Terry

Joined

• started 1,986 topics
• posted 18,437 times   see topics posted on
• send a message

Posts by Terry

• 
  23

  Did Jesus Have A Dog?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  a preteen asked me , “did jesus have a dog”?

  i thought the question was hysterical.

  why wouldn’t jesus have a dog or pet cat or sheep?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Terry

  
  
• 
  6

  IF it quacks like a duck ...? WHAT IS IT?

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  a question: "what does identity mean?

  " if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck have feathers like a duck: it is a __?___.

  hans christian anderson taught us this lesson in the famous story of "the ugly duckling" (**spoiler alert**) the ugly part of the duckling was misleading to observers who later discover it is a swan.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Terry

  I remember my earliest conversations with my best friend (who just happened to be a Jehovah's Witness, whatever the hell that was ...).
  Johnny kept saying things that "bumped into" my understanding of how things are.
  These weren't arguments. Not at first.
  These were challenges.
  I could either ignore these dissonances or question them, you see...
  
  Challenges (bumps) continued.
  The idea was to erode my view of reality. (I don't mean Johnny saw it this way. It is what JW's are trained to do and it's the "life-saving" work of any evangelist :)
  
  Pretty soon his persuasions wore off my edges and I started to smell like his ideas.
  IRONICALLY, JW's have reverse engineered the Ant Trickster strategy.
  THEY RUB OFF ON YOU and get you to infiltrate the Kingdom Hall where
  THEY CARRY YOU OFF as their mental slave.
  
  Ontologically, words and their meanings are CHANGED (tampered).
  Different use of words leads to a different understanding of "meaning" itself.
  
  A VIRUS hijacks and takes over and so does religion and so does a political ideology.
  
  GENDER issues and POLITICAL CORRECTNESS too.
  CENSORSHIP and WOKENESS too.
  
  The world I grew up in no longer exists untampered, un "bumped".
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 
  6

  IF it quacks like a duck ...? WHAT IS IT?

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  a question: "what does identity mean?

  " if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck have feathers like a duck: it is a __?___.

  hans christian anderson taught us this lesson in the famous story of "the ugly duckling" (**spoiler alert**) the ugly part of the duckling was misleading to observers who later discover it is a swan.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Terry

  A QUESTION: "What does IDENTITY mean?"
  
  If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck have feathers like a duck: IT IS A __?___

  
  

  Hans Christian Anderson taught us this lesson in the famous story of
  "THE UGLY DUCKLING"
  (**Spoiler Alert**) the ugly part of the duckling was misleading to observers who later discover it is a SWAN.
  (Cue the music: dun Dun DUNNNNN!)
  
  

  Humans aren't exact duplicate copies of their parents.

  The COPY and PASTE contain "mutations".

  A mutant version of a copy may have more disadvantages than advantages. (Sociopath, birth defect, etc.)

  Or?

  Or maybe a chess wizard, math genius, or outstanding inventor, etc.

  It may walk like a Duck, Quack like a Duck, but have feathers like a Swan. (As that story goes...)
  
  

  SOCIETY is a large group of humans who instinctively make snap judgments about US and THEM which has been a protective mechanism in the history of families, tribes, and nations.
  
  

  Pay attention, Students!

  It all begins with Aristotle who taught:

  "... the IDENTITY of an object is constituted by its properties"

  Translation:

  (A duck walks duck-like, quacks duck-like, is feathered duck-like, etc.)

  
  

  Science (Biology) teaches: "An organism has a phenotype and a genotype."

  Translation: "A living thing IS what it looks like and what it does

  (i.e. observable characteristic) PLUS its genotype: (heritable traits.)

  
  

  So far what do we know? Are we saying: "IT IS WHAT IT IS?"

  No. That's gibberish.

  Ant colonies post guards which sniff all who enter for chemical signals which either allow entrance or alert "DANGER"!

  This knee-jerk protective instinct works great until it doesn't.

  One ant species sends out a trickster who shows up and fails the sniff test and gets carried off and tossed out as a bouncer does with a drunk.

  (The trickster keeps coming back! Again and again, until it has rubbed off the molecules of SCENT onto itself and smells like the guards!

  UH OH!

  The trickster-ant passes the sniff test, infiltrates the colony, and gets the layout for "nefarious purposes." (Assassinate the queen and kidnap the pupae to raise as the next generation of slaves.)
  
  

  
  ANTS TAKE SLAVES! The mind boggles!
  
  ______

  Human immune system defense is fantastic at determining

  one thing very quickly: "LIKE ME? or NOT LIKE ME".
  
  

  A foreign substance entering our body has to pass this sorting sentinel's "LIKE ME or NOT LIKE ME" to avoid being attacked and destroyed.

  NATURE consists of organisms that can sort correctly or perish.
  
  

  (Seamless transition alert!)
  
  

  POLITICS is part of the sorting mechanism.

  Politicians are like Trickster Ants.

  The would-be elected official bumps into opposition again and again until it smells like "one of us."

  If Voters agree a candidate "smells okay", that critter infiltrates our social immune system and begins tampering with everything.
  
  

  A virus too! It tricks our immune system and carries us off as its slave!
  
  

  A social movement too! A religion can infiltrate our thinking and carry us off as its slave! __________
  
  WE LIVE IN A TIME where sorting is NOT being made easy.

  Definitions are changing of what a DUCK IS or IS NOT.
  
  

  "Trickster-ants" are everywhere claiming to be just like us and they are not.

  Rules are tampered with, policies are re-jiggered little by little unit every member of our species is DEMANDING to infiltrate no matter what they smell like.
  
  

  WE HAVE LOST our connection with Nature.

  We cannot rely on "instincts" any longer for defense.
  
  

  We are forbidden to sort ducks.

  OUR SPECIES no longer IS what it IS.
  
  

  Good or Bad, right or wrong, this is our landscape.

  Adapt or perish is the way into the future.
  
  

  You don't have to like it - do you?

  In fact, how you FEEL about it is your problem.
  
  

  BE who you are or be who others say you are: that is the choice.

  Fit in, sneak in, barge in, break-in, vote in; impeach out, toss out, vote out, shout out --- it is UP TO YOU.
  
  

  CHOICE and RIGHTS are now "snowclones." (Definition: "a multi-use, customizable, instantly recognizable, time-worn, quoted or misquoted phrase or sentence that can be used in an entirely open array of different variants" )
  
  Our IDENTITY has been taken captive and we are hollowed out as slaves to ideology.

  ________

  We are the hollow men

  We whisper together

  Are quiet and meaningless

  As wind in dry grass

  Or rats' feet over broken glass

  In our dry cellar

  The eyes are not here

  There are no eyes here

  In this valley of dying stars

  In this hollow valley

  Between the idea

  And the reality

  Between the motion

  And the act

  Falls the Shadow

  Between the conception

  And the creation

  Between the emotion

  And the response

  Falls the Shadow

  Between the desire

  And the spasm

  Between the potency

  And the existence

  Between the essence

  And the descent

  Falls the Shadow

  This is the way the world ends

  This is the way the world ends

  This is the way the world ends

  Not with a bang but a whimper.

  _________

  T.S. Eliot (The Hollow Men)
  
  

  
  
• 
  20

  Why did Paul call Jesus, “the firstborn from the dead”?

  by Doug Mason in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  "jesus christ was resurrected on nisan 16, 33 c.e., the day when the jewish high priest offered up the firstfruits of the barley harvest.

  this fits in accurately with jesus' being the "firstfruits" in the resurrection of the human dead.

  (1 cor.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Terry

  Paul (who came along after Jesus' death) spoke and wrote first about him.
  (1 Cor. 15:20)
  Mankind, in God's eternal emergency plan (in view of Adam's failure) needed a proxy government to stand in on behalf of all future sinners descending from Eve and Adam's sexual union. It is in that frame we must read Paul's words.
  
  Humans know they will die. They are the Walking Dead, as it were.
  Media vita in morte sumus (Latin for "In the midst of life we are in death")
  
  Humans are born when their mother gives birth.
  (Counting 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. the firstborn is literally born first. Duh.)
  Only a dead person who returns to life can be said to be born from the dead.
  Since Lazarus was resurrected by Jesus it is reasonable Jesus cannot be firstborn from literal death if Jesus dies and comes back to life AFTER Lazarus.
  
  Jesus preached to these walking dead and chose from among them a selection of humans to rule with him in his future Kingdom.
  It is among these select (elect) members Jesus will be the FIRST of that Kingdom to die and be brought back to life in celestial spirit form. The sacred secret, as it were, is the identity of those 144,000 harvested who shall rule for 1,000 years.
  
  All OTHER Humans 'harvested' from death must stand up (anastasis) in a resurrection.
  Presumably for further judgment. (I say 'further' because death itself manifests the judgment of God already.)
  
  Two distinct resurrection categories would seem to apply in God's sacred secret.
  1. The resurrected government (no further judgment)
  2. The resurrected humanity who ARE further judged. (To fail that subsequent judgment requires the 'lake of fire' absolute obliteration.
  
  
  
• 
  6

  Second-Temple period mysteries and mysticisms

  by Doug Mason in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i don't know if anyone is interested in the subject of the mysteries and mysticisms of the second-temple period (including paul and the gospels) but if so:.

  https://www.academia.edu/s/61773ba12f?source=link .

  doug.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Terry

  Yes, Doug - better is best.
  We glimpse what sort of people ACADEMIC writers are and the word is "constipated."
  They cram too many shells in their pockets along the sandy beach of history and disfigure the outline.
  
  The best popularizer of History I ever read was Isaac Asimov. He simply spoke to the reader as a fellow companion and it went down easy like a cold drink after a hard hot day.
  Keep up the great work, Doug.
• 
  6

  Second-Temple period mysteries and mysticisms

  by Doug Mason in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i don't know if anyone is interested in the subject of the mysteries and mysticisms of the second-temple period (including paul and the gospels) but if so:.

  https://www.academia.edu/s/61773ba12f?source=link .

  doug.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Terry

  Thank you Doug. Your lucubration is always interesting and informative.
  If you compiled all your essays under one cover the book would be too heavy to lift!
  Never a dull moment in the lot of them.
  HOWEVER ...
  These Academic long-run sentences nearly break my head!
  To wit:
  "In this God-intoxication, in which self and the world are alike forgotten, the subject knows himself to be in possession of the highest and fullest truth; but this truth is only possessed in the quite undeveloped, simple, and bare form of monotonous feeling; what truth the subject possesses is not filled up by any determination in which the simple unity might unfold itself, and it lacks therefore the clearness of knowledge, which is only attained when thought harmonizes differences with unity."
  
  Wow!
  I had to read this 3 times and I'm still a bit woozy.
  Is this really necessary?
  I'm known for long-winded writing - so pot is calling kettle 'black'.
  Shorter sentences, please. Less abstract, please.
  "...thought harmonizes differences with unity." I can't extract a sensible understanding of what that is saying. Is it just me?
  "...this truth is only possessed in the quite undeveloped, simple, and bare form of monotonous feeling..."
  I don't grok this either. I mean, I sort of get the gist of it ...but...?
  
  If you are writing this for the 'average ex-JW" I don't think most of us will make it through the first few paragraphs.
  I LOVE YOUR WORK , mind you - but must I swim so hard against the current only to drown in the riptide?
  HELP!
• 
  6

  A MYSTERIOUS (maybe romantic) LETTER arrives!

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  mysterious romantic letter?.

  my story begins at noon with the letter-carrier dropping off a mystery envelope.

  (for my grandson severin (he was out walking his chihuahua.).

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Terry

  I was playing chess on Roku while my grandson was busying himself pondering the peculiar letter or I imagine it would only have taken a flash glance at the insert. That artwork is telltale!
  
  I wonder if being locked down for pandemic is sorting JW's into a divided group due to lack of fellowship???
• 
  6

  A MYSTERIOUS (maybe romantic) LETTER arrives!

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  mysterious romantic letter?.

  my story begins at noon with the letter-carrier dropping off a mystery envelope.

  (for my grandson severin (he was out walking his chihuahua.).

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Terry

  https://www.wric.com/news/u-s-world/jehovahs-witnesses-begin-global-campaign-distribute-electronic-magazine-in-november/
• 
  6

  A MYSTERIOUS (maybe romantic) LETTER arrives!

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  mysterious romantic letter?.

  my story begins at noon with the letter-carrier dropping off a mystery envelope.

  (for my grandson severin (he was out walking his chihuahua.).

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Terry

  This throw-back to analog snail-mail is primitive but how can it be effective?
  How do you hold a Covid-safe Bible study?
  How do you invite a HH to the virtual Kingdom Hall and love bomb them?
  
  No, I think this is to keep JW's busy with the ILLUSION they are engaged in witness work of importance.
  Who would ever have predicted it would come to this feckless last-ditch travesty?
• 
  6

  A MYSTERIOUS (maybe romantic) LETTER arrives!

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  mysterious romantic letter?.

  my story begins at noon with the letter-carrier dropping off a mystery envelope.

  (for my grandson severin (he was out walking his chihuahua.).

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Terry

  Mysterious Romantic Letter?

  My story begins at noon with the letter-carrier dropping off a mystery envelope

  (for my Grandson Severin (he was out walking his Chihuahua.)

  (age 28) Severin - not the dog.
  
  

  The return address gave the name "Lucia."

  Ahhhh…

  As far as I knew - there was no special love interest in his life.

  Or… was there?

  (Cue the music).

  I placed the mystery envelope in his room and when he returned, I asked, “Who is Lucia?”

  “I don’t know any Lucia - why?”

  I smiled. “She’s in your room waiting on you!”

  Severin gives me his “Grandpa needs professional help” look.

  (A familiar expression around here.)

  Shortly afterward, he returns from the bedroom to the living room grasping the hastily opened letter in his hand - and the most bewildered (but excited!) demeanor.

  I could read his face:

  there was hope in his eyes.

  There was a thrill coursing through his bloodstream.

  Eyes opened wide with expectation; he was panting like the Chihuahua.

  “What does Lucia have to say - and who the hell is she?” I queried eagerly.

  “I don’t know - I CAN’T READ SPANISH!”

  “Say Wha-a-a-at?”

  “I took 2 years of Spanish in school and I can’t read a word of it!”

  I could see how distressed he was and tried my best to calm him

  “You better translate it because the love of your life, your better half - the girl of your dreams Is out there reaching out to you and WAITING to hear from you!” I suggested placidly.

  For some reason this didn’t calm him.

  “There’s some clipping or something that came with the letter.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It is in Spanish too. It looks like an invitation or - well - I just don’t know.”

  I rallied my resourceful side and instantly came up with a plan.

  “Take a photo of the letter and the invitation and send it to somebody you know who can read Spanish.”

  He was getting overtaken by the spirit of this romantic enterprise increasingly, minute by minute.

  “Whoever it is - “ he began, “she’s probably been admiring me from afar all this time”, he added - “only now getting up the courage to contact me - THE MAN OF HER DREAMS- to invite me to something special - some incredible date… or something.”

  That last word had an extra tremor inside, like a resonant bell after it has been rung.

  Finally, I twigged.

  “Let me see it!”

  Severin handed it over. Sure enough it was hand-printed carefully. A long letter like nobody his age even knows how to write anymore in this age of e-mail and text messages.

  This was motivated by strong feelings; it was plain to see (except for the not-understanding-one-damned-word part of it) - all those hand-crafted words had poured out of a kind heart brimful of hope, longing, and probable lust!

  
  

  I blurted out, “Your whole life changes from this moment forward! It was meant to be - it is heaven sent - the gods are crying out to you …”

  
  

  I suddenly broke off from my impassioned, eloquent speech because my eye caught sight of the insert; that ‘other’ thing from inside the envelope.

  It was like a little familiar pamphlet of some kind.

  A stirring welled up from the soles of my feet all the way up my spine like an unwinding anaconda.

  Somehow...someway...I intuited the images printed upon the paper.

  A closer look - eyes squinting - a dawning volcanic sudden comprehension smashed my brain like a brick through a plate glass window.

  (Ian Fleming had written that phrase in Dr. No referencing the Walther PPK .765 mm pistol.)

  I exclaimed aloud: “HOLY SHIT - this is a JEHOVAH’s WITNESS and she is trying to EVANGELIZE YOU!!

  It all came rushing back straightaway - the pandemic has restrained JW’s from going door to door in their ministry and the Watchtower leaders have admonished the Brothers and Sisters to copy in their own personal handwriting a message about JEHOVAH’s Kingdom!

  The insert is a Tract meant to propagandize my unsuspecting grandson and draw him into a web of culty craftiness!!

  I explained all this aloud to Severin and watched (like an ambulance driver) as the light of hope left his eyes and the flush of pinkish hue drained from his cheeks!

  Hopes dashed.

  Back to an empty world of isolation and solitude.

  Those insidious well-intentioned bastards!

  He crumpled the letter and tract into a wad and tossed it in the trash.

  I requested that he retrieve it so I could have something to write about and post here about

  This temporary excitement.

  Oh well. It may have been a false alarm but at least neither of us got ahead of ourselves.

  Severin began to see the humor in the situation. In fact, he started laughing.

  I agree. It’s just a much needed break in a rather monotonous life in a chaotic world of

  Pandemic.

  And that’s the end of it. I have attached the photo of the telltale love letter.