for anyone who knows me, i have always been a very strong support for women's right to do as they please in life, but today we had a very interesting discussion about this issue>.
this is to me one area where i wonder is it really the best thing to do, not so much because of how we in the west perhaps view women in positions and power, but how women are often times viewed by those that we maybe at war with.
culturally as men we have been conditioned to protect the woman- in fact in almost all cultures that i can think of that basic mindset is held by most men i would dare say-.
Pretty much what Abaddon has said.
I don't think anyone is arguing against women being involved in things where physical strength is not of utmost importance. However, where it is, only women who are as strong as the men they'll be fighting alongside should go, they should have to pass the same tests as men.
It's the same as qualifying for an armed forces job that demands high cognitive ability; if you don't do well on the intelligence tests, you won't be considered for it.
passing this on from bill bowen...milton g. henschel (1920-).
born around 1920. .
he was baptized while adolescent and in 1939 was already bethelite.
Well, death is never a happy occasion, and I hope his family and friends are doing well in their time of grief (no doubt comforted by their belief that he is up in heaven with the other 137,000 ish members of Christ harem. ). However, as others have pointed out, it is quite unfortunate that he was in a position to help effect change in the Org., but either had bought into the BS for real, or was too afraid to speak out (Ray Franz's books seem to indicate it was more of the former). Of course, it's more than reasonable to expect him to be held responsible for alot of what has happened in the Org., since he was a guy who was around since the days of Rutherford, and had been in high ranking positions for many of those years, but I also feel somewhat sorry for him, since I feel he is also a victim on some level, though obviously not to the extent as others as ignorant as us. He probably managed to rationalize alot of what happened in the Org. to an extent where he could live with himself, as well as flat out genuinely agree with alot of the misguided policies. 63 years that could have been used doing so many positive things, even non spectacular stuff like having a family, wasted on an organization that has been of no useful purpose to mankind (except for a couple of case law precidents in US courts, possibly). Maybe the passing of an old guard guy may be the beginning of something new and positive, but then again....
well i know i may be opening a can of worms here.... but after what we were taught in the wts about creation...and now that you may know more about evolution... which do you think you'd choose to believe more??.
myself...i am leaning towards evolution...but then i read things that make me think otherwise.
so i do find it confusing sometimes .
Very valid critique, rem.
All these first cause cosmological arguments can never deductively prove god's existence, they can only be mildly inductive at best. And of course the "who created god?" question never gets answered. It's impossible for him to have been eternal or exist for an actual infinity, otherwise he could never have gotten around to creating us (think of it this way: God's existence prior to man is the set of all numbers prior to zero, such as -1, -2, etc. To be able to have created us at point "zero", god would have had to "counted down" eternally from every negative number to get to "zero", or the point at which we are created. Now attempt to count down from the most negative number down to zero. It's an impossible task, and simply could not have happened.). God would have needed to start his existence at a fixed point, but then of course he would have to have his "beginning" explained. For those who say that god is simply "all of time", but yet somehow manages to interact in certain parts in time at the same time he is being all of time must invoke some kind of "god is beyond understanding" explanation to explain this absurdity (not even mentioning the fact that being in "all of time" at the same time is a zany concept to begin with).
lol, , i and many anti-bush people were right.
hate to say this, but told ya so!
http://money.cnn.com/2003/03/25/news/companies/war_contracts/index.htm.
TH, surely the fact that Cheney got close to $40 mill. the year he left the company (despite having a lackluster year), and has not refuted the claims of receiving secret payments to date, makes this entire deal entirely above suspicion .
As JT pointed out, it's all about who you know. (When I heard a couple of weeks ago that Halliburton was in the running for this contract, I was 100% sure they would get it. Surprise, surprise.) Unlike in private industry where "the best guy" is most likely to get a contract in this situation, the government need not be held to these standards necessarily (i.e: it's not Cheney and Bush's personal money at risk, so they need not be objective). As long as you can reach a minimal standard, it all depends on how much money you've given to your benefactors (in Cheney's case, close to $40 million).
many here may recall that the watchtower society has published much material on the prophetic role of the united nations ... specifically, the united nations is the scarlet colored wild beast, the "image" of the worldly 7 headed wild political beast ... it would be given life by the two-horned dual world power of britain and america, the "lamb-like beast spoken of in revelation ... this "image" beast would be given power to rule one prophetic hour over the nations as they subordinate their national sovereignty to it ... and so on ...
then ... after the creation of the united nations in 1945 in san francisco the wts interpreted revelation regarding the demise of the old league of nations to apply to a statement in revelation that this "image" beast would be revived in the form of the united nations ... seemingly, the wts was on to something ... and for the next 45 years (until about 1990) the watchtower published anything and everything they could to make their interpretation stick with respect to how deep in the time of the end they believed we were living in ... then, about 1990, the watchtower society joined the un as a member ngo ... a significant departure from their previous stand on political neutrality ... and ... hatred of satan's old system of things ... certainly, since we are nearly 90 years into the last days of this wicked system we would expect the un to be in control or at least taking the lead ...
so, now ... where do we stand as of march 19th, 2003?
Well, I don't see the UN as becoming totally irrelevant just yet. However, let's face it: the UN has never been stronger than the will of the US government (i.e.: the US ignoring the UN on Iraq is far from new). I still think the UN can be a force for more good than bad (and infact I agree with the anti war stance), but clearly the UN will always play second fidle to the US in international policies.
However, the orginal point on the JW interpretation of the whole thing is quite true. Also according to their crazy prophecies, the UN will somehow be responsible for the downfall of all "false religion". However, given the high level of religious ferver in the US (especially compared to other developed countries), any resolution promulgating such an idea will quickly reach an "unreasonable veto" from us . Plus the JW's could always just get "new light" on the issue and have a dramatic paradigm shift, anyway.
i believe that in order to effectively immunize a person against the disease of watchtowerism, it is necessary to bring them to a full, conscious understanding of their tactics.
i am currently working on a document for my son that shows how the society uses faulty logic to make their points.
the document lists several common logical fallacies and then provides examples from the societys teachings.
RunningMan, you and I both know that for the "true blue" JW, none of this means anything if it is used to defame their religion. But with that said, hopefully your son isn't too brain dead about his religion, and might take some of this to heart.
these stars telling us how we should think and feel about the iraqi situation have really gotten my goat.
are they so out of touch with reality that they think, because they are rich and have pretty faces, they can speak with any authority whatsoever about world politics and national security?
the following link is a bit long but worth the read.
Adam I totally got your point, but as I was saying the only reason people are all over the celebrities is because they are against Bush, and has next to nothing to do with whether or not they are college educated or not.
At least in my case, I've never accused the Bush administration of being "stupid" (except maybe Bush ). They know exactly what they are doing, and how wrong it is; they just don't care. At this point, you can only hope that 5-10 years from now, Bush or whoever else is in the White House (hopefully, Howard Dean) would have followed through and helped repare Iraq and install a decent government, coming full circle from the illegal meddling they started back in the 1950's that eventually created Saddam. That still wouldn't change the fact that this war is based on a lie at worst, or inconclusive evidence at best.
I don't think that just because Sean Hannity owns a college degree that somehow validates his opinions over other people, especially when he doesn't have any special information and when he argues illogically. If Martin Sheen is too much for you, then let Jodie Foster have her own show; she graduated from Yale with honors. But it wouldn't be much different than if Sheen or Hannity were hosting the show, now would it?
these stars telling us how we should think and feel about the iraqi situation have really gotten my goat.
are they so out of touch with reality that they think, because they are rich and have pretty faces, they can speak with any authority whatsoever about world politics and national security?
the following link is a bit long but worth the read.
No right wingers would care about what the celebrities said if they were in support of the war. Only because they dare blaspheme against the policies of King George do they draw any ire.
Of course, you could also compile a list of highly educated people who are against the war, or uneducated yahoos who are for the war, so I see no point to that list.
Also, what is the difference between Martin Sheen talking against the war and Sean Hannity talking for it? Neither of them have access to any priveledged information; both are only giving us their opinion. But somehow, Hannity is better because he spews his (mostly silly) opinions on a "news channel". Maybe we should just give Sheen his own "news show", then we can listen to him.
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what secrets would you like to share with us, that you are keeping inside of you for so long?
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I once killed a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass.
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how often did they tell us that we should at least once read the whole bible from cover to cover.. i never did that, why, because i was overloaded with meetings and field service, and my job.. did you??
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Yup, I have been through it, and that was precisely the reason I started to doubt and disbelieve its veracity.
I'll definitely agree that reading the bible unbiased gives you a far different perspective than the JW one. Jesus would have been too liberal to make it as an elder today.
