Conscience individual and collective

[xero]

14 minutes ago, Pudgy said:

..... I know ... I feel the same way about cats.

I'm suspicious of people who actively dislike cats and preferring dogs over cats.

 

[xero]

Speaking of retrospectives....I was reminiscing on a place I lived as a kid and found this

This is the sort of thing a lot of people don't get about Mexican culture. They look for and see magic everywhere. What's interesting to me is that you have JW's who aren't that different from these people. I'm not sure what's worse - seeing God acting everywhere or never seeing his hand in anything at all. (This is what I grew up around. My parents hired a sitter for me and my sister before we went to school and they later told me that she was a curandera)

[xero]

I've been trying to read Edward Feser, but he's a terrible speaker, and he doesn't appear to understand the most important parts of his arguments.

[TrueTomHarley]

17 hours ago, Anna said:

But I guess you have no self control Tom,

Bingo.

It’s the pure nastiness of one, not to mention the pure dodo-headedness of another. These annoy far more than the posts themselves, though sometimes the two are hard to unravel.

After Paul makes his speech in the Areopagus, he says: “Okay. Been there/done that. If I don’t keep looking upon all these idols, maybe I won’t keep getting so irritated. Maybe I can get around to writing some of those epistles that have been kicking around in the back of my head.”

17 hours ago, xero said:

But if no one knows what we're thinking and reading and we have no parity with others with whom we share common beliefs we could easily become lopsided. We are also engaging in a hierarchical judging of sorts w/regard to our brothers and sisters, rating some more highly than others because these share our viewpoints on these matters.

People have different interests. Most friends only have so much time for reading, and many have only so much interest. If they choose to read Watchtower-only material, why would I have a problem with that? They trust the source. If I recall correctly, @Thinkingmentioned a circuit overseer who acknowledged that spiritual food must be written for the masses, necessitating those with extra reading appetite to do extra study projects. I wrote about some of that here:

https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/01/what-witnesses-are-allowed-to-read.html

If you go somewhere that ordinary theocratic reading does not take us—looking into the nitty-gritty of this or that complaint, for example, you have a responsibility to frame things in accord with the brotherhood, unless, like Rulf, you decide your complaints are so stellar and overriding that they justify your leaving the brotherhood, in which case you should do so. But where is he now? Doubtless the “scholars” he consoles himself that he will hang out with are few and far between—most “scholars” have concluded the further they get from God, the better—and his new best friends become some of the smarter adversaries here. Instead, I sort of like JWI, who comes up with some orthodox things, but still says “God’s people obviously need headship, as does everyone else, and the present arrangement is overall doing a good job.”

One long-ago article said, what if you come across some Bible account that seems hard to reconcile, even shocking? Do you do a 60-minutes blow-the-cover-off expose of God? Or do you reflect on how good he’s been to you, that you don’t have all the facts, and if you did, no doubt it would make a difference? Do you do a Jesus, who was overall quite merciful toward his disciples, even when they made blunders or veered into self-importance?

[xero]

One wonders if the videos the WTBS published allowed for comments and ratings what this would do for the

1 hour ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Bingo.

It’s the pure nastiness of one, not to mention the pure dodo-headedness of another. These annoy far more than the posts themselves, though sometimes the two are hard to unravel.

After Paul makes his speech in the Areopagus, he says: “Okay—there. Been/done that. If I don’t keep looking upon all these idols, maybe I won’t keep getting so irritated. Maybe I can get around to writing some of those epistles that have been kicking around in the back of my head.”

People have different interests. Most friends only have so much time for reading, and many have only so much interest. If they choose to read Watchtower-only material, why would I have a problem with that? They trust the source. If I recall correctly, @Thinkingmentioned a circuit overseer who acknowledged that spiritual food must be written for the masses, necessitating those with extra reading appetite to do extra study projects. I wrote about some of that here:

https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/01/what-witnesses-are-allowed-to-read.html

If you go somewhere that ordinary theocratic reading does not take us—looking into the nitty-gritty of this or that complaint, for example, you have a responsibility to frame things in accord with the brotherhood, unless, like Rulf, you decide your complaints are so stellar and overriding that they justify your leaving the brotherhood, in which case you should do so. But where is he now? Doubtless the “scholars” he consoles himself that he will hang out with are few and far between—most “scholars” have concluded the further they get from God, the better—and his new best friends become some of the smarter adversaries here. Instead, I sort of like JWI, who comes up with some orthodox things, but still says “God’s people obviously need headship, as does everyone else, and the present arrangement is overall doing a good job.”

One long-ago article said, what if you come across some Bible account that seems hard to reconcile, even shocking? Do you do a 60-minutes blow-the-cover-off expose of God? Or do you reflect on how good he’s been to you, that you don’t have all the facts, and if you did, no doubt it would make a difference? Do you do a Jesus, who was overall quite merciful toward his disciples, even when they made blunders or veered into self-importance?

I think Mr F is doing commercials for IKEA.

 

[TrueTomHarley]

16 hours ago, xero said:

I'm not sure what's worse - seeing God acting everywhere or never seeing his hand in anything at all.

I’ve never heard it put this way before.

I also wonder if I can trick 4Jah and CC into giving me upvotes by posting photos like this:

[Anna]

4 hours ago, xero said:

One wonders if the videos the WTBS published allowed for comments and ratings what this would do for the

I think Mr F is doing commercials for IKEA.

 

Wow, hahaha! I wish I could understand what he is saying, but I don't speak Norwegian....

I wonder why him? Surely there are other maybe more suitable people like pop stars or actors? Perhaps though he is quite famous in Norway....

[Anna]

5 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

necessitating those with extra reading appetite to do extra study projects.....

If you go somewhere that ordinary theocratic reading does not take us—looking into the nitty-gritty of this or that complaint, for example, you have a responsibility to frame things in accord with the brotherhood

I remember a while back, when I was "super holy" browsing a brother's library and noticing Bible literature that was not from our source. In my self righteous judgemental previous self I was shocked and almost stumbled. The said brother then proceeded to recommend some of those books saying how interesting they were especially if we are into deep research. I was beside myself with disgust and loathing, wondering how an elder could be saying this...and is he even an elder, probably more of a closet apostate.  Well that was then, and this is now. Looking back I see how immature I really was, thinking myself spiritually superior to someone else just because they read other things besides "our" things. It works the other way too, do we consider ourselves somehow more intelligent and superior to those who only read "our" literature? Everybody is at varying stages of spiritual maturity and it is ultimately between them and Jehovah what they chose to, or not to, research.

The brother by the way is still our brother. His daughter sings some of our songs.

[Anna]

17 hours ago, xero said:

I'm not sure what's worse - seeing God acting everywhere or never seeing his hand in anything at all.

I suppose reasonableness and balance is the key 😀

[xero]

3 hours ago, Anna said:

I suppose reasonableness and balance is the key 😀

There's a Ted Talk I saw that suggests something along these lines as a sub current to all this

...."How does it feel to be wrong?...ans "It feels like being right."

We never feel like we aren't being unreasonable or unbalanced if we think we're right, but we could be.

[Pudgy]

..... unless of course you are a man having a conversation with a woman .... then you are ALWAYS wrong.

The reason men play the Lottery more than women is that they think the odds are better at winning.

...... and the reason that men die almost a decade before women is .....

 

... they want to.

[Srecko Sostar]

5 hours ago, xero said:

There's a Ted Talk I saw that suggests something along these lines as a sub current to all this

For the benefit of the JW community, a speech like this should be included in the JWTV program as a Special Lecture on Sunday afternoon.

.....Of course, to make it more acceptable for the organizer, the lecture should be given by a man, not a woman :)) I believe, that nowadays an increasing proportion of JW members would readily abandon the idea that only men (male) are allowed to “teach”.