Posts by SweetBabyCheezits

11

Respect for the Scientific Disciplines

by sabastious in

jw
friends

there is a really good movie called master and commander: the far side of the world starring russell crowe and paul bettany.

the setting is a ship at sea in the early 19th century.

crowe plays the captain of the ship, a man of faith, and bettany plays a physcian who studies the world around him.

SweetBabyCheezits

Metatron: more respect for engineering (practical and real), less respect for theoretical science (often unempirical, here of late)

Yeah, Albert Einstein, we don't need your theoretical physics junkin' up our universities when we have perfectly good, practical engineering cirriculums out there! What have your theories of special and general relativity done for me lately, anyways?

I keed, Metatron. Maybe that's a strawman on my part. But if we discredit theoretical science and put it on the backburner, aren't we applying the brakes on man's progress? Doesn't theoretical science provide the foundations for a lot of practical applications in the future?

Short-term v. long-term - a subset of the excluded middle, but so important I've pulled it out for special attention (e.g., We can't afford programmes to feed malnourished children and educate preschool kids. We need to urgently deal with crime on the streets. Or: why explore space or pursue fundamental science when we have so huge a budget deficit?) - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World, p.202

49

Reading is NOT Overrated!

by White Dove in

how do you read?.

i find myself attracted to certain authors and book series.. which reminds me, i need to download the grapes of wrath.. i love steinbeck's writing of historical fiction.

looking into the history of frontier america is so interesting when written in story form.. i read from most genres.. what's your poison?.

SweetBabyCheezits

Just finished Vonnegut's Sirens of Titan and now reading Breakfast of Champions.

I'll put my vote in for e-readers. Having the ability to highlight passages, add notes, set bookmarks and have them compiled in their own section for quick/easy reference, and grab definitions of unfamiliar words.... all within the context of the book text... it's teh goodness. I love it.

Also love the fact that I can download a lot of classics online (or through iBooks Store) via Project Gutenberg for free.

49

Movies that resonate with you as an ex-JW or awake JW

by RayPublisher in

the matrix - "do you want the blue pill or the red pill?

", "all i offer you is the truth", "ignorance is bliss", "the matrix is all around us".

shutter island - creepy, is it real or isn't it, it turns out the whole thing is a dream.

SweetBabyCheezits

Armageddon - it had a ridiculous plot, terrible acting, and it was an utter waste of time. Seems like there was something else that resonated with JW life, too, but I can't remember.

Thankfully, Armageddon was only a couple of hours.

778

IS GOD REAL? HOW DO YOU KNOW?

by still thinking in

jw
friends

this is an honest question on my part.

someone on this board asked me 'how do you know' a while ago and i really struggled with it.

in fact, it was a turning point for me.

SweetBabyCheezits

TEC: I think Vander (and the on-line dictionary, lol) has a different definition of proud there: arrogant. That is the meaning of the word before 1000AD. The opposite of humble, which is not proud/arrogant.

I understand, Tammy. But Van's assertion was just another cop-out, so I tweaked the corollary to fit a little better (in my opinion). After all, the word humility, to some, means uncritically accepting their concept of god. To question their concept is to question the supreme intelligence of the universe. And who would think he knows more than "god" but someone who is extremely arrogant?

Humility, to me, includes being less than certain (and by no means dogmatic) regarding ideas for which there's no evidence.

When scientists don’t know something — like why the universe came into being or how the first self-replicating molecules formed — they admit it. Pretending to know things one doesn’t know is a profound liability in science. And yet it is the life-blood of faith-based religion. One of the monumental ironies of religious discourse can be found in the frequency with which people of faith praise themselves for their humility, while claiming to know facts about cosmology, chemistry and biology that no scientist knows. When considering questions about the nature of the cosmos and our place within it, atheists tend to draw their opinions from science. This isn’t arrogance. It is intellectual honesty. - Sam Harris

322

My son was murdered today

by truman in

i have been on this site daily, almost from its beginning, since i left the jws in 2001, but i have been more of a reader than a poster, as you can see from my post count.

i know few here know me, although i know many of you through reading your posts.

maybe it is not right to ask for support, when i generally stay quietly in the background of this forum, but i want only to speak a human misery of the deepest kind.

SweetBabyCheezits

I'm so sorry, Truman. It breaks my heart to hear that.

778

IS GOD REAL? HOW DO YOU KNOW?

by still thinking in

jw
friends

this is an honest question on my part.

someone on this board asked me 'how do you know' a while ago and i really struggled with it.

in fact, it was a turning point for me.

SweetBabyCheezits

Van: God hides Himself from the proud

SBC: ....and exposes himself to the naive. How convenient.

TEC: Naive is not the opposite of proud, SBC.

No, it's not. But I didn't think Van's statement was completely accurate. (There are plenty of proud people who 'know Jesus.') My observation is that "god makes himself known" to those who are willing to suppress their critical thinking in lieu of just believing. In my opinion, that is naivete.

In a similar vein, JW's in my old cong loved to work the "humble" neighborhoods, which translated to an uneducated, poorer demographic. Those with little education were more likely to accept their glorious message without raising an eyebrow. The "proud" (aka, educated) folks weren't so accomodating.

21

religulous

by independenthinker in

jw
friends

has anyone else watched this?

i thought it was really funny!.

SweetBabyCheezits

Great movie! Here's an odd tidbit: Before we got DF'd, a JW friend of mine (a devoutish MS) said he'd watched it and thought it was funny. I was surprised he enjoyed it. I guess he had his blinders on since it was making fun of, y'know, other religions as opposed to "true Christians".

778

IS GOD REAL? HOW DO YOU KNOW?

by still thinking in

jw
friends

this is an honest question on my part.

someone on this board asked me 'how do you know' a while ago and i really struggled with it.

in fact, it was a turning point for me.

SweetBabyCheezits

Van: God hides Himself from the proud

....and exposes himself to the naive. How convenient.

If only Outlaw were here he could post an appropriate pic.

102

Explain in a FEW word's why the 607 date is incorrect.

by XPeterX in

jw
friends

"if you can't explain it simply you don't understand it wel enough" albert einstein.

SweetBabyCheezits

At one time, I was focused on the 607 issue because that was my "red pill." So I picked up The Gentile Times Revised and started crunching numbers and issues with JW chronology. Since then, I've purged my brain of all that crap and now I don't think the WTBTS arguments deserves the dignity of being debated. (Notice no mainstream scholars grant it the slightest weight.)

In order to corroborate ANYTHING in the Bible, the WT forefathers first had to rely on the expertise of secularly educated minds... in many cases, the consensus of archaeologists, historians, and other scholars.

Without these, they'd have no anchor from which to derive their ridiculous dates and calculations. None whatsoever. Forget about even the parts of the Bible that ARE historically accurate.

So when the WTBTS turns around and rejects the expertise of these same groups (and specifically, the consensus), they are sawing off the very branch on which they sit.

46

No can I get out of going in service?

by Captain Obvious in

jw
friends

as some of you who read my previous thread know, my matrix moment has passed, and i am on my way out.

i am trying very hard to fade slowly in hopes that my wife will wake up, and maybe my family too.

the problem is, my conscience still works well, and i don't want to go out in if service and tell people things that i know aren't true.

SweetBabyCheezits

Obvious, so much of what you say about your relationship with your wife reminds me of where we were a few years back. How can a person sell a product he doesn't believe in? For a period of time I compromised with my wife that I would just make RVs on householders who were chatty. Would meet and tell the group we were going alone. That quickly turned into the wife's RVs only and then eventually it got the best of me and I told her I could no longer support any amount of "field service". That was tough on her emotionally because we also had a child then, so she didn't have my help when she wanted to take our daughter out with her.

You guys can make it through this. Not that it will be easy or quick, necessarily, but you can do it if you're persistent. If I were to do things over, I would probably be more patient but back then I NEVER expected her to lose her faith in the WTBTS so I was in a bit of despair. If I'd known she would eventually wise up to the WT's game, I'd like to think I would play my hand differently.

I still remember the week she told me she was feeling skeptical about WT teachings. Man, that was an incredible feeling.

FWIW, we were both DF'd in the fall of 2010 for apostasy, after I defended our inactivity with my parents and my dad sent the elders to "investigate" our views. Regardless, today we're as happy as ever. Here's my experience if it helps...

http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/195924/1/A-uh-belated-introduction