apfergus

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Posts by apfergus

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  35

  What would be the Ideal Church for you?

  by AK - Jeff in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i mean - what kind of doctrine would they teach - what sort of social programs would they support - how big?

  how small?

  preacherman or preacherwoman?

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  apfergus

  Being atheist, I'm probably not the best person to answer the question, but what I want (and have, more or less) is probably more of a salon than a church. I meet with people and simply discuss some aspect of philosophy and before long everyone is playing the devil's advocate to everyone else and what we're actually discussing might be only tangentially related to the original topic. It's quite fascinating.
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  10

  Books

  by RPT in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  what is the best book i can give to a jw to convince her its all a big con ?

  maybe she will read it maybe she wont but at least i said i tried my best.

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  apfergus

  I was a big fan of Apocalypse Delayed, myself.
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  22

  what about celebrating?

  by Swamboozled in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  anyone still not celebrate birthdays?

  holidays?

  i was wondering about everyone's position about this as i plan to throw a huge make-up birthday party for each of my kids this year.

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  apfergus

  I actually use my upbringing as an excuse to not celebrate Christmas, because I hate shopping and having to try to find a gift for everyone so nobody feels left out. It's way too much stress and not worth it to me. I still like to do nice things for people, of course (which is why my roommate and I operate a small socialist country out of our living room).
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  21

  Arrogance? When will we humans learn we are not the center of everything?

  by mavie in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  we humans are an arrogant, anthropocentric species.

  ptolemy posited that the earth was the center of the universe.

  once copernicus began to show that the sun, not earth, was at the center of our solar system, some still believed that the sun at least was the center of the universe.

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  apfergus

  Oh my, are some people stuck up. It's such a common misconception that evolution is somehow "striving" or "progressing" toward humanity or that humans are somehow the final, ultimate end to the process of evolution. How can evolution progress? It has no consciousness or will or motivation. It is an abstract concept, a series of ideas applied to our observations so that we might understand them a little bit better.
  I believe it was Stephen J. Gould who pointed out that if you plot population as a function of complexity you get a decaying exponential. Right on the edge of "most complex" things can move in two directions: things can get more complex or less complex. That's why there's more "uncomplex" life than "complex" life, because everything started out simple and things can always get simpler once they've advanced beyond the basics.
  Of course I'm not in the life sciences, so I could be mistaken in my understanding somewhere. It's something I think more people should take the time to consider.
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  38

  Were your parents a different religion before JDubism?

  by Crumpet in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i know an awful lot here are 3rd and 4th generation - but were there any who's parents become dubs as adults?

  i'd be interested to here what it was that made an adult become a jw when not brought up that way?.

  i'll relate my parents experience shortly...but its something i;ve been thinking about a lot.

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  apfergus

  My father was raised Southern Baptist and had it repeatedly drilled into his head growing up that he was going to burn in Hell. He now will have nothing to do with religion. My mother was raised methodist, converted to presbyterianism (or maybe it was the other way around, I don't remember), and then converted to JW-ism when I was six or so. Dad went to a couple conventions and a memorial, but after that his patience wore thin and he pretty much disappeared as I was at the Kingdom Hall or doing something related to it pretty much all the time for years after that.
  I think my mom's conversion was because she wanted answers. She didn't find them in any of the myriad of religions she tried when she was growing up or even after I was born. At some point she remembered that one of her boyfriends in college left her because he was studying with the JWs, so she just looked up the KH in the phone book, drove over, met a car full of sisters in the parking lot who asked if she wanted a bible study and the rest is history.
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  37

  Music you chucked out when you were a JW.

  by lowden in

  1. social
  2. entertainment

  it 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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  apfergus

  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.
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  125

  FRESH OFF THE PRESS.... 9/1/06 WT "When a Loved One Leaves Jeh."

  by schne_belly in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

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  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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  38

  What religion are you... if any?

  by Effervescent in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  interesting 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 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  what 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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  63

  Semi-Fluff - What is your favourite Science Fiction Book?

  by Clam in

  1. social
  2. entertainment

  for 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.