openminded

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Posts by openminded

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  5

  Does this help?

  by openminded in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  today our society raises us to believe that obedience is good and disobedience is bad.

  we are taught that we should all do what were told and that the people that are disobedient are almost always bad people.

  society tells us this, but it is not true.

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  openminded

  JW72- you said "person wanting obedience has wrong order to obey."

  I am not quite tracking your thought here.
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  6

  Very very simple equation....

  by JW72 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  world end 1975(and other dates)-not happen-false prophecy-steer clear of false prophets-steer clear of jws.. .

  we shoulda had those kind of equations in math lessons, i would have definately understood (unlike most jws!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!).

  man, i'm so tired o' bein' right!!!!.

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  openminded

  Fred, ever heard of Fundamental attribution error,Defensive attribution, or self serving bias?

  Any one care to enlighten Fred on this one?
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  5

  Does this help?

  by openminded in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  today our society raises us to believe that obedience is good and disobedience is bad.

  we are taught that we should all do what were told and that the people that are disobedient are almost always bad people.

  society tells us this, but it is not true.

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  openminded

  Today our society raises us to believe that obedience is good and disobedience is bad. We are taught that we should all do what we’re told and that the people that are disobedient are almost always bad people. Society tells us this, but it is not true. Most people will even be obedient to the point of causing harm to others, because to be disobedient requires the courage to be alone against authority. In Stanley Milgram’s "Perils of Obedience" experiment, his studies showed that sixty percent of ordinary people would agree to obey an authority figure even to the point of severely hurting another human being. (Milgram 347). Disobedience is not always wrong. The truth is sometimes it is necessary to be disobedient. In Hebrew mythology, human history began because of an act of disobedience, Adam and Eve gained independence from nature by disobeying God and eating an apple. (Fromm 377). Man’s development has largely been affected by being disobedient to authority. Authority that has tried to prevent new ideas and keep things as they are, so that authority will remain intact. It’s as though we are allowing society to imprison us by accepting the roles assigned to us (Zimbardo 375). Obedience is a behavior deeply ingrained in us. It is often an impulse that overrides ethics and sympathy. There is much evidence of this, including the Holocaust. It was not just a small group of deranged individuals that committed these atrocities, it was people who had blind obedience to authority. The tendency to locate the source of behavior disorders in a particular person or group underestimates the power of situational forces. We are prone to obey because when we are obedient to an authority it makes us feel safe and protected. We can’t make mistakes because the authority decides for us. We can’t be alone, because the authority watches over us. So, no matter what our behavior is, it can be justified on the ground that we are only following orders, doing what we’re told from above. We can easily be brought to view ourselves as an instrument for carrying out another person’s wishes, and so we no longer feel responsible for our actions. Unfortunately, that can make us feel responsible to the authority, instead of the content of the orders the authority is giving. Morality is still there, but the focus is changed. We feel the need to perform well, out of obligation or duty, to those who are in authority. This does not necessarily mean that all disobedience is good and all obedience is bad. That would ignore the relationship between obedience and disobedience. An act of obedience to one principle is usually and act of disobedience to another. Many martyrs of religion, science, and freedom have had to disobey those who wanted to stop them in order to obey their own consciences, the laws of humanity and reason (Fromm 379). If a man can only obey, he is a slave and will accomplish very little. But, if a man can only disobey, he is a rebel and does not act in the name of a conviction or principle.

  Bibliography
  Behrens, Laurence, and Leonard J. Rosen, eds. Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. New York: Longman, 2000. Fromm, Erich. "Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem." Behrens and Rosen 377-381 Milgram, Stanley. "The Perils of Obedience." Behrens and Rosen 343-355. Zimbardo, Philip. "The Stanford Prison Experiment." Behrens and Rosen 363-375.
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  13

  Manipulate through guilt

  by Norm in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  one of the most important techniques in manipulating people is to get control of their guilt.. all totalistic movements, religious or political use this method.

  few organizations are better then the watchtower society in mastering this.

  the religious cults have the advantage over the political that they can use the ultimate authority, namely god.. a typical example of such manipulation can be found in the january 15, 1997 issue of the watchtower.

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  openminded

  Asch, S. E., Effects of Group Pressure Upon the Modification and Distortion of Judgements. In H. Guetzkow (ed.) Groups, Leadership, and Men, 1951.

  This is a summary of the famous Asch experiment where subjects were placed with a group of confederates who gave different measurements of a line than was reality. Asch measured whether the subject would modify their interpretation based on the majority opinion.

  The test objective was to study "the social and personal conditions that induce individuals to resit or to yield to group pressures when the latter are perceived to be contrary to fact.

  A group of eight individuals (one subject and seven confederates) sat in a room and verbally stated which of three unequal lines matched a given line. The subject was seated so that he made his verbal judgement last. In most cases the confederates and subject agreed, but in certain cases the confederates all agreed on a wrong answer.

  The "majority effect" was measured as the % of responses that erroneously conformed to the majority. They also tried to ascertain whether the subject was aware of the majority effect on him and why they acceded to group opinion. They also watched the reaction of the subject when the experiment was revealed. All subjects and confederates were male college students.

  Initial Results
  About one third of the responses conformed to the erroneous majority (compared to almost no errors in the control group). Some subjects always defied the group, some always went along with them. 25% were completely independent, 33% were more than half with the erroneous majority. Some were completely confident throughout, some were disoriented and confused.

  The independent subjects were categorized as 1) confident in their differences 2)withdrawn and 3)considerable tension and doubt, but adhere to their views

  The yielding subjects could be categorized as 1)distorted perception who believed the majority estimates as correct 2)distortionof judgement -- they believe their own perceptions are inaccurate (they have primary doubt and lack of confidence). 3)Distortion of action -- they believe the group is wrong but conform to avoid being different.

  Experimental Variations

  The effect of "ununanimous" majorities
  In one variation, they added one more subject at position 4. This reduced the % of errors from 32% to 10%. In another variation, having one confederate give right answers throughout reduced it to 5.5%.

  This shows that even a minimal amount of dissenting support is enough to give people confidence in their opinions against the majority. The researchers found that even a unanimous majority of only three is better than 8 with one dissenter.

  The effect of withdrawal of a "true partner"
  Surprisingly, if a confederate who was answering correctly "defects" back to the majority halfway through, the % of with-the-majority responses returns from 5.5 to 28.5%.

  The effect of late arrival of a "true partner".
  If a confederate answering with the majority changes to answering truly, the rate of majority response drops down to 8.5%.

  The effect of a "compromise partner" (who answered with majority sometimes, correctly sometimes).
  This reduced the rate of majority response but not significantly.

  The effect of majority size.
  They varied the number of confederates from 1,2,3,4,8, and 10-15 persons. There was no majority effect with only one other person. There was a small change with two people, and nearly the full amount with three confederates. There was little change above three confederates.

  Interestingly, in one condition they put 16 naive persons in a room and had two confedrates give wrong answers. The group responded with amusement at their errors.

  They also found that the degree of independence increases with the deviation of the majority from the truth. However, even big differenes didn't create complete independence. They also concur with other researchers that the effect of majority opinion increases with decreased clarity in a situation.
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  4

  Another Dumb "Awake" (6/08/01)

  by metatron in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  yes, another dumb, deceptive, biased "awake" magazine.. on the subjects of health and aging, the awake is becoming.

  more and more desperate.

  science is threatening to create miracles.

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  openminded

  I couldnt help but notice that if you changed that 1st sentence to-- not everyone is convinced that the governing body is offering "the truth" about Gods kingdom. Indeed according to surveys, people dont even want JW's knocking at their door at 10:00am on Saturday morning.
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  12

  What if they did something useful?

  by tergiversator in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i posted this in response to a thread by nojw86 on h2o and thought i'd see what people here thought about it.... what if the witnesses did something useful for a change?.

  just think what they could accomplish, if all the effort spent writing about antitypical fulfilments of obscure psalms was spent writing magazines to educate people about, say, health and sanitation.

  if, instead of full-color books on dubious details of daniel's prophecies, they printed full-color textbooks on real history, science, literature, mathematics, etc., for distribution to areas where books aren't so easy to come by.

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  openminded

  It would have to be something great, to atone for all the dead kids. Who would possibly be posting here today if not for the UNMERCIFUL ban on life saving medical treatments, that have used blood and organs and tissue to save lives. What a shame.

  What if the KKK or the Skin Heads or the Nazis started doing charity work? Would it change the way you view them?
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  31

  Tipping Your Hat to a Woman is SATANIC

  by JanH in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  *** w52 4/15 254-5 questions from readers ***.

  "* is it proper for men to tip their hats to women?g.

  s., missouri.

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  openminded

  Jan is this 100% verifyable from the WT? If it is I will forward this to my mom.(I am just double checking)
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  115

  Randall Watters exposed

  by StiLLinTruth in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hello again friends!.

  well it was time again for me to take my weekly dose of apostate faeces and see what it tastes like.

  decided to check out randy watters this time (we all love him here) and his little testimony on freeminds.org, titled "what happened at bethel in 1980?

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  openminded

  How you can read the Bible and still support a corporate organization that is directly responsible for the deaths of innocent children, in the face of the mercy Jesus taught and stood for, is beyond my comprehension.

  Why not research the verses in the Bible in which Jesus asked the Pharisees, -Who of you would hesitate to rescue an animal from the bottom of a well on the sabbath, even though they knew TECHNICALLY they would be breaking Gods law?

  Killing kids is not cool!
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  115

  Randall Watters exposed

  by StiLLinTruth in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hello again friends!.

  well it was time again for me to take my weekly dose of apostate faeces and see what it tastes like.

  decided to check out randy watters this time (we all love him here) and his little testimony on freeminds.org, titled "what happened at bethel in 1980?

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  openminded

  so you became a publisher?

  I am just glad your friend was a Jdub and not a skinhead. Then again skinheads only dream about killing people Jdubs actually do(through stupidity and fear).
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  115

  Randall Watters exposed

  by StiLLinTruth in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hello again friends!.

  well it was time again for me to take my weekly dose of apostate faeces and see what it tastes like.

  decided to check out randy watters this time (we all love him here) and his little testimony on freeminds.org, titled "what happened at bethel in 1980?

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  openminded

  the fact that you would even consider wagering your mother, tells me that you may be governing body material