Posts by dunsscot

5

IMPORTANT message for Dunsscot

by Mommie Dark in

jw
friends

i've noticed you are already having trouble finding enough obfuscatory language with which to dazzle the peasants.

i wanted to ameliorate your situation, since you seem to think using grandiloquent words lends weight to your ideas.

so here is a link for you, i hope you find it useful.

dunsscot

Dear mama,

Thanks for the link! I don't care what "the they" (Das Man) say. There is no one like a mommy. Dasein, if you cannot be Sosein.

Smooches,
Dan

Duns the Scot

137

Freedom of Thought and JW Opposers

by dunsscot in

jw
friends

does freedom of thought really obtain in this forum?

are those who have left god's organization and jehovah god himself actually now more open-minded and unbiased?

if those who espouse atheistic thoughts or those who believe every vile utterance spoken against jehovah's people think they are now speaking from some olympian perspective, i beg to differ.

dunsscot

Dear Hmmm,

Thanks a bunch! I guess I do need compters for dummies after all. :-)

Dan

Duns the Scot

137

Freedom of Thought and JW Opposers

by dunsscot in

jw
friends

does freedom of thought really obtain in this forum?

are those who have left god's organization and jehovah god himself actually now more open-minded and unbiased?

if those who espouse atheistic thoughts or those who believe every vile utterance spoken against jehovah's people think they are now speaking from some olympian perspective, i beg to differ.

:Having read your responses to a number of people, dunsscot, (with the exception of responses to myself and Farkel, who it is obvious you're afraid to deal with) it has become evident that you're little more than a moron with a college degree in philosophy.:

Why should I be afraid to deal with Farkel or you? Neither one of you gentlemen have said anything that I haven't heard before in all of my years online. Farkel and AlanF are simply limited, finite, impotent, ignorant existents like every other man or woman living in the realm of GH.

Moreover, your comments above indicate how little you know about philosophy, human nature, or Duns the Scot. You read a few of my posts and make a snap judgment that I'm some moron with a "basic" degree in philosophy. You then seek to call me on a number of terms I have utilized when interacting with the denizens of this forum in the past few days. Personally, I think you better stick to astrophysics or WT research, because a philosopher you ain't, as I'll show below.

:Unfortunately, while you use much esoteric jargon and seem to understand it, you don't understand a more fundamental truth: if you use opaque jargon on the uninitiated, you don't really understand what you think you're talking about.:

Here is one place where your snap judgments start to manifest their insidious quiddity. Yes, I am using esoteric "jargon" in this forum. But I thought one was supposed to speak freely here. That is what Farkel and others have contended hitherto. Yet when I (one of Jehovah's Witnesses) choose to speak in a tongue that I find useful and pragmatic, I am castigated and denigrated by those who desire to spew vituperative statements at me in the hopes of stifling my personal conative or spiritual efforts. Such anti-intellectual, anti-conative, anti-JW tactics will not succeed. Furthermore, I am not using "jargon," but trying to be precise when discussing the philosophy of religion or the ramifications of religious epistemology.

:Great scientists such as Einstein understood this well. Einstein understood that trying to talk about four-dimensional space-time tensors with a general audience was worse than useless. Your education, therefore, does others no good, since you do not understand what you've learned well enough to explain your ideas to others without resorting to the opaque jargon of your narrow specialty.:

Mr. "pop" psychologist, how do YOU know that I cannot explain my ideas to others without employing what you call, "opaque jargon"? You know nothing about me, outside of this board. It is no wonder that the proverb says that one who replies to a matter before he(she) hears about it is foolish and humiliating. You've never attended a lecture that I've given to the hOI POLLOI. How would you know what I can or cannot do in this regard?

:Philosophy, of course, being about the softest of the 'soft sciences', is of necessity full of opaque jargon. And you're a moron not so much because you think you know a lot more than you actually do, but because you have taken on the role of 'JW defender' even after having learned a little, in basic philosophy, of why you ought not.:

Your hasty, careless disposition again manifests itself. You know next to nothing about philosophy, and it shows. Secondly, you say that I've learned a little "basic philosophy." How would you know the nature of my didactic background? Do you know how long I've been studying philosophy? Do you know the nature of my degree(degrees) in philosophy? No, you do not. The fact is that I have more than a knowledge of "basic philosophy." Excuse the ignorance on my part, but I know more about metaphysics, epistemology, ontology, deontological and teleological ethics, the transcendental apperception of unity, and eideational intuition than you'll ever know. I'm also versed in a number of different languages as well as theology, the Bible, psychology, etc. You have no idea who you're dealing with, my man. I'm ignorant--I know that it is nothing that I know--you are ignorant and walk around totally unaware of your abysmal lack of gnwsis.

:So your stated goal of defending JWism by means of philosophy is doomed to failure, both on general principle and because of your own personal practice.Here are some examples of your bloated jargon that convey little or false meaning without the reader doing a double-take:Using "autonomous subject" instead of "person" or the equivalent.
Using "the cognitive workings of finite agents" rather than "the thinking of mere humans".:

An autonomous subject may be a person, but a person is not necessarily autonomous or a subject. I think that Herman Dooyeweerd even rejected the notion of autonomy in human subjects. He prefers instead to speak of the pretended autonomy of certain humans. The notion of autonomy vis-a'-vis humans is in fact a relatively new concept. A number of thinkers have documented the rise of the autonomous individual idea and associated it with Immanuel Kant or the Aufklarung.

:Using "ecclesia" instead of "congregation".:

I think most folks know what ecclesia or ekklesia means. Give the peeps here some credit!

:Using "epidermal schema or existential situation" instead of "skin color or cultural background".:

I might grant you that one.

:Using "those removed from God's clean organization." instead of "those who had enough moral sense to reject the Watchtower Society".:

Why would I, a JW defender (as you say), think that those who "reject the Watchtower Society" (your words) have ANY moral sense?

:Here's a particularly good one with respect to bigboi's observation that you're "Talkin loud, but aint sayin nothin": "When one delves into the abstract depths of each man's thought, however, he or she begins to tap the surface of a brilliance that has hitherto been unrealized." Right. In other words, when bullshit words pull the wool over a lot of peoples' eyes, "the emperor's new clothes" syndrome reigns supreme. Duh! Fodeja is perfectly right: your writings are entirely without substance.:

And your writings lack an awareness of basic philosophy or irony. As Lewis R. Gordon notes, words create worlds. They are there for our use as they obtain in an infinite state of potentiality waiting to play their part in building actual worlds extending to infinity (either possibly or actually). There is a tremendous amount of power in a signifier or a set of graphemes strung out along a page. Irony may also communicate that which "plain" language cannot. So can paradox.

:Let me comment on some of this glop, in the hope that you're not purely a troll:"To Larc, Introspection, and others" you wrote: "I want to examine how human cognition functions in an environment where ex-JWs thrive and flock." This statement might be fine in a philosophy paper where wordiness is valued over substance, but when you're talking to real-word people a simple, "I want to understand how online ex-JWs think" would suffice.:

Your lack of philosophical GNWSIS again shines through. I said what I meant and meant what I said (an example of antimetabole).

I am here to examine how cognition functions amongst ex-JWs. Cognition entails more than "thought." Any good dictionary or basic psychology book will you that.

:You also wrote, "I want to ... show that the very structures that make knowledge possible are inclined to seek and know an infinite horizon of being." This is complete bullshit. It is meaningless, bloated jargon. "Structures" are insentient and are not "inclined to seek and know" anything.:

Does a thing have to be sentient to be inclined toward something? In this case, I think not. The structure that I referred to using the plural form of the morpheme, structure, is actually the transcendental structure of human consciousness. That is, the very transcendental ("lying at the base of experience") a priori conditions that make cognition possible. Now do you understand, AlanF?

:The phrase "an infinite horizon of being" is completely meaningless without a great deal of explanation -- which you have not given, and are clearly incapable of giving.:

We are hasty and presumptuous, aren't we (used in the editorial sense), AlanF? I think you better watch those snap judgments. Until you've seen me present information to the uniniated on the subject of being qua being. I suggests you refrain from saying what I am capable or incapable of doing.

Additionally, "an infinite horizon of being" is a well-known phrase used by the late Roman Catholic theologian, Karl Rahner, who used the formulaic construction to refer to (gasp!) God. Read Rahner's work and get on track. And if you need help after class, I'll be glad to stick around and help you struggle with Rahner's notion of an infinite horizon of being as well as his theological approach wherein he employs transcendental reflection to elucidate the OUSIA of God and the notion of obediential potency vis-a'-vis human subjects.

:Perhaps in your philosophy classes this phrase was beaten to death, and so you understand what you mean -- but no one else does.:

Take a poll. Even a prepubescent child would know what an "infinite horizon of being" was. Give the "ignorant rabble" (Voltaire) some credit.

:This is a good illustration of the fact that you don't understand your philosophical material well enough to know the difference between what specialists and laymen will understand or fail to understand when you use jargon. Again, in your chosen field you're a moron.:

Let me guess. You're not a moron in your field, right?

:To TD you argued, in essence, that it is hunkey dory for the Governing Body to disfellowship good people merely for disagreeing with their teachings, even if those teachings are false.:

Watch the use of those two signifiers, "in essence," for they can really have the effect of misconstruing your interlocutor's contentions if you're not careful. I never argued, "in essence," that its okay for the GB to disfellowship "good people." Moreover (autem in Latin), I never said that the GB's teaching on blood transfusions is "false." I'm careful how I use that particular lingual sign. I prefer to say the GB's ideas are not fully formed at times. They are in the embryonic stage, but the GB may sometimes think that an embryo is a fetus or a full grown child.

:But in so doing, you've proved one of my basic contentions: Jehovah's Witnesses do not first worship God, but give their first loyalty to the Watchtower Society. You've also ignored the most important teaching of the Bible: Jehovah is the God of truth. You've also ignored specific biblical condemnations of the behavior of these leaders of Jehovah's Witnesses: "Anyone pronouncing the wicked one righteous and anyone pronouncing the righteous one wicked -- even both of them are something detestable to Jehovah." (Proverbs 17:15)"You are to keep far from a false word. And do not kill the innocent and the righteous, for I shall not declare the wicked one righteous." (Exodus 23:7)In its history, how many times has the Watchtower Society declared "the wicked one righteous"?:

Are you a biblical literalist, AlanF? Have you forgotten that YHWH is a reasonable God, who forgives the ones fearing Him. Furthermore, you are using your own subjective criteria to determine who is wicked and who is righteous. What is more, before I could answer your contention about falsehoods, you would have to delineate the quiddity of a falsehood, and then distinguish between different types of "falsehoods" or lies. Then you would need to outline the gravity that attends a particular kind of mendacious statement (that is a lie, for the hOI POLLOI). I suggest Thomas Aquinas' S.T. for starters.

:How about J. F. Rutherford, a drunkard and an adulterer?:

Do you have "proof" that Rutherford was a drunkard and an adulterer? Can I track down such "proof" and verify it for myself?

:How many times has the Society declared the "righteous one wicked?":

Didn't you already ask this question? Talk about pleonastic language! But I don't have an exact count on such figures, and I am in no position to say that this person condemned by the society was righteous, and that person judged by the Society was wicked.

:How about the "silentlambs" whom the Society has relegated to obscurity but are now beginning to speak out?:

I don't know who "silentlambs" truly is. Yes, I see an entity of some kind running a website and posting here under the name, "silentlambs," but I have no way of verifying silentlamb's story. How can anyone on this board prove that silentlambs is telling the truth? That's what cracks me up about this forum. People are willing to readily believe anything negative about the Society and quick to dismiss anything positive said about the Witnesses. Why don't you hold silentlambs to the same standard of proof that you hold Witnesses to?

:You (sic) answer, dunsscot, or lack of answer, to these questions, will determine in the minds of readers whether you're a sincere Christian or a mere troll.As for your claim that you have difficulty reading books, such as the "book" I wrote in response to your first bit of silliness, I will guarantee this: unless you can respond to and deal substantively with every issue I raised, you will have no credibility whatsoever, on this forum or in terms of objective truth. Only one of your fellow JWs will fail to understand this.:

How do you know you're speaking "objectively"? You and every other autonomous agent reasons from his or her own personal preunderstandings to certain conclusions. You forget that the "facts" you present are not necessarily brute. They are filtered through certain presuppositions and thus may not represent "objective truth." No, you don't have to thank me for the sage reminder. :-)

Lastly, as we say in Latin, flocci non facio. I.e., I don't give a hoot what you or anyone else participating in this form thinks about me. But I loves you all.

Said with love,
Duns

Duns the Scot

137

Freedom of Thought and JW Opposers

by dunsscot in

jw
friends

does freedom of thought really obtain in this forum?

are those who have left god's organization and jehovah god himself actually now more open-minded and unbiased?

if those who espouse atheistic thoughts or those who believe every vile utterance spoken against jehovah's people think they are now speaking from some olympian perspective, i beg to differ.

dunsscot

Faraon,

So that you do not think I'm a dunce when it comes to 'puter matters, I did copy and paste Farkel's post to a file on my 'puter and then tried to copy and paste his remarks and my replies to the message board. But othing happened. I tried following the code procedure and again nada (nihil). But thanks for the help. You're okay for a JW opposer. :)

Night,
Dan

Duns the Scot

137

Freedom of Thought and JW Opposers

by dunsscot in

jw
friends

does freedom of thought really obtain in this forum?

are those who have left god's organization and jehovah god himself actually now more open-minded and unbiased?

if those who espouse atheistic thoughts or those who believe every vile utterance spoken against jehovah's people think they are now speaking from some olympian perspective, i beg to differ.

dunsscot

Dear folks,

I'm dun posting for tonight, but I have a question. I have tried to cut and paste to this board, but to no avail. What I mean is that I've tried to copy and paste quotes from others, but nothing appears in the message box. What am I doing wrong? Its a pain trying to reply when you cannot paste the material of your interlocutor. This is the reason I did not paste Farkel's quotes, but had to work from a file on my computer.

Thanks,
Dan

Duns the Scot

137

Freedom of Thought and JW Opposers

by dunsscot in

jw
friends

does freedom of thought really obtain in this forum?

are those who have left god's organization and jehovah god himself actually now more open-minded and unbiased?

if those who espouse atheistic thoughts or those who believe every vile utterance spoken against jehovah's people think they are now speaking from some olympian perspective, i beg to differ.

dunsscot

I'll respond to AlanF's last post tomorrow.

Ciao

Duns the Scot

137

Freedom of Thought and JW Opposers

by dunsscot in

jw
friends

does freedom of thought really obtain in this forum?

are those who have left god's organization and jehovah god himself actually now more open-minded and unbiased?

if those who espouse atheistic thoughts or those who believe every vile utterance spoken against jehovah's people think they are now speaking from some olympian perspective, i beg to differ.

dunsscot

Dear Thinker,

1) I'll have to get back to you on the Bulgaria case. One must take the context into consideration, and it would take me a couple of days to do so.

2) Concerning religious sanctions and blood transfusions: This statement may well be true within certain parameters. Maybe one who chooses a certain course that seems to violate a principled directive of God removes his/herself from God's congregation (ecclesia): There is thus no need for the body of Christ to administer any sanctions. I can therefore see your problem with this statement. But remember that the one who uttered it may justify such language in the way that I stated in this paragraph. While I do not think the statement is a formal lie, it may be disappointingly and intentionally ambiguous. Furthermore, we may need to emphasize more intensely, the "conscience" aspect of a conscience decision.

Concerning the WT quotes you provided: I do not think the statements made in the WT were untruthful. Maybe they were mistaken, spoken in the wrong "moment" of doctrinal development (Hegel delineates three "moments" in his Philosophy of Mind) or articulated too hastily. But if you look back at Christian history, you will find that the ante-Nicene fathers erred in the same way. So did the Reformers as well as Pope Gregory the Great. Even Israel did not always speak what is truth as a nation. What is more, individuals like King David engaged in adultery and murder, then practiced deception after performing such unspeakable activities. I do not think that such actions made these men "false" or inauthentic representatives of God. Neither do I think that seemingly contradictory statements make the WT a false prophet.

Sincerely,
Dan

Duns the Scot

137

Freedom of Thought and JW Opposers

by dunsscot in

jw
friends

does freedom of thought really obtain in this forum?

are those who have left god's organization and jehovah god himself actually now more open-minded and unbiased?

if those who espouse atheistic thoughts or those who believe every vile utterance spoken against jehovah's people think they are now speaking from some olympian perspective, i beg to differ.

dunsscot

Dear TD,

1) I think that clear biblical teachings should be "enforced," as you say. But we must also allow room for the "fact" that certain forms of conduct that are evidently undesirable from God's standpoint, are not explicitly disallowed in Scripture. For example, I do not believe that Christians should smoke cigarettes. There seem to be a number of Bible principles that indicate true Christians should refrain from this practice. I am also of the mindset that the Christian ecclesia should discipline toward who smoke. Hopefully, this information will clear up any confusion.

On matters involving life and death, I can only say that God does not allow any evil occurrence that cannot be rectified in God's own due time. We have the hope of the resurrection. Furthermore, those leading God's flock will render an account to Him (Hebrew 13:17).

One more note on doctrine in the process of development. While I think it is a mistake to enforce a provisional UNDERSTANDING of Scripture, there are times when we must act in accordance with the Zeitgeist that obtains. God will show mercy where mercy is proper; but He will show severity (I believe) where the evidence indicates that an overseer has acted abusively.

2) My thoughts on blood transfusion are as follows. There is no explicit command to abstain from blood transfusions, but there seems to be a Bible principle that suggests one should not ingest blood in any way. Should taking blood thus be a matter of conscience? I personally think it should. And by this statement, I do not mean that we should consider those who take blood transfusions to be our former brothers, who have shown they did not want the truth. A matter of conscience should be a matter of conscience.

On the other hand, there are those who, after weighing the scriptural and medical evidence (either in a perfunctory in-depth manner), decide to abstain from blood transfusions. They also make this decision for their offspring and thus allow situations tat MAY involve the death of their very dear beloved children. They act in this way--suspending what to many might seem ethical--for a higher telos. They believe that they hear the voice of God (bath qol) in Scripture and through God's congregation, and they act accordingly. I cannot fault such individuals who take this course. In a way, they are akin to father Abraham.

Besto,
Dan

Duns the Scot

137

Freedom of Thought and JW Opposers

by dunsscot in

jw
friends

does freedom of thought really obtain in this forum?

are those who have left god's organization and jehovah god himself actually now more open-minded and unbiased?

if those who espouse atheistic thoughts or those who believe every vile utterance spoken against jehovah's people think they are now speaking from some olympian perspective, i beg to differ.

dunsscot

Mr. Farkel,

1) God evidently has a universal organization and an earthly one. When I speak of "God's Organization," I am referring to God's earthly organization composed of the remaining ones of the heavenly woman's seed and those who loyally associate with this remnant.

2) In His holy Word, God Himself tells us that when we bless His worshipers, we are in effect blessing Him. Conversely, cursing God's servants is akin to "cursing" Him. So leaving God's organization is comparable to apostatizing from Him. The NT never promotes the notion of "Lone Ranger" Christians.

3) An Olympian perspective is an outlook that is comparable to the mythical gods who inhabited Mt. Olympus. It is a perspective that is not historically conditioned or filtered through any finite preunderstandings. One who articulates his or her Weltanschauung from an Olympian perspective is putatively able to transcend the existential fray of existence and speak as if his or her words are infallible in nature, ex cathedra.

4) You also asked me to prove that "so-called 'vile utterances'" even "bother a God "so far removed from us all that is pathetic." Well, what kind of "proof" would satisfy your mind. What type of argument would seem "cogent" to you? In many (if not all) cases, "proof" is person-relative.

Duns the Scot

137

Freedom of Thought and JW Opposers

by dunsscot in

jw
friends

does freedom of thought really obtain in this forum?

are those who have left god's organization and jehovah god himself actually now more open-minded and unbiased?

if those who espouse atheistic thoughts or those who believe every vile utterance spoken against jehovah's people think they are now speaking from some olympian perspective, i beg to differ.

dunsscot

Dear MacHislopp,

I am not trying to impress anyone on this forum. To the contrary, I am aware of my manifest ignorance. Why, I cannot even spark ideas in one of my fellow rational agents: I am only a midwife who tries to assist other subjects to produce ideas with their own cognitive powers while I stand by helping in any way that I can.

In short, I am simply being myself and staying true to the name I have lifted from the stalwart metaphysical champion of the Middle Ages, namely, Dr. Duns (the subtle doctor).

Duns the Scot