It's a breaktrough... my dub mother called to see if I'm free on my birthday weekend! Cool huh?!
Oh wait... no...no... oh I see, I have to hire a van for her and help her move house; "Happy Birthday son! Now get that sofa loaded".
M*A*S*H
JoinedPosts by M*A*S*H
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My JW mother is celebrating my birthday
by M*A*S*H init's a breaktrough... my dub mother called to see if i'm free on my birthday weekend!
cool huh?!.
oh wait... no...no... oh i see, i have to hire a van for her and help her move house; "happy birthday son!
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Satan and the demons, ghosts, spirits, fortune tellers. Are they real?
by KateWild ini believe in god.
i don't believe he punishes or rewards people.
so by the same extention i don't believe any spirit beings can communicate with or influence humans.. many who do not believe in god though, have gone to fortune tellers.
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M*A*S*H
Just thinking about truthwillsetyoufree's account of their experience with a spiritualist, it reminded me of a Derren Brown series where he recreated or acted out being a healer, fortune teller, preacher, etc... what struck me was what people remembered about encounters with him especially when he was 'cold reading' individuals; they only remembered the 'hits' and forgot all the 'misses'. So when truthwillsetyoufree says the spiritualist said X (which turned out to be true) , it would also be important to know everything else said, then we may well see the misses. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgdJ9-s3HEg
As for the account itself... I would guess most at a spiritualist church would be religious or formally religious!? It’s hardly going to be full of atheists! Hard times and losing people - well isn't that everyone? The sacral chakra is usually related to food intolerance not the heart (4th chakra) so that’s odd - sound like fishing to me!
As for "I've never revealed anything about myself"... cold readers are experts on reading the clues we give off without really realising it. The only way to not give anything away would be to wear a full body paper bag over yourself and make sure you do not utter a single word - even then you could be revealing a lot (eg... you may come across as a doubter). So without doing anything a cold reader might be thinking about: Which meeting did you attend? Is it your first visit or were you introduced? What time is the meeting, during the week or weekend in the day or evening? Who did you sit next to? Did you sit on your own? Did you sit at the back or the front? Are your shoes expensive? Did you chat to other people attending before the show? Is your body language defensive or open? How old are you? Do you look tired? Smiling or concentrating? etc... etc...
I have always wanted to ask spiritualist why when they receive messages, the person giving the message never (a) gives their name properly (despite later being able to deliver quite complex ideas and messages) it’s always...'it starts with a B sound brian, bob, bobby, bobby alan, yes, Alan, its Alan... and (b) if the 'spirit' can give their name and have a message for someone, why can't they give the name of the person to give it to? The spiritualist always says something like "I have a bobby, brian, sue, alan here, they died of a heart condition or something like that, they smoked I think, possibly had a buggy... does that mean anything to anybody?". If they are really talking to the dead why not "Hi, I have Christopher Hitchens here... he wants to pass a message to his brother Peter... he says 'damn it you were right! Oh, and I left my will second drawer on the right under the TV"!
Sorry for rambling!
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The limits of science.
by Seraphim23 infor a long time i have accepted that when a theist inserts god into some as yet not understood scientific matter, it constitutes a god of the gaps argument.
as a theist myself, the problem with this for me, is that it implies an arbitrary limit on gods ingenuity.
for example, the idea that god created automatic processes to do certain things in nature, and yet with other things the need for a direct hand to either tweak or directly organise!
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M*A*S*H
On topic... ish?
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how to survive a three day assembly?
by purrpurr inhi i have to go to one of these soon.
i find it difficult enough to sit through a meeting knowing what i now know.
how to survive a whole three days???!!!
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M*A*S*H
I find surviving a three day assembly quite easy these days. I simply stay at home. This method works for meetings and field service too. You only ever need to not 'stay at home' for sheparding calls, for these it is best to... 'go out'.
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Atheists and JWs are on the same footing!
by exWTslave inatheists believe that god should stop the large-scale injustice on earth; if he does'nt, then he does not exist.
jws believe that god will intervene sometime in the last days!.
interestingly, both throw themselves on their own expectation of soemthing god should or will do, yet in fact something god does not have to do.
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M*A*S*H
I would not say (to paraphrase) 'If bad things happen that proves there is no God'. But, I would say, that 'bad things happening' does disprove certain gods; this is because the definition of certain gods run contrary to 'bad things happening'. The Epicurean paradox, I believe, runs contrary to the Christian god mostly described as being 'all loving, all powerful, etc...'.
To look at a sillyexample. "If beard exists, it proves someone has chosen to grow beard--it doesn't prove a barber does not exist". If my definition of my God was: A god that is all powerful, loves the clean shaven as beards go against his very nature, beards represent highest moral wrong, he directs his holy spirit scissors at will throughout the known universe, loves all infinately, but those with beards will burn in hell fire for eternity. Now the fact that beards exist would potentially mean my god does not exist...eg if he infinately loves some with a beard, he would not want them to burn in hell, my god has the power to cut a beard off so why would he not?
An atheist can only really examine your God hypothesis by the characteristics you assign to the god if no direct evidence for your god exists.
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More JW bragging about the Landover, MD. convention. Please have barf bag at the ready before reading
by AndDontCallMeShirley inthe following e-mail is circulating among jws about the international convention at fedex stadium in landover, md.
note the all-too-familiar jw claims: everything they do (including the simple act of parking cars) is proof of jehovah'stm blessing, and everything wt did at the convention was the fastest, greatest, best ever.
oh, and the never-fails-to-get-mentioned alleged 'persecution'/resistance from some unnamed authority who tried to get in watchtower's way and hamper the effort...but jws prevailed anyway (as always):.
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M*A*S*H
I cannot help thinking that the holy spirit could better be directed altering the trajectories of bombs\shells falling on innocent children in various parts of the world.
I do not think many JW's actually think about what spirit directed means... if they did they would realise each trivial claim they make only highlights and shames the inaction.
In a strange way it reminds of a Martin Luther King quote... "In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." I think many ex-dubs left with similar thoughts in mind.
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Thinking it through and not liking the result.
by donny intoday at work a co-worker of mine and i were having lunch at a nearby establishment.
he is what you would call a c&e christian in that he basically attends church only for the christmas and easter services, though he definitely says he believes in god.. he said that he just recently caught an episode of a crime/forensic show that featured a man from new jersey named john list who was also known locally as the "bogeyman of westfield.
" list became infamous for murdering his entire family consisting of his wife, three children and his mother on november 9, 1971. see below link for more data.. on the tv show the narrator commented there were a few reasons why he did it.
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M*A*S*H
Does this mean that all people that believe Heaven\Hell works this way, and I mean really believe, could 'save' their children 100% from hell if they could summon the courage to sacrifice themselves (that is the nicest\worst possible way to say 'kill their children')?
What a terrifying thought!? I hope that never reaches the public conciousness - maybe it is best people do not 'think it though'!
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most important event in the 20th century
by scotoma injune 28 1914 archduke ferdinand was killed by a serbian government sponsored assassination team.. this was the trigger event of world war i. actually some have called it world war (part 1) followed less than 30 years later by world war (part 2).. in retrospect this was a useful date for jw's.. it has propelled them for 100 years.. of course jw's have massaged their predictions about the significance of 1914 over the years.. do you feel that jw's would be what they are today without that great war?
do you think that the shooting down of the passenger plane over east ukraine will be an equivalent moment that pushes putin into a corner where he will have to fight the west?
in other words will we look back on that event as the beginning of world war (part 3)?.
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M*A*S*H
Some mistake condescension for flattery.
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most important event in the 20th century
by scotoma injune 28 1914 archduke ferdinand was killed by a serbian government sponsored assassination team.. this was the trigger event of world war i. actually some have called it world war (part 1) followed less than 30 years later by world war (part 2).. in retrospect this was a useful date for jw's.. it has propelled them for 100 years.. of course jw's have massaged their predictions about the significance of 1914 over the years.. do you feel that jw's would be what they are today without that great war?
do you think that the shooting down of the passenger plane over east ukraine will be an equivalent moment that pushes putin into a corner where he will have to fight the west?
in other words will we look back on that event as the beginning of world war (part 3)?.
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M*A*S*H
Focus, please stop whacking off in public - it would be best if you did it in private.
I would think many dubs are looking at the conflict between the Muslim and Christian religions hoping and praying the stars would start to fall from heaven soon.
In my day the general apathy towards religion was at its greatest, the idea that religion would be attacked looked unlikely. We now live in a world where the news at least is seemingly dominated by religious conflict (including the atheist\religious debate); I am sure the many dubs are excited.
To give my answer to the topic question: I vote for penicillin.
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I know 2 of the Elders on the Ray Franz JC
by James Jackson inwhen i read coc, i was stunned that the 2 elders (theotis french & rob dibble) were on ray franz judcial committee.
i have known these men for over 20 years having done rbc and convention work with them.
they are still elders today which means they were in their early 30's(which is unheard of for a case of this importance to have inexperienced elders to sit on) on this committee.. without revealing myself, i have never tried(but have wanted to), ask them about their on having to judge a former gb member.. then out of the blue, about a year ago, i was mentioning how hard it is trying to get younger ones to volunteer to one of these elders, and he says"this is nothing compared to to sitting on the committee that had to disfellowship ray franz".
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M*A*S*H
@James, I haven't really read your back story here, so perhaps you are out now? Potentially the details of the conversation you have posted could ultimately lead to a RL reveal.