Well last night our family was invited over to my brother's place for supper and my parents were invited as well. My brother is an amazing cook and wasting that talent with a menial job, but that is another story, we get to benefit from his cooking.
So the conversation eventually comes around to the blood issue and the sextuplets, it has been so long since I have had a conversation with active dubs that this was very interesting to watch. The whole opinion is that this is a horrible perversion of the legal system and that Jehovah will punish all those involved. My mother, wife and sister-in-law all expressed their extreme displeasure with how things were being handled.
The interesting thing was my father quipped in a few times, but not in support of the JW's firm stance against blood, but a respect for the medical community. He corrected my mother a few times on the proper blood stance and when my mother talked about the "good old days" when they would kidnap the baby from the hospital, I caught my dad rolling his eyes.
My dad has always been a really hard person to read regarding the organization. He drinks, he swears, he plays the lottery but is an elder and faithfully goes in service and to meetings every week. He seems to flipflop on whether to shun my sister or not. But he's definitely not towing the company line on the blood issue.
Also my mom was relating a part of a talk she heard which tried to use atomic physics to make some parallel to the witness work or something. As she was explaining this part I had to jump in to correct her with the proper means of creating a nuclear chain reaction. She frowned and tried saying "well that's not how they explained it in the talk", my dad quipped in "[Paralipomenon] has it right, I have no idea where that brother got that information from" My mom started to protest, but then dropped it.
It was fun to see this side of my dad again. He is an incredibly intelligent man with an amazing memory. He doesn't even realize that he's not normal. He rarely prepared for the meetings but would give comments like this out of the blue:
"If you remember the September 15th Watchtower in 1973, on page 16 there was a similar point..." He would get quite annoyed when nobody seemed to remember an article from over 20 years ago.
He was part of the crew that joined for the 1975 destruction and they never put any money aside for their kids or retirement. He's well past the age of retirement now and told me his retirement plans are to die working.
I just wish the governing body could realize exactly how much of an impact they are having on real people's lives and stop trying to play God.
Ugh. Well the supper was great and my brother and father got to play with the kids. Nice to see some family pointing out the flaws in the organization.
Paralipomenon
JoinedPosts by Paralipomenon
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9
Interesting family supper on the weekend
by Paralipomenon inwell last night our family was invited over to my brother's place for supper and my parents were invited as well.
my brother is an amazing cook and wasting that talent with a menial job, but that is another story, we get to benefit from his cooking.
so the conversation eventually comes around to the blood issue and the sextuplets, it has been so long since i have had a conversation with active dubs that this was very interesting to watch.
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Paralipomenon
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Who is your Devil?
by Lumptard inwho or what is the devil to you now that you are out/fading out of the wts?
has your opinion of the devil changed?
do you still beleive that satan is real?
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Paralipomenon
I am responsible for myself. I have my own personal ethics and morals and only have myself to blame if I fall short.
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Establishing a household budget....anyone good at it?
by onlycurious inwe are going to be building our first home this fall or next spring.
kind of depends on the finances because all the prep work with the septic, utilities and retaining walls has really put a dent in our savings.. in the meantime, i did a little quick analysis on our spending habits and found that we spend on average about $1000.00 on food a month for a family of 6. one of them is a baby.. so, we need to bite the bullet and draw up a budget because this is ridiculous!.
so, can anyone offer advice on the simplest way to do this?
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Paralipomenon
I am a large advocate of MS Money though I suppose any personal finance software would do. It can connect to your bank and download your account information.
What I initially did was just assign categories to common purchases. So if it saw "Exxon" it would automatically file it under "Automobile" for Gas. After a month it will provide you with a report saying exactly how much you spent and where you spent it.
This gave us a really realistic idea of our current budget and also made things glaringly obvious as to what we could adjust. We found that we were using our debit card alot and going over our monthly transaction limit. This amounted to alot of extra fees so we went to the bank and upgraded our account to accommodate.
After a few months we had created a budget but found that it was very hard to stick to. Small purchases seem to add up. The biggest one was our grocery budget. It was nothing to go out and spend $20-$40 to pick up some basics or a treat, but at the end of the month we found that alot of food was going bad from impulse desires. In order to stick to a budget we set our budget into set amounts and each payday I go to the bank and withdrawal our budget. I give my wife the grocery budget + personal spending money, and I get the gas budget + personal spending money. We take a 100 bill and put it in a lockbox as a reserve/vacation fund. The idea is, we'd be less likely to dip into the vacation fund if it meant breaking a 100 dollar bill.
So far this has worked amazingly well. It took about 6 months to figure out what worked for our budgets. We initially set our grocery budget too low and found we needed to supplement it each pay period. We just worked with it and adjusted it until it was comfortable. When you have a set amount of cash set aside for a two week period, you will adjust your shopping habits to suit. A year later it is still a work in progress, but we are wasting less.
We figured out exactly how much we continually average on eating out and have added that to our payday withdrawal. If we can curb our eating fast food, the deal is we'll use the money at the end of the month to go to a fancy restaurant without the kids.
I had tried numerous budgets over the years but this has been the only one that I have made work. Like diets, what works for one person may not work for another. The reason this worked for me was before I would try to set a savings goal first then try to adjust our spending around it. This was setting myself up to fail. There is always alot of little things you don't take into account. It would get frustrating that the budget wasn't working so I'd drop it. Once you have an idea of exactly how you spend your money, you can make a budget to work with it. Live your life comfortably first, whatever you can live without or save can go into your savings. -
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What reading material would I find in your loo?
by Gregor inmine- popular mechanics, this old house and maybe a sunset.
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Paralipomenon
Men's Health - Mine
People Magazine- Wife's -
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Back up anything you say with a scripture
by JH inlets do like the watchtower does, and put verses after just about every sentence we write.. lets see how we can also manipulate the bible as good as the watchtower.. .
ok, i'll start.
all that i write on jwd is inspired by god .
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Paralipomenon
Please pass the chicken. (Deuteronomy 14:11)
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Elder quits meetings
by buffalosrfree ini received good news from my daughter, it was amazing to her, but she informed me that she met an old friend from a congregations we attended 10 years ago, and the upshot was that the friends partents no longer attended meetings.
he her dad had been an elder the last i talked with him, he had left the congregation we were in due to the attitude of other elders there, went to a new congregation and the last i heard was very happy there.
we had had conversations about various aspects of the supposed truth and he always tried to counsel me about the troooth as spouted by the pharasies then.
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Paralipomenon
I would respectfully disagree with the popular opinion here. If someone leaves the witnesses and doesn't maintain a belief in God is no reason to pity them.
They have freed their minds and feel happy about it. People's relationship with their God is personal. Wishing others to feel the same way you do, to me, is only a side step away from the Watchtower's thinking.
I applaud anyone that starts thinking for themselves and respect whatever choice they make. People can be good and moral without the bible and without a belief in God. -
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valentines day ideas anyone??
by Cordelia inthis is my first valentines day (at least celebrating it with someone).
sooooooo any good ideas so it can be a night to remember (on a budget!!).
not even sure what to get him..
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Paralipomenon
If you're looking to be unique here's a great idea:
http://www.goldroses.net/ -
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The Epistemological Problem.
by Blueblades in"epistemology is that branch of philosophy which addresses the question: 'how do we know what we think we know?
the epistemological problem is that philosophers have never succeeded in answering the question.
many in the nineteenth century thought the answer lay in science.
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Paralipomenon
Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum
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Dinosaurs?
by Paralipomenon ini was very curious about dinosaurs as a child.
what was jehovah's purpose for them?
my mother used to say that they were used to prepare the earth for living, you know, like mulch and stuff.
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Paralipomenon
I was very curious about dinosaurs as a child. What was Jehovah's purpose for them?
My mother used to say that they were used to prepare the earth for living, you know, like mulch and stuff. She was insistent that they were not carnivorous and that the large teeth were for eating large plants.
It wasn't until my late teens that I showed her an article about the discovery of fossilized dino dropping with crushed bones in them. She quickly said: "Oh, it must have ate a small creature by mistake" I gave her a look that said "get real" and she corrected herself to "oh that's interesting" and carried on.
I never did get a straight answer as to what JW's think of the dinosaurs, anyone else know the "official" stance? -
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The Lords Table
by evetteto ini understand only the supposedly annointed are to partake of the sacrament during the memorial right?
however, i 'd like to know if the plate is passed around to everyone?
what if a visitor decides to partake of the lords flesh and blood?
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Paralipomenon
They should pass around grape juice and Ritz™ crackers for those with an earthly hope!