Dan - I appreciate your citing Protagoras of Abdera - "Man is the measure of all things..." I always liked reading the pre-Socratics, even though the quantity of their surviving written works is, for the most part, rather paltry. But ii is still a pleasure to read those ancient words of wisdom.
Rapunzel
JoinedPosts by Rapunzel
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70
If you believe in nothing, then how do you know JW's are wrong?
by slimboyfat inmany who leave the witnesses go on to affirm other recognisable sets of beliefs.
some become christians of various sorts, others tend toward patriotism as a kind of rejection of the anti-patriotic stance of the watchtower, while yet more simply affirm in general the secular values of mainstream society.
do you believe jehovah's witnesses are wrong?
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70
If you believe in nothing, then how do you know JW's are wrong?
by slimboyfat inmany who leave the witnesses go on to affirm other recognisable sets of beliefs.
some become christians of various sorts, others tend toward patriotism as a kind of rejection of the anti-patriotic stance of the watchtower, while yet more simply affirm in general the secular values of mainstream society.
do you believe jehovah's witnesses are wrong?
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Rapunzel
DD - I believe the expression is: "Those who stand for nothing will fall for anything." I take it to mean that people who have no scruples or principles will find themselves easily manipulated by other dishonest and insincere people.
Narkissos - I haven't read the particular work that you cite, however I have read a little of the author. I read his ideas on irony. Perhaps it would be worthwhile for me to read the work that you mention.
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70
If you believe in nothing, then how do you know JW's are wrong?
by slimboyfat inmany who leave the witnesses go on to affirm other recognisable sets of beliefs.
some become christians of various sorts, others tend toward patriotism as a kind of rejection of the anti-patriotic stance of the watchtower, while yet more simply affirm in general the secular values of mainstream society.
do you believe jehovah's witnesses are wrong?
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Rapunzel
Slim - I have to say that I find the notion of someone believing nothing to be absurd and logically untenable. If someone were to believe nothing, they would say: "Nothing is true." As Andre Comte-Sponville states in The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality, "[The proposition that nothing is true] is logically untenable. If nothing is true, then it is not true that nothing is true; the phrase destroys itself without refuting itself (if nothing is true, then no refutation is possible).This is the defeat of reason. You can think nothing at all - or rather, you can think anything at all, which amounts to the same thing. Anything goes, but nothing is meaningful (in philosophy as in the sciences, thought can progress only by encountering impossibility, which is the proof of objectivity; even if there is no such thing as absolute truth, we need to be able to reject errors - that is, statements that cannot be true). Reality itself becomes ungraspable. [...] If nothing is true, no one is either innocent or guilty of anything, and we can formulate no reproach against negationists, liars, mass murderers, (since it is not true they are such), or ourselves."
It might be best to consider Immanuel Kant's three degrees of belief and assent, as enunciated in his Critique of Pure Reason. Kant distinguished between:
1.) opinion, which that it is both subjectively and objectively insufficient
2.) faith, which is subjectively sufficient but not objectively sufficient
3.) knowledge, which is both subjectively and objectively sufficient
Everyone who thinks has an opinion in regard to almost everything; and many people have faith in many notions, ideas, concepts etc.
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46
American-isms
by White Dove inwhat are some words or phrases that people outside of the usa find amusing or interesting?
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Rapunzel
In some European countries, they use the English word, cock, to refer to a "faucet" or a "tap". I'll never forget an incident that happened when I was on campus at the university. There was a guy who came from some country in central or eastern Europe. One day, he had a problem with his faucet and wrote the following note to his landlady: "Dearest Madam: I wish to inform you that my cock is leaking."
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46
American-isms
by White Dove inwhat are some words or phrases that people outside of the usa find amusing or interesting?
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Rapunzel
Brinjen - I visited your lovely nation about twenty years ago. I stayed in Sydney about one month. Of course, I visited the Opera House. One thing that made an impression on me was how many people called each other "mate." I remember visiting in January, which is your summer season. Because I had flown out of New York, I was waring a heavy, winter top-coat. Upon entering Sydney airport [or is it aeroport?] there was a custom's officer who told me: "No need to wear that coat here, mate." If it had been a "civilian," I would not have been so surprised. But this was a uniformed custom's agent or perhaps a soldier.
Another thing that I remember was how common it was for Australians to call women "love," as in "How may I help you, love?" And they used this term of endearment with total strangers.
By the way, if you read this post of mine, I would appreciate your answering a question that I have. While in Sydney, I would occasionally hear Australians referring to other people as the "ethnics." Could you tell me to whom does this word apply? Were the people referring to recently-arrived immigrants coming from non-European nations? Does it refer to any particular race or nationality? Is the term considered pejorative or racist?
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46
American-isms
by White Dove inwhat are some words or phrases that people outside of the usa find amusing or interesting?
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Rapunzel
In the U.S., the term fanny is used as a euphemism to denote a person's [a man or woman's] buttocks. However, I have read that in Australia, it is decidedly not a euphemism at all. In fact, it is considered a very vulgar term denoting a woman's sexual organs.
Moreover, the "V" for-victory sign, formed by extending the forefinger and the middle finger in a "V" shape, is also considered extremely vulgar in Australia.
Also, Americans use the term suspenders todesignate the elastic straps that some men use instead of belt to hold up their pants. I have read that Brits use the term braces to descibe these elastic straps used by men. For Brits, the word suspenders designates what Americans would call a woman's garter belt that she uses to hold up her stocking hose or "nylons." For Americans, the term braces is used in connection with teeth or sometimes in connection with leg supports for people who have been injured or are handicapped.
One last thing. It always strikes me as odd when Brits use the term torch [for the American flashlight]; thechemist's [for the American pharmacy]; and boot to designate the back-end [the trunk] of a car.
What is that old expression - America and England are two countries divided by a common language? All joking aside, English has become a universal language; and in fact, there are many varieties of English spoken throughout the world. English has been appropriated by many diverse populations in the world. Each group makes its own contribution.
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46
American-isms
by White Dove inwhat are some words or phrases that people outside of the usa find amusing or interesting?
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Rapunzel
Oompa: You write that the expression "'throw another shrimp on the barbie' is cool in Austria" Really? Gee, I always thought that they spoke German in Austria, not English. Uugh...don't you mean that this expression is "cool" in Australia? There is a big, big difference between Australia and Austria. Austria is a European nation that borders on Germany. Australia is both a country and a continent in the southern hemisphere. All of its major cities are on the coast. Its interior [the Outback] essentially consists of a huge desert.
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Is the Bible REALLY the "Word of God"?
by nicolaou init can be picked apart scientifically and it's prophetic claims don't withstand scrutiny.
surely god could've come up with something more convincing?.
if the almighty had started genesis by establishing his credentials thoroughly i'd be more inclined to take the rest of the book seriously.
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Rapunzel
According to the nearly universally accepted Documentary Hypothesis, the book of Genesis consists actually of a combination three distinct source documents woven together - the "J" [or Yahwist] document; the "E" [or Elohist]; the "P" [or Priestly] document.
Both the "J" and "E" documents were written at a very early stage in the development of Israelite religion, while the "P" document was written much later. It reflects the latest stage of Israelite religion, the stage of priestly religion, based on priests, sacrifices, rituals, and law.
A lot can be learned by considering what the writer of the "P" document minimizes or totally omits from his stories. He cuts the stories of Genesis down to a crucial minimum. The writer of the "P" source rejects the angels, dreams, talking animals, and anthropomorphisms found in the "J" and "E" sources. He omits the story of Adam and Eve and the talking snake. He omits the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. And he omits the story of Jacob wrestling with God face to face at Penuel.
The main point is that many stories found in Genesis are a primitive form of mytho-poetic narratives. They cannot hold up to a rational or logical critique. They were not written with this intent in mind. I find it interesting to note the writer of the "P" source - an ancient Israelite himself - rejected and omited much of the material found in the earlier "J" and "E" sources.
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9
The Bible mans word not God's
by edmond dantes inlet's see now what do we have before us, why it's the bible and a group of self importent egotistical leaders of the world wide movement known as the jehovahs witnesses.let us assume for a moment that the bible is just an ordinary book not inspired by an almighty god but inspired by mere mortals and in it are contained the words of ordinary humans who claim to be speaking from divine authority and by direction of that same authority.
suppose it is just a collection of myths and legends, we say that because there is no tangible proof otherwise, so why should we say it's from the creator when it is without a doubt written by humans.in it are words of wisdom but you can find words of wisdom all over the place and we don't claim those to be inspired by god because they are formed by mans intelligence.. as for the people who put themselves forward as leaders of a man made organisation namely the watchtower society ,they are just cooking the books of the man made bible and serving up a concoction of man made ideas leading to nowhere in particular and the worst part about it is the fact they have been doing it for over one hundred years and achieving nothing whatsoever to the betterment of the residents of this planet, in fact they can be a detriment and a hinderence to a persons progress through life.
can anyone make a list of the good achievments of the watchtower leaders over the last one hundred years?.
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Rapunzel
Free - According to Merriam-Webster's on-line dictionary, a secondary definition of the word tangible is "capable of being precisely identified or realized by the mind," as in "her grief was tangible." So, I do believe we have to let ole J.C. slide into home here, as it were.
My concern with his post is when he quotes the bible as stating that eagles will gather around the carcass. I always thought that it was vultures - and not eagles - that gather around a carcass. And while, whereas it could be argued that eagles, falcons and hawks can be classified together, vultures are a totally different species. So, it seems that someone - somewhere - is making an egregious error in zoological classification. As far as the bible is concerned, this would be by no means the only such error. After all, doesn't the King James version speak of "unicorns"?
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86
On the sound use of mental suicide.
by Narkissos inthis topic is meant as a follow-up of my recent conversation with r. crusoe on different threads.. it seems to me that the current popularisation of eckhart tolle's philosophy, resurrecting what i think is the very core of age-old mystical traditions (to put it shortly: death of the culturally constructed "self"), without the collective mythological, institutional and social settings for such an experience, is potentially very liberating but also very dangerous.. i am sensitive to that because i went through a similar experience when i left jws -- i felt both its empowering and destructive force, and, although i certainly don't claim to have dealt with it optimally (is that an adverb?
), i'm hoping that experience, good or bad, may benefit others, to an extent.
and i'm sure that i'm not alone in that case.. so i'd like this thread to be primarily supportive, even though that may include some theoretical and practical criticism.. .
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Rapunzel
Narkissos: I certainly don't want to seem pedantic, but English does indeed have an indefinite pronoun - the approximate equivalent of the German Man or the French on. In English, one can use the indefinite pronoun one. The problem is that one may well appear a little pretentious if one uses the indefinite pronoun one since this particular pronoun is now somewhat archaic. It is indeed a pity that one can no longer use the pronoun one without being accused of using speech which is considered...what is the French term?...recherche [Sorry! I know that there should be an accent aigu on the last "e," but my laptop isn't set up to input accents]
All joking aside, English does have the indefinite pronoun, one, although its usage in contemporary English is now somewhat rare. Having been a tanslator, you are without a doubt aware that, in English, it is preferable to render the German Man or the French on into the passive voice. For example, on ne fait pas cela becomes "that is not done." But I agree that it is a pity that the indefinite pronoun one is no longer commonly used in contemporary English. It can be said [on peut dire] that English is lacking due to, and all the worse for, this fact.