Posts by cognisonance

33

JWs exist because...

by oldskool in

jw
friends

one sentence answers only.. here's mine:.

jws exist because people want an escape from the modern world and are willing to give up intellectual freedom to get it..

cognisonance

Because people don't honestly question or reason anywhere near as much as they ought to...

That's an understatement for sure! It's also an endemic issue in the US in general, perhaps pandemic in the world.

20

JWs aren't stupid

by cognisonance in

the title is a bit of click bait.

but here's the alternative title: what stupid beliefs/ideas did you have while an active jw.. i think the majority of jws that don't have obvious mental health issues are not stupid, just un/under-educated.

for example, i now accept evolution as a thing, not a controversy or conjecture.

cognisonance

The title is a bit of click bait. But here's the alternative title: What stupid beliefs/ideas did you have while an active JW.

I think the majority of JWs that don't have obvious mental health issues are not stupid, just un/under-educated. For example, I now accept evolution as a thing, not a controversy or conjecture. I even actively contribute to research papers and publish in peer-reviewed journals.

Nonetheless, about ~8 years ago I recall saying something fallacious like the following about evolution:

"Telling lies is complicated, but the truth is simple. The world has numerous books on evolution, and they are anything but simple. Thus, we know evolution is a lie."

Facepalm.

33

JWs exist because...

by oldskool in

jw
friends

one sentence answers only.. here's mine:.

jws exist because people want an escape from the modern world and are willing to give up intellectual freedom to get it..

cognisonance

The same reason any other religion exists... the appeal of choosing beliefs that best fit with how you perceive reality to be (but not how it actually is).

For most JWs, I suspect it's beliefs that best fit their wishful thinking (i.e. the paradise earth teaching being chief among them).

32

what sort of reactions have you gotten when talking to other jw when telling them the "truth about the truth"?

by AmIright in

its funny ive read some stories on here about how they have become so infuriated by what logic dictates as being true and their own denying of it because it completely screws up their belief and shows how hypocritical it is xd some look like a nuclear reactor about to blow xd.

share you experiences here :) .

cognisonance

I literally had one person put fingers in his/her ears and start humming!

Peter and Rosemary Grant's Research on Darwin's Finches

by cognisonance in

so i'm taking a college general biology course this summer and came across this chart:.

the interesting thing about the above chart is that this was talked about in was life created (p. 21).

the writers conclude that "prestigious scientific academies are not above reporting evidence in a biased manner," as it to imply the watchtower is not.

cognisonance

So I'm taking a college general biology course this summer and came across this chart:

The interesting thing about the above chart is that this was talked about in Was Life Created? (p. 21). The writers conclude that "prestigious scientific academies are not above reporting evidence in a biased manner," as if to imply the Watchtower does not. Their evidence of such a claim? The research of Peter and Rosemary Grant showed how during years of drought survivors had much larger beaks, and suggests if this type of selective pressure continued in the long term a new species could evolve. However, the Watchtower writers thinks there is bias in this explanation as they mention, "the [National Academy of Sciences] brochure neglects to mention that in the years following the drought, finches with smaller beaks again dominated the population."

That NAS brochure they are referring to was from 1999, so "the drought" is the first one in this graph. The irony here is that the Watchtower claims scientists omit information, but it turns out this is exactly what Was Life Created? is doing. The missing fact is that the arrival of a competitor species (G. magnirostris) with larger beaks was the reason for the decline in G. fortis beak size in the years following the drought. There were two, not just one, selective pressures going on (drought and competition), and importantly, these two pressures acted in opposite directions on the beak size of the finches under study. That's a pretty big omission!

28

Stories From the Back Room

by xjwsrock in

(i am still a serving elder.

i have no idea how much longer i can stomach it.

timing is terrible for stepping down right now, though.

cognisonance

In the meantime I'll read Ayn Rand novels in secret

You do realize that Ayn Rand's ideas, Objectivism, and the often intersecting romanticizing of free-markets share a lot of cult-like properties.

Instead of reading Ayn Rand, why don't you read the works of Noam Chomsky, who exposes the TTATT regarding other important topics that also have massive impacts on the lives of people.

For example here is one recent interview with him.

19

Question for Cofty about God and Bible defences

by slimboyfat in

i thought about sending you a pm but it might make an interesting open discussion.

i've seen you express the lack of good pro-god ex-witnesses to engage with.

i don't know about ex-witnesses, but there are a few witnesses who've written on these issues.

cognisonance

Impressed isn't the word I'd use. I find his paper dizzying trying to read and follow. Weaving arguments together, no mater how elegant one might appear in doing so, if built on the same fundamental premises (the flood, C14 dating unreliable, in particular) becomes problematic if the premise is false or the arguments fallacious (kind of like how JWs argue about some much from a foundation of just a few incorrect premises). To discuss arguments made in this paper would require focusing on just one of them and not jumping around to all kinds of other arguments. It reminds me of this graphic:

19

Question for Cofty about God and Bible defences

by slimboyfat in

i thought about sending you a pm but it might make an interesting open discussion.

i've seen you express the lack of good pro-god ex-witnesses to engage with.

i don't know about ex-witnesses, but there are a few witnesses who've written on these issues.

cognisonance

I think discussing the merits of an argument and motivated reasoning to some degree turn out to be mutually exclusive concepts. It's very likely that a "motivated reasoner" will not discuss the merits of an opposing argument. On the other hand some arguments are so asinine that one may not be, well, motivated to bother.

19

Question for Cofty about God and Bible defences

by slimboyfat in

i thought about sending you a pm but it might make an interesting open discussion.

i've seen you express the lack of good pro-god ex-witnesses to engage with.

i don't know about ex-witnesses, but there are a few witnesses who've written on these issues.

cognisonance

slimboyfat,

I updated my previous post in the last 30 minutes. You might want to (re)read it. Also please at least check out the last link and the one about Motivated Reasoning.

19

Question for Cofty about God and Bible defences

by slimboyfat in

i thought about sending you a pm but it might make an interesting open discussion.

i've seen you express the lack of good pro-god ex-witnesses to engage with.

i don't know about ex-witnesses, but there are a few witnesses who've written on these issues.

cognisonance

I read the abstract to the dating the flood pdf. I'll ask one question:

Why bother trying to date an event that has little (if any) evidence for its existence? If the evidence is the bible, well we have a circular problem (evidence for an event is the source claiming the event happened). For such an extraordinary claim, the existence of flood myth stories is nowhere near being extraordinary evidence (and is also subject to circular reasoning). Due to a faulty (or weak) premise (assuming a global flood was real), attacking C14 dating thus makes little sense without first establishing the claimed event actually happened. A much better approach would be to examine geological evidence to see if there is any that supports a global deluge.

Examining the evidence showing evolution happened and that no global flood existed was the key to me leaving the Jehovah's Witnesses. I read a lot of material on the topic of scientific dating, the flood, and evolution. The latter interested me more and I remember that topic more compared to a global flood, but I do have the general impression that the evidence for a global flood was severely underwhelming, nonexistent even. Of course the two topics are related and the evidence for evolution is so strong that it alone shows the idea of a global flood to be nonsense. For the relationship between the two I'd highly suggest reading the book Why Evolution is True, by Jerry Coyne (page 88-96 regarding biogeography in particular).

The JW's incompetence at research at best, or lies at worst, showed they could not be trusted. They argued about topics like a global flood and against Evolution from a perspective not of intellectual honesty, but one of Motivated Reasoning. Gertoux is doing the same thing.

I would suggest that instead of searching out material that confirms your own beliefs that you critically analyze the evidence for a global flood and evolution yourself. Beware of self-deception (or self-bias depending if you are pedantic academically). I talked about the problem here on this forum.