The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

The Good:
Group-community support(mostly as long as you are in line with group think)
The usual basic good values directions (don't steal, kill, harm others, etc...)
A comfortable feeling you get from this notion you have all the answers(?)

The Bad: 

An anti stance on
-extra curricular activities and association. cuts you off from people. an us versus them mentality.
-science,further learning, and education
-free thought, dissenting opinions, criticism, and interpretations. our way or the highway.
A lets wait for god to fix things approach.

The Ugly:
Shunning
Blood transfusions
There must be two witness, non reporting to the police
Basically things that can cause death or irrevocably change someones life and their family.

Views on things from years past to present have changed, so there is hope the shunning and blood transfusions stance will change. Without the force of possible legal repercussions it probably wouldn't/wont happen as soon as it should have. There are a few who hold a more a personal conscious matter and interpretation way of things, one can hope they get more influence.

Sex, Satan, and Saimin

So it's been another year and another assembly.

The Assembly notes:
Sex:
We learn god is still interested in our sexual lives and how,whom, and where we do it.
Gods porno flicks are only to be of a particular straight missionary sex variety.
So bad on you homosexuals because the bible says so.
They still haven't figured out who you are hurting yet but you are not to do it and they are to be proud to have this stance.

Satan:
The Twilight movies were eluded to, and it wasn't because of bad acting,plot, and writing. They didn't talk about any particular bad lessons being taught but rather because it had blood sucking demon-ism in it. Prior years it was Harry Potter, etc.... I guess when one has a hard time telling fact from fiction it's not a surprise.

Saimin:
Can't recall actually hearing anything about that, maybe I was just craving it. A third S just seemed needed.

Thank God the assembly is over

bat shit crazy.

Excellent story

I am glad there are people out there like this.

http://watchtowerletters.com

Been listening to the book Nonsense on stilts during the work commute.

Overall it is worth it. Mostly good with some annoyances. He was able to recap some history of science in better form than other history-science books I'd read which surprised me as this wasn't really his goal. He brought up good points on demarcation and deduction and induction which made me think. He mentioned a few times something about how we are just human so can't look outside the box, this got me annoyed a bit but I'll have to go back and re-listen to get the details correct and see why,(ie we as humans use things-tools 'inside the box' to see a bigger picture of what we normally see in the box, we might not know for sure but maybe we can get a picture of the box) Or perhaps he was going into , maybe it was Nietzsche's, observator-participator problem viewpoint. I re-wrote the last two sentences here because I shouldn't dismiss or invoke that objection with an ad hominem bias attack like I was, of that that is what one can expect from a professor of philosophy, but should understand it more fully why it annoyed me. I did re-listen a bit but hadn't found that section my beef was with yet.

A nice blog series that goes over the JW anti science stance

"the smoking gun of intellectual dishonesty" has been detailed out at this sight and I am thankful he felt like taking the time to deconstruct things.

http://viewfromreality.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/a-guide-to-jehovahs-witness-anti-science-propaganda-part-1/

It's to bad JWs can't seperate their views of science from their religion, they'd be better off.

You have earned Death

Or so I was told again at the Memorial celebration. Inherited sin has to be one of the most abhorrent and morally bankrupt doctrines of them all. I guess how you view it comes down partially to how you view people , do you seem them as a means to an end or an end and of themselves. The other class'ist-authoritarian and 2 destinations stuff with one group having such surety it borders on paranoid schizophrenia was all part of the shebang to.

I guess I most probably am on the list, had a couple visits asking me to come. When asked if I was going at the time I thought well I'll just say yes and avoid the big whole hubba about it and then just not go. Then later I thought , nah I said I'd go and while there really wouldn't be any repercussions for not going it wouldn't kill me to go, even though later I was reminded I've earned death. Perhaps I'll re-visit/post my thoughts on this side point of honesty and lies as social lubricant versus it is always being better to tell the truth.

Anyway the same guy I studied with years ago was up there at the podium giving the talk, he never explained this inherited sin thing good the last time we talked together about it and this time was no different. All in all that old study wasn't to bad, I came away with the conclusion back then that using probabilities-Bayes theorem (not for the purpose of pascal wager crap) or Godel's theorem were a waste of time as they are based on assumptions to finish a set of axioms. That study was cancelled long ago because he felt I wouldn't get anything from it , so I said ok, later he did call back to see if I wanted to study again but I never bothered calling him back because I thought it over a bit and he was probably right as I do have this hang up on empirical evidence. And so that is thus part of the reason for my long hiatus, also because my wife doesn't ask me to go hardly ever anymore (assembly,circuit overseer visits). She actually didn't even ask if I was going to go to memorial this time and is actually figuring out her own beliefs which has caused her some concertation and dissagreement on issues like the gay and blood stuff, hurrah!

Next year I think I'd much rather go celebrate the day for the dead, probably better wine and bread and more of a party then trying to put a dignity cloak over old superstitious acts.