That sort of explains one of the villians in the recent movie "Hellboy". The character in question was a surgeon who, for reasons not clearly explained, got a thrill out of working on himself. Most of the time on screen, he wore a face mask, but when it was removed, he was a complete mass of self-inflicted surgical scars. He had removed his own lips and eyelids, as well. To say he was hideous would.....well, you just had to see for yourself.
gaiagirl
JoinedPosts by gaiagirl
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13
Thought I'd read it all....
by Country Girl inthis is about one of the strangest "philias" i've ever read about.
do you think the witnesses would consider this "porneia"?
would a person be disfellowshipped for an amputation?
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24
Is All of the Universe Everywhere
by Satanus inor, is it reflected in everything?
while waiting for my laundry at the mat, i noticed the reflections in the glasses in all the machine doors.
looking at different ones, i could see different areas of the place reflected.
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gaiagirl
If a hologram is cut in two, both pieces will contain the entire original image, i.e. the information contained in the original is duplicated in the resulting fragments. Some physicists believe the Universe exhibits holographic properties in that details of the greater whole is also reflected in the very small. This is necessary to explain some observed phenomena, including apparant information exchange between certain sub-atomic particles in a famous double-slit photon experiment.
The idea was illustrated humorously in a recent opening segment of "The Simpsons" which began with the family on the couch, then gradually zoomed out from their living room, showing the house, the neighborhood, the continent, the Earth, the solar system, the galaxy, clusters of galaxies, which turned out to be parts of molecules, which turned out to be part of Homer's head.
The thought is also summed up in the expression "As Above, So Below", which is widely used in the Pagan community.
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6
JW's and the question of alien existence
by Monski init seems to me that jw's do not believe in the existence of alien beings as the bible has nothing to say on the matter.
everything seems to revolve around the planet earth and the possibility of there being alien life is considered to be apostate.
sounds a bit like the oppression that galileo received from the catholic church when he suggested that the earth moved around the sun and not vice-versa!.
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gaiagirl
Carl Sagan, a spokesman for the evolutionists who search for extraterrestrial life: "If we started the earth all over again, even with the same physical conditions, and just let random factors operate, we would never get anything remotely resembling human beings. There are just too many accidents in our evolutionary past for things closely resembling human beings to arise anywhere else."?"Time," December 13, 1971, p. 55.
This is likely correct. For example, if a comet hadn't hit Earth at the end of the Cretaceous, dinosaurs might never have become extinct, thus providing an opportunity for mammals to evolve into the dominant species. There were numerous mass extinctions prior to that which wiped out entire species, including previously successful creatures such as trilobites, euryptyrids, ammonites, many armored fish, many amphibians, all the flying reptiles etc. At the end of the Permian period, a particular class of creatures known as mammal-like reptiles ALMOST became extinct. If the extinction event at that time had been just a bit more severe, those creatures would have disappeared entirely, and there never would have been any mammals. Apparantly, the Awake writer assumes that ONLY humans could be intelligent, when they write:
"If ?it could never happen again on the earth,? how, then, can evolutionists really expect intelligent life to evolve on other planets, which are far less hospitable?"
Further, they assume that ALL planets which will ever be found will be less hospitable than Earth. Given the huge number of stars likely to have planets just in our own galaxy, this seems like an unreasonable assumption.
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28
What's your favorite book?
by nb-dfed inozziepost's post about what we are all reading now made me wonder what everyone's favorite book is.
my all time favorite is to kill a mockingbird - harper lee.
i also love shogun by james clavell and east of eden by john steinbeck.
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gaiagirl
Hmmm, too many to narrow down to one:
Several by Carl Sagan- "The Dragons of Eden", "Cosmos", "Contact"
"1984" by George Orwell
"D'Aulaires Book Of Greek Myths"
"The Dancing Wu Li Masters" by Gary Zukav
"Drawing Down the Moon" by Margot Adler
"The Spiral Dance" by Starhawk
"The Womans Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets" by Barbara Walker
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22
why do animals die?
by doogie inif man dies because of inherited sin (as pretty much all bible based religions believe), why do animals die?.
if sin is "falling short of god's will" and sin results in death, how have animals "fallen short" thus deserving death?
if there was a dog messiah, would animals be redeemed as well?
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gaiagirl
Animals and humans die for the same reason, because their bodies wear out. Solomon is often said to be blessed with wisdom from Jehovah. In Eccl 3:19-21 he wrote "The fate of people and animals is the same, one dies just like the other. The all have the same breath, and people have no advantage over animals; its all just vanity. All go to the same place, all are made from the earth, and all return to the earth again. Who can say whether the spirit of a person ascends, or whether the spirit of an animal descends?
I would agree with Solomon. I don't see a difference in KIND of intelligence between animals and people, just a difference in degree. We write books because we have hands with opposable thumbs, but out mental capabilities are just more complex examples of what other creatures do. Koko the gorilla cannot speak, because her larnyx is not constructed to make the same sounds we do. Still, she carries on conversations using ASL (American Sign Language), constructs sentences, and expresses love toward her keepers and her own pets. She once called another gorilla who had not learned ASL a "stupid monkey". Her conversational abilities have been compared to a human child about five years of age, perhaps due to the smaller capacity of her brain compared with a human.
Conceivably, whales could learn to converse with humans, or humans could learn to converse with whales. Perhaps WE are too stupid to learn the whale language, which appears to consist of complex vocalizations which are learned and repeated to other whales.
Creatures which we think of as "lower" life forms are primarily lower in the complexity of their brains and nervous systems. Yet even in these, they have a sense of self, they recognize themselves as different from others of the same species, and from the creatures they may need to eat, or to escape from.
Anyone with an aquarium can watch how the fish behave when a new fish is added to the tank. Some fish are nervous about the newcomer, and shy away, as it may try to eat them. If this were merely instinct, then they would never get over it, yet when the new fish doesn't demonstrate aggressive behavior, they learn to tolerate its presence, even swimming right in front of or next to it. Others fish,(gouramis, for example), demonstrate curiosity, and will swim over to the newcomer and investigate it, touching it gently all over with their fins.
On a recent PBS broadcast, a herd of hippos found a dead cow on the bank of a river. They gently licked the body, then arranged themselves around it in a protective ring, and stood vigil for hours. Were they having a funeral for the cow (not even one of their own species), or protecting the body from crocodiles? If they were just dumb animals, why would hippos even care if crocodiles ate the body?
Elephants have been filmed caressing the bones of dead elephants which they had known in life. Does the living elephant remember who the bones belonged to?
My own view is that the spirit or life force comes from the same place, regardless of the creature which contains it. When the physical body expires, the spirit returns to the same place.
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116
Give the JW experience a movie title:
by Preston ini've come up with a few (made up and real):.
- rebecca of bethel farms.
- cries and judiciary meetings.
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gaiagirl
Here are a few which work without modification:
A Midsummer Nights Dream
Bedazzled
The Razors Edge
Leap of Faith
Artificial Intelligence
Two Brothers
Children of a Lesser God
The Man Who Knew Too Little
And a few with modifications:
Brother Harry Potter: Prisoner of Brooklyn Bethel
Without A Clue
The Franz Supremacy
Little Black Book-bag
A Not-at-Home at the End of the World
At Play in the Field Service of the Lord
I Know What You Did Last Summer (at the District Assembly)
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31
Movie Recommendations
by patio34 ini watched two movies (they're only on dvd--i finally broke down and got one) that were the best i've seen in a while:
house of sand and fog
(ben kingsley & jennifer connelly about an iranian general lives in america)
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gaiagirl
I saw "House of Sand and Fog" and enjoyed it. I did have a little bit of trouble accepting the policeman in a serious role, as I kept remembering him as Rob Schneiders roomate on "Men Behaving Badly"
The best movie I've seen recently was "The Big Empty", with John Favreau, Rachel Leigh Cook, Daryl Hannah, Joey Lauren Adams, Kelsey Grammer, and a bunch more. It is kind of an X-files/Twilight Zone/UFO conspiracy theory/science fiction/mystery/drama comedy, kind of moody and atmospheric, with good performances by everyone. Here is a link to the website http://www.thebigempty.com
Other favorite films, in no particular order, include:
Contact
Gattaca
Hellboy
Minority Report
Artificial Intelligence
Rabbit Proof Fence
Whale Rider
Amelie
A Passage To India
Sirens
Frida
Hidalgo
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4
If you were missing
by simplesally inlately, there have been little kids missing and single women missing here in the la area.
usually, the little kids are amber alerts or missing due to straying off or whatever in a wooded area/camping area.
but the women...... .
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gaiagirl
I suppose the first suspect would be my neighbor, who once asked me to hand-deliver a large blue suitcase to someone in a small town out in the middle of the desert : )
I couldn't do it, so he asked someone else.
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36
Do you believe it is wrong to celebrate Halloween?
by anew inthought i would throw this out to the board.
i was raised a jw.
i now celebrate most holidays.
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gaiagirl
Actually, Halloween has nothing whatsoever to do with Satan. as the people who first celebrated this day had no concept of an evil adversary to God. Rather, this was originally a feast honoring departed ancestors. On Halloween, the barrier between our world and the spirit world was considered to be the thinnest, and loved ones who had gone on to the spirit world could cross over to our side and commune with those in the physical world.
The connection between Halloween and Satan was manufactured by fundamentalist Christians who opposed any observance which had pre-Christian origins.
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JW fun is at an all-time low
by Nosferatu inthere used to be much more enjoyable things in the jw religion that would give you some relief from the recycled information.
remember when there were two dramas at the conventions?
remember at the meeting, instead of having a public talk, a missionary would show slides from his recent trip, or there would be a movie shown from the wts?.
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gaiagirl
We used to play a game similar to the "keys" game, using a pair of scissors. Everyone would sit in a circle, and as they would look at the scissors carefully, scrutinizing them, turning them over, perhaps changing hands back and forth, then passing them to the next person. As they were passed, the person giving the scissors would say the words, "They are open" or "They are closed", depending on whether their ankles or legs were uncrossed or crossed. Most would think "open" or "closed" had something to do with the scissors (and we deliberately made it look that way) when it actually had nothing to do with them. Sometimes, the scissors would make many trips around the circle before everyone finally got it.