Posts by Annanias

25

The end of this system in 2005?

by Brigido in

hey everybody, check this story out.

i got a call from an inactive friend of mine today.

while we were just shooting the breeze, she happened to bring up something she heard at the hall from others.

Annanias

It may not make it to 2005....

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/09/13/lost.bomb/index.html

72

Rationalism and religion

by Narkissos in

i've not been too good at creating topics thus far, but for my 1000th post (in case you wouldn't notice .

we often oppose reason (ratio) and belief, as if those were mutually exclusive.

reason always works from presuppositions.

Annanias

Cicatrix - ur right. Atheism is a form of religion (complete with it's set of beliefs that must be taken on faith), just like no pattern is a pattern.

20

The END is NIGH??

by Samdownunder in

i watched a fascinating documentary tonight called "the corporation".

it exposed the development of big business in modern day and their greed and corruption of the world.

many of the scholars and experts conceded that by the year 2025, we truly would not have any water left to drink and they discussed the ruination of the rainforests and other important resources as well.

Annanias

First of all, what exactly does "bullocks" mean?

Try reading about the last moments of the Titanic. ("The only difference between this place and the Titanic is that the Titanic had a band.") Or the last days in the Fuher Bunker beneath Berlin. Or AC Clarke's "Childhood's End". Or the last days of the Japanese Empire at the end of WWII. There are some eerily similar thought patterns among the participants. I read an interesting book about the Concentration Camp at Treblinka. The book had been written in honor of the author's parents, who had both died at Treblinka. He opened the book with the question of how six million Jews had allowed themselves and their children to be hustled off to the holocaust? He said that Hitler had once said that after the war, that he was going to allow only six Jews to remain alive, and that he was going to put them in a cage and cart them all over the world so people could see what Jews had looked like. Chillingly, the author said that every Jew believed that they were going to be one of those six.

But things have always been bad, right? Sure, why I can remember reading how Henry IV troubled himself over the nuclear problem of radioactive waste. And Teddy Roosevelt started that senate committee on AIDS, While the Emperor Justinian led the march to save the Brazilian Rain Forest. And everybody knows how damn near 3/5 of the population of Paris in the 1890's were stoned to the gills on anti-depressants and how the Incas were so troubled that a single outbreak of a disease could spread around the planet in just a matter of hours. Nope, nothing has changed .

24

Satan sent to earth in 1914?? My mom's on drugs!

by Bubbamar in

in my mom's last letter she made a statement that in 1914 satan was sent to earth.

does anyone know what she's talking about?

i thought everyone pretty much agreed that the snake in the garden was satan, that satan was on earth in jesus day and still is and has always been.

Annanias

kls, I know, and "where is this promised presence of his?" I agree that the black death, and small pox, and all that is that did occur before 1914; however, anyone who is going to say that the 14th centrury and the 21st century are the same hasn't been paying attention.

72

Rationalism and religion

by Narkissos in

i've not been too good at creating topics thus far, but for my 1000th post (in case you wouldn't notice .

we often oppose reason (ratio) and belief, as if those were mutually exclusive.

reason always works from presuppositions.

Annanias

Narkiosis - Good(?) question. According to the classical Greeks, "Gullible Rationalism" is impossible. (Or, at the very least, oxymoronic). I enjoy these philosophical discussions because they get me to think, help me learn new ideas, and are inherently harmless. But they are also, ultimately, futile. I ran across this somewhat small book in the mathmatics section of the library that had been authored by the guy who invented the geodesic dome. (I am having a brain fart and cannot remember the guys name, but he is an unquestioned genius) The book was about 120 pages of small type that proved 1+1=2. I kid you not. I had to read this thing because why in the world would it possibly take 120+ pages to prove something as simply obvious as that. Well, the vast majority of the book was spent proving that unity in the universe is possible, after all, how can you add something to something of which it's already a part? Another portion of the book dealt with the mechanisms of combination, i.e. when 1 and 1 form a 2, does the universe remain? And so on. My point is that unless I apply a certain amount of "presupposition" to my life, I will "never be able to do nothing". Like the man with the truely "perfect" memory, every sound, every sight, every smell will unlock such a flood of remembrances that I will, for all practical purposes, be completely incapacitated.

The same is true with the "reason" of religion. Do the JWs feel good about their presuppositions because they've accepted them, or have they accepted them because they make them feel good? Quantum physicists (as well as psychologists, curious bedfellow they) do agree that our perception of reality alters our reality. Maybe the reason the JW's have shut their brain off is because they have become completely satisfied with their presuppositions and that's as far as they want to take it. I say, "Good for them." The problem comes in when, like the citizens of the valley of the blind, they want to make me stop my babbling by removing these things I keep calling "eyes".

24

Satan sent to earth in 1914?? My mom's on drugs!

by Bubbamar in

in my mom's last letter she made a statement that in 1914 satan was sent to earth.

does anyone know what she's talking about?

i thought everyone pretty much agreed that the snake in the garden was satan, that satan was on earth in jesus day and still is and has always been.

Annanias

nocturne got it right. The point is that Satan was CONFINED to the earth. And, he's really mad now! The date thing may be wrong, may be right, I'm not sure that matters a whole lot. I used to get into terrble rows with my history instructors over dates. They were so anal about them, claiming that dates are the "vertebrae" of history. I felt that understanding the "flow" of history was vastly more important than the specific whens, and that fussing over whether England was invaded in 1050 or 1051distracted from the issue. Most of my history professors were left unfazed as they handed back my tests with the red ink all over them.

You won't get any scriptures to refute what your mother has said, unless they are made up or misapplied. So, you got two choices, you can throw up your hands and state the whole thing is BS and close your mind to it, or, you can take the modern "realistic" approach and look at this world and tell yourself that it's really a wonderful place to be. That it's really great, and, why, the people in the Thebes of 839 BCE lived exactly like we do today, i.e. with the threat of suitcase nukes, and aerosol anthrax, and runaway Aids, and mass starvation, and pandemics, and poisoned environment. I mean, didn't James Cooleridge extol the virtues of Prozac and Wellbutrin as everybody and everything at that time was just as depressing as it is today? Satan and his demons being confined to the earth? What a joke! There's no proof of that! Go ahead, prove it, I dare you.

16

Fearing the Pain

by rockhound in

after the death of her witness father, a dear friend of ours told us her mother, in deep depression, said "this wasn't supposed to happen.the new system should have come by now" .

depression is not unique to this heart broken sister.

a witness in our old hall was out in service one day with four pioneer sisters.

Annanias

But no matter how philosophical we are, how many splinters we remove, how clear our thinking, we still lose all that we have. With that as an understood, unchanging,given, all the rest is meaningless.

32

Other Religions

by rain in

jw
friends

something i thought of as i was reading through the posts:

i have read through various posts where it has been said that some feel that jws are not the organisation or people of god.

therefore, has anyone after leaving the jws joined another religion?

Annanias

Terry - Once again, "here here". (Or is it "hear hear"? Can some kind Brit or Aussie please illuminate me?) Yes, it's really, really hard to leave Disneyland and get much of a thrill out of "Waldo's World's Biggest Snake Farm and Bar Bee Que". But there is much more to it than the fairyland ending (it is interesting, but National Lampoon did a lampoon of the WT & Awake and the WT they did was pretty much along the same lines as you), as Jesus' apostles said after Jesus shocked everybody with his discussion on his blood, "Where shall we go away to?"

I could never find anyone that even remotely approached the exceptional thinking and clarity of expression about the Bible. Yeah, sure, there were/are rough spots, kinda mish-mashy, but I haven't found a perfect Caluclus course yet either. I got an engineering degree (yes, I was a card carrying JW at the time) from a Jesuit University. If you're not familiar with the Jesuits, historically, they are the SS of the Catholic Church, and, above and beyond anything else, YOU WILL TAKE 6 HOURS OF RELIGION or you will not graduate! I tried everything to get out of it, but to no avail. Anyhow, the most interesting thing was that when I went into the class the stupidity of the whole thing almost doubled me over in laughter. The instructor was a Rabbi! Here I am, a JW in a Catholic school being taught religion by a Rabbi. Talk about a cosmic joke! (I managed one class and then dropped out because I found out that the university had started offering the class via the internet and that was fine with me.) If you'd like, I can give you details on my stay in the class, it is uproariously funny.

But what I left with was the realization of how completely, totally, absolutely and without question dumb people are about religion, God, it's history, it's purposes, anything! No wonder the likes of David Koresh can get these people to live in a hole outside of Waco, Texas. There were about a dozen other students in my class and they all reputed to be "Christian" (the instructor made each of us say what religion we belonged to, or had belonged to if that were the case) and I marveled at this scene. These people were all my age (>30), adult, with jobs and families, and they were sitting here learning religion from a high up officer in the organization that had killed their god. What a chuckle.

rain- to answer your question: No. I have not even looked at another religion, what would be the point? Terry's description of the soul-mate is a literal description of what happened to me, both with my wife and the religion. I have tried to find another woman, but, so far, have been unable. Although I have no doubt that my search will, eventually, be successful. But religion? I attended one church religious service in Naples, Fla. (ironically, it was while I was on a vacation to Disneyworld) with a fiancee (we were visiting her cousin) and I think it was Presbyterian or Methodist or something or other. After the 25 minutes of Broadway level production of gospel singing, solos, arias, dance numbers, all being shown on 3 (not 2, not 1) stadium sized flat screens (one of which will cost as much as your average KH), the "Pastor" came out and whirled through a 10 minute fussilade of name dropping about all of the celebrities he had spoken with (Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and a few others, mostly politicians however) and how beautiful the world was. He cited two or three scriptures real fast, I don't think there was a Bible in the building, but it didn't matter, those people were not there for a religious experience. Then the Pastor introduced a younger man who was, I assumed, a rising star, who spoke for about 5 minutes which turned out to be an introduction to this really nice looking, big tittied bleach blonde woman with a really low cut gown (or robe or whatever they call those things that the choir wears) who sang her little tushie off. This, of course, spawned another 15 minutes of gospel music, dance, inspiration slide show, lights, camera, action and - fade to black. It's hard to describe how much closer to God I felt after watching that blondes tits heave and fall and jiggle while she did her number, let me tell you! As we were leaving the place I turned to my fiancee and asked, "What the hell was that all about?", but she just elbowed me in the ribs and smiled at her frowning cousin.

7

Is the U:S ahead of the rest of the world?

by vitty in

jw
friends

do you think dubs in usa find out quicker or know more about the organization, than europe?.

you do seem to talk about things and people ive never heard of.

up until 6 months ago i was (happily!!!

Annanias

vittvin, news is news is news. I'm sure that somebody in the dark recesses of Nambia won't be able to get their 5 minute Dow Jones quotes, but the world is interrelated and interwired to the point that if the info becomes available, everybody pretty much hears it at the same time. The info becomming factually avavilable is the trick.

You implied that you are no longer "happily" going to meetings and FS, and I am sorry to hear that. I realize that everyone has their own view of this board and it's purposes; however, I like to think that actively discouraging anybody from anything that makes them happy should be frowned upon, happiness being in such short supply these days.

"It makes me so sad to think that TODAY poeple are starting a study and a life in the org without knowing the nightmare that will start. And maybe waste 20 years of thieres and thiere childrens lives."

Are you sure that everybody thinks that life within the borg is a nightmare? Even the pod people in "The Body Snatchers" were content. I like the differing views on this board, but I don't agree with all of them; but then, I didn't necessarily agree with all the views I heard at a KH either. The value of this board is how it encourages, demonstrates, and exemplifies thinking for ones self.

14

Comments You Will Not Hear at the 9-19-04 or 9-26-04 WT Study (Highlights)

by blondie in

comments you will not hear at the 9-19-04 or 9-26-04 wt study (august 15, 2004 issue) highlights only

review comments

will be in black and parentheses ().

Annanias

Blondie, considering the Fortress article, what seems to be the theme is that Jehovah's protection will come thru the congregation. For some this might be true; however, what I think most of the people on this site are trying to say is that we have empirical data to the contrary. It is unfortunate, but a lot of the logic being used is based upon assumptions, and those assumptions are the problem itself.

{"You know what happens when you make an assumption, don't you? You make an ass out of you and 'umption'." Samuel L. Jackson}

The primary statement (corollary) is that Jehovah is our fortress in times of distress. This is true, as ultimately, we have nowhere else to go. A major part of the problem, though, lies is the interpretation of the term 'distress'. Being able to say 'oh, I burned the darn muffins' may be distressful indeed, but hardly worth his time and attention. It would seem that the time(s) when our soul is being ripped apart, where death is not only imminent but probably welcomed, where the opening verses of Psalm69 is made to sound like a tea party, is when Jehovah is longed for (and attentive?). Curiously, however, we are instructed to go to the KH and associate with our Bros & Siss because this is a "another provision" that CAN help us. But what if the Bros & Sis are the source of the problem itself? What does one do then? Apparently, the assumption is that this situation never happens? What do you do when you're being tossed about by a blustering sea, and the "crags from the wind" are the problem?

I have read a number of personal stories as to why people left the truth and I haven't, as yet, run across anyone leaving a KH because their dog died, or their car wouldn't start, or their diet wasn't working. (But then, admittedly, I don't know EVERYBODY'S story) Even though some may have been crushed by a pet's death, or angered at their transportaion, or disgusted with their girth, so far, without fail, the issue of egression seems triggered from the congs either refusing meaningful concern or showing outright hostility toward whatever distressful issue is at hand. So, the therapy suggested here is a lot like saying, "What? This patient has OD'd on Heroine? Quick, give him 15mg of morphine!"

But all is not lost. We are given a REASON for this perculiar regimen: (I love this. A personal favorite) Standard answer #1A:

By allowing Satan to bring a measure of hardship upon us, Jehovah has given each of us the opportunity to furnish our personal answer to Satan?s challenge.

What this means is that if you are suffering (you poor slob) I don't have to help you because if I do help you, (drum roll please) it will interfere with your personal answer to Satan! So when you wusses come crawling in here begging for help for whatever malcontention you're going thru, why I can just slap you on the back and say, "Way to go. Keep up the good work. Now stay warm and well fed."

What is actually happening, and has been for some about four years now is that something has been turning up the pressure on this world. (Gee, I wonder what?) Anybody who doesn't believe that hasn't bought any gas lately. What has been occuring inside the borg, however, is what happens within every institution that is created for a situation in history during a differing situation. Like the military during peace time and war time. The officer corps during peace time will be vastly different than the office corps during a war. (We're talking total war here, not little lopsided political skirmishes like Iraq) Why? Because the value of a man, his attributes, the talents that it takes to be an officer during peace time are almost meaningless when the sh*t hits the fan. Circumstances have begun to outstrip most of the borg's leadership potential. The smiles and the politics and the WT waving that vaults one into the "elder" corps is fast becomming ineffectual in the face of our 21st century. That's why the article of 9/5. It is/was a general cry for a different type of recruit to the officer corps, and, a general admission of the current failure to adapt and understand that the rules have changed. Just because you bluffed, bamboozled, and hornswoggled your way to an "eldership" doesn't mean you know how to handle the life long results of decisions facing an 18 year old being on either accepting a full scholarship to Harvard or the evening slot at the drive thru window. The old tried and true BS that use to work back in the 70's and 80's, but that have since been laid to waste by circumstance and time, are just so much hot air now, and an insistence that a "true Christian" has to accept them just like it was 1976 is not only a foolish denial of history, but an insult to the individual as well. The vast majority of the "elders" are just like the vast majority of the rest of humanity: they are struggling so hard to convince themselves and everyone else that nothing has changed, and that anyone who says otherwise is subversive. Anybody remember the movie "1942" with John Belushi and Dan Akroyd? Well, that general feeling of doom, panic, and insecurity is within the borg and growing. (Became a UN NGO? What the hell were you thinking? I can't turn my back for a minute!) Jehovah may not let this slide all the way down the toilet, but read the handwritting on the wall: you need to start getting YOURSELVES ready. The cong may be a great place to get solace and sympathy, but don't expect anything beyond that. You need to start hunkering down and learning how to rely on yourself because the JW next to you may not be trustworthy.

The stress fractures are starting to appear. You are some of them. Remember, all of this is going to get a hell of a lot worse before it get's any better. If you believe the Bible, then you've got to remember that it's going to get so bad that unless it is stopped, nobody gets out alive.