xero

I can't help but imagine a dog drinking greedily from a toilet when I make the mistake of actually unblocking one of your replies.

Musing...In view of the history of the bible, the false worship of the northern 10 tribes, their motivations for going where they went all through this to the defective Sanhedrin of the 1st century and the temple, the idea of complete perfection or even partial on the part of the earthly attempts of people to properly worship Jehovah seems misguided. Anything thought of as "branching off" can never succeed. Christians didn't think of themselves as "branching off", but as the main trunk. Later Catholics may likewise have thought of their organization as corrupt and yet the one used by God. Protestants formed any number of groups, trying various manners of propagations succeeding variously. Why? Because when these formed these formed around emotionally evocative differences which were thought to be critical to true worship. These usually began w/following men and usually ended because of following men - usually and more importantly particular men. A field which is uncultivated and w/o cultivators ultimately ceases to be a field which produces fruit. Increasingly Christendom fails to tend to the necessary business of weeding and identifying as weeds both beliefs and practices. Is survival as a group an identifying mark of having God's favor? Not necessarily, but it is necessary to survive. Not surviving does indicate that the group splitting off was not following the right trail. In the 1st century Jesus said to those hanging on his words of the scribes and pharisees whom he referred to as "hypocrites and offspring of vipers", that "all the things they say do and observe". One might have thought that strange unless one understood that being used didn't equate to individual favor on the part of those being used. So it's important to be able to distinguish if Jehovah is using any organization (I believe that he always has) (or organizations, if he is using more than one) we as individuals have to choose. Which group is doing the best job in your view? If so, then why not do your all to support it? In so doing there is no need to compromise your principles,or your individual conscience if you understand properly how you must necessarily tolerate the idiosyncracies and readily perceptible deficiencies of the organization and those "taking the lead". ***Thinking aloud some more here

Dawkins is such a jerk. If you read "Climbing Mount Improbable" you'll realize he didn't. Instead he wastes your time trying to distract you from the fact that nothing he's provided has even begun to scale that mountain. I have an old book that deals w/the math. It's "Darwin Was Wrong - A Study in Probabilities". Very hard to come by, but really quite clear in its explanation of the mathematics and biochemistry involved in any attempt to create life in all its varied forms.

It's my own fascination to be certain. I like to take as many things out of the realms of the philosophical and theoretical as I can.

"Xero, how do you know you're of the OS?" Me - "I just know I am." https://www.academia.edu/37032279/An_Educated_Conscience_Perception_and_Reason_in_Newman_s_Account_of_Conscience Although this paper is discussing things from a catholic perspective, the analysis of the conscience is, I feel a useful exercise.

Exactly. I think one paper scrambling to deal w/this is this one: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24152012/

https://www.dismantledevolution.com/ I just watched this documentary on amazon. It's a good overview of the material. The manner of presentation is perhaps more evocative than simply reading some papers.

Like Elmer Woodley. http://da-ip.getmyip.com/pdf/Audio/Talks/Woodley Elmer C - Identifying and Maintaining Our Spiritual Paradise.mp3

I tend to create piles both in real life and online. Everything is oddly indexed in my head.

You may be aware of the postmodernist who doesn't believe in a singular truth "out there" to be discovered. These believe that there are personal and private truths which remain forever unverifiable save for the individual perceptions of the ones who possess the same. This is an anti-western perspective and also an unbiblical perspective. Truth, like the quality of goodness inhere fully in and are defined by and perceived by and illuminated by Jehovah as he is the source. We can approach our truth only with help from Jehovah. So this perception we have of right and wrong properly exercised is illuminated and informed by an external source, namely the scriptures. There are adiaphoric cases where things are neither here, nor there and there appears to be no moral component to a given decision within the choices being made by an individual either because these are not clearly identified in scripture or because the principles are such that any choice made is ambiguous as to whether the choice is leading one towards or away from the requirements for salvation. In all this, we are not necessarily listening to humans when we adhere to the business of "being submissive" to those taking the lead, however I will assent to the idea that one must acknowledge that such "lead" is actually being taken. Certainly individuals in positions of authority may "take the lead" and this in an incorrect (from a scriptural viewpoint and this not in simply adiaphoric matters) matter, so one would rightfully question whether to follow such "lead" or not. Certainly if it was unscriptural, you'd have the obligation to point this out no matter the position in the congregation. But in all this the scriptures are the tethers for a proper conscience. Not humans. So when one is being obedient to those taking the lead and you can see that there might be ten different ways in which that lead might have been taken from a scriptural perspective and you feel that the one chosen by those taking the lead isn't the most optimal, if you happen to be proximate to the one taking the lead you might quietly draw attention to the superior (like Aquila and Priscilla did for Apollos Acts 18:26) and he may or may not listen, but if this "lead" taken isn't unscriptural, you'd have an obligation to support the direction taken. So...a "collective conscience" is more descriptive than prescriptive. The prescriptive direction comes from scripture primarily and this is what informs the individual conscience as to private vs public matters and when personal preference needs to give way to organizational directions. There is necessarily an element of homogenization and less-than-optimal (from various personal viewpoints) decisions which might be made. (Can we not see this if we place ourselves in situ in the scriptures as we read of these events? How many times would the direction have appeared to be less than optimal from those there at that time? Yet, those who did their best to go with Jehovah's representatives fared best overall) Deferring to people of informed judgment seems to be key for educating conscience. Educating conscience, therefore, is a communal affair, not merely the outcome of an isolated faculty of the mind. And in saying it is a communal affair this is w/regard to the discussions surrounding scripture which have led those taking the lead to determine that one course of action is better than another. In the end it is scripture to which one is adhering to. In some cases, simply obeying is sufficient. If we do not fully understand the reasons, we can ask and we can meditate on the reasons involved. To be sure, there may be cases (as there always have been) when one asks "Why, if you had to change a different doctrine or belief did you not do it in a different manner?" we can speculate and take two different ways of approaching the change a) We can take a negative approach and imagine all manner of self-serving and cowardly reasons for doing so and b) We can take a positive approach and give the benefit of the doubt, recognizing that there are those who would parse words to convict and destroy and perhaps these are the reasons for such sometimes delicate wordings w/regard to changes *Or we can flip/flop trying on one view and another view in turn. In the end, though the scriptures ever and always support the idea that organization is used. Having said so we know that God can use an organization w/individuals who may be losing favor w/Jehovah for personal or secret sins of the heart. Consider Judas. Consider Saul. Consider the high priest who prophesied that "you do not reason it is for your benefit" in the case of Jesus and his trumped up trial. Still we must necessarily identify and stick w/the organization Jehovah is using.

On a related note....

"A 4,500-year-old Y chromosome molecular clock Our results demonstrate that a Y chromosome molecular clock exists, and that it specifies about 4,500 years in total for human paternal history (figs. 1, 3). Rather than being an anomaly, these results fall in line with the expectations derived from comparisons of low coverage and high coverage Y chromosome sequences (Poznik et al. 2016). Since high coverage sequencing is known to increase the tree tip length over the lengths derived from low coverage sequencing, and since father-son relationships among the living represent the most terminal aspect of any tree, our empirical results match precisely what previous results had predicted. Conversely, our results also strongly challenge the evolutionary timescale (fig. 2). Rather than confirm a history for humanity that stretches back hundreds of thousands of years, these results reject this hypothesis. If men have been around for hundreds of thousands of years, they should have accumulated mutations 8- to 59-times the amount currently observed. Instead, we observe only a few thousand years’ worth of mutation accumulation. Furthermore, the combined results from mtDNA (i.e., Jeanson 2013, 2015, 2016) and Y chromosome (i.e., this paper) analyses represent two independent lines of evidence—maternal ancestry and paternal ancestry—that reject the evolutionary timescale for the origin of humans. Together, these two datasets falsify the current evolutionary model for humanity." https://answersingenesis.org/theory-of-evolution/molecular-clock/evidence-human-y-chromosome-molecular-clock/ Interesting exploration which ties in genetic clocks to the Bible. This area is something not many JW's dig into as they aren't young earth creationists, however that being the case, the case still needs be made with regard to Noah, his sons and their wives as the sources for all who are currently alive. One would expect that there would be a way to corroborate these expectations, and this paper (there are others) along with the video series (I pulled out the two foundational episodes) for reference (I haven't finished them all or read the supporting literature) are an effort at this. So this post is stub for me to go back to for reference as I go through the material.

I'm a little like a dog once I see a post that looks all crazy with too many scriptures and differently highlighted letters and whatnot. Reminds me of "Mr Really Long Comment Giver"

One old fart to another...reminds me of how much fun it was thinking of a question that randomly occurred during the old book study arrangement and then asking the group the question when you didn't know the answer yourself. "He must know the answer, otherwise he wouldn't ask it", thought one of the brothers. "I know!", thought another who raises his hand. "Blah, blah, blah!", he replies as he was filled w/holy spirit. Then follows the narration w/regard to the bro who prophesied "Blah, blah, blah!". "This, though he did not say of his own originality, but because he was stuck in brother weirdo's book study he prophesied truthfully 'Blah, blah, blah!' that others might not be stumbled....I learned a lot of things that way.

Good save on that fumble. Always double down. Reminds me of this clip w/regard to defusing.

One thing which has been helpful for me is to spend as much time as possible with people who annoy me. I figure the solution to my not getting along with someone is to spend more time with them. (edited to say it's like they say, some people only spend enough time in service to hate it)

A person can make an attempt to speak frankly, but that same person could be deceiving him or herself as regards his/her attempts. I think this is interesting from a linguistic perspective. Some languages don't have words for "try". You either did something or you didn't. The word "try" seems a bit like getting partial credit or getting a participation trophy.

His english usage also reminds me of this old meme

You can always know someone has driven off into the ditch once they leave off preaching the kingdom but instead start rolling their own scrolls and smoking them. Musing more... It seems that I need to keep studying this business of conscience and it's relationship to organization and organizational discipline as a requirement for identifying an organization truly fulfilling the commission of making disciples and teaching them to observe (OBEY). Seems like the word "OBEY" is a four letter word to those perishing. My arguments need to be short, scriptural and the illustrations, emotionally evocative. I also need a list of organizational "conversation stoppers" and ways to defuse these obstacles. ***Again...just thinking aloud

Witness, no one in their right mind is going to get together with a handful of people online or in someone's garage and imagine that what they are doing there has anything to do with preaching the good news of God's Kingdom to the remotest part of the earth. That requires organization, a world wide organization. Hanging out w/a tiny group of people just feels creepy and weird. I'd imagine the next step in that group would be for the cyanide koolaide to come out at some point.

I wouldn't think so. I'm pretty sure that no one from the mother ship is concerned about what goes on here. They have better things to do.

BTW, What's the point of resigning from an organization unless you recognize its authority? If it has no authority, you shouldn't have bothered resigning, you should simply have gone about your life as you see fit. Unless you were trying to evangelize others to a different opinion on the way out, though it's hard to see how that's particularly motivating. Unless, of course you published your manifesto online as to your reasons for doing so. Anyway, just thinking about all this. I never understood why people engaged in formally resigning unless this is just an odd sort of passive-aggressive cry for help. I've known three couples who bailed and they said nothing. No notes, no letters, just poof! Gone. People could surmise and guess, but each and every one of these apparently prepared in advance to move physically. Now that's something to respect. They made sure they were in a witness protection plan.

<begin shilling>I've found them both entertaining and faith-building. But then again, I've been compared to the master so there's that.</end shilling>

Just pointing out your insubordination to theocratic order...