Posts by cognisonance

20

Why the verb shun is missing from the JW lexicon

by cognisonance in

so my parents when i confronted them about how unhappy i am at them shunning me, responded by saying: "you keep using the word shunning, we're not shunning you.

"i am a bit confused how they can say that.

i'm an ex-jw and an atheist.

cognisonance

The second paragraph is very convoluted and makes it appear that the only way you get shunned is if you're a child molester of some sorts.

I think the third paragraph is the worst. It implies normal family relationships and dealings continue after a family member gets DF'd. They site an example where the Dad is DF'd but maintains normal relationships with his wife and kids at home. Only the religious ties are severed it says. What they don't say is that this is an extenuating circumstance, an exception to the general rule. For example, once those kids move out and if the Dad is still DF'd but the kids are baptized active JWs, they will shun him. If the kids get DF'd but the Dad doesn't and they move out, they will be shunned by the dad. This is the most deceptive paragraph I think. It implies families don't shun each other, only the congregation shuns DF'd members -- untrue of course.

23

youngest baptised.

by zeb in

jw
friends

what is the youngest you have seen someone baptised?

i recall seeing a 9 yo girl baptised..

cognisonance

How can JWs deride infant baptism by Catholics but think that kids in the first few grades of school getting baptised are okay? Seems quite similar. Myself, I was 12 and did it simply because that's what all the good kids were doing doing and what you were expected to do. I viewed myself as a good person. So I did it. However, I cared much more about the current video game I was playing than anything JW. The human brain doesn't finish fully developing until the mid twenties or so.

20

Why the verb shun is missing from the JW lexicon

by cognisonance in

so my parents when i confronted them about how unhappy i am at them shunning me, responded by saying: "you keep using the word shunning, we're not shunning you.

"i am a bit confused how they can say that.

i'm an ex-jw and an atheist.

cognisonance

There is an FAQ on their website

Problem is this is public facing material, not material members actually read. When talking with my parents about this I referred to that FAQ for it's deceptiveness. They apparently haven't read it. But maybe after my visit they might have done so, and seen that statement about "he or she will be shunned."

11

Now Scottish history disproves the flood

by Splash in

wt state that the global flood that wiped everything away happened in 2370 bce.. there's been a wealth of evidence from many quarters which prove that life continued as normal for civilizations during that time period.. now scotland adds to that body of evidence as detailed in this bbc report:.

neolithic orkney - new study.

key dates indicated by the study.

cognisonance

Prior to the flood, there was a water canopy.

Except there is no evidence of this. I would think for this to be a valid argument it would require this assumption to be true. Of course JWs with their circular logic don't care about evidence despite loving to use the word evidently.

17

It's 110% impossible to deny now: Video evidence of the Chile flags

by ILoveTTATT2 in

jw
friends

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0auklk0uq8&feature=youtu.be.

this video leaves no doubt whatsoever.

the person who took the video got really close and the video clearly shows that the flag is behind the glass and behind the bars protecting the kingdom hall.

cognisonance

I attended an international convention in Santiago Chile... uh like 10 years ago. What struck me as odd was that I received many gifts from chilean JWs on site at the convention that contained the chile flag -- and these were hand made trinkets and such. I remember being very confused thinking, "If I started giving out american flags at a get together in the US I'm sure there would be big issues with doing so." Maybe it's a cultural thing in chile so entranced that the JWs are allowed to be patriotic there.

20

Why the verb shun is missing from the JW lexicon

by cognisonance in

so my parents when i confronted them about how unhappy i am at them shunning me, responded by saying: "you keep using the word shunning, we're not shunning you.

"i am a bit confused how they can say that.

i'm an ex-jw and an atheist.

cognisonance

So my parents when I confronted them about how unhappy I am at them shunning me, responded by saying: "You keep using the word shunning, we're not shunning you."

I am a bit confused how they can say that. I'm an ex-JW and an atheist. They know this. They don't speak to me, unless I force it by showing up at their door every couple years. And even then sometimes they don't even talk to me. They don't respond to texts. They don't respond to emails. It dawned on me that there is single verb in the JW lexicon to describe what they are doing. The closest seems to be concepts: "not having association with" or perhaps "not mixing in company with" or "stay clear of" or "have nothing to do with" or simply "don't talk to."

But there is no single verb for some reason. My question is why? Why don't JWs or the governing body use the word shun? Seems like the exact word to describe to the T what is happening. For that matter there doesn't seem to be a single verb euphemism for shunning in the JW lexicon. WTF? Is it manufactured such that when objections come up like this members can believe what they say when they say, "we don't shun?"

18

North Korea Has Gone and Done it Again

by cofty in

nk has fired another icbm over japan.. the missile flew 2,300 miles at an altitude of 480 miles.

a korean spokesman has said about japan, “the four islands of the archipelago should be sunken into the sea by the nuclear bomb of juche.

japan is no longer needed to exist near us”.

cognisonance

Three words: Quid quo pro (and a link). I also wonder how a game theory approach to this situation would model on a computer, that might be a good way to gain insight into the politics of this all. I would bet if the US would agree to quid quo pro, things would not be so tense.

North Korea is no ideal place to live and no one likes the idea of a dictator. But as long as tit for tat is in the realm of aggression instead of cooperation... well what do you expect?

11

Education

by bola in

after waking up from the truth about the truth, i have decided to go to higher institution for further studies.

.

cognisonance

I work full time and go to school part time. So here is the best advice I can give you. Insist on getting 8 hours (or whatever amount you need to function well) every night. Try your best to avoid robbing from sleep to turn in an assignment (if you must you must, but avoid needless procrastination). You might even find you'll need more sleep than you are used to.

The second thing is that it may take you a while to adjust to being back in school if it's been a long time for you. I'd also recommend picking up "The End of Stress" by Don Joseph Goewey.

17

Once you've proved the truth to yourself you don't need to keep trying to disprove it...

by cognisonance in

i was told this during my judicial committee (some five years ago) when i brought up concerns i had with the "truth.

" in addition one of the elders (who was an engineer) said once you've accepted a proof of pythagorus' theorem you don't later start doubting that theorem.

i thought that argument was a weak analogy then.

cognisonance

Yes of course I agree with you both. I guess my point was lost. This Elder tried to appeal to what he saw as an example of absolute truth: proof in mathematics. The irony is that even mathematicians are reluctant to say something is totally true.

17

Once you've proved the truth to yourself you don't need to keep trying to disprove it...

by cognisonance in

i was told this during my judicial committee (some five years ago) when i brought up concerns i had with the "truth.

" in addition one of the elders (who was an engineer) said once you've accepted a proof of pythagorus' theorem you don't later start doubting that theorem.

i thought that argument was a weak analogy then.

cognisonance

I was told this during my judicial committee (some five years ago) when I brought up concerns I had with the "truth." In addition one of the elders (who was an engineer) said once you've accepted a proof of Pythagorus' theorem you don't later start doubting that theorem. I thought that argument was a weak analogy then. However, I now find this argument ironic after reading this:

https://profkeithdevlin.org/2014/11/24/what-is-a-proof-really

Namely:

How do we know that such and such “theorem” are true, if the proofs are almost certainly full of errors?

Well, we don’t. In mathematics, as in large parts of natural science, it is an unfair fight. We can “easily” show a purported proof is false by finding an error, but we can never know for sure that it is correct. (Even if you apply a formal proof checking technique, you can never know for sure there was not an error in that process.)

What happens in practice is that once several experts in the domain have examined the argument and declared themselves to be satisfied it is correct, then the rest of the mathematical community accepts that fact and moves on. The more people look at it, the more confident we get.

However, there have been times when this process was eventually found to have gone wrong. Arguments that have been accepted for some time are subsequently found to have a fatal flaw. That’s why mathematicians are reluctant to ever say something is totally correct.