Nice beaver.
Onager
JoinedPosts by Onager
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41
An Active JW Sister Modelling For Me
by pale.emperor insince leaving the borg i jumped both feet first into classes i've always wanted to do but was never "allowed" to.
two of which are life drawing and photography.
i've been studying for almost two years now and have seen more nude men and women in our classes than i care to remember.. today in the photography studio i was working in with three others (two women, one man) we were told we had a new person modelling for us.
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19
My fading suffered a miscarriage
by Ireneus ini thought of successfully fading out, but suffered a miscarriage last week.
i gradually decreased the number of meetings i attended.
in the latter half of the year it became once a month, then once in two months, once in three months ….. last week, two elders who visited me, after their bla..bla..asked: “where will you go leaving the motherly organization—the only truth now available on earth?”.
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Onager
Hi, you could say that I successfully faded, I've not been disfellowshipped after all. Despite this however, of all the people that I grew up with and knew for 30 years only ONE of them has any contact with me now. All of the others have proved themselves false friends. As you don't have any family in the organisation my advice would be to walk away now. There's not really any point in fading or playing by their rules, as soon as it is known that you aren't 100% on board you will be effectively shunned anyway.
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56
George Lucas tinkering with Star Wars films
by LoveUniHateExams injust thought i'd start a thread about lucas revisiting star wars films and making new edits - for better or for worse.. first off, let me say that george lucas has a tremendous imagination and star wars (1977), also known as episode 4: a new hope, and the empire strikes back (1980) - episode 5 in the franchise - are two of my favourite films.
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as progress has been made in special effects, including the development of cgi, it makes sense for lucas to go back and retouch the spaceships, laser blasts and light sabres, improving what was 70s and 80s effects.. but i feel that lucas' tinkering has been a mixed bag - some have been bad choices, some unnecessary and others have been good.. what do you think ... .
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Onager
I haven't seen TLJ and I never will. I also have never seen the 3rd film of the prequels, what's it called? Dude Where's My Deathstar? By the time I had watched the second prequel I was so disillusioned that I decided to watch the third on dvd. Then the Vader "Noooooooooo" memes appeared and I thought "Nope."
Similarly, after Force Awakens, I thought I would read some reviews of TLJ first and it was clear from them that the rot had set in. So I am done with the Franchise, mostly because it so clearly IS a franchise now and not a labour of love. I say this as someone who was such a fan originally that I even defended Ewok Adventure: Caravan of Courage to the naysayers.
So in my world the Star Wars universe is made up of the original trilogy, including RotJ. For prequels I have the Han Solo at Star's end books and for a sequel, and S***t's and giggles, I include the Splinter in the Minds Eye book. I like to think that Luke and Leia knew that they were siblings at that point, but just didn't care and went ahead with the steamy snogging.
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40
Introduce myself
by dantoole87 ini'd like share why i went from being a teenager determined to work in full time service for jehovah my entire life, to now being on here commiserating with you all.
i use to be an atheist but i now believe in god.
but i'm not preachy about god.
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Onager
dantoole873 days ago3 days ago
Onager
I had a real experience with God's spirit and I believe he is active in my life. But I have given up on trying to convince atheists that God exists. It's a non-sequitur IMO. You either experience God in your life or you don't. I'll never go back to creationism and I don't even know if I believe in an afterlife. It's a completely subjective experience that has enriched my life personally.
That being said, I still will listen to atheist podcasts and look for natural explanations to the world around me. I believe in a power that is greater than us. No labels, no special claims, and no magic incantations. I just know that this God exists and knows me personally. Because isn't that the frustrating part, when hardcore theists try to shove their subjective experiences down your throat?
Hi Dan,
Thanks for the reply. Would you agree that the problem isn't belief, but religion? I respect your belief and your right to have that belief, as I think you respect mine. People believing different things isn't bad, in fact it's inevitable!
The problems come when people use belief to control others and influence society to conform to their beliefs.
Christopher Hitchens goes into this in great detail in his book "God is not Great: How religion posions everything." Which is a really bad title as it doesn't really address God at all, but is almost entirely concerned with religion.
I think that a Theistic belief such as yours cannot fall into the negative category because it has no agenda. It's only when people try to get other people to believe the same under the threat of eternal destruction that there is a problem. Or if they try to get their beliefs taught in schools, or try to influence government policy, or any of the countless ways that religion poisons everything.
Cheers,
Onager
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31
Silly Bible Stories we once believed
by RULES & REGULATIONS inthese bible stories are too silly to be true.
take off your rose colored glasses and you will begin to see some great imagination, exaggeration and great story telling!.
telling !.
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Onager
I was going to post about Samson and the 300 foxes, but smiddy3 beat me to it. I mean, seriously! You would need to have a fox shop nearby. Not a little corner shop either, a massive superstore specialising entirely in live foxes. Three HUNDRED foxes.
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66
Since leaving the JW Organization, who is believing?
by Issa ini left the jw organization last year during summer.
maybe some of you can relate.
who of you are agnostic or an atheist?
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Onager
Firm atheist here, but hopefully not a gobby one! Happy to be friends with deists and theists and even have discussions based in their world views as long as it's in the abstract and isn't disguised proselytizing at me.
I did worry that it was an artifact of my JW indoctrination that made me reject all other religions automatically, leaving agnosticism or atheism as the only options. I have done research though and once I learned the model of religion and how it's a means of social control it became obvious (to me) that all religions were man-made.
I did pass through deism and agnosticism on my journey to atheism, but the lack of evidence eventually led me to choose atheism as the only logical position (again, for me).
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40
Introduce myself
by dantoole87 ini'd like share why i went from being a teenager determined to work in full time service for jehovah my entire life, to now being on here commiserating with you all.
i use to be an atheist but i now believe in god.
but i'm not preachy about god.
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Onager
Hi Dan,
Come back to atheism... you know it makes sense...
Nah, only kidding! Do whatever seems right to you and makes you feel good. :)
The only thing I would say is to study for yourself now. There are so many false teachings that have been inculcated into your brain as a JW that now subconsciously help to form your beliefs. JWfacts.com is a great place to start (if you haven't been there already) clearing out the lies.
I hope things work out for you!
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17
Uncovering "GOD"
by Doug Mason inwith self-righteous indignation, the watchtower society (wts) points to its restoration of the hebrew tetragram (hwhy = “yahweh” = = = > “jehovah”) wherever the english translator renders it as “lord”..
the wts complains that the use of “lord” hides the fact that the name (“jehovah” for the wts) is intended.
however, with its call of “look over here, look over here”, the wts diverts attention, probably unintentionally, from related information that it, in turn, does not reveal..
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Onager
Ok, so I looked up Enki in the book Sumer and The Sumerians last night. There's one sentence in the whole book that mentions him!
"Eridu was reputed to be the earliest city of all, home of the god Enki who saved humankind from the flood."
Not really much to work with there! The book turns out to be focused on the physical evidence from archaeological digs and finds rather than the religion and mythology of the Sumerians. It still looks to be a very interesting read though!
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17
Uncovering "GOD"
by Doug Mason inwith self-righteous indignation, the watchtower society (wts) points to its restoration of the hebrew tetragram (hwhy = “yahweh” = = = > “jehovah”) wherever the english translator renders it as “lord”..
the wts complains that the use of “lord” hides the fact that the name (“jehovah” for the wts) is intended.
however, with its call of “look over here, look over here”, the wts diverts attention, probably unintentionally, from related information that it, in turn, does not reveal..
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Onager
Here's a link which quotes many scholarly articles on the subject, but I don't know if anything can constitute evidence as such. As it says in this link:
Nothing is "lock-tight provable," _all_ is _speculation_ for scholars, myself included.
http://www.bibleorigins.net/YahwehYawUgarit.html
I also have this book, which my wife asked for for Christmas randomly, which I hope will have something to say on the subject:
I'll let you know if I find out anything of interest.
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45
COLD today
by wasone init's a cold 13 degrees fahrenheit in tennessee this morning where i live.
glad i'm retired and don't have to work outside today.
what about where you live.
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Onager
Here in Gloucestershire, UK. It's cold and rainy. Warmer than last week though.