Posts by Generic Man

69

Just Got word...

by RichieRich in

jw
friends

.

a good friend of mine got in big ass trouble for this..... photoshopped to remove his name.

if he gives me any more good pics- youll be the first to get em!

Generic Man

Say Richie, was your friend at the convention in Winston-Salem?

33

5/23/05 KM Article "Jehovah's Day is Near"

by TheListener in

to be covered during service meetings week of 5/23/05.. q&a.

1. christians ardently desire the coming of jehovah's day, through which he will destroy the present system of things and usher in a new world of righteousness.

(2 peter 3:12,13, ftn.

"Bad conduct and errors in understanding do not prove they aren't God's people. Again, look at Israel during the time of Jesus and look at Jesus's attitude and actions toward the religious establishment. The religious leaders had moved so far from where they should have been as 'God's People' that Jesus regularly rubuked them severly... Yet they where still God's people right up untill Jesus died faithfully. Also, the Jews also didn't understand prophecy that accurately either."

This same defense can be made for Catholicism, Protestantism, Fundamentalism, or any other Christian denomination/sect or any other monotheistic religion. As for bad conduct and errors, I think you're understating what is happening within this organization.

The core teachings you have listed are the core beliefs of some sects:

Seventh-day Adventist Church (where Russell got most of his teachings):
-Deny the trinity. (Before Ellen G. White's death)
-Jesus is Michael the Archangel.
-Deny immortality of the soul.
-Believe in a bodily resurrection.
-Believe in an imminent, pre-millennial, second advent.
-Attribute Orthodox Christian beliefs to a Geat Apostacy.
-Deny salvation to those outside the Church.

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:
-Deny the trinity.
-Deny immortality of the soul.
-Believe in a bodily resurrection.
-Attribute Orthodox Christian beliefs to a Geat Apostacy.
-Deny salvation to those outside the Church.

Christadelphians:
-Deny the trinity.
-The Holy Spirit is an impersonal force
-Deny immortality of the soul.
-Believe in a bodily resurrection.
-Attribute Orthodox Christian beliefs to a Geat Apostacy.
-Are conscientious objectors (but not pacifists), and refrain from involvement in politics.

In fact, Jehovah's Witnesses originated with Seventh-day Adventist teachings. The Adventists are also guilty of many false predictions and Russell has done the same. In fact, Russell had made more false predictions than the Adventists ever did. So I am not going to take it easy on Russell. He was arrogant, irrresponsible, and deceptive. This is evident from his writings which filled with nonsense. Throughout The Finished Mystery, for example, he dismisses all the clergy who criticised him as "dumb dogs." It seems quite clear to me that it was the dumb dogs who were correct a along. Russell alson died rich and famous. He traveled the globe to teach about his home made religion.

But you have made it clear that you will believe the Jehovah's Witnesses regardless of what anybody says. Suit yourself.

33

5/23/05 KM Article "Jehovah's Day is Near"

by TheListener in

to be covered during service meetings week of 5/23/05.. q&a.

1. christians ardently desire the coming of jehovah's day, through which he will destroy the present system of things and usher in a new world of righteousness.

(2 peter 3:12,13, ftn.

Generic Man

"I do believe the ancient Israelites, especialy during Jesus time, are an accurate comparison to the Witnesses today, particularly their Leadership."

So basically you think the witnesses are God's "chosen people" because they seem to be similar to the Israelites. All you are doing is seeing connections that don't really exist. You're playing the same game the WTBTS plays by perceiving "parallels" between stories in scripture and events that happen during modern times. But you have absolutely no proof that the witnesses are God’s people, but there is tons of evidence that shows that they are not. What is so frustrating about your posts is that you still cling to the teachings of the self-anointed elite whom you identify as the evil slave. You give a list of teachings that are supposedly unique to the witnesses:

Jehovah is not a trinity.

Jesus is God's first creation.

The Angelic rebellion is the source of all our troubles.

The Great Tribulation and Armageddon are literal and coming.

God will use the worlds governments to destroy world religion.

The Thousand Year reign is real.

The Resurrection is the only hope for the dead.

The Little Flock will be a literal Heavenly Government.

Satan and his Demons have a finite time to exist and will be terminated.

But none of these are unique to the witnesses, but have been espoused by all sorts of sects and denominations at some time or another. But why should you believe any of these doctrines that you list here? Weren’t these the interpretations and teachings of the tyrants you supposedly freed yourself from? I find it especially irritating how you try to defend Russell, even though he was just as much a tyrant as Rutherford or any of those other fools that came after him. The man was driven by his own egotism. Have you ever considered the possibility that their teachings are just as false as their predictions? Their scholarship is unreliable; they could care less about discovering truth but enforcing doctrine. You may think you have freed yourself from these guys, but you still think like a witness.

12

Sunday Program now available online --

by catchthis in

http://www.wtmedia.org/silent_lambs_29_may_05.wmv

length: 29m 36s.

size: 14.2 mb.

Generic Man

Thanks for the link.

30

Rented any good movies lately?

by Billygoat in

since neil and i are a little on the tight side financially lately, we've taken to renting movies more often to entertain ourselves.

the other night we watched "riding giants" a documentary on surfing.

if you haven't watched it, it's a must see...even if you don't appreciate the sport you will after watching it.

Generic Man

I saw Traffic on NBC if that counts. I'm waiting for Batman Begins to arrive.

9

WT lies on their own web site

by DevonMcBride in

i saw this on the jw convention thread.

http://www.jw-media.org/newsroom/index.htm?content=/region/americas/usa/english/releases/events/usa_e050527.htm.

the last sentence of the third paragraphs saysthere are now over 1,000,000 witnesses in the united states..

Generic Man

If that number is right, its a relatively small one. I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that the population of the USA is approximately 200 million, so one million is small stuff.

8

WHAT DOES_MORALITY_ACCOMPLISH?

by Terry in

notice that my carefully worded header places morality into a framework of practicality first of all.. i could have asked the question many ways; but, in order to make a certain point i chose this way.. let us retrace (as briefly as possible) the discussion of the good by aristotle.. aristotle asks: "what is the good?".

he gives examples or analogies of a good physician, a good general and a good carpenter.. what does each do that makes them good?

each accomplishes the goal of his profession.. respectively:.

Generic Man

You write:

"Have you described anything but doubt on your part?"

"You doubt. That isn't an argument for or against. It is more of a description of your ability to tackle the problem."

My point is that the problems regarding morality run deep and there has been no consensus among ethicists who have spent so much time trying to solve the problems. It's kind of silly to claim to have solved all of our ethical ills with a slogan like "morality is a practical matter." My doubts were never meant to be an argument. If I were to do that, I would have presented them in a formal manner to preserve the validity of the argument. Such an argument would have a truth-preserving structure with sound premises. All I'm saying is that if you were to provide a conclusive answer to the important questions about morality, it would be the result of years of study and a good understanding, because good philosophy takes time and patience. I've even chatted with professional philosophers at my college and they admit that the problems are still unsolved. So pardon me if I'm doubtful.

When I say that your answer is unenlightening, I mean you haven't said anything interesting. All you've said is that morality is about good results and that somehow you've managed to prove that morality is not supernatural. In other words, I don't see any arguments in your post either. I'm not attacking you personally, but your post has no arguments to back up your conclusions and it's not even good rhetoric.

8

WHAT DOES_MORALITY_ACCOMPLISH?

by Terry in

notice that my carefully worded header places morality into a framework of practicality first of all.. i could have asked the question many ways; but, in order to make a certain point i chose this way.. let us retrace (as briefly as possible) the discussion of the good by aristotle.. aristotle asks: "what is the good?".

he gives examples or analogies of a good physician, a good general and a good carpenter.. what does each do that makes them good?

each accomplishes the goal of his profession.. respectively:.

Generic Man

"Similarly, the 20 th century philosopher G.E. Moore agreed with Hume that moral properties are not reducible to natural properties, as indicated by his ‘open-ended argument.’ However , Moore did agree with Hume’s conclusion that morality is irrational. Instead, (By the way, ’s position is known has ethical non-naturalism)."

Damn, for some reason, parts of my message did not make it. A large part of the paragraph that was supposed to come after " Instead," and before "(By the way, ’s position is known has ethical non-naturalism)." And unfortunately, I do not have a copy of my original message. Anyway, if you want to know more about Moore, I'm sure you can find some article on him from a credible source. Or better yet, you read what Moore himself has to say in his Principia Ethica. It quite a good read. Sorry about the mistake.

8

WHAT DOES_MORALITY_ACCOMPLISH?

by Terry in

notice that my carefully worded header places morality into a framework of practicality first of all.. i could have asked the question many ways; but, in order to make a certain point i chose this way.. let us retrace (as briefly as possible) the discussion of the good by aristotle.. aristotle asks: "what is the good?".

he gives examples or analogies of a good physician, a good general and a good carpenter.. what does each do that makes them good?

each accomplishes the goal of his profession.. respectively:.

Generic Man

Hi Terry,

Thanks for starting this interesting post, but unfortunately, your treatment of the issue is too simplistic. First of all, your criticism of Aristotle is, I think, unclear. Aristotle’s ethical theory is known as Virtue Ethics. For Aristotle, a person is good because behaves virtuously and has good intentions. Aristotle’s ethics can be described as teleological or purpose oriented. According to Aristotle, everything has a purpose, both animate and inanimate. An apple tree grows apples and in order to be virtuous, it must grow good fruit to fulfill its purpose. Likewise people have purposes too and must strive to fulfill that purpose.

Unlike other theories, which characterize a person as good in terms of what actions he performs, Aristotle’s virtue ethics defines a good person in terms of how he strives to be good. For instance, Utilitarians like John Stewart Mill would define a good person as one who performs actions that cause the right consequences. Usually they tend to define right actions as pleasurable actions (hedonism). Not surprisingly Utilitarians are called consequentialists (but not all consequentialists are Utilitarians). Deontologists like Immanuel Kant on the other hand, claim that actions are right or wrong regardless of their consequences. According to Kant, a good person performs the right actions regardless of what the circumstances in which it is performed. Virtue ethics is unlike either of these alternatives in that they emphasize on good character instead of good actions.

David Hume introduced the problem of how can be conclude with a statement about what we ought to do from premises which describe how the world is. Hume concluded that we cannot do this; we cannot reduce moral properties like good, bad, right or wrong to natural properties. Hume criticizes Aristotle for identifying virtuousness (a moral property) with skillfulness (a description of a person’s behavior). Hume would likewise have criticized hedonists for identifying the good with pleasurable sensations. Hume’s concluded that since we cannot solve the “is/ought problem,” then moral distinctions are not discovered by reason but created by sentiment. In other words, morality is not rational (or at least, not completely motivated by reason).

Similarly, the 20 th century philosopher G.E. Moore agreed with Hume that moral properties are not reducible to natural properties, as indicated by his ‘open-ended argument.’ However , Moore did agree with Hume’s conclusion that morality is irrational. Instead, (By the way, ’s position is known has ethical non-naturalism).

Now, that I’ve finished with explaining some of the most important ideas in ethics, which one of these positions are correct? I’m in no position to answer this with a conclusive position and I seriously doubt that you are either. Frankly, I find your own attempt to be unenlightening and naive. Don’t take this personally, but I don’t think you’ve taken the time to think about this ancient problem. I’m not sure what you mean when you say that “morality is a practical matter.” I don’t that any theist or any of the philosophers I’ve mentioned would insist that being moral is impractical. So I don’t see how your idea of “morality as a practical matter” is an alternative to theistic ideas of morality (including for instance, the Divine Command Theory which is not accepted by all theists). As for your concluding statement:

THERE IS NO NEED OF A SUPERNATURAL RULE MAKER because doing GOOD follows naturally from identifying good results and reverse-engineering the operations that produce the best results as a practical matter.

I have no reason to believe that you have proven your case. However, you do seem to agree with consequentialism since you emphasize on GOOD RESULTS, but you’re going to have to do a better job of giving arguments. What do you define as a good result and what kinds of actions produce good results?Once again, don’t take this as a personal assault, but as a fair criticism of your post.

Sincerely,

GenericMan

257

Prove to me that God exists

by CinemaBlend in

i need debate practice on the subject for the next time i'm cornered.

Generic Man

Hi everybody,

I would like to take a moment to comment on some statements made in this thread. I haven't taken the time to read all of the posts here, so forgive me if I end up repeating what somebody else said or haven't addressed a good point that somebody else has said. Well, here it goes:

Stephen John Gault said this:

"If you can't prove god exists, you have to allow for the possibility/probability."

tetrapod.sapien said that:

"because pure proof is not forthcoming in deciding the HIGHEST LIKELIHOOD of truth."

I'd like to comment on these statements since they seem to imply that a proposition's being highly likely is a sufficient condition for being justified in believing that a proposition is true. Here I will argue that this assumption is demonstrated to be false by what is known as the Lottery Paradox. Lets assume the following:

p1= a proposition stating "ticket #1 will lose"

n= the number of tickets being between say, 100 and several million.

So the probability of p1 being false is 1/n and the probability of p1 being true is 1-1/n. With this knowledge, I will propose the following argument:

(a1) The probability for p1 being true is 1-1/n.

(a2) If the probability for p1 being true is 1-1/n, then I am justified in believing that p1 is true.

Therefore,

(a4) I am justified in believing that p1 is true.

The conclusion is problematic, since all other propositions claiming a ticket will lose (p2,p3,...pn) have the same probability of being true (1-1/n). For instance, my ticket #1 has the same probability of losing as Grumby's ticket #3 and Blondie's ticket #n. So everybody can be justified for believing that their ticket will lose. Now things get worse when we conjoin all of our propositions:

(p1&p2&p3&...&pn)

Now for those of you who are unfamiliar with formal logic, conjunction is a truth function between propositions (statements that are either true or false). Observe the following argument structure:

1. P
2. Q

Therefore,

3. P&Q

That's what I'm doing when I'm conjoining propositions. All I'm stating is that if I assume P is true and if I assume Q is true, then P&Q is true. Each proposition which is about a ticket (i.e. p1,p2,etc.) and I am now conjoining each of these propositions into one large proposition, (p1&p2&p3&...&pn). But this large proposition has it's own probability just as each of it's conjuncts do.

Lets suppose that P has a probability of .99 (very high) and suppose that Q also has this probability. If we conjoin these propositions and get P&Q, then we multiply their probabilities to get the probability of the conjunction.

P&Q= 0.99 x 0.99 = 0.9801

As you can see, the probability of this conjunction being true is less than it's conjuncts! It does not matter how highly probable its conjuncts are as long as they're below 1.00. As we can recall, our lottery propositions are extremely low to begin with, being 1-1/n. So if I have a lottery with 100 tickets then the probability each individual ticket has of winning is 1/100. If we subtract this fraction from 1, then we get a very large number, which is the probability it has of losing. So this large proposition, (p1&p2&p3&...&pn), has a high probability of losing.

But if we are justified in believing that this large proposition is true, then we're justified in believing that no ticket will win. But we know that some ticket will win. We cannot be justified in believing that both a ticket will win and no ticket will win. So it seems that premise a2 of my argument is false and being highly probable is not a sufficient condition for me to believe that a proposition is true.

What does this mean? It means that arguments that conclude the likelihood or unlikelihood of a hypothesis being true are irrelevent (assuming that there is nothing else wrong with the argument) since we cannot be justified in believing or disbelieving based on that likelihood. Does any of what I say make sense? Sorry if my response is too long.