Well I only periodically show up to Sunday meetings (when I visit family or vice versa), and each and every time there's something about apostates and their devious reasonings. I don't think there's been a real significant increase in demonizing apostates ...either that or other congregations have finally reached the level of paranoia I've encountered in all the congregations I've gone to..
Midget-Sasquatch
JoinedPosts by Midget-Sasquatch
-
15
New apostate scare?
by Snowcrash ini'm curious if anyone else who still attends meetings keeps hearing the same drek about apostates at every meeting?
i have been, and it gets to me a little, seeing as i feel like a snake in the grass.
has anyone else noticed this insane amount of focus on apostates?
-
-
-
8
SETI for Dummies
by Nosferatu inafter i left the jws, i was considering finding a new religion.
the one that appealed to me most was seti.
however, i've only started reading up on it recently.. .
-
-
Midget-Sasquatch
This is why I could see them referring to the star of Bethlehem as, well, a star. There was no movies or books on flying saucers back then, let alone any kind of motor vehicles, aeroplanes, or electricity. How else are they to describe it?
As to how they'd describe it, I'm with you. IIRC even Betty and Barney Hill (first publicized case of alien abduction) said that a star appeared to be following them...which then turned out to be the alien craft they were (allegedly) taken into. Jesus being an ET is plausible I guess. Definitely more interesting than the idea that Ezekiel's vision of the flying creatures with the wheels within wheels was a UFO & ET encounter. But so many mythic elements were lifted and incorporated into the story of Jesus, that it makes one wonder how much or how little truth is actually behind it?
-
14
Study puts civilian toll in Iraq at over 100,000
by Simon intragic.
remember the neo-con jokes such as "shock and awe" and "precision bombing"?
how about the rediculous notion that you only need a couple of hundred thousand troops to control an invaded country?
-
-
Midget-Sasquatch
I keep on letting myself forget about the many thousands of innocents who are killed across the globe in all sorts of conflicts. Probably just to stop depression from my inability to change any of that.
US soldiers are being shielded by the strategy of bombing at a distance. But I think its also shielding them psychologically...detaching them to some extent from the human destruction the weaponry causes...with these "remote" engagements it can appear less gorey than it is (yes so many were probably killed in that sortee etc.)...grief and revulsion can only set in when you directly experience the horror of it all (like that US soldier that cried about the Iraqi baby girl) ...I'm hoping we're not progressing towards more "sanitized" wars.
-
10
Congregations as Charities?
by Nosferatu inhttp://canadagazette.gc.ca/parti/1999/19991127/html/commis-e.html
i found this thing, not quite sure what it means, but the following are listed as charities:.
valleyview congregation of jehovah's witnesses, port alberni british columbia, port alberni, b.c.. parkside congregation of jehovah's witnesses, chatham, ont.. hamilton-dundas congregation of .
-
-
Midget-Sasquatch
Damn Scully you are awesome with your searching!
The congregation I went to had to spend 80% of what it took in as contributions, and Revenue Canada would send a statement whether or not the disbursement quota was met for the past tax year.
Shame that they wouldn't revoke the charitable status right away if they failed to spend enough...it would have to happen a few times in a row...and if they should spend in excess of the disbursement quota one year (ooh additions/renovations anyone?) they could carry that amount over to cover any shortfalls. Isn't it wonderful how the Canadian taxpayer gets to subsidize all that?
-
8
SETI for Dummies
by Nosferatu inafter i left the jws, i was considering finding a new religion.
the one that appealed to me most was seti.
however, i've only started reading up on it recently.. .
-
-
Midget-Sasquatch
NOS,
Do you have the seti at home app running on your computer? Wouldn't it be cool if your computer were the one to first detect an actual ET signal?
Anyway, I'd have to say that alot of the NT stuff is myth. Like you, I kinda would like for some of it to have some real basis, but look into Jewish midrash, and Jewish traditions about the Messiah. Matthew tries to make a strong parallel with the Jewish traditions of Moses and his "past" and what was supposedly Jesus' story. The murder of the innocent babies by Herod is just like the murder of all the hebrew males in Egyot. Both Moses and Jesus (to be chosen ones) escaped though. There was a jewish tradition that a star would indeed herald the coming of the messiah, as too there was a tradition that a star had also signaled the birth of Moses. Then Matthew adds other stuff like having Jesus and his folks flee to Egypt....that way an OT passage that says God would call his Son out of Egypt looked like prophecy and at the same time reinforce the pattern and link up with Moses and the Exodus of Isreal out of Egypt.
Even cooler is how alot of the details in the story of the birth and death of Jesus has parallels in several pagan myths too.
-
16
Human skeletons found in Flores dated back 18,000 years!
by badboy in.
they have found `fossils' of a new human species in liang ???
cave.. only1.5 metres in height, this is of the most exciting disveries to came from east asia.. i wonder what jws will make of this one?
-
-
Midget-Sasquatch
I really liked reading Lord of the Flies in school but I don't think the remains were of children.
Blasted, facts have always killed very cool possible scenarios for me!!!!
Experts can be very close in determining the age of an individual with detailed observations of the skeleton. How many permanent teeth have erupted or not is one way to peg age roughly, as well as whether there's been bone fusion at the ends of long bones...which starts around 17-8 or thereabouts. Joint condition gives more of an idea of the harshness of life or health of the individual but also can have a bearing on age. So alas they were thirty something midgets like yours truly.
-
24
This is sooooo scary, is it for real???
by ohiocowboy ini hope that this is not real.
it is too scary to think about... .
http://www.drudgereport.com/abct.htm.
-
-
Midget-Sasquatch
The FBI and the CIA have recently taken in a number of other suspects and are trying to bring to light any plots in progress. How many of them have been mistakenly taken in? More troubling, how many of them are deliberate decoys?
-
12
An incredible illusion...U Gotta see this!!!
by ohiocowboy inthis is really wild!!!.
http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~moraes/illusion.html.
if you take a look at the following picture , let me tell you ... it is not animated.
-
-
Midget-Sasquatch
Really Phat OC!!! ...kinda like an LSD-free acid trip...one of the best illusions I've seen...
-
31
THIS IS ALL COMPLETELY NORMAL???
by Corvin inremember the kingdom hall bathroom spankings for us kids that did not sit quietly for the meeting?
the threats, the manipulation, the head games, the forced meeting attendance, forced field service activity, forced family wt publication study, the forbidden association with non-jw?s, the berating and chastising for having a thought or idea of your own, the dresser drawer searches looking for music or magazines you were not suppose to have .
you know, the typical jw upbringing .
-
-
Midget-Sasquatch
Took me a while, in fact I was in Gr. 5 I believe before the school had a guest speaker come and talk to us kids about different kinds of abuses and harsh treatments. I knew my situation wasn't the terrible ones that other kids had to face, but I saw how close it got to that.
Even though I lived in a religiously divided home for most of my childhood, I still got punished the same way by both sides...the old Italian culture of beating the living daylights out of your children for nearly anything was just the way it was for me, other kids at the Italian congegation, and even the Italian kids at the RC school I went to ... we'd tell ourselves that the punishments made us stronger, and that the other kids were the ones who got shafted because they wouldn't be able to play after school, or watch TV for days etc. as their punishments.
-
45
IF YOU CAN'T SAY SOMETHING NICE . . .
by Corvin in.
say something kind about someone else on this board.
try to pick someone you don?t know as well as the others and focus on what it is about them that appeals to you.
-
-
Midget-Sasquatch
If a topic was started from Terry, then its usually one that makes me reflect deeply on myself and my experiences ... and reading the ensuing responses from others also brings up many insights.