as found elsewere on the net.....
20 ways to be a good liberal.
1. you have to be against capital punishment, but.
"You will have to excuse kid-A. He suffers from the extreme-leftist deficiency called lack of tolerance."
LMAO. Interesting comment coming from a racist hate-monger like XJW. Shall I cut and paste the litany of racial slurs and epithets you have spewed on this board over the last several months?
so she was a jw since 1946...............did she sleep during 1966-1975?
(60 years as a witness not a christian).
carrot:milagros torres, 31, of camden, was one of 51 people who were baptized saturday.
The Dubs have notoriously short memories. The conventions are so similar in theme and content over the decades that they must invariably meld into a single
blob in the neural circuitry of memory.
the thread title is a reference to how i hope this thread will evolve, rather than my own pretentious aspirations.. for many of us, perhaps especially if we were raised as jws, the whole world was pretty black and white.
we knew what we were doing, why we were here, where we were going, in the midst of a chaotic world we had a stability that others envied - or so we thought.... for most of us reading this site our eyes have likely at some point been opened to realise that many of our previous strongly-held beliefs were dust.
if we have left the wts or been forcibly ejected then we have also experienced shunning.
"Embracing the chaos of normal life was singly the hardest thing I ever had to do".
All I can say Ross, is that for what you have been through, you are probably the most balanced person I have known in a long time. From what I know of your story, you did go through a considerable amount of hell and came through with even greater perspective. A rare achievement for anyone.
I agree about the difficulty of learning to embrace chaos, particularly being raised a JW and having the entire universe presented to me in the simplest and most inane black and white terms.
While it is terrifying to leap into the unknown, the inevitable freedom that is born from that metamorphosis is incomparable.
the thread title is a reference to how i hope this thread will evolve, rather than my own pretentious aspirations.. for many of us, perhaps especially if we were raised as jws, the whole world was pretty black and white.
we knew what we were doing, why we were here, where we were going, in the midst of a chaotic world we had a stability that others envied - or so we thought.... for most of us reading this site our eyes have likely at some point been opened to realise that many of our previous strongly-held beliefs were dust.
if we have left the wts or been forcibly ejected then we have also experienced shunning.
Embracing the chaos of normal life was singly the hardest thing I ever had to do.
[1] http://www.ucla.edu.
http://del.icio.us/post?url=http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/political-all.
http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/politi.
And a recent scan of dubya's brain:
as found elsewere on the net.....
20 ways to be a good liberal.
1. you have to be against capital punishment, but.
11. You have to believe that Mel Gibson spent $25 million of his own money to make "The Passion of the Christ" for financial gain.
Yes, I can see how this is logically linked to "liberalism". Congrats, your post proves their is only 1 way to be a good "NEO-CON" : Be a f**king moron.
Good thing you chose "Hill-billy" for your moniker, it helps you get away with your in-bred genetic deficiency! LOL
we humans are an arrogant, anthropocentric species.
ptolemy posited that the earth was the center of the universe.
once copernicus began to show that the sun, not earth, was at the center of our solar system, some still believed that the sun at least was the center of the universe.
Wow, another brilliant comment from XJW!
Hey, when you pass the third grade, they let you make finger paintings!
we humans are an arrogant, anthropocentric species.
ptolemy posited that the earth was the center of the universe.
once copernicus began to show that the sun, not earth, was at the center of our solar system, some still believed that the sun at least was the center of the universe.
The very notion that we, as biological beings and sentient primates somehow were "created" by some divine intelligence is profoundly arrogant.
Moreso the notion that human animals somehow "deserve" to transcend mortality and obtain some illusory "eternal existence" beyond the mortal coil.
1 thessalonians 5:1-11 .
5 now as for the times and the seasons, brothers, you need nothing to be written to you.
2 for you yourselves know quite well that jehovahs day is coming exactly as a thief in the night.
?: What is the problem with reality hitting agnostic/atheistic types right between their eyeballs!
Indeed, something has just hit me right between the eyeballs: the realization that you are full of shit.
.
if an atheist leads good life with high moral standards, because he choice to do so and thinks for logic it is a good thing, does it not mean much more then when a theist does the same, because his gods tells him to do it?
what's your thoughs on this?
Nothing like the words and sentiments of self-righteous, hypocritical religionists to remind me of WHY I am an atheist! What is even more amusing and absurd are the christian/roman catholic apologists claiming that their own "institutional" brand of morality is somehow "superior" to those of the "non-christian" religionists! LOL. EVERY SINGLE religion on earth CLAIMS to have a monopoly on "absolute" morality and guess what? Its all bullocks!
The logical fallacies of the religionists regarding the "moral universe" of the atheist/agnostic are blatantly transparent and obvious to the thinking, rational mind:
1) Only very small children and/or weak, feeble-minded 'adults' would require some external, imaginary sky-deity to inform them of what is "right or wrong". The atheist depends upon simple, common sense when navigating the moral universe, and, respects the rights of HUMANITY and the INDIVIDUAL rather than licking the boots of some authoritarian religious institution claiming to be the spokesman of some mythical creature in the sky.
2) When an atheist performs an act of kindness towards another human being, he/she does not require some god to give them a "golden star" in the heavenly ledger, in the pathetic hope that this act of goodness will somehow insure the survival of their soul into the heavenly afterlife. The atheist performs goodness out of LOVE OF HUMANITY, not blind obsequience to an institution or fictional deity. The RELIGIONIST performs goodness out of a well-scripted ulterior motive: "please lordy, save my wicked sinners ass from the fires of hell! If you do, I promise to donate this old sofa to Goodwill and help the old lady across the street!". The ATHEIST neither needs nor requires this "heavenly carrot" dangling in front of them in order to perform goodness. The atheist acts out of love for fellow human, not love for some supernatural overlord.
3) Morality and the human concept of charity and good will did NOT originate in the supernatural mist. They originated during the EVOLUTION of human society, and the human mind. Obviously early hominids quickly realized that there was strength and security in numbers. Obviously for such an early social structure to survive, these hominids would have needed to "be nice" to one another, look after one another and eventually evolve the psychological constructs of "love" and "loyalty". Now, what happens over the course of human and social evolution? These genetically inspired traits are selected for and become 'hard-wired' into the human brain. No god is required for the explanation of "absolute good", and the very concept of "absolute" ANYTHING is inherently ridiculous. ALL human defined concepts of good and evil are the products of the SPECIFIC cultures and historical contexts within which they arise. In ancient Israel it was an "absolute good" to publicly execute your child by stoning if they dared 'talk back' to you. Now, this is the SAME god all christians and jews now claim to worship, yet miraculously, performing this same "absolute" good will get one life in prison or the electric chair, so , seems like a sliding scale of absolute good coming from on high now doesnt it? The evolution of morality througout human history has been documented over and over by archaelogists and anthropologists. Even the rudiments of such social "moral" structures are present in natural primate populations today.
4) The atheist does not take the arrogant position of the religionist in believing that somehow the human animal is some glorified "creation", worthy of some "eternal prize" beyond the end of physical existence. We believe in the HERE and NOW. Rather than taking the position that some hypothetical 'god' will 'set things right' in some imaginary afterlife, the atheist strives to make his/her present life something worthwhile. The atheist KNOWs that this life is not a "dress rehearsal" for some mythical existence sitting on a cloud strumming a harp for all eternity. Thus, the atheist makes THIS life (which is the only one you will ever have) count. The atheist ACCEPTS his/her ephemeral mortality, and therefore, is infinitely HUMBLE in the realization that this life WILL end, and the actions you took in THIS life, will be your only legacy.
5) The atheist moral universe is INTERNAL, not dependent on external illusions. When I do something that hurts another human, I ACCEPT full responsibility for my actions. The "religionist" has the convenient option of "blaming it on the devil" rather than taking the time to look inside their own mind, to logically examine the reasons behind their actions. The catholic just goes to "confession" in an illusory attempt to whitewash their actions or psychological guilt, again, needing some "external" agent to justify their actions. Rather than relying upon their own understanding and wisdom to guide their behaviours, the religionist adopts a "rule book" written by wandering desert nomads 2000 years ago in an attempt to appease their tribal deity.
6) Ultimately, the moral universe of the religionist uses "FEAR" as fuel. Fear of pissing off their wrathful god, fear of death, fear of displeasing self-appointed "human" masters, be they a Preist, a Reverend, a Minister, an Elder, what have you. By logical extension, even their "love" is fuelled by fear. Love your wife BECAUSE god told you to. Love your children BECAUSE god told you to. Love your neighbour BECAUSE god told you to. By contrast, the atheist lives in a state of "acceptance": acceptance of the real position of humanity in the infinity of the cosmos, acceptance of the ephemeral and limited nature of human life, which, naturally, makes us appreciate THIS life even MORE. Acceptance that ultimately, we have to answer to ourselves, as human beings and that our ONLY judge, will be history. The atheist LOVES due to the acceptance that his/her fellow human beings, have evolved alongside with them, share the same planet and our deserving of respect due to our common HUMAN origins.
