Posts by rem

27

To All those on REINCARNATION thread

by RavynX in

jw
friends

risking the flames of the ignorant, let me suggest some reading for all you awakening humans who i have come to love:.

do a search on john edward, he has a site but i am not sure if it is johnedward.com or .org, and he is also on the sci-fi channel(cable tv in usa) and has a site on their page too.

i recommend getting one of his books and watching his show.

rem

I think Jan and I (and most scientific or logical types) might be using terms, that for us, are very accurate, but for others may be derogatory.

For example, when I say someone is ignorant - that is not a put down. That is an accurate way of saying that someone does not have all the information. It doesn't mean that someone is stupid or dumb. We don't feel superior to anyone, but we can recognize when someone hasn't done all of the applicable research on a matter. By this we are suggesting that they learn more on this subject because they very well might revisit their views if they did.

When I say someone is uninformed, to me it is similar to being ignorant. Please understand that we are not saying anyone is incompetent - on the contrary - most of us were wise enough to see through the WT! I hope our jargon doesn't offend anyone. Maybe it's because Jan and I come from the more "in your face" style of H2O, where taking offense was never preferable to constructing a logical counter-argument. This place is a little cozier, and our style seems cold and sterile.

I can only speak for myself in that I will try to be aware of this, but it is difficult to candy coat certain things. I think Jan is right. Many people are attacking the style and not the content. I agree that both are important, but I think that content should outweigh style.

As far as why do we post such things? It is because we have come to know that certain frauds are making a lot of money by tricking people. If no one said anything, it could be some of our friends here being tricked. Certainly we don’t want to see anyone hoodwinked like that. The fact is that these frauds play to people’s heartstrings. Who do they target? Usually grieving parents or widows – to me that is sick! I don’t understand why so many people are taking offense when we point out that these people are LYING to people. It’s just like back in the congregation – I wanted to tell all of my brothers that the GB was lying to them, but I couldn’t. I had evidence, but they didn’t want to hear it. Are we acting any different here?

The evidence is out there – we are providing it to you so you can check it out yourself. Until you do, you are clearly ignorant or uninformed because you do not know both sides of the story. When you do go and do the research, then if you can back up your position with evidence, then I will respect that decision. But until then, I’m afraid that many of you have been duped by professionals.

These people are entertainers and there are many people helping them out behind the scenes so they can all line their pockets with the money of poor grieving people. Do you really think these people are doing this out of the goodness of their heart? It’s been going on for centuries, and finally the scientific method has been able to expose them. Shouldn’t we be happy that these liars are exposed?

rem

27

To All those on REINCARNATION thread

by RavynX in

jw
friends

risking the flames of the ignorant, let me suggest some reading for all you awakening humans who i have come to love:.

do a search on john edward, he has a site but i am not sure if it is johnedward.com or .org, and he is also on the sci-fi channel(cable tv in usa) and has a site on their page too.

i recommend getting one of his books and watching his show.

rem

I saw a Dateline special a few months back about John Edwards. He was thoroughly trashed as a fraud on it. They caught him on tape talking to the people he was supposed to be cold reading before the session, milking information from them. When the Dateline reporter confronted him and showed the video tape, he was (for once) speechless.

There is absolutely nothing amazing about this man - except that he does have a talent for asking the right questions. His method was exposed - he asks general, vague questions. If he get's it wrong, he moves to another question, if he gets a hit he continues - finally, the person he is reading volunteers more and more information. He also works in other ways ("I'm seeing the letter K"). It just so happens one of the people in the audience had a pin on her blouse with the letter K on it. Obviously it was the initial of someone important to her. He worked that angle until he got enough information out of her to dazzle the audience. The whole trick is that everyone forgets all of the misses and remembers the hits. He actually gets a lot of things wrong, but no one remembers them because they want to believe he has special powers.

The show was really great. The thing you have to understand is that this man and many others are making A LOT OF MONEY. His caring act makes him money and gains him followers. He's just a magician doing tricks, but he makes people believe that it is something more than a trick.

I've recommended some books in the "I think that I chose my parents" thread that totally expose the charlitans for what they are - frauds. I think they might be an eye openner to a lot of people.

rem

124

I Think That I Chose My Parents.

by Englishman in

jw
friends

do you believe in reincarnation?.

i dont think i believe in it in the same way that most believers do, which is that we keep coming back in different fleshly bodies until we have achieved perfection.. i do, however, strongly suspect that we may well be spirit creatures who find it necessary to inhabit a fleshly body from time to time, and that this entails us having to leave behind most of our past memories.. i say most memories, because many people seem to have some vestigal recollections that don`t seem to fit in with earthly experiences.. i`m pretty sure that i chose my parents!

i have a recollection of being shown a young and kind couple through some form of astral telescope and choosing to become their son.

rem

Everyone,

I would just like to apologize to everyone if my comments were to harsh, but I just felt the thread was going in a certain direction where “believers” (sorry to use that term) were patting each other on the back and not giving the other side of the issue a chance. From my point of view, I didn’t see it as healthy for these beliefs, which have been thoroughly debunked over the ages, to go on unchecked. I was not trying to poke fun at anyone, and I am truly sorry if I came across that way. I think you all are great people and I do enjoy the discussions we have at this place. I just think that we can all learn from one another – it’s impossible for all of us to know everything about everything, but fortunately in this day and age there is such an abundance of easily attainable information that we can point each other to. Unfortunately there is a lot of crap out there too, but anyway…

I agree that science doesn’t have the whole picture. There are things about the brain that we cannot begin to explain. And maybe certain phenomena that we all experience (because I have experienced weird things too) will be better explained in the future.

Believe me – I don’t think anyone is making anything up. All I’m saying is there are simpler explanations that have been found and published. In my own opinion, we are all more empowered when we shed the shackles of superstition. Knowledge is power and has led us to the most enlightened and advanced period of human existence. Whether we want to admit it or not, this is due to the scientific method – not to magical powers.

I guess what I’m trying to say (and not so well) is that I really like you guys and I’m sorry if I offended you. I look forward to having great discussions with you all. We have so many similar experiences to draw from and I know that by participating it has made me a better person over the last couple of years.

Your friend,
rem

124

I Think That I Chose My Parents.

by Englishman in

jw
friends

do you believe in reincarnation?.

i dont think i believe in it in the same way that most believers do, which is that we keep coming back in different fleshly bodies until we have achieved perfection.. i do, however, strongly suspect that we may well be spirit creatures who find it necessary to inhabit a fleshly body from time to time, and that this entails us having to leave behind most of our past memories.. i say most memories, because many people seem to have some vestigal recollections that don`t seem to fit in with earthly experiences.. i`m pretty sure that i chose my parents!

i have a recollection of being shown a young and kind couple through some form of astral telescope and choosing to become their son.

rem

Esmeralda,

Why does reading differing opinions make you feel sick? Is it that important for everyone to share
your viewpoint?

I probably didn't explain myself well. What makes me feel sick is when I see ignorance – just like I think you might feel frustrated inside because your sister believes all of that JW garbage. Now I don’t know if you feel that way or not, but I have a hard time believing that you think her beliefs are A-OK. The problem here is that the opinions that are being proposed on this thread are uninformed opinions. There is such a thing is fact and fiction – certain things are factually correct and are supported by evidence and others are not.

I respect someone’s opinion when it is an informed opinion. That’s not to say that they have to agree with me, but at least they should look at the evidence before saying their beliefs have more merit than mine. If they can support their opinion with facts, then that is an opinion that I respect – even if I don’t agree. It is important to me that people don’t just go believing stuff that is not based in reality – I don’t think superstition is a healthy thing. Of course, that is only my opinion.

This is an assumption on your part. Can you know, for certain, how I feel unless you ask me? These experiences
have made me feel neither different, good, nor special. They just occurred.

There is always a reason why people believe things – belief is a survival mechanism that has been molded by evolution. If your belief didn’t benefit you, then you wouldn’t hold to it without looking at the facts. So I didn’t enumerate every single reason why someone would believe something – that was not the point. The point was that it is so easy to do the research and find out facts about the subject, there must be some reason people choose not to do it.

You put everyone who responded to this thread into groups: believers and nonbelievers. That sounds like
JW reasoning to me. You have all the reasons to justify your beliefs, not allowing room for others
to believe differently, or, of course, they must be wrong. Which is shown in this quote

That was the context of the discussion – obviously in real life that’s not how I look at things. I’m not the one saying that others are wrong just because I say so – I’m saying that “believers” (as you put them – not me) would do well to look at the other side of the issue.

Castigated? You just said before that reading my beliefs, and those of others in this thread made you sick. Isn't
that you, castigating the rest of us? I am not saying you're wrong. I didn't say Jan was wrong. I just said
our opinions differ and we should be able to express that without being disrespectful to each other.

What made me sick was that “believers” seemed to be closing their minds to any evidence that was contrary to their experiences. They were the ones saying that our scientific facts were not welcome in this discussion. Perhaps castigates was too harsh a word, but it was the only thing that came into my head at the time.

I am simply saying that I respect you and wish that you could express your varying opinion without telling
anyone that they 'make you sick'.

I hope you now have a better understanding of what makes me sick – it’s not people or informed ideas – it’s people making assertions without evidence and saying that my ideas are less worthy because they don’t coincide with theirs (which happens to be demonstrably uninformed).

Challenging beliefs can lead to emotionally charged discussions. My recommendation is to take a step back and try to find out WHY we believe what we do and whether it is truly grounded in fact or fiction.

rem

124

I Think That I Chose My Parents.

by Englishman in

jw
friends

do you believe in reincarnation?.

i dont think i believe in it in the same way that most believers do, which is that we keep coming back in different fleshly bodies until we have achieved perfection.. i do, however, strongly suspect that we may well be spirit creatures who find it necessary to inhabit a fleshly body from time to time, and that this entails us having to leave behind most of our past memories.. i say most memories, because many people seem to have some vestigal recollections that don`t seem to fit in with earthly experiences.. i`m pretty sure that i chose my parents!

i have a recollection of being shown a young and kind couple through some form of astral telescope and choosing to become their son.

rem

Wendy,

I don’t think that anyone is discounting your experiences. I think that what we are saying is that there are other less extraordinary explanations for these things. Nothing that has been said so far couldn’t be explained by prosaic means, including coincidence and even exaggeration after the fact (human memory is a very funny thing). The brain is very easy to fool – just watch a magician for a while. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think that he was using supernatural means – but he’s just tricking your brain.

There is absolutely no evidence for New Age explanations or ESP. Scientific, double blind experiments have been performed time and time again. These experiments always come out disappointingly negative for the ESP supporters. If it were such a real and widespread phenomenon, then we should be able to measure it and prove its existence. So far no one has provided any real evidence in its behalf other than anecdotal (which is not really evidence at all).

Going back to your nightmare analogy. You are correct – if you had a nightmare, a scientist wouldn’t be able to see what it was. But we are not talking about things that only go on within your head. We are talking about a phenomenon that somehow interacts with other objects I the real world. How does information about someone being hurt travel from his or her body to your mind? There has to be some mechanism for that – but no one has proposed any measurable, verifiable theory to explain it.

This is an extraordinary claim. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Someone saying they had a nightmare is not an extraordinary claim – it’s quite common and we all experience them. Someone saying that they can feel “bad” energy fields or that they are psychic is making an extraordinary claim, which must be supported by evidence. It would be like me saying I have an invisible pink unicorn living in my head – now disprove it! You can’t disprove it, but it is an extraordinary claim that should not be believed without evidence. Until I could provide evidence of the invisible pink unicorn in my head (other than anecdotal – because how can you know what’s in my head?), then there would be no reason to believe such an extraordinary claim. New Age phenomena are exactly the same.

Now I could say that I know my invisible pink unicorn exists because it talks to me – even though you can’t hear it. You could choose to believe that, but I don’t think you would. You would, instead, form a more prosaic explanation that maybe I was hallucinating, or maybe I was just joking around, or that I was hearing voices from some other source – not an invisible pink unicorn. To me the experience is real, but you know that there is a better explanation for the phenomenon than I’m suggesting.

All we are suggesting is to take a look at the well-researched alternate explanations for such experiences. You may be surprised at how much research actually has been done on this – I know I was. If you want to stand there with your hands over your ears saying – I don’t want to hear that – then that is your choice, but I don’t think it’s the wisest course. And you certainly don’t have any basis to say that people who have done the research are somehow doing something harmful by bringing this to everyone’s attention.

rem

124

I Think That I Chose My Parents.

by Englishman in

jw
friends

do you believe in reincarnation?.

i dont think i believe in it in the same way that most believers do, which is that we keep coming back in different fleshly bodies until we have achieved perfection.. i do, however, strongly suspect that we may well be spirit creatures who find it necessary to inhabit a fleshly body from time to time, and that this entails us having to leave behind most of our past memories.. i say most memories, because many people seem to have some vestigal recollections that don`t seem to fit in with earthly experiences.. i`m pretty sure that i chose my parents!

i have a recollection of being shown a young and kind couple through some form of astral telescope and choosing to become their son.

rem

Some good books on the subject:

Michael Shermer, "Why People Believe Weird Things"
Carl Sagan, "The Demon Haunted World"
Robert Park, "Voodoo Science"
James Randi, "An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural"
James Randi, "Flim Flam!"
Kendrick Fraiser, "Encounters With the Paranormal : Science, Knowledge, and Belief"

rem

124

I Think That I Chose My Parents.

by Englishman in

jw
friends

do you believe in reincarnation?.

i dont think i believe in it in the same way that most believers do, which is that we keep coming back in different fleshly bodies until we have achieved perfection.. i do, however, strongly suspect that we may well be spirit creatures who find it necessary to inhabit a fleshly body from time to time, and that this entails us having to leave behind most of our past memories.. i say most memories, because many people seem to have some vestigal recollections that don`t seem to fit in with earthly experiences.. i`m pretty sure that i chose my parents!

i have a recollection of being shown a young and kind couple through some form of astral telescope and choosing to become their son.

rem

>>Hi Jan,
>>I'm in agreement with your assessments.....Tina

Me too! I get a sick feeling while reading some of these posts because it just provides even more evidence of how gullible we can be. Humans seem to be extremely adept at fooling themselves (I know I did for over 20 years!). Anecdotal evidence is practically worthless. With all of these stories, there are various other explanations that are ignored, but by their sheer volume they feed off of one another until there is a critical mass where they believe that it must be true because so many other people have it too.

I guess it makes people feel good or special - just like belief in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy can give a child something to look forward to. Remember how that hope of a paradise earth made us feel good - we didn't want to give it up - but life wasn't so bad after we did, was it? I don't see why people feel the need to fool themselves into believing such things - as if the real world is too cold and sterile. The world is a wonderful place and the scientific method has made it even better. Imagine how great the world was in the dark ages when people were slaves to superstition. But some people would have us revert back to those times just because science doesn’t fit in with their intuition or superstitions.

Of all of these stories, no one has related how many times they have had similar feelings, but nothing happens. The mind forgets these misses all of the time because they are trivial – unimportant. But when something really does happen – then instead of it being a coincidence – it’s some higher power. And then, they come on a bulletin board and share these experiences with others who have had similar coincidences (who hasn’t? I’ve had them too) and they reaffirm each other’s beliefs. And once someone brings up doubt or scientific research on the subject that does not coincide with that belief, that person is castigated as if there is something wrong with him! You only allow information that affirms your beliefs, but don’t take into account evidence that shows flaws in the belief. Doesn’t this sound like another organization we just came out of?

Remember how hard it was to come out of the WT? We had to open our minds to FACTS – and that is a hard thing to do. Some of us have tried to tactfully provide facts (because we have looked at both sides of the issue) and have been shot down as if there is something wrong with us – like we can’t join this exclusive thread because we don’t believe the same as you do. The fact is that there has been a lot of scientific study on these phenomena. If you want to ignore it, then do so as you wish, but don’t accuse us of having closed minds when we have gone to the trouble of doing research on the subject and coming to informed conclusions – not just opinions coming from our own intuition (which is horribly defective when it comes to understanding the natural world).

I’m sorry to be so caustic, but I just had to get this off of my chest. I’m not usually such a meany, I promise! :)

rem

124

I Think That I Chose My Parents.

by Englishman in

jw
friends

do you believe in reincarnation?.

i dont think i believe in it in the same way that most believers do, which is that we keep coming back in different fleshly bodies until we have achieved perfection.. i do, however, strongly suspect that we may well be spirit creatures who find it necessary to inhabit a fleshly body from time to time, and that this entails us having to leave behind most of our past memories.. i say most memories, because many people seem to have some vestigal recollections that don`t seem to fit in with earthly experiences.. i`m pretty sure that i chose my parents!

i have a recollection of being shown a young and kind couple through some form of astral telescope and choosing to become their son.

rem

Interesting. It's funny because I got a call from my brother on my cell phone a couple of days ago. Apparently my sister had a bad dream or got a feeling that I had gotten hurt or died. He called to check up on me and let her know I was okay. I think that little things in every day life might trigger such feelings, but we only remember the hits and not the misses.

I can't even count how many times I've had a feeling that my wife was in danger or my plane was going to crash or something - but nothing came of it. But the one time our feelings happen to coincide with a similar event, all of a sudden it is from a higher power or a parallel universe or the spirit realm. I don't buy it. I chalk it up to human psychology - we are good at remembering the hits - or the coincidences, but we forget how many times we had feelings that turned out to be nothing.

rem

28

Babylon the great

by perfectpie in

jw
friends

does anyone have an explanation of "babylon the great" as described in the book of revelation different than as explained by jehovah's witnesses.

thanks in advance pie

rem

Or, of course, there is the more prosaic explanation that Revelation is nothing more than the ravings of a lunatic trying to explain why he and his religion are being persecuted, all the while cryptically prognosticating future relief from the oppressive Roman government through supernatural means. Very similar in style to the book of Daniel (written during the oppressive reign that lead to the revolt of the Maccabees). It's called apocalyptic literature and it is quite common.

rem

52

Neanderthals and the Bible?

by uncle_onion in

jw
friends

i am doing some research on neanderthals.

we know that this species existed and by very recent dna test we can tell that they are definitely not human.has any one done anything on this subject or the accuracy of carbon dating?

rem

Jelly,

It seems that you are the one reading things into the Genesis creation story, not me or JanH. You are trying to bend the story to fit modern science. Your claim that the truth would be too complicated is just special pleading - and you even admit that god handed down an inaccurate story. He could have at least aligned the story more closely to the facts. The fact is that the Genesis creation myth is nothing but a copy of other more ancient creation myths. I have in my possession many of such myths in my library.

You are forgetting that I'm not the one imputing motives on god - you are. I believe the myths were just stories told by men to explain the world we live in - stories that were not inspired. You are the one trying to have your cake and eat it too - claiming that the bible is inspired by god, even though it's not accurate. By this claim, you are the one showing that god cannot be trusted to tell humans the whole truth.

Again - I'm not saying that god had to explain every single step in creation/evolution, but surely he could have provided an overview that was both brief and FACTUALLY CORRECT. Contrary to your assertion, this would not take a 30 bound volume set to explain. Brief synopsis's of evolution are routinely provided in scientific textbooks. Are humans capable of this, but god is not?

Once you take godly inspiration out of the picture, convoluted explanations need not be used to make the bible relevant in our day. The stories and myths can be accepted for what they are - stories written by ancient, superstitious men.

rem