Posts by StarTrekAngel

6

Interesting videos on using the socratic method to talk with people on their deeply held beliefs

by bohm in

jw
friends

it is rare you find something on youtube on religion which feels fresh, but this did it for me.

most here properly agree that the best (only) way to have a constructive conversation with jw who is in is using methods such as those described by steven hassan.

however if you search youtube or the internet, most discussions on faith takes the form of debates or at any rate discussion about factual things -- exactly the things steven hassan would tell you is the least likely to work.. i came across a series of youtube videos with a guy who is basically walking around with a camera and interviewing people on their beliefs.

StarTrekAngel

That sure sounds interesting. In my own experience though, religious people may respond better than cult members. Cult members have, as Hassan mentions, thought stopping mechanisms. Trump cards (if that is spelled correctly) that help derail the reasoning process so that they person does not end up questioning their belief.

372

On respect for the belief of others. Sorry for the long post

by StarTrekAngel in

i am inclined to start this thread in response to some comments made in other threads.

i have been coming around these forum for quite some time now so whatever you find in here is not just related to something someone may have said this week.

it can go months back as well.. i have seen many who claim to respect the belief of others but when it comes down to applying it into practice, things take a whole different tune.

StarTrekAngel

First let me apologize for not responding sooner. I said I was going to be back on Monday but as soon as I walked in to the office Monday morning, I was hit with a budget meeting that kept me away from my desk most of the day. I sure did not expect it. Talk about hating Mondays.

Second, let me apologize if I disrupted everyone's weekend. I certainly did not expect this level of response and I am humbled and appreciate every comment made. Both for or against it.

With that said, I was hoping I would make it clear that I don't necessarily disagree with the views of some who feel truth should take precedence above any other concern. I don't disagree with those who voice an honest concern, for example, against religion but then get challenged by fanatics. But one thing is to respond to a challenge, another completely different is to ridicule someone who did not challenge you, engage you or attacked you in any way. If the belief of others threatens you or your ideals to the point you feel a need to counter, then they may not have solid foundation, or, if they do have a solid foundation, then there is another bias behind the perceived threat. Such that we may never know what it is. The same happens with both, the offended one as well as the offender.

I do not agree with anti-vaxxers or any of the other things Viviane mentioned. In fact, I agree with most of it and many other things that Viviane says. I may not agree with the way she said it, but I agree with the fact. You see, I am not necessarily saying you should not campaign for accurate information or truth. Do I mean you need to sugar coat things? Some may say so but sometimes doing it does not negate the fact, and indeed it allows the other party to be more receptive to the truth you bring forth. Is funny that in a forum such as this we may not understand that, since we know that pushing/disrespecting a cult member out only causes them to get deeper into the cult.

As far as one thing Simon mentioned, regarding making ridicule of certain belief because of the context of the forum. Well, you might be right and at the end this is your site, isn't it?. However, I would like for everyone to consider this. Some here may have already woken up to TTATT but their loves one don't. Some here may have also quit believing in God but they realize that coming out of the WT with your family intact is difficult enough. Attempting to wake up a loved one out of the WT may be easier if you still believe in God (or claim to do so. I know that would be dishonest but is not my case and not for me to pass judgement). It would not be as easy if you flat out told your loved ones that God doesn't exist. Some would like to discuss topics in that light, in order to find ways to reason with loved ones and I am sure those people would like to do so undisrupted. Just like it was mentioned here, lives are at stake. May be we can have a section for believers if one is not already there?.

I clearly recall a great post by Cofty on the subject of blood. He certainly was right when he said that the apostles stroke a deal when they spoke of "abstaining from blood". Wasn't that about respecting someone else's belief? Sure things have changed since then, since now such abstinence may mean death for some. Sure we don't want to be quite about it, especially among our loved ones. But does ridiculing their belief helps our cause? My experience says absolutely not.

So just because I disagree with anti-vaxxers, that does not entitle me to ridicule them (unless of course they get pushy like the airline employee I mentioned in my opening post). If I want to help spread the truth about vaccines, well, I don't know, I can start my own preaching campaign about it. I can knock on a door and leave a leaflet behind. If the homeowner rejects it. What can I do? if he challenges me to show him proof? Do I owe to my cause to respond? If they try to ridicule me, I may do the same back. If none of the above happens, I would calmly and peacefully walk away.

I don't know how else it can be said. I believe there is proof out there. Wether the ideal was real and had a good cause behind it or was mean and evil, the most successful campaigns are the ones where respect for the belief of the other person is shown. Look at gay marriage. Wether you agree with it or not, generally I believe that the LGBT movement used the political channels and respectful way of engaging discussion and by doing so, everyone become more receptive and we evolved as a society that ultimately accepted the idea. The WT, with its evil intent, carried out a pretty good campaign as well. True, the ideal being spread is not real and the means are evil. But the fact they engage the homeowner in a respectful manner is what made it relatively successful. I understand they can be pushy, but those are hardly ever successful. In the other hands, ideals that where held to no contest and no willingness to come to a respectful discussion have almost always end up in conflict. A conflict in which brute force, not reason, wins.

So if you think religion is BS. Go ahead, say it. But may be if you say it respectfully you will actually help your cause.

372

On respect for the belief of others. Sorry for the long post

by StarTrekAngel in

i am inclined to start this thread in response to some comments made in other threads.

i have been coming around these forum for quite some time now so whatever you find in here is not just related to something someone may have said this week.

it can go months back as well.. i have seen many who claim to respect the belief of others but when it comes down to applying it into practice, things take a whole different tune.

StarTrekAngel

I am inclined to start this thread in response to some comments made in other threads. I have been coming around these forum for quite some time now so whatever you find in here is not just related to something someone may have said this week. It can go months back as well.

I have seen many who claim to respect the belief of others but when it comes down to applying it into practice, things take a whole different tune. The bellow is strictly in a web forum environment. Things may change when taken to another context but I believe in general respect is always called for.

So before I go on, let us define what I personally mean by “respect for the belief of others”. I feel compelled to do so because if not, many would come to read “respect” in their own way. Many claim to be able to look into issues objectively and without bias when they don’t realize their bias walks right in front of them. They sure blame everyone else of it but they fail to see their own. With that said, let me clarify that I am just as guilty as charged. The difference is that I know I am or I know I could be. And this is why I try my best to post in a manner that says “this is my personal stance or experience” and not “I have analyzed the situation with 100% objectiveness and you are wrong”. I am willing to hear or listen to the experience of others, whether I think they are ridiculous or not. For example, even though I don’t believe in conspiracy theories (i.e. Illuminati or whatever they are called), I could carry a conversation (and I have done it) about the subject with someone who does, in a manner that sure tells them I am skeptic but I don’t make them feel uncomfortable. Another example. I have a co-worker (one of my subordinates actually) who is paranoid about a potential chemical attack in the area. He bought what he claims to be an Israeli military grade gas mask. He keeps it in his desk but for the most part no one even remembers it is there. He doesn’t bother anyone. He also bought one for his wife. She a 3rd grade teacher. When the H1N1 flu outbreak, he insisted that his wife wore the mask in class. The school administration denied her request citing “mass paranoia”. She got mad and so did he. They attempted to convince the school administration but it backfired on them.

What I think respect for the belief of others is…

Listening to their experience or position with an open mind, expecting to hear or find something new. Entertaining the possibility, not that they might be right and your belief wrong, but rather the possibility that you may be misinterpreting them. May be they are trying to say one thing but you end up understanding something completely different.

2) Allowing someone to discuss their ideas with fellow believers. Whether they believe in God or that the earth is flat. If you have a question for them, then ask. If the answer does not fit your realm of reasoning or education, then good for you. If it does, well you just found a wonderful new group of friends.

3) Allowing someone to offer more detail when their opinion goes misunderstood. Not clinging to the first three words of someone’s statement. You never know what was in their mind or what drove them to their choice of words. Maybe it was a fear to offend someone or maybe they felt the majority was not going to understand if he or she used the terms that they are accustomed to use.

What I think respect for the belief of others is not…

4)It does not mean we need to move to a “everyone is right” philosophy. I am a big fan of Dilbert. I call it the modern corporate bible so I read it every day. I can find answers to the grievances I encounter almost daily. Scott Adams published a book with a recollection of comics called “When did ignorance become a point of view”. I totally agree with it and it may seem to contradict what I am trying to express here. It doesn’t. Not if you can put things in the right context and realize that Dilbert is set in a corporate environment, where your personal belief does not change the laws of physics or the principles of accounting for example. In a business environment most things are measurable and somewhat predictable. What the above quote is mostly referring to, is that the political correctness in such objective environment is moving towards allowing someone opinion (or belief) to take the force of strategic planning even when it doesn’t make sense on the face of mathematics or sound and proven business models. When it comes down to a religious forum things change. We are talking about more subjective matters and things that may be more dear to us than our way of earning a living. It is for this very reason that there are laws against religious discrimination at work. Last time I checked, this forum was not exclusively oriented towards atheists.

5) It does not mean you should allow others to push their belief on you. By far this seems to be the hardest to keep at bay when people discuss God. It doesn’t matter how they ask, people tend to immediately conclude that if you use the word “God” you are immediately being preached to. We are talking about mere expression of opinion and belief. If someone attempts to correct you based on their own belief, then by all means they have violated the respect for your belief. In this case I think we have a choice of walking away or engage the person in a discussion. This in particular doesn’t even have to stop in religion. Last week I was at an airport trying to board my flight. I was with another 5 people and my company had booked us in a budget airline (those that charge you for every smile they direct at you). When I got to the counter, I realized they would charge for printing the boarding passes. I could download their app and check in online and save $30. I said, nevermind, just charge me. My phone was dead and I knew I was not going to be flying this airline again anytime soon. Nevertheless, the airline employee started not only insisting that I download the app to save money, but also calculated that I had 3 hrs until my flight and I had time to charge my phone (where I would then be able to check in for free). I try to tell her twice, in a calm manner that I did not care for the charge, I just wanted to be on my way. Off course she proceeded to explain how much money I would save. I thanked her dearly for her concern twice, but she insisted. At that point I had it. What happened next is too long to add to this post but let just say that I need to become a citizen soon. One of these days I am going to loose it, be put on a no fly list and not be able to get my citizenship. Unfortunately us hispanics don’t have it that easy. We have to be twice as well behaved as others would. I don’t like having this kinds of situations but it shows you that if you ever understood that respecting the belief of others ever implied letting other push their agenda on you, you understood wrong.

6) It does not mean we need to live in a utopian fantasy land where everything is sunshine and paradise. By all means people who believe the above is possible can continue to imagine so or they may be better suited to go back to the Watchtower. Funny as it has it, as I was writing this, I had to get up and talk to one of my co-workers. After he was done, he started talking about some show he just watched. The shows seems to duel on the idea that the moon may be hollow. He proceeded to explain the reasons. We discussed how is it those guys find evidence for such claims. It sounded mostly like baloney to me. But this guy did not ask me what I thought and neither he was looking to engage me on a debate of whether this could be truth or not. Neither did he push me to watch the show. I told him that the show sounded interesting at face value but nothing more. We decided to go to lunch then and talked about something else. Simple as that.

7) It does not mean we would allow lies that hurt people to be spread around. Although this could be mixed in with number 5. Posting an idea on a forum can certainly be the beginning of something new. Allowing it to spread may help it grow. When things like these grow out into a mainstream movements, then that is when it begins to cause damage. However, as a free society, we can not afford to stump on someone else’s freedom of speech just because we don’t agree with their view. Allowing them to talk and allowing them to harm people are not always the same thing. Decades ago science thought that being gay was a mental illness and it was medically treated as such. I am sure that there are things nowadays which we are utterly convinced of, which we may come to laugh at in its due time. That is the way science is. With this I don’t want to start the argument of whether science will ever discover evidence of God. No. What I sure want to make a point across is that we simply don’t put people down just because of what they think or feel, no matter how ignorant we think they are. So now in the 21st century, we may have concluded that being gay was not a mental illness after all, but I think that even more important than that, was the fact the we understood that no matter what is the source of homosexuality, we are not entitled to hurt others, even if we are utterly convinced that in doing so we will cure them of some perceived sickness or ignorance.

Nevertheless, and just to keep in line with what I am trying to say. This is my personal stance. Personal only. It doesn’t mean you have to agree with me or feel like I am trying to lecture anyone. I learned a lot of this from my boss over the years. He is this type of person that can truly read a person or message with objectiveness. Never lets his emotions take over. And I mean never. I and any one of the 200 people that work with him has never seen him break a sweat over something, no matter how terrible. No matter how disastrous the situation is or how many internet routers are on fire or how many millions of dollars are at stake. I am nowhere near that but I certainly have learn a lot from him. I have never seen another individual act like this. That is not me. I think I’ve got better but still happens. Off course, we are talking business. Like I said before things are meant to stay objective. I don’t know how he is in his personal life. Provided that we do touch more subjective issues here, I can understand is more difficult to keep emotions out.

I am pretty sure I am going to take a lot of flack for this. Good chance to practice keeping a straight face like my boss does. I don’t mind, go for it if you want. If anything, the only point I hope you can take, is that just because someone may understand different, no matter how much empirical evidence you may have, there is still place for respect of the experience, opinions and belief of others.

It's Friday and it is almost time to quit. Just a couple of hours more. I don’t come in here on weekends. I don’t want to spook family members still in. So if i don’t reply until next week, know the reason. Either Way, I learn as well that if you can’t make someone understand what you mean in two to three replies, then there is no point to argue with someone who set out to misunderstand.

Have a great weekend.

212

Why Do You No Longer Believe in God?

by Tenacious in

i know this question has popped up from time to time but i really would like to know how you guys, those that no longer believe, came to that conclusion?

was it the wts and all its crap?

was it something you read?

StarTrekAngel

Everyone keeps on gravitating towards "if you try to convince me of your superstitions". How many times do I have to repeat the part where I say.. "unless you try to convince me?"

Obviously nobody is reading objectively and that is where I see that there is something else behind some of the opinions.

I will practice what I preach and go start my own thread when I get a chance. Is almost 5 o'clock in Texas. Time go home.

212

Why Do You No Longer Believe in God?

by Tenacious in

i know this question has popped up from time to time but i really would like to know how you guys, those that no longer believe, came to that conclusion?

was it the wts and all its crap?

was it something you read?

StarTrekAngel

Well I didn't say to do nothing. I would say that rather than disrupting someone else thread, start your own. Why are we not then, all of us going over to the a birthers forum and combating that?

Besides, I am referring to a particular thread or topic. I am not saying, for example, that the WT is entitled to continue spreading their lies. At the very least I would say they are entitled to spread their belief so long they would allow the rest of us to discuss it openly without retaliation. That is much bigger than a thread on a forum.

212

Why Do You No Longer Believe in God?

by Tenacious in

i know this question has popped up from time to time but i really would like to know how you guys, those that no longer believe, came to that conclusion?

was it the wts and all its crap?

was it something you read?

StarTrekAngel

Sure Viviane. That is exactly what I am talking about. Your standards needs to be everyone else's standards. Unless of course you need to bash someone. Then the standards are out the window.

I spoke in general terms, but if the shoe fits...

212

Why Do You No Longer Believe in God?

by Tenacious in

i know this question has popped up from time to time but i really would like to know how you guys, those that no longer believe, came to that conclusion?

was it the wts and all its crap?

was it something you read?

StarTrekAngel

I am all for caring about the truth. May be some people don't. As long as they don't try to push their truth on me, I am fine with them living on what others would consider a fairy tale. You see I am not even speaking on my behalf. I am speaking on behalf of others here that I care about. I may totally agree with your statements cofty and I have read some great stuff from you. What I am saying is that there needs to be respect for the belief of others.

In a hypothetical situation, If they engage you in a discussion and you engage them back, then I don't see why would you be exempt from providing their own proof. Just like they had a choice of engaging you, you also had a choice. If you take it, and they demand your proof, then I believe you own it to your ideals to provide it. If you believe the discussion is totally idiotic and there is no point on arguing, then go and live your life to the fullest. How would that affect your cause for truth?

At the end, I would base it on the fact that the only thing that is ever achieved in this situations is to disrupt the intents of the person who started the thread. There is a handful of people here that tend to do that. The fact that they are the minority, and the fact that they seem attracted to this kind of discussion, shows, in my humble opinion, that they can not accept that there are people out there that should be entitled to believe in fairy tales if they choose to. Is not me, not anymore. No more fairy tales for me. But lets also not forget we ALL were once there.

I agree, someone who lives in a fairy tale can impact others if they manage to attract followers. That is where the "convincing" part comes in. But this truth also applies to those at the other end of the spectrum. I don't care how empirical evidence you can gather. Even when you have a solid foundation for your claim, it doesn't entitle you to convince others either. I am not saying that is what you are doing cofty, but in such cases, the respectful thing to do is to drop your evidence and let others draw their conclusions.

Amateurish psychology? Profanity is what I find amateurish. But that is just my personal opinion and that is why I say it in first person. No one needs to agree with me on that and I don't plan to convince anyone of it.

212

Why Do You No Longer Believe in God?

by Tenacious in

i know this question has popped up from time to time but i really would like to know how you guys, those that no longer believe, came to that conclusion?

was it the wts and all its crap?

was it something you read?

StarTrekAngel

Agreed. If you are trying to convince someone else, you better have tangible evidence. I am talking about personal belief.

A personal belief does not necessarily requires evidence or at least the evidence does not need to be of a science nature. People believe in karma and the only evidence they have are the few times were karma apparently got them even with some one else, despite not being any tangible evidence that karma exists and is not reproducible on demand.

There are people here who say they respect the belief of others. Posting something about your personal belief does not automatically means you are trying to convince others. Yet, they go in there and begin to demand proof of claim. In essence, they end up doing the exact thing they claim to hate about believers. If you think a certain topic is stupid or has no evidence or foundation, simply stay out of it.

True, you are free to express your opinion. Expressing your opinion would be stating something like "I don't believe in karma because there is no evidence of it", another very different is to state "I don't believe in karma and you are an idiot for believing in fantasies and fiction". You are also entitled to think that those that believe are idiots, but if that is what you want to express, start a new thread about the stupidity of unfounded belief. Let the others continue with their lives.

Insisting on the contrary only shows an outwardly expression of your misery. I can understand where it comes from. You don't exit cults without scars, wether you like to admit it or not. But stumping on others just because of what they believe, is not going to gain you anything. Is just going to consume you for no reason whatsoever. That is off course, provided that their belief is not actually damaging you personally.

6

Take this to anyone who says "we need two witnesses for child abuse"

by StarTrekAngel in

so another week goes by with another brain mushing meeting.

i had not been to a meeting in two weeks.

first i was out in vegas for a business trip.

StarTrekAngel

LOL. No, I don't think it matters to the GB but certainly it can be used with those who continue to claim the bible is the ultimate authority.

212

Why Do You No Longer Believe in God?

by Tenacious in

i know this question has popped up from time to time but i really would like to know how you guys, those that no longer believe, came to that conclusion?

was it the wts and all its crap?

was it something you read?

StarTrekAngel

Let me rephrase since it seems like may be my question was not understood.

Does belief require evidence in your opinion? Wether you belief in God or Karma, does believing requires one to have tangible evidence for the existence of the thing you believe in?