I attended several congregations in Corpus Christi, Tx, and usually attended assemblies in San Antonio or Houston. I used to sit in the seats in the Astrodome and look up at the girders and catwalks and think "I wish I had a hang glider...."
gaiagirl
JoinedPosts by gaiagirl
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4
Anyone from SE Texas???
by Elsewhere in.
every year or so i like to see if there are any new users from the area where i grew up.. the congregations i attended were: port arthur central congregation and nederland congregation..
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Has anyone read "1984" and seen the parallels?
by AK - Jeff ini was assigned to read 1984 by george orwell when in the eight grade i think.
now forty years to late to turn in a 'book report' i am reading it.
i see so many parallels to the witness org there.
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gaiagirl
I just examined an edition of the book published in 1949, and the title on the front cover, outside spine, and the inside title page all read "Nineteen Eighty-Four". The movie which was filmed during the year 1984 expressed the title numerically (indidentally, the movie is a very chilling, accurate portrayal of the book, probably as close as anyone will ever make).
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What happens when you die??
by mysterio91 init's been over a year now since my dad died.
i feel sad about it a lot because i don't believe i will never see him again.
i realised today that being raised a dub has closed my eyes to different views on death.. what do some of you believe happens after death??
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gaiagirl
I posted this in another thread a few months ago, and offer it here hoping it will ease some of the grief you must feel. It is always saddening to be separted from those we love. When we believe the separation will be longer, or permanent, we are saddened even more. There are many, many different ideas about what happens after the body dies. The Watchtower Society taught that our body was all that there was of us, and that when the body died and decayed, we only exist "in Jehovahs memory". However, this teaching, like most of the rest of their dogma, was not based on any observation of the natural world, but rather on their own interpretation of their own translation of the writings of men who lived centuries ago. When we actually observe the natural world, we see that nothing goes to waste, ever. Matter breaks down, and is reconstructed into other forms of matter. The exact same atoms which make up your body today were forming part of the body of someone else last year, perhaps the cow which provided meat for a hamburger you ate, or the tree which used its own cellulose to form the apple you ate. The oxygen present in your body, both as a gas or as part of the structure of your tissues, was once part of someone else. The life force combines atoms into complex forms, which eventually break down, and those same atoms are recombined again into other forms. Over time, those forms tend to become more complex, so life forms today are more complex than those which were forming 4 billion years ago. The Watchtower Society used to teach us that evolution was "dishonoring to God". Perhaps this is what they believed, but Charles Darwin didn't think so. He wrote "There is a grandeur in this view of life...having originally been breathed by the Creator into a few forms, or into one; and that whilst the planet has gone cycling on...from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved." On the topic of the 'soul', I tend to agree with Solomon, who prayed that he would be granted wisdom. Solomon wrote "Men and beasts have the same ending. One dies exactly like the other, as they have the same spirit, so that there is no superiority of one over the other. All end up the same, all are made from the earth, and all return to the earth. Who can say that the spirit of a man rises, or that the spirit of an animal descends?" Ecclesiastes 3:19-21. Solomon clearly distinguishes between the physical body and the "spirit" as two different things. If the material making up the physical body are constantly being recycled, what about the "spirit"? Is there any reason to believe this would be different, especially since Solomon states that human "spirit" and animal "spirit" is the same? Personally, I view 'spirit' or 'soul' as something like a conscious fluid. It exists in a vast ocean which fills the Universe. Within the ocean, there is no 'you' and 'me' there is only 'us'. Within the ocean, all knowledge and memories are shared. Everything incarnate as a physical being has a portion of this conscious fluid inside it. However, when this fluid is 'in' an incarnated body, it is separted from the remainder of the ocean, just as you may go to the shore of a lake or sea, and fill a vessel with water. While contained in the vessel, the fluid is not in complete communication with the 'ocean' from which it came. It may still be aware of the ocean, and even have imperfect communication with the ocean, but as long as the vessel contains it, it is not 'at one' with the ocean. At the point of physical death, the fluid is 'poured out' of the vessel, and eventually flows back to the ocean, and becomes at one with it. If another vessel is dipped into the ocean, the chances of filling it with exactly the same droplets that made up your soul are vanishingly small. However, each droplet that was 'you' in a previous incarnation still carries your full set of memories. Think of a starfish. If it is cut into pieces, each piece remembers what the rest of the creature was like, and will grow into a complete starfish. Also think of a hologram which contains an image. If you cut a hologram in half, each piece will still contain the full image. Each droplet of soul is like a hologram of your entire set of memories. So the next incarnation may have a little bit of yourself, as well as many others. As I write this, some of the fluid forming 'my' soul has been in other vessels, which is why I may, at times, have memories of past lives, and why someone else might conceivably also have a memory of living as the same person for instance, it is possible that I could have some of the soul which was in the vessel we call Marco Polo, but someone else could also have some of Mr. Polo as well, and many people probably do. If I have even one drop of his 'soul', then I can possibly recall him as a past life, due to the holographic properties of the fluid. The ocean is very large, and some of the fluid which I contain may be experiencing it's first incarnation in my vessel this time around. Some believe that the soul ocean chooses to experience a physical incarnation as a learning experience. Perhaps we have 20% previously incarnated soul, and 80% soul which has never been incarnated. Perhaps the ratio is different in different people. People, animals, protista, plants, fungi, bacteria, even virus, ANYTHING alive contains a portion of this fluid, the amount depending on the size and complexity of their nervous system. The ocean is constantly being borrowed from, and fluid previously having been borrowed is constantly flowing back to rejoin and become one with the ocean. This is part of the significance of the tarot card 'The Star' in which water is poured back to join the 'ocean' of Universal Consciousness". By becoming 'at one' even in a limited sense with that ocean, spiritual illumination can be gained. Earth is said to be 4.6 billion years old, and to have had simple but recognizable life forms for 3.6 billion of those years. Humans have only been around for 2 million years or so, depending on how closely you define humans (some fundamentalists would say only 6000 years). So, into what bodies did 'soul' incarnate before there were humans? Are we to think that obviously intelligent creatures, with distinctive personalities such as gorillas, chimps, dogs, whales, porpoises, elephants, cats, etc, have no souls? I believe that soul incarnates into whatever is available, and will continue to do so for a long time. We are not the final word in the development of physical 'vessels' to contain soul, only one of the most recent. Bright Blessings gaiagirl
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Your favorite holiday movie(s)?
by gaiagirl intelevision listings and movie theatres are filled with lots of seasonal films now, and many dvds are also available for films from earlier years.
i confess to having a difficult time selecting just one.
among my favorites would have to be christmas vacation, with chevy chase.
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gaiagirl
Television listings and movie theatres are filled with lots of seasonal films now, and many DVDs are also available for films from earlier years. I confess to having a difficult time selecting just one. Among my favorites would have to be Christmas Vacation, with Chevy Chase. However, it is difficult to choose between that and Scrooged, with Bill Murray (the scene with Carol Kane as the Ghost of Christmas Present is just too good). As a fan of animated film, I really enjoyed Nightmare Before Christmas. What holiday/christmas film is your favorite?
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Do you believe that ancient humans once had advanced technology?
by Elsewhere inthis is something that has been tossed around for some time, but something occurred to me: if ancient humans did have advanced technology, such as space travel, we would know about it.
the reason i say we would know about it is because they would most certainly have left objects in orbit around earth.
yes, the low-orbit objects would have eventually fallen back due to the drag of the upper atmosphere.
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gaiagirl
Regarding Atlantis, it is pretty widely accepted now that the "Atlantis" which Plato wrote about was based on existing accounts of the Minoan civilization, which had at one time ruled their part of the Mediterranean, and had been trading partners with numerous other nations, including Egypt. When their capital city was destroyed by the eruption of the volcano Thera around 1350 B.C.E., their culture pretty much ended, but there were survivors who told stories about their homeland. 900 years later, Plato wrote his account using notes from another Greek who had travelled to Egypt a couple of generations previously. Plato wrote his version, not as history, but as a moral tale about the dangers of disrespecting the gods. So, if one accepts the details of Platos account as completely historically accurate, they must also accept that the destruction came about as a result of the displeasure of the gods. Archeological excavations on the remaining bits of Thera which are still above sea level have uncovered multi-story buildings with indoor plumbing suggesting hot and cold running water, and flush-type water closets. Such technology was indeed advanced for the time, I'm not aware of any other culture anywhere else in the world having similar devices until the Romans developed similar equipment approximately 800-1000 years later (correct me if you know of someone who did). However, there is no evidence that they had electricity of any type, let alone atomic power, fusion reactors, or time travel.
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What "born-again Christian" doctrines do you have a hard time swallowing?
by booker-t ini am curious about this question because i always had the impression that born-again christians believe everything the church teaches no matter what.
then i remember talking to a born-again friend of mine that was having a hard time with her pastor because he told her wearing "pants" and "jewelry" was a "sin" and she would go to hell for that.
my friend said she loved the church that she started going to but she was not going to give up wearing pants or jewelry.
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gaiagirl
Apparantly, many people like the "Left Behind" series of books. The whole "Rapture" thing seems rather unlikely to me, though.
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"Saved" the movie, does it remind you of any OTHER organizations?
by gaiagirl ini just watched "saved" with mandy moore and makauley culkin, about some kids in a so called "christian" high school.
some of the kids are very, very zealous, others quieter, others openly rebellious.
as the story unfolds, it becomes apparant who those are who are actually observing the teachings of jesus, and who are just giving lip service.
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gaiagirl
I suppose what I found most interesting was the attitude of conformity which seemed to permeate the school, and initially, the lives of most of the characters, which reminded me so much of the people I knew when active as a JW. Basically, the mindset seems to be something along the lines of "God wants all of you to act and think alike. Follow our example and you will be happy". By the end of the movie, however, the main character asked the question "If God wants us to all be alike, why did he make us all so different?"
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What is your favorite silent film, and why?
by avishai ini really think silent film is a lost art that is still somewhat valid.
my favorite is metropolis.
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gaiagirl
Metropolis was amazing, especially when one realizes how many films have copied ideas, images, or themes to a greater or lesser degree. Just a few: The robot Maria was far and away the sexiest robot seen for decades, arguably still unsurpassed. Think of the robots of the 30s and 40's, which appear to be collections of various sizes of ductwork and metal boxes. Much improved were Robby in the 50s and the Lost in Space robot of the 60s, but they were still crude next to Maria. She appears to have been an inspiration for C3PO, both built in very similar style. Near the end of Metropolis, Maria, who has been clothed in human flesh in order to deceive people, is burned in a fire, and her robotic body beneath is exposed, to the horror of the people who have been blindly following her. More than 55 years later, the Terminator, which had been clothed in human flesh, was burned in a fire and the robotic body beneath was exposed, to the horror of all watching. As far as comedy films go, Mel Brooks made a silent film in the 70s, titled appropriately enough "Silent Movie". It starred Mel himself, and Bernadette Peters. I saw it once, and remember liking it.
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"Saved" the movie, does it remind you of any OTHER organizations?
by gaiagirl ini just watched "saved" with mandy moore and makauley culkin, about some kids in a so called "christian" high school.
some of the kids are very, very zealous, others quieter, others openly rebellious.
as the story unfolds, it becomes apparant who those are who are actually observing the teachings of jesus, and who are just giving lip service.
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gaiagirl
I just watched "Saved" with Mandy Moore and Makauley Culkin, about some kids in a so called "Christian" high school. Some of the kids are very, very zealous, others quieter, others openly rebellious. As the story unfolds, it becomes apparant who those are who are actually observing the teachings of Jesus, and who are just giving lip service.
The film had some very funny moments, and I couldn't help but think to myself, over and over, "yep, been there, seen that". -
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What Are Some of Your Favorite Urban Legends About JWs???
by minimus inperiodically, we post about what we realize were good fables that were spoken as "gospel".
smurfs running up and down the aisles of the hall is a well known one......any you remember???
?
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gaiagirl
I heard this from a brother who came back from Bethel:
During his time, someone else he knew became very fired up with zeal as a result of a particular talk. Upon returning to his quarters, he held up his NWT bible and said something like "I defy you Satan and all your evil works, and will expose you with Gods Word". Immediately, the bible was knocked from his hand and flew across the room, striking the wall and coming to rest in the corner.
Surely a bethelite wouldn't make something like this up.....