Posts by Terry

34

My old computer is dead: long live my new CHROMEBOOK

by Terry in

jw
friends

i had my previous toshiba laptop plugged into the wall five days ago when a sudden electric storm drove a jagged bolt of electricity earthward and fried my hard drive.

i posted my sad status on facebook.

guess who saw it?

Terry

Thank you!
I'm glad I didn't beat my kids when they were little :)

34

My old computer is dead: long live my new CHROMEBOOK

by Terry in

jw
friends

i had my previous toshiba laptop plugged into the wall five days ago when a sudden electric storm drove a jagged bolt of electricity earthward and fried my hard drive.

i posted my sad status on facebook.

guess who saw it?

I keep everything on the "cloud" and lost absolutely nothing.
All my files, setting, documents, photos, preferences, favorites--everything--was instantly ready on my new Chromebook.
It is a whole new world.
If I create a file or a photo on any device, it is automatically available on my others.
I just arrived at Starbucks. It usually takes a minimum of 5 minutes for my old Toshiba to connect with the public network. This time, it took 5 seconds.

Only a 2 weeks ago I switched from Windows 7 to 10 and back again. I have to say, the Google eco-system has it beat by miles. No worries about slowdowns, virus, defrag, etc.
The sound from my speakers is awesome, too.

34

My old computer is dead: long live my new CHROMEBOOK

by Terry in

jw
friends

i had my previous toshiba laptop plugged into the wall five days ago when a sudden electric storm drove a jagged bolt of electricity earthward and fried my hard drive.

i posted my sad status on facebook.

guess who saw it?

Terry

I had my previous Toshiba laptop plugged into the wall five days ago when a sudden electric storm drove a jagged bolt of electricity earthward and fried my hard drive.
I posted my sad status on Facebook. Guess who saw it? My son, Jason.
Today he invited me to breakfast and showed up at me door with a brand new boxed Chromebook 15.6 inch laptop!

I'm over the moon.
I'm all about Google drive, Gmail, Google universe and I'm all set up anyway.
From the moment I opened the box until making this post has elapsed two minutes!

All my settings were ready to go. The battery is fully charged. From "off" to fully ready is 7 seconds.
Life is good. I love my son!
________________________
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Provides good audio and volume output without distortion.

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Thin and light design with DVD/CD drive omitted for improved portability. 4-cell lithium-ion battery.

Bluetooth 4.0 interface syncs with compatible devices

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Also include USB 2.0 port to connect more accessories and peripherals. The USB 3.0 port are backward-compatible with USB 2.0 devices (at 2.0 speeds).

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Connects to your network or hotspots on all current Wi-Fi standards. The Ethernet LAN port also lets you plug into wired networks.

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Note: This Chromebook does not include a built-in DVD/CD drive.

Intel, Pentium, Celeron, Core, Atom, Ultrabook, Intel Inside and the Intel Inside logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.Enjoy budget computing with this Acer Chromebook 15. The Intel Celeron processor gives you plenty of grunt for all-day use, and the 15.6-inch screen gives you good visuals so that you can enjoy photos, movies and digital content wherever you go. A 16GB hard drive ensures this Acer Chromebook 15 can store your files with ease.

4

TALKING NONSENSE by using words attached to nothing

by Terry in

jw
friends

especially in listening to people who "believe" things (spirituality, faith, etc.

) do i hear words being used which are nonsense.. i'm a person who cherishes words in a weird, almost fetishistic way :)i discovered this quite young.

i was drawn to complicated word patterns and liked to repeat them.

Terry

Especially in listening to people who "believe" things (spirituality, faith, etc.) do I hear words being used which are nonsense.

I'm a person who cherishes words in a weird, almost fetishistic way :)
I discovered this quite young. I was drawn to complicated word patterns and liked to repeat them. There was a commercial for Ajax (the foaming cleanser). I memorized it and recited out loud for my folks who thought it was so cute. Of course, I was five years old at the time.
Here is what I remember:

"CREST has been shown to be an effective decay-preventive dentifrice that can be of significant value when used in a conscientiously applied program of oral hygiene and regular professional care."

I adored tongue-twisters too. "The silent sea ceaseth and thus sufficeth us."
I was constantly making word lists and looking up and memorizing definitions.

Why? I just can't explain it. I really couldn't help it.

All of which goes a way toward explaining my intense dislike of "empty words" used by charlatans to (fake) explain mystical principles.

Here is an example from an advertised best seller:

"The author claims that as we think and feel, a corresponding frequency is sent out into the universe which attracts back to us events and circumstances on that same frequency."

What the hell is meant by using the word "frequency" describes "how often" a wave rises and falls, for instance. (Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit time.)

The author is asserting facts not in evidence, to wit: "thinking" and "feeling" transmits energy pulses so strong and powerful they influence reality. And not just that! These "frequencies" find, select, captivate and take hostage the very objects of thought the thinker and feeler created in their imagination!

Okaaaay. With billions of people thinking and feeling every second of each day--what kind of universal traffic jam would result?

Here is a statement which doubled me over with laughter.

"Physicist Dick Bierman said of the Global Consciousness Project that the effects were very real and the only thing in dispute is what the results actually mean."

Ahh, that was rich indeed!

Here is a more sophisticated statement:
"What happens after death is so unspeakably glorious that our imagination and our feelings do not suffice to form even an approximate conception of it. The dissolution of our time-bound form in eternity brings no loss of meaning." – Carl Jung

M-mmmm, isn't he saying "We don't know anything"? But, then throws in the puzzling ". . . brings no loss of meaning." Does that represent the thought that ignorance carries meaning? Oh, my head hurts!

My taste for intellects which encompass reality is reflected in one of my heroes here:

"A paradox is not a conflict with reality. It is a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality should be like." – Dr. Richard Feynman

Isn't Feynman describing our tendency to decide before we have proof? We call something 'impossible' until it happens. Our expectations and ignorance combined to evaluate without proof.

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” – Arthur Schopenhauer

I've visited several "fringe" websites to read the jelly-like reasoning which amounts to "Science doesn't have all the answers." I shout back at them, "So does that PROVE something about your unproven belief system?"

Yeah, you're right in thinking I need to go lie down awhile.

46

THOUGHTS ON UPGRADING TO (Free) WINDOWS 10

by Terry in

jw
friends

i've been using windows 7 for several years and have had no complaints.. i've tried many browsers and settled on google chrome.

it has absolutely everything i want or need.. i kept hearing about the free upgrade to windows 10, so i went to youtube and watched endless "reviews" pro and con.. what pushed me over the (microsoft edge) was the fact i could test drive the new operating system.

for 30 days and go back to windows 7 if i didn't like it!

Terry

I tried the "free download" of Chess Titans and t'was "no longer available" much to my sorrow.

Now with the return of the 7, I can rejoin my brain cells for battle royal on demand.

12

PAROUSIA: The Watchtower's IRON BALLOON

by Terry in

the iron balloon: parousia.

“up, up and away in my beautiful.

.balloon,” is the lyric of a popular song from the 60’s.. it captures an emotional exhilaration lifting us from everyday life way up into the sky away from all our cares and woe.. .

Terry

Every decade we peer through in order to see and "hear" Jesus colors and distorts.
The process is called Accretion. It is a layer upon layer of changes, influences, reinterpretations.
We are far removed from those times and we must look backward through time to arrive at Jesus

Jews spoke a different language from Greek, Aramaic.
Only a Jew who had grown up in a Grecianized commercial metropolis such as Tarsus, like Paul, would be exposed to the vocabulary and sense of Neo-Platonic ideas saturating everyday koine conversations.
Jesus spoke to his followers in a primitive language (compared to Greek, the most logical and scientific language on Earth at that time.)

Jesus' vocabulary was basic and unsophisticated and practically devoid of philosophical content even though Jews had struggled with Greek inculturation since the time of the Maccabees.
So, why am I bringing all of this up?

OUR INFORMATION IS IN GREEK not in Aramaic.

Our information is thousands of years past.

We are examining under a microscope something which NEVER EXISTED as such and seeking to make a science of it.

Systematic Theology is a joke--but a serious joke where nobody laughs.

The Watchtower 'scholars' (cough cough) are the joke of jokes because they "know better" than the genuine scholars.
As Island Man pointed out, JW's believe in a presence before a coming because they've been tricked and their rational and analytical minds have been stifled and detuned. Plus, independent reasoning (which is exactly what the GB are all about in relation to mainstream scholarship)

is verboten.

.

66

THE LINGERING SHADOW OF '75

by Terry in

none of you are old enough to have been there, i suspect.

i had been in prison two years as a jw conscientious objector when the exciting news about 1975 spread like wildfire.i was paroled from prison in 1969 and immediately began pioneering.

the pressures began mounting throughout the organization.

Terry

I can't get this phrase out of my head; it keeps haunting me as a giant banner for mental illness.

Faith is more than just an expectation. It is (an) expectation that is assured to such a degree that it is able to support, uphold and guarantee that what is hoped for will become a reality.

Does this in any way sound like that New Age book, THE SECRET?

"The author claims that as we think and feel, a corresponding frequency is sent out into the universe which attracts back to us events and circumstances on that same frequency."

66

THE LINGERING SHADOW OF '75

by Terry in

none of you are old enough to have been there, i suspect.

i had been in prison two years as a jw conscientious objector when the exciting news about 1975 spread like wildfire.i was paroled from prison in 1969 and immediately began pioneering.

the pressures began mounting throughout the organization.

Terry

Wouldn't you love a sweet gig like this "Alien expert" has?

Maybe I could become a Unicorn expert or a Werewolf expert.

12

PAROUSIA: The Watchtower's IRON BALLOON

by Terry in

the iron balloon: parousia.

“up, up and away in my beautiful.

.balloon,” is the lyric of a popular song from the 60’s.. it captures an emotional exhilaration lifting us from everyday life way up into the sky away from all our cares and woe.. .

Terry

DATA-DOG: So let's pretend that the Bible is reliable, what would the "essence" of the Christ be?
___________

Not everybody finds these discussions fascinating, but I do. You can find a lot of reference material on the dialogue (knock-down-drag-out fights) between opponents in regard to the "essence" and "substance" of Christ.

http://www.socialmatter.net/2015/08/28/an-ideological-history-of-early-christianity/

5

DO BIRDS-OF-A-FEATHER really "Flock together"?

by Terry in

jw
friends

my grandfather insisted "birds of a feather flock together" and thought it was some kind of genius rule-of-thumb for understanding life.then i began noticing at school, at parties, in neighborhoods, people who looked the same hung out together and excluded others.then, i became a jw.

they only hang out with jw's.

the world was further divided into sheep and goats.

Terry

My grandfather insisted "Birds of a feather flock together" and thought it was some kind of genius rule-of-thumb for understanding life.
Then I began noticing at school, at parties, in neighborhoods, people who looked the same hung out together and excluded others.
Then, I became a Jw. They only hang out with JW's. The world was further divided into Sheep and Goats. Either/Or.
As I got older, I noticed people further divided by music they listened to, mocking others for having different "lame" tastes. The way people dressed further divided them. The economic background became a huge divider. More and more I looked and saw things like sports fanatics who hated other teams than their choice, Chevy owners who made fun of Fords, American cars vs. Japanese, etc.
Birds-of-a-feather seemed to actually flock together even though plenty of Political Correctness pretends it "shouldn't be unfair."
Among my black friends I was shocked to hear light-skinned blacks put down darker skinned blacks. What was going on with that?
Is this the secret of the Universe?
Then one day, I was in a conversation with guy who worked as a Professor, teaching Evolutionary Biology. He brought up something I hadn't thought about--it started to make sense.
A species survives by seeing "others" as competitors and singling them out and excluding them. It is hard-wired as a survival mechanism.
It has nothing to do with "fair" or "moral" because it is a leftover from tens of thousands of years of competition and survival of the fittest.
Humans have left the food chain. We won. But, we can't rid ourselves of these hidden instincts to divide off and exclude "others."

Political solutions don't work because Politics practices the VERY SAME PREJUDICES politicians pretend to want to eliminate. They divide into parties.

Liberal vs. Conservative. They mock those who disagree.

Each side will eagerly dehumanize their opponents.

They camouflage their aggression as "public service." Meanwhile, they enrich themselves just like ancient predator clans.

It all just another version of the same old bullshit.
Maybe my grandfather was right: Birds-of-a-feather flock together.

We once were JW's hanging out exclusively pointing at Christendom as "goats" and now we are Ex JW's hanging out together excluding our old gang, pointing and sneering at "those assholes."
What can we do about all this other than force our consciousness to broaden and teach ourselves to be more analytical of our motives and actions?