Posts by Introspection

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting ?
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

23

My Original Identity?

by Cassiline in

i just purchased, combatting cult mind control by steven hassan.. while reading i came across this comment,.

usually i am able to assist a person in making a dramatic recovery to his original identity.. -steven hassan.

i reread that statement over and over.

Introspection

Cassi, I just came across this and thought you might enjoy it:

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting ?
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

23

My Original Identity?

by Cassiline in

i just purchased, combatting cult mind control by steven hassan.. while reading i came across this comment,.

usually i am able to assist a person in making a dramatic recovery to his original identity.. -steven hassan.

i reread that statement over and over.

Introspection

To me, the question of identity is more important than the answer. Thing is, people tend to try to "find" an answer rather than work on the question, kind of like "studying" a WTS publication, underlining the right thing. Life isn't like that. However, I would point out that if you search for your identity in the past it is also a type of finding. You can come across something that you accept as the answer, but I doubt that's the real answer. Most people (including "normal" ones) do this in some way, but usually it is just a story they make up to some extent, it is just their self image rather than their true self.

Frankly, any question of identity is really just a big joke from the absolute perspective. People change through time, and even if you go back to genetics as the standard of who you were supposed to be, we know that's not an absolute determinant of "who" you are either. To me the possibilities are much vaster than that, not as something that is nice to believe in but as a fact of life.

I think a question of self inquiry like this one can be very powerful. Instead of focusing on the insecurity and trying to find a way out of that, it can open the way to real transformation, or rather realizing just who you really are. It reminds me of a zen koan which says "What was the appearance of your original face before your parents were born?" It depends on just how far you want to take this inquiry. I'm no longer so interested in stories about self image or self esteem, those are just opinions, even if it is my own. Even if I don't know, atleast I'm not fooling myself by believing in something that feels nice. Self deception is not something that's only found in cults.

35

Please help, please???? (batting eyelashes)

by outnfree in

i was so happy to read the following quote by janh in another thread: about logic vs reason[ did jan mean emotion here?

], i think a factor may well be that fewer women have high education.

it is a worrying trend that women still do not choose education in 'hard sciences.

Introspection

Found that text. It is "Current Issues and Enduring Questions" by Barnet and Bedau. You might want to look for it.

35

Please help, please???? (batting eyelashes)

by outnfree in

i was so happy to read the following quote by janh in another thread: about logic vs reason[ did jan mean emotion here?

], i think a factor may well be that fewer women have high education.

it is a worrying trend that women still do not choose education in 'hard sciences.

Introspection

Well, just one thing about the use of the word murder. Murder is usually defined as unlawful killing, distinguished from other types of killing. Also, in the main thesis statement itself you don't want to state the reasons, just your position.

If you do go with this position, it seems obvious that one of the main questions you need to answer is what about when it is voluntary, and you're just carrying out the person's wishes? Although some of the reasons stated here might be good counter arguments, I'm sure you know that you want to address the typical "classic" ones that have been expressed in published works. I remember from when I took one of my classes a text used was a bunch of essays on different issues like this, if I see it I'll let you know what the basic positions are. I'm sure you can find a lot of stuff on the web too, so I think a big part of it is to identify how they are supporting their position so that you can address those.

The thing is you're going to be limited in how many arguments you can cover, and you want to cover those well so you want to pick them well and cover them thoroughly with good arguments, rather than go for quantity. For the purpose of the assignment, you may have to ignore some of the counter arguments if you can't get around it, or you might even find yourself changing your thesis because of the arguments against it.

By the way, have you covered fallacies and are there requirements as far as what you need to include in the paper?

35

Please help, please???? (batting eyelashes)

by outnfree in

i was so happy to read the following quote by janh in another thread: about logic vs reason[ did jan mean emotion here?

], i think a factor may well be that fewer women have high education.

it is a worrying trend that women still do not choose education in 'hard sciences.

Introspection

Youths in asia are neither moral nor immoral, they are just people and youths at that.. No seriously, my answer to the real question is about the same, but I can pretend..

First of all I think it will help if you narrow it down more. But I guess the question of voluntary and involuntary euthanasia is the easiest place to start, as the individual's own wishes are involved. That seems pretty straight forward. In a way whether it's active or passive makes little difference, if you know they are going to die either way. Naturally, if it's nonvoluntary it's a bit more iffy.

So with that, the easy way might be to say that involuntary euthanasia is immoral. I guess it really would be hard to give specific information until you come to a specific thesis. I will say this though: the whole thing has to do with the avoidance of pain, rather than preserving life or terminating it. Life just keeps going in the big picture, whether a person wants to be a part of it due to the pain involved for them is the matter in question. To some people pain isn't such a big deal, to others life is all about avoiding pain. It depends on the person. Hope this helps.

* edited to add: It's also not just the pain of the person who is ill, there's the reaction of family member and friends etc.

"Truth and Falsehood are both whatever, and simutaneously NOT so, rather than not." - Alf the Poet (quoted from a post in alt.buddha.short.fat.guy)

15

Advice needed- please help!

by detective in

jw
friends

yesterday i received a surprise phone call from my jw friend.

we met up and uhhh, it was quite the mind-blowing event.

i can't believe it.

Introspection

Hi Detective,

I think the best way is to have some kind of support instead of just hacking away at all the things that are false, because you have to have some serious guts to do that and it should be the individual's own decision if you do take that approach. In any case, it is a bit unbalanced if you only take away rather than have something new.

In reading your message I was reminded of a non-denominational Christian minister who used to live next door to me. I remember that although he knew I was a witness (since I was a good witness at the time and made it known) he refused to discuss doctrinal issues, because he finds it always creates divisions. What impressed me about him was that he was able to be spiritually encouraging without ever quoting anything from the bible. It was clear that he's a Christian and is very knowledgeable, but I think that's really besides the point. Whether he realized it or not, he was crossing boundaries even beyond the broad category of Christian. I'm not sure what your spiritual and religious orientation is, but I would say this is the kind of support that's needed, even if you are not religious in any way.

I would add, though, that there's nothing wrong with quoting from the bible, especially if that's what they can best understand. (however, you'll note that I don't do it that much) If it's the easiest way to work with them, that's fine - but I wouldn't just parrot something without bringing out the core meaning, and to me there's only a few key things that's important enough. This doesn't mean you have to have any kind of religious identification, but if it's enough to make a point that you can agree on then it doesn't matter where it's from. I wouldn't make too big a deal out of it either way, whatever you might quote, it says what it says. I find that if you can bring out the common sense from a scripture it becomes more real to a person, rather than telling them what it says and then telling them what it means. However, if a person was in mainly for social reasons then this part isn't as important, but it goes back to having a deep connection with them, maybe one that's deeper than what they've had with the witnesses. Just rememeber that whatever you do, a lot of it is up to him. Even when you're there to receive someone with open arms, sometimes people don't see that. You're only one person, and while I think that may in fact be enough, he might believe that he needs the congregation. Of course, don't explicitly challenge that by saying something like "I'm the only real friend you've got!" Just be there as a good friend, after a while they'll come to realize that.

*edited to eliminate repetition

D Wiltshire email me

by Introspection in

well, not exactly long lost reunion but i lost your email, and its locked on this board so drop me a line.. mark

Introspection

Well, not exactly long lost reunion but I lost your email, and its locked on this board so drop me a line.

Mark

14

Atheist- What will you do?

by hannibal in

jw
friends

the other day i was watching a program on death row.

inmates, and funny it seemed that most if not all seemed .

to have "found god".they talked about jesus,and there at .

Introspection

*sings the theme song to COPS*