It's all completely arbitrary: "It is obvious that 'obscenity' is not a term capable of exact legal definition; in the practice of the Courts, it means 'anything that shocks the magistrate.'" -- Bertrand Russell
apfergus
JoinedPosts by apfergus
-
27
Does God Hate four letter words?
by frankiespeakin ini mean if you use the word like fuck,& shit does he really care or is it something we humans made up ourselves?
-
-
-
16
OMG I'm becoming a wikipedia addict!
by TresHappy in.
i find myself there several times a day.
anyone else?
-
-
apfergus
Wikipedia is a wonderful thing. When I get bored I find myself clicking on the "random article" button just to pass the time.
-
30
Did u convert to JW because u were ignorant, arrogant or some other reason?
by jwfacts into believe the watchtower story takes a high degree of arrogance.
to think you were so special that god drew you to his organization for salvation.
but 6 billion other humans deserve destruction, is placing huge value on your own importance.. if you converted to being a jw do you think you were sucked in because you did not know the full story (ignorance) or was it because you really wanted to believe you were more special than everyone else (arrogance)?
-
-
apfergus
My family wasn't the slightest bit religious until my mother converted when I was six or seven. I started going to the KH with her, and even believed what I was told there, just so my mom could be happy. That's all I really wanted. Now that I've left I'm sure it's really hard on her, but being a JW was really hard on me.
-
36
Oh Dear...College is Bad?
by forgetmenot inhello all, i haven't been here in forever!
i just had to vent.
sometimes we think we are past the healing process; that our lives can go on like everybody else.
-
-
apfergus
Kudos on graduating! I'll be doing that in a year or so myself, I hope. Before I just gave up and left The Truth(TM), I still was hell-bent on going to school. I had made all these compromises with my mother, all of which were exceedingly stupid. I had to go to a school in the same town where we lived, I had to study something that would have practical applications in the new world, and I had to study something that would equip me for a job market where there aren't a lot of applicants so I'd be guaranteed employment and my degree wouldn't be completely useless. Now I'm going to school on the other side of the state, studying something I love--practical applications not withstanding--and preparing to enter one of the most competetive job markets today. Doesn't mean I still don't get crap from my family. Just hang in there.
-
92
What is your town or area's claim to fame?
by free2beme inevery where you live, the local area has something about it that is either famous for something good or something bad.
as an example, you go to one town and it may have the historial site of a famous war battle.
you go to another an it might be the place something was invented, or the birthplace of someone famous.
-
-
apfergus
I live in the future birthplace of Captain Kathryn Janeway of the intrepid class starship USS Voyager (you know... from Star Trek). The 1979 film Breaking Away was also filmed in and about an anual bike race in Bloomington.
-
39
A Case FOR Evolution?
by pmouse in.
and the official wts response?
new light, silence, imperfect man or imperfect bird?.
-
-
apfergus
I'm not sure I understand what you're asking, but if you're interested in a case supporting evolution--and there is a very strong one--I'd check out www.talkorigins.org which has quite a bit of information about common misconceptions and why many religious arguments against evolution are bunk.
-
14
Do you have to be "gullible" in order to be a good JW?
by JH inin french we use the word "naif", which means to believe anything that's said without proof of it being true.
i think that gullible is the english translation.. i was very gullible in my early jw years.
i guess it's not faith that one needs to be a good jw, but gullibility...
-
-
apfergus
For me it all started out as an attempt to please my mother, who was studying with the JWs. I was young at the time, so gullibility is a given. I've always been a science nerd, even when I was really young, so I always wound up being called on at meetings to explain things like why evolution is wrong or why the big-bang couldn't possibly have been true. At one point, my mother had even managed to convince me to throw away any career I could have in the sciences and go to a local college and do something where I wouldn't have to learn about evolution and things. Eventually, I just had to give up; I couldn't take it any more. I couldn't just accept that the big-bang was incorrect without actually studying cosmology and I walked away. So I think part of being a good JW is being pretty gullible, but even with my natural desire to question things and look for answers it took me years before I could leave. So gullability is definitely not the be all end all. There's a lot of pressure that can keep you in the JWs even after your solid supports have been kicked out from under you.
-
14
The ridiculers were "right ".............all along
by vitty inhow do you feel, now, knowing that the ridiculers, objectionist or non-jw family and workmates were right.. i feel a tad embarrist, i spent a long time, 20 years, trying convince, or prove ppl that i had the "truth" .
my only consolation was that i would be proved right and that they would end up looking foolish.
pride is a terrible thing.
-
-
apfergus
I've never been bothered by being wrong. Once someone shows me how I was wrong, I change what I think and am no longer wrong. It works out really well. But my Non-JW father was very supportive of my departure, as were all of my non-JW friends. In fact, most of them were more supportive of me then than the elders were. Go figure.
-
16
Satan Helps Dubs Look Bad
by Clam inwe've recently started to get visits from varying pairs of dubs.
i've been pretty harsh with some in the past and told them to mark me down at the hall as a "do not return", but this has not worked.
a couple of new sisters called on me yesterday morning, so i carefully steered them towards the blood issue.
-
-
apfergus
Wow. Just... wow. "We actually make sense, Satan just manipulates your mind so it looks like we don't make any sense!" I'm reminded of the words of Galileo Galilei, "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
-
7
The Subect of Religious Origins.
by Blueblades inthe subject of religious origins is a fascinating one, as the great multitude of books upon it tend to show.
the great difficulty today in dealing with the subject, lies in the very mass of the material to handle and that, not only on account of the labor involved in sorting through the material,but, because the abundance itself of facts open up temptation to rush in hastily with what seems a plausible theory.
the more facts, statistics, and so forth, that there are available in any investigation, the easier it is to pick out a considerable number which will fit a given theory.
-
-
apfergus
I'm going to have to ask for some clarification on one point:
It should also be noted that research alone does not prove anything, he said she said, ie. the existence of the supernatural. However, real life experience does and only the person experiencing the real life experience knows this.
It seems to me like you're implying that a "spiritual" or "religious" experience can be used to support a certain position as well as empirical evidence. This is simply not so. Such an experience can definitely move an individual to believe a certain way, but it in no way lends any support to that belief other than the completely subjective "I like it" or "it makes me feel good". There are always other more parsimonious explanations for any indescribable personal experience than God or the suprnatural.
Having said that, I do beleive you are correct when you say that everyone is entitled to their own opinion. All I'm doing is expressing mine--in no way do I mean to speak ill of anyone who professes any kind of spirituality.