Posts by OneEyedJoe

55

Looking forward to going to Memorial this year!

by kpop in

jw
friends

i have some tricks to play.

i know it may sound childish but i feel that creating havoc and forcing the memorial to be postponed will be the highlight of the night!

wish me luck!.

OneEyedJoe

I feel like your time would be better spent staying home - at least then you're contributing to the slow and steady discouragement of JWs by virtue of the decline in numbers - this affects ALL JWs, not just the ones in a particular congregation. Going and causing havoc will just play in to their persecution complex and make them ever more sure that they're instruments of god and being attacked by the devil.

22

More evidence beards are being eased in . . .

by neat blue dog in

the june 2017 watchtower tells the experience of a bible student who was homeless and unkempt, but improved his appearance after being preached to.. peter began to change.

he bathed, neatlytrimmed his beard, and put on the betterclothes that don offered him.

peter continued to maintain a clean appearance.. so here we see that with a neatly trimmed beard the watchtower's writers view him as having "a clean appearance".

OneEyedJoe

I had drinks with my (MS) brother a few weeks ago. I'm not sure how much he's heard about my leaving the cult, but he's tacitly acknowledged that I don't go to meetings. In any event, in the course of the conversation he started talking about how some congregations nearby (Southern US) are allowing beards and he even saw someone in another congregation reading the WT with a beard so he's hopeful that this will make it to his congregation. I suggested that he just grow a beard if he wants to and his response was that he wanted to keep his rank because he likes helping the congregation. Such myopic logic.

Anyway, my point is that it does seem that beards may be becoming acceptable in some places on a wider scale. That said, it could always change in an instant if the GB decides to change their mind.

75

Poll - Will you accept blood?

by OrphanCrow in

i have made a poll to try to determine the impact of the wt's no blood policy on ex members.. if you are an exjw, please participate.. vote here:.

*oops...hang on here...i have to make a new poll...this one lets you vote more than once.

i will post the new one .

OneEyedJoe

I've recently had my own blood drawn (so not allogenic, but still in violation to the cult's rules) and spun down to plasma and injected into my knees. I was actually kinda excited to commit another disfellowshipping offense (I think I'm up to 4 or 5 now!)

39

Why the resurrection must be true

by slimboyfat in

okay i was thinking about it.

and it is a transhumanist argument and nothing new, i do realise that before anyone points it out.

but it struck me afresh today that the resurrection must happen.. firstly, to state the obvious, a rational materialist conception of reality seems to exclude resurrection.

OneEyedJoe

Assmuption 1. If reality consists of material and nothing else then who we are and our consciousness arises purely from the order of the material substance of our bodies - primarily our brains. There is no spirit or soul involved.

With ya so far.

Assumption 2. Since the material substance of the universe obeys consistent laws, the position and configuration of material in the universe at any given point in time could, in principle, be extrapolated from the position and trajectory of the material substance of the universe at any other given time.

There is a fairly decent chance that this assumption is not consistent with our universe. Things like black holes may actually destroy the ability to extrapolate back in time as mater that enters them can no longer causally affect matter that is outside of them. There are some possible solutions to this "information paradox" but it is not yet clear if information is actually destroyed (from our perspective) when something enters a black hole.

Furthermore, due to the uncertainties in quantum mechanics, our universe is not deterministic. At best we could calculate the probabilities of certain events happening (or having happened, if we're extrapolating backwards) but we could not with perfect certainty reconstruct the past position and momentum of any particle based on having seen it at a future time.

Assumption 3. Over time humans (or intelligent beings generally) accumulate information about the universe, its content and laws. If this accumulation continues indefinitely it will inevitably reach a point where the material composition of the universe is known exhaustively, not simply for one point in time, but for all time. Just as geologists are now able to create maps of how the continents were configured millions of years ago by extrapolating continental movement according to physical laws, future scientists will be able to map out the exact composition of all matter at all previous points in time according to physical laws.

The assumption that we will continue to accumulate information is probably pretty good, but extending that to assume that we'd have all information after an infinite period of time does not hold. It's perhaps counter-intuitive to people that aren't used to dealing with infinity (and the various cardinalities thereof) but gaining knowledge indefinitely does not imply that all knowledge will at some point be gained. Furthermore, the assumption that we will continue gaining knowledge "indefinitely" is false because the universe will inevitably suffer heat death at which point no intelligence will be able to exist and, indeed, nothing will be able to happen. But don't worry, all civilizations will be long gone well before even that happens.

Assumptions 4. A civilisation or intelligence which has been able to exhaustively map the material composition and configuration of the universe over all of time will also be in a position to recreate entities including people from the past by recreating their exact material condition.

It seems that the assumption here (as most of this follows from your above assumptions) is that the technology to recreate, exactly, a given thing based on knowing precisely how it was structured. Again, due to quantum effects, this is probably impossible.

Assumption 5. Humans of each generation will be suficciently attached to their parents and immediate ancestors to insist they are brought back to life when it becomes feasible to do so.

This is a terrible assumption. I'm certain that a reasonably large percentage of the population does not have nostalgic views of their parents to bother recreating them. Even of those that would have this attachment, I expect many would opt not to recreate the person only to watch them die again, as they inevitably would.

If all of these assumptions are true, it seems to me that a general resurrection at some point is not just likely but pretty inevitable. Which is a ridiculous thing to say. But it seems to follow from the assumptions. And each of the assumptions as they stand seem quite reasonable.

1/5 of your assumptions is reasonable. There's no logic in expecting a resurrection of any kind.

50

If "the Truth" is the truth, why are witnesses so scared of research?

by stuckinarut2 in

it is an often asked question i know, but it perplexes me.. if witnesses are so convinced that they have "the truth", why is the act of researching information from external sources so taboo?

didn't the bible itself tell people to "use their powers of reason" and also praised ones like the boreans for researching things they were told??.

seriously, if there is no doubt about the organization being "god's channel" on earth, and it alone having the "truth", surely researching would only enhance such 'facts'?.

OneEyedJoe

The cult instills self-doubt in people. They repeatedly stress scriptures like Jeremiah 17:9 (the heart is treacherous, who can know it) that cultivate a fear of trusting oneself. Combine that with an encouragement of what is presented as rational ignorance (i.e. why waste time reading apostate literature when you know it's filled with lies? It's not worth the effort) and you've got a pretty powerful thing going - a fear that you're not strong enough to resist being misled (or, in my case, that your motivations for research are actually selfish so you'll inevitably find things wrong with the cult as a way of justifying a desire not to put in the work) and a rationalization for why you're smart not to research. Then there's also a desire to avoid indulging those evil apostates by reading anything they write. Those three things are what held me back, at least.

As far as actual biblical research - I was never afraid of that. I just didn't care and couldn't be bothered. I wasn't interested in the bible at all, and I had more than I wanted of the bible's nonsense force fed to me several times a week for my entire life. And in the bits that were forced on me I already saw problems that took a lot of effort to rationalize. Because, after all, my heart was treacherous - I told myself this was a failing on my part - I just didn't understand and couldn't no matter how hard I tried. So why would I want to do more research into the bible when I'd just come across more problems (that I now know are actual faults of the bible) that would only demonstrate to me the extent of my lack of understanding?

31

Young People Ask: I’m Attracted to the Same Sex—Does That Mean I’m Gay?

by pale.emperor in

eurgh!

more patronizing and uninformed reasoning from the "experts" at bethel.

this time tackling the sensitive subject of those attracted the the same sex.

OneEyedJoe

That’s what Lisette, 16, who was at one time attracted to a girl, found. She says: “Through my biology classes in school, I learned that during the adolescent years, hormone levels can fluctuate greatly. I truly think that if more youths knew more about their bodies, they would understand that same-sex attraction can be temporary and they wouldn’t feel the pressure to be gay.”

One chick went through a bi-curious phase (which isn't surprising considering recent studies suggest that no women are completely straight) so that can definitely be generalized to indicate that all same-sex attraction is a passing phase. Yeah, that adds up.

All youths face a choice

I'm gonna shamelessly steal a bit from a stand-up comedian whose name I cannot remember:

When it comes to relating to homosexuals, all I have to go on is my own sexuality - I'm attracted to women and I've never had any sexual urges towards a man. It has never felt like a choice to me to be attracted to women, I just am. So this leads me to one conclusion: if you feel that you're making a choice to be straight, I've got news for you - you're gay.

34

Young People Ask... When Can I Start Dating?

by pale.emperor in

quite possibly the most annoying and patronizing thing i've read in years.

comments of mine are in yellow.. .

she doesn't trust herself to make her own decisions and she's going to wait years even after she thinks she's ready.

OneEyedJoe

Wow, I'm dating at least 10 people by the WTBTS's cult standards. Some are men.

That made me think of something - they put such focus in the questions on the person being of the opposite sex. I guess dating rules don't apply to gay kids raised in the cult! They can do whatever they want, apparently.

34

Young People Ask... When Can I Start Dating?

by pale.emperor in

quite possibly the most annoying and patronizing thing i've read in years.

comments of mine are in yellow.. .

she doesn't trust herself to make her own decisions and she's going to wait years even after she thinks she's ready.

OneEyedJoe

Granted, some of your peers might date without any intention of marriage. They may view their opposite-sex friend as nothing more than a trophy or an accessory to be seen with in public to boost their own self-esteem. Playing with someone’s affections in that way is cruel, and it comes as no surprise that such relationships are often short-lived. “Many young ones who date break up with each other a week or two later,” says a youth named Heather. “They come to view relationships as transitory—which in a sense prepares them for divorce rather than for marriage.”

What's wrong with relationships that are short-lived? Even in their world of "dating with a view toward marriage" I don't see why breaking up after a week or two is such a bad thing. If you realize you're not right for each other after a week, wouldn't it be wrong to continue dating - wouldn't that be "playing with someone's affections" - the very thing they condemned in the immediately prior sentence?

In any event, I think we can all agree that the policy on dating is unhealthy, overly controlling (big surprise there) and enacted in order to keep people in a child-like state of naivety and trust for longer, all for the purposes of keeping people under their influence.

35

How long did people like Methuselah really live?

by dubstepped in

i was working today and my brain was working in circles like it often does and i started wondering about what i was always told about people like methuselah in bible times, and their incredibly claims of longevity.

i've tried researching things but have a hard time getting through all of the bible thumpers to some real evidence, and figured that some here may be more informed or have done the research previously.

so, did people really live longer way back when?

OneEyedJoe

double post...

35

How long did people like Methuselah really live?

by dubstepped in

i was working today and my brain was working in circles like it often does and i started wondering about what i was always told about people like methuselah in bible times, and their incredibly claims of longevity.

i've tried researching things but have a hard time getting through all of the bible thumpers to some real evidence, and figured that some here may be more informed or have done the research previously.

so, did people really live longer way back when?

OneEyedJoe

this is like asking how long sherlock holmes really lived...