Posts by digderidoo

21

The Prisoner

by mrsjones5 in

amc is doing a remake of "the prisoner" one of my absolute favs.

are there any prisoner fans out there?

when i first started watching it (on pbs) my dad thought i was being my usual weird self, but i didn't care - i loved it and still do.

digderidoo

I have visited the set in North Wales. Bit disappointed in it to be honest, but dad loved it though.

Paul

22

Did anyone hear that not being married cuts off 9 years of your life?

by Bubblie in

heard this on the tv tonight that married people live 9 years longer than single people.

another reason to be pissed at my ex for divorcing me.

oh well, he is left handed and they live less time than right handers.

Married people look out for each other, nag each other if they didn't do anything about a symptom. I guess marriage is a survival tool. That said a bad marriage can give you stress, which in turn can shorten your life. So i guess it's a happy marriage that can prolong your life.

The regular sex helps as well i suppose

Paul

24

To all the people who have been trying to quit drinking. How are you doing

by cognac in

jw
friends

i'm pregnant, so haven't touched anything in about 5 months or so.

i love it!

don't miss it at all and never planning on even having a sip again.

digderidoo

Good thread Cognac.

At the end of the month it will be 6 months sober for me, i like you don't miss it, i now have no desire to have a drink. Over the last year i can count on one hand the times i have drank.

I do occasionally miss the craque that comes with a night out with mates though, that i can't seem to experience sober. But that said i my life has come such a long way over the last year, that i can sacrifice the wild nights out for it. I have started a degree and took up interests such as scuba diving that i would never have done. In general my life has got a whole lot better over the last year or so, i wouldn't give that up for a nights drinking. In fact my social life has got better, i have met more new people this year than any other year really, something i never thought possible without the drinking scene.

Oompa,

i drink each night...it is medicine to help me sleep and it works unfortunately

I used to find that, but from my experience and the experience of others i have come to learn that if you can go 10-14 days without a drink and the restless nights that comes with it, you can generally get a better nights sleep. Lack of sleep is actually a withdrawal symptom, especially if it occurs with the first 4 days of not drinking after drinking every night.

Well done though for cutting back.

Gregor,

I'd like your opinions. If someone is presently drinking at, say, a value of 10 and they want to cut back to a 5 or a 3, is that more difficult than simply targeting zero?

It is for an alcoholic. I tried it over 2 to 3 years, but found zero a lot more easier to achieve.

Hamsterbait,

The hardest thing about sobriety is changing your socializing habits and missing all you lovely alcoholic friends. (That has been the most painful part)

I second that, this was and still is the most difficult thing for me. But on balance it's a sacrifice worth making for me.

Jaguarbass,

It doesnt sound like your an alcoholic if you could quit drinking for 5 months and not miss it.
If your not an alcoholic and you quit drinking what you said is like saying I havent eaten at McDonalds in a year and I dont miss it.
Big deal.
If you were an alcoholic you couldnt say what you said.
Having said that I doubt there is anything an alcoholic would say that would interest you.
Because an alcoholic can not do what you did.

I must say that i totally disagree with that statement. I am an alcoholic and don't miss drinking. I know that if i were to take a drink, i would be back to square one. I certainly couldn't stop at 1 or 2. After about 5 months of attempting abstinence, with two slips, i came to the point where i had no desire to have another drink, it almost felt empowering, that was in May, my final drink. I went out for a lads night out and just didn't want a drink, but felt compelled to have one as part of the night out, i couldn't stop at a few, so got paryletic. From that night on i have had no desire to drink. I am an alcoholic and now i don't miss drink at all, i know other alcoholics that would say the same too.

Don't get me wrong i am not saying that cognac is or isn't an alcoholic, that's something that only she can decide, but i totally disagree when you say that an acoholic cannot get to a point where they do not miss drinking.

Cognac,

Well done and good for you. I would like to add though now you have a major reason not to drink, so it that sense it's easier not to drink. Whereas after the baby is born, with all the stresses that comes along with it, bear in mind it may be more difficult to resist drinking again. Whether or not you were an alcoholic is something that only you can decide, no one here can really tell you that.

I hope things really work out for you and your baby.

Good luck (we can say that now :-))

Paul

23

Why don't I have friends?

by mtsgrad in

jw
friends

been in the troof for 30yrs, pionered for 15yrs, became servant and did mts and had loadsa friends.

faded and now no witness will talk to me.

i was a crap friend so deserve itmy friends were not real friendsthe religion is to blamenon of the abovecheers.

digderidoo

mtsgrad,

I would certainly say the religion is to blame. We were actively discouraged from maintaining friendships in the 'world'. So when we leave we have nobody. I didn't even know how to make friends with people and was very wairy, for me i ended up in the pub scene and met people through that. That in itself led to it's own problem though, i started partying hard and began to neglect other areas of my life.

I wouldn't necassarily say your friends weren't real friends. I would say though their friendship was conditional, but then to a degree most friendships are. For example, if you were to do something that hurt a friend then that in itself could destroy the friendship. In the JW case though they take that conditional aspect too far, in my view. I am certain they would become friends again if you went back, but that just goes to show that those friendship are conditional on your actions.

We have all been where you are now. My advice would be that it takes time to cultivate new friends and in so doing extending your social circle. It may be difficult to understand or comprehend now, but time is the greatest healer.

Paul

42

any problems with this 607 response from Elder PO

by besty in

back in may 2007 i got this response from my brother who later acted as chief witness for the prosecution at our kangaroo court.

in fact he travelled 1000 miles round trip to do so.

he was motivated :-).

digderidoo

Looks like i've joined the party late. Much of the issues have been covered, but that said i will add my bit.

The date 607 BCE for the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians is arrived at from within Scripture itself.

There are no dates in the bible, so where he gets this statement from i do not know. All of bible chronology has to have a starting point with secular chronology.

That the exiled Jews would spend 70 years in Babylon was prophesied in many places – 2 Chronicles 36:21; Jeremiah 25:11; Jeremiah 29:10; Daniel 9:2.

The Jewish 70 year exile is only one interpretation of those scriptures. Others being Babylonian dominance of the area, starting from 609BCE at the capture of Assyria to 539BCE. So that all the nations would serve Babylon. Notice Jeremiah 25:11 says 'these nations', not 'this nation'. Other interpretations are a 70 year period from the accepted date of 587/6 BCE for the fall of Jerusalem until 516BCE for the rebuilding of the temple.

539 BCE is a pivotal date – both Scriptural chronology and secular history point to 539 BCE as the date for the fall of Babylon.

In scripture there are no dates mentioned, so your brother i wrong to ascert that the date is scriptural. Secular chronology does point to the date of 539 BCE being correct. This is the pivotal date, the WTS relies on secular evidence here, nothing else.

Scripture then shows that the Jews returned to Judea in 537 BCE.

B*lls*it !! Ask him where. 537BCE is a guess. This is their weakest link in my view, 537BCE is THE pivotal date for this prophecy. They guess it took 18 months for Cyrus to announce his decree after 539 BCE. Interestingly they used to think it was 536BCE, until they realised that Russell had his maths wrong in counting a year zero in his calculations. When Rutherford decided to correct this and place one year from 1BCE-1AD, instead of counting a year forward to 1915AD, which was not an option, they added the year onto 536BCE, so hey presto 537BCE was the date Cyrus announced his decree.

We give primacy to the scriptures that the exile was 70 years, thus the destruction of Jerusalem must have been in 607 BCE.

They interprate the 70 year period as a Jewish exile from 537BCE, the made up date, to 607BCE.

So, when deciding when we think Jerusalem was destroyed, we can either accept the Scriptural chronology (with 1914 following from this evidenced by dramatic and irrevocable change in the world situation i.e. “the last days”)

As shown this is not scriptural chronology....and remember the change in the world situation was not the original prediction. The prediction was Armaggedon would occur.

or go with uncertain secular sources of evidence which are often subject to change, revision and new archaeological discoveries.

Those same uncertain secular sources that the WTS uses to pinpoint 539BCE as the pivotal date. Ptolemy's Canon for instance for which pinpoints 539BCE as the date for Babylon being conquered that the WTS likes to quote from, remember the picture in the Live Forever book? Yet Ptolemy's Canon also pinpoints 587/6BCE as the date for Jerusalem's destruction, suddenly it becomes "uncertain".

The Scriptures will never change that the exile would be 70 years and everyone agrees with 539 BCE for the fall of Babylon, and 537 BCE as the date of the return from exile.

Who's everyone? Everyone who's a JW maybe pinpoint 537BCE as the date, nobody else.

It's good that your brother is talking to you about this and trying to establish a defence. My advice would be not to give him a full response, but just to ask how he arrives from scripture that 537BCE is the date Cyrus announced his decree. The onus is on them to prove their doctrine first, rather than on anyone else to disprove it.

It falls apart at all levels, let alone how they then go on to interprate the end of the gentile times of Matthew 24 with Daniel adding 2520 years and all that.

It's all mishmash.

Paul

41

My Big Deck~ enjoy

by free2think in

this had me in stitches.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y56nskk_b7s.

.

digderidoo

Well i've always been told it aint the size of your deck that matters.

Paul

66

Would You Rather Be Married or Single?

by minimus in

jw
friends

digderidoo

Grass is always greener the other side of the fence.

When married you wonder what it would be like to be single again. When your single you wonder what it would be like to be married or living with someone.

That's always been my experience, but i guess i have never met the right one :-/

Paul

139

Santa & Kids - To Lie or Not To Lie?

by sweet pea in

jw
friends

this will be our second christmas since leaving the wts but we will be away in nz with besty's extended family so probably won't bother much with trees and decorations but the santa issue is playing on my mind, especially now podlet no.

1 is at preschool.. do we bring the children up to believe in santa & co with all the magic, mystery and excitement associated with the fairytale or do we tell him right away what the deal is - either route is going to feel very strange.

my gut feeling is to go along with the myth and give them those happy memories of wonder and anticipation - what do you all think?.

digderidoo

My advice....lie through your teeth!

When i split up from my ex, i so wanted my kids to believe in Santa but the ex was still a JW. I used to go out with a woman who had a child about the same age as my youngest, we told her about Santa, she loved it. The look on their faces was a picture.

My kids now are 15, 13 and 11. I regret not telling them the Santa story.

Paul

24

DA !

by lancelink in

well i finally decided to send my letter to the boe.

it was a decent letter, i just stated that i no longer cared to be a jw,and that i enjoyed my time .

in the org, but it was time to move on.

digderidoo

If it works for you then that's a good thing. Some times i wish that i could DA myself, but it would bring too many issues to the front with regards to contact with my mother.

As for the elders wanting to speak to you, it is usual that they contact you to confirm that the letter is from you, that's all.

Paul

24

NWT Revelation 5:10 Rule on the earth or over the earth?

by digderidoo in

new world translation and you made them to be a kingdom and priests to our god, and they are to rule as kings over the earth.

"compared to new international version.

10you have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our god, .

digderidoo

New World Translation and you made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God, and they are to rule as kings over the earth."

compared to New International Version

10 You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
and they will reign on the earth."

Seems to be another clear cut case where the NWT has been mistranslated to fit in with JW beliefs. Seems as if just about every other translation uses the word "on" too. The original Greek word "epi" can apparently be translated for on or over.

Interestingly the Old J.W Interlinear (The EMPHATIC DIAGLOTT) published by the WTBTS and used for over 100 years as their teaching Interlinear show Rev. 5:10 as "on" and not "over". This was obviously being used prior to 1914 to show that Jesus' rule would be "on" the earth. With their failed predictions and new meaning of an invisible presence, comes the new interlinear.

Surprise, surprise, the new Kingdom Interlinear Translation (KIT) translates the word "epi" as over.

So it all fits. Unbelievable! It is only recently i have been discovering mistranslations in the NWT and find it fascinating.

Paul