My mother once threw a fit over the lyrics to the They Might Be Giants song Ana Ng, but I somehow managed to keep my Severe Tire Damage CD, anyway. I never threw away any of my music, but mother did once throw out all of my D&D books after she found them because she thought they were attracting demons to the house.
apfergus
JoinedPosts by apfergus
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37
Music you chucked out when you were a JW.
by lowden init made me think, reading comments on carpenters thread....... what music did you throw out when you were a witness??.
i got rid of all my led zeppelin (satanic backtracking and all that baloney).
all my deep purple.
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FRESH OFF THE PRESS.... 9/1/06 WT "When a Loved One Leaves Jeh."
by schne_belly in.
this just in for your reading displeasure......enjoy
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apfergus
I can see my mom and her friends from my old congregation who have DFed and DAed children just having a huge self pity party over this. But I am getting kind of worried about those swift moving storm clouds of armageddon... they've been moving swiftly for how long? Since 1914?
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What religion are you... if any?
by Effervescent ininteresting little flashy thingie, toolie on usa today (see how professional i sound?).
http://www.usatoday.com/graphics/news/gra/gnoreligion/flash.htm.
interesting results in new york.... where the world wide headquarters of jws resides... .
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apfergus
I am secular humanist. Which is an atheist religion--atheism itself not being a religion. "Saying that atheism is a religion is like saying not collecting stamps is a hobby."
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29
Ann Coulter.
by Blueblades inwhat are your thoughts about her?
there has been some controversy about her lately.
anyone read her book the godless?.
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apfergus
She gave a talk at my university last year. I couldn't go, but from what I understand she was very rude and actually walked away before the end of the scheduled Q&A period so she didn't get paid the full amount she was supposed to because of breach of contract.
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Semi-Fluff - What is your favourite Science Fiction Book?
by Clam infor those of you who like science fiction - what is your favourite science fiction book, or indeed film?
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apfergus
Am I the only Ursula K. Le Guin fan here? The Left Hand of Darkness is probably my absolute favorite, but I also liked Always Coming Home. I will always have a fondness for the books I grew up on while I was supposed to be studying the Watchtower article for that week: Isaac Asimov's Foundation novels and everything Arthur C. Clarke has ever written that I could find in print. Another favorite is the little known Dreamsnake by the similarly little known Vonda N. McIntyre.
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Why is truth is so hard to find in Bible
by The Dragon ini have been studing it for years looking for answers....yet for every answer i find there is a counter to it.
the words themselves are twisted by leaders/teachers to fit their personal opinions and adgendas, as well as twisted by trying to rely on our own reasoning to understand them.. a good example would be the way our current system of laws work.. if the supreme court writes a law into the book..say for example.."evil" is anyone who does this....... it is then turned over to a bunch of undereducated enforcers to interpert and judge others they feel are "evil".
they are allowed to accuse and shoot first asking questions later.
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apfergus
Your asking questions! That's the best way to start. The answers don't always come easy. In fact, a lot of the time they don't even come at all. If you'd like to keep looking for answers in the Bible I recomend checking out a 12th century Jewish philosopher by the name of Maimonides. He's best known for his extensive commentary on the Torah, but I enjoy his works explaining why he wrote his comentaries more than the comentaries themselves.
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Power of Prayer Demonstrated
by Carmel inlast night i took one of my daughter's highschool friends to the rodeo with me since noone else was interested.
we had a good time with the freebee vip tickets, barby and then the rodeo.
before the first event there was a half hour of pagentry which was okay, but it was interrrupted by an "invocation" by one of the local baptist ministers.
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apfergus
I always cringe when I hear TV interviews with natural disaster survivors. It often goes like this: "Well, the good lord musta been lookin' out for me and my famly today. We lost our home, but we still got our lives. God was sure listenin' to our prayers."
I could not agree more. If it was God's will to save them, it was clearly also God's will that everyone else be killed.
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if an atheist does something good...
by DannyBloem in.
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?
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apfergus
Now concerning the "atheist worldview" now don't be offended when I say this, I am referring to the "worldview" not the atheist individuals themselves. As a previous poster joked before "they will do good if it is for survival" that is exactly the atheist worldview, "survival of the fittest" If this is the case then we cannot say what Hitler did was wrong, in the end war is just that "survival of the fittest" In an atheist worldview, there cannot be any certain "right" and "wrong" "good" or "bad" So as an atheist supporting the atheist worldview one cannot say "I do GOOD things" If they do, then they are contradicting their worldview. ....What is good exactly? Where do our morals originate from? If there is no certain good and evil Then the closest we can get to is "disagreement" You can't really say "my opinion is right and yours is wrong" concerning morals, because there is no "right" and "wrong"! Think of a world with no moral law...
Okay. This is wrong. Just plain wrong. There are no such things as moral absolutes. Nobody can name a moral absolute, because there is no such thing. All morality boils down to is either emotional attatchment to a certain idea of righteosness or a logical conclusion based on a careful assessment of the situation. Moral relativists (not necessarily atheists, but I think moral relativism is what's being questioned here and not atheism) make moral judgements based on the latter process wanting the resulting situation to be that which is best for not only themselves but for everyone else as well. Morality follows exactly from the question, "What is best for human-kind as a whole?" No God is necessary to answer that question, simply care and logic.
Moreover, if one makes moral decisions based on unquestionable lists of things that are "good" or "bad" then it is relatively easy to fall into a trap when something from the "bad" list suddenly becomes the best solution to a situation or something from the "good" list would bring harm to others. While some paradigms might have relatively effective lists, reality is not always so cut-and-dried and eventually situations will arise where the list-based morality fails. Even if one were to use such a system as a starting place, I think that eventually everyone has to develop some ability to drop them when the time comes and make a judgement call on their own using good sense and reason. -
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Can you prepare solid meals?
by greendawn incan you prepare interesting solid meals or do you not have the flare for it and instead prefer to live on take aways, restaurant meals or simple casual snack meals at home?
i find it hard to concentrate on cooking though i always want to do it and i have actually put together some interesting recipes several times.
there is a strange resistance blocking me.
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apfergus
I love cooking and do so whenever I can. Between school and work, though, a lot of the time I'm stretched pretty thin. I've actually wound up coming up with some fairly original recipes that I can make really quick, though. I do cheat and use pre-made ingrediants sometimes, but I can forgive myself for that.
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Gay JW
by Wordly Andre inanyone left the org, because they were force out for being gay?
i am not gay i am married but have a few gay and lesbian friends.
i was just wondering about that.
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apfergus
I'm decidedly non-heterosexual, but it has little to do with my leaving the organization. Actually, I doubt anyone from my days in the Watchtower even knows anything at all about me now. I really don't go out of my way to hide anything, but I do avoid anything having to do with The Truth (TM) whenever I can.