My dad called and invited me to the last day of the convention a couple weeks ago, and I told him we weren't gonna be going. I did finally come out and tell him that we were not attending meetings for a reason. He tried to say that if my wife was holding me back, or me her, blah blah, and I told him this was something we decided together. I went on to say that I didn't feel I could discuss the reasons with him (for obvious reasons to me anyways) but that it was not anything he or mom had done, and it wasn't anything anyone in the congregation had done. I said I undestand how you feel about this (I really do, considering I was raised a JW and had no serious issues/doubts for the first 20-25 years and so from a JW view, I can understand that he and mom would be hurt by my actions.) I told him we are more than willing to get together for family events though if they'd like.
So, I kinda wonder if this will either a) reduce the # of field service visits and invites, or b) lead towards something more serious. I'v never expressed my doubts to anyone that would get back to my cong. elders, so as far as they are concerned I'm just not attending for some reason.
A little background - My wife and I started having questions and fading about a year and a half ago. We did go to the Memorial this year, but left quickly - we have missed that in the past. I'v been exploring my beliefs and trying to figure things out, while my wife adapted fairly quickly since she wasn't a JW until she was in her teens and has switched religions a couple times.
Anyways, I get on and mostly lurk here, but I'll post from time to time if things develop.
Mael
M@el5trom
JoinedPosts by M@el5trom
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Invited to convention - told dad no thanks
by M@el5trom inmy dad called and invited me to the last day of the convention a couple weeks ago, and i told him we weren't gonna be going.
i did finally come out and tell him that we were not attending meetings for a reason.
he tried to say that if my wife was holding me back, or me her, blah blah, and i told him this was something we decided together.
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M@el5trom
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Tell me about "JW United" and Chuck McManigal
by ezekiel3 inconsidering the attempted crackdown on unofficial jw websites, what can you tell me about this site?.
jehovah's witnesses united http://www.jehovah.to/.
who are these jws who claim "this site is not meant as a substitute for society literature, but as a further resource for those who would like to 'dig deeper.'"?
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M@el5trom
I wanted to setup a JW website when I was "in". I was told that it wouldn't be a good idea. My thought was that if you search for Jehovah's Witness, it is a list (except for the top listing) full of "apostate" websites. The thinking at the time was that if there are brothers or sisters that have web skills and could get their "truth upholding" sites ranked highly, it could help offset that, and offer both "sides" of the story.
I was told to wait on the Society. Well, they still only have one listing in the top 10, and without checking, I'd bet the other 9 are not in support of JWs. -
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My Website, what do you guys think of it?
by Yizuman inmy website is still currently in build, the logo currently is in the works of being replaced.
i like to ask for your opinion, good or bad about my site and what ideas, suggestions you may have.
http://www.mysharewarebox.com/
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M@el5trom
I have not used Mamba- I am a more or less hand coding kinda guy now, although I do use pre-built scripts when it saves me time. I think the easiest way to add labels to the top icons (and to potentially resize them) would be to open them in a graphics program and add the text into the image itself (MS Paint is included with Windows, GIMP is a good, powerfull and free but somewhat complicated like Photoshop type program). Normally I wouldn't recommend that, but that seems to be the easiest way for you to do that.
The underlined link this is basically to help people know what's clickable and what's not. Since most of the links are in a menu format, most people will know they are clickable, so I wouldn't waste a lot of time on that if you don't know what to look for in the CSS code (if you want to, look for the lines that look like this and change the text-decoration from none to underline:
a:link {color: #000000;
background-color: #2E8B57;
text-decoration: none;}
a:visited {color: #000000;
background-color: #2E8B57;
text-decoration: none;}
a:hover {color: #FFFFFF;
background-color: #006400;
text-decoration: none;}
I can't really help out with the Mamba stuff (like the news comments) - never used Mamba. If you are looking for a good book for learning more HTML/CSS, pickup HTML 5th edition by Elizabeth Castro. For PHP if you already are decent with HTML, look for the WROX books, Beginning PHP5(or 4 since that's all most web hosts have).
I hope I've been some help. I am working on a few websites right now, so I don't have much time to go and edit CSS and stuff, but I'll try to check back here after a bit to see if there are anymore questions that I can help with. -
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My Website, what do you guys think of it?
by Yizuman inmy website is still currently in build, the logo currently is in the works of being replaced.
i like to ask for your opinion, good or bad about my site and what ideas, suggestions you may have.
http://www.mysharewarebox.com/
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M@el5trom
First, go to the bookstore and get the book:
Don't Make Me Think, by Steve Krug (website usability book) - very useful for designing pleasing websites that people can and will use
(and no, despite the title, it does not draw you back to JWs)
Here's my observations (I'll be brutal, hope that's ok).
Here's a couple things I liked: Good color selection, nav menu (with the exception of no underlines for links) looks nice, good fonts/sizes.
Now, onto the critiques:
It wasn't clear to me what the site is about. There are too many things happening on the home page and I don't have a clear idea of what I'm supposed to do/click on/etc. (speaking of things to click on - it generally a good idea to leave the underlines for links instead of removing them like in the menu)
The icons across the top make no sense to me as far as what they mean - they either need a description word underneath or they need to go. Smaller icons would work especially with a word of description, I think. I assume that this is the main navigation for the site (along with the nav menu on the left)
The bread crumbs navagation right under the icons at the top should at least be left justified - in the center I thought the Home referred to the icon above it and it doesn't stand out at all. It should be on a colored background or something to set it apart.
Get rid of the advertisement at the top if at all possible - very tacky and you hate to give up prime real estate above the fold if you don't have to. Is that how the site plans to make money - by selling ads? If so, I would move it to either partway down the page or to the bottom, especially on the home page. If that isn't an option, just keep in mind that right now, that seems to be the most important element on the screen. If that is ok, then leave it as is, but if you want the rest of your site to stand out, it's apparant importance needs to be minimized. Also consider putting the Google ad on the right hand side in a third column instead of above the navigation if you can - that would be a big no-no.
Content section - why does the home page include a bunch of articles and links to news stories? That should go on a seperate Industry News page and leave your home page for a brief description of what people can expect to find and do at your site. That would go a long way to explaining what your site is about and if they are in the right place or not.
I hope this doesn't come across too harsh - the site looks good, just needs to be rearranged a bit and cleaned up, I think. Here's a really quick JPG I did for you to see what I was thinking - quality got shot up when saving to JPG of course - you can click it for the full size image - I made it a bit smaller for the forum: -
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New search engine - Yahoo
by Satanus in.
yahoo has thrown it's hat into the search engine corral.
try it @ http://myweb.search.yahoo.com/.
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M@el5trom
In answer to the person who asked what the difference was:
Yahoo was not originally a search engine - they were a directory - a site full of lists of links to other sites, all of which where added by humans who reviewed links to make sure they were in the right catagories, checked for spam (ie. sites that offered no content, just tried to sell stuff), and in general kept things nice and tidy. When you did a search, it would spit out the catagory of links that was the closest match.
The search (which is integrated into the search box on Yahoo's home page as well) is fairly new (6 months +/-) and it uses web bots that search across the web and compile a huge database of websites and links with no human involvement. Then, the search ranks sites based on Yahoo's internal algorithms and when you search for a word it spits out what it deems to be the closest match.
Before they offered their own search engine, but after they stopped offering just the directory, Yahoo was displaying Google's search results when you did a search there.
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Recycling: Not for True Christains
by jeanniebeanz inso, i'm sitting here sorting out my recycling since tomorrow is trash day, and i remembered something that happened years ago that gave me a chuckle.. it was a sunday botchtower study and the topic was things that we should be doing to prepare for life in the new system.
even as a child, i didn't answer from the magazine and they never knew just what i was going to say; they would usually not let me hold the mic myself just for that reason... .
i had been learning about recycling to preserve our natural resources in school (6th grade, i was 10) and had my comment ready to go:.
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M@el5trom
I work at a newspaper, and it is a fact that the recycled paper that most newspapers are printed on actually use more energy and produce more bad byproducts being produced (many bad things go into making used paper white again) that it would be to use virgin paper. What about the trees, you ask? Paper is best made from young trees anyways, so a tree farm that where trees are cut down when the get to a certain age and new ones replanted would be extremely cost effective and environmentally sound.
So you know why we use recycled paper for our newspaper? Because the surrounding community are treehugging recycling people, and so we need to fit in. That doesn't mean it's the better way though. -
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Still religeous?
by John Doe ini'm curious how many here were witnesses.
for those that were, what are your current religeous affiliations?
i'm still evolving, but currently i consider myself to be a cross between an agnostic and a deist.
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M@el5trom
double post - see below - oops
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Still religeous?
by John Doe ini'm curious how many here were witnesses.
for those that were, what are your current religeous affiliations?
i'm still evolving, but currently i consider myself to be a cross between an agnostic and a deist.
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M@el5trom
I think I am leaning toward Deism but am still very much open right now. I can't bring myself to believe that only Christians (or Muslims or Jews or Hindus etc) have it right, since you can find people from each of those religions that is firmly convinced that is the way to follow God.
I'm still researching, but here is some info about Deism from the following website. What I've read so far seems to fit with what makes sense to me from everything I've read. BTW - I grew up a Witness and am currently inactive (but not DF/DA/etc.)
http://www.religioustolerance.org/deism.htm- Deism involves the belief in the existence of God, on purely rational grounds, without any reliance on revealed religion or religious authority.
- Do not accept the belief of most religions that God revealed himself to humanity through the writings of the Bible, the Qur'an or other religious texts.
- Disagree with strong Atheists who assert that there is no evidence of the existence of God.
- They regard their faith as a natural religion, as contrasted with one that is revealed by a God or which is artificially created by humans.
- Deists base their belief in the existence of God on their observations of design found throughout nature.
- They believe that one cannot access God through any organized religion, set of beliefs, rituals, sacraments or other practice.
- God has not selected a chosen people (e.g. Jews or Christians) to be the recipients of any special revelation or gifts.
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Silent Lambs campaign
by kittyeatzjdubs inhey!
is anyone participating in the silent lambs campaign where they're sticking the flyers in the doors of kingdom halls?
i'm seriously thinking about it, but i'm going for the gusto!
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M@el5trom
>They used to give them out to each family in my halls. I put all mine in a database so I can easily >print mailing labels.
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>Any current JW should have one for their hall.
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>Walter
Lately (in the last 5-10 years they have been discouraging this process. Too much chance of the list falling into the "wrong" hands. Also told that it's a bad idea in case of the religion getting banned - to easy to persecute the members of the congregation.
A pioneer couple in my old hall used to compile a list of addresses and give them to the "trustworthy ones" - but I do not have my list anymore - plus it would be quite out of date. -
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Making new friends after fading
by M@el5trom inwhat are some good methods for finding and making new friends after fading away?
i know this is critical to help myself and my wife to move on, and we both have suffered from depression partly because we are isolated to each other for now.
we are good friends, but we both feel the need for others also.
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M@el5trom
Thanks for the ideas. I have thought about trying to do something to help animals - my wife and I both love animals (we have 13 cats and 2 dogs, a rabbit and bird :shock: ) I did go back to school this semester, and will probably go again in the fall after taking the summer off. I also have throught about looking for groups that do the same types of things I enjoy (dog scootering/sledding, computer stuff, reading/studying).
I'm not sure I'm ready to try another church yet, but my wife really wants to - I told her she is free to go if she wants but she is willing to wait for me. I'm still sorting out what *I* believe, and I know I can be easily influenced, and am afraid that I will swallow the first hook I find, if you know what I mean.
Since this is on topic here as well, a friend of my wife and mine that we lost track of when he got married and moved away just recently moved back near here. We're gonna go out for coffee Saturday after work. He is a JW, but has always been willing to walk the line a little (R rated movies, etc.)
Mael
