i found this very interesting article by t. m. luhrmann in todays edition of the new york times (i've highlighted a few parts i 've found most interesting):.
it seems weird to deny them.. and yet a broad group of scholars is beginning to demonstrate that religious belief and factual belief are indeed different kinds of mental creatures.
people process evidence differently when they think with a factual mind-set rather than with a religious mind-set.
Eden, I looked at the study regarding supernatual reasoning increasing with age.
I wonder, though, if this might be a cohort effect wherein these beliefs are more common among those of an earlier generation?
In that case, it might represent a way of thinking that has since become "modernized," which would explain why younger people were less likely to ascribe supernatual explanations to natural phenomena.
This, in contrast to the idea that age represents longer and thus more mature reasoning.
it's to their credit that many modern christians prefer the jesus of the gospels to the god of the old testament.. ot god is an embarrassment.
i am not going to list his multitude of moral crimes here but my personal favourite is his brilliant idea that a girl who is raped must marry her rapist.
it's not his biggest crime but it demonstrates a disregard for human feelings that is beyond the comprehension of every moral person.
Cofty, sorry. I didn't mean to derail your thread. I definitely understand what you are saying.
I tend to get in trouble when I start thinking about others' thought processes on a subject, metacognition, if you will.
Christians, including JWs, seem to not see Jesus so much as a Jew who can be best understood through Jewish thought and more as the founder of the religion of Christianity and then retroactively apply their Christian understanding of him to the god Yahweh of the old testament. This seems especially easy to do with trinitarian thought that equates Jesus with the OT god.
I totally agree with you, Cofty, I'm just indulging in some attempts to understand what and how others understand the same subject. However, this usually is unproductive, at the least off topic, and so I apologize if I derailed the thread.
it's to their credit that many modern christians prefer the jesus of the gospels to the god of the old testament.. ot god is an embarrassment.
i am not going to list his multitude of moral crimes here but my personal favourite is his brilliant idea that a girl who is raped must marry her rapist.
it's not his biggest crime but it demonstrates a disregard for human feelings that is beyond the comprehension of every moral person.
I have incomplete thoughts on this subject, but I find Caleb's entry into the discussion interesting.
I feel like I need to ask, "Is the bible a fundamentally Jewish or Christian document? Does the answer to that question affect our understanding, not only of individual events in bible, but the larger "message," for lack of a better word?
back in the day, when my family moved to a new congregation, i fell head over heels with a young sister who was an elder's daughter.
it wasn't long before we were talking about marriage and i was contemplating buying her an engagement ring.
my parents were not happy at all.
I don't remember this being a thing 20 years ago. It's horrifying to think that anybody who asks can just be shown your record card.
This religion really has a privacy problem.
born in cambridge, ma to a liberal couple that escaped the conservative south, my parents raised me better than to become a jehovahs witness.
funny thing was they got mixed up in it first.. while that is a story for another time, i myself had to go along as the third of five children in my family.
dads job transferred him to texas and my mom worked fulltime herself, but eventually we found ourselves drinking the kool-aid of ambiguity intolerance and full-fledge belief that the bible was literal fact and that salvation was found only by those who were smart enough to enter the confines of the watchtower.. its weird how many people claim they fear children raised by two gay parents will grow up to be gay.
Caleb, that idea of god I can actually understand.
The whole idea that you have to actively accept Jesus' gift of everlasting life never cut it with me intellectually even when I was flirting with mainstream Christianity while my son was young. God should be able to give forgiveness without any "sinful" human's participation in the process if he truly were all powerful.
I have a similar story about having a high IQ, understanding that I was being taught some things that made no sense by the adults around me, but not being exactly able to put my finger on it due to lack of higher education. Though I have been able to get a degree, I still feel resentful that I was taught rubbish and believed it through my teenage years. If having intelligence is part of your identity, being fooled feels like a personal failing, even though I know, intellectually, that I was a child and I'm not responsible for what I was taught to believe back then.
i profess to teach the truth to you all and get you to all to think and believe.
believing in christ through his words and not through evil religious cults, like hoj and jw, can and will save you.
do you all realize that every time you are victorious and receive something of value through your hard work and sweat, it was our holy god who blessed you.
Pressman "I just want you to believe and find the lord."
I just want you to investigate rationally and then decide what to believe.
14 april 1912: rms titanic struck an iceberg during her maiden voyage in the north atlantic.. 15 april 1912: after two hours and forty minutes, rms titanic sank, resulting in the deaths of 1,517 people.. according to watchtower, when armageddon strikes, it will be the equivalent deathtoll of 4,000,000 titanics sinking.. praise jah?.
b the x.
Also, it's Tax Day in the US! Income taxes are due today!
And, the Watchtower won't be paying any...
a few seconds ago this hit the net todayhttp://jwvictims.org/conventions-kingdom-halls-relief-funds-and-other-financial-scams-and-schemes-of-jehovahs-witnesses/.
conventions, kingdom halls, relief funds, and other financial scams and schemes of jehovahs witnesses.
jehovahs witnesses often note that at their meetings (like church services), they dont pass a collection plate.
I think these are two separate issues.
The deficit happens because a large "donation" to the Society is included as an expense for the assembly. Thus, though they may have met the actual expenses, a deficit is announced when they haven't also met the amount of this "donation."
Then possibly because they are no longer meeting the budgeted expenses, they now seem to be levying a per publisher fee, pressuring local elders to make a resolution to cover the amount for their congregation. I believe it's about $10 per publisher, give or take.
i saw this coming since my mother-in-law's funeral .... the congregation's "love-bombing" over my wife had its impact.
i watched her drawing closer and closer to her friends in the congregation.
then she decided she would attend the memorial.
Spelling correction: hyper-religiosity.
For some reason, I can't edit on my Samsung tablet.
i saw this coming since my mother-in-law's funeral .... the congregation's "love-bombing" over my wife had its impact.
i watched her drawing closer and closer to her friends in the congregation.
then she decided she would attend the memorial.
Hyperreligiosiy can be a symptom of bipolar disorder! It can feel like a "high" or it can also feel like self-medication for a depressive phase.
Please research this to see if this sounds like what she's doing and, if so, talk to her doctor!
This is how I grew up, though my mother ultimately got a different diagnosis. She literally used the religion like a drug. And you can't really reason with that.
It sucked, big time. Please look into this possibility for your child's sake.
