I've been married too long to remember what our first official date was, but I think it had to do with 1) meal/restaurant (which is like a fly-over where you gather critical bird's eye view intelligence) and then 2) a walk around an active setting, in this case a downtown river boardwalk with arts/shops/scenery/tons of people, the idea being that the pressure came off the 1-to-1 'confrontational' conversation and now became a comparison of reactions to new stimuli, where the actual self might be more easily revealed (for both of your benefits).
Posts by rmt1
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42List of do's and dont's on a first date..........
by mtsgrad ini was planning on wearing my hairy chest and medallion.
can i have some more do's and dont's please?
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49
I like swearing
by Newborn ini have to admit that i love being allowed to swear .
damn!.
/bad newborn.
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rmt1
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=p&p=32 gives this etymology: "profane (v.) 1382, from L. profanare "to desecrate," from profanus "unholy, not consecrated," from pro fano "not admitted into the temple (with the initiates)," lit. "out in front of the temple," from pro- "before" + fano, abl. of fanum "temple." The adj. is attested from 1483; originally "un-ecclesiastical, secular;" sense of "unholy, polluted" is recorded from c.1500. Profanity is 1607, from L.L. profanitas, from L. profanus. Extended sense of "foul language" is from Old Testament commandment against "profaning" the name of the Lord." The when-to of profanity is a fascinating question. The instinctiveness of wanting to utter something, whatever it is, in response to some external event belies our need to linguistically control the situation, demonstrate to ourselves that we have some explanation or accounting for what just happened, even if to ratify that we don't fully understand it. JWs (e.g. my mom) would use euphemisms like "Oh my word!" (aka oh my god), darnit, heck, all the usual suspects. My discovery of the f-word occurred when I was about 7, and at the Tuesday night book study, and was using the brute force method of attaching each alphabetic letter to the front of "uck". Why not? Now, the upright brother who told my father I had "used the f-word" of course did not bother to explain what this innocent 7-yo was doing, so my dad had to get to the bottom of it while I was utterly bewildered what the (*#^*$(^*&^%*Q# was going on. Anyway- this homo sapien predilection to linguistically seal an unexpected/unfortunate event seem to me the opposite of the predilection of instantaneous belief in god during an instant of danger. I'm perfectly atheistic but in my reality my homo sapien forebears had an evolutionary advantage by believing in god, and if I panic (e.g. child about to get hit by car - something real), it's that evolutionary heritage leaping into active mode.
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24
"Good" JWs Are Like Terrorists
by minimus inthey don't care if they die, as long as it's for the cause.
they will zealously implement their agenda no matter how unreasonable or ignorant it is.
if "mother" told them to become martyrs, they follow the direction.
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rmt1
Also, adherence to Excommunication is a tiny form of cleverly not noticing a Holocaust in progress.
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6
Earthquakes in one place after another.
by rmt1 in"expert: small ark.
earthquakes could be warning"; http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/aleqm5gfmhrvlmlrqtwwnjzodjogi6imqad94nss4o3
who do jws blame for earthquakes?
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rmt1
"Expert: Small Ark. earthquakes could be warning"; http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gFMHRVlmLRQtwwnjzoDjOGi6iMqAD94NSS4O3 Who do JWs blame for earthquakes? All the signs of the times/composite sign are symptoms of man's protracted loss of god, but how to earthquakes fit into that? They could perhaps chalk up some tectonic activity to oil extraction? But if one plotted earthquakes on a map and compared it to lives lost, I don't think that oil extraction and earthquakes are correlated. Do they explain earthquakes as a nefarious activity of Satan? And if they refuse to acknowledge something so silly, who do they pass the buck to? Is it because of fallen creation, i.e., part of the 'curse the ground' thing God did to Adam? As far as I was aware, the JWs allowed the 'curse the ground' to be figurative to underscore the difficulty of Adam's life as a newly-minted imperfect man, not to underscore that God did a physical thing to the planet or transformed the character of thermodynamics and entropy. If a JW could be made to acknowledge that they don't know who causes earthquakes, and if they are not part of some modification or curse that God placed on the Earth, and if they are not part of some developing protracted presense of too much 'worldy mankind', then there's piece of the puzzle missing. Somehow, something bad is happening that 1) is not punishment from God 2) is not caused by God for any other reason 3) is not caused by Satan 4) is not caused by man. Did I miss anything? Is this a real hole in their story? Or have they filled it in?
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139
Santa & Kids - To Lie or Not To Lie?
by sweet pea inthis will be our second christmas since leaving the wts but we will be away in nz with besty's extended family so probably won't bother much with trees and decorations but the santa issue is playing on my mind, especially now podlet no.
1 is at preschool.. do we bring the children up to believe in santa & co with all the magic, mystery and excitement associated with the fairytale or do we tell him right away what the deal is - either route is going to feel very strange.
my gut feeling is to go along with the myth and give them those happy memories of wonder and anticipation - what do you all think?.
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rmt1
Take the magnitude of impact that high-level JW lies had on your very life, and then compare that to the magnitude of impact that high-level 'worldly' lies had on your very life. Now take the impact that low-level worldly lies (Santa Claus) have had on children's/people's lives around the world, and compare that to whatever low-level JW lies there are. Such as some technical who-gives-a-shit detail that they drummed up about the FDS just in time for the quarterly or biannual shot in the arm fakeout to make the rank and file think there's still someone at the helm. All the JWs are doing when they make the Santa story into A LIE IT'S A LIIIIEEE OHMYGOD IT'S A LIIIEEE!!!! is to deflect their own high-level lies, the magnitude of which defy all conscience. (blood issue leaps to mind...)
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Any Central Pennsylvania JWs or Ex-JWs I used to know ?
by foreverfree ini'm looking for any jw's or x-jws near harrisburg, pa i used to know to catch up with and compare notes.
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rmt1
Freemont, I attended HBG North way back, then Halifax, then Swatara. I had friends all over, in Mountainside, Edgemont, Swatara, Palmyra, Reading, Camp Hill, Elizabethville. I left in '99.
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rmt1
BA English and Classics. I took them to observe how language and meaning function and are abused and how the linguistic field of meaning can be subtly tweaked with plausible deniability, in order to deprogram 25 years of JW genocide against the kindred, reason, sense and logic. Computer operations at a university.
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230
"Why does America always bomb other countries?", my son asked tonight.
by digderidoo infirst of all i do not want to turn this into an american bashing thread, that is not my intention at all.. i would like to hear americans opinions as to what my thirteen year old son asked me tonight.. on the way back from swimming tonight my two sons (13 and 11) and myself started talking about wars.
my 11 year old was the first to bring it up talking about wwi & ww2.
we had an interesting conversation about it, then the subject got onto nuclear bombs.
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rmt1
The 13 yo's generalization needs to be factored. The America that "is" is not the America that "was", so there is no "Always", and subsequently there is no single "why". Multipolar America dropped a Fat Man to accomplish a certain set of objectives, including fanfare as a potential superpower. The present unipolar America remotely pilots a Reaper to bomb a carload of turbans to accomplish a different set of objectives, including minimization of newsworthy nuisance in the maintenance of a civilized petroleum-driven exceptionalism. Regarding the earlier set of objectives, one could compare Stalin's political death toll of at least a few million (and the total USSR unnatural death toll of tens of millions) against the two demonstrations of the atom bomb to the Russians and incidental Japanese death toll. Regarding the present set of objectives, he might explore the American sense of entitlement to the open road, and all its subprocesses, including extended suburbia/exurbia, McMansion Farms, urban sprawl, strip malls, the SUV phenomenon. Americans have the greatest surface area of interface with their physical environment, which is matched by having the greatest ecological and energy footprint. No normal American desires to give these things up. But if/as American exceptionalism and unipolarity decay, this would/will be inevitable, at least for the lower classes.
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56
Our CO gave a talk to kids. Stay OUT of school!
by easyreader1970 inhe wanted to talk to the young ones in the congregation.
the main theme of the talk had to do with avoiding higher education.
basically the main idea was this: witnesses are losing alot of young people here in the last few years.
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rmt1
Although Brooklyn certainly benefits from advanced skill sets that can serve as trophies in individual congregations or as life savers in pedophilia lawsuits, the only MONEY Brooklyn needs is that generated by dopamine, the cheapest motivator on the planet. All you have to do is tell the best tall tale to solicit the most investment from your listener. If your listener is not acquainted with other, more competitive tall tales (e.g. Illiad), then they'll stick with you and keep generating the dopamine that gets them through their long blue collar day. All you need is a certain critical mass of these blue collar dopamine-driven to continue reproducing as 'proof of concept', and their fine tableau example will suck in other unfortunates, 'new ones' with elevated dopamine viewing such spiritual bliss, in order to sustain the cycle. "Keep in anticipation..." of some truly interesting new twist on present Truth. "Faith is the assured expectation of things unseen, the evident demonstration of realities not beheld." "Elevated dopmine is a result of anticipation of reward." - http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/8113/8113pittcon2.html White Dove- getting angry isn't all dark side. If you know the direction that you want to go with your years-till-life-expectancy, then plow your anger into it. There is so much to know and explore that the rate of discovery (mathematically, the slope or derivative) may be at times steep enough that it eclipses the lingering, unforgettable tragedy that was the JW experience. I say at times, because while I could be studying at this instant, I am at this moment admittedly indulging in schadenfreude, in that I delight to discovery what latest stupidity has been foisted upon the faithful, and whether or not they have fallen for it (again). Alternately, I try to cheer on those adult nontraditional students, who will reap more pure joy in unhindered exploration in a year than hardcore JWs will get in several.
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21
Did you start college before or after you left the WT?
by White Dove inok, "leaving" can be mental &/or physical leaving.. what time in your life did you start?.
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rmt1
Got a BA in English and Classics at 32yo. It was necessary to deprogram 25 years of JW bullshit, but there's no money in it. Tried a masters in history; it was riddled with too much narrative fiction (more bullshit); now working on hard science undergrad. It's a crime how much knowledge the JWs keep from trickling down to their adherents. The JWs are one big Myanmar cyclone.