mankkeli

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Posts by mankkeli

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  12

  Is it important to be right?

  by mankkeli in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  sometimes, i think, our western values have drilled in us the importance of "winning" a debate on something of non-importance.. so is "winning" a debate really important?.

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  mankkeli

  Sometimes, I think, our western values have drilled in us the importance of "winning" a debate on something of non-importance.

  So is "winning" a debate really important?
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  7

  I was told Rolf Furuli is an elder

  by mankkeli in

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  how could rolf furuli be an elder considering his secular background?.

  a friend from norway said he is the service overseer in his congregation.

  does anyone have any info to validate this claim?.

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  mankkeli

  How could Rolf Furuli be an elder considering his secular background?. A friend from norway said he is the service overseer in his congregation. Does anyone have any info to validate this claim?. Just curious
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  21

  Liberal Christians and Conservative Christians---The Inescapable Quandries

  by mankkeli in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  it seems to me that whether you are a liberal christian (for purposes of this discussion, one who believes that the bible isn't the inerrant word of god) or a conservative christian (for purposes of this discussion one who believes that the bible is the inerrant word of god), you have quandries that make your faiths untenable.

  interestingly, these quandries are based on logical premises that each group of christians maintain, premises which are reasonable.. .

  the christian who believes that the bible is inerrant has the logical premise that a god who wanted man to know him and understand his commands would give him a book that accurately reflects his nature and commands.

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  mankkeli

  It seems to me that whether you are a liberal Christian (for purposes of this discussion, one who believes that the Bible isn't the inerrant word of God) or a conservative Christian (for purposes of this discussion one who believes that the Bible is the inerrant word of God), you have quandries that make your faiths untenable. Interestingly, these quandries are based on logical premises that each group of Christians maintain, premises which are reasonable.
  
  The Christian who believes that the Bible is inerrant has the logical premise that a God who wanted man to know him and understand his commands would give him a book that accurately reflects his nature and commands. The quandry for these Christians is that they must defend the Bible, which contains contradictions, scientific and historical inaccuracies, and morals that would make most Christians today shudder if they came in any context other than the Bible.
  
  Liberal Christians, on the other hand, reason that since God is a good and loving God and that because he wouldn't write something that weren't true, that therefore the Bible reflects the imperfect humanity of its authors. Since they believe that God wouldn't tolerate slavery or forbid women from preaching, or kill babies to get a point across, they conclude that these teachings and stories don't reflect the real nature of God. The quandry that they face is answering why God, who allegedly wants people to be redeemed and follow his commands, allows himself to be represented in a "half ass" manner, with a book that sort of represents him and sort of doesn't. Or they are forced to finesse what the Bible says in order to make it fit their liberal, enlightened premises.
  
  Logic on both sides of the aisle. Quandries on both sides, as well.
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  11

  Is logic really the best way to decide things?

  by mankkeli in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i think that for many people, and i've noticed particularly for those coming out of religion, logic is held up as the ultimate tool for understanding the world, and non-logic-based methods are derided.

  but even for those who accept a certain amount of intuition, emotion or other non-logical elements in their decision making processes, there is still a pervasive norm priviligeing logical over illogical thinking.. .

  i question that, though.

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  mankkeli

  Twitch - You nailed it, thanks for your brilliant thought.

  There are plenty of things that are hard-wired into our brains, which systematically cause us to make errors. One I read about just last night (although I'd heard about it before) was fundamental attribution error - our brains are systematically biased towards finding that something like success or failure is a result of the characteristics of the person who has succeeded or failed, rather than factors in that person's environment. An example was that when basketball players who had been found to be of equal skill were divided into two groups, and one was allowed to play in a well-lit court, while the other was playing in a poorly lit court, of course the second group was going to make fewer baskets. Even when this was explained to people, and they were told roughly how much difference the lighting makes, they still rated the people playing in the better-lit court as more skillful. I see attribution errors frequently on the forum (blaming the poster for being stupid or stubborn or otherwise deficient in character, without understanding how you yourself could reach the same conclusions) and it's possibly going to be another long post sometime soon. But, I do think that in order to evaluate the postulates your brain is using to guide your intuition, you have to be aware of them. Introspection, psychological experiments, brain imaging and other techniques of study are starting to unpick this unconscious stuff, but we still have a long way to go. But even if we can unpick the unconscious logic of our neural processes, and find some of the logic chains to be invalid in some circumstances, I wonder how much we can change. For example, even if you know someone has had liposuction and plastic surgery, certain physical features are still attractive, and even if we know someone is a great person on the inside, certain physical characteristics are still going to have the opposite effect - although faked signals do seem to have a smaller effect than ones believed to be genuine, in my own case the signals are still there. It may be that there are some instances where we can't stop ourselves from being fooled, even if we know we're being fooled, and we're going to have whatever emotional reactions we're wired for, regardless of whether we think that's wise.
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  11

  Is logic really the best way to decide things?

  by mankkeli in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i think that for many people, and i've noticed particularly for those coming out of religion, logic is held up as the ultimate tool for understanding the world, and non-logic-based methods are derided.

  but even for those who accept a certain amount of intuition, emotion or other non-logical elements in their decision making processes, there is still a pervasive norm priviligeing logical over illogical thinking.. .

  i question that, though.

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  mankkeli

  I think that for many people, and I've noticed particularly for those coming out of religion, logic is held up as the ultimate tool for understanding the world, and non-logic-based methods are derided. But even for those who accept a certain amount of intuition, emotion or other non-logical elements in their decision making processes, there is still a pervasive norm priviligeing logical over illogical thinking.
  
  I question that, though. Yes, it's true, not having a precise and rock-solid logical formula with which to explain your every action and reaction opens the possibility of being lead down the garden path of nonsense, but... the use of logic as the supreme (or only valid) way of figuring things out requires that you consciously know and mull over, verbalize and theorize about, everything in life. The part of your brain that is verbal and can construct logical arguments is only a tiny, tiny fraction of the processing power your brain has. The rest of it is constantly taking in data, summarizing it and drawing conclusions and laying down memories (or not) and suggesting responses. The study of how to manipulate those responses (marketing is one branch of this) is fascinating, and certainly someone who has more knowledge of how the unconscious human mind works will have great power over large swathes of humanity - so there is danger that if you follow a solely intuitive approach, you open yourself up to abuse and manipulation. But...
  
  Think of catching a ball. One way to do it would be to have someone throw it to you, note down the approximate mass, momentum, distance from the centre of mass of the earth, air pressure and wind resistance, etc., and use quadratic equations to figure out where the ball will land, and then put your hand out. Perfectly logical, and if you do it right it will tell you precisely where to put your hand, every time (if you mess up a step in the calculations you could be off by a mile, though, but moving on...). Because computers are better at working with complicated math than our conscious mind is, we are programming robots to catch balls by doing the equations involved. But, we have another alternative. We have specialized areas within our brains that can quickly figure out where stuff that's being thrown at us is going to land, and we can just use that ability that we have. Granted, someone who has a deep knowledge of how that part of our brain works can set up optical illusions, and we'll never catch a ball they throw (or we'll put our hand where they want us to put it, thinking we're doing the right thing). Not understanding and using advanced mathematics opens us up to manipulation, but also allows us to make decisions in everyday life 100's of times faster than we otherwise would be able to do. It's a tradeoff. And the tradeoff makes sense because when someone throws you a ball, knowing where to put your hand 3 hours from now is no good, you need to know now. And so it is with many decisions in life - any decision can often be better than no decision, and computing power costs energy as well as time, so decisions that use shortcuts, imperfect-but-often-good-enough heuristics, etc. end up wired into the human brain. And the same is true with an emotional reaction as is true with catching a ball - very often, our emotions serve us well in making decisions.
  
  Even though those emotional or intuitive decision-making processes are sometimes wrong in systematic ways that can be exploited, they use the full range and power of human thinking abilities - the full set of tools at our disposal, as King of Bashan would say. And I'm all for that, going in with eyes open, knowing the risks. To me it seems logical that sometimes (often) it's OK to make decisions based on factors other than having logically reasoned things through beforehand - because many of our intuitions are often right, and I don't have an infinite amount of time on this earth, and even if I did, I wouldn't want to spend 99% of it doing math or re-checking logical syllogisms. If intuition works (which it does) I say use it.
  
  Meanwhile, if someone has already done the calculations, or my non-logic-based methods are consistently leading to poor results (let's say I've intuitively concluded based on early experience that yelling at people is a great way to get them to do what I want, and so I end up with anger management issues) then sitting down and spending hours, days or even longer thinking things through and changing direction to something more logical, may be warranted.
  
  Thoughts?
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  21

  Have you read Crisis of Conscience and still remained a JW in good conscience?

  by mankkeli in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am just curious if anyone read crisis of conscience and still remained a jw with a good conscience?..

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  mankkeli

  I am just curious if anyone read Crisis of Conscience and still remained a JW with a good conscience?.
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  6

  Basic ground rules for debating the existence of god or lack thereof

  by mankkeli in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i can accept, as a matter of logical fact, that nobody can in the literal rather than colloquial sense prove that there is no such thing as a god.. this, like many other axioms sets the stage for an actual conversation about the evidence, here are a few i've gathered, would appreciate your opinions, and maybe additions to the list.

  i'll toss out five to start.. .

  1 - it is impossible to prove there is no god whatsoever.. 2 - only a god concept which is well defined can be proven not to exist if it's prescribed traits prove to contradict evidence or become logically contradictory.. 3 - demonstrating an event or phenomena which is not yet explained by science does not prove the existence of god(s).. 4 - an appeal to personal revelation or experience is useless to anyone else, as you cannot provide evidence of it, and it is not repeatable.. 5 - a natural explanation is always logically more likely than a supernatural one..

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  mankkeli

  Its important not to let ourselves be diverted by what we wish to believe, but to look closely and surely at what are the facts. As concepts become more specific it's sometimes easier to find more specific evidence to disprove them, but that doesn't mean that more general concepts can't be. Sure, it's near-trivial to prove that Bub isn't real, but it's not that much more trivial to show that Romero zombies aren't real. And it doesn't take too much more to show that zombies are purely a work of fiction. And, with enough effort, one can show that all undead humans are fictional. Similarly, a god concept could be disproven at any stage, and disproving a general god would disprove all specific notions derived from it.
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  6

  Basic ground rules for debating the existence of god or lack thereof

  by mankkeli in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i can accept, as a matter of logical fact, that nobody can in the literal rather than colloquial sense prove that there is no such thing as a god.. this, like many other axioms sets the stage for an actual conversation about the evidence, here are a few i've gathered, would appreciate your opinions, and maybe additions to the list.

  i'll toss out five to start.. .

  1 - it is impossible to prove there is no god whatsoever.. 2 - only a god concept which is well defined can be proven not to exist if it's prescribed traits prove to contradict evidence or become logically contradictory.. 3 - demonstrating an event or phenomena which is not yet explained by science does not prove the existence of god(s).. 4 - an appeal to personal revelation or experience is useless to anyone else, as you cannot provide evidence of it, and it is not repeatable.. 5 - a natural explanation is always logically more likely than a supernatural one..

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  mankkeli

  I can accept, as a matter of logical fact, that nobody can in the literal rather than colloquial sense prove that there is no such thing as a god.
  This, like many other axioms sets the stage for an actual conversation about the evidence, here are a few I've gathered, would appreciate your opinions, and maybe additions to the list. I'll toss out five to start.
  
  1 - It is impossible to prove there is no god whatsoever.
  2 - Only a god concept which is well defined can be proven not to exist if it's prescribed traits prove to contradict evidence or become logically contradictory.
  3 - Demonstrating an event or phenomena which is not yet explained by science does not prove the existence of god(s).
  4 - An appeal to personal revelation or experience is useless to anyone else, as you cannot provide evidence of it, and it is not repeatable.
  5 - A natural explanation is always logically more likely than a supernatural one.
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  105

  I've lurked a long time: JW's produce some of the most paranoid humans

  by Unlearn in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i'll keep this brief for now.. long time lurker (4 years or so).. born-in, elder, used on district level (last talk i gave before i left was the baptisimal talk), and lots of hard time put in...before i finally made the move to split.

  it's a long stoy, much like many of yours...but with it's own little interesting twists.

  more details in the future, perhaps.. as i said, ive lurked here for a while.. its funny: for a long time i'd only come on late at night.

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  mankkeli

  Unlearn - Have you read Crisis of Conscience?, Please do if you have not. It is time to reinforce the conviction that the Watchtower organisation is an extortion racket force. This conviction must be cemented with constant study on religion deception mechanisms, the strategies of secret cult societies and the true history of the WT. There are more than enough materials on these topics, please study and establish your cnvictions. I was an annointed when I left, an elder and a substitute C.O.

  Things were not adding up before I finally call it quit and From my dealings with uber witness high up there, I realized that it was all about artificial and obligatory obedience towards a man-made construct. "Jehovah" is just the brand name used to market the dubious program, things were constantly made up to be used to manipulate innocent people and create fears in them. It is a crime to be a tool to advance such malicious intentions. I had to let go and move on with life.

  Please read, study and keep up the pace of researching the WT's hipocrisy.
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  1

  Do animals have a moral sense?

  by mankkeli in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  do animals have a moral sense?.

  there are several possibilities:.

  3) neither humans nor animals have genuine morality.. .

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  mankkeli

  Do animals have a moral sense?
  
  there are several possibilities:
  
  1) they don't. morality is something only humans have.
  
  2) they do. morality is something both animals and humans have.
  
  3) neither humans nor animals have genuine morality.
  
  4) animals do and humans don't.
  
  choice 1 is often discussed in terms of morality being a unique characteristic of humans beings, often imposed by gods. are there ways that only humans have morality if gods are not involved?
  
  choice 2 is a possibility if we consider that morality is an evolutionary response to social living. if so, social animals will display it in some proportion to some measure of sociality.
  
  choice 3 is a possibility if we consider that genuine morality as defined is not something that humans typically exhibit. aspects that might be discussed include justifiactions for war, lying, and so on. can a species be considered moral if its behavior is not?
  
  choice 4 is a possibility if we expand morality into areas that moral theorists usually don't. perhaps there are animals that are more highly moral than humans. cetaceans, maybe. how would we tell?