again because I was in Limbo. I didn't know what to believe and was very troubled by thinking that either God had failed me or there really wasn't a god. I don't know about anyone else, but that was very painful to me. Yet, that was my journey. You have to find yours. Good luck along the road. If you need to bounce some ideas, I'm here and so are a lot of other people.
-
-
-
-
81
Do you know why God cannot KNOW?
by Terry inlogic prohibits self-reference.
it is a convention like not multiplying by zero.
live with it!.
-
-
Etude
A very interesting piece. Ronald Bailey's treatise suggests to me an air of "Determinism", not only by the suggestion of our "gene-driven" driven actions but also by our "event-driven" actions, as in the case of the jilted wife running over her cheating husband with a very nice car. Regardless of whether or not we hold to that philosophical predilection, I still think that the means, the workings of the brain that operate according to physical laws, which Natural Selection or whatever caused it has made possible, are ultimately responsible for whether we have a "free will" or are simply executing predictable choices. The physical process for carrying out thought and what the thought is that may constitute "free will" are two separate things.
What Bailey seems to suggest is that beyond the physical transpirations, beyond the genetic mandate and even beyond deterministic behavior, our brain (that is, the suggested complexity of it) and the intense variety of choices it can make, turns out to supersede determinism and especially morality. Did I get that right?
-
81
Do you know why God cannot KNOW?
by Terry inlogic prohibits self-reference.
it is a convention like not multiplying by zero.
live with it!.
-
-
Etude
" A [chess] game is never predetermined because the game is what actually happens as it is played. "
Yes, a game is never predetermined because it actually has to happen. However (wouldn't you know there'd be one), there is a finite number of moves possible on a chess board; that would be every possible combination of moves given 8x8 squares [
]. Even though the number is quite high, there is a limited number of games under 40 moves that can be played [ ], out of which a subset number of moves for a specific game is drawn. The remaining number though considerably less is still large, but that's not a problem even for today's crop of PC processors, let alone something like Deep Blue.Furthermore, even thought there is a limited number of possible moves per game, many moves can be eliminated that are not strategic or significant towards winning the game. The point is not about the huge number of permutations that is possible but the much smaller number of moves that are practical and conducive to winning a match, especially after the first 4 moves on the chess board.
The capability of the silicon processor is what has furthered the mathematical discipline called Combinatorial Game Theory. I expect that the AI techniques will advance sufficiently to make us redefine our idea of consciousness and intelligence. Thank you for allowing this conversation to provide some "logical" legs stretching.
-
81
Do you know why God cannot KNOW?
by Terry inlogic prohibits self-reference.
it is a convention like not multiplying by zero.
live with it!.
-
-
Etude
" Even a perfectly operating chess program can be defeated some of the time because underlying principles cannot be reduced to the foreseeable. "
Depending on what "perfectly" means then, yes! So can a human being. My impression is that chess-playing computers are getting "smarter" by the minute and have algorhythms that help it learn after a mistake. In other words, many programs contain the essence of learning after failure. What the chess program needs to determine is which, out of all the possible outcomes, is the winning strategy. It's starting to happen although presently, computers are barred from open competitions. But in 1997 IBM's Deep Blue beat Kasparov and in 2004 Hydra, Fritz 8, and Deep Junior (all computer programs) beat top players Ruslan Ponomariov, Veselin Topalov and Sergey Karjakin.
" Joe Blow...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! "
Perhaps Joe Blow is in lust because Victoria can suck a golf ball through ten feet of hose. That's where thinking ends. He's at the mercy of whatever happens and is not concerned with what can be known.
" Man's thoughts are what the imagined God is in the first place! "
Indeed, yes! That's a very good answer to why "God cannot know".
-
81
Do you know why God cannot KNOW?
by Terry inlogic prohibits self-reference.
it is a convention like not multiplying by zero.
live with it!.
-
-
Etude
" 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. "
OK. Even though perhaps we've drifted some from the original topic, what the conversation has amounted to are various supporting arguments to the original topic. By your statement above, you present the idea that perception (or interpretation) of an event is not part of what is being observed but solely lies with the observer. In one sense I tend to agree because if not for our ability to observe clouds there would be nothing t to interpret. It's the classic "if a tree falls in the forest and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?" Well, I don't know how you feel about that, but you must concede that if two individuals are watching the cloud and they both recognize the shape of a horse, rather than one seeing a horse and the other a table, that there is some fundamental patterns holding information (whatever that is) to cause more than one individual to identify the same shape of the cloud.
How all of that relates to our topic is via the inference that whatever we perceive is conducted in our brains and has a discrete underlying process that follows the laws of nature. How that process turns a cloud-shape to appear like a horse, is not exactly attainable to us. But at least we know why it happens. In my discussion, I was allowing for the possibility that because of a physical process underlying thinking, it may be possible (though highly improbable) that a sufficiently advanced intelligence could gather all variables associated with a thought or decision and predict what will come next. Causality, in this case, is akin to the "Butterfly Effect", where the flapping of the butterfly wings in one part of the world might triggered a hurricane in another. The Lorenz' Strange Attractor and the equations behind it point to causal effects, but not in the linear statistical fashion and rather in a mathematical chaos model.
So, I agree with you that "God cannot know" from the aspect of what you last described: that " God cannot (rather than will not) create a rock so heavy He cannot lift it ". It presents an unexplainable paradox. But that doesn't exclude for me the possibility of "knowing" that you referred to previously. It's like Arthur C. Clarke said: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
-
81
Do you know why God cannot KNOW?
by Terry inlogic prohibits self-reference.
it is a convention like not multiplying by zero.
live with it!.
-
-
Etude
" My mentioning of the "Will" was to demonstrate that any reduction of a gestalt such as the MIND into a mere organic brain has to pretend the actual purpose of thinking is beyond constituency of neuron firing while simultaneously assuming it isn't. You can't really get away with having it both ways. "
I think we're narrowing down our meanings or at least refining them. Let me see if I can re-state for the purpose of clarity what you're saying: The gestalt of the MIND is global or comprehensive. So, we don't think of a table in terms of lines and rectangles but as a complete and whole entity. When we think about beauty, we don't just think of colors and shapes and sounds but of the whole thing that is beautiful. You say that reducing whatever it is that transpires in the mind to mere electrons in an axon jumping the synapse to another neuron's dendrite "pretends" that thinking is more than a neuron but at the same time assumes it isn't. Damn, even my dissection of your original sentence confuses me. Perhaps you can explain it better in your next response.
But assuming that my interpretation is correct and that my understanding of you intent is clear, we may be talking about apples and oranges. I'm not saying that when we think our thinking process transpires in terms of the most basic components, shapes, or attributes of things (the reductionist idea). At least, that's not the way I view life in general. What I am saying (and maybe this is where I seem to be a reductionist) is that the underlying function of the mind (everything it does to operate) is performed by chemical reactions and obey a construct of nature (the natural laws).
That is not to say that the result (ideas, beauty, musical genius, etc) of the chemical reactions and the laws that govern them is not gestaltic (I'm not sure if there is such a word). In other words, I don't see why the results of such a neurological processes cannot engender more than lines and colors and basic shapes and instead pretend that what it does is beyond the neuron. That we cannot presently explain how some established paths of neurons yield genius does not mean that the process cannot engender genius.
To think in other terms, that the physical process of chemical thoughts are NOT associated with "mind" leads me to that terrifying and mysterious place where "mind" seems to be separate from body, allowing for the possibility that it may exists outside of the body.
So, we can be in agreement if we both substantiate that "mind" (thinking, perceiving beauty, or having genius) IS perceiving in a whole (gestalt) manner and is not reductionism , whereas the process that drives that capability is simply fundamental and obeys the laws of physics.
I think that the pathology of the brain, precisely when it is due to a chemical imbalance that would cause psychosis or schizophrenia, clearly shows that the underlying process of "mind" is due to nothing more than chemical reactions creating electrical paths. This is why it seems reasonable that wearing a helmet with electrodes can make one feel or experience the gestalt of spirituality or a unique sense of "oneness" with the universe.
]. Even though the number is quite high, there is a limited number of games under 40 moves that can be played [ 
], out of which a subset number of moves for a specific game is drawn. The remaining number though considerably less is still large, but that's not a problem even for today's crop of PC processors, let alone something like Deep Blue.