>>>The fact is that modern physicists are usually extremely careful to distinguish between what is solidly known and accepted, and what is poorly known and only partially accepted, if at all. Furthermore,
Posts by Daunt
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49Very Bad Apologetics For Honest Seekers
by AlanF ingod had no beginning, so god did not need to be made.. .
if our local space-time universe is uncreated, then of course it is meaningless to ask who created it.
of course, everything that had a beginning had a beginner.
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Daunt
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7
Appealing to our Fears.
by Daunt inappealing to fear is a classic logical fallacy that has been used to justify things from killing jews to preaching door to door.
an appeal to fear (also called argumentum ad metum or argumentum in terrorem) is a logical fallacy in which a person attempts to create support for their idea by playing on existing fears and prejudices.
(from wikipedia).
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Daunt
Appealing to fear is a classic logical fallacy that has been used to justify things from killing Jews to preaching door to door. An appeal to fear (also called argumentum ad metum or argumentum in terrorem) is a logical fallacy in which a person attempts to create support for their idea by playing on existing fears and prejudices. (From Wikipedia). The latest threads discussing the hurricane Katrina and my parent’s guilt tripping into me becoming a full fledge witness has gotten me really interested in this subject. It is one of the most influential logical fallacies to ever come into my life, however only lately have I ever really thought of the impact this logical fallacy is having on me and the whole world altogether.
From the July 1, 2005 Watchtower article. Page 16 “BRINGING GOOD NEWS OF SOMETHING BETTER”
1. Today people the world over feel that they are drowning in bad news. They turn on the radio and hear frightening reports about deadly diseases stalking the earth. They watch the news on television and see haunting images of starving children crying for help. They pick up newspaper and read about bomb blasts that rip through buildings, killing scores of innocent people.
2. Yes, dreadful things are happening every day. The scene of this world is definitely changing – for the worse. (1 Corinthians 7:31) A newsmagazine in Western Europe noted that at times it seems as though the entire world were “about to go up in flames.” No wonder that a growing number of people are distressed! One person who was quoted in a survey about television news in the United States no doubt echoed the feelings of millions when he said: ‘After I watch the news, I’m thoroughly depressed. It’s all bad news. It’s overwhelming.’
This article was read at the Sunday meeting a few weeks ago, which my father conducted. In it he mentioned many other things that were happening in the world, including the wars in Iraq and the poverty in the United States. However the point of me quoting this is not to insult the Watchtower, but this reasoning can be positioned to major entities to our world. Wars today are carried out through this appeal to fear through either hate speech or tactfully construed speeches making the threat of terrorism imminent to support a certain operation in a foreign country. This Appeal to Fear has validated many terrible atrocities through out the ages, from Hitler’s massacres to Slavery in America; we have been using this to make us humans feel right for the longest.
Since my 17th birthday, my mother has gradually stepped up her conviction and effort in trying to get me to see the truth of Jehovah’s Organization. She converses the usual assumptive, emotional, and quite insult JW banter many times however, today she said something that really torched my heart. While we were walking out of the meeting she was especially spiritually high after this one. As we were half way from the kingdom hall to the car, passing inanimate hellos to fellow witnesses, she looked back and me and said, “I just can’t believe how you aren’t jumping into the full swing of becoming a publisher and later baptized, there’s so much to do in God’s organization.” This was not bad or unusual from my mom but her later comment infuriated me. While we were driving she looked at me through her rear view mirror and said, “I really do not know why you are procrastinating in your acceptance of Jehovah and his organization. This organization is so wonderful, how can you not see that? You will be with me, your father, your sister, and your brother that is slowly trying to bring himself back into the religion. How can you not see that?” And then she proceeded to call various family members and talk about how loving the brotherhood is by providing the provisions for the New Orleans brothers to house in Houston. She was on a spiritual high longer than I’ve seen before.
Her statement wasn’t too out of the norm for her, however it struck me at a time when I was teetering emotionally on a ledge between my parents and JW life, or the real dark world that I am not quite acquainted with. However, further observation of her statement leads me to the conclusion that she used many logical fallacies and just plain guilt trips to get my complacency and this only further points me to other instances of her use of fear to get me in line. She has kept me quiet for years because of these appeals to my emotion.
Seeing the abundant use of this appeal to fear in our government, our political pundits, our religious leaders, and our families it kind of leaves me distraught in still holding the belief that this way of considering facts and truth will be discarded in the future within the majority of humans. Seeing as of now that most individuals (including myself at times) use this way of thinking to control the majority of facts and truth, I just have to wonder, is this the right or correct way to view things? We’ve been thinking like this for years, for centuries so what’s it to us to stop now? (end of sarcasm)
I was also wondering about possible techniques to spread awareness of this logical fallacy or even if it’s possible for the majority of people to put this into practice. This would trash a lot of people’s ability to gain power. And lastly I would like to know of any other instances that the witnesses or any other authoritative people used appeal to fear or any other logical fallacy to justify your complacency. Thanks for reading folks. -
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Why 'defining evil' is fruitless
by Shining One ini think that terry's answer to his own question about 'defining evil' is incorrect.
you do not even need to define evil when you have an absolute truth to go by.
you can go through a lot of speculation in order to define evil.
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Daunt
Of course hamster. Anything that can possibily put christianity in bad light has to be apologized in order for it to look good. It would be a lot less confrontation if many (can't be wrong) christians would just the possibility that they can be wrong. Would be a lot less homeless gays and a lot less of a lot of things (said, "a lot" a lot).
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122
Very good apologetics for honest seekers
by Shining One inare you tired of the arrogant assertions of the elite ex-jw clique here?
here is some powerful ammunition to "demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of god"!
http://www.carm.org/evidence.htm .
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Daunt
There is nothing in the bible that suggest Adam knew what would all happen when they ate the fruit. Actually God was quite indirect on what would happen to them if they die. Correct me if I'm wrong but I never saw anywhere in the bible stating that Adam and Eve's children will inherit their sin for all humanity. They never lived in a world of sin. They never experienced pain and death. How is it to be expected that they would absolutely comprehend what eating the fruit would bring. How can you be fearful of something that is impossible for you to even think about?
I do not trust God's omnipotence. God's creation of humans and angels were pretty incompetent. He either purposefully created satan and the evil intentions that come with him knowingly, or he created everything blindly, and from chance (Seems more by chance than the universe itself). God created the possibility evil out of his inability to understand his own creation, or he created it for this purpose. God is either incompetent or just plain evil.
At least that's what I get from the creation story. -
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Why 'defining evil' is fruitless
by Shining One ini think that terry's answer to his own question about 'defining evil' is incorrect.
you do not even need to define evil when you have an absolute truth to go by.
you can go through a lot of speculation in order to define evil.
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Daunt
It's really amazing how real double-think really is. And Scary.
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"You guys are the most preachy atheists I've ever met!"
by GetBusyLiving ina christian friend of mine had a melt down this weekend and screamed at my roommate about both of us being "preachy atheists".
he also said, in talking about me, that "i can see it in his eyes, he think's he's right!
" it was after a bunch of drinks at a bar and my roommate said that he was nearly in tears.
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Daunt
Atheist is just a label. It is nothing more than lack of belief in God. Nothing more. When you start adding on attributes (good or bad) to atheists you are only prejudging atheists. You can be highly irrational and just plain ignorant and be atheist. Rational thinking is a much better world goal than atheism. However, it just happens to be somewhat rational to be atheist or on an agnostic path. Reason and logic are the greatest things we have to solving our problems. Without reason and logic, economics, science, realistic observation, and evidence gathering wouldn't be possible.
If everybody was atheist we would still have to worry about the initial human tendacy to be on top in social order, to make babies like crazy, and a host of other things to worry about. Just advocate reason and logic, and hopefully folks will realize that trying to kill off a civilization of people for an idea that has nothing more than your mind and other people's minds holding it together, is ignorance. -
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Evolutionary establishment tactics
by hooberus inwednesday evenings (august 24th) fox news program "the oreilly factor" featured an interview life after "intelligent design" with dr. richard sternberg, editor, of the peer-reviewed journal "proceedings of the biological society of washington.
" dr. sternberg's home page discusses the recriminations he faced by certain members of the evolutionary establishment after publishing an arcticle by another person advocating the possibilty of intelligent design in the peer reviewed journal.
http://www.rsternberg.net/
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Daunt
This is a vicious cycle that some individuals that rely on pure emotion rather than evidence tend to do. They only find stuff that attacks the opponents view, rather than concreting their own view and learning more about the opponents views. This creates a barrier that's more solid that metal.
Know Thine Enemy is a great peice of logic. Doing the opposite creates oppression and isolation of ideas. -
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Are you a Pastafarian?
by GermanXJW ini recently learnt about the pastafarians (not rastafarians).
they believe the universe was made by him, the fsm (flying spaghetti monster).
sounds like a sensible alternative to christians to me... .
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Daunt
I have been touched by his noodly appendages.
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157
Evolutionary establishment tactics
by hooberus inwednesday evenings (august 24th) fox news program "the oreilly factor" featured an interview life after "intelligent design" with dr. richard sternberg, editor, of the peer-reviewed journal "proceedings of the biological society of washington.
" dr. sternberg's home page discusses the recriminations he faced by certain members of the evolutionary establishment after publishing an arcticle by another person advocating the possibilty of intelligent design in the peer reviewed journal.
http://www.rsternberg.net/
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Daunt
No matter which way you slice it. It is essential religious individuals trying to get religion back in school. Of course there should be even and balanced review of scientific issues in the scientific world. Too bad Intelligent Design isn't science. If the masses had the idea that intelligent design was something actually worth while it will put the scientific community even deeper in the hole. That will give them, "evidence" that the evil scientists are as oppressing and dogmatic as they are. This will just put us deeper into illusionist thinking as a country making us ever more susceptible to control by governments. May seem like I have jumped the gun a little bit but most of this illusionist thinking is already in affect. Now, people who believe in this Intelligent Design is seeing how scientists don't want to touch the issue. Since many people that believe in Intelligent Design do not neccissarily see their point as being possibly wrong (I said many not all just to make sure) they will go to the default and defensive position. They are covering it up, they are scared that their theories might not stand up to it. This is just not the case.
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Pat Robertson in the news again.
by Daunt inhttp://www.cnn.com/2005/us/08/24/robertson.chavez/index.html
this is robertson's explanation for the comments he made the other day.
first he blatantly lied about what he said, then he gives a crap appology.
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Daunt
This is supposed to be one of the most spiritual influential figures in america, and in many respects, political.