heroes and villains for the braindead.
in a typical action movie, suspense movie or western, there are only heroes and villains.
the heroes can do nothing but good and the villains can do nothing but bad.
In the world of dubs however, being braindead is not just a diversion and form of amusement. It is a way of life. Everyone is either a hero or a villain; good or bad; black or white; worthy of eternal salvation or worthy of being eternally destroyed.
Great stuff. I enjoy your no-beating-around-the-bush style.
BTW, if the average wordly guy is a villain for just refusing to become a witless, then who are apostates in this movie scenario? Alien mutants?
Pole
i am not a scientist so i do bow to others superior knowledge on this site regarding these subjects (and welcome their input) but what is to stop these two theories both being proven so that they both apply to our origins.. what is to stop a creator creating evolution as a process just as a creator would create the laws of physics etc?
it would be akin to starting the ball rolling in creation terms and letting it carry on until the highest lifeform is present.
could scientific theory support this view perhaps?.
Evolution & Creation... can they co-exist as theories?
Creation cannot be a truly scientific theory as it is inherently mystical. Even if you pretend parts of creation "theories" are based on a scientific methodology, the mystical unverifiable supreme being keeps hanging around. Creationists tend to fall back on it when you pick a hole in their claims.
Evolution at least has the potential of being a scientific theory which can be largely verified by scientific methods.
So can the Catholic dogma of transubstantiation co-exist with the physics of solid bodies?
They're incompatible, although they may apparently happen to touch upon the same subject.
Pole
in recent years, some witnesses in former soviet territory got their names in the papers.
for supposedly trying to bribe officials to stop harassing them.
in response, the watchtower.
AT SOME Polish colleges, students customarily collect money to buy gifts for their teachers, hoping to get better grades on their exams. No wonder a young Christian named Katarzyna faced a difficult situation. "Shall I give money or not?" she wondered. Her peers reasoned: "It is a common custom. You risk nothing, but you can gain a lot, so why do you have doubts?"
Some students at some Polish colleges, blah blah blah. What Polish colleges?
"Gifts for their teachers, hoping to get better grades on their exams"? Yeah like getting a degree for a bar of chocolate and a bunch of flowers?
Come on folks, it's a classic strawman. I work as an academic teacher and there is no custom like that. If it happens, it can get you in trouble especially if you accept even a symbolic a gift before an exam, etc. And unless it's a gift worth a few thousand dollars it won't have any influence on the teacher's decisions. Poland may have a rate of corruption higher than in some Western countries (although I'm not so sure of it) but is not Middle East.
Some accused Katarzyna of selfishness and an antisocial attitude. "I still do not get along well with some of them," she says.
Oh yeah poor Katarzyna. I can see the opression and the accusations flying at her. I'm sure she takes equal pride in being a No-Christmas/No-birthday martyr.
"On the other hand, many respect my point of view, which makes me glad."
Really? So she's saying some assholes accused her while others did not? What a profound sociological observation! This can only happen in such a lousy post-communist country as Poland where the moral standards are really low.
Katarzyna became known as one of Jehovah?s Witnesses, who observe Bible principles in everyday life.
So that's the point of this pamphlet? Pick a non-existing moral dillema, blow it out of proportions and show how outstandingly righteous Jehovah's Witnesses' position is?
And then, what metatron said - when it comes to real issues, JWs are often told to be lying and cynical.
Pole
i had just started up the driveway on the way back from the r/c flying field when i saw these two men with ties going up to my front door.
my wife let them in before i got out of the car.
they were two of the ones i had studied with 40 years ago.
Thanks for sharing this story. From what you wrote you seem to have a peaceful outlook on those things. :-). Must feel really wierd to have so many friends/ex-friends now dead who trusted the truth will have given them eternal life by now.How many generations more will outlive the WTS prophecies, I wonder? Well, I guess it's none of my business now :).
Pole
dear all,.
it's a little over a year now (2 years last february) that my family and i left watchtower and i can't begin to tell you how wonderful life has been!.
ok, i'm saddled with a serious illness at present and enough has been said about it, but i'd just like to focus on how much a family can really grow once it has been freed from watchtower's yoke.
Another thing is that an ex-JW appreciates this freedom much more than the average wordly_TM person who's never been part of a totalitarian organisation.
Yep, great to be free indeed.
Pole
...a favorite quote of mine from marianne williamson: .
"our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
I put mine in my avatar recently too. (You may have to press CTRL + F5 to see it)
Truly liberating... :-).
calcutt matthews are the chartered accountants who audit the books of the isba ( international bible students association ).
calcutt matthews is a small charity specialist firm, which acts for three charities from the top 250 in the uk and a number of other smaller charities.. .
in the accounts for the ibsa for 2002 the trustees report states :our projections to august 31, 2003, indicate the need to curtail some spending, because of the property developments in london.
and the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses in the United States, has given a legal undertaking to provide back up funding up to 2,000,000 UK pounds should that become neccessary.
That would mean the Brooklyn gerontocrats still have a say on such matters - contrary to some recent changes in the legal structure of the WTS.
Pole
just got a visit from 2 old friends.
we talked about fun things we'd been doing lately and then they told me the reason they stopped by was to invite me to the memorial.
i was completely silent and non-committal.
This question has been asked before and put away with a nice ribbon on it.
LOL at Gary. Yes, the Questions from Readers articles are a sort of mutual adoration society game.
Pole
as former jws we were part of a highly moralising religion.
we have experienced the disastrous consequences of it in terms of hypocrisy, judgementalism or pathologic guilt.
most of us have changed our "moral parameters" drastically, but how far have we gone in questioning morality itself?.
I only have one absolute criterion of morality. The criterion of harm. If doing harm cannot be avoided in making a moral choice, I try to go for the lesser harm.
So much for theory.
Pole
i faded away from the jw cult last year (loaded language but i have my resons now).
i got my family out which was great.
from then on it's been a typical story of leaving a cult, though.
Satanus,
You got me. Yes. I've changed the title after people started giving me advice about quitting satanism. Be merciful, oh Mighty Prince!
avishai,
This stuff is too old for me to remember. The only Judas Priest album I am familiar with is Painkiller (early 1990s?). I loved it though.
Glory to the Metal Gods!
Pole
