Goodness. When people come to the door (I have it on the chain, open a few inches) selling something, I listen politely to get the gist. Then I say, “thank you, but I’m not interested. have a good day!” then I shut the door. Same with telemarketers.
That’s entirely true. For my part, I’ve never expected anyone to be a scholar, ever. But if I go to a literature MB and assert Hemingway is a talentless hack I should be able to----at the very least-----give some examples of his transgressions.
If, however, I assert he’s a talentless hack and I claim to have read all his books, than I shouldn’t be surprised if a Hemingway fan demands that I display some understanding, given the claim.
If a Christian or atheist has the most cursory understanding and chooses to post their knowledge that’s great. They’re exposing themselves to the possibility that someone with a better understanding may refute them or make a more compelling argument. I say, “Welcome to GD.”
I say: make your case. Don’t sell woof tickets. Nobody expects you to be a scholar, even if you [claim to have] read the bible. But claiming you’ve read the bible cover to cover-----especially in the context they’re being made-----does more than imply you have at least some working knowledge.
If you have none, than why in the world make the statement other than to impress or intimidate?
They both need to drop the line, because they’re both schtick.
I’ve insisted on some evidence, something.
Only those challenged have made the statement, “I don’t claim to be a scholar” But that was never asked of them. There is an awful lot of real estate between being a scholar and making *some *argument.
That appears to me to backtracking; ground cover because their keyboard couldn’t cash the check their ego issued.
Once again, the statment----- “I’ve read the bible cover to cover!” doesn’t require a scholarly uinderstanding, but it sure doesn’t mean that it’s perfectly Ok to have no understanding. (or be unwilling to put up)
And I only partially agree----it is appropriate to the conversation underway, but appropriate to the claims being made. QtM claims to be a doctor. Bricker claims to be a lawyer. If I knew something about their field of study, I would hold their comments to a higher standard, because of their claims.
Requiring more of them isn’t tantamount to expecting QtM to be qualified to be Surgeon General, or Bricker to be qualified for the SCOTUS. (although they may be)
Saying I read the bible cover to cover doesn’t raise my expectation to “scholar” but it sure raises it to well above zero. But when challenged we almost universally get just that: zero.
Than you are better qualified to debate NT issues than OT, and to the extent you engage people in OT discussions you run the risk of them being more knowledgable than you; more often than it likely than a NT discussion. I’m sure you agree with that.
In any event, the moment you tell me you’ve read the OT 7 times, it will be entirely reasonable for me expect something more of you.
Here’s a good tactic: Pretend you think the JW is the outcall escort you just ordered. “Wow! You got here fast!” 
Next step . . . Oh, so many possibilities!
of waves of cloak and prophets
Please fore give. It is not always easy to identify friend or foe. Any tongue not understood sounds as gibberish. Alas, even the most Biblically Prowest that serves not in the spirit of love and forgiveness is but cymbolically Banging his Holy Gong.
Am I allowed to say that here?
It is wise to be wary of foe. Please consider that beasts might be easier to identify and tame as you better know their mark and speak their tongue.
It works for me.
ItS
harmony
r~
I know I’m probably a day late and a dollar short, coming into the thread at this point, but i’ve found a simple “Do Not Disturb - No Solicitors - No Proselytizers” sign works very well. Effective on Mormons as well as Jehovah’s Witnesses. Only people it doesn’t work on is kids selling stuff for school who don’t know what the big words mean.
I apologize for just now returning to this thread, but that is just hillarious!
Witnesses have odd beliefs about the afterlife that you can use to your advantage.
First off, they believe that heaven only has room for 144,000 people, it’s like a small suburb of Cincinnati or something. Unfortunately, that doesn’t leave any room at the inn these days. When I was a kid, some living people had already made reservations and been guaranteed rooms because of their sanctity … they were called the Elect, or somesuch. But they’re all dead now, and so these days, no heavenly apartments are available.
That leaves everyone with two options in the afterlife, according to the Witlesses. One is that we go to hell with all of our friends. The other is that we go to a place which is just like the earth, except that there is no pain, no sorrow, no loss, no tragedy … and everyone there is a Jehovah’s Witness.
Gag me with a spoon. No pain = no pleasure, no sorrow = no joy … although how they can claim “no pain” when their are only Witnesses to talk to is a Great Mystery which cannot be understood by the unwashed …
I explain that I know all of that to the Witnesses when they come around, they already know it as well, so no dispute there.
Then I tell them I’d much rather go to hell than be stuck for eternity in some place with no pain or sorrow and only Witnesses to talk to … I let them know that a place where I can only talk to Witnesses sounds like the real hell to me.
Curiously, this seems to discourage them, and they go away.
You really think it’s as simple as not answering the door? I doubt they’re done with you yet. JWs don’t give up that easily. Simply not answering the door will not get rid of them. Did either of you explicitly tell them not to come back? Others have recommended to simply tell them “no thanks,” but with JW you have to EXPLICITLY tell them “no thanks, and don’t come back again,” or else they will come back again. At least that’s how it works in my neighborhood. I told them “no thanks” plenty of times, but they still came back. My “No JWs” sign on the door works good though.
I had 2 JW come to my door recently, and the solution was as I was lead, which is through them ‘out of book’. ask them ‘who is Jesus’, they know scriptures very well, but they seem to be disorientated once you ask them what is there witness of Jesus, what has He done personally in their life, pointing out how Paul always pointed to Jesus may be helpful. Don’t be satisfied with things written in scriptures, just simply agree that is public knowledge, but you want to know what Jesus did for them and how they came to know Him as we are called by Him to be witnesses, what is their testimony for what Jesus done for them personally.
No pain does not equal no pleasure. Everything is possible with God, and a simple and accurate way of looking at it is ever increasing pleasure and joy
Oh, great. “Everything is possible with God” … gag me with a spoon. God can make 2 + 2 = 7.3 … I hope God sends Jehovah’s Witnesses to your door every day for the rest of your life.
w.
I think it’s obvious that kanicbird did not mean that everything is metaphysically possible for God, but that everything is epistemically possible for God. In other words, He cannot make a contradiction true (in ordinary FOPL), but He can do whatever is known to be possible.
I thought it was unfortunate that you neglected to address her solution to the problem of there being no joy without sadness or no pleasure without pain, which itself is an old canard that no one has proven. Her solution that there would be ever increasing joy and ever increasing pleasure is a fine solution.
I realize that kanicbird has a bad reputation around here, but it is logically incoherent to ignore her solutions when they are reasonable ones, no matter how few and far between they might be, just because you see the username and suffer a gag reflex.
My gag reflex was not to the name. It was to the idea that anything was possible for God. It is not at all obvious that she meant only “epistemically possible”. It is not even obvious that she knows what “epistemically possible” means.
Epistemically means in a manner pertaining to knowledge. How does the possibility of perpetual joy pertain to knowledge? Perpetual joy sounds like those Viagra ads that say “If your erection lasts over four hours, see a doctor”. I suppose you could claim that has something to do with knowledge as well. Since it’s carnal knowledge, I guess with God’s intervention it is carnepistemically possible to have a permanent erection.
She said “anything”. I assume she meant what she said. If you wish to be her apologist and claim she meant what she did not say, that’s up to you … although why you want to jump in and defend her before she defends herself if a mystery revealed only to those with true faith.
Me, until she shows up and can give us a clear definition and distinction between “metaphysical” and “epistomological”, I’ll stick with the dumb idea that she actually meant what she said.
Whether there can be white without black or up without down or X without “not-X” can be argued, I suppose, along with how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. I note that she obviously thinks that in the real world there can’t be joy without sorrow, because she has to invoke God to make it happen. So she doesn’t believe what you are espousing.
Finally, to claim something must be true or possible just because it is a “fine solution” is wishful thinking. A “fine solution” to 37X^2 + 4X + 9 = -7 is 3. It’s a wonderful solution, a fine and intellectually satisfying solution, it avoids all of those ugly square roots and imaginary numbers … but it’s still wrong.
However, if your idea of heaven is perpetual joy with only Jehovah’s Witnesses to talk to, my heartfelt wish is that you actually end up there. To me, perpetual joy sounds terminally boring, I’m a guy that enjoys the changing of the seasons and the fact that we have both day and night.
I don’t think it’s obvious that she thinks that.
Actually, I had been toying with challenging the “No pain = no pleasure, no sorrow = no joy” in intention’s original post, because I believe that it’s not the case - you may be deprived of relief, or even gratitude, but in my experience it’s possible to maintain a placid sense of sufficiently non-neutral contentment to qualify as persistent happiness, even if you’re not giving a single thought to past trials. It would seem, to me, to simply the natural psychological reaction to having all your needs satisfied - even if they never have not been.
But that said, I don’t see how ever-increasing joy is going to solve the problem of pleasure requiring pain (presuming it does). By definition, for this to work, the difference would have to be stark enough to make your memories of your past days in heaven painful. Literally. Which would mean that our present experience would be polluted with memories of past, er, suffering. (Plus you get into the rather dodgy issue that your entire experience in heaven, except the current day, is suboptimal - which I’m told isn’t the way things are supposed to be in heaven.)
Again, I don’t think this is a problem that needs fixing, but even if it is I don’t think kanicbird’s solution really would fix it.
They are like Dracula. Once you invite them in, it’s all over. :eek:
My point is that e.g. “happy/unhappy” or “light/dark” is a* comparative *state. If we ask “Is this particular shade of gray “light gray” or “dark gray”?”, we can only answer “Compared to what?”. Compared to black, all grays are light … but compared to white, all grays are dark.
Here’s an example from physiology. In a bright moon, we can read a newspaper, and distinguish the “white” paper from the “black” ink.
But in fact, the “white” paper in moonlight puts out less reflected light (is less white) than the “black” ink in full sunlight.
Now … is the moonlit paper whiter or blacker than the sunlit ink?
The same is true of happiness. Am I happy? Compared with what? Compared to a man being tortured, I’m very happy. Compared to a man in samadhi, I’m miserable. Compared to myself yesterday, I’m happy … but compared to last week, I’m depressed.
But how about if there was no one else and no yesterday … am I happy compared to how I am right now?
That can’t be answered, and that’s why I say there is no joy without pain.
I disagree. The issue isn’t whether there is a continuum of “more happiness” and “less happiness” - nobody disagrees with that. As you note, the question is what happens when the thing to compare with is removed - “if there was no one else and no yesterday”.
When you remove all the colors but red, red doesn’t stop being red - we may just stop caring about the fact it is red. It’ll keep reflecting light of the same frequencies but we just won’t care, due to the fact that the color doesn’t distinguish it from anything in any way.
But what happens when you remove all other levels of happiness but one? Well, you’d might get desentized to a degree. But then again, you might not. Desensitization as I understand it is sometimes a function of sensory overstimulation, and sometimes a function of lack of reason to differentiate. But happiness isn’t about senses or differentiation, it’s about your current mental state. And so it will continue to apply and effect you regardless of whether it changes.
Take hunger, specifically two hypothetical people, one who is always hungry, and one who is never hungry. Either person may be unaware that there is a better or worse way to be - in that regard they would be limited by their singular perception. But the two people’s situations are still different. The hungry person will have stomach cramps and weakness, constantly; they will not ‘get used to it’. The hunger is part of their physical state and effects them interminably. The perpetually satisfied person will not suffer these pains. They may not be appreciative of this fact, since they don’t know that they’re missing, but they still won’t be the same.
Now, happiness. This is part of your mental state, and will continue to effect you regardless of other factors. I strongly suspect that being constantly at placid peace is different than being in permanent mental turmoil, even if you have never experienced the other. And because of that I don’t think that it’s entirely subjective. Heck, I personally don’t rule out the possiblity that it may be possible to permanently lock youself into a state of perpetual orgasmic ecstacy, and never get bored, because your brain is too busy being ecstatic to shift to the ‘bored’ mental state. If ecstacy can be triggered by directly maniplating the brain, there’s no reason to think that that trigger would stop working with use, after all.
So you ask one “How do you feel?”. He says “Just like I always feel, no better, no worse.”
You ask the other “How do you feel?” He says “Just like I always feel, no better, no worse.”
From the outside we can see a difference … but from the inside? Both say “It’s just another day, just like every other day, no better, no worse, it’s all I’ve ever known” …
If today is just like any other day … where’s the perpetual joy?
If you really think that you would not find the experience of living in perpetual rage, or continual suicidal depression, different from living in placid happiness or continuous orgasm…
…well honestly I can’t conceptualize that another human could really not comprehend that different feelings feel different. The mere hypothetical of such a person has broken my brain.
I will note that your argument seems not to be that people can’t be perpetually happy - it seems, instead, that you are arguing that people can’t be aware that their perpetually happy mental state is something ‘special’. Which I don’t contest, but - who cares? If you’re happy, then you’re happy. Even if you don’t realize that you could be gloating about it, or whatever.
Perhaps my writing is not clear, but you didn’t answer my question, viz:
My point is that we only say “I’m happy” because we have something to contrast it with. If we have nothing to contrast it with, ithen all we can say is “It’s just like any other day, no better, no worse”. It’s like asking an aquarium fish what he thinks about the water … it’s just water, same water as always, no warmer, no colder, no different. So what could the fish possibly say about it? Perhaps the water is slightly hotter than that fish might thrive in … but it’s always been that temperature.
Is the fish able to say “It’s a bit too hot”? No way, because he has* nothing to compare it to. *So while the fish is hot, it doesn’t know that … because that’s all he’s ever known.
The thing that immidiately popped to mind was that the fish could say “I’ve been boiled to a golden brown”, or “I’ve been flash-frozen”. Like with emotions, there’s a functional difference between various temperatures, which can be experienced even if you have experienced nothing else.
Where is the perpetual joy? I had thought my answer to that was obvious from the first paragraph of my response. The perpetual joy is in the head of the person experiencing the perpetual joy. The happy-juices are flowing and they feel energized and uplifted. That’s what it means to be experiencing joy - the emotion isn’t dependent on any other emotion to occur.
Heck, emotions aren’t even on a linear continuum. There is happiness, sadness, and anger. We know anger and sadness are both “less happy” than “happy”, but which is “less happy” than the other? If you were correct and emotion was nothing but a comparative measure, then we’d have to know that to be able to experience anger and sadness as different things! The same goes for surprise, curiousity, boredom, embarassment, confusion - if these states are identical except in comparison to one another, then clearly you would be able to describe them in terms of their comparative relationship to other emotions. In fact, that would have to be the only way to describe them.
You are getting all hung up over the fact that the person experiencing perpetual joy will feel no inclination to comment on it, due to it being the normal state. And it’s probably true that perpetual joy would not inspire a person to go around commenting on it all the time. But the fact that perpetual joy wouldn’t be noteworthy is completely irrelevent to whether the person is able to experience perpetual joy at all.