And that is precisely why we need critical thinking emphasized in the school system.
SweetBabyCheezits
JoinedPosts by SweetBabyCheezits
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SweetBabyCheezits
BD: Cheeze, what critical thinking, to me, is this. I am taught all sides of an issue. I am taught the valid and invalid points on each issue with all honesty. I am presented with all sides and allowed to come to a conclusion on my own.
SBC: BD, I take it you didn't watch the YouTube.
BD: I didn't. But I know what critical thinking REALLY is.
The essence of your reply would seem to indicate otherwise. (Edited to soften my dogmatic approach.)
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SweetBabyCheezits
BD, I take it you didn't watch the YouTube.
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SweetBabyCheezits
We have been teaching critical thinking for YEARS though. It's not a recent study. Education must paired with active and very SPECIFIC training.
What does critical thinking mean to you, BD? To me, it is a means to intellectual humility and honesty... the ability to say "I don't know". But only if applied personally, right?
I guess I should take my own medicine and clarify that, in my little realm of experience, if it had been taught early and often, I believe I would've been equipped to find my way out of the organization much sooner. I didn't learn it in primary or secondary.
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SweetBabyCheezits
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." - Thoreau
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SweetBabyCheezits
Bethel: I mean what I think everybody's hoping for is that ASAP that everyone stops believing in the JW religion - by force or any other means. But that just will never happen, like undercover said. But, 20, 30, or 50 years from now many will eventually admit that their religious beliefs, particularly those of JWs were completely messed up.
I absolutely agree with JNFB when I say education as in a long term plan, not a quick fix. Teaching children critical thinking would be an effective tool that doesn't impinge on human rights like a ban. The logistics may be difficult (ie, BD's comment that JWs would take kids out) but I'm envisioning a curriculum that absolutely requires critical thinking courses.
If you are at all unclear as to what true critical thinking encompasses, you'd be doing yourself a huge favor to look into it. Here's an awesome intro to it (and I'll give someone a cookie if they'll embed it).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OLPL5p0fMg
I could very well be wrong but it seems that many of the worlds biggest problems spring from an epidemic of ignorance and misinformation. Religion is a major carrier and one's environment as a child plays a large role in that, too. Parents pass on dogmatic views, based on ignorance or a failure to question, and then it becomes a cycle. Too few children grow up and break that cycle.
Critical thinking, to me, would help solve much of this for future generations if we teach it early and often.
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"are you a jehovah?"
by sweet ini love it when i hear people ask jws "are you a jehovah?
" i silently laugh and say to myself "nope, they are not god.
they are as human as you and i are.
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SweetBabyCheezits
Betting there's a past thread that addresses how some JWs say JehoveR... gonna go search for it.
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34
"are you a jehovah?"
by sweet ini love it when i hear people ask jws "are you a jehovah?
" i silently laugh and say to myself "nope, they are not god.
they are as human as you and i are.
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SweetBabyCheezits
Once heard "Wehova Jitness" from a drunk guy on New Year's morning. (I learned to avoid FS on holidays, esp new years and xmas.)
"Jehobo Witness" was another favorite.
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SweetBabyCheezits
Putting my vote in for EDUCATION, like Billy said, but perhaps not as WT-specific. If all children were required by law to complete critical thinking skills courses throughout their schooling, they would be equipped to identify and filter out all religious and cultural tradition baloney. Allow them to believe as they like but give them the tools to eliminate bias and presupposition from judgment (or as much as possible).
That, in my opinion, would be a reasonably diplomatic means to cut the head off the snake.
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Mother In-Law expressed DOUBTS ABOUT THE BORG!!!
by brotherdan inon saturday i was watching tv and my mother-in law was hanging out at the house and asked me if i'd come in the office and talk to her for a second.
i thought, "great...she's heard that i don't believe in the wt anymore..." so i went back and asked her what was up.
she said, "i'm having a tough time and really doubting things in the organization.
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SweetBabyCheezits
BD, just wondering if there's any chance you could get your wife (or MIL) to put herself in a less-biased position by reading accounts of exmormons (exmormon.org). That is one thing that helped mine since she refused to look at exJW testimony. But it took a great deal of reasoning (read:arguments) before she really allowed herself to even visit an exMormon site.
I personally don't believe in the Bible as the inspired, inerrant book of God but find it self-defeating to say as much when arguing with devout JWs. Seems that the JW mind shuts tighter when the bible is discredited.
That said, the "we're the only ones preaching" point is tough for me to debate from the bible because as far as I can see, JWs are the only group that take Matt 24:14 so literally and poking the public eye with it.
To make things more difficult, very few JWs seem to understand the concept of self-fulfilling prophecy to make the connection. (Actually, "self-fulfilling" may not be accurate... Thomas Theorem maybe? I'm not sure. Maybe I don't understand the concept either.)
So when debating this topic, I'm usually only left with a couple of points if I'm 'reasoning on the scriptures'. Unfortunately, both points rely on the other person's ability to accept that the WTBTS just has another perspective. And we all know that for a person who holds the presupposition that the WT is god's spokesman, such arguments are weak.
- Modern day self-fulfillment of prophecy proves nothing. And Col 1:23 (where Paul said that the good news HAD been preached in all the earth) could be accepted as fulfillment of Matt. 24:14, lending credence to preterist views that such prophecies were fulfilled by (and upon) the destruction of Jerusalem by Gallus around 70CE. Another perspective/interpretation that doesn't prove anything.
- For JWs, the "preaching of the good news" is their most prized unique mark (since they discredit Mormons), IMO. I reason that for the Amish, they, too, have a unique identifier: "being no part of the world". They take that passage literally as much as JWs take global D2D preaching literally. Then it's simply a matter of viewpoint. The JWs' silver bullet is as subjective the next religion's.
I'm always looking for new perspectives. Were you able to get in words in with your MIL on the preaching point?