Posts by Island Man

21

Giving comments at meetings that cause cognitive dissonance while keeping yourself below elder radar for apostasy

by Brokeback Watchtower in

well i'm sure we can come up with clever comments that make people feel uncomfortable by serving to decompartmentalize things that have been compartmentalized in the thinking of the average jw.

or comments that make the cognitive dissonance stand out plainly, these have to be said in innocent manner and with an apparent obliviousness to the contradiction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/compartmentalization_%28psychology%29.

Island Man

A good statement to have squeezed in while commenting on paragraph 9 of this week's Watchtower study is to say

"... Jehovah has not always had an organization on earth...".

This statement should induce some serious cognitive dissonance because it sounds very familiar, while sounding very wrong, while being very much correct and in harmony with paragraph 9. You see, JWs often make this statement to justify the existence of the organization and the need to be in association with it to have God's approval:

"... Jehovah has always had an organization on earth..."

So when you make the former statement in the comment it induces ones memory of the latter statement while contradicting it. And in contradicting the latter common statement it also harmonizes with the point made at the end of paragraph 9. Thus it exposes JWs' foolish, contradicting, double-position about God always having an organization - did he or did he not? Watchtower dishonestly states both positions at different times depending on which is most expedient to their propagandistic objective at the given moment. But of course they always take care to word the two opposing statements with different language so as to make it less obvious that the two contradictory statements are actually contradicting views on the same point.

26

Watchtower has a Philosophy of Totalism

by OnTheWayOut in

cults tend to have a total explanation for everything- everything that ever happened, everything that is happening now, and everything that ever will happen.

that certainly fits watchtower.

they have a black-and-white perception of everything, they are never wrong, there are no gray areas.

Island Man

"The truly awful part for me is that they are so black and white and yet when they change (and they often do) there is no apology or sense that they did wrong to people who they booted out for holding beliefs that they themselves now follow."

I think the rationalization they give for this is that the person was booted out, not for having a false belief, but for causing division/disunity by promoting a belief different to the one currently being taught by the organization.

They value conformity to and support for, Watchtower's teachings as being more important than conformity to what is actually true. They want JWs to be loyal to Watchtower's teachings even if they're false, and not reject those false Watchtower teachings until and unless Watchtower rejects it, thus giving them (rank and file JWs) permission to reject it.

A good question to ask JWs might be:

"How is it that you encourage non-JWs to leave their religion because of the falsehoods it teaches; but it's wrong for you to leave your religion because of Watchtower falsehoods, but you are instead expected to loyally continue condoning and spreading the falsehoods while you "wait on Jehovah"? Isn't that utterly hypocritical?"

20

A quick summary of topics and issues wrong with jws

by stuckinarut2 in

you know how our minds often get all "fuzzy" and confused when we are put on the spot and asked to come up with points?

we often tend to lose focus and go off on tangents?.

im trying to compile a basic list of bullet points for the most obvious and clear problems / doctrines / history of witnesses that can blow the org out of the water.. it is more for the purpose of getting my own thoughts clear rather than using it to talk to witnesses (as that doesn't really work).

Island Man

Registering in Mexico as a non-religious, cultural organization and not having prayers or the use of the bible at meetings, just so that Watchtower can maintain ownership of real estate - Kingdom halls, etc, They basically compromised true worship for the sake of material interests.

35

If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed ...

by Simon in

matthew 17:20 - he said to them, because of your little faith.

for truly, i say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.. i get the 'message' - if you believe enough (in fact, even a tiny amount - a mustard seed being tiny) then nothing is impossible but really, what a ridiculous statement and idea for several reasons.. there are lots of people who believe things completely and sincerely even to the point of death.

so far i've not noticed any sudden movements of any mountain ranges.

Island Man

I'm not Christian, I believe they are wrong, I see em killed and hung and whatever, I believe this is justice. Why would I ever accept their faith in the face of such events? Yet people did, constantly. (Again see post above, the example is better explained I think.)

You would only join if you were somehow persuaded into believing it. People have been persuaded into believing falsehoods. The phenomenon is not unheard of. If people in this modern age with so much information available can be persuaded into becoming Mormons - with all the information available showing how it is false, what makes you think ancient people who were more superstitious and had less information available, couldn't likewise have been persuaded into believing false stories and becoming Christians?

I think you're banking on the assumption that someone cannot be persuaded into believing a falsehood. That assumption is simply not true.

35

If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed ...

by Simon in

matthew 17:20 - he said to them, because of your little faith.

for truly, i say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.. i get the 'message' - if you believe enough (in fact, even a tiny amount - a mustard seed being tiny) then nothing is impossible but really, what a ridiculous statement and idea for several reasons.. there are lots of people who believe things completely and sincerely even to the point of death.

so far i've not noticed any sudden movements of any mountain ranges.

Island Man

Jonathan, a story does not have to be true for people to die for it. People only have to sincerely believe it it's true. Strong conviction in a belief does not necessarily make it true. There are many religious people - of other religions - with strong convictions and who will die for their faith. Many Islamic extremists have strong conviction that they will enter heaven and receive 72 virgins if they blow up themselves to kill "infidels". So I don't think early christians being willing to die for their faith is a sound basis for concluding it must be true.

38

What is the main reason the Watchtower Society baptize their children so young?

by RULES & REGULATIONS in

jesus was thirty was he was baptized.

today, you hear of young children getting baptized as young as 10 years old.

the parents, family and congregation think it's a wonderful idea that someone dedicates their life to jehovah at such a young age.

Island Man

I don't think it's for the purpose of removing them. Quite the contrary, I think they're essentially trying to entrap them in the cult.

Watchtower is a cult that puts a lot of emphasis on recruitment. The young children of JW parents are the lowest hanging fruits of the low hanging fruits, as it were. There is no easier pickings for the Watchtower to bolster its membership numbers than going after the very young, naive children of JW parents. Hook them in while they're young, inexperienced and easily swayed due to lack of life experience.

By dunking them in the water before the turbulent adolescent years, it makes it more difficult for them to leave the cult when they get older due to the prospect of losing all their JW family due to shunning. Baptizing pre-teens may be Watchtower's counter-measure to curbing the large numbers of unbaptized youths who leave the organization as they approach early adulthood. If they have the threat of shunning over their heads they're less likely to leave.

17

How do the JW's get around this scripture??

by Crazyguy in

hebrews 9:27new international version (niv).

27 just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, .

.

Island Man

I think this is an example of why it is not wise to read individual scriptures divorced from their context. You cannot really read much into that verse by itself without considering its context. The verse doesn't mean what you think it means.

The scripture is not making the point that absolutely everyone will have to die once. The scripture is talking about what normally happens in our fallen world - people die once and face a judgement in their future resurrection. The writer was not suggesting that there wouldn't be people who will survive Armageddon and go on to live forever - which is an exceptional situation outside the point that the writer was trying to make.

You have to read the verse in its context and ask yourself how it fits with what was said before and after. When you separate a text from its context you get a con.

69

Science still doesn't have the answers on how life first appeared

by EndofMysteries in

since so many athiests in this thread, and since i'm going to college, i was curious if what i would learn in biology would change my thoughts and show that life clearly and easily spontaneously happened.

just looking up the origins of dna or rna there is nothing conclusive.

for example, scientists today are able to manipulate life.

Island Man

In biology class, when talking about plants, going over how fruit trees make fruit sweet to attract animals to eat it so it spreads it's seeds, etc. There is some type of intelligence in that.

Your statement is also what is called an argument from ignorance or an argument from incredulity. Essentially you're saying that since you cannot comprehend how such a seamless symbiotic relationship between plants and animals can come about naturally without some intelligent intervention, then there really must be some intelligence behind it. But the mistake being made here is in assuming (subconsciously) that anything you cannot explain or comprehend naturally, must therefore not have a natural explanation.

You are assuming, subconsciously, that the natural reality around you must be limited by your own ability to comprehend it and therefore if you can't comprehend it then it must not be natural. This is a common flaw in reasoning engaged in by humans. This type of reasoning is also seen in newly contacted peoples who have lived in isolated forested regions for thousands of years and are encountering modern technology for the first time. Because of being completely ignorant of the laws of physics behind modern technology they are unable to comprehend how such modern technologies as cell phones or cameras work and so they resort to reasoning that it must be magic and the people who wield them must be gods. Because you do not know and cannot comprehend how life originated naturally without intelligence does not mean it did not originate without intelligence - it only means that you do not know how it originated without intelligent.

Always remember: natural reality is not limited by your ability to comprehend it naturally so that you should label that which you cannot naturally comprehend as being supernatural. If you do so, you'd be making the same mistake as those "primitive" peoples who, in their ignorance and inability to comprehend, label modern technology as magic.

69

Science still doesn't have the answers on how life first appeared

by EndofMysteries in

since so many athiests in this thread, and since i'm going to college, i was curious if what i would learn in biology would change my thoughts and show that life clearly and easily spontaneously happened.

just looking up the origins of dna or rna there is nothing conclusive.

for example, scientists today are able to manipulate life.

Island Man

In biology class, when talking about plants, going over how fruit trees make fruit sweet to attract animals to eat it so it spreads it's seeds, etc. There is some type of intelligence in that.

I mean you no offense, but this statement by you reveals that you do not fully understand the concept of natural selection. Complexity and suitable "design" is "built" incrementally into a species over very long periods of time because those traits - and hence those genes - that give an organism an advantage at survival and reproduction naturally increase in frequency and degree as those organisms with those traits live longer and reproduce more. The environment filters those traits most suited to it.

But keep in mind the environment is not just the inanimate surroundings. It includes other animals that a species interacts with. Now at some point early in history plants might have produced seeds with quite a wide variety of traits - some plants would have produced seeds with food for the seed to use to start germinating. Of course the amount of food produced by each plant together with its seeds would vary. Also the sugar content of the food would also vary.

At the same time animals are also evolving in their environment which includes plants. Animals with the traits that enabled them to make use of plant food evolved to suit an environment of eating plant food. Naturally, the traits of taste would vary from animal to animal. Those animals that preferred the sweet taste produced by some plants together with their seeds would have had an advantage because they got higher energy food from those plants meaning they can go longer on less food because of the high energy content of sweeter fruits. So gradually the species evolved to prefer sweet fruits.

At the same time those plants who happened to produce sweet food with their seed now got a survival advantage because since animal species evolved to prefer that taste it means those plants get more feeders and hence more dispersers of their seeds. So those plants producing sweet tasty foods with their seeds naturally continued evolving along this line and gradually the food packaged with the seeds grew more and more since increasing size of the food package is the trait that would be advantageous in an environment of animal dispersers eating the plant food.

So plants and animals evolved in tandem with each other mutually selecting each others traits in an evolutionary ballet to arrive at the situation today where plants produce sweet fruits that animals are attracted to and spread the seeds.

Think of it this way: Evolution is not by chance. Evolution is actually by design - design without purposeful conscious intelligence. Design that occurs incrementally over a very long periods of time due to natural laws of physics interacting with statistical probabilities inherent in genetics and reproduction. The animal species is thus essentially "sculpted" by its environment. Think of sand dunes. They are shaped in a particular way, not by intelligence but by the action of the wind - by a natural, unintelligent, purposeless force. Think of a hurricane. A hurricane is actually an engine! It is designed by its environment - the prevailing atmospheric conditions and the laws of physics shape it into the marvelous symmetrical spiral engine that it is. You need to get rid of the notion that design necessarily requires purposeful intelligence. One of the fundamental principles at the heart of sustainable designs arising in the natural world is the concept of positive feedback loop. Once a phenomenon results in a positive feedback loop its existence continues and may even get greater. This is what happens with hurricanes.

69

Science still doesn't have the answers on how life first appeared

by EndofMysteries in

since so many athiests in this thread, and since i'm going to college, i was curious if what i would learn in biology would change my thoughts and show that life clearly and easily spontaneously happened.

just looking up the origins of dna or rna there is nothing conclusive.

for example, scientists today are able to manipulate life.

Island Man

The notion that life on earth was created by other preexisting intelligent life, does not really answer the question of life's origin, does it? It's only kicking the proverbial can further down the road. What about the origin of the preexisting intelligent life that created life on earth? See, we're right back at square one only now we have to explain the origin of the preexisting intelligent life that created life. And if the answer to this is still even earlier preexisting intelligent life then we have to account for this too . . . and on and on ad infinitum. The buck will eventually have to stop at a simple, natural, scientifically plausible explanation for the origin of life. So the intelligent life creating life explanation is ultimately a non-answer.

While it is true that scientists do not know with certainty exactly how life began, there are however, multiple scientifically plausible hypotheses for the origin of life, that do not involve intelligent design of any kind. Put these on one end of a credibility balancing scale and on the other end put the very incredible, unprovable, unprecedented, scientifically implausible idea of a supernatural, eternal, all-powerful, uncreated, intelligent being. Now be honest with yourself: which direction should the credibility balancing scale tilt to? However inconceivable the idea of complex life originating from natural, non-intelligent means may seem to you, you would have to admit (if you really think about it honestly and objectively) that the idea of a supernatural origin is far more inconceivable/incredible.

The truth of the matter is using the supernatural to explain the origin of natural life is very illogical and irrational because the existence and origin of the supernatural begs a far greater explanation than the origin and existence of the natural life that it is being used to explain. By way of illustration, using the existence of a supernatural, uncreated, eternal deity to explain the origin of life is tantamount to a foolish man borrowing 1,000,000 dollars to pay off a 100 dollar debt instead of working overtime to raise the 100 dollars. Scientists are working to raise the proverbial 100 dollars. Theists lazily go into a further debt of 1,000,000 dollars to pay off the 100 dollar debt - all the while telling themselves they're no longer in debt and denying it whenever anyone points to the fact that they're now 1,000,000 dollars in debt. LOL.