shepherdless

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Posts by shepherdless

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  583

  What is the purpose of life?

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

  because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

  i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

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  shepherdless

  The purpose in life?

  Like any other self-replicating DNA, your purpose is to breed and procreate. However, you have an intellect that allows you to do all sorts of things; even override your purpose.
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  10

  Self Delusion

  by Coded Logic in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  once upon a time there was a "kiai master" who trained his students how to knock people over - no touch - with purely the power of his chi.

  how he came to think he actually had telekinetic powers - or how his students became accomplices in his self delusion - i have no idea.

  but he was so convinced he could actually do these things he issued a challenge and put up $5,000 for any martial artist who could beat him.

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  shepherdless

  I guess sometimes reality hits you in the face. Literally and repeatedly, in this case.

  
  

  Strange that the Kiai Master believed his own b.s. I think a key element in his self-delusion is that he had so many sycophants (ie his students) supporting that delusion. There is an obvious parallel there with JWism and other cults, in that regard.

  
  

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  87

  Evolution Gap - Where's the Fur?

  by shadow in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  evolution paints human ancestors covered with fur.

  fur has several benefits as stated by britannica "the pelts of fur-bearing animals are called true furs when they consist of two elements: a dense undercoat, called ground hair, and longer hairs, extending beyond that layer, called guard hair.

  the principal function of ground hair is to maintain the animal’s body temperature; that of guard hair is to protect the underlying fur and skin and to shed rain or snow.".

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  shepherdless

  Ruby: it kinda sounds that the snake that is able to roll with the dice is the one that is the fittest - but wait doesn't this involve chance more than anything else?

  Betting at a casino always involves chance. Yet the "house" always wins in the long run.
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  87

  Evolution Gap - Where's the Fur?

  by shadow in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  evolution paints human ancestors covered with fur.

  fur has several benefits as stated by britannica "the pelts of fur-bearing animals are called true furs when they consist of two elements: a dense undercoat, called ground hair, and longer hairs, extending beyond that layer, called guard hair.

  the principal function of ground hair is to maintain the animal’s body temperature; that of guard hair is to protect the underlying fur and skin and to shed rain or snow.".

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  shepherdless

  jacobm: Yes, I understood what you mean't. We are either having a communication problem, or you are not being forthcoming. I'll ask again: How can the strongest, most agile, best adapted snake reproduce with the female if there are hundreds of other snakes all in a ridiculously complex wrestling match? There are too many variables.

  For natural selection to occur, it doesn't need to be the single no 1 "fittest" male snake that gets to reproduce. It just has to be one that is more fitter than the average.

  But of course, you already knew that; you are just being silly.
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  57

  How do we know JWs are wrong and how do we convince others JWs are wrong: logic versus persuasion

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  we like to think we are logical and have good reasons for for our beliefs.

  no more so than when it comes to our reasons for rejecting the truth claims of jws.

  we reject their version of history, such as the date of the fall of jerusalem, because it doesn't agree with the historical evidence.

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  shepherdless

  Back to the original topic.

  It seems to me that SBF's view on what is more likely to work to drag someone out of the cult is valid, because it negates what really keeps them in. People are a lot less logical than they think they are. The advertising and marketing industries are clearly aware of this.

  
  

  The following video titled "Bending Truth" relates to how people get drawn into a cult and how they get manipulated. It particularly discusses "cognitive dissonance". It seems to me that the way to get a typical cult member out is to reverse the cognitive dissonance, not using logic and reason.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=IaUhR-tRkHY

  
  
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  60

  The problem of sex (or why I'm not an atheist)

  by EdenOne in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  as i write this under the shadow of the walls of saint jorge's castle in lisbon, two very bored jws are standing just five metres away from me with a literature cart .... in my journey away from jwism i accepted evolution as a fact.

  i also became anti-religion, agnostic and apatheist.

  and, while i lean towards the persuasion of the atheist arguments, there are a few reasons that make it difficult for me to completely discard the notion of an intelligent origin of life.

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  shepherdless

  Vidqun starts with:

  Think of DNA as a manual of how to build a cell/organism.

  
  

  then goes on:

  
  

  The manual, as information, cannot arise by itself, from organic or inorganic matter. You need someone to write the manual and its applications.

  
  

  and

  
  

  The manual needs to be written (programmed) for that. The question is: Who wrote the manual?

  
  

  Wikipedia says:

  To beg a question means to assume the conclusion of an argument—a type of circular reasoning. This is an informal fallacy, in which an arguer includes the conclusion to be proven within a premise of the argument, often in an indirect way such that its presence within the premise is hidden or at least not easily apparent.

  
  Thanks for the practical example, Vidqun.
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  12

  Sunday Tv - Jehovah's Witnesses Paedophilia in Australia

  by berrygerry in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  if only someone had listened back then!.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy8b22hs9me.

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  shepherdless

  The date 23 August 2002 appears early on in the video. The host of Sunday (Jim Waley) in that episode left the show in December 2002.

  Hence it aired somewhere between late Aug and Dec 2002.
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  57

  How do we know JWs are wrong and how do we convince others JWs are wrong: logic versus persuasion

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  we like to think we are logical and have good reasons for for our beliefs.

  no more so than when it comes to our reasons for rejecting the truth claims of jws.

  we reject their version of history, such as the date of the fall of jerusalem, because it doesn't agree with the historical evidence.

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  shepherdless

  I have to agree with SBF on this. In a nutshell:

  SBF: JWs will often only be convinced JWs are wrong when such a conclusion aligns with their own interests.

  People make decisions far more on emotional and other non-intellectual bases than they realize. They then create an intellectual justification, afterwards. I understand that this has been proven by experimentation many times. Eg, google "Festinger and Carlsmith experiment". It tends to happen at a subconscious level, so after a while people don't realize it, and just remember the intellectual justification.

  
  

  If you look at advertising and marketing, it is overwhelmingly about hooking you in emotionally, rather than intellectually. The advertising industry wouldn't do that, if it didn't work. Another example: I was told once that the Catholic Church had a major problem with priests leaving the priesthood once their respective mothers die.

  
  

  I suspect that for every individual that leaves the cult for entirely intellectual reasons, at least another 50 leave partly or wholly for other reasons (too inconvenient, too boring, too unpleasant, etc). They then quickly find the intellectual justification to stay away, and there is plenty of intellectual justification available to choose from.

  
  

  Unfortunately what that also means is that it is a lot harder to wake up a cult member than some people seem to think.

  
  
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  30

  Why A Divine Being is Possible

  by looter in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  now we all have heard how the universe is composed of matter and space.

  and we always here of how it had a beginning.

  but really what could have begun it?

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  shepherdless

  Now we all have heard how the universe is composed of matter and space. And we always here of how it had a beginning. But really what could have begun it?

  In the following lecture, Lawrence Krauss, a respected physicist and cosmologist, gives a detailed answer:

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YSqCtbz5mc
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  14

  Ex JW Reddit numbers going crazy

  by Crazyguy in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i don't know what the membership increase is like here but over at reddit their getting 20 plus newbies daily if not more.

  it's crazy how much thier growing 2000 or more since i signed up and that wasn't that long ago.

  looks like the loyalty conventions didn't stem the tide.

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  shepherdless

  It looks like typically 2 or 3 sign up a day, judging from the last few days. However, I don't think you can compare, because that site is for a different genre (less interested in any lengthy debates), and seems to have a lot more young people.

  Some don't seem to post anything. I first signed up to this site years ago, with a cool username, and never posted a thing. (Someone else here, uses that username, now). It took me a while to have the courage to post anything.

  Perhaps large numbers are signing up because Flodin recently warned about apostate websites. It would be interesting to see if it continues at that rate, because if 20 people are signing up per day, that is 7200 per year. And if only 1 in 10 people who visit the site, sign up, that would indicate potentially 1% of publishers around the planet are checking these sites out, in any given year. I suspect Simon would know more about what is going on, how many "hits" etc.