Posts by Onager

30

It's My Birthday Today

by pale.emperor in

today is my 34th birthday.

or, my 3rd birthday that i've actually acknowledged seeing as i was raised in the cult.. i woke up this morning to my 4yo running into my room and wishing me a "happy birthday daddy!".

i got a card from my ex-jw brother and i bought myself a birthday gift - a new 50mm lens for my nikon camera (photography is a hobby i took up since leaving the cult).. i dont know about you guys, but birthdays is still something i have to make a conscious effort to acknowledge and enjoy.

Onager

Happy birthday! 50mm eh? Good portrait lens that.

58

Explain Your Avatar

by new boy in

jw
friends

i know this thread has been done before.

however maybe some of the new comers might like to know.. my avatar is the cover of my first novel "your crazy life.

".

Onager

My avatar is what came up when I googled "Mothman". Reason: I like moths.

34

For those who are athest, or non-christian, how did you come to this decision?

by Tameria2001 in

i'm not asking this question to cause an argument or accuse, but i am honestly just wondering?

for those of you who are now atheist or non-christian, how did you come to this decision?

i hadn't given this much thought until about a year ago.

Onager

It was where the trail of breadcrumbs eventually led. It wasn't my intention, but eventually it was the inevitable conclusion.

26

Brexit Rollercoaster Grinding to a Halt

by The Fall Guy in

uk prime minister could be out of her job within hours.

.

regardless, another referendum on stay/leave looks very likely - now that people can see what the real consequences of a divorce from the eu would be..

Onager

I can believe that a majority of the UK population want to leave the EU. I also believe that the majority of them are of the older generation. But the problem is that they have made that choice based on lies.

So it becomes clear that it's wrong if you consider these two scenarios:

1) Would you like to leave the EU, it'll cost us £1million and we'll get loads of money for the NHS?

2) Would you like to leave the EU, it'll cost us £32billion and we'll get ZERO money for the NHS.

1. is what people based their choice on 2. is what we realise is the actual case. (numbers made up just for representation). Therefore people who voted leave may still want to leave but not want to vote leave any more now that they know the true cost.

68

The paranormal.

by Lost in the fog in

i know that a lot of the people on here have turned their backs on the idea of a deity deciding that god does not exist.

but what about the unseen spirit world generally such as poltergeists, jinns, voodoo, etc.

if you have become agnostic, atheist, or just don't care since leaving, do you think that there are spirits out there or have you decided that is also hokum?

Onager

caves8 hours ago
Question, Why is that when the police cant find a murderer they turn to physics for drawings and/or information.
I've known several people that do physic work with law enforcement.And actually nail the criminal.
Humm? Can anyone explain this?

Hi Caves, In answer to your question I imagine Physics has helped the police find murderers. :) It's Psychics that haven't. I know that they say they do, but they would wouldn't they? Can you link a non-psychic sourced account of a successful psychic intervention in a police investigation *That couldn't have been done by a non-psychic*?

Also, do you know how many times psychics have failed when giving information to police? Times where they have said that the person is alive and well but they turned out to be already dead? Can you imagine the anguish of the relatives that put their trust in that information?

I can't state categorically that psychic powers don't exist, but I can say that there are people out there who fake having them and they cause a lot of harm.

https://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/police_psychics_do_they_really_solve_crimes

(Hope the ghosts don't break my link too! :) )

68

The paranormal.

by Lost in the fog in

i know that a lot of the people on here have turned their backs on the idea of a deity deciding that god does not exist.

but what about the unseen spirit world generally such as poltergeists, jinns, voodoo, etc.

if you have become agnostic, atheist, or just don't care since leaving, do you think that there are spirits out there or have you decided that is also hokum?

Onager

Hi Caves, I was an active poster on the James Randi Education Forum for many years. I only had a few short, written, exchanges with Randi but nothing about him ever smacked of him being a hoax or a fraud. What would the hoax be? That he isn't really a debunker of paranormal claims? A lot of people have claimed that he doesn't have the million dollars to pay out on his challenge, but that has been comprehensively refuted, so how is he a fraud?

I tried to follow your links, but the first is broken and the second is just a short history of the million dollar challenge. If you think it's significant (or dubious) that they changed the rules so that an applicant had to have a media profile and academic endorsement, I know that is because the foundation was receiving far more applications than they could deal with.

The problem was that lots of the applications were from clearly disturbed people who had decided on their own that they had magic powers. It was simply impossible to design protocols and get to all these people. The media and academic thing was purely to screen out the majority of claimants because if they couldn't convince a journalist or a professor they had paranormal powers then they surely didn't.

If that's not it, what is it that convinces you he is a hoax and a fraud?

9

Did they mean to say the F word here?

by ILoveTTATT2 in

jw
friends

this is from the golden age, august 5, 1931. it is related to an article denouncing the entire medical profession.

i wonder if they meant to say the f word but didn´t dare to.. fudge!.

.

Onager

Fudge means nonsense in that context doesn't it? Like when you fudge the numbers. The numbers are made up nonsense.

9

Epiphany #2

by Solzhenitsyn in

so after much emotional struggle out into the open comes why my dear wife continues to want to stay with the wt organization.. i simply couldn't understand why someone so intelligent would suffer from such confusion wether to stay active or fade away when she has faced and accepted the anti-jw facts.

simply put: she was raised with such sick instability that jw life was the only thing that provided stability, the only thing she felt she could count on.

to this day this remains the primary reason she stays "in".

Onager

Hi Solzhenitsyn, love your books by the way. :)

Any suggestions on how to approach this deeply entrenched emotional matter?

With love.

And patience.

11

Paradise After Death:Mark Twain calls out some of the stupider ideas-

by Captain Schmideo2 in

jw
friends

"in paradise, i am going to visit [insert favorite bible character here]" - said at least once in their life by every devout jw.now, for some hard, cold practicalities-excerpt from "captain stormfield's visit to heaven"“oh, there are a lot of such things that people expect and don’t get.

for instance, there’s a brooklyn preacher by the name of talmage, who is laying up a considerable disappointment for himself.

there’s millions of people down there on earth that are promising themselves the same thing.

Onager

I think stillin has been taken up to heaven...

48

Baker backed by UK court.

by waton in

story in the guardian: .

"--freedom of expression, as guaranteed by article 10 of the european convention on human rights, includes the right “not to express an opinion which one does not hold”, hale added.

“this court has held that nobody should be forced to have or express a political opinion in which he does not believe,” she said.--".

Onager

"--Freedom of expression, as guaranteed by article 10 of the European convention on human rights, includes the right “not to express an opinion which one does not hold”, Hale added. “This court has held that nobody should be forced to have or express a political opinion in which he does not believe,” she said.--"

My argument against that is that making a cake with a message on it isn't an expression of the baker's belief. Neither is anyone forcing the baker to hold or have any political opinion.