Posts by Apognophos

9

HOW will YOU end?

by Terry in

jw
friends

a couple of years back, a friend of mine who is a former baptist preacher (dub horn) began.

visiting a rehabilitation hospital.

the irony of this was not lost on me.

I think about this a fair amount, perhaps too soon since I'm in my 30s. I don't think any of us wants to end up as a near-vegetable for the last years of our life. So if that's the case, why doesn't everyone just "accidentally" fall off a nearby cliff during a nature walk, once they realize they are getting too old to live independently anymore? It seems that we're prevented from doing this by a couple things.

Firstly, I think we come to that point and then we think about family, and we realize that we can't bear to make our children and grandchildren sad. We feel like we owe it to them to keep on living. There's a sort of external will to live that feeds into us through the existence of family and friends.

Secondly, I suppose that when one gradually ages to the point of decrepitude, one's standards for living decline so gradually that it doesn't seem so bad to be in a bed having people care for you, because it's only a small step down from when you lived on your own but could hardly get out of bed, and you had to have every meal either delivered to you or eaten out of a can. Perhaps we'll even feel that we deserve to be doted on and given some end-of-life care, having lived the long life that we did.

As for wanting to tell our story, I think we can do that now, here, or in a book as Terry has. As long as we have sufficient motivation, there won't be anything preventing us from still telling our story up until the day that we can't talk or remember anything anymore. I just think that most old folks honestly don't have a strong desire to tell their story anymore. But look at the ones that do. Hayao Miyazaki, the most important animation director of our modern era, has retired about six times. He's tired and he wants to stop working, but he always comes back to say one more thing. Even now in "retirement" he is drawing a new graphic novel.

I have a feeling that even when it takes a year of lying in a bed to die, that time passes by quickly, especially since many are no longer very mentally active by that time. And age seems to speed up time. I can see the years going by much faster than as a child. I can't imagine how it will be when I'm 80.

54

Tower of Babel built by Babies!

by Billy the Ex-Bethelite in

the weekly tms bible reading assignment is not read, or not carefully read, by most of the sheeples.

it doesn't really matter, because the consideration of the bible reading material is one of the shortest parts on the meeting with a limited number of comments, and those comments are restricted to less than 30 seconds or you will get counselled.

over and over, the dubs are told to read the bible, yet the organization gives no real encouragement to read the bible by keeping everyone busy in the recruiting work and using relatively few scriptures in their "talks".. why?

Apognophos

That's an interesting suggestion that originally animals and man spoke the same language. Just the other day I was wondering about the talking serpent in the Eden account. The account is really saying that all snakes could talk back then, not that one snake was possessed by Satan, as Witnesses will say. So I was wondering to myself, "Why could snakes talk then and not now? Didn't the Jews have any explanation for that in one of their stories?" It seemed like the sort of loose thread that would warrant some kind of explanation, and the Eden account doesn't say that the snake was stripped of its speaking ability.

So perhaps this Babel account originally more clearly stated that the animals could still communicate with men. However, as it stands, the account says "all the earth", not "all of the earth's creatures" or some similar phrase that could refer to non-human animals. I just take it to be a poetic phrase referring to all of human society.

It's actually an odd choice of words, since all humans were living in one little area at this point, post-Flood. If this story is misplaced, though, and belongs before the Flood, it makes more sense. In fact, it makes more sense anywhere else than where it is, such as well after the Flood when there would have been more people for such a project. As you indicated, this part of the Bible is a mishmash of old stories. It's likely that the Babel story was not originally part of some timeline or continuity that included the Flood story, and that's why it's not very compatible with it.

As to what it was that God (or the gods) were afraid of, it was probably just the tower itself, since if it was built up to the firmament, then perhaps it could be used as a siege tower in an assault on heaven. Later religious leaders, in a time where God was (or the gods were) more powerful, might have found this idea of an assault on heaven challenging to the majesty of the gods, and so they distanced themselves from the original premise by having the men say, "We will make a celebrated name for ourselves." The gods then say in response, "If man can do this, then he could do anything, and it's an affront to the gods for man to think so much of himself", thus explaining the language confusion as a punishment for hubris rather than a defensive maneuver in a war between earth-dwellers and heaven-dwellers.

As to who the gods would be, we know that early Jewish culture is in fact Canaanite culture, and initially they shared the same polytheistic beliefs. So the gods would likely be the 70 sons of El (or some later derivative of this belief), as discussed in various places on this forum. See Leolaia's posts here: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/165791/1/YHWH-a-minor-pagan-god-Ugaritic-Texts-and-the-Sons-of-El

43

WT Study Article Nov. 23, 2014--Adam understood "day" to be 24 hours

by Cadellin in

interesting admission in today's wt: adam may have understood "day" (as in "in the day you eat from it, you will positively die") to be a literal 24-hour period.

i don't think the wt has ever said this before; the usual emphasis is that jah meant it as a figurative day, a day from his standpoint which is 1,000 years (and the article does state that, later).. however, if adam understood god's warning to be carried out in a 24 hour period, and god did nothing to alleviate that, then who did the lying?

actually, regardless of adam's understanding, the question still stands but moving toward an admission of the use of day in that context to be 24-hours only makes the question even more valid.

Apognophos

Yes, it's stunning to realize that "the father of the lie" didn't actually lie here at all.

Reading it as the folk tale it originally was, it seems that Yahweh threatened to kill Adam as a bluff in order to keep him away from the tree, and the serpent merely told Adam and Eve the truth about the tree and encouraged them to call his bluff.

116

Creationist Should Dismiss Genesis Quickly

by Coded Logic in

chris tann,.

in your earlier post you seemed to be under the impression that genesis and science were somehow compatible .

however, the truth is the two are not reconcilable at all.

Apognophos

Neuroplasticity has nothing to do with my question. Perhaps you misunderstood me. A thought is simply a sequence of neuronal activities acting on pathways that have already been formed, right?

If you could think a thought that was so complex that it used your entire brain at once, the thought would still be no more complicated than your pre-existing brain. And holding that thought in your mind would not increase your complexity any more than a computer becomes more physically complex while it is using all of its CPU.

People are more complex than just their brains, but the brain is where thoughts occur. The heart or the liver do not contribute to the makeup of the mind, and in any case the brain is far and away the most complex part of the body.

7

Audience Contact - Use of notes

by mikeypants in

well, no audience contact but i am talking about use of notes.

i always wondered about note taking at conventions and assemblies.

why does this happen?

Apognophos

I doubt anyone ever looks up their old notes and reads them again for the fun of it, but there is a review part on the service meeting after each convention, and the only way to answer the questions is if you have some notes to resort to. I feel this is a major reason why anyone takes notes.

Re: the male/female difference in note-taking, let's face it, women just make better students in general, and note-taking is part of being studious.

36

A Non J-Dub paying a visit to KingDumb Hall!

by J-DUBBED in

i was thinking of doing a pop-in visit when they're doing their thing(what ever that might be).

to just see what it is that lures and hooks people, like our son.

i was worried there is some sort of subliminal messages in audio or video that start to brain-wash a person.

Apognophos

I'd advise going to a different Hall just to avoid making your son uncomfortable. I mean, if you're curious what the JW experience is like (mostly boring), then any Hall will do. JWs pride themselves on uniformity. There won't be anything specifically better about going to the Hall your son is at. Just make sure you bring a Bible for looking up scriptures, or someone may try to share theirs with you the entire time, if you're sitting next to a Witness. Also, be prepared to stand awkwardly through three songs that you won't have a songbook for, unless you show up enough time in advance that you can ask to borrow a songbook from the literature counter.

11

Woman was created first! It's science.

by wannabefree in

woman was created first.. every human being has 46 chromosomes arranged in 23 pairs, the first twenty two are autosomes, or matching, the twenty third pair matches in the female (xx), however, the male is mismatched (xy).. notice what is missing from that second x?

yes, one of its ribs has been removed.. clearly, in a female, since all are matching pairs, it makes sense that woman was created first as the male xy combination is the mutated pair.

why would god create the mismatched dna first?

Apognophos

It is an anatomical fact that men have one less rib or one short stubby rib

[citation needed]

11

Woman was created first! It's science.

by wannabefree in

woman was created first.. every human being has 46 chromosomes arranged in 23 pairs, the first twenty two are autosomes, or matching, the twenty third pair matches in the female (xx), however, the male is mismatched (xy).. notice what is missing from that second x?

yes, one of its ribs has been removed.. clearly, in a female, since all are matching pairs, it makes sense that woman was created first as the male xy combination is the mutated pair.

why would god create the mismatched dna first?

Apognophos

We have the same number of ribs, but our genes don't. That's what wannabefree was saying.

The Eden story was presumably not trying to say something about male anatomy when Adam had a rib taken from him, but only about Adam's anatomy. In other words, it wasn't an explanation of why men have one less rib, but was just intended to show that Eve was made from Adam (which was the way a patriarchal society would prefer to think of things as having happened).

Wizard of Oz brought up an interesting point about society possibly being matriarchal at one time. Some culture's oldest stories sometimes paint women in a stronger light than the stories that came later. However, we're talking about a hypothetical time so far back that it's prehistoric, so we have no clear records or other evidence that women were ever in charge.

It is interesting to note here that our two closest relatives, chimps and bonobos, are patriarchal and matriarchal, respectively.

7

Pay your subway fare in NY city - or ELSE!

by fulltimestudent in

http://www.9news.com.au/world/2014/11/22/12/10/nypd-cop-filmed-splitting-man-s-head-open-with-baton.

footage has emerged of an new york city police officer striking an alleged fare-evader's head with a baton, sending the man stumbling and spraying bystanders with his blood.. the video shows the officer approach 20-year-old donovan lawson at bushwick train station in brooklyn yesterday shortly before 8pm.. graphic warning: viewers may find the contents of this video shocking.

lawson was sitting on a wooden bench and holding his hands up when the unnamed officer started throwing punches.. witness michelle anas was on her way home from work when she stumbled across the scene.. she said she went to call 911 just as the officer pulled out his truncheon and cracked lawson over the head, sending him reeling across the platform as blood poured from his skull.. "it was one of the most awful things i've ever seen," witness michelle anas told new york daily news.

Apognophos

News flash: Don't struggle with cops and you won't get whacked.

28

We're not dealing with sincere anointed who genuinely believe their teachings but scam artists

by truthseeker in

jw
friends

looking at all the doctrinal teachings over the last five years, it's almost impossible for any person of conscience who originated such doctrine to do a complete u-turn and change it when the passage of time has proved beyond doubt that doctrine is no longer credible.. i say this with reference to the generation of 1914. they were so sure.

it was part of the awake!

masthead for decades that those who saw the events of 1914 would also see the great tribulation.. .

Apognophos

I've generally leaned toward the school of thought that the leadership is sincere, but probably the two biggest things that make me doubt their sincerity are the overlapping generation teaching and the allowance of blood fractions. What these teachings have in common is a seeming refusal to admit that they could be flat-out wrong about something they previously said.

Instead of admitting "We don't know how long a generation is", they've come up with a new definition of "generation" which strains logic in order to explain why we're all still here in 2014. Interestingly, though, they did admit indirectly in 1995 that they didn't know the length of the "generation" when they defined it as basically an "era". Then they debuted the crazy "overlapping" interpretation in 2010 which goes back to making an assertion that they definitely know how long the generation is. But they were almost humble there!... on this one issue... for a period of 15 years.

With blood, the general agreement among us is that they allowed fractions because they realized that the Biblical argument for not taking blood was weak, and they may have had concerns about coming under attack for the loss of life that the doctrine was causing. But instead of just dropping the doctrine, which could have opened them up to massive lawsuits over lost lives in the past, they said that some parts of blood could now be transfused -- if a Witness' conscience allowed it! Since JWs have been programmed strongly to be repulsed by blood, that means some JWs would still turn down a transfusion even now.

It's worth pointing out that this "conscience matter" line that they used for blood fractions was also used when the organ transplant ban was lifted. Back then in 1980, long before the current GB, there was a similar refusal to acknowledge that they had caused needless deaths, and a similar refusal to admit that there was nothing in the Bible forbidding organ transplants. Instead of saying, "It's actually totally okay to get a transplant", they weaseled out of the need to admit fault by saying that transplants were now a conscience matter!

One could say that these three examples demonstrate a lack of sincerity, but there's still an alternative way to look at this, which is that the enormity of the mistakes over blood transfusions and organ transplants were too great for the leadership to contemplate. It's a well-known psychological response to shift the blame away from oneself when one seems to be responsible for something really bad. On top of that, when it was previous leadership that was responsible for instituting the policy, it's easier for the subsequent leaders to shirk the need to apologize since "it's not our mistake".

However, at the very least, this attitude indicates a lot of pride, or in fact I would say hubris, at the organizational level. They are too full of themselves to be willing to lose face by admitting wrong. And that's not very Christian for a group of men who are supposed to be closer to Christ than all of us "other sheep".