Posts by dedalus

8

Justice in Hell

by Thunder Rider in

jw
friends

thunder + single malt =.

the gates of hell hold not for me the threat of any harm.. ive faced the demons waiting there, the flames not more than warm.

my soul has seen the wickedness of men and know their ways.. i have the need to bring them down and to their judgment days.. my heart is scarred to know that once i was part of their flock.. behind my back, they did to babes things that a murderer would shock.

dedalus

Nice iambic heptameter!

Dedalus

175

To The Folks

by Farkel in

jw
friends

those of you that know me well know that i'm not going to say anything or much of anything anymore in this forum.. .

however, i will be offering much of my music instead.

i won't be posting it here anymore.

dedalus

I'm not necessarily taking Teejay's side, because he has been pretty hateful to me in the past.

Here's an interesting wrinkle.

Teejay's been pretty hateful to me, too. When he found out I had become a high school English teacher after my teaching fellowship at a prestigious university ended, he tried to make it look like I had been lying to the board about my identity to make myself look better.

Now you're a high school English teacher (a far cry from the professional status of the other one) who can't afford his own home.

Nice dig at my profession and my financial status. He continued to dig at me, even though the topic of my thread was my recent disassociation, which occurred around a very difficult situation with my brother-in-law's poor health (This is the link: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/7/45876/1.ashx.) After an innocuous edit to one of my posts, in which I injected a joke (complete with smiley face to show it was a joke) to hopefully ease the tension between us, how did Teejay respond? How did he characterize my thread?

Waiting to make your edit that way after first posting what you did was very clever, some might say. Puts your whole 'whoa is me' thread into perspective.

My thread, I repeat, was about my brother-in-law's very serious operation, and the elder's insensitivity to that, and the disfellowshipping of my in-laws, and my subsequent disassociation as a result. Teejay called it "whoa is me" thread. And this was after I had apologized to him for a rude remark I'd made over a year beforehand.

I think teejay does know that I am the same dedalus I was a year and a half ago, so I'm not entirely sure what the point is, except maybe to show that I can be insensitive myself, sometimes.

I still think that Dead Poet's Society is an awful movie about teaching and poetry and, heck, life in general, and I'm still not likely to speak well of any essay that appreciates it . But if it's an apology you want, teejay, I'm sorry. (Note the ambiguous wording of this last sentence. )

If you had been my student back then, I would have responded more encouragingly than I did as a fellow poster. We behave differently online because of the artificiality of this social environment, the anonymity with which we all interact.

In fact, when I edited a post to make that joke about Finding Forrester, he responded:

That you hated the movie comes as no surprise, really ... And to think that I was stoopid enough to even consider sending you a conciliatory email. What a fool I am, eh? God bless second thoughts. Or fate.

Note that, if Teejay had decided to apologize (after I had publicly done so multiple times), he would have done it privately, in email, whereas he had no problem questioning my integrity in public and badgering me when he was shown to be incorrect.

Whatever problem there was between me and Teejay, whatever heat there was for my long-ago rudeness, I've apologized to him. Many months later, I even made that apology quite explicit in another thread.

Honestly, I think I just wanted to have a say in a thread you started because of the bad blood between us. And honestly, I want to call a truce. I'm sorry for insulting your writing all that time ago. Period.

He ignored that apology completely. Meanwhile, Teejay has never apologized for two very serious, confrontational, insulting things he has done to me:

1) Accusing me of misrepresenting myself to the board about my job and social status. Interestingly, he continued doing this after I'd already explained my change of life in the very thread on which he attacked me.

2) Mocking my chosen profession and financial situation.

All of this makes Teejay's current position very interesting. He's very keen on putting down Farkel and others down for insulting posters. Caustic, charismatic personalities upset him greatly. On the other hand, he has no problem being rude, deceitful, and deliberately ignorant of facts when it suits his purpose. I guess because he doesn't use words like "dipfuck" and "idiot," that makes him somehow superior to people like Farkel.

I, for one, don't pretend to have some lofty moral perspective on the "cult of Farkel or AlanF or whomever Teejay doesn't like." I can be rude sometimes, and I like to think I apologize when I should. Teejay, however, is beyond all that.

Dedalus

17

Orthodox Jews and homosexuality

by scotsman in

as larc's thread has mutated into the tired old nurture vs nature debate i thought i'd give a response to his question, which was how do you reconcile the bibles attittude to homosexuality and the living breathing reality of human beings.

i was at a recent screening of trembling before g-d, a documentary on homosexuals in the orthodox community who want to be practising homosexuals and still be accepted as part of the orthodox faith.

(my opinion is that they're wanting to have their cake and eat it but i was interested in the reasoning).

dedalus

Scotsman,

I was thinking about this topic this weekend, and remembered that my mother once had a conversation with a professor at Mount Holyoke about homosexuality in the bible. The professor was, as I recall, big on the story of David and Jonathan, particularly the scripture in which David says something to the effect of "your love is sweeter to me than a woman's." This, the professor said, was an example of homosexuality in the bible, and it seems quite plausible to me.

However, this sort of revisionist exegesis seems, to me anyway, doomed. A gay person trying to fit into orthodoxy makes about as much sense as a black person trying to fit into the KKK. I understand why some try, though. And at least we have some new, interesting, provocative ways to look at a few scriptures because of it.

Dedalus

11

Fathers Day

by Xena in

jw
friends

ok ya'll i am fixing to head out to buy bubbles' dad a fathers day gift....and i haven't a clue what to get him.

she dropped it in my lap and went off to the lake with a friend..soo any suggestions??????????

what are you getting the dad's in your life?.

dedalus

Well, darn it, I'm a father and I'm having a great father's day! My wife surprised me with breakfast and showered me with presents this morning, which is Sunday June 15th.

My old man is a bastard too, though, and I'm not seeing or talking with him today, so I can sympathize with some of you here.

Dedalus

17

Orthodox Jews and homosexuality

by scotsman in

as larc's thread has mutated into the tired old nurture vs nature debate i thought i'd give a response to his question, which was how do you reconcile the bibles attittude to homosexuality and the living breathing reality of human beings.

i was at a recent screening of trembling before g-d, a documentary on homosexuals in the orthodox community who want to be practising homosexuals and still be accepted as part of the orthodox faith.

(my opinion is that they're wanting to have their cake and eat it but i was interested in the reasoning).

dedalus

Starscream,

You're an idiot.

Agape,

Dedalus

65

Suicide and JW'S

by obiwan in

i have personally had experience with this.

a long time friend committed suicide because of her husband and the problems they were having.

he abused her and ended up leaving her, the elders wouldn't help out much stating that it was a marital problem.. she couldn't cope with him leaving, she was extremely dependant on him, she felt the only way out was suicide.

dedalus

I still say that is garbage. I don't regret in the least presenting a rebuttal to non-sense.

Then present a rebuttal! "That is garbage" and "You can all go to hell" aren't meaningful rebuttals.

The name of this thread is "Suicide and JW's"
The implication of this heading is that there is a connection between the two.

I don't think that Witnesses cause suicide -- but they create an environment in which certain people feel trapped and helpless and desperate. In that environment, some people make the irresponsible decision to attempt suicide. These people are responsible for thier decision, but not for the environment in which they made it. That's the way I look at it, and consequently, I'm confused about your inclusion of the following quotes in your list of "garbage":

I think the suicide incidence among dubs would be a startling statistic. I am aware of 3. It would be good if we could start a database and keep a record. I am sure there would be some common elements to the experiences. I think the WTs gets away with a lot here.

What's wrong with cataloguing incidents of suicide for study? It's a rather scientific way to examine the subject, and it could either prove or disprove this poster's theory that "the WT gets away with a lot."

Their cure for everything is: Get more self indoctrinated. No feelings for people in extreme pain.

Why do you disagree with this?

The Society never helps anyone with their problems.. They just make it worse with all of the guilt-trips they put on you..

Why do you disagree with this?

It is amazing how this is so prevalent and yet they advertise that they are the happiest people on the fast of the earth. If that is happiness...give me the opposite.

Why do you disagree with this? Are you saying that all of these suicides people are talking about don't consitute a prevalent problem? Well, perhaps we'll never know, since you think tracking and investigating these suicides is "garbage" too.

Dedalus

65

Suicide and JW'S

by obiwan in

i have personally had experience with this.

a long time friend committed suicide because of her husband and the problems they were having.

he abused her and ended up leaving her, the elders wouldn't help out much stating that it was a marital problem.. she couldn't cope with him leaving, she was extremely dependant on him, she felt the only way out was suicide.

dedalus

Wow. Some amazing stories here. LE, your mother was beautiful. I don't know how to describe her picture's affect on me. Human faces get lost in discussion boards -- the photo of your mother puts a face on what might otherwise be fairly abstract to me.

As for me -- well. My parents' proud boast was that if any one of their four sons decided not to be a Witness, he would be kicked out of the house. When I was thirteen I told my parents I had serious doubts about the truth of their religion; my mother threatened to put me in foster care. I felt, constantly, that Jehovah's Witnesses were a bizarre, cruel, bloodthirsty religion with which I could never reconcile myself. I led a double life in two senses: I was constantly doing things I fundamentally disagreed with (going to meetings and out in service, studying the magazines, speaking the rhetoric), and I had some non-Witness friends I kept secret from my parents.

One night, when I was sixteen, my parents found a journal in which I wrote candidly about these things. The night is a blur, but I recall yelling a lot, not very articulately, knocking over a chair, running away for a while, and coming home because there was no other place to go. My parents embraced me when I came back, told me not to worry, that the elders would help me, and I told them I was sorry, very sorry, for not being the kind of person they wanted me to be.

That night I swallowed two bottle's worth of Tylenol gelcaps.

The next few days are sort of blurry. There was a psychiatrist with one arm who asked me questions about Hitchcock movies as he tried to open and eat a plastic cup of yogurt. There were Pepsi drinks mixed with rancid medicine. There was a nurse who promised not to tell anyone if I confided in him why I'd done it. I told him that my parents only wanted me if I was in their religion, and I didn't think I could wait until I was old enough to leave it. It felt like the first honest thing I'd said in years. The nurse, of course, told my parents, and my parents confronted me with it, and naturally I denied having said it.

And before too long, life went on as before, more or less; I never made another attempt.

What I did was stupid and weak and I hope I'm not romanticizing it here. I don't know why I swallowed pills that night and not any of the other nights when I felt alone and depressed beyond anything I can hope to describe here. I can say that the weight of living an unforgivable "double life," and the alienation I felt from any "real" connection with my parents -- and the peculiar "Witness" way these otherwise common adolescent complaints were dramatized in my life -- caused a sort of despair that became desperate one night. The decision I made then, an irresponsible one, was my own, but I didn't make it in a vacuum.

Dedalus

17

Orthodox Jews and homosexuality

by scotsman in

as larc's thread has mutated into the tired old nurture vs nature debate i thought i'd give a response to his question, which was how do you reconcile the bibles attittude to homosexuality and the living breathing reality of human beings.

i was at a recent screening of trembling before g-d, a documentary on homosexuals in the orthodox community who want to be practising homosexuals and still be accepted as part of the orthodox faith.

(my opinion is that they're wanting to have their cake and eat it but i was interested in the reasoning).

dedalus

Scotsman writes:

As larc's thread has mutated into the tired old nurture vs nature debate I thought I'd give a response to his question ...

What does Starscream immediately reply with?

It is not a choice that a heterosexual be heterosexual. It is genetically programmed that we are attracted to the opposite sex of the same species.

Get on-topic or get off this thread, Starscream -- it's your sort of dumb irrelevence that motivated Scotsman to start a new thread in the first place.

Dedalus

26

What is wrong with America?

by Tyler in

now i am in england, so first ill explain why i am criticising america and not my own country.

america is taking over the world.

this is a fact.

dedalus

teenyuck; freedom. of. speech. use. the. back. button. and. read. another. thread...

Ironically, teenyuck was using her freedom of speech to express her exasperation with this topic.

Can someone explain to me why, invariably, sensitive topics galvanize around a poster's right to free speech, when that right was never challenged? After all, teenyuck didn't even remotely suggest that

26

What is wrong with America?

by Tyler in

now i am in england, so first ill explain why i am criticising america and not my own country.

america is taking over the world.

this is a fact.

dedalus

There's plenty to be critical of in America, and there are many Americans, myself included, who are grateful for the right discuss what's wrong with their country. But you, Tyler, are a hysterical nut without the slightest idea what he's talking about, and your rambling half-brained post is laughable at best.

Dedalus