Posts by TonusOH

everyone, get back on the hamster wheel, and don’t you dare complain or try to get out of it by using zoom.. https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/14fhe4y/exercise_patience_classic_gaslighting_from_wt/ .

TonusOH

Keep in mind that they believe that the end is very near and may happen any day now. So any sign that things are getting bad/worse will put many of them on alert. My mother constantly warns me that "things are so bad that they cannot continue like this," as if to imply that the end has to be soon.

She's been saying this for a good 40+ years now, but I doubt she realizes that.

65

The currently missing 'Titan' submarine. What do you think?

by SydBarrett in

jw
friends

any opinions are just speculation, but my guess, being morbid, is that there was not a hull breach and implosion (although that would have been the most merciful fate for them), but instead the amateur level of building this thing meant that it lost power and communication and got itself tangled in the titanic's wreckage or is sitting on the actual seabed with no way to release ballast to resurface.

terrifying.

what's your gut feeling?

TonusOH

HiddlesWife: The CEO, regardless of NDAs or some other contracts signed by the now victims–will be looking forward to being litigated by someone’s family members/loved ones in the nearest future! Just. My. Observations.

Wasn't the CEO one of the passengers on this trip?

11530

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars

by Newly Enlightened in

original reddit post (removed).

TonusOH

Remember that, in his confession video, he tried to defend himself by explaining that he hadn't raped or murdered anyone, or drowned any puppies. So he's used to setting the bar low.

196

would you be more happy not knowing what you now know?

by ExBethelitenowPIMA in

a good question is would you be more happy not knowing what you now know?.

were you more happy pimi?

are all the pimis more happy than the the pimos or the pomos?.

TonusOH

By the way, biologists do not claim that humans evolved from apes, but that humans and apes evolved from a common ancestor. The "argument" that humans evolved from apes is not an argument. It is not a view promoted by evolutionary biologists. They do not make this claim.

As for missing links, the term is a misnomer, IMO. It implies that evolution has stopped, as opposed to being an ongoing process (in which case every species is a link). Thus, there will always be missing links, since it's unlikely that we'll ever find every single species that has existed. But that doesn't mean that evolutionary lineages have not been extensively mapped, per https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_forms

11530

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars

by Newly Enlightened in

original reddit post (removed).

TonusOH

Yes, please keep referring to this topic. The more people that see it, the better.

11530

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars

by Newly Enlightened in

original reddit post (removed).

TonusOH

LMsA: Just a couple months ago he was actually on camera saying that his “work” saves lives!

Even if we were to accept that his 'activism work' helps people, it does not mean we should handwave his actions along the way. If you confront a man who abuses his wife and he tries to explain that he's actually a nice guy who buys ice cream for his kids and works at a soup kitchen three nights a week, that doesn't excuse his abusive behavior. He's still an abuser. He's still an awful human being.

You don't balance out being an awful human being by being a decent person the rest of the time. You certainly don't defend it by griping that everyone else has flaws, seeing as everyone else isn't asking for regular (and substantial!) financial support and then spending it in ways that those supporters find offensive, and then gaslighting the very people you are grifting from.

Edit: Whoops! This is the 1000th page. It's not my fault mine is the post on top. I blame Kim.

196

would you be more happy not knowing what you now know?

by ExBethelitenowPIMA in

a good question is would you be more happy not knowing what you now know?.

were you more happy pimi?

are all the pimis more happy than the the pimos or the pomos?.

TonusOH

ExB: I think you are throwing in a lot of bad religious leaders in the same boat as the Bible when in fact they are in a complete different boat.

What I mean is, there is no universally agreed-upon framework for judging the truth of religion and religious claims. Science, we are told, cannot do it, since religion deals with metaphysics and with the supernatural, which science (the study of the natural world) cannot be applied to. But there is no acceptance of how to apply metaphysics or "spiritual science" to religious claims in order to determine if there is any truth to any of it. Without that framework, religions make claims that cannot be tested, including by other religions. Which do you trust? Why?

As for science and the Bible, keep in mind that the Bible refers to things like a global flood, which science shows us cannot have happened. Or the resurrection of a man who was dead for more than a day. It tells of an occasion where the display of striped branches caused livestock to give birth to similarly-striped offspring. One of its writers appeared to think that demons caused disease. And so on. I think science works just fine without the Bible. I don't really think the Bible works too well at all.

196

would you be more happy not knowing what you now know?

by ExBethelitenowPIMA in

a good question is would you be more happy not knowing what you now know?.

were you more happy pimi?

are all the pimis more happy than the the pimos or the pomos?.

TonusOH

I don't find either account intuitively reasonable, at least with regards to the origins of the universe. But even with that, I'd have to admit that the people learning via the scientific method have a reliable pathway for understanding our world and universe. Ask religious people around the world about god and the universe, and you will get multitudes of explanations, many of which do not harmonize at all, even among those groups that claim to believe in the same god. They rely on guesswork, and without an agreed-upon method of learning what is true, each claim is as valid as any other.

Ask scientists around the world about the universe, and you will get a much tighter range of answers to any question, including quite a few admissions that there is much they have yet to discover. But what they have learned, they've done so through a rigid and agreed-upon method that helps --over the long term especially-- to weed out the kind of sloppy and biased approach that leaves religion with too many claims, and too few real answers. Speak with actual biologists, and you'll get a better understanding of how they got to where they are, and why they consider evolution to be so firmly established as to be beyond doubt. Do the same with astronomers, physicists, and so on, and you'll get the same response.

I have faith in that process. The same process that has brought us the endless stream of technological advancement that touches every aspect of our lives on such a level that we take it for granted these days. I cannot trust a process that has left the world divided into groups that cannot agree to a framework for determining who is right or who is wrong. Which uses the very same arguments to promote their religious beliefs, then ignores those same arguments to reject alternative religious beliefs.