Posts by Brother Apostate

When I take one of those Eiffel Tower replica models and shove it up my nostril and then it won't go all the way in because it is too big so I grab a ball peen hammer and pound it on up there anyway and I start bleeding and weeping fluid from my cranium because I drove the thing right into the frontal lobe of my brain.

Sounds like someone's been listening to some early Billy Crystal standup routines, always good for a laugh! "I HATE when that happens"

139

Favorite Quotes

by Abandoned in

i love inspirational quotes.

i read through them from time to time and i always feel better after sharing the thoughts of yesterday and today's greatest minds.

"if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.

Brother Apostate

As you set out on your journey to Ithaca,
pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the angry Poseidon -- do not fear them:
You will never find such as these on your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches your spirit and your body.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the fierce Poseidon you will never encounter,
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your soul does not set them up before you.

Pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many, when,
with such pleasure, with such joy
you will enter ports seen for the first time;
stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensual perfumes of all kinds,
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
visit many Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn from scholars.

Always keep Ithaca in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for many years;
and to anchor at the island when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.
Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would have never set out on the road.
She has nothing more to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.
Wise as you have become, with so much experience,
you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.

Constantine P. Cavafy (1911)

139

Favorite Quotes

by Abandoned in

i love inspirational quotes.

i read through them from time to time and i always feel better after sharing the thoughts of yesterday and today's greatest minds.

"if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.

Brother Apostate

Let the man of learning, the man of lettered leisure, beware of that queer and cheap temptation to pose to himself and to others as the cynic, as the man who has outgrown emotions and beliefs, the man to whom good and evil are as one. The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer. There are many men who feel a kind of twisted pride in cynicism; there are many who confine themselves to criticism of the way others do what they themselves dare not even attempt. There is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he who either really holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering disbelief towards all that is great and lofty, whether in achievement or in that noble effort which, even if it fails, comes second to achievement. A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life's realities—all these are marks, not, as the possessor would fain think, of superiority, but of weakness. They mark the men unfit to bear their part manfully in the stern strife of living, who seek, in the affectation of contempt for the achievements of others, to hide from others and from themselves their own weakness. The role is easy; there is none easier, save only the role of the man who sneers alike at both criticism and performance.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. Shame on the man of cultivated taste who permits refinement to develop into a fastidiousness that unfits him for doing the rough work of a workaday world. Among the free peoples who govern themselves there is but a small field of usefulness open for the men of cloistered life who shrink from contact with their fellows. Still less room is there for those who deride or slight what is done by those who actually bear the brunt of the day; nor yet for those others who always profess that they would like to take action, if only the conditions of life were not what they actually are. The man who does nothing cuts the same sordid figure in the pages of history, whether he be cynic, or fop, or voluptuary. There is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows nothing of the great and generous emotion, of the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder. Well for these men if they succeed; well also, though not so well, if they fail, given only that they have nobly ventured, and have put forth all their heart and strength. It is war-worn Hotspur, spent with hard fighting, he of the many errors and the valiant end, over whose memory we love to linger, not over the memory of the young lord who "but for the vile guns would have been a soldier."
~ Theodore Roosevelt, excerpt from "Citizenship in a Republic" [an Address Delivered at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910]

9

I got sick, but this probably allowed me to save a life!

by Elsewhere in

jw
friends

for 9 days i have been fighting a cold and a respiratory infection.

today i finally broke down and dragged my ass to the doctor where the condition was finally treated.

when i was in the waiting room i noticed an awake!, which i promptly picked up and kept with me.

Brother Apostate

jeanniebeanz,

That is a fantastic idea!

Did you come up with it yourself?

Regardless, that is a great way to deal with WT literature placed in a public setting!

HAHaha!!!!!!!!

9

I got sick, but this probably allowed me to save a life!

by Elsewhere in

jw
friends

for 9 days i have been fighting a cold and a respiratory infection.

today i finally broke down and dragged my ass to the doctor where the condition was finally treated.

when i was in the waiting room i noticed an awake!, which i promptly picked up and kept with me.

Brother Apostate

On the other hand, perhaps you simply allowed the publisher to count even more placements when he/she sees that they have been taken and refills the tables with more landfill bound literature. Maybe they'll even get a part at the ASSembly explaining how they just can't keep the magazines on the table- they're goin' like hotcakes!

No good deed goes unpunished.

50

The arrogant skeptic thread....

by heathen in

jw
friends

this is the place for all you arrogant skeptics to post all the things you don't believe in so you can stop harassing posters on other threads involving the paranormal, after all you are smarter than the rest of us .....................

Brother Apostate

I don't believe the hype.

I don't believe in heathens

I don't believe that the majority of them don't believe that if they believed in something more than what they believed in or less than what some others believe in that their beliefs would be more or less belevable, if not that the very foundations of their beliefs were superior to the beliefs of those held by others with contrarian beliefs.

BA- My 2 cents

12

Does it really happen???

by Lumptard in

i'm sure it can happen, but how many of you were or know of people who were disfellowshipped for using the wt society's own old literature and under what "bible principle" are they able to disfellowship???

i can't think of any off the top of my head.....

Brother Apostate

nvrgnbk,

Yes, fortunately. That and other prodding and nudging from the various podiums and publications "encouraging" us to "never study the Bible without the publications to explain what it means" is one of the many reasons I left. The GB is clearly setting themselves in the place of Christ as mediator, then they, along with all others who do the same are the "man of lawlessness"!

- 2 Thessalonians 2:1-8