Posts by slimboyfat

13

What is Greg Stafford up to these days?

by slimboyfat in

you may have been wondering: what is greg stafford up to these days?

lots of interesting things, is the answer.

exposing the false trinity doctrine, of course, but keeping on top of other issues too.

slimboyfat

The basic assumption seems to be that the Bible gives an accurate history of the past, including a reliable chronology. From that assumption springs the idea that the 10,000 years date must be wrong. The fact that the site is near where some think Mount Ararat was located, and that the site includes many depictions of animals is too good a set of circumstances for someone who is already inclined to take the Bible account seriously to miss making a connection. If the Bible is correct that Noah existed and saved animals on an ark then the next thing is to say that he could also have built the Göbelki Tepe site. I think Watchtower has at times suggested that Noah could have employed workers to help him and his family build the ark. Perhaps Stafford is reasoning that, if Noah could hire help for the ark, then he could have hired help to build Göbekli Tepe too. What I am not sure about, and maybe I just missed it in the video, is what function does Stafford think this site performed, and why wasn’t it mentioned in the Bible? Was it a kind of holding bay for the animals before they went on the ark? Why was that necessary?

There is another JW apologist who has attempted to link Noah’s flood with the ‘younger dryas cataclysm’ that has piqued the interest of some in recent years. I forget his name or the name lf his book right now.

98

Better off PIMA than POMA or POMO.

by ExBethelitenowPIMA in

the situation is many of us are pima and all putting on a front, sometimes saying something we don’t fully believe.

or at least are actually agnostic about but a hope that it’s true.. but it can be useful if someone is really going through a hard time or has something they are very worried about, to say things like well let’s hope there is not much longer of this old system.. this can be useful in an awkward situation where you just don’t know what to do or say.

it’s a little bit of hope that can help when there is nothing else.. my agnosticism just means i won’t look back over decades thinking i wasted my life.

slimboyfat

That’s your opinion. I don’t know why this thread or its topic should be exempted from epistemic humility that acknowledges human limitations.

Evolution might be a crappy interface for something that goes far deeper.

https://youtu.be/nM_FOUCpJ3I

98

Better off PIMA than POMA or POMO.

by ExBethelitenowPIMA in

the situation is many of us are pima and all putting on a front, sometimes saying something we don’t fully believe.

or at least are actually agnostic about but a hope that it’s true.. but it can be useful if someone is really going through a hard time or has something they are very worried about, to say things like well let’s hope there is not much longer of this old system.. this can be useful in an awkward situation where you just don’t know what to do or say.

it’s a little bit of hope that can help when there is nothing else.. my agnosticism just means i won’t look back over decades thinking i wasted my life.

slimboyfat

You think what is ridiculous? That humans probably don’t perceive every aspect of reality that might be needed to provide a fully accurate picture?

I think it’s ridiculous to assume that humans are fully capable of perceiving reality. No other creature does, as far as we know. Why would humans be the one exception? It’s not “rational” to suppose that we do. It’s more like wishful thinking, a nice story to tell ourselves because we don’t want to accept we may not be equipped to answer basic questions about reality. Simply exclaiming ridiculous doesn’t help.

98

Better off PIMA than POMA or POMO.

by ExBethelitenowPIMA in

the situation is many of us are pima and all putting on a front, sometimes saying something we don’t fully believe.

or at least are actually agnostic about but a hope that it’s true.. but it can be useful if someone is really going through a hard time or has something they are very worried about, to say things like well let’s hope there is not much longer of this old system.. this can be useful in an awkward situation where you just don’t know what to do or say.

it’s a little bit of hope that can help when there is nothing else.. my agnosticism just means i won’t look back over decades thinking i wasted my life.

slimboyfat

There are different kinds of agnosticism. Weak agnosticism says that we don’t know but one day we might find out. Strong agnosticism says we don’t know and we will never find out.

Evolution has been proved by humans applying their rational mind to available evidence. Yet there is no reason to suppose that the human mind is equipped to make a final determination about the world in itself. We would not imagine that a chimpanzee has accurate models in its head for things such as how weather comes about or how food grows, although it probably thinks something about those everyday experiences. It probably doesn’t even have a conception that its perception is limited, even though it appears to be very limited from our perspective. Similarly we as humans don’t know what we don’t know, and we don’t know which of our perceptions and deductions about reality are not only wrong, but miss the point entirely. The only way to avoid this conclusion is to assume that humans are uniquely equipped to understand reality in its fundamentals and to explain why that should be the case. If there is a key aspect of reality that requires perceiving the world in terms of extra dimensions that we can’t perceive, or colours outside our spectrum, or echolocation which bats have and we don’t, or yet other aspects of perception that we entirely unaware of, then we may be missing something fundamental about reality which entirely changes the picture of how we came about. When you really think about it, the idea that there aspects of reality that humans don’t have access to is actually more likely than not. We can see the limitations of the creatures around us but we cannot see the limitations in ourselves because we can only perceive using our own limited perception.

98

Better off PIMA than POMA or POMO.

by ExBethelitenowPIMA in

the situation is many of us are pima and all putting on a front, sometimes saying something we don’t fully believe.

or at least are actually agnostic about but a hope that it’s true.. but it can be useful if someone is really going through a hard time or has something they are very worried about, to say things like well let’s hope there is not much longer of this old system.. this can be useful in an awkward situation where you just don’t know what to do or say.

it’s a little bit of hope that can help when there is nothing else.. my agnosticism just means i won’t look back over decades thinking i wasted my life.

slimboyfat

Evolution has been proven.

That is, using the human mind, which is the product of evolution, if evolution is true. And if evolution is true then the human mind evolved for its survival advantage not for its accurate representation of reality. But an accurate representation of reality and survival advantage are not at variance with one another, you might say. In fact research suggests there probably is a difference between the most accurate representation of reality and the perception with the greatest survival advantage. That being the case, the human mind cannot be expected to perceive reality correctly. That being the case there is no reason to suppose that an evolutionary understanding of human development is correct since it itself is the product of the human mind which is adapted for survival not for accuracy.

This leaves us with two options: 1) the human mind perceives its evolutionary history accurately because reality was intentionally constructed in such as way that humans could draw accurate conclusions, or 2) humans do not perceive reality accurately and cannot suppose their inferences, including evolutionary theory, are accurate.

I suspect that option 1 is the case, scientist Donald Hoffman makes the case for option 2.

https://youtu.be/UWHYThrfRYU

13

What is Greg Stafford up to these days?

by slimboyfat in

you may have been wondering: what is greg stafford up to these days?

lots of interesting things, is the answer.

exposing the false trinity doctrine, of course, but keeping on top of other issues too.

slimboyfat

You may have been wondering: what is Greg Stafford up to these days? Lots of interesting things, is the answer. Exposing the false Trinity doctrine, of course, but keeping on top of other issues too. See this video where he argues that the much talked about Gobekli Tepe site in Turkey is not 10,000 years old, as archaeologists have claimed, but was in fact the site where Noah kept the animals that were saved in the ark. Very interesting!

https://youtu.be/JOVOmYuDGAw

98

Better off PIMA than POMA or POMO.

by ExBethelitenowPIMA in

the situation is many of us are pima and all putting on a front, sometimes saying something we don’t fully believe.

or at least are actually agnostic about but a hope that it’s true.. but it can be useful if someone is really going through a hard time or has something they are very worried about, to say things like well let’s hope there is not much longer of this old system.. this can be useful in an awkward situation where you just don’t know what to do or say.

it’s a little bit of hope that can help when there is nothing else.. my agnosticism just means i won’t look back over decades thinking i wasted my life.

slimboyfat

For some it is, and for others it isn’t. People are all different.

11530

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars

by Newly Enlightened in

original reddit post (removed).

slimboyfat

You never apologized for that letter and I didn’t demand an apology because I could see it was a stressful situation for both of us and maybe you were simply confused rather than being intentionally hurtful and misleading.

Another trademark move from LE and his right to “demand an apology”. He did that to Katie Kitten and he did it many times on this forum. To top it off he thinks he deserves some sort of credit for not exercising his right to an apology on this occasion.

the letter you sent on December 15th, which you didn’t seem to appreciate me debunking the next day.

Well imagine that, she didn’t appreciate the “debunking”. What rudeness on her part! Who doesn’t love a bit of debunking from our nearest and dearest? This man is off the charts insane. Dr Das was not kidding when he said he was a psychopath, it’s like peering into the abyss.

98

Better off PIMA than POMA or POMO.

by ExBethelitenowPIMA in

the situation is many of us are pima and all putting on a front, sometimes saying something we don’t fully believe.

or at least are actually agnostic about but a hope that it’s true.. but it can be useful if someone is really going through a hard time or has something they are very worried about, to say things like well let’s hope there is not much longer of this old system.. this can be useful in an awkward situation where you just don’t know what to do or say.

it’s a little bit of hope that can help when there is nothing else.. my agnosticism just means i won’t look back over decades thinking i wasted my life.

slimboyfat

Some people think evolution is one of the best arguments against naturalism and by implication in favour of God. I think this argument has a lot of weight. It’s difficult to explain how we exist as conscious beings who understand the world around us unless it was intended that way. The idea of evolution producing reliable perception on a purely naturalistic basis doesn’t make much sense.

https://youtu.be/cs6zFymVKJM

19

Christmas Decorations at the Kingdom hall

by Simon in

i can't remember if i've told this story before .... but back in the day, in irlam congregation (northwest england, uk, cheshire #1 circuit i think) we used to rent a kingdom hall for many years before we eventually built our own.. preston hall.

ah, the memories .... it was primarily used as a community hall for old folks, but we had it friday night and sunday morning.. there was a loft and fold-out ladder and we used to store the chairs up their.

every meeting, there would be an assembly line of all the "lads" to pass the chairs down and set them up, then collect them up and pass them back up at the end of the meeting.

slimboyfat

A story I heard was that there was congregation in England that put up Christmas decorations because they had “turned apostate” and the circuit overseer had to go in bust it up and set them straight. Maybe that was a distorted Chinese-whisper version of this case, or another congregation somewhere else.

What I’ve discovered over the years, though, from reading stories of others’ experiences, is that my initial sceptical reaction of “Jehovah’s Witnesses would never do that” whenever I hear about some whacky going’s on, doesn’t take fully into account just how many congregations and individual JWs there are across the world and the scope for outlier unusual and whacky behaviour across the “whole association of brothers”.