Anders Andersen

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Posts by Anders Andersen

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  35

  I almost died laughing at the meeting last night. OMG WTF is going on? Have I been away this long?

  by macys in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  ok so most of you guys know already that i am going through the reinstatement process for my parents but i do have a partially sinister plan which i will not mention here since someone told me that there are b-lites that read boards like this.

  last night and it was the funniest experience i have ever seen.

  besides that the brother doing the sound and video screwed up the whole thing when showing the videos and it took 3 brothers to fix it after 10 minutes, the whole thing was a joke.

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  Anders Andersen

  Nice post. I'm almost tempted to join my wife for the meeting tonight
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  7

  Do the Governing body really have the power some think they do?

  by sherrie11 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i mentioned this in a previous post, i feel the current gb truly believe they are chosen by god and are indoctrinated just as much as the rank and file.

  they are deluded in their belief that they are guardians of the doctrine.

  they are suffering from cognitive dissonance just as much.

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  Anders Andersen

  Very nice quote!

  
  

  While looking for the source, I found the original to have even a little better applicable to obeying Dubs:

  They must find it hard to take Truth for authority who have so long mistaken Authority for Truth.

  • A Retort, from Gerald Massey's Lecturesc.1900; often cited as They must find it difficult, those who have taken authority as truth, rather than truth as authority.
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  12

  Reply to Bugbear: Why I believe in the Bible

  by Saved_JW in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  [some words i corrected for spelling & grammer] .

  "i have been studying the bible for almost 20 years....after graduating in history and science comparing to the the bible, i have have come to to the conclusion that the bible cannot give you any reason to believe in it at all.

  so i wonder, why do you use the bible as facit to your believes?

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  Anders Andersen

  I agree with you in that we all have biases.

  And of course everyone is free to reject or accept anything as evidence as they see fit.

  After all, people are the same in that they are all unique.

  We bring our own background, upbringing, culture, preferences and way of thinking into any decision we make.

  This means that people who really investigate and think about what they believe or not (like you) can still believe in God(s) and be religious.

  While (some/many) people on both sides of the spectrum of belief might not be able to understand why the other side reached a different conclusion, they should not conclude that the other ones are necessarily stupid.

  However, I must strongly object to the false dichotomy you proposed:

  Those who are not changed by God, will live in rebellion and will hate Him. Its really one or the other.

  To me this statement is equivalent to an atheist calling everyone who believes in God deluded or assume they are not thinking clearly.

  Also, the statement is not true at all.

  There is another option.

  I was not changed by God. I begged Him to help me believe in Him.

  Nothing happened.

  According to your statement, I must now hate God. I don't. I simply do not have any reason to believe He exists.

  I don't hate God at all.

  If I ever see any reasons to believe again, I gladly will, without resentment.

  No hard feelings towards God.

  Does one really live in rebellion if the authority one does not obey does not really exist?

  My behaviour might not always be according to (Bible) God's wishes, but that is not because I resist his authority.

  It's because I have never been able to ever verify there even is such an authority to rebel against.

  If that authority becomes clear, I'll gladly obey (if the demands are as could reasonably expected from a loving authority that has good intentions).

  And of course, if I were not an atheist but a religious Jew or any other non-Christian religion, we would have this very same discussion.

  If I were a Christian, I would have to have this same discussion with Jews, Muslims and many others. Regardless of which God one obeys, there is always another group claiming you live in rebellion against (their) God.
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  20

  How many visitors do we get ?

  by Simon in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  someone was asking me in the chatroom about the number of hits the site gets.

  here is a brief summary (of what we currently get per week):.

  21,000 visitors.

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  Anders Andersen

  Did the average attention span change much? :-p
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  6

  Jehovah’s Witnesses rebuked by Royal Commission

  by Watchtower-Free in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  http://royalcommission.com.au/pells-appearance-postponed-jehovahs-witnesses-rebuked/.

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  Anders Andersen

  Now we just have to wait for the Watchtower study that emphasises Jesus words to forgive 77 times....

  BTW according to WT explanation on that verse, 77 should be read as 'unlimited'.

  So that's what I did when reading the ARC submission.
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  13

  Who thinks Wt is going to throw Vincent Tool under the bus if he loses his law registration.

  by joe134cd in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  just read speculation about this on another thread.

  who thinks vincent tool, if looses his law license and becomes less useful to wt that he will then be reassigned to the field.

  or is he just to big of a player to lose even with out a practicing law license.

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  Anders Andersen

  @ToesUp: thanks!
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  13

  Who thinks Wt is going to throw Vincent Tool under the bus if he loses his law registration.

  by joe134cd in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  just read speculation about this on another thread.

  who thinks vincent tool, if looses his law license and becomes less useful to wt that he will then be reassigned to the field.

  or is he just to big of a player to lose even with out a practicing law license.

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  Anders Andersen

  Toes Up and RBTH,

  Thanks for the suggestion, did that already :-) Good read indeed, now I need to read the other book by Franz.

  Were they mentioned in there?
  
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  4

  Samantha Lyndell Azzopardi (the power of story)

  by Jerryh in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  "propositional thought hinges on logic and formality.

  narrative thought is the reverse.

  its concrete, imagistic, personally convincing, and emotional.

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  Anders Andersen

  Simon,

  True, but still....

  ...people tend to trust other (unknown) people by default (fraude and con men exploit that)

  ...apparently telling a story of some sort (being a victim, selling Paradise, I am a Nigerian prince...) tends to somewhat make our logic thinking be put on the back burner (when compared to stating facts without a narrative)

  This makes me remember I read about a study that found that people are more willing to say yes to a request when there is a narrative or reason stated.

  'Excuse me, can I please go before you at the copier, because I really need to copy this...'

  yields significantly better results than just

  'Excuse me, can I please go before you at the copier?'

  In the first case, no more information is conveyed than in the other case. However, since a reason is explicitly stated (although obvious, why else would you be at the copier), the requestee assumes the asker already thought about it, and his own logic thinking is bypassed.

  (Of course this works within limits)
  
  
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  13

  Who thinks Wt is going to throw Vincent Tool under the bus if he loses his law registration.

  by joe134cd in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  just read speculation about this on another thread.

  who thinks vincent tool, if looses his law license and becomes less useful to wt that he will then be reassigned to the field.

  or is he just to big of a player to lose even with out a practicing law license.

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  Anders Andersen

  Quickly checked about the Chitty/Greenlees story. Didn't hear it before (but hey, I'm fresh out :-p)

  Is there any substance to that story? Anything more than rumours?

  Didn't check yet, maybe someone happens to know?
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  4

  Samantha Lyndell Azzopardi (the power of story)

  by Jerryh in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  "propositional thought hinges on logic and formality.

  narrative thought is the reverse.

  its concrete, imagistic, personally convincing, and emotional.

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  Anders Andersen

  When a fact is plausible, we still need to test it. When a story is plausible, we often assume it’s true.

  When the psychologists Melanie Green and Timothy Brock decided to test the persuasive power of narrative, they found that the more a story transported us into its world, the more we were likely to believe it—even if some details didn’t quite mesh.

  Azzopardi’s frauds relied on a quirk of human nature: when we become swept up in powerful narrative, our reason often falls by the wayside.

  Cons, both long and short, thrive on in-the-moment arousal. They don’t give us time to think or reconsider.

  Hence the extreme load of prepping for meetings, daily Bible reading, personal study, field service...keep them emotionally involved and give them no time to really think...

  “They are so eager to get their hands on the proffered scam payoff that they fail to pay even rudimentary attention to the details of the proposed transaction and ignore scam cues that may be obvious to others not so overwhelmed by desire,” he wrote in a paper called “Consumer Vulnerability to Scams, Swindles, and Frauds.” The emotional outcome becomes the center of focus, and logic falls away.

  Keep your eye on the Prize. See yourself in Paradise. Stay wanting for the reward, but don't apply logic...

  Nice find Jerry!

  Very interesting article.

  (Of course I just assumed everything it said as true, since there was a powerful narrative in the article :-p ;-))