gaiagirl

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Posts by gaiagirl

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  6

  JW's and the question of alien existence

  by Monski in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  it 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 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  ozziepost'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 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  if 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 in

  1. social
  2. entertainment

  i'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 in

  1. social
  2. entertainment

  i 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 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  lately, 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.

  http://www.thebigempty.com/synopsis.html
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  36

  Do you believe it is wrong to celebrate Halloween?

  by anew in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  thought 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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  29

  JW fun is at an all-time low

  by Nosferatu in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  there 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.
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  29

  JWs and 9/11

  by kgfreeperson in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i couldn't find anything using search, so maybe somebody just needs to point me in the right direction.

  but i don't remember any discussion about what jws thought was happening when planes started flying into buildings and the hysteria in the nation began to build.

  i do know about the reaction of the watchtower, locking their doors against people in need.

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  gaiagirl

  When the WTBTS institutes "highest security measures", what exactly does this consist of? Do they have armed guards, or just lots of locks on the doors and someone ready to call the police? I've seen photographs of one of the former presidents of the Society (perhaps Rutherford?), surrounded by a gang of brothers carrying long batons or staffs, with which to defend him against any who might attack him.

  What measures are available to the WTBTS to "defend" their property against those who might attempt to enter the premises, either to escape a disaster like 9/11, or with other motives?
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  15

  Anyone have a pet iguana?

  by MoeJoJoJo in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  it wasn't a pet we actually wanted but now that we have the iguana, we actually like it.. how we came to own zilla (short for godzilla): i was having a yard sale last weekend and my mom brought some stuff over to sell.

  well she and my sister worked the yard sale while i went for my dentist appointment saturday.

  while i was at the dentist someone stopped by and dropped off this iguana--he told my mother that we could sell it in our yard sale or keep it as a pet because he has a baby that was born premature coming home from the hospital, and they can't keep the iguana anymore, please, please take it.

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  gaiagirl

  Well, I don't have an iquana, but another animal friend which is approximately as unusual, an axolotl. Axolotls are aquatic salamanders, a larval form of the tiger salamander. Some axolotls eventually mature, lose their gills, and leave the water. Others remain in the larval stage their entire lives, although they continue to grow to adult size. They have legs, but can't move easily on land. In the water, they swim very efficiently by undulating their body and wide flat tail sideways, kind of like a very small alligator, or perhaps like an eel.

  Some find them quite creepy looking, with their tentacle-like gills surrounding their heads, but I am rather fascinated. I suspect that an axolotl was the inspiration for the creature Sammael which fought Hellboy in the recent film.

  I've had mine for a couple of years, she used to have a friend who did lose his gills and became a tiger salamander, after which he disappeared. I never found him, so don't know for certain what happened.

  This one, named Grace after the character on the sitcom, will dance on her hind legs, kind of a water ballet, when you approach the tank, and will eat tubifex cubes from ones fingers.