xero

Of course anyone who feels that because they had a bad experience once in life is a get out of jail permanently card is a jerk.

What's interesting in all this discussion is the pretense that people make that they don't consider themselves superior in some respects to others, and in this I say these are lying to themselves which is worse than lying to someone else. If you lie to yourself, there's a double insult. You lift yourself up as superior to the rest of humanity who are afflicted with the competitive spirit - nay! not I!, which is deception and moreover you insult your own intelligence by believing the lie. No. It's better to say "Yes. I DO think I'm better at X, Y or Z than another person. But NO that doesn't make me a better person in Jehovah's eyes." You absolutely need to admit of this, as failure to do so is a lie. Interestingly you at times hear boasting on the part of some that they haven't acquired a secular education, or something else of that sort. I call these "The proud humble". It's a great gig. You can feel superior for indolence and lack of accomplishment. This does remind me of the Doctrine of Total Depravity with which I'm sympathetic to... https://babylonbee.com/news/i-am-a-depraved-wretch-says-calvinist-smugly (I tell people this when someone says "You JW's think you're better than everyone else." I reply "Not better than, but better off as is anyone who takes the Bible seriously and tries their best to live by it. Never better than.")

I liked the fact that there wasn't a lot of emotional incontinence at the meetings of JW's when I first started going. I always found that emotionalism to be incredibly self-indulgent and narcissistic. Jesus would have said (actually he did) "get a room!" 6 But when you pray, go into your private room and, after shutting your door, pray to your Father who is in secret.+ Then your Father who looks on in secret will repay you - Mt. 6:6 ...One brother I know seemed to always have these charismatic types turn on him. His family has a bunch of pentecostals and apparently a group of them (cousins) (hey I don't remember the back story...but somehow they were on the beach in Florida) chased him down in their car on the sand, bumped him w/a car door and tried to pray the demons out of him. (because he was one of JW's). I studied w/his older brother and it didn't take (never got baptized). I was wondering what happened to him and found his mug shot out there.

And you're right in may ways these ARE superior, but then again no one is superior, just different. Satan knows scripture as well no doubt and although I think the IQ of angels is a bit overrated, as I think their abilities to do certain things may be instinctive like our digesting our food or elements of our autonomic nervous systems I'm sure he's not a low IQ moron. Of course none of this was any value to him was it. Power is neutral, but the purpose to which it's employed is key the same as intelligence. Intelligence wrongly used or in the hands of a moral pervert is a dangerous weapon whose use brings nothing good to its holder or to anyone else for that matter. Opposers strike me as the kinds of people who have imagined their (arguable) superior intelligence makes them right in all things. They mistake the ability to argue a position with being correct. (1 Cor. 1:19 comes to mind)

I've been told that. It's a baked-in personality trait. I have high-low self esteem. My biggest fear is that people will be too stupid to realize how brilliant I am. This reminds me of an elders meeting where one brother said to me "Other people have ideas too!" and my response was "Well if we could knock it off with the fake humility and speak as men, maybe we could get these meetings done more quickly. Just spit it out already." Edited to mention I remember one brother (was it me?) who said in a meeting in response to the phrase "speaking as men" ..."Oh, you mean like now when we're being rude and tactless?"

Well there are certainly mundane things pertaining to conscience. Like minor blood fractions. Quite mundane as the term applies to the earthly realm. One could imagine all manner of things there. Suppose one were to imagine that it would be possible like a Ted Talk I saw, where they were able to manufacture or culture meat, that they were also able to manufacture all that blood is. Would this be allowable, if it were completely indistinguishable from actual blood? Also, it would seem that IQ and conscience are also related. I would imagine that certain nuance in the exercise of one's conscience might get a jaundiced look from low IQ brothers and sisters. Let's face it, some of our most faithful brothers and sisters have IQ's about the level of a hamster. I was thinking that once when my wife and I were giving a ride to the circuit assembly for a sister and her daughter. They sat happily in the back eating chips offering nothing in the way of conversation or adding anything to the discussion until they ran out of chips and fell asleep until we got to the assembly hall. I can't imagine these could ever get stumbled out of the truth by some fancy-pants discussions surrounding relative vs absolute dates in the Hebrew scriptures.

I had to point out that a painting of the oracle of delphi wasn't appropriate at a kingdom hall.

JWI - The connection w/conscience is the business of going along with a brother or a group. I always ask myself, "What's the harm in going along w/what appears to be a wrong idea? If it's just me "being annoyed" and everyone appears to be amenable, then I go along. Yes, I make a bit of noise w/regard to my objections, but I figure that if it's really important, Jehovah will correct it. Even at work sometimes you have to let people screw up when you really do know better. This way they actually learn. You can't be constantly "steadying the ark", like uzzah.

BTW I hate the zoom crap. I want to feel the breath and spittle of the speakers on my face.

Musing - Conscience only seems troubled by the acceptance or rejection of thoughts or ideas which have consequences to us which we'd rather not experience. Neither here nor there, but for some reason this popped into my mind. Back when we were building our hall, a certain brother who was slated to be our PO was a bit hyperactive and impatient as we were waiting for the concrete trucks to arrive for our parking lot. Now it would have been normal to construct the forms and tie the steel as these arrived, but noooo brother hyperactive-impatient came up with an idea to create the forms w/the steel already tied! I immediately thought this to be a really bad idea, a bad idea that I assessed to be a function of his unwarranted enthusiasm and exuberance. I said "So this is the first brilliant idea you decided to run with as new PO?...Mkay..." I thought it was a really dumb idea, but as it turns out, I was wrong. It sped the whole thing up. Nevermind this brother wasn't some professional steel-tier. So maybe we imagine bad consequences at times flowing from going along w/something we think is wrong or stupid, but then we find out it's our imagination that's wrong.

Having viewed a few down-in-the-weeds threads, like the one on 607 it's clear that some people can't let well enough alone. Like even mentioning 607 could spawn another 100 unnecessary responses.

It's like blocking bombardier beetles

You know this blocking feature is like lidar on the amazon rain forest. You can see things much more clearly in threads when you use it. Especially things which are hidden. I was using it as I read the 607 thread a year ago and blocking the noise-makers made the structures of the arguments come to the fore like so many long-abandoned canals in the rain forest.

urban dictionary-esque. basically a non-contributing waste of human flesh.

More musing....Jesus seems to put up w/all manner of deficient human beings during his time on earth, however for some reason the basement dwellers have a hard time w/their fellow man so they must separate themselves because their views must not only be expressed but embraced by all. Failure to embrace their views means the whole thing must be wrong, because of course they couldn't be wrong and even if they aren't by golly they won't allow themselves to be wronged. Nevermind Jesus allowed himself to be wronged.

...Not to mention the rabbit-hole mentality of the basement dwellers, this sort of thinking simply doesn't address the concerns of the bulk of humanity. Having love among yourselves means quite little when you're in a basement someplace having separated yourself because someone jotted when they should have tittled. "Why can't they admit they should have tittled! I'm going to leave until they admit it!"

Another thing about the propagation aspect of organizations is the need for community thought and shared experiences. I'm old enough to remember when there were few TV channels (actually in Laredo, if you didn't have cable it was like two or three tops and one seemed to be nothing but Mexican Bingo) so everyone would watch the same news, see the same shows and talk about the same things they'd seen as a result. This created a social fabric of a shared experience and we could all discuss these things. Without an organization to create a shared mental landscape of progressive study and group reflection, you lack a dimension required for unity. Splinter groups meeting in basements ultimately get dominated by progressively competitive and narrow thought patterns and personalities better at making arguments will dominate.

Conscience needs community. A reasonable person would recognize that there might be things they approve of that perhaps they shouldn't and things that they don't approve of that they should. Without exposing one's rationale to others who care and are in principle on the side of Jehovah and his word we could easily find ourselves disappearing into a basement somewhere believing and approving of all manner or weird stuff.

Life is so much better now that I've learned my lesson of not peeking at the posts of the mentally ill.

Crickets on how the weirdos in their basements eating Christ-Chex and baying at the moon are going to preach the good news of Gods Kingdom to the whole world. All joking aside, I just don't see how it can get done unless you have an organization w/resources and a world-wide reach. This means you have to get serious not only about doctrine, but your methods of propagation. Too little attention to doctrine is an issue, as well as too little attention to its methods of propagation. Not saying anything specific means that you aren't serious, but that (being specific and serious) can land you in trouble as you overstep when you do say something specific. Take the Catholic Church. Now it's doctrines are easy to blow away in the main, however they have attended to their own propagation w/in their organization. You see this w/any number of protestant groups as well. However to the extent that the reasons for not being Catholic aren't accentuated as highly important, to that extent to survive they have to be ecumenical and in so doing further undermine the arguments for their own existence. We see mega churches spending very little time w/doctrine and all about becoming a "full service" church w/lots of activities. These then stand for very little as well and then it becomes a competition to see which can provide the "best service" and this invariably revolves around personalities. The ministers in these necessarily balk at providing any serious discipline as these are being paid to serve. So of course there's going to be little in the way of discipline. Then you have the weirdos who want to have a belly-button gazing form of Christianity which is all about the self - a spiritual narcissism and these can find any number of other weirdos to hang out with online and discuss 1st world issues. None of these are going the right route. The message is garbled. Not so w/JW's. In fact as not-camera-ready as the GB obviously is this underscores the fact that this organization is dedicated to the message and avoiding the splintering which can occur if steps aren't taken to reign in people (like myself) who love to speculate. Nope, it's not about the personalities. They have taken steps to ensure the continuance and the propagation of the faith. Practical steps. Right now the growth really appears to be in non-english speaking countries and in and among people who are much less privileged than those of us in the west. These are apparently quite happy w/the message they're receiving and it shows. Ask yourself how many you imagine can even begin to wrap their minds around the arguments relative to 607 vs 586 BCE and lunar eclipses and the like. Like none. These are satisfied w/the basics and maybe we ought to ask ourselves the same questions. What are the real reasons for our gripes? (we've all had them) Then ask yourself "Is this important to the brothers and sisters in the third world countries or is this just me being impatient?"

It's not "click bate". It's "click bait". You can't even get that right.

Like I said. Opposers don't have what it takes to do the will of Jehovah. As soon as they can tell me how they're going to get the good news of the kingdom preached to the planet, we can talk.

34 Jesus said to them: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me+ and to finish his work. - John 4:34 The above passage has Jesus using the word "food" to mean "doing God's will" and "finishing his work". The faithful and discreet slave is described as providing "food" at the proper time. Mt. 24:45 If I interpret this as providing the necessary tools to "do God's will" and "finish God's work" then I'd say that the organization known as the WTBS run by the governing body has done this. The work is the preaching the good news of God's Kingdom and doing this world wide. I'd say this organization has kept it's focus and knows it's mission. Now whether they are right or wrong as to the timing of the arrival of the master of the harvest or not is immaterial to the business described as providing the "food" or "work to be done" and "the tools to get it done" at the proper time. Now how some splinter group of weirdos getting together in their respective basements is doing anything or even CAN do anything described at Mt. 24:45 is highly unlikely. Now maybe if Jeff Bezos were to back a different group w/his vast economic resources, maybe. But even then, probably not so much because when you look at these splinters, they never get out in service MORE, they never become MORE zealous in preaching the kingdom, but less. To me that's a part of keeping the big picture.

Sometimes I get ideas, but I forget their origin.

Ex JW's imagine they have some kind of monopoly on hating their religion or that they are unique in any manner. A quick look at reddit (type in "ex-whatever") and you'll find plenty of people who are complaining about their experiences. It makes me wonder what a 1st century reddit would look like in this regard. None of these human experiences, of course argue against organization. It does argue for being selective and taking responsibility for one's choices. Now I've been poking around and I found this group and see how these decide what's important for them. https://thegospelofchrist.com/bible-study-curriculi I also found this: http://oldpaths.com/Archive/Davison/Roy/Allen/1940/apostasy.html#XII Every group makes decisions as to who is faithful and who isn't. W/o some earthly entity grouped together to a certain concerted end, nothing happens. As it so happens, Jehovah's Witnesses have been quite clear as to what their message is - One morning before I could say a word to a man outside a convenience store he said "I'm not interested in Jehovah's Kingdom". I was quite surprised at the clarity of his response and that he knew before I approached, the end I had in mind. So This is the end to which the earthly arm of God's organization exists as manifested among JW's and it's been quite clear. **Musing again....I wonder what the ratio of introvert to apostate is? I'm willing to bet there are more introverts among apostates.