Posts by Markfromcali

It is interesting though that in some small organizations there is no such thing as enforcement, so the idea of strictness doesn't apply, but it is simply composed of rare individuals who naturally have the dedication and discipline to pursue a certain kind of work. Of course I don't even know if you'd call that religion per se, it's not a commodity or product anyway, it's more about what you do than what you get.

70

Will humanity EVER outgrow God?

by nicolaou in

firstly let me say that i am not trying to offend believers - i was one for most of my life.

nor is this a discussion about whether god/religion is a 'good' or 'bad' thing, that argument will rage forever.

what i'm asking is really a simple question;.

Markfromcali

Nark yes, but then there is the matter of 'outgrowing' 'self', period, rather than outgrowing this self to a bigger and better (or more sophisticated) self.

14

Here it is ... your moment of zen.

by Markfromcali in

ok i only have the concept right now, but wouldn't it be cool if we could have quotes that are like the moment of zen bit from the daily show with jon stewart?

what i'm thinking is quotes from this board, i mean look at how many posts we get there has bound to be some classic statements made from time to time, we just need to recognize it and save it!

just imagine it all in one thread, it would be great..

Markfromcali

bttt

Alright I'm trying one more time...

70

Will humanity EVER outgrow God?

by nicolaou in

firstly let me say that i am not trying to offend believers - i was one for most of my life.

nor is this a discussion about whether god/religion is a 'good' or 'bad' thing, that argument will rage forever.

what i'm asking is really a simple question;.

Markfromcali

Beyond that, will humanity outgrow itself? Take an individual human for example, we talk about getting over the granddaddy idea of God - fine, that's one idea. Granted it is very .. pervasive and certainly relevant especially here, but frankly you can be on the 'someone outgrowing something' trip just fine without the idea of God. So to state it directly, on an individual level, the question is will you outgrow yourself?

12

A Joke In Honor of My PMS

by Why Georgia in

q: how many women with pms does it take to change a light bulb?

because no one else in this damn house knows how to change a light bulb!

they don't even know that the bulb is burned out!!

Markfromcali

lol that was great!

57

Do you miss feeling that "Jehovah" was listening to prayers?

by LyinEyes in

jw
friends

this is hard to explain, but i will try.

the other day, my neice was put in the hospital for test , after having two seizures, she is 20 and has never had any medical problems at all.

i now know, that by doing that it seemed to take the burden of helplessness off of my shoulders.

Markfromcali

When I was young , I was so scared to forget to say............" in Jesus name" , for fear of being disrespectful if I accidently fell asleep , which happened alot.

It's certainly understandable for a child to think that, especially being taught that being a JW.

But really, if God is so small minded as to get mad at you or penalize you for forgetting some detail like that (you forgot to pray in Jesus name - no soup for you!) then why would you pray to such a God anyway? Such a God is really just the product of a mind that is under the trance of religion.

29

your JW experience hides something deeper

by seesthesky in

as odd as this may sound i believe that your continual struggle with your past life as a jw is in fact a cover for something else - i do not know what that something else is but i am almost 100 percent certain that somehow someone or something has used your jw experience to disguise some greater violation of your souls - any thoughts?

Markfromcali

"your continual struggle with your past life as a jw is in fact a cover for something else" - this struggle it seems is not unique but manifests itself in various way - i.e., people struggle deeply with various aspects of themselves on all sorts of matters - such matters include phobias, hatreds, obsessions and so on - and it seems that these struggles with the immediate represent something greater, perhaps something spiritual, something we rarely understand because we are essentially physical

Ok, so you can just call it struggling with yourself.

You might just look at it as finding a self that is authentic, and in that process there will be a struggle - especially if you've been heavily conditioned with a false persona. Now this doesn't mean the authentic self is something other than the aspects you identify or struggle with, actually the struggle just comes from polarizing to and identifying with one limited aspect of yourself, perhaps what we consider to be characteristics of a spiritual person, and then rejecting the rest.

So yeah, you can call the JW experience and any limited aspect of yourself a "cover" or whatever, but ultimately if you're going to know who you are you wouldn't ignore any part of yourself. So there is that basic underlying behavior of struggle that applies to a lot of different things, but then if you really want to do something different why not stop struggling? Yeah you might be conditioned to struggle, but just give it a pause and see what it's like.

Even if you get to a deeper and more authentic self, eventually you WILL have to address the JW stuff. It may be easier, basically instead of battling it you might see it in a larger context, but you have to go back to it because everything is included in this process if there is going to be an end of this self-struggle, if it's going to be integrated and whole. And frankly if the JW experience happens to be your issue anyway, why don't you just look at that? Sure you don't have to be absorbed with it like it's your whole universe, but at the same time if you want to dig deeper it helps to stay digging in one spot.