Posts by Apognophos

36

Chapter a day: MEMOIRS of a MANGY ex-CULTIST

by Terry in

we'll see how long this lasts.... i'll write a chapter each day.

every day.. when there is nothing left to say.....it is over.. it could end up being a book nobody will every read.

or, it might be read by a few and it might mean something to somebody.

Apognophos

I like your comparison between the GB and Jesus. They're worlds apart. The GB truly are modern-day Pharisees -- this thought first occurred to me when I read the definition of the word "Jesusism" one or two years ago (long after many of you guys noticed), but I have only become more convinced of it since then.

But Terry, don't forget to tell us about your life! There's a lot left to cover -- your life under parole and after prison (and maybe more details of your time in prison -- your life and relationships with the other brothers, etc.), how you eventually ended up here....

14

College Degree Required

by respectful_observer in

i don't anticipate seeing this article, or its supporting data, referenced in any wt publications anytime soon.... ....................................... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/business/college-degree-required-by-increasing-number-of-companies.html?hpw&_r=0.

a few excerpts:.

the college degree is becoming the new high school diploma: the new minimum requirement, albeit an expensive one, for getting even the lowest-level job.. like other employers across the country, the firm hires only people with a bachelors degree, even for jobs that do not require college-level skills.

Apognophos

Some JW's think that the Society has put itself in a bad economic position by not encouraging higher education. I disagree. Persons of lower income brackets (and in most third world countries) historically give all of their surplus income to "the church."

Interesting thought, gingerbread. I suppose that if all the friends were successfully saving up for retirement and medical bills, they wouldn't be so desperately looking forward to Armageddon to come soon....

65

Not meaning to sound sexist : In general are women more emotional/feel good about religion,and men more proof/doctrinal in their acceptance ?

by smiddy in

i`m just speaking from my own experience here ,and it has occured to me that over the 33 years i was a witness and in the six congrgations i was a part of , except for a few exceptions, the majority of sisters in the congregations did not have a grasp of the so called deeper things of god,according to wt theology, sure they could run off " bible topics for discussion" sermons but very few could take a discussion any further than that.whereas i was aware that males seemed more likely to delve deeper into, not only the scriptures,but also the wt interpretations as a whole.

don`t get me wrong a few women left me for dead in their comprehension of topics ,but i`m just saying overall i found this to be the case ... my experience... smiddy.

.

Apognophos

I remember someone on here posting about a brother who proudly said, "If the Governing Body says this [black] Bible is green, then it's green."

Many of the men in the organization who climb the ladder to "elder" have this same love of being the middleman in a hierarchy. The sense of belongingness and the enjoyment of following and giving orders... the willingness to "cease thinking on command" in order to maintain one's position, and be proud of it... is that logical?

33

December 15 Watchtower --- A New Low in WT Anti-Intellectualism

by Room 215 in

i wonder whether any of you took note of the article in the 12/15 study edition wt "the simplified watchtower .. why introduced" i couldn't believe they actually had the temerity to put such tripe into print and onto the record.. i was flat-out astonished with its put-down of vocabulary building and self-improvement:.

one egregious example: " the time spent looking up words and explaining expressions (ostensibly from the "smart people's" watchtower) is now spent gaining an understanding of the scriptures and how they fit into the lesson.".

one jw cited in the article actually blames her college education for causing her to fall into the bad habit of "speaking and thinking a way that was more complicated than necessary.

Apognophos

Thanks, bats in the belfry, though it's sad to hear a GB member deliver a message like that. Talk about being out of touch. I can't imagine that many JWs were convinced by such an extreme analogy.

57

MIT Survey on science, religion and origins

by Pterist in

interesting read and graph:.

*****i'd been warned.

a friend cautioned me that if we went ahead and posted our mit survey on science, religion and origins, i'd get inundated with hate-mail from religious fundamentalists who believe our universe to be less than 10,000 years old.

Apognophos

No I'm not assuming anything. [...] Methodological naturalism assumes there is a naturalistic answer

So... you are assuming something?

Its a working assumption that has led to the discovery of every useful thing we know.

You don't really believe the "every" part of that, though, right? Surely I don't have to trot out the old examples like Newton believing that God kept the universe moving. This didn't stop him from describing its movement.

Why do you want to throw away a method that works?

I don't. I am agnostic, just for the record (I suppose that's worth repeating from time to time for those who've missed it), but even if I believed in God, why would that stop me from investigating how he did things? There's no conflict there.

153

If there is a God why didn't he sign our DNA

by scotoma in

jw
friends

todays scientists can and do insert their trademark into dna.. why couldn't jehovah anticipate scientists learning this technique and stumbling across a strand that says "human by yhwh"?.

that would have answered a lot of questions.. he could have even included a model number human2.0.

Apognophos

Not to disagree, but where does the Bible indicate that, scotoma?

160

I've Come To Realize That "Facts" Don't Mean Much If A Person Refuses To Accept Them

by minimus in

jw
friends

...and that applies to religion as well as politics.. if someone simply believes such and such is true, it doesn't really matter whether you "prove" it or not.

people will believe what they want to believe..

Apognophos

No, I think I agree with all of that. And I don't pretend to know what Minimus really was saying. But unfortunately, an ambiguous statement allows others to jump in and apply it in only one direction: at people who believe differently than them. I was trying to encourage more self-reflection, along the lines of your last post. Although I was probably doing it clumsily.

160

I've Come To Realize That "Facts" Don't Mean Much If A Person Refuses To Accept Them

by minimus in

jw
friends

...and that applies to religion as well as politics.. if someone simply believes such and such is true, it doesn't really matter whether you "prove" it or not.

people will believe what they want to believe..

Apognophos

I don't have many problems with how science works in principle, but I do have issues with how some science-only people express themselves on forums. That was my original point in this thread. Even the thread title can be construed to be arrogant and thus polarizing.

19

Deluded Cult Speak By Jehovah's Witnesses

by BlindersOff1 in

please give any examples you've heard of jws verbalizing cognitive dissonance , delusional reasoning .

in other words crazy jw logic .like.

one jw mother recently told her son " even if you did have proof it wasn't the truth, i wouldn't want to read it".

Apognophos

The main problem I had with the idea of a house or watch needing a maker is that it's simply not an organism. It doesn't have the ability to change over successive generations to conform to its environment and become more complex. It's an apples to oranges comparison.

But thank you for mentioning that other one, vajeni82. Allowing the Bible to tell us that it's divinely inspired is craaaaazy. It's a complete abandonment of our logical thinking abilities. I actually had an elder I was working with in service use that reasoning point on a skeptical atheist householder. I wanted to fall into a hole.

57

MIT Survey on science, religion and origins

by Pterist in

interesting read and graph:.

*****i'd been warned.

a friend cautioned me that if we went ahead and posted our mit survey on science, religion and origins, i'd get inundated with hate-mail from religious fundamentalists who believe our universe to be less than 10,000 years old.

Apognophos

Why not just accept that we don't yet know about the origin of the universe?

I don't know, why don't you? ;) You're assuming it started accidentally, some people assume intention. It's all assumptions.