I like the aetiologies that deal with volcanism, earthquakes, tectonics. Like the Great Flood was a regional symptom of a local flood, perhaps a memory of a glacial lake outburst flood that got culturally transported, the crossing of the Red Sea was a symptom of tectonic activity that uplifted some area that was under water. Pillars of smoke by day, pillars of fire by night - all these visual images can be given little wheels to roll around ahead of you, behind you, once you get down to writing your 'imma chosen people' national best seller. Disaster is the party application in the hands of an author on a soapbox.
Posts by rmt1
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642 she-bears kill 42 children
by confusedandalone inwe all remember this passage vividly: from there elisha went up to bethel.
while he was on his way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him.
"go up baldhead," they shouted, "go up baldhead!
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Once a nerd, always a nerd :)
by freeflyingfaerie infeelin' pretty groovy that i'm starting my college 'career' or what have you...with a 4.0. it is great to be back in school...to stimulate my mind in a college setting, get out of my cave for a bit, and maybe even eventually have the accomplishment of a degree.. or two..who knows... less than 10 years ago, this didn't even seem like a real possibility for me...because i didn't imagine it to be.
but, since the good ol' paradise didn't show up...i decided to create my own paradise (quirky and flawed as it may be) !
and this paradise includes educating my self in and out of school, being open to ideas and possibilities, experiencing things for myself, living until i die... .
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rmt1
The TWS was all about keeping you in a conformist and catatonic zombie state of mind, or in an undifferentiated stem-cell state of ceaseless potential, never learning enough about the intrinsic you to know how exactly to spend your precious dollars and minutes, never turning potential into kinetic action, never turning talents into skills, never turning affinities into driving passions.
I would recommend forcing yourself to go through as many new experiences as the pocketbook allows. The more intense experiences will accelerate you through twists and turns and you'll discover where your cognitive, spiritual, emotional center of mass is. You'll discover what crap you can put up with, what crap you cannot put up with, what goals are essential, who you are as a unique differentiated personality on this planet, and how you can use your unique developed skill sets to make the planet better for the next person. -
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2 she-bears kill 42 children
by confusedandalone inwe all remember this passage vividly: from there elisha went up to bethel.
while he was on his way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him.
"go up baldhead," they shouted, "go up baldhead!
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rmt1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHa53MWg6kg
Mane Hair Thickening Spray - Before & After
For God's ways are higher than man's ways.
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Really enjoyed the CONvention....why?
by punkofnice ini remember when i was a mind cleansed(tm) jw i would listen to the talks when i wasn't napping.. on the long tiring drive home i'd say how i ''enjoyed(tm)'' the sessions and felt ''encouraged(tm)''.. .....and yet i couldn't recall a single ''point(tm)'' made.
i couldn't remember what it was that actually made me feel good.. on one occasion i asked the family what they found ''encouraging(tm)'' or interesting.. tumble weed.
no examples.
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rmt1
They should have showed Ben-Hur or Spartacus.
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One Day is as 1000 years to Jehovah
by confusedandalone ini wake up this mornign to find this on my facebook page... instant deletion.
if 1000 years is as one day...the following is true....if 1000 years is as one day...the following is true..... .
someone did the math, of the 1000 years = one day equation.
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rmt1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLOPS
The next world record breaking supercomputer should be named "The Watchtower". -
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Has anyone else ever wondered this ?
by scary21 ini know the jw's are wrong but if they were right, this is my question...... when the big a comes, there has to be the best person who dies.
the one who lost out on life by a fraction.
the very best one who still did not make it.
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rmt1
Unless something has changed, the equation when I left in 1999 involved two truths: All non-JWs were as good as dead. Not all JWs were as good as saved. So to answer the OP the first JW to be killed at Armageddon would be some flavor of deceitful, etc, you name it, you know plenty of them, and the last JW to be killed, the one who just didn't have enough merit, would probably be along the lines of, 'yes you're ill and yes you say you do all you can for Jehovah but did you really need to miss that one meeting that one time when you did factually have the medical capability of relocating your body into a vehicle, into the Kingdom Hall, but you did not.' Or, 'you did have the medical capability of intruding yourself into someone else's day based on their conversation you overheard on the subway, that one time, but you did not.'
Those shades of choice are the sword of Damocles hanging every day over JWs who might believe in Armageddon. I personally suspect that the greater number of JWs do not believe in Armageddon but do completely fear the social Armageddon of leaving the cult, and so it is faintly comparable. -
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How can I stop hating the JW religion?
by marriedtoajw inhaving this spiritual division between my wife and i over the years has been very draining in many ways.
so much so that i find myself more and more hating everything having to do with the wtbts especially when i just see watchtower literature.
i've kind of always felt that way but it's getting worst.
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rmt1
Caveat: This may be of zero use but it's my response to the phenomena of hating this cult. I'm 40yo and I've been out since 25, and DID at that time have bile like the OP says. I can only say I'm thankfully fortunate to have landed near opportunities for education, but it did help with the bile. Oh, did I have bile... Anyway:
TWS >depends< on you hating it, the TWS, and by collateral association, occasionally JWs.
A cathexis is an emotional investment, which is the basis of a love/hate relationship. The very worst thing you can do to any conscious thing, whether it is a person or corporation, is to un-exist them. One Could just get out, stay out, and never look back and forget anyone still behind bars. You can do that and have no love or hate for anything TWS related. Another option is to get out, stay out, and be purposefully mindful of either helping people get out of their chains, or warning people that there are bear traps that will clamp down on their leg once they get dunked, etc, etc. I don't actually have to hate the TWS, which is what it wants. I can treat it as a naturally occurring virus, infestation, malignancy, cancer, pestilence, famine, catastrophy, accident of history. (Tornado or earthquake would be giving them a lot of credit). For all these things you have passionate physicians, humanitarians, emergency medical responders who do not take the impersonal, unconscious enemy personally. Treat the TWS as an unconscious beast that feeds itself on the lives of its adherents, and is an unfortunate accident of history to be contained, like an epidemic, and don't take it personally. I contend or claim that you can still have an altruistic mission in life where you do something for reasons greater than the personal, where you do not take the problem personally. Such as, 'this is not an offense against me, now, where I am in my mental place, but I recognize it is an ongoing offence against others'. -
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Theft of Reminiscing
by rebel8 inso i'm now at the developmental stage of adulthood when my peers and i are beginning to reminisce about our childhoods.
if you've ever taken developmental psychology, you know the importance of reminiscing.
yesterday i went to an event about something retro and participants were really nostalgic and just really enjoying themselves.
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rmt1
"I towed the dub party line as I was commanded to do (and subjected to corporal punishment and verbal abuse if I came close to not pretending I loved dubbery). I was rightly terrified to say anything but, "I love being a jw and want to go to Bethel.""
One day I was pioneering in a car group in Halifax PA cong, with another male pioneer in the back seat sitting behind his girlfriend/fiance. His father was a Halifax elder and his father's father was PO in West Virginia. This guy's girlfriend said something mouthy - not the kind of comment that might have defamed him in front of other males, just kind of… mouthy. The next thing I knew he had reached up and was clamping his hand - he worked construction - around her trapezius, she was sort of immobilized, and he was warning something to the effect, 'Don't you ever say that again.' I have no excuse for not reacting. I can say that as a matter of fact, I had never conceived of witnessing wife battery inside a car group, so I do have the defense of not actually believing what I was seeing.
As for childhood memories...
I'm sure many would object to drawing any parallels between the JW stance on truncating, amputating, nay, castrating an ordinary pre-adolescent suite of experiences and, say, female genital mutilation in the third world. But there you go. I just drew the parallel. There is no getting it back. You cannot hot-swap a new hard drive of memories. You can start building up your own set of experiences as fast as humanly possible, you can try to figure out who you are, what you want from life and how you can participate in the things you crave. Those are your options. -
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New watch for all of us exJWs trying to move on with life
by confusedandalone ini am definitely not selling this product, but i just saw an advertisement for this and thought it is the perfect watch for the exjw who is trying to really just enjoy life and not try to have every second of everyday plotted out.. https://www.slow-watches.com/.
for instance my typical monday was:.
5:30 - 6:00 read text with wife and "meditate" on it.
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rmt1
I wonder how many JWs are Doctor Who addicts. And, more importantly, I wonder how many of the JWs that got out owe it in part to Tom Baker, the Doctor from 1974 to 1981?
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The Fake "Joy" Of Jehovah's Witnesses
by minimus indo you observe this "joy" when you see witnesses going from house to house, in the kingdom halls, out working, or during theocratic wholesome recreational activities?.
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rmt1
In central PA there was a Mount Joy congregation. There was also a blonde girl named Joy who thought I was ok while I was pioneering. Then my best friend at the time would meaningfully inquire if I was going to Mount Joy. I've still never been to Mount Joy, but I'm sure it's a swell place.