PrimateDave

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Posts by PrimateDave

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  56

  If You Had To Have A Religion Which Would You Not Mind Belonging To?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  if you were even born into a religion, would you feel that you had to get out?

  ( the only religion that i know of where people get out and often never go to any other religion is the jw religion)..

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  PrimateDave

  I wouldn't mind going to FHN's church.
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  34

  NEED HELP ASAP

  by BoomTown in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  my wife is bitter towards the organization right now and is finally willing to talk about flaws without her shutting down.

  what is the easiest way to prove the witnesses don't have the "the single truth" of the bible?.

  today i said to her, "you are probably worried about leaving because you think "what if they are right and armageddon comes.

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  PrimateDave

  Get some really old Watchtower literature and start reading it for "family study night."
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  18

  The Holy Spirit is a Big Scared Sissy…

  by Yan Bibiyan in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  ...according to the wt teachings, that is.. for trinitarians and unitarians alike, the holy spirit is the most powerful force in the universe.. however, if there is the tiniest measly baby demon just fallen asleep in that book you bought at a garage sale, the holy spirit is outa there.

  the mere presence of a man-made wooden game board is enough to scare the living crap out of the hs and make your abode a nuclear waste, off limits zone for any kind of good spiritual activity.. why do we have to create the perfect conditions for the hs to operate on us?

  shouldnt it be the other way around?.

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  PrimateDave

  "if there is the tiniest measly baby demon just fallen asleep in that book you bought at a garage sale, the Holy Spirit is outa there."

  LOL!
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  14

  Where to post the new Elder Manual

  by Elsewhere in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i've noticed some here expressing difficulty finding a good place to host the new elder's manual.. the solution is simple: wikileaks.

  wikileaks is a site that specializes in hosting controversial and secret content that needs to be made public.. http://wikileaks.org/.

  http://wikileaks.org/media/submissions.html.

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  PrimateDave

  Upload to newsgroups. Share with emule. There's more to the internet than the World Wide Web.
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  36

  The Cigar Thread!

  by notverylikely in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  sbc, outlaw and a few others have chatted me up about cigars, so i thought i would start a thread for us to discuss, made recommendations, talk about cigar related activies like golf, drinking, and smoking after a great meal.

  this thread is for any interest in cigars, what kind you like, don't like, questions, answers, whatever.

  anything related to cigars and not related to jws or religion is up for discussion.

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  PrimateDave

  I should very much like to try a good cigar. It was about a year ago I smoked my first pipe which was a pleasant surprise. Of course, not all pipe tobacco is created equal, and technique makes a difference. Fortunately, good blends are affordable, for now.

  As an aside, it is nice to know that pipe tobacco is not addictive, at least no more so than coffee, chocolate, or wine. I'm guessing that cigars are not like cigarettes in this regard?
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  95

  ...Who is the "Bilderberg Group"?...What effect Do they Have on your Life?...

  by OUTLAW in

  1. social
  2. current

  this thread is your chance to participate in an investigation... google is your friend..use it... .

  the "bilderberg group" is a publicy known group..they don`t hide... they are the worlds "most" powerful people.. they influence your life everyday... they will influence your future... they have an agenda..and..have made a public statement about it... i will make the 1st post... of a public statement made by the "bilderberg group"... .

  denis healey.

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  PrimateDave

  My take on things, just an opinion which is worth US$0.02:

  You guys give these groups (Bilderbergs, CFR, etc.) far too much credit. We have come as close to world government now as we ever will. These elites, these people, are not all powerful. They suffer from the same failings as all humans. Granted, they have access to money and social networks that give them the appearance of power and advantage, but like all things they are dust in the wind.

  They are not united any more than any other social network of humans. Remember how we all used to imagine the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses as some all-knowing entity being united by Holy Spirit? Ray Franz brought that illusion down. The reality was and probably still is that the GB is a group of men who are out of touch with the rank and file, jockying amongst themselves for position, each one attempting to push his own agenda through internal politics. The same things happen in board rooms around the world.

  Anyway, on a global scale power is shared between competing and cooperating entities. What we've got is the best they can do. Personally, I think it is all downhill from here. Fact is, "they" need us more than we need them, and "they" have always known that.

  "There is no conspiracy. Nobody is in charge. It's a headless blunder operating under the illusion of a master plan." - Worth

  "Who do you think the establishment is? It's just guys like me. Their desks are bigger, but their jobs aren't. They don't conspire, they buy boats." - Quentin

  The Cube (1997)
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  16

  Say Pledge of Allegiance or Go To Jail

  by cameo-d in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  a lawyer was cited for criminal contempt of court because he did not say the pledge of allegiance.

  he stood up but was silent.

  apparently he had done this before and the judge was put out with him.

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  PrimateDave

  That's a good video trueblue. Funny though, I don't see it as a triumph for JWs (who in reality aren't about freedom at all as can be seen from their own literature) but as a testament to the reasonableness of judge Robert H. Jackson and how lucky the United States was to have a man like him serve on the Supreme Court. Governments exist to oppress, and were it not for people of character to resist that oppression we would not enjoy the freedoms we have today. The fight never ends. Where are the women and men of character today?
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  16

  Say Pledge of Allegiance or Go To Jail

  by cameo-d in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  a lawyer was cited for criminal contempt of court because he did not say the pledge of allegiance.

  he stood up but was silent.

  apparently he had done this before and the judge was put out with him.

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  PrimateDave

  What, legally speaking, is a pledge of allegiance? Is it an act of faith, like the recitation of the Lord's Prayer or Hail Mary, expressed in reverence to the nation-state? Is it a contract between a "person" or "individual" and the government? Is it really to be considered valid in any way if such a pledge is done under coercion, or without full informed consent? Why should we "thank the government" for our freedom? That sounds a bit backwards to me. As to the case cited in the original post, I have no knowledge of it, but it would not surprise me. It is quite possible we're not being told the entire story either.
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  208

  ...Weird Ass Lights in the Sky...

  by OUTLAW in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  good evening jwn!!...

  as most of you know i live in a forest,in the mountains..at night there is very little light pollution... so the sky is one big theatre screen... i see shooting stars,northern lights,satellites,planes on a destination..it`s all very beautiful... tonight was different... .

  tonight there was something in the sky that defied anything i`ve ever seen... it had multiple aircraft lights but not like regular airplane lights..it wasn`t a helicopter... it could go straight up or down... move in one direction then head in another..it could do all kinds of weird stuff... sometimes it just hovered..then start doing all these weird maneuvers... regular aircraft is going somewhere,it`s headed in a direction..not this thing... i watched a regular airplane pass it... .

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  PrimateDave

  Yes - Tormato - Arriving UFO live

  I lived in a part of the Caribbean noted for its UFO activity for nearly four years and never saw a thing, dang it!
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  73

  I Believe Full Disclosure Is Moving Forward

  by metatron in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  anyone who deeply believes in a "free press" is very naive in my opinion.

  for example, consider how stories about scandal suddenly appear out of nowhere after candidates actually start running.

  i am also aware of how surprizing revelations appear in european newspapers about figures in the us - while little or nothing is reported in the american press.

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  PrimateDave

  Well, Cameo, I'm not denying that there's a kleptocracy. What I am denying is the existence of a "prison planet" style conspiracy. There is no evil elite in control. There is only us. We humans collectively are our own source of good and evil, and that "good" and "evil" is highly subjective to cultural narratives. The kleptocracy exists because the narrative of control is an illusion (see my previous post), and there are those in a position to recognize that fact to their advantage.

  Once you can see outside the comfort zone of believing in things like Santa Claus, Religion, God, Country, Democracy, and Constitution (all stories we Americans collectively tell each other to maintain complex social cohesion), you see what really exists: a planet full of bipedal sentient primates that tell each other socially cohesive stories while consuming limited resources (citing the "economic growth is good" narrative) and creating waste products of varying degrees of complexity from simple carbon dioxide to radioactive isotopes (entropy) and plastic bottles (for drinking clean water because the rivers and lakes are so polluted) to skyscrapers (temples built in honor of the "property" narrative). We will keep making garbage (everything I currently own and use will eventually become garbage) and telling each other stories until it is no longer possible to sustain complex social cohesion. (Those are the "overshoot" and "collapse" narratives.)

  Is there interstellar life? Sure. It's mostly single-celled like our bacteria. The likelihood of lifeforms evolving with a comparable degree of intelligence to humans is a possibility, though I suspect uncommon. Whether any kind of intelligent lifeform has developed a form of interstellar travel is yet an order of magnitude less likely. If an interstellar lifeform took an interest in "our" rock, why should one assume that it shares our cultural narratives or resembles us in any way? Like Cognitive Dissident wrote in a previous post, modesty is a human narrative, so why would an alien wear briefs? The stories are fake. The tellers are frauds. The believers are gullible.

  Cameo, let's take a look at your last two paragraphs. First there is the "salvation" narrative. Somehow, the "gods" (or aliens or technology) are supposed to save humanity from calamity. However, due to our "sins" (wars, divisions, genetic mistakes) we may not be judged worthy to be transported to "paradise" (either on Earth or in space ships). Does any of this sound familiar? Sin, salvation, and paradise are endemic to human religions, not because aliens or gods are real, but because human culture is an evolved product of our recently acquired social complexity. Our social complexity over the past 10,000 years is due to the fact that humans learned to create food surpluses by domesticating certain plants and animals. However, because environmental variables are mostly beyond human control, human communities have been wiped out due to crop failure and plagues. Because they did not understand the inanimate forces at work, tribal humans told stories attributing disaster to angry deities that could be placated with sacrifices. Yada, yada, yada. Get the picture? Human ignorance made the gods of yore. The same narratives spawn stories of aliens today.

  As with religious cults who sell god to unsuspecting quasi-sentient bipedal primates, there will be those who sell alien "salvation" to those with more money than sense. Careful, there's a hook in that bait.