Not sure really. Perhaps they see me as a nice fat juicy prospect... In my attempts to get my wife to leave them, I keep asking her questions. Rather than answer the questions, she runs off to them, then dutifully reports back whatever tripe they tell her like a parrot. Last time they stopped by to pick her up for a meeting, I overheard one of them say "your husband always asks such interesting and intelligent questions, when can we get him into a bible study?" GAG Fat chance, lol.
AllAlongTheWatchtower
JoinedPosts by AllAlongTheWatchtower
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17
Plain Truth Magazine plug: It is basically all anti-cult all the time!!!
by Check_Your_Premises ini got a free subscription from ptm.org for one year.
for those of you not familiar with the story of the world wide church of god, they were a cult remarkeably similar to the jw doctrinally.
it was founded by herbert armstrong.. after his death they went through a remarkeable and turbulent reformation.
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AllAlongTheWatchtower
Having grown up in the WCG back in the Armstrong days, I have a hard time thinking anything good of them. My parents probably still have hundreds of copies of the Plain Truth and Good News (Good News was similar to Plain Truth, but was more exclusive, intended only for members, not general public or prospects) from the old days. I'm not sure I could bring myself to read one of them, no matter how much they have changed since splintering into dozens of sects since HWA's death.
AATW, of the 'once bitten, twice shy' class
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The facts on crucifixion, stauros, and the "torture stake"
by Leolaia infinally, i will look at biblical and patristic evidence bearing on the crucifixion of jesus in particular.
we need to examine the earliest known descriptions of the kind of crucifixion adopted by the romans and the specific terms they used to refer to it.
apparently the society believes that crux still meant "stake" in the second century a.d., when tacitus composed his annals.
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AllAlongTheWatchtower
Leolaia,excellent job of debunking.
One thing I am curious about though. As a non-JW, I don't really have a way of knowing this, and if I try to discuss it with my wife, she gets that thousand-yard-JW stare because I'm casting doubt on the WTS. If the witnesses believe that christ was physically impaled on a torture stake, how do they [attempt] to back that up? Meaning, that when I think of someone being impaled on a stake, I think of Vlad the Impaler, who literally had those who ticked him off hoisted up and shoved down on sharpened stakes. I imagine that anyone who had this done to them would die awful quickly, not linger on for hours as the story in the bible goes. Or does the WTS say that the story is exactly the same, just with a stake vs a cross? IE, nailed to it?
Being an atheist myself, I don't put much stock in the bible, but I thought the bible says something to the effect of 'no bone in his body will be broken', and the only reference I know of to christ being literally impaled is the story of the soldier who ran a spear into his side. Depending on the size of the stake (documentary shows I have watched on Vlad the Impaler pictured a 3-4 inch thick pole, sharpened to a point), I would think being impaled bodily in such a fashion would have to at least break a rib or two.
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107
What Is The Worst Movie You Have Ever Seen?
by horrible life insonnyboy hated napoleon dynamite .
elsewhere hated deuce bigalow; european gigolo .
my all time worst movie was arnold i saw it in about 1974. had roddy mcdowell.
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AllAlongTheWatchtower
Talesin, I can't believe you listed Reservoir Dogs. Granted it was violent, perhaps overly so, but you have to expect that going in, with a Tarantino movie. I loved the opening sequence, with the whole debate about tipping. I also liked Buscemi in this, he's becoming one of my favorite actors.
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Smurfs!? Aluminum?!
by crankytoe in.
ok, i keep coming across vague references to jw fear of these,.
please explain what are the actual factual stories,.
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AllAlongTheWatchtower
Legolas: There is SOME evidence that aluminum can cause alzheimers, but the jury isn't in yet, so to speak. Studies have been done, statistics gathered, etc, but the short answer is that they really aren't sure.
http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articleID=0000FCD2-AA88-1C71-9EB7809EC588F2D7&catID=3
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OK so its 1931 - you have a loaded gun and Hitler is walking by...
by Qcmbr inare you morally obligated to kill him?
what would you do?
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AllAlongTheWatchtower
Erm...I'm assuming from the flavor of the question that my hypothetical presence in 1931 would be as a 2005 person. Otherwise, I don't think there's much point to the question, in 1931 you'd have needed to be a seer to see just how bad Hitler was going to turn out to be. So, as a 2005 person going back in time to 1931, I would have the benefit of knowledge beyond what was available to people of that time. To wit, that Hitler would ultimately lose. There is no telling what worse alternative time lines might develop from a Hitlerless world, perhaps a worse fascist than Hitler, or a better general than Hitler; to actually lead Germany to victory, or make the war so close that more nukes were used than just Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I don't think I would feel comfortable playing god with history.
I saw an interesting episode of one of those speculative shows (Outer Limits, or Twilight Zone, or something similar) that dealt with just that subject, except they went even farther back and tried to eliminate Hitler as a baby. The person sent back in time to do the deed ended up "creating" Hitler, by botching the job and leaving him alive; adopted by a Jewish mother. There's a lot of sci-fi theory that time cannot be "uncreated", and that trying to screw with history just makes events take quirky twists and turns to fulfill it anyway. Interesting stuff....
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What Is The Worst Movie You Have Ever Seen?
by horrible life insonnyboy hated napoleon dynamite .
elsewhere hated deuce bigalow; european gigolo .
my all time worst movie was arnold i saw it in about 1974. had roddy mcdowell.
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AllAlongTheWatchtower
A couple years ago when "Traffic" came out on DVD, we somehow got a copy of it in the box of the movie we actually wanted-guess the store employee screwed up. Anyway, we put it in, and watched about 10 or 15 minutes of it...then put it back in the box and took it to the store to get the movie we actually had wanted. Pretty bad when you don't watch a movie you could have watched for free. (Yeah, I know, it won some awards or something, and critics thought it was great-blah.)
Another time we rented an anime that looked interesting from the cover art and the description on the back. I don't remember the title of it, but it had Lil' Kim as one of the voice talents, and it was about superheroes being outlawed because they were dangerous to humanity. It was awful. The animation was elementary at best, and the plot was a stinker too. We made it through about 15 minutes of that, and took it out of the DVD player.
I'd probably have Battlefield Earth on my list too, but I never even watched it since I usually steer clear of anything with Travolta in it, anyway. The one exception to that recently was Swordfish, which I basically rented only because it had Halle Barry in it, despite knowing that Travolta was in it too. I was presently surprised that it was pretty good.
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THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (there are THREE versions!)
by Terry in1. thou shalt have no other gods before me.. .
2. thou shalt have no other gods before me.
6. thou shalt not commit adultery.. .
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AllAlongTheWatchtower
An interesting point here, that I have failed to notice before. In several previous posts there have been creationism vs scientific arguments, and more than once I remember it being said that "6 days" was not to be taken literally. (A view that pro- creationists, including the WTS, use to deal with the problems that arise from trying to explain millions of years of geological evidence with a 6,000 year old earth.
Yet in the various versions of the 10 commandments, it is said that you must remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy, because god created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. Kinda throws a monkey wrench in the apologist theory that a day could actually equal a thousand years.
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Mobile Phones a threat to the Watchtower?
by DevonMcBride inhttp://www.watchtower.org/library/g/2002/10/22/article_01.htm
young people ask .
.do i need a mobile phone?related topics:what's so wrong with telephone sex?you are connectedhow?
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AllAlongTheWatchtower
Maybe they're afraid people will be forced to work longer hours to pay for their cell bills, thus neglecting their field service. *chuckle*
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On a macro level, the Witnesses are pretty harmless
by logansrun inwarning: this post may be damaging to your biases.. it seems to me that the "danger" the witnesses pose to larger society is, well, pretty damn small.
just think about it: the witnesses are almost not involved in politics at all, except the occassional "freedom of religion and speech" issues they take to various courts, issues i am happy to support the witnesses in, even if i strongly disagree with their beliefs.
you will not see jws supporting banning abortions or gay marriages or a whole host of other civil liberties and freedoms that evangelicals rally around like the village people searching for frankenstein's monster.
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AllAlongTheWatchtower
logansrun: By and large, I agree with you. However, I think you vastly understate or even mistate the level of danger of JWs when it comes to medicine:
"Hell, if the doctor said it didn't matter one way or the other whether I had surgury with a blood transfusion or bloodless surgury I would choose the latter. You have to admit, the JWs have helped to promote better medicinal practices."
1) IF the doctor said it didn't matter; that's a big if. 2) Being able to CHOOSE means you have the freedom to do so. Most JWs feel duty bound to do whatever the WTS says. 3) What in the heck have JWs done to promote better medicine?
By the way, I'm a big sci-fi fan, does your sn come from the movie?