Posts by Island Man

94

New JW video, song and dance

by Listener in

the current jws do not cease to amaze.

here's their latest video on youtube and straight from bethel.. there is a lot of work involved in this.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwou6e5vwbo .

Island Man

Talk about being no part of the world and not following worldly trends and fads . . .

16

WTS reform - is it possible?

by LoveUniHateExams in

in threads concerning islam i've consistently argued for reforming the religion.

it unfortunately has pre-enlightenment doctrines and practices, or at least there exists pre-enlightenment interpretation of koranic scripture that support such doctrines and practices.

in a lesser way, and on a lesser scale, the wts too is pre-enlightenment in a sense.

Let's be real, Watchtower does change its teachings and policies. We can clearly see efforts on their part to appear more moderate and less extremist to the public. This shows they are aware of their extremism. We have seen reform in the blood issue where they now permit members to have what they call secondary fractions of blood components.

I think that reform will take place/is taking place very gradually without them making any public noise that they are reforming. They can't be seen as acknowledging that they have been very extremist in the past, so they will reform very slowly under the guise of "Jehovah's chariot moving ahead" and getting a clearer understanding of the scriptures as time goes on, and while avoiding use of the term "reform".

They have no choice but to reform in order to remain relevant in this increasingly more enlightened world where bigotry, hate-speech and other disgusting practices are becoming less and less tolerable by society. And they know that they can always spin the scriptures to justify taking a more lenient position on matters they were hardliners about in the past, and all - most - JWs will just blindly go along in the name of loyalty to "the channel that Jehovah is using at this time".

Once it becomes apparent to Watchtower that a hard-line position is more detrimental to their recruitment efforts and is giving them very bad publicity - once it becomes apparent to them that a hard-line position is more of a liability to them than an asset, they will reform that position. We can help in that process by continuing to vocally sensitize and educate the public about their very damaging hard-line policies and practices that destroy families and even result in loss of life.

16

What will JW.org / Watchtower be like in 15 years?

by jw07 in

over the past few days i've been reading and watching bill and melinda gates speak about their plans for a better world by 2030. they bet that due to technology and the compassion of people the world should improve more in the next 15 years than it has in all of history.

specifically lower child mortality rate, eradication of polio and guinea worm among other diseases, improvement of standards of living, greater access to education etc.. i'm a realist, so i'm not looking for miracles, but i believe most of these things are possible given the level of success they have reaped in other endeavors, and naturally emerging tech being used to make some of these projections possible.. you can see that the world is actually improving in many areas if you seek out the good news stories and statistics and look beyond the watchtower friendly fear porn about terrorism, and potential dangers from culturally diverse nations around the globe.

for instance 2014 had the lowest fatal airline accident rate in history despite the hyping of the ill fated malaysian airlines crashes.

Island Man

If things get a lot better, the Watchtower and consequently JWs, would be like:

"See how things are getting better? That means any minute now the governments would make a proclamation of peace and security signalling very imminent destruction for this old system under Satan's rule."

But if things get worse, they would be like:

"See how things are getting worse? That means we are very very very deep in the time of the end and Jehovah will bring an end to this system of things any day now. it is obvious for all to see that this system of things has very very very little time left!"

26

New forum: one month progress report

by Simon in

well, we survived the first month at least!

yes, the new forum is now 1 month old.. of course there have been some issues and i'm grateful that people have been patient while i worked on them.

a big thank-you to everyone who's been patient, have provided useful feedback or just been willing to adapt to something new during the transition.. i've also made some improvements along the way and am fairly happy with how things are from a basic functionality and performance perspective so it's time to start looking at some of the new features i've been planning.

Island Man

Oh, I think I see what you mean, happy@last. When I move the pointer off the avatar but keep it within the banner the tool tip disappears and I can see all the info. clearly. Still, for the sake of user-friendliness, a user shouldn't have to learn and use such technical idiosyncrasies. LOL. Besides, the tool tip really is redundant.

26

New forum: one month progress report

by Simon in

well, we survived the first month at least!

yes, the new forum is now 1 month old.. of course there have been some issues and i'm grateful that people have been patient while i worked on them.

a big thank-you to everyone who's been patient, have provided useful feedback or just been willing to adapt to something new during the transition.. i've also made some improvements along the way and am fairly happy with how things are from a basic functionality and performance perspective so it's time to start looking at some of the new features i've been planning.

Island Man

"Island Man, that'll only appear when you hover over the picture/avatar."

Yes, but so does the yellow banner displaying the useful information. Why have a yellow banner with useful information appear when you hover over an avatar only to have some of that useful information obscured by a redundant tool tip giving information already shown in the said yellow banner? The tool tip is negating some of the usefulness of the yellow banner.

26

New forum: one month progress report

by Simon in

well, we survived the first month at least!

yes, the new forum is now 1 month old.. of course there have been some issues and i'm grateful that people have been patient while i worked on them.

a big thank-you to everyone who's been patient, have provided useful feedback or just been willing to adapt to something new during the transition.. i've also made some improvements along the way and am fairly happy with how things are from a basic functionality and performance perspective so it's time to start looking at some of the new features i've been planning.

Island Man

hanks for all your hard work Simon!

There is one small issue that I've recently noticed and I'm not sure if anyone else has drawn it to your attention:

Whenever I mouse over a poster's avatar, the yellow banner appears telling you the poster's screen name, how long ago the poster joined and how many posts he made along with an icon to send a message. That's all great.

The problem is that a small, secondary tool tip displaying only the poster's name also appears on top of that yellow banner and often hides the number of posts information in the yellow banner. (see the example image below where the redundant tool tip saying "Crisis of Conscience" obscures the number of posts displayed in the banner.)

I want to suggest that this tool tip feature be eliminated altogether as it provides redundant information already displayed in the yellow banner and serves only as an annoyance when it hides the number of posts info in the yellow banner.

11

The Bible's huge implicit contradiction on the subject of love for God vs love for your fellow man.

by Island Man in

"if anyone makes the statement: i love god, and yet is hating his brother, he is a liar.

for he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot be loving god, whom he has not seen" - 1 john 4:20. here the bible implies that it is far easier to love a visible person than an invisible one.

therefore if one lacks love for a visible person, how much more so he must lack love for the invisible god.

Island Man

Another point is this: Christ's ancestress, Ruth, displayed an attitude that is contrary to Jesus' words at Matthew 10:37. Ruth's words reveal that she had greater love for Naomi than for God.

"And Ruth proceeded to say: “Do not plead with me to abandon you, to turn back from accompanying you; for where you go I shall go, and where you spend the night I shall spend the night. Your people will be my people, and your God my God." - Ruth 1:16

Uppermost on Ruth's mind was, not worshipping the correct God in the correct way, but maintaining her strong attachment to her mother-in-law. Her very strong unequivocal words demonstrate that she was a woman who was more devoted to her mother-in-law than anyone or anything else. What if Naomi had decided to go live with the Amalekites and worship their god(s)? What would Ruth have done then? "Where you go I shall go ... your people will be my people, and your God my God"!! Ruth only became a worshipper of God because her mother-in-law Naomi, was. Whichever God Naomi decided to worship, Ruth would have followed suit.

11

The Bible's huge implicit contradiction on the subject of love for God vs love for your fellow man.

by Island Man in

"if anyone makes the statement: i love god, and yet is hating his brother, he is a liar.

for he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot be loving god, whom he has not seen" - 1 john 4:20. here the bible implies that it is far easier to love a visible person than an invisible one.

therefore if one lacks love for a visible person, how much more so he must lack love for the invisible god.

Island Man

"In your first quote Christ is talking about loving God almighty, not himself. It therefore has no bearing on the second quote."

That technical detail about it being a reference to loving God and not loving Christ, is irrelevant. What is relevant - as brought out in the first quote - is contrasting the claimed love for an invisible person with lack of love for a visible person. Both God and Christ are invisible so the point of 1 John 4:20 holds equally true for anyone claiming to love the invisible Jesus while despising his visible brother.

70

Be nice to theists - they are victims of their genes

by cofty in

identical twin studies show there is a strong inheritable component to religiosity.

thomas bouchard studied identical and fraternal twins raised apart and tested them on religious attitudes.. the correlation for the former turned out to be 62% compared to just 2% for the latter.

his colleague.

Island Man

This should not be surprising. Certain personalities/mindsets are obviously more prone to religiosity than others. Consider, as an example, the fact that women tend to have a different mindset/personality than men and that this fact may largely be responsible for the disproportionately larger percentage of women than men in christian denominations.

And since our genes play a big part in determining our personality/mindset - of course, our environment and life experience also play a big part - it is to be expected that there will be some genetic correlation to religiosity. Only, I don't think the correlation is direct - as in there are specific genes directly related to religiosity. I think it's a case of genes influencing certain personality traits and those personality traits, in turn, making one more susceptible to religiosity, among other things.

11

The Bible's huge implicit contradiction on the subject of love for God vs love for your fellow man.

by Island Man in

"if anyone makes the statement: i love god, and yet is hating his brother, he is a liar.

for he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot be loving god, whom he has not seen" - 1 john 4:20. here the bible implies that it is far easier to love a visible person than an invisible one.

therefore if one lacks love for a visible person, how much more so he must lack love for the invisible god.

Island Man

"If anyone makes the statement: “I love God,” and yet is hating his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot be loving God, whom he has not seen" - 1 John 4:20

Here the Bible implies that it is far easier to love a visible person than an invisible one. Therefore if one lacks love for a visible person, how much more so he must lack love for the invisible God. Keeping this principle in mind note what Jesus says at Luke 14:26 and Matthew 10:37:

"“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own soul, he cannot be my disciple." - Luke 14:26
"He that has greater affection for father or mother than for me is not worthy of me; and he that has greater affection for son or daughter than for me is not worthy of me." - Matthew 10:37

But according to the logical principle implicit at 1 John 4:20 wouldn't it be impossible for a modern day disciple to hate his visible relatives and yet love the invisible Christ? Wouldn't it be impossible for modern disciples to love the invisible Jesus more than their visible relatives? And so Jesus' words at Luke 14:26 and Matthew 10:37 implicitly refutes the logic underpinning 1 John 4:20. For the words of 1 John 4:20 implies that it is impossible for someone to love their visible fellow human less and claim to love the invisible God more.

And by the way, what kind of loving God would require his worshippers to have greater love for him than for their family - to sacrifice their family relationships for him? Why should a loving God put a father through the emotional agony of having to sacrifice his son to Him? What practical purpose does such devotion serve? Is God afraid that humans having more love for each other than for him would mean that they're likely to conspire together and overthrow him? Does he need something from us that he can only get if we love him more than our own relatives? These can't be because God is almighty and is not in need of anything from us. It's nothing but petty jealousy and ego. For a God that is almighty and not in need of anything, the God of the Bible is obscenely egocentric and selfish - much like the dictatorial kings who reigned in the ancient times the Bible was written in. I'm willing to bet that that's exactly who the Bible writers modeled the personality of Bible God after.