Posts by JanH

well, i was a wiliing patient, and the lady hypnotist led me down into a beautiful imaginery garden, filled with flowers and birds where i could be at peace.

Adherents of repressed memory theory sometimes point to the single supporting case study of "Jane Doe", put forth by psychiatrist David Corwin in 1997. Elizabeth Lofthus and Melvin Guyer decided to investigate this case study more carefully, and came up with some quite interesting facts that Corwin had not found it convenient to include in his original work.

I remember this quite well, since I wrote about it in my blog two weeks ago.

- Jan

Blogging at Secular Blasphemy

31

what kind of mind-control ?

by grace4u in

jw
friends

i need help in finding out just what kind of mind control the jw's use on their members.

i have never been a jw, and need some specifics on this to help my sister, who is a jw.. just what kind of fear tactics did they instill upon you, and other ways of mind controlling?.

i know all the doctrines from research i have done, but not really sure on the specific things they said to keep you in, not listen to outsiders, and fear from leaving the orginization.. you all are so helpful in these posts, and i know you all will give me some great info.. thanks so much, grace4u

JanH

I agree with Pork Chop's comments, though they surely could have been delivered in a more delicate way

No minds are "controlled." We were persuaded to believe something that we later found out to be untrue. We were emotionally attached to a belief system, and therefor we for a long time chose to commit unethical acts and to ignore contrary facts. That is the same people all over the world experience, in thousands of ideologies and religions . If we want to be cynical, that is what human culture is about. Human beings aren't as rational as we would like to think.

- Jan

Blogging at Secular Blasphemy

60

Repressed Memories.

by Englishman in

jw
friends

some years ago, i visited a hypnotist in an effort to stop chewing my nails.

the habit had become so ingrained that i didn't even know when i was doing it.

well, i was a wiliing patient, and the lady hypnotist led me down into a beautiful imaginery garden, filled with flowers and birds where i could be at peace.

JanH

Seven,

Some have experienced situations that in their own minds were so horrific the mind puts on a form of defense and seems to put some kind of a mental pad lock on those memories to enable those who have experienced those things to deal with them by blocking them out.

That is the basic claim of many "repressed memory" therapists, yes. In general, it is not true. Extensive research on people who we know experienced some of the worst trauma imaginable, in particular holocaust survivors, shows that the worse the trauma, the clearer the memory. This is also true about children who were in kz camps. It is also true about thousands of people who lived through horrible suffering, like war veterans. Typically, they have recurring nightmares decades later. I am sure many would wish they could forget. So, the theory that severe trauma makes the human mind repress horrible memories as a form of self defence is not supported by fact. If it was true, you should expect that a significant number of people who we know had childhood trauma later repressed it. Research has failed to support the claim.

That said, it is surely the case that loss of memory happens all the time, especially of early childhood experiences. Accidents, mental disorders, etc can cause loss of memory. Naturally, abuse can cause such things to happen in individual cases. Sometimes lost memory can resurface by sensory input. I am sure we have all experienced a memory we'd forgotten for a long time resurfacing because of e.g. a sound or a smell.

Again, the basic claim of suppressed memory therapists is that there is a mechanism of suppression after severe abuse, and that their specific methods (hypnosis, etc) helps to recall memory. Cognitive research has pretty much established that there is no such suppression mechanism in the human mind, and that the methods employed are more likely to create false memories than recalling lost ones.

And, since you mentioned it: I really don't think that a tape recorder is a very useful analogy for the human brain. Memories are constantly changed and there is really no reliable method to get back to the "original." Sometimes memories are irrevocably lost, and then they cannot be recalled, as there is nowhere to recall them from.

- Jan

Blogging at Secular Blasphemy

16

Primordial soup can it be simulated?

by haujobbz in

jw
friends

i was wondering has anyone been able to simulate how life started in the primordial soup.

someone told me it was tested by stanley miller and it couldnt be reproduced, is this correct or has anyone else proved this theory.

also the jws used this to prove this theory wrong in the creator that cares book but does that really prove it was wrong.

JanH

Old Hippie,

When scientists say that "evolution is a fact" that means that all living organisms today have a common ancestor. It is a fact that we and all other species have evolved from ancestor species that were different from us and are no longer around. That is beyond serious dispute. You may not like it, but that is the state of reality.

Exactly how this happened is something else. The synthetic theory of evolution, called Neo-Darwinian, while extremely well supported by evidence, cannot really be called a "fact". It pretty much explains everything we know about how life evolved, but nobody can a priori rule out the possibility that newer theories will surpass it and explain the fact of evolution better.

It is also a fact (pretty obvious) that life somehow originated. The theories about abiogenesis, how life originated, are pretty well substantiated, but none of them are facts, and I doubt we'll ever be able to know for sure which of a number of possible scenarios actually happened 3.5 billion years or so ago. You'd really have to know biochemistry very well to be able to evaluate whether the current theories have merit or not.

Even so-called Design Theorists, or neo-creationists, mostly accept the fact of evolution (common descent). They insist, however, that God has somehow tweaked a gene here and there, to keep evolution flowing in the right direction. In this, they look for 'skyhooks', examples of organic structures that could not have originated by natural selection. The scientific community has been very little impressed with their attempts to do this.

Science is a disipline that has been successful exactly because it ignores supernatural "explanations". Scientists who discovered and explained electricity had not been content with supernatural explanations of thunder and lightning. I doubt theists today are deeply offended that science textbooks do not open up for the possibility that lightning strokes are really the acts of an angry deity. Why, then, should they not accept that the science of biology is also conducted without looking for deities and spirits?

I also have a problem seeing how making God smaller and smaller by pushing him into small gaps in current scientific knowledge is really sound theology.

- Jan

Blogging at Secular Blasphemy

47

What "Two Witness" Rule?

by Amazing in

jw
friends

someone please show me where the watchtower society has stated, in cases of serious sin, the rule that requires "two witnesse" to the event or act!

at best, one or two witnesses are preferred!

period ... but if there are no witnesses, then other evidence can be presented to witnesses or the elders.

JanH

Good points, IW.

It is worth noting, however, that modern Bible scholars do not believe that the pastorals (1& 2 timothy & titus) were written by Paul. Stylistic and historical evidence indicates that it was a later follower of Paul who authored those texts.

- Jan

Blogging at Secular Blasphemy

47

What "Two Witness" Rule?

by Amazing in

jw
friends

someone please show me where the watchtower society has stated, in cases of serious sin, the rule that requires "two witnesse" to the event or act!

at best, one or two witnesses are preferred!

period ... but if there are no witnesses, then other evidence can be presented to witnesses or the elders.

JanH

Thanks for all this material, and great investigative work, folks.

Dungbeetle provided scans of the "org" and "lamp" books at her site here: http://community.webshots.com/user/wtdungbeetle

- Jan

Blogging at Secular Blasphemy

60

Repressed Memories.

by Englishman in

jw
friends

some years ago, i visited a hypnotist in an effort to stop chewing my nails.

the habit had become so ingrained that i didn't even know when i was doing it.

well, i was a wiliing patient, and the lady hypnotist led me down into a beautiful imaginery garden, filled with flowers and birds where i could be at peace.

JanH

Englishman,

A very interesting story. It is scary how quack therapists can manipulate human memory. Our memory isn't really like a tape recording. Our perception of the past is continuously changed by the present. Cognitive psychologists today fully reject the "repressed memory" theory. It has still many believers among clinicians. As a friend of mine said, if we don't get rid of homeopaths, we aren't very likely to get rid of the respressed memory quacks any time soon. A lot of them are struggling with law suits from former patients who had their lives and lives of others ruined by their quack-practices.

- Jan

Blogging at Secular Blasphemy

29

What does this scripture mean to you?

by Valis in

jw
friends

i brought this up during the beginnings of the flame war we just encountered and it got overlooked.

for all of you who follow the bible/or not.

luke 9.

JanH

Double Edge,

They are in fact mutually exclusive, at least if we assume there exist people who are neutral, or not at all aware of whatever Jesus wants to accomplish (which surely was and is the case). Logically, the sayings cannot be reconciled.

In one of the sayings, Jesus says that those who are not working against him actively are actually helping him. In the other, he says that everybody that is not actively supporting him are in reality his opponents. The first is inclusive, the second exclusive and quite fanatical.

If Jesus ever lived and indeed said any of this, it is very reasonable to assume that he said one of them, and that his followers garbled and in fact inverted it to produce the other. I'd guess the inclusive version is the oldest.

- Jan

Blogging at Secular Blasphemy

23

Question for xJW historians

by larc in

jw
friends

for those of you who have an interest in jw history, and have studied it, what do you see as the similiarities and differences between russell and rutherford.

now, i am not looking for superficial answers like, they were both full of shit.

i am looking for some content here.

JanH

When I first started studying JW history, I considered Russell a true believer, if mistaken, while I considered Rutherford a total powerfreak and a jerk.

I haven't really changed my mind about Rutherford.

However, after reading about how Russell treated his wife, I now consider him a total hypocrite and a cruel, manipulative bastard. His language and manner was polite, but his actions were cruel. He got rid of everybody in the movement who didn't rever him as a god. Whatever you can say about Rutherford, you at least knew where you had him. He said what he meant. Russell was a cruel, two faced hypocrite, IMO.

- Jan

Blogging at Secular Blasphemy