Posts by cognizant dissident

57

This is sickening and disturbing to think that American soldiers did this.

by StoneWall in

when i first read over this on msnbc news today, it was truly morbid of just one soldier to do something like this.. but to think that 12 are being implicated tells you how truly sick a lot in the u.s. forces are.. what is the difference between what they did and what hitlers soldiers did?.

here is the link for the whole article:.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39380805/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/.

cognizant dissident

I didn't know that Ninja. Could you imagine having him as your teacher? They are still using his writings to teach critical thinking and analysis in an English literature class I took two years ago at my university.

Actually, many of the writings we were critiquing in that class were from the mainstream media, concerning politics and the use of loaded language and propaganda to persuade the masses to just accept the use of terror and torture from our own countries while at the same time decrying it in other nations.

We had to write two persuasive essays in that class, graded on NOT using loaded language or logical fallacies ourselves. One was a research essay, and the subject I chose was the WTBTS use of propaganda and loaded language to convince their members that blood transfusions were risky and dangerous. The other was a write-in-class final exam the topic of which we could choose. I chose to write about the CIA's use of, and teaching of, torture and terror techniques to US soldiers and other military regimes all over the world and the willful blindness of most of the media and the American people.

As Huxley points out in his speech, the process of mind control is the same the world over and the vast majority of people like to be spoon fed their daily dose of euphoria inducing pap without question.

Cog

57

This is sickening and disturbing to think that American soldiers did this.

by StoneWall in

when i first read over this on msnbc news today, it was truly morbid of just one soldier to do something like this.. but to think that 12 are being implicated tells you how truly sick a lot in the u.s. forces are.. what is the difference between what they did and what hitlers soldiers did?.

here is the link for the whole article:.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39380805/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/.

cognizant dissident

Thanks for putting up that Aldous Huxley speech Ninja.

For those of you who have more than the attention span of a gnat, he is worth listening to. Fascinating man, fascinating ideas. He was a contemporary of George Orwell, and gives 1984 a plug in his speech.

I'm currently reading Ends and Means, which was a gift to me from a JWN poster a couple of years ago. Thanks Llbh, if you're lurking out there somewhere!

57

This is sickening and disturbing to think that American soldiers did this.

by StoneWall in

when i first read over this on msnbc news today, it was truly morbid of just one soldier to do something like this.. but to think that 12 are being implicated tells you how truly sick a lot in the u.s. forces are.. what is the difference between what they did and what hitlers soldiers did?.

here is the link for the whole article:.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39380805/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/.

cognizant dissident

Farkel your friends story was very heart wrenching. I think we are irreparably changed in some fundamental way when we kill another human being. We can't just pick up our old lives and go about our business as if nothing happened. Haunted, is the word that comes to mind.

65

Sexual Abuse and the Reduction in the Belief in God

by Lady Lee in

in my last year of university i wrote a paper called traumatic child sexual abuse, psychological death and the reduction in the belief in the power of god.

it was a term paper for a class on death and dying for a religion course i took.

not exactly what the prof expected but he agreed it made some excellent points.

cognizant dissident

Caliber: You never came across on this thread as "pushing" your views. So no worries.

There is some truth in what you say about convictions and lofty heights. Jesus had some lofty ideals that I'm totally on board with as did many other spiritual leaders. If the goal is the lofty height, or transcendence of our baser human natures, then religion is only the scaffolding that allows us to build the tower. Once the tower is built, do we keep the scaffolding attached, or do we dismantle it as no longer necesssary?

We must also be careful that if we build our scaffolding (religious system) crooked, and then follow it as a guide for the building (spirituality) itself, we may just end up with an leaning tower of Pisa. That is the way I view the entire Bible as a whole. There may be a few good materials on site, but in general, its premises are teetering badly and in danger of toppling unless constantly shored up with convoluted extrapolations.

One can have firm moral convictions without religion. I'm very firm in my conviction about the moral test I put to human actions, including my own, which I described above. I'm also very firm in my awareness, that I personally do not "know" the stories that other people tell me about God are true.

I have dismantled the religious scaffolding in my life and am testing whether my own internal moral foundation stands firm without it.

57

This is sickening and disturbing to think that American soldiers did this.

by StoneWall in

when i first read over this on msnbc news today, it was truly morbid of just one soldier to do something like this.. but to think that 12 are being implicated tells you how truly sick a lot in the u.s. forces are.. what is the difference between what they did and what hitlers soldiers did?.

here is the link for the whole article:.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39380805/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/.

cognizant dissident

You present a balanced picture of things PS Sacramento.

I hate war and violence (one thing I liked about JW's was their neutral stance). I have since become less ant-military though. Because to deny the fact that we live in a world where a small percentage of the population are antisocial psychopaths with murderous agendas (or just greedy bastards who want to dominate others and claim all the world's resources for themselves), is to deny reality. And as long as their are mindless droness to follow them and kill for them.... well you get the picture.

So, unfortunate as this fact is, I can see the need for a military if only for self-defence against predators. However the way we train the military and fail to weed out the psychopaths and sadists is something that can be improved imo. Or does the military and the process of war, actually create psychopaths and sadists? It might be a self-reinforcing feedback loop. In fact, there is strong scientific evidence it is.

The other problem is how many armies are truly used only for self-defense and never initiate the aggression? Standing militaries are a slippery slope that need to constantly have the spotlight shone on them to prevent atrocities. No blindly accepting any institutions as sacred.

9

YOU, I'M CALLING YOU OUT....

by Quentin in

jw
friends

you narrow minded, knuckle dragging blowhard of a dumbell.

how long does it take you to clean the slobber of your keyboard.

eh?

cognizant dissident

lol

57

This is sickening and disturbing to think that American soldiers did this.

by StoneWall in

when i first read over this on msnbc news today, it was truly morbid of just one soldier to do something like this.. but to think that 12 are being implicated tells you how truly sick a lot in the u.s. forces are.. what is the difference between what they did and what hitlers soldiers did?.

here is the link for the whole article:.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39380805/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/.

cognizant dissident

See how many of these old men want to go to war if THEY have to lead the charge on the battlefield, if THEY are on the front line.

Judge, I have long had a policy I would like to see instituted. If any politician wants to start a war, and wants to send my son off to battle, then he and his sons must lead the infantry charge. If they are not willing to die for their own war and sacrifice their sons, then don't ask me for mine. That would just be the start of the conversation, not necessarily the end.

By the way cog, will you marry me?

LOL. My first JWN proposal (I had one on JWD but it fell through. I think he wasn't sincere.) You think you could handle me and my baggage? I'm not for the faint of heart! Also, how old are you? I'm not into cradle robbing.

65

Sexual Abuse and the Reduction in the Belief in God

by Lady Lee in

in my last year of university i wrote a paper called traumatic child sexual abuse, psychological death and the reduction in the belief in the power of god.

it was a term paper for a class on death and dying for a religion course i took.

not exactly what the prof expected but he agreed it made some excellent points.

cognizant dissident

On a lighter note, my current theory is that vegetarians might just be the highest form of current human evolution as they do no harm to animals by eating them and wearing their skins (assuming they are non-violent in other ways, also).

However, apparently some meta-physicists postulated a theory that plants can feel pain (even though they don't have a nervous system?) and that blew my theory all to hell! We are all screwed and going to hell for eating the plants now!

65

Sexual Abuse and the Reduction in the Belief in God

by Lady Lee in

in my last year of university i wrote a paper called traumatic child sexual abuse, psychological death and the reduction in the belief in the power of god.

it was a term paper for a class on death and dying for a religion course i took.

not exactly what the prof expected but he agreed it made some excellent points.

cognizant dissident

Vamp: I know you're not telling me what to believe and neither is Caliber and I'm really enjoying the respectful way this discussion is going, I might add.

There might very well be a deity out there who doesn't write holy books and can't be described. It is really difficult for humans to worship something they can't describe or share that worship with others without writing or describing it, though.

To just sit in silence, and in solitude, with that experience of feeling interconnected to all things in the universe, is probably as close to my concept of what a God experience might be like. I have had those experiences, as I said to LL, with the baby and with art, and meditating alone in nature. I can't go so far as to layer extra meanings and extrapolations on it though even to imbue the cause with a consciousness. If there is a God that created everything, my describing it would probably be limiting it in some unforgivable way anyway. Never mind trying to tell anyone else they should believe my particular construct.

I can be content to just say, I don't know, and until I do know, which will probably be never, I'm content to call myself an atheist.

I just don't get any sense of fear or punishment out of that, though, for myself or others. This world is full enough of suffering. Do we even really need a god to add more of it?

I do agree with what you said about us being the higher level of animals though if only by virtue of having the biggest brains, if not the biggest morality. Belief in God and religion and political social systems are just rungs on the ladder of our evolution imo. Hopefully they won't be the last rung, but I fear they will. I like to believe we can transcend even the need for them and develop morality for its own sake. I know a few people who have done that.

65

Sexual Abuse and the Reduction in the Belief in God

by Lady Lee in

in my last year of university i wrote a paper called traumatic child sexual abuse, psychological death and the reduction in the belief in the power of god.

it was a term paper for a class on death and dying for a religion course i took.

not exactly what the prof expected but he agreed it made some excellent points.

cognizant dissident

Caliber: I grant you, God is not just someone. However, if you were taught anything about God by another person, or a book written by another person, (which is really the same thing), and you follow that as authority, then there is always that possibility that it is not God but that person who is truly being the absolute authority over you.

Unless, God personally opens up the sky, and says to you, "Caliber, my son, please listen and obey the apostle Paul over there, and all he has written, or listen to Shelby, my servant over there on JWN", you can't really know that you aren't giving your power and authority to that person who claims to speak for God. It is just another person claiming to have God's authority over you. Why would God give the apostle Paul or Shelby authority over you? You seem much smarter to me than both of them put together.

But then if God were to personally open up the sky to talk to you, why would he tell you to listen to some other human? Why wouldn't he just tell you what he wanted you to know himself?

Now if someone wants to sit and commune with any great spirits they believe are out there, through prayer or meditation or whatever, and they feel they get some direct insight from that, then I'm all for that and very respectful of that even if I'm not convinced. I just don't understand the use of the other human, also imperfect middleman as an essential prerequisite in the equation. It doesn't make sense to me.