________________________What do we have here?___________________________
Two ball bearings manufactured at the same time, in the same factory, by rigorous engineering standards, and produced to serve the same function inside a particular machine.
QUESTION: Are they IDENTICAL?
ANSWER: No
________________
There is one on your left and there is one on your right.
These do not occupy the same space.
You can remove one and the other will not follow.
_________________
These ball bearings match identical specifications, true--but the practical test of identity is indeed separateness. The very fact I must refer to them and you must think of them as quantities identify the rational distinction our minds demand!
_______________
RATIONAL MIND and the problem of IDENTITY
To exist is to be something somewhere rather than nothing nowhere.
The way the human mind addresses the nature of IDENTITY is to break it up into separate characteristics.
Who, What, When, Where, How, and Why are the usual conceptual categories.
_____________IMAGINATIVE MIND and the problem of IDENTITY_______________
To "exist" is different from exist (without quotation marks).
To "exist" comes about by your mind assigning characteristics--not to an actual thing--but to your own created mental mock-up.
Example: Playwright James M. Barrie, imagined the character of Peter Pan. He wrote the play which was performed (made real or realized) on stage by real actors.
As a result, other people all over the world can think of Peter Pan too. Children can assign the mental value of "existence" to that imagined character.
________________Are there two kinds of EXISTENCE?_______________
The slippery slope of BELIEF is the result of our mind being able to perform a task NOT UNLIKE that of those 2 ball bearings. These 2 tasks are practically identical without, in fact, being identical.
We can use our 5 senses to identify (we smell it, we see it, we hear it, we taste it, we touch it.)
OR. . .
We can use our imagination to assign a mental mock-up (internal creation of our thought) and then BELIEVE it into "existence."
An amazing thing is our mind / brain.
__________________WHAT IS PHANTOM LIMB SYNDROME?_______________
A phantom limb is a complex phenomenon involving a sensation that an amputated or a missing limb is still attached to the body.
_______________
The real limb was removed, but your mind acts upon your body to report its PRESENCE.
The limb that isn't there can 'itch" or ache. Is this evidence of a ghost limb?
No, it is a false report by your own mind giving you false evidence which you then BELIEVE.
________________
Do we have 2 sets of SENSES? No. When our mind hallucinates, although it is our only source of information about our self and surroundings, we are fooled.
Garbage in = garbage out
False reporting equals false conclusions.
____________________SUBJECTIVE vs. OBJECTIVE___________________
"The infamous Salem witch trials began during the spring of 1692, after a group of young girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts, claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several local women of witchcraft. As a wave of hysteria spread throughout colonial Massachusetts, a special court convened in Salem to hear the cases; the first convicted witch, Bridget Bishop, was hanged that June. Eighteen others followed Bishop to Salem’s Gallows Hill, while some 150 more men, women and children were accused over the next several months."
a study published in Science magazine in 1976 cited the fungus ergot (found in rye, wheat and other cereals), which toxicologists say can cause symptoms such as delusions, vomiting and muscle spasms.
________________
Above are 2 examples of what happens when we rely on our mind to reliably report reality and the information is corrupt.
Subjective thoughts, feelings and beliefs are acted upon as though reliable evidence had been experienced matching reality.
What does OBJECTIVE mean if SUBJECTIVE is simply what goes on inside our head?
OBJECTS can be seen by everybody, measured by the same standards, and no special set of beliefs are necessary to induce their report of the existence and nature of the objects.
_____________________The Cottingly Fairies_______________
Is seeing believing?
______________PROOF of existence?
The famous Cottingley fairies were “photographed” by two girls Elsie Wright, 15, and her cousin Frances Griffiths, 10, in the last days of the First World War. The case got its international acclaim through Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of Sherlock Holmes, who was fascinated by the account and published an article in the Strand Magazine in December 1920. Doyle was completely convinced the photographs were actual evidence of the existence of fairies!
With the world’s attention focused on them, the girls had little option but to stick to their story. A juvenile prank had grown into a mass media circus.
____________________________________
JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES have minds and brains and beliefs which are no more or less intelligent
than any other group of believers on planet Earth.
They come from all walks of life with varied educational backgrounds. .
Each JW is not unlike one of 7 or 8 million ball bearings.
These millions are all alike and their unity of purpose is determined by the Watchtower Corporation which--like the manufacturer of ball bearings--exactly specifies the purpose which these teeming millions will serve.
QUESTION: Are all JW's identical or "identical"?
______________
Religiously speaking, by self-identifying with JEHOVAH (Jehovah's Witnesses) rather than JESUS, JW'S cannot be said to use personal, individual and separate consciousness manifesting Christianity in the historical sense.
By renouncing "personal" conversion experience; by not espousing a "born again" confession, and by not engaging in acts of conscience other than REQUIRED manifestations of loyalty to creed, JW's are "identical."
The CULT mind feeds corrupt information to cult members and they all react AS THOUGH theirs is actual reality, rather than imaginative mock-ups of non-verifiable fact.
Do Jehovah's Witnesses actual exist as human individuals?
The jury is out on that one!
Where is the separateness? How--without debate, or internal dialogue--can those 7or 8 million people be disambiguated?
QUESTION: If the Watchtower suddenly declared Blood Transfusions were a matter of conscience, wouldn't every member immediately believe the exact opposite of what was "True" the moment before without further research, speculation or investigation of a personal nature?
ANWER: Yes! To act otherwise would indicate separateness which is disloyalty which creates disunity which cause that person to suddenly EXIST as an individual. This would end his "existence" by being disfellowship.
________________________
WHAT DOES THIS ALL PURPORT TO MEAN?
All the above is an exercise to distinguish what it means to be a real human being from being an identical cult member without separateness of thought, tastes, personal opinions.
Historically (from the examples of the Salem Witch Trials and the Cottingly Fairies) we discovered how mass belief in defiance of reality leads to disastrous NON-RATIONAL behavior and even murder.
JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES may well be nothing more and nothing less than mere 'things' just like utilitarian ball bearings inasmuch as they are denied distinction as thinking, rational creatures.
