You some how think the ranting of looney's is what the society is afraid of teary? It's not the looney's they are afraid of, it's the perfectly sane ones like you're talking to now. They aren't warning against people that are obviously off their rocker, no witness would be convinced by barely comprehensible ranting. What they are afraid of is that a witness is going to want to know something about "the finished mystery" and in a quick google search they find Barbara Anderson, Paul Grundy, or Ray Franz. People that are polite, articulate, well spoken, and with mountains of evidence and reason and experience at their back. They aren't afraid of spambots showing pyramids next to russel, they are afraid of "http://jwfacts.com" and with good reason.
JonathanH
JoinedPosts by JonathanH
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85
Good to study JW past .... New "Writing Archives" under direction of the Writing Committee
by wannabefree inyes friends, it is important to understand your rich spiritual heritage as jehovah's witnesses, and so you don't have to look at old publications on your own or refer to worldly sources, the organization is pleased to select for you the history as we want you to have it and you can get it in your current watchtower.. from january 15, 2012 watchtower pg 31-32. the governing body is keenly interested in.
our theocratic history.
in commenting on the.
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Toronto, Canada: FREE Screening of Disfellowshipping DOCUMENTARY next Wednesday
by AndersonsInfo infree film screening at the university of toronto next wednesday, october 19th at 6:00 p.m. .
emmanuel college of victoria university in the university of toronto presents: .
a film by erin mcmichael.
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JonathanH
I really wish I could be there, and at the very least I hope something is posted where I can read about the results, and the comments by the academics. And of course I hope I can see the short at some point too.
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85
Good to study JW past .... New "Writing Archives" under direction of the Writing Committee
by wannabefree inyes friends, it is important to understand your rich spiritual heritage as jehovah's witnesses, and so you don't have to look at old publications on your own or refer to worldly sources, the organization is pleased to select for you the history as we want you to have it and you can get it in your current watchtower.. from january 15, 2012 watchtower pg 31-32. the governing body is keenly interested in.
our theocratic history.
in commenting on the.
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JonathanH
You can find them teary, because clearly you don't fear the internet. But just about any witness I've ever known would hesitate to put "watchtower" into google, lest they end up in a place like this. And whether or not you mind being here, the society is not exactly ambiguous with their instructions about going to any website other than their own to look up anything related to JWs.
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There is No Morality Without God
by whereami inaddressing the argument, made by many christians, that with no god there can be no morality.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnu-qbgxmn0.
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JonathanH
I agree 100% cofty, it's insane to say that we are worse off now morally than we were a hundred years ago. Isn't it terrible how blacks and women have rights now, or how it's frowned upon to tar and feather homosexuals, that racism is taboo rather than racial tolerance, so on and so forth. The world was only a better place for straight white men. Everyone else I'm pretty sure would rather live today than a hundred years ago.
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There is No Morality Without God
by whereami inaddressing the argument, made by many christians, that with no god there can be no morality.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnu-qbgxmn0.
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JonathanH
That's a fantastic example NewChapter! What the hell did things like that have to do with prosperity of mankind? Now if you asked a religious moral philosopher whether it would've been immoral for them NOT to wear blue, they would probably say "no, that wouldn't be immoral" because that act wasn't immoral, but they would probably chime in "But disobeying god's mandate was immoral", and that introduces a third and very important element to morality. Control. Obedience to those of the higher caste was almost always a moral mandate in countless religious cultures. The preist said it, you have to do it, it's wrong not to. The JWs operate with this mentality to an extreme. Their greatest moral imperitive is to obey the society.
I think those are the three aspects of "morality", control, identification, and the well being of concious things. But only the last one is of any importance in a post enlightenment society. We don't need blind obedience to authority figures, and identification is more harmful than anything (seeing as how that is what creates prejudice and bigotry). The last one however doesn't come from some innate understanding. It's complex, multifaceted, and there are no easy answers. Attempting to pigeon hole it with something as simple as "the golden rule" doesn't work, because cultures want different things out of life. We don't just "get it" in our "heart of hearts" or something lame like that, but with diligent study, meditation, and contemplation we've managed to work towards it for thousands of years. It's not because we have progressively stopped ignoring the unicorn in our heart telling us right from wrong, it's because great men and women dedicate their lives to civil rights movements, ethical philosophy, conciousness raising and other means of working towards the benefit of everyone rather than the benefit of their singular group. That's what we need more of, we don't need more people consulting bronze age barbarians and mystics and demanding we follow their tribal council.
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85
Good to study JW past .... New "Writing Archives" under direction of the Writing Committee
by wannabefree inyes friends, it is important to understand your rich spiritual heritage as jehovah's witnesses, and so you don't have to look at old publications on your own or refer to worldly sources, the organization is pleased to select for you the history as we want you to have it and you can get it in your current watchtower.. from january 15, 2012 watchtower pg 31-32. the governing body is keenly interested in.
our theocratic history.
in commenting on the.
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JonathanH
You're right teary, you reiterated what I said. It wouldn't be free (though given their resources it would be a drop in the bucket), it's just a matter of they don't want to. Letting anyone from academics, to witnesses, to apostates freely peruse their library doesn't benefit them one iota. And that is exactly what it's about. Will this benefit them, hurt them, or be a benign benefit to those that seek more information? Unless it's the first one, they won't do it. What will benefit them, however, is to give brief snippets of historical documents that they can put into whatever context they want (kind of like the bible.) It wouldn't benefit them at all to just put up all the information for all to see without them providing spin, context or explanation. And they aren't going to do something that doesn't directly benefit them. I mean what do we think they are, some kind of religious charity? It's a corporation after all.
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161
There is No Morality Without God
by whereami inaddressing the argument, made by many christians, that with no god there can be no morality.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnu-qbgxmn0.
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JonathanH
@Cofty
Because morality is relic from a bygone era of tribal thinking. It's a way of seperating the actions of one group from the actions of another group, as well as defining who belongs to which group. Look around at what people use morality for. It's not so much to ensure the well being of people, so much as it is used to define who belongs to which group, or more importantly "is this person in my group?" Views on war, homosexuality, poverty, ect are convenient ways to see if this person is part of your group or not. Like you said, "morality" is a bottom up thing, and as newchapter pointed out, it often had more to do with finding obtuse methods and reasons for dealing with undesired outcomes when real knowledge was absent, than with innate goalposts for human well being. But once it becomes imprinted on a culture, it's a convenient way to identify "us" from "them". In theory, your definition of morality is what most people mean, but in practice morality is cult of tradition being ever formed by the cultural influences around it. It's a complex thing, certainly not so simple as "we all just understand it."
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Beware the educated, they are mentally diseased.
by JonathanH insaw this poster on a website and i had to post it here.
i think it really shows the twisted way of thinking that witnesses have cultured into them.
they turn virtues into vices, and vices into virtues.
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JonathanH
I haven't decided 100% on which engineering degree, but I think I'm going to go for electrical. MAYBE mechanical, but I don't really have any interest in civil. In the university I am going to, the electrical engineering degree comes with a minor degree in mathematics, just by virtue of the classes required. If I want to get my degree in Mathematics as well, that would just put me a hop, skip and jump away from a major since I will have the minor already.
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161
There is No Morality Without God
by whereami inaddressing the argument, made by many christians, that with no god there can be no morality.
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnu-qbgxmn0.
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JonathanH
The view that we all have an innate morality built into us I think can be surmised as thus. We all know something, but nobody can agree on exactly what it is that we know, merely that we all know it, and furthermore it can be agreed that some people are ignoring what it is that they know (but we can't say exactly what it is that they know that they are ignoring...knowingly), but it's obvious some people are ignoring it, but it's less obvious who is ignoring it and exactly when they are ignoring whatever obvious thing they are ignoring, but we all know it...whatever it is. Objective morality is just as clear as that.
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85
Good to study JW past .... New "Writing Archives" under direction of the Writing Committee
by wannabefree inyes friends, it is important to understand your rich spiritual heritage as jehovah's witnesses, and so you don't have to look at old publications on your own or refer to worldly sources, the organization is pleased to select for you the history as we want you to have it and you can get it in your current watchtower.. from january 15, 2012 watchtower pg 31-32. the governing body is keenly interested in.
our theocratic history.
in commenting on the.
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JonathanH
Work load is never an excuse for an organization of millions of volunteers, especially a billion dollar corporation that lives on volunteer work. Even if it took five years for a group of bethelites to go through the library book by book, it would still be an immensely cheap project. And even if they had to host a WHOLE gigabyte of material on the internet, that would be chump change to a billion dollar corporation. It's not a matter of ability or practicality, it's a matter of willingness. It's the information age. Getting information out is ridiculously easy. Keeping information in, however, is a difficult task. They are attempting the latter, while doing a poor job at appearing to do the former.