scotoma

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Posts by scotoma

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  10

  Shooting stars at end of JW video about New Tuxedo HQ

  by scotoma in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the videos on jw.org are nauseatingly corporate and propagandistic.. the smiling blondes that are showcased - the big executives sitting at their thrones (authoritative.

  desks).

  the workers clad in their orange safety uniforms like so many worker bees in a hive.. the word "love" used over and over again.

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  scotoma

  AnnOmaly,

  I must confess I'm not completely oriented to this planet yet.

  The JW.org is clever enough that if they didn't want the shooting star effect they could easily have removed it.

  I really don't care about the origins of any omens. But they seem to care about origins of such things.

  It just seemed like they were going for a little "magic realism"

  Professor Matthew Strecher defines magic realism as "what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded by something too strange to believe." [2] From Wikipedia
• 
  10

  Shooting stars at end of JW video about New Tuxedo HQ

  by scotoma in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the videos on jw.org are nauseatingly corporate and propagandistic.. the smiling blondes that are showcased - the big executives sitting at their thrones (authoritative.

  desks).

  the workers clad in their orange safety uniforms like so many worker bees in a hive.. the word "love" used over and over again.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  scotoma

  The videos on JW.Org are nauseatingly corporate and propagandistic.

  The smiling blondes that are showcased - the big executives sitting at their thrones (authoritative
  desks). The workers clad in their orange safety uniforms like so many worker bees in a hive.

  The word "love" used over and over again. We love the brothers, we love the location, we love
  the RBC members (hate abbreviations that are OK on paper but smack of rigid hierarchical
  structures.) You're going to love this place. City lovers are going to love this lovely location.
  Women driving forklifts and working like men when they can't even talk from a lectern.

  And then at the end they show a starry sky that doesn't represent any part of the known
  heaven-scape and then they go wild with a bunch of shooting stars. How manipulative and pagan.
  Shooting stars are omens of good things to come.
• 
  8

  Articles on Quantum Mechanics in the magazines, how many?

  by VM44 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  how many articles on quantum mechanics have been published in the watchtower and awake magazines?.

  could someone with the wt-cd library check on this?.

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  scotoma

  I used to talk to a JW by the name of Frank Kappel?? (my memory isn't perfect) He lived in Oregon or Washington State.

  This was back in the 1990's when AOL had a religious discussion forum.

  He used his actual name. He authored a college textbook on Quantum Mechanics.

  He is dead now. But we had some interesting discussions.

  I saved an email from him where he answered one of my questions about the relationship between the four forces. I will try to dig it up.

  He was a very skeptical JW and definitely didn't believe in demons. He would defend JW's when compared to other religions but at the same time was critical of JW's.

  There were a certain type of free thinker that became JW's in the 1940's and 1950's. They were religious by their traditional upbringing and hadn't worked out the ideas that would have pushed them toward atheism. The idea that religion was a snare and a racket appealed to them.

  During that time when the cold war was raging JW's seemed to have a plausibile explanation of events. That has all faded.

  Frank was that type and coincidentally was a physics professor.

  I've known other highly educated people who became JW's after years of dealing with severe alcoholism. Guess they were in search of any kind of "higher power" that could get that monkey off their back.

  Let me know if anyone from the North West knew this guy personally.
• 
  47

  Could there really be something to the UFO phenomena? Amazing documentary

  by yadda yadda 2 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  it's easy to just poo-poo the ufo thing, especially if you're naturally very skeptical after your jw experience as i am, but when you see documentary's like this it seems undeniable that some kind of inexplicable phenomenon is occuring.

  .

  could vehement deniars of the ufo phenomenon please suspend their criticisms until they've at least watched the whole documentary, to be fair to others who are more open-minded on this subject.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjismjxshpg.

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  scotoma

  Mad Giant,

  I agree with you about these documentaries. They take so long to say something that could be said very simply with a few paragraphs and some short illustrative videos of about 30 seconds. If I want to listent to music or watch stock scenes on various topics I'll do that. Why stretch it out.

  About the laws of the universe. We simply don't know it all. We think we do. But then later we see that we were wrong.

  For example who would think that by spinning a coil of wires in a magnetic field would produce electricity. Such a simple idea that revolutionized our world. There may be a fairly simple way to jump dimensions. Like clicking the heels of some ruby slippers.
• 
  47

  Could there really be something to the UFO phenomena? Amazing documentary

  by yadda yadda 2 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  it's easy to just poo-poo the ufo thing, especially if you're naturally very skeptical after your jw experience as i am, but when you see documentary's like this it seems undeniable that some kind of inexplicable phenomenon is occuring.

  .

  could vehement deniars of the ufo phenomenon please suspend their criticisms until they've at least watched the whole documentary, to be fair to others who are more open-minded on this subject.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjismjxshpg.

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  scotoma

  Metatron states the problem clearly. The choice isn't between God and Atheism. There is the possibility of aliens of finitie power that can do amazing things because their technology is GOD_LIKE.

  The difference in believing in aliens and an all powerful all knowing god is that aliens are POSSIBLE beings whereas Omnipotent and Omniscient being is an impossibility.

  Alliens would have gone through the usual process that produces complexity which is modification over generations.

  Intelligence doesn't start with mind. The only minds we know about are embodied. Mind is an emergent quality.

  Even if there were positive proof of alien visitations if they don't talk to us they might as well be migrating birds flying south for the winter.
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  13

  THE GROUP vs the reality of the group=A CULT

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  basic principle of rational thinking:.

  what man can test against reality he can disprove!.

  what man cannot test against reality he cannot.. ____________________________________________.

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  scotoma

  Let's have a moment of silence for Ayn Rand.

  All praise the Bitch Goddess of Capitalism.
• 
  13

  THE GROUP vs the reality of the group=A CULT

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  basic principle of rational thinking:.

  what man can test against reality he can disprove!.

  what man cannot test against reality he cannot.. ____________________________________________.

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  scotoma

  I want to add something for clarification. There is a difference between a collective or organization and the political concept of "collectivism".

  Cooperative effort does mean you make your talents available to the group. However, if they don't accept what you feel is your best contribution then its a bad fit.

  The trouble with religion is that it comes on like the only game in town. There IS a marketplace.
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  13

  THE GROUP vs the reality of the group=A CULT

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  basic principle of rational thinking:.

  what man can test against reality he can disprove!.

  what man cannot test against reality he cannot.. ____________________________________________.

  1. 
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  scotoma

  Terry,

  I cross posted. I think we really agree, don't you?

  I don't trust any group that would accept me as a member. _Marx- Groucho Marx that is.
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  13

  THE GROUP vs the reality of the group=A CULT

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  basic principle of rational thinking:.

  what man can test against reality he can disprove!.

  what man cannot test against reality he cannot.. ____________________________________________.

  1. 
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  3. 
• 

  scotoma

  Terry,

  I should have asked you what you disagree with.

  I agree with your statement "One little slip and you are doomed to be excluded from your drug (certainty) and the group itself"

  My basic premise just elaborates on what you said ie. we are conditioned to be in cults because of the historically authoritarian structure of the family.

  Our family is our O-G that got us dependent on the family drug.

  People need to grow out of the dependency on family.

  The demand for unconditional love is unrealistic. I have never met anyone who loved me unconditionally. There are always benefits to the other person whether monetary or emotional.

  When the benefits stop - the love stops.

  It's called a transaction. A social transaction.

  If you love your family more than yourself you are doomed.

  If your JW family loves their "new family" more than they do you then it's time to move on.

  Many have done that. This forum is really a JW Annonymous. It's a place where we can get off the dependency drug.

  So, basically I'm saying I agree with YOU. And, agree with you that collectivism, like any -ism, is probably more bad then good. We just have to be cautious about affiliating with any kind of group whether for a living, special interest, therapeutic etc.

  Once we know our own identity we will know when there is synergy between our identity and the group's purpose.

  Family should be a place where you learn your identity. Unfortunately, we have these giant people running our lives and oftentimes our individual temperaments are different from these "giant authorities" and

  we make poor adaptations to them and bury our core identity.
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  13

  THE GROUP vs the reality of the group=A CULT

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  basic principle of rational thinking:.

  what man can test against reality he can disprove!.

  what man cannot test against reality he cannot.. ____________________________________________.

  1. 
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  3. 
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  scotoma

  Terry,

  The concept of improving conditions and opportunities for family members was not the dominant aim for the hundreds of thousands of years of history.

  There was no concept of the "good life". There was only "life".

  It was about basic survival. Men beat their rivals to death to protect their offspring. And when their offspring grew up to challenge them they would beat them to death if they infringed on their territory.

  The mere idea of "wanting things for your offspring you never had" is a thuggish agenda because they would have to take things from the weak.

  What things would a hunter gatherer want for their kids that they never had?

  Lifespan was about 30 years for most of human history.

  The aim was to simply stay alive. A brutish father that had to physically struggle for his position in the extended family hierarchy would probably consider his

  own children as competitors.

  We enjoy a great life in the US because we are members of a very successful collective that has dominated all the others.

  The reason cults emerge is because people who survived these last million years evolved in a milieu of graybacks and their coalitions.

  Sociability is a blessing and a curse.