Yes, I still believe JWs have the Truth. If I didn't, I would be looking for Jehovah somewhere else.
You are wrong. Jehovah isn't real. Scientology is the truth:
rh3988
JoinedPosts by rh3988
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45
CO'S "encouraging" letter to circuit
by nowwhat? inthe point of the letter was how many are feeling disappointed these days.. no circuit assembly, convention, how we can't fellowship at the k.h.
disappointed we might have had a love one die, etc etc.
he then goes on to write about how disappointed jehovah must have felt when his first human creation rebelled.
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rh3988
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131
“White Privilege”
by minimus inlately that’s all i’ve been hearing about!
i’m sick and tired of listening to white people begging for forgiveness simply because they are white.
in a nearby town, a six year old girl asked her mom, “ why don’t we have a black lives matter march here?
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rh3988
@Simon
You are mischaracterizing the issue by oversimplifying it. It's not as simple as a black parent telling their child, "Just make sure you don't fight or attack the police, and you'll be fine." You make it sound like black kids have an innate desire to attack police officers.
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131
“White Privilege”
by minimus inlately that’s all i’ve been hearing about!
i’m sick and tired of listening to white people begging for forgiveness simply because they are white.
in a nearby town, a six year old girl asked her mom, “ why don’t we have a black lives matter march here?
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rh3988
I always wonder when you hear "as black people we have to have that conversation with them, that they shouldn't fight the cops" etc... I never got told that. Is that "white privilege" or was it maybe just that I was taught that I should not fight anyone and should be respectful to everyone I met as a matter of course?
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HBO removes Gone with the Wind because its offensive.
by phoenixrising inas the altleftist idiots burn books, ban speech and now ban movies that does not conform to their twisted thinking never forget, those that start by burning books end up burning bodies.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/10/business/media/gone-with-the-wind-hbo-max.html.
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rh3988
We should cancel Imitation of Life also.
Every time I hear the bongo drums start to play I scream, "RUN BITCH RUN!!!!!"
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HBO removes Gone with the Wind because its offensive.
by phoenixrising inas the altleftist idiots burn books, ban speech and now ban movies that does not conform to their twisted thinking never forget, those that start by burning books end up burning bodies.
.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/10/business/media/gone-with-the-wind-hbo-max.html.
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rh3988
What next Sanford and Son?
And 50 Cent...lol (This song is so badass.)
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246
Black Lives Matter—Do You Agree With Their Philosophy?
by minimus ini agree with people who say all lives matter.
i think blm is a racist group.
if white people pushed an agenda saying white lives matter, some people would have a conniption..
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rh3988
@Simon
Can you clearly describe the privilege that you believe white people have that black people do not.
Not hyperbole and arm waving, real things. Go.If I may interject, I think Jimmy Kimmel did a very good job of explaining this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPS7S-Zxm_8
Now you could be sneaky and make rules that you know will impact one group more than another (such as Scotts / Whiskey, playing on stereotypes for illustration). If we made a law banning 'fried-chicken', for instance, would that impact one group more than another? Maybe, keep that thought ...
Are you sure you're just "playing on stereotypes for illustration"?
The welfare system has to some degree decimated the black community and I think it was intentional, but there isn't anything racist in it per-se, it's just targeting "fried chicken".
Oh I'm sure you meant nothing racist by that you krazy kooky kid (playing on alliteration because I like alliteration.) I'm Chinese. Chinese people love, I mean absolutely LOVE fried chicken. We aren't too crazy about whiskey because we're more likely to be allergic. Could you do one about us?
(All you racists be sure to thumb me down please.)
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White supremecy
by Yomama inwith all the black lives matters stuff going on i was wondering why would a mostly white gb splash a picture of an all white heavenly group of white europeans.
ask some of your pimi relatives that one..
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rh3988
I’m thinking the same with you’re comments
Are you a white nationalist or a white supremacist?
Do you like peanut butter & jelly or jelly & peanut butter?
Are you a janitor or a custodian?
Are you a mortician or an undertaker?
Are you a ghost or a spirit?
Are you an idiot or a moron?
LOL
(Last one...maybe...) Do you like macaroni and cheese or cheese and macaroni? (I had to do that one.)
Am I finished or am I done? (I guess I kinda lied. Google "finished or done Breakfast Club". It's really funny.)
If we can get some more thumb downs I might try to think of some more. And yes I stole three of those from that Twix commercial. I regert nothing. (Dammit I spelled "regret" wrong! Okay I do regret that. And yes I stole that joke from that Milky Way commercial. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that I love candy. But I'm NOT addicted to it or anything. I can quit anytime I want.)
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White supremecy
by Yomama inwith all the black lives matters stuff going on i was wondering why would a mostly white gb splash a picture of an all white heavenly group of white europeans.
ask some of your pimi relatives that one..
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rh3988
rh3988: you seem to be confusing white nationalists with white supremacists.
I'm trying to figure out if you're just trolling, or if you really believe the things you say. It's kind of like figuring out which governing body members are true believers. Are you really that delusional? I'm going to quit thinking about this before I get a headache.
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White supremecy
by Yomama inwith all the black lives matters stuff going on i was wondering why would a mostly white gb splash a picture of an all white heavenly group of white europeans.
ask some of your pimi relatives that one..
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rh3988
In fact, can anyone point to any white supremacists? I mean real genuine ones, not political drivel like "OOooh, how can you not see TRUMP!!!"
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Article "Would You Stand up to an Opressive Regime or Would Conform? Here's the Science"
by Bill Covert inthere is a article on firefox "would you stand up to an oppressive regime or would you conform?
here's the science" taken from "the conversation" by nick chater.
10-9-2019.. perhaps someone with computer skills can copy and post this article on this forum.
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rh3988
Would You Stand up to an Oppressive Regime or Would You Conform? Here’s the Science
We all like to think of ourselves as heroes. But according to science, the vast majority of people aren’t prepared to rebel against totalitarian rulers.
The Conversation | Nick ChaterPhoto from Jasper Savage / Hulu / Channel 4.
Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, described the horror of the authoritarian regime of Gilead. In this theocracy, self-preservation was the best people could hope for, being powerless to kick against the system. But her sequel, The Testaments, raises the possibility that individuals, with suitable luck, bravery and cleverness, can fight back.
But can they? There are countless examples of past and present monstrous regimes in the real world. And they all raise the question of why people didn’t just rise up against their rulers. Some of us are quick to judge those who conform to such regimes as evil psychopaths – or at least morally inferior to ourselves.
But what are the chances that you would be a heroic rebel in such a scenario, refusing to be complicit in maintaining or even enforcing the system?
To answer this question, let’s start by considering a now classic analysis by American organisational theorist James March and Norwegian political scientist Johan Olsen from 2004.
They argued that human behaviour is governed by two complementary, and very different, “logics”. According to the logic of consequence, we choose our actions like a good economist: weighing up the costs and benefits of the alternative options in the light of our personal objectives. This is basically how we get what we want.
But there is also a second logic, the logic of appropriateness. According to this, outcomes, good or bad, are often of secondary importance – we often choose what to do by asking “What is a person like me supposed to do in a situation like this”?
The idea is backed up by psychological research. Human social interactions depend on our tendency to conform to unwritten rules of appropriate behaviour. Most of us are truthful, polite, don’t cheat when playing board games and follow etiquette. We are happy to let judges or football referees enforce rules. A recent study showed we even conform to arbitrary norms.
The logic of appropriateness is self-enforcing – we disapprove of, ostracise or report people who lie or cheat. Research has shown that even in anonymous, experimental “games”, people will pay a monetary cost to punish other people for being uncooperative.
Psychopaths? Photo from the German Federal Archive (Deutsches Bundesarchiv).
The logic of appropriateness is therefore crucial to understanding how we can organise ourselves into teams, companies and entire nations. We need shared systems of rules to cooperate – it is easy to see how evolution may have shaped this.
The psychological foundations for this start early. Children as young as three will protest if arbitrary “rules” of a game are violated. And we all know how punishing it can be to “stick out” in a playground by violating norms of dress, accent or behaviour.
Authoritarian Regimes
Both logics are required to create and maintain an authoritarian regime. To ensure that we make the “right” personal choices, an oppressive state’s main tools are carrots and sticks – rewarding conformity and punishing even a hint of rebellion.
But personal gain (or survival) alone provides a fragile foundation for an oppressive state. It is easy to see how the logic of appropriateness fits in here, turning from being a force for cooperation to a mechanism for enforcing an oppressive status quo. This logic asks that we follow the “rules” and make sure others do too – often without needing to ask why the rules are the way they are.
Regimes therefore supplement rewards and punishments with self-policed norms, rules and conventions. A “good” party comrade or a member of a religious cult or terrorist group will learn that they are supposed to obey orders, root out opposition and not question authority – and enforce these norms on their fellows.
The authoritarian state is therefore concerned above all with preserving ideology – defining the “right” way to think and behave – so that we can unquestioningly conform to it.
This can certainly help explain the horrors of Nazi Germany – showing it’s not primarily a matter of individual evil. As the philosopher Hannah Arendt famously argued, the atrocities of the Holocaust were made possible by normal people, manipulated into conforming to a horribly abnormal set of behavioural norms.
Would You Rebel?
So how would you or I fare in Gilead? We can be fairly confident that most of us would conform (with more or less discomfort), finding it difficult to shake the feeling that the way things are done is the right and appropriate way.
Just think of the fervour with which people can enforce standards of dress, prohibitions on profane language or dietary norms – however arbitrary these may appear. Indeed, we may feel “morally bound” to protect the party, nation or religion, whatever its character.
A small number of us, however, would rebel – but not primarily, I suspect, based on differences in individual moral character. Rebels, too, need to harness the logic of appropriateness – they need to find different norms and ideals, shared with fellow members of the resistance, or inspired by history or literature. Breaking out of one set of norms requires that we have an available alternative.
People giving a Nazi salute, with an unidentified person (possibly August Landmesser or Gustav Wegert) refusing to do so. Photo from wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
That said, some people may have more naturally non-conformist personalities than others, at least in periods of their lives. Whether such rebels are successful in breaking out, however, may partly depend on how convincingly they can justify to themselves, and defend to others, that we don’t want to conform.
If so, we would expect a tendency to adopt non-standard norms to be linked to verbal ability and perhaps general intelligence in individuals who actually rebel, which there’s some evidence to support.
How we react to unfairness may also affect our propensity to rebel. One study found that people who are risk averse and easily trust others are less likely to react strongly to unfairness. While not proven in the study, it may make such individuals more likely to conform.
Another factor is social circumstances. The upper and middle classes in Germany during the 1920s-1940s were almost twice as likely to join the Nazi party than those with lower social status. So it may be that those who have the most to lose and/or are keen to climb the social ladder are particularly likely to conform. And, of course, if other members of your social circle are conforming, you may think it’s the “appropriate” thing to do.
Few will fight Gilead after carefully weighing up the consequences – after all, the most likely outcome is failure and obliteration. What drives forward fights against an oppressive society is a rival vision – a vision of equality, liberty and justice, and a sense that these should be defended, whatever the consequences.
Nick Chater is Professor of Behavioral Science at the University of Warwick’s Warwick Business School.
