Lady Lee,
Seeing is relieving.
It's good to hear that some of what wears out can be fixed!
Maeve
humbled
JoinedPosts by humbled
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29
Post cataract surgery Great News!
by Lady Lee inmy vision before the surgery was 20/60 in the eye that has had the surgery.
i saw my eye dr today and it has moved up to 20/30.
this is way beyond what i expected.
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South African cardinal suggests child abuse is illness not crime
by besty inhttp://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/16/us-safrica-cardinal-idusbre92f09a20130316.
johannesburg | sat mar 16, 2013 11:54am edt.
(reuters) - a south african cardinal who helped elect pope francis this week has told the bbc pedophilia is an illness and not a crime.. cardinal wilfrid fox napier, the catholic archbishop of durban, told bbc radio 5 on saturday that pedophilia was a "disorder" that needed to be treated.. "from my experience, pedophilia is actually an illness.
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humbled
I cried at the end of "Old Yeller".
Yeller, the faithful family dog, was locked in the corn crib, crazy with rabies after he had been infected defending his people from a rabid wolf. The oldest boy, teary-eyed had to shoot him.
I had a hard time sorting it out at 8 but somehow I knew that they couldn't let the dog out to bite everyone.
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INTELLECTUAL HONESTY....what is it?
by Terry infreud said:.
"if it were really a matter of indifference what we belive, then we might just as well build our bridges of cardboard as of stone, or inject a tenth of a gram of morphine into a patient instead of a hundredth, or take teargas as a narcotic instead of ether; but the intellectual anarchists themselves would strongly repudiate any such practical applications of their theory.".
intellectual honesty requires a match between the real world; the practical world where things either work or do not work at all.....and the state of mind inside your head.. .
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humbled
I very much like your comment, Gladiator.
It is true that we so want affirmation in our community that we may never admit an unusual experience we may have of reality. ALWAYS seeking guidance is a plague--"A racket and a snare"--as someone once said. "Always learning yet never coming to an understanding" can make us eternal underliners.....
You say we must take personal responsibility in our search for truth. I agree. But that doesn't mean we should shut up about what has happened to us along the way.It is helpful to talk as we do on this forum. But your remark implies more-- that even while we relate our own experience we must be ready to allow for others to take personal responsibility for their own search. No one should ever be bullied into silence by another's "superior" intelligence or training.
However we should welcome the stories of fellow seekers to avoid common pitfalls --as when for the first time I had a home birth the midwife warned me NOT to go to the outhouse when I felt compelled to relieve myself--
I was fortunate enough to have experienced a wonder of God (sorry, words fail me, how to say a thing that I don't understand. Please forgive me) before the Witnesses came to my door. Their campaign to unify all experience under the banner of the "Truth" inevidibly pushed aside the validity of anything others saw, heard, felt or experienced. It wasn't until 22 years passed that I realized that to stay in the Truth I was asked to lie about my own experience of God's love.
What a great line of thought you have invited, Terry
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INTELLECTUAL HONESTY....what is it?
by Terry infreud said:.
"if it were really a matter of indifference what we belive, then we might just as well build our bridges of cardboard as of stone, or inject a tenth of a gram of morphine into a patient instead of a hundredth, or take teargas as a narcotic instead of ether; but the intellectual anarchists themselves would strongly repudiate any such practical applications of their theory.".
intellectual honesty requires a match between the real world; the practical world where things either work or do not work at all.....and the state of mind inside your head.. .
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humbled
Being intellectually honest about any holy writings (including the scriptures used by Christians) makes me admit that they are carefully preserved by religious bodies. Religious bodies are interested in ORTHODOXY. Most religious bodies insist that only the specially anointed can understand what is written in the holy books.
But being intellectually honest requires me to admit to the problem of finding myself surrounded by peoples' stories even before I know HOW to read. So my mind is tainted as soon as I understand words. Of course religion is famous for this.
But if inspite of all my confusion about how poorly formed my intellect may be, how susceptable to delusion I am as a result, what happens if I have a personal event that is without peer and is of a category that demands acknowledgement--at least by myself. BUT the event is so at odds with my community's way of interpreting or "storying it" that my experience is rejected and I too am rejected. Aren't I forced to meet the issue of intellectual honesty in a whole new way?
Just because what occurred doesn't fit into any previous story line that I had been taught shouldn't I tell the truth as I knew it? Doesn't intellectual honesty at least require that I tell what happened even though I can't avoid using the story-words I learned from childhood?
The story of the man blind from birth who is healed by Jesus illustrates this point.
The blind man in John 8 did not know who healed him and he didn't know his healing would cause so much trouble. He just maintained the obvious--that he had been supernaturally healed . The healed man was thrown out of his religious community because he used the langusge of his community saying that the healing must have been done by a man of God. Since the event didn't fit the orthodox picture of truth as the religious leaders told it, the healed man was thrown away his testimony deemed worthless.
When the experience of the blind man is someone's own experience, intellectually honestly must be matched by humility. It may be painful to know that a wonderful event will get you a reputation for being delusional or a liar, but shouldn't you hold that ground? Not to say you have to convince anyone else of it or make a new cult about it. But shouldn't you NOT LIE about it?
Anybody have that problem?
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Are we all bitter?
by LouBelle ini posted a link on fb that lead to a topic here.
i then had one of my 'friends' start having a go about how bitter everyone is here....fact he said.
(he used to be a jw elder but left a while back, not sure why he left or if he has even researched the faith since leaving) the more i tried to reason with him that actually it is a support forum, the more he lashed out that everyone here bad mouths the jw's and only attack the jw's.
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humbled
2+2=5, that is why I came back to the forum. there is some real HEALTH in the population here. I have often told others that this is a place that has a good exchange of thought. There is dissension with discussion.
sometimes criticism. but a sense of fair play makes it possible to come "out" here.
occasionally there can be a caustic burn--but usually someone shows up with a band-aid for you. Didn't happen when the brothers processed me out for the FDS.
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Are we all bitter?
by LouBelle ini posted a link on fb that lead to a topic here.
i then had one of my 'friends' start having a go about how bitter everyone is here....fact he said.
(he used to be a jw elder but left a while back, not sure why he left or if he has even researched the faith since leaving) the more i tried to reason with him that actually it is a support forum, the more he lashed out that everyone here bad mouths the jw's and only attack the jw's.
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humbled
I am not bitter about the years I spent as a JW--just amazed that I am free now.
I look back at it all and am grateful that I finally saw the subversion at work before I died. The way that our spirits were drained away and we were embalmed. I barely had enough spirit left to stand up and walk out.
That elder may not be able to look at the misery so many deal with because of their long service to a false god-- the Corporation that styles itself as the Ark of the Truth.
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Lying for the theocratic warfare
by Gorbatchov inbecause of growing up in the jw religion we heared and read many experiences and encouragement for lying when nesscesary / needed for the theocratic warfare.
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personaly i think this is totaly wrong and has had some effects on me: i feel that i can lie easily at work and sometimes in our family affairs.. a kind of creatively using truth and untruth.. i don't do it often but i recognize this fact.. so, this jw religion standards are measurability wrong.. gorby.
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humbled
When we were taught from the scriptures that "God cannot lie" and then the WTS tells us to lie in God's behalf--well, how does that work well for the Truth?
ps I would lie to save those airmen, Phizzy
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Not A Captive got Humbled
by humbled ini'm sure the more discerning of you thought that the silly, green, wooly-headed avatar called "humbled" that strolled on the scene here looked familiar....... it is i, nac, with a new given name come back for a visit since i have internet for a while.
i have missed you these three years.
i've been in a far away land--the ozark mountains of nw arkansas.. because i've been blessed with anal canal cancer (nothing so hum-drum as rectal cancer) circumstances allow me to share your company 'til my sad bum can get radiated more-or-less back into shape.. any quality potty-humor (no naughty bm's---oops!---.
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humbled
O parakeet! 4th graders. When they are 10 years old they are funny and wiser than they will be for years. Thanks!
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Not A Captive got Humbled
by humbled ini'm sure the more discerning of you thought that the silly, green, wooly-headed avatar called "humbled" that strolled on the scene here looked familiar....... it is i, nac, with a new given name come back for a visit since i have internet for a while.
i have missed you these three years.
i've been in a far away land--the ozark mountains of nw arkansas.. because i've been blessed with anal canal cancer (nothing so hum-drum as rectal cancer) circumstances allow me to share your company 'til my sad bum can get radiated more-or-less back into shape.. any quality potty-humor (no naughty bm's---oops!---.
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humbled
Tammy, Phizzy! Thanks!
I am so slow at typing--hunt-n-pecker.
There is a darkness of faith when I have moved to any action. The results don't come in for a while. Yet the manner I have come to accept the darkness may be how you have seen events of this past year for your loved ones: you can only act as you have the light to act.
The light may be as dark and the time so strange as that old old story of Abraham at Gen 15. Sweaty, batty old man laying out dead animals in an open field before a God that he could barely apprehend. Fighting off carrion birds past sundown. Was God there at all?
I am so glad that there have been good things come about, Tammy. The decisions must have taxed your faith --but look now! The retelling of these things is what we owe our own family and the sharing of it with others is the sharing of faith. It is good to know the weight of love and grace can make us doubt, it is so heavy. But it isn't the new normal--it is the old normal.
At least that is my perception.
Thanks for bringing up my letters of struggling from the power of the FDS. Looking back at them myself I am amazed that whatever namely cipher had to type and send Bethel's response could not see the dishonest attempt at crushing my faith in God. That process--talk about dark!--took soooo long that I wondered what God was up to. Well, I see something that probably needed to happen--I needed to REALLY think about what religion does to any of us who seeing "through a glass darkly" nevertheless are honestly trying to see what there is to see.
It was a revelation--a monster posing as God.
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Not A Captive got Humbled
by humbled ini'm sure the more discerning of you thought that the silly, green, wooly-headed avatar called "humbled" that strolled on the scene here looked familiar....... it is i, nac, with a new given name come back for a visit since i have internet for a while.
i have missed you these three years.
i've been in a far away land--the ozark mountains of nw arkansas.. because i've been blessed with anal canal cancer (nothing so hum-drum as rectal cancer) circumstances allow me to share your company 'til my sad bum can get radiated more-or-less back into shape.. any quality potty-humor (no naughty bm's---oops!---.
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humbled
Good morning, tammy-up-north! you old tea drinker you!
Your family doing okay? ("Okay" being very loosely defined, I know. Mine is fine--yet I am certainly hoping for things to improve.)
Maybe doing "okay" means nobody is crashing and burning? I will let you say or--not!