Spook

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Posts by Spook

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  26

  What's Your Opinion: Is Legal Marriage Important?

  by GoddessRachel in

  1. social
  2. family

  hey everyone,.

  so i've been thinking about marriage a lot lately, with same-sex marriages being approved in some states, banned in others, and flip-flopped in still others (see: california).. i recently read an article in my local newspaper about how marriage is a personal and religious union that has no business being in any of our laws, and that the laws should instead be for a legal domestic relationship, to establish and recognize legal families, and that marriage should be altogether separate from that.

  i really agreed with all that was said in the article.. i want to get married.

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  Spook

  WHY IS MARRIAGE IMPORTANT? DO YOU THINK MARRIAGE IS IMPORTANT? IF SO, WHY? IF NOT, WHY NOT?

  I think that it is scientifically objectively true that children who have parents of both sexes with a good relationship with each other (usually positive interchanges and good conflict resolution) are more likely to grow up to be happy and to be good citizens. I think any government legislation surrounding marriage should encourage the raising of healthy children.

  I don't think marriage is important. One's word and an asessment of character is the best you can do for long term planning. Divorce law only stacks artificial consequences on top of a pre-existing agreement.

  If I ever get married it will be to have children. Any promises I make will revolve around the children, not my wife. People change. I cannot control this, nor would I if I could.

  Until 120 years ago thinking of marriage as a means of self-fullfillment would have been odd for most people. Marriage has traditionally been a practical matter, with family being the unit of business and production. I think any legislation on the subject should be purely practical and that no religious notions should be enforced by law. I am for paying taxes to help raise children as good citizens. This can be fully incentivised without the need to promote religious morals.

  I would like civil family licenses, not civil marriage licenses.
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  21

  End of CO's and DO's? Pioneer Change Hours? Apostacy in Bethel/ Chicago? Thoughts on no more Bookstudy...

  by cognac in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  end of co's and do's?.

  honestly, if they get rid of them i think the whole borg will crumble.

  nobody's cares about elders the way they do co's and do's.

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  Spook

  Operating under our assumption that no god directs the WTBTS, the two things which could really change them are legal precedent and internal division. The latter is most likely ruled out by the structure of the organization. If "writing" ever gets parsed to different national groups you could see a split. The former is always a looming possibility.

  I may interject a third possibility: Other religions who have been better at adjusting to the information age will win those converts who otherwise would have become JW's. The JW preaching model is outdated and has little success in Islamic countries. Many religions are poised to capitalize on new territory. JW's have always been a "tertiary" religion. Meaning first local religions convert to Christianity, then 2nd or 3rd generation Christians become JW's. They cannot argue with the secular or with indiginous religions.
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  64

  Here is the GB photo from the new book "Bearing Thorough Witness"

  by BonaFide in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  .

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  Spook

  All (save one) so young. Replacements, no doubt.
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  7

  Convention Themes

  by jws in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  after hearing about the "keep on the watch!

  " convention, i could have sworn they used that one before.

  so i searched around the internet.

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  Spook

  2010: "Slavishly Slaving for the Slave...but good!"
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  78

  Crazy JW chaperon Stories

  by superman in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the jw's must not trust their members or at least don't have too much faith in them when it comes to being alone around member of the opposite sex.

  i can remember one time in particular from when i was a teenager that still makes me laugh today.. when i was younger i used to go out in service on a regular basis during the week when i had summer break.

  one time when i met for service there were only two other people that showed up.

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  Spook

  Insane. The notion that two people should get married having spent (virtually) no time alone. It's a stupid formality for people who have no actual standars of their own.
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  16

  WHO WROTE THE BIBLE??? RESPONSE TO THE NEW PUBLICATION.

  by whereami in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  for those whow believe god authored the bible , this info will make you question your faith.

  very well done.. i would love to see how the wts would respond to this, especially after the new publication on the bible was just released at the convention.. maybe one of our inhouse scholars (narkissos/leolia) can back up this info.

  http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2061773048178434620&hl=en.

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  Spook

  It's pretty well-traveled ground among those who actually care to think about. A great question for JW's is

  "Why do you accept the protestant cannon?"
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  5

  FALSE ARGUMENTS AGAINST THINGS

  by badboy in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  know any cases of this?.

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  Spook

  Not sure what you're going for here, but some of the most common problems of reasoning I've seen are in the following categories:

  1. Anecdotal justification. (Someone one knows claims X, therefore X is probably the case.)

  2. Correlation equals causation. (Marijuana use is correlated to the use of other substances, therefore the use of marijuana causes people to use other drugs rather than the alternative that people who use both marijuana and other drugs do so for some underlying reason.)

  3. Post-hoc rationalization or post-hoc ergo proctor hoc. (Something happened without a good explanation, so what's the explanation? For example, I woke up with a headache today and last night I ate peanuts. It MUST be the case that peanuts cause headaches.)

  In general, a logically false argument against a thing would be one that entails some assumption which falsifies the argument. For example:

  (P1) Assuming God exists, the divine name, Jehovah, is both the true name of God and an important bit of knowledge for all humans.

  (P2) The new testament has been preserved completely and accurately reflecting all important knowledge Jehovah wants people to have.

  (P3) The new testament does not contain the name Jehovah at all, especially in reference to God.

  (C4) Therefore the new testament demonstrates that God's name is Jehovah.

  This is a fales argument because P3 contradicts the conclusion, and therefore the conclusion does not follow from the argument. One of the following disjuncts must be true instead of C4, which is false

  (C5) God does not exist.

  (C6) or else...Jehovah is not God's name, were God to have a name.

  (C7) or else...The new testament has not been so preserved as in P2.

  (C8) or else...God, were he to exist and be named Jehovah does not hold it as remotely important that his name be known.
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  17

  Living together - Living in sin?

  by Rosey in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was df'd for moving in with my then boyfriend (now husband).

  that was ten years ago.. my husband and i lived together for about 5 and a half years before we got married.

  from day one we both talked about getting married and having children in the future but we wanted it to be something more special than a quick juant to a registry office for appearances sake.

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  Spook

  I don't think you should live together AFTER marriage! Just kidding.

  Even as a JW I never understood "official" marriage. I usually used the desert island illustration. Let's say two virgin christians were on an island. If they wanted to commit to each other, why would this be any less meaningful to God, were he to exist, than if they had witnesses. Certainly, God would need no witnesses.

  It seems to me that marriage serves the interest of religions, not of gods.

  But I think sin is a ludicrous notion, even if a god were to exist.

  And on top of that, I don't think I'm cut out for marriage.
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  32

  Is anyone suffering from post-traumatic bitterness disorder?

  by BurnTheShips in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-bitterness25-2009may25,0,4544029.story.

  bitterness as mental illness?bitter behavior is so common and deeply destructive that some psychiatrists are urging it be identified as a mental illness under the name post-traumatic embitterment disorder.by shari roan.

  and, increasingly, psychiatrists know them.

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  Spook

  Hmm, Interesting but it seems to me like this is not nearly substantial enough of a difference to legitimize a diagnostic category. At most this would incorporate anger into the Adjustment Disorder diagnosis, usually broken down in terms of anxiety or depression.
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  13

  I can understand people believing in a grand designer, but why the leap...

  by Psychotic Parrot in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  from the grand designer to jesus?.

  people always justify belief in god by saying that the universe needed a creator to balance out the fundamental forces & set things in motion, etc... or in other words an intelligent first cause (who designed the designer though?)....

  but how do we get from this ambiguous grand designer to the judeo christian god, or jesus, or al lah?

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  Spook

  Because the assessment of the likelihood of a theological account is hinged on the background likelihood of God's existance. Given the assumption of a grand designer, it becomes much more "probable" that a given theological claim is true in the asessment of an individual. For example, if the fine tuning argument is true, then it is more probable that Theistic Evolution is true than it is that natural evolution is true.

  An absurd example of how stupid this is, given the assumption that a god exists who is willing and able to cause me to eat a banana for breakfast it is more likely that I should eat a banana than given naturalism if one assumes god posesses at least the following set of traits.

  1. Being fully rational.

  2. Being very powerful.

  3. Having a strong desire to cause me to eat a banana for breakfast.

  If we also accept the assumption that a rational being will always satisfy her desires when she is willing and able to do so, all things considered.