we know that we can't always take the direct approach and we know that even a short, reasonable discussion is often out of the question with jw's we may love dearly so we often try to place a little doubt in their minds.
we want them to start questioning cherished beliefs.. is this fair of us?
are we placing our our own agendas ahead of their needs?
"Who needs some boobs to tell you how you should make love to your wife..."
For you, Open Mind ...
Well, I know a couple of boobs that know a lot about how to make love to my wife ... even though they are very close to the situation, the value of their insightful responses have been incalculable. Did I mention they belong to my wife?
we know that we can't always take the direct approach and we know that even a short, reasonable discussion is often out of the question with jw's we may love dearly so we often try to place a little doubt in their minds.
we want them to start questioning cherished beliefs.. is this fair of us?
are we placing our our own agendas ahead of their needs?
I don't think it is intrinsically unethical to do so.
It would be unethical to do so while at the same time holding the opinion that it was unethical for Jehovah's Witnesses to attempt to raise doubts in the minds of others.
Similarly, it would be unethical to demean the act of proselytizing for an "ism" while proselytizing for an "ism".
Either of these would be hypocrisy.
Respectfully,
AuldSoul
mom called me, she got my letter.
yeah you guessed it, i am the devil himself.
she told me to never again speak to her, because i'm evil and satan has taken over my mind, body and any common sense she ever gave me .
nvr-natekebob: You're too good for that shit.
AMEN!
i just missed two meetings for the first time in five years.. this past week i went "on vacation", housesitting for relatives nearby.
i told my bookstudy overseer i'd be "away", even though i was only a twenty minute drive from the kingdom hall.
i spent the entire week away from my insane family, away from the meetings and away from my "brothers and sisters".. it felt great.. coming home felt... not so great.. but the first brick in my fade has been laid.
Madame Q: ...give us some footage of those faces in the KH carpets!
That's a brilliant idea to aid your fade, too. Can you imagine the rampant gossip that would start if a giggling you were spotted taking pictures of small patches of Kingdom Hell carpeting? Start doing quirky, non-apostate things like that and when you finally leave they'll breathe a collective sigh of relief.
Respectfully,
AuldSoul
somebody is always insisting they have an invisible and mysterious source of divine information and selling it like hotcakes and syrup.
but, why are you still buying?
when will you ever learn that this is a scam among many scams.
Jeffro: So the determining factor for whether something that can happen did happen is whether the writer intended us to believe it happened. I don't think so.
I never suggested anything close to this. The determining factor for whether something that can happen did happen is whether or not it did happen. Since we are talking about accounts passed on by ancient cultures it is difficult to know for sure that anything has happened.
But obviously strange things have happened. Sometimes very strange, inexplicable things (in terms of the limited savvy of the people who witnessed them). Sometimes very strange, inexplicable things have happened to people with much more modern intellect and comprehension.
All the rest aside, you and Terry keep trying to avoid the basic point: The possibility of conception without sexual union was not related in a work of plausible science fiction within 110 years of achieving the feat, it was related as a factual accounting in diverse ancient cultures 2,000 years and more before we were able to accomplish the feat. Somewhat more of a leap was required than those made by the science fiction writer, Jules Verne.
Again, this possibility was always reported as having been communicated by divine or mystical sources.
Respectfully,
AuldSoul
"xeno" is a common taxonomical designation for aliens (strangers) including extraterrestrials.. are you someone who lacks belief in intelligent extraterrestrial beings?
do you believe it is possible that such extraterrestrial beings exist?
do you think it is possible or likely that our planet has had interactions with extraterrestrials?.
Thanks, all!
I have been reading and considering every single reply. So far, I think my views match Abaddon's fairly closely.
Jeffro,
"apathy" is a lack of pathos. I don't think "lack of belief" is loaded language, at all. Either people believe something, or they are open to the idea of believing on sufficient evidence, or they don't believe it. The latter two would lack belief.
Respectfully,
AuldSoul
somebody is always insisting they have an invisible and mysterious source of divine information and selling it like hotcakes and syrup.
but, why are you still buying?
when will you ever learn that this is a scam among many scams.
Terry,
Ask yourself this question: How many boys were butchered before the 8th day until the circumcision was delayed by trial and error to the ideal?
When a workable (trial and error) optimum day was determined the law was "fixed".
Just to play devil's advocate, ask yourself this question: How many boys were butchered before the 8th day until the circumcision was delayed by trial and error to the ideal?
The fact is, you cannot answer your own question. You don't know that even one boy was "butchered" prior to the 8th day being fixed by law, do you? You're using sophistic questions to make your point. You are free to surmise a scenario that supports your prejudiced assumptions all you like, but isn't your question based in pure conjecture? Your conclusion is likewise based in conjecture, not demonstrable reality.
AuldSoul
somebody is always insisting they have an invisible and mysterious source of divine information and selling it like hotcakes and syrup.
but, why are you still buying?
when will you ever learn that this is a scam among many scams.
Sure thing, Terry. Of course dinos lived in the center of the earth, haven't you read your Burroughs? I encourage you not to believe Burroughs, by the way. He also wrote fiction. But if you choose to believe Burroughs, dinos once lived in the center of the earth. Since the reference was a literary one and since you mentioned Verne who wrote the work that inspired Burrough's Pellucidar, I thought you might know it.
How kind (and typical) of you to respond to the merest periphery of the post and miss out on responding to its point.
AuldSoul
somebody is always insisting they have an invisible and mysterious source of divine information and selling it like hotcakes and syrup.
but, why are you still buying?
when will you ever learn that this is a scam among many scams.
Jeffro,
In English, we use the word "if" to create a conditional clause. In the logical progression of my post, the use of the parenthetical clause "(if they did happen)" prevents conclusion that I am making any statement to the effect that any of the alleged claims are true and accurate.
I am addressing how they could have happened in such a way that the explanations of superstitious and ignorant primitive eyewitnesses are perfectly reasonable, given what they would have seen/experienced if these things did happen.
Cinderella was a fable, written as such intentionally, not intended for actual acceptance and belief.
Terry,
Jules Verne was a writer of science fiction did not write from the perspective of alleging a firsthand claim of something he personally observed or from a secondhand perspective of someone who heard the reports from those who claimed to be eyewitnesses.
Eyewitness testimony is horribly unreliable, but rarely occurs from nothing.
Either way, nothing detracts from the fact that the possiblity of conception without sexual union arises exclusively from stories involving deity. I didn't say you had to believe it, anymore than you have to believe there are dinosaurs still living in the center of the earth.
Respectfully,
AuldSoul
somebody is always insisting they have an invisible and mysterious source of divine information and selling it like hotcakes and syrup.
but, why are you still buying?
when will you ever learn that this is a scam among many scams.
I am saying that the possibility of something that we now know to be scientifically possible was revealed long before we knew it to be scientifically possible. I didn't advocate one set of religious stories over another except by way of its being well known in English speaking cultures. But, as you state, these stories aren't limited to one culture.
Jeffro: You are alleging that because something might be physically possible through extraordinarily complex scientific means, that it must have actually happened because some superstitious and ignorant primitives said it did.
My logic is in the correct order, you are reversing my logic and then accusing me of using your convoluted result.
I am saying that superstitious and ignorant primitives said things happened that could only have happened (if they did happen) through extraordinarily complex scientific means. We now know that is the only way these reported things could have happened, however they might have been described by superstitious and ignorant people.
The fact that we cannot independently verify the claims of these ignorant and superstitious people takes nothing away from the fact that, for instance, conception without sexual relations is entirely possible and has, therefore, always been possible—a fact first revealed through stories dating to a period of human history when humans were incapable of achieving conception without sexual relations.
If, 300 years from now, we can transmute matter easily and safely, we will have proved that it has always been possible to do so despite the fact that humans previously lacked sufficient technology to achieve the feat.
Respectfully,
AuldSoul
