from http://www.greatcrowd.com/159ubb/forum22/html/000167.html.
he gave us some statistics about how much the occurrences of random violence have escalated over the recent years, and it's terrible.
something like 99% of us will be exposed to, or become a victim of a violent crime.
keep in mind that jw live in THE FOGF--FEAR
O- OBLIGATION
G- GUILT
Nicely expressed, James.
It's just that thing I've often asked myself: why do those who claim to have found security in "Jehovah's Organization", those who claim to "walk in the truth fearlessly", spend their lives in such fear? Shouldn't they be much more confident since they've found The Truth(tm)?
A religion that thrives on fear cannot possibly be the true religion. But then, I think that no religion is true, anyway ;-)
f.
from http://www.greatcrowd.com/159ubb/forum22/html/000167.html.
he gave us some statistics about how much the occurrences of random violence have escalated over the recent years, and it's terrible.
something like 99% of us will be exposed to, or become a victim of a violent crime.
from http://www.greatcrowd.com/159ubb/Forum22/HTML/000167.html
He gave us some statistics about how much the occurrences of random violence have escalated over the recent years, and it's terrible. Something like 99% of us will be exposed to, or become a victim of a violent crime. ... If a male is sitting alone in the seat nearest your car, you may want to walk back into the mall, or work, and get a guard/policeman to walk you back out. ... As women, we are always trying to be sympathetic: STOP IT! It may get you raped, or killed. ... Pat Malone said again and again that the women who die EVERY MINUTE from violent crimes expected to go to bed tonight, and get up
tomorrow. No one expects it, but we must be prepared and aware so that we HAVE A PLAN. BE PREPARED TO ACT! AND ACT HARD! HAVE A PLAN!
As I read this, my first thought was "paranoia". Or maybe just that strange attraction to fear which many (maybe all) humans have in some way, and which seems to be a primary instrument of the JW indoctrination process. I live in one of the safest countries of Europe, and still I do know a couple of JWs here who are in constant fear of all sorts of violent crimes. As a teenager (in the 1980s) I toured the continent by rail for three months. Like many others, I was sleeping in parks, railway stations, on beaches...and generally trusting lots of strangers, at least to some extent. That doesn't mean I was careless, but I don't think I had ever been afraid back then. And I wouldn't see any reason to be afraid today, especially not where I live.
On the other hand, maybe I'm naive. Plus, I'm male, which makes me less of a target for certain crimes. Has life in urban America really become so dangerous? Or are people just becoming hysterical? Is it the media? Or have people always been hysterical?
wondering,
f.
(edited for spelling)
deism - a religion for the 21st century?.
more than 200 yrs ago deism made its mark on history.
many noteworthy people including a number of the founders of the united states were deists.
That's kind of vague isn't it, are you implying that anyone who claims to have some kind of insight by any means is high?
No. I do believe that meditation can make a lot of sense for those who practice it. I see no reason to believe that it can bring us knowledge in the sense that science does, but that's fine with me. Being human is fortunately much more than just acting "rationally" (even though that's the underlying assumption of most of economic theory, BTW :-)).
I'm specifically referring to people running around chanting that they've found all the answers for everything in a dream or vision. Maybe some of them have, but if someone finds all the answers to everything, I'd expect the results of that to be a bit less pathetic than what we can see in the history of religions so far.
I'm also not sure if you're trying to be funny or if you meant to say he's found the answers to the questions rather than questions to answers.
Gee Introspection, I do make mistakes once in a while, and even more so when I'm not writing in my native language. OK?
f.
deism - a religion for the 21st century?.
more than 200 yrs ago deism made its mark on history.
many noteworthy people including a number of the founders of the united states were deists.
I am a little confused with your analogy of God and Santa Claus. I know where the presents came from under my tree, but I have no idea how the Universe started or where it got the space to exist as it does.
I guess the point is this: can you accept that some questions are unanswered as of today and, maybe, forever -- or do you have to resort to making up an imaginary entity called "God" (who in many religions is simply a glorified reflection of people themselves) to explain your current gaps in knowledge?
A lot of old mythology revolved around attempts to explain natural phenomena, bizarre rock formations, thunderstorms etc. which used to be interpreted as the footsteps of gods or angry fits of other gods, whatever. Nice stories, sometimes really wonderful literature, but also nothing more than that. Anyone can make up a dozen fantastic stories to explain lightning, possibly starring a bunch of fairies and demons and gods. Which one is true, if any?
All this boils down to "explaining" complexity by inventing more complexity, and of course it still leaves you with the question, who created God? Even if you accept god as an explanation, you have no explanation how his existence started. The question is merely deferred, but not answered at all. And actually, book religions such as Christianity now have to spend an inordinate amount of time and effort to somehow cope with the growing gap between scientific discovery and their particular holy writ. Some people just try to find new and more metaphorical interpretations of scripture, others cling fiercely to their literal interpretations of obscure half-sentences and simply deny whatever science has to say if they sense conflict. It must not be true, so it cannot be true: welcome to the wonderful world of creationism, where "truth" is whatever we say it is.
By smoking weed or other means, one may feel absolutely certain that he's found the answers to all the deep questions. Everything makes sense, everything is connected with everything, enlightenment, satori, whatever. Once he wakes up from his high, it turns out that he actually knows zilch. He cannot explain anything at all. He may feel that he does, and that people should know and listen to lengthy, nonsensical rants with lots of fantasy figures in them, lest they be punished by some of the more powerful fantasy figures. I think this kind of experience is responsible for lots of religions on this planet. A very good reason why people should stay away from drugs :-)
To me, spirituality is just an appreciation of life and the wonders around us; science explains those things.
I like that.
f.
at work i had this discussion with some of my buds, ..... what is the thing about the british, and irish, with drinking warm beer?
or at least room temperature?.
when i've done that, it dont do anything for me.
Good, dark beer from Europe still tastes good when getting slightly temperate.
Yes. I think the entire problem is that some people should finally accept there are legitimate reasons to serve drinks at temperatures *between* the extremes of "boiling" and "can I have an icepick with this, please?".
For instance: Red wines generally should *not* be served completely unchilled (a common myth!), and white wines should *not* be frozen to death (unless they're so sour that you have to stretch them with water or rather use them as salad dressing anyway). And: whatever you do, do NOT put ice in your wine, PLEASE (at least not in public :-)).
It's not so much different with beers. Some types of beer *are* better served at higher temperatures, some at lower temperatures. Even in the Lager department there is not just one true temperature: Weizen is a very fine, tasty beer, but it's almost undrinkable when served too warm. Same goes for Pilsen type beer. Dark Lagers, especially the somewhat sweet/malty varietes, often taste better when served just slightly chilled, just a few degrees below room temperature (unless you have room temperatures of more than 25°C, that is! ;-)).
Hmmmm. 9 o'clock in the morning is too early for a beer, isn't it? Or maybe...?
f.
at work i had this discussion with some of my buds, ..... what is the thing about the british, and irish, with drinking warm beer?
or at least room temperature?.
when i've done that, it dont do anything for me.
It's a pleasant enough drink best served ice-cold.
Yes. But, on the other hand, I still don't understand why American beer is usually served just barely above freezing temperature. All the big-brand beer in America that I've tried so far completely lacks something that I appreciate to have in alcoholic beverages: taste!
(To make matters worse, Anheuser-Busch (a.k.a. the evil empire) even stole the good name of that excellent Czech brewery Budweiser-Budvar and put it on their bottled yellow-colored fizzy water. Here's the original: http://www.budvar.cz/ )
f., who loves British beer, but hates the fact that it's so expensive for us continental Europeans :-)
online scientology critic jailed in canada.
computer engineer keith henson has been arrested in canada,.
where he had planned to file for status as a political refugee after.
Online Scientology critic jailed in Canada
Computer engineer Keith Henson has been arrested in Canada,
where he had planned to file for status as a political refugee after
being convicted by a California court of posting to Usenet rude
things about the Church of Scientology, and joking that CoS
members should be nuked. He was convicted in absentia of
interfering with a religion. ...
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/19319.html
What on earth is "interfering with a religion"? Sounds pretty sick to me. Kent, I guess if you weren't living in Norway, you should be looking out for those SWAT vans...;-)
http://www.the-technique-of-the-demons-of-jehovahs-witnesses.com/.
thx!
skally
That site is, to put it mildly, utter crap. It's one of those "look here, in the upper left corner of Jesus' nose, if you turn it 47 degrees counter-clockwise - can't you see those naked two demons in sixty-nine position? No? are you blind or what?!" pseudo-exposés, written by someone with a nasty cocaine habit and/or severe paranoia. Judging by his tone, I'm pretty sure that if you approach this guy and tell him that you have some doubts about all this hidden demons business, he would promptly identify you as a member of the conspiracy, draw his cross and sprinkle you with holy water. Scientifically speaking, the guy is nuts.
As a matter of fact, I guess this is the sort of apostate every JW loves :-)
if enrollment is down why are so many new kingdom halls going up?
Hi ozzie,
I've extended my posting above. I don't know how this is handled in the USA or elsewhere, but it's the way they do it in Germany and (AFAIK) Austria and Switzerland, too. The entire point of having a "Verein" per congregation seems to be the ownership (or sometimes rental) of Kingdom Halls. Since only a handful of elders are members of each Verein, lowly congregation publishers do not have any influence on what is happening with the halls they funded with their donations. It's not their property.
f.
if enrollment is down why are so many new kingdom halls going up?
Building KHs keeps the members busy and distracts them from the fact that membership is on the decline. Plus, there's money in it:
Where I live there seems to be a tendency to sell off halls in (now) expensive areas and build combined "hall centers" for 3 congregations or so, usually in less expensive neighbourhoods. Guess who gets the profits _and_ the property?
It works like this: each congregation is registered as what is known in German-speaking countries as a "Verein" (which is something like a nonprofit association). The policy is that whenever such a Verein is dissolved, its assets go entirely to the Society. Now, whenever a combined hall center is built, all the involved Vereine are dissolved and - voila! - the Society suddenly owns all assets of at least three (in some cases up to ten) congregations. Of course, the new hall is not funded by the Society, but again by the faithful publishers. Great, huh?
f.
(edited for clarification)
