Posts by zen nudist

childhood should be about learning and fun and discovery and serious relationship only limit what one can do and who one can be with in a very harsh way.....if she is really a lesbian, it will wait, as will her other serious desires to be a seriously involved adult, but now need not be that moment....

the biggest part of parenting, in my not so humble opnion is to educate a ball of desires in the ways of suppressing the ones which are tending to distract you from what is important in your current life and focusing in on the ones which will benefit you the most in the long term.... short term desires abound but if you do not learn to suppress them, you will be emotionally torn apart and all too often I see parents neglecting their duty in educating their children in this ancient art.

33

A Search for Truth?

by Rooster in

a search for truth.

c. t. russell was born in the united states, in allegheny (now part of pittsburgh), pennsylvania, on february 16, 1852. he was the second son of joseph l. and ann eliza (birney) russell, who were presbyterians of scottish-irish descent.

charles mother died when he was only nine years old, but from an early age, charles was influenced by both of his religiously-minded parents.

zen nudist

according to Franz [CoC] the search for truth involves a 2/3rds majority of hand picked men who were not picked for their open mindedness but for their company line totting record of loyal service...hardly a search for anything but conformity it would seem

10

YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT

by Terry in

jw
friends

i'm amused.

i had a customer yesterday in the bookstore.

he was a chatty fellow.

zen nudist

I like to point out to people- lets assume Josephus was not spuroius, so what?

he was not even born till, what 36ce and did not write this until after 51ce, so what was he saying that mattered?

was Josephus quoting an eye witness? no record

was he an eye witness, no.

was the Jesus myth popular? yes

does his quoting a myth mean there was a real person behind it? obviously not

49

1963 UN resolution anyone else noticed this?

by skyman in

i found this intresting the sun god noted above, now notice the 1963 resolution not to join the un.

"that we will continue to look to him as the great sun from whom comes our enlightenment, guidance and healing.

we will glorify him and not join idolatrous men in looking to bright-shining ones of mankind as the source of mental and spiritual enlightenment and of worldly prosperity".

zen nudist

its no great conspiracy of why JWs use the YHWH triangle.... they are simply showing that the "other" churches have known of it all along and simply have not told their members

63

WHY did you exit god and the bible when you exited the dubs?

by gumby in

not all that post here threw the bible and the bible god out the window when they exited the dubs, but many have.. for me personally, i never doubted god or the bibles authenticity untill years later when i began doing a re-search on the bible canon and how it was formed.

from there, i began looking at the sceptics view of the bible and it's god which then changed my views.. i guess my question is, why did you ( those who disbelieved god/bible upon exiting the dubs)... throw god and the bible out the window before you had re-searched it enough to make you believe contrary?

if all you really knew was that the wtbts was bunk, what made you feel the bible and it's god was bunk too?.

zen nudist

when I found the JWs to be a CON GAME, my first thought was to follow TRUTH where ever it lead me, and to admit ignorance in any thing I could not verify myself.

my 2nd thought was if NOT JWs, then who? so to the library I went and the first book I found was WHO WROTE THE BIBLE and this time I read it with an open mind, not as I would have as a JW, trying to excuse all the evidence presented nor fit it into some pre-conceived belief system [BS]...

my 3rd thought was: was there any god[s]? was the only reason I had believed in one is because I had been brought up to believe in one and no other? and I read books by humanists and atheists and agnostics and came to see that they were much more rational in their views than any believers who had CONviNcED me before. The arguments for the existance of any god all seemed to be self contradictory and irrational. and I came to realize that when I was praying I was only talking to myself, so I must be God (^_^).

23

What is a right?

by Narkissos in

jw
friends

i've been looking at the "health care" thread here and there and, although i did not reply (it's one of the issues where most americans and europeans seem to be really really far apart) i felt like asking a distinct yet related question which probably best suits another thread.. so, what is a "right"?.

are "human rights" written somewhere, in heaven or in nature, other than in human laws / customs which are the provisional, ever-changing result of power struggle and negotiation, in an equally ever-changing economical-social conjuncture?.

and then what is the point of discussing "rights," if they are not grounded anywhere else than in the socio-political arena itself?

zen nudist

people always say this is a representative democracy.... I have never noticed such a thing in the US

I see a popularly elected dictatorship with two sides of the same corporate power elite being the only options given to the masses

to decide between... neither side ever seems to represent THEM [the voters].

23

What is a right?

by Narkissos in

jw
friends

i've been looking at the "health care" thread here and there and, although i did not reply (it's one of the issues where most americans and europeans seem to be really really far apart) i felt like asking a distinct yet related question which probably best suits another thread.. so, what is a "right"?.

are "human rights" written somewhere, in heaven or in nature, other than in human laws / customs which are the provisional, ever-changing result of power struggle and negotiation, in an equally ever-changing economical-social conjuncture?.

and then what is the point of discussing "rights," if they are not grounded anywhere else than in the socio-political arena itself?

zen nudist

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed"

I ponder which god they were talking about as this is completely opposite, in my view and the view of many, from what Paul says in Romans which lead to the notion of the Divine right of kings, so popular in chrisitan europe for many centuries.

it seems they were stating the view of a god not found in any records other than perhaps the secret masonic ones.

18

What does "born again" mean?

by Country Girl in

to most of the people on here, the term "born again" reminds them of fanatical christians who try to impose their beliefs on all other people, have an agenda (which is sometimes co-mixed with politics), and want to convert the rest of the world.

to me, born again is of a different nature.

it's different from my understanding of it as a jehovah's witness, and it's different from my understanding of it as a baptist.

zen nudist

were I still a believer, the term born again would mean to me

that one had symbolically drowned [baptism] his old self, his old life and was

not raised from those waters a symbolic new person, who was now filled with the holy spirit [either literally or symbolically by being filled with the words of the bible] and no longer living for his own goals and purposes but now living as the spirit [word] dictates... and while still human, faltering in the path, but yet persisting.

this concept seems to be universal in all mystical practices in some manner, the initiate is transformed in someway and no longer lives his life as he once did....

in zen once one has been enlightened he sees everything through new eyes as it were.