"With a professionally tested IQ of 142, I am intellectual enough to grasp that."
Oh pshahh! The very idea!
I professionally tested out at IQ95 back in '71; but I probably benefited from the curve.
Carlos
Carlos_Helms
JoinedPosts by Carlos_Helms
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102
ARE YOU AN INTELLECTUAL? Why not?
by Terry ini think i heard the word "intellectual" for the first time when i was less than ten years old.. my grandmother said to me that the presidential candidate for the democratic party (adalai stevenson) was an "intellectual".. the way she said the word...the timbre of her voice...the look of admiration on her face...led me to believe this was a good thing indeed!.
i think i may have asked her what the word meant, but, i don't recall exactly what she told me.
perhaps enough to confirm that this fellow stevenson was a "thinker" of admirable stature.. fast forward.. by the time my teen years came along there was a kind of dichotomy in society between so-called "eggheads" and common folk.
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Carlos_Helms
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Carlos_Helms
Is there an @ in there somewhere?
That's not a link and I can't even google it.
Carlos -
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Lovers of Hate
by Farkel inany rational person knows that hatred is probably the most destructive human emotion of all.
billions of people have died and suffered as a result of it.
why, then would a supposedly divine, loving and perfect god set the worst kind of example for weak humans by practicing hatred himself and wanting humans to follow his creepy example?.
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Carlos_Helms
Yeah...that would be swell if people understood what love really is..but they don't. They DO understand hate however.
This is just some "reason" the watchtower dug up to justify its own lack of love. According to it, the Christian isn't just identified by a love that he can't comprehend...he is identified by a hate that he does.
Carlos -
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JWs lie with such decadence
by 83501nwahs ini was just at roscoe's in long beach when the assembly crowd with their badges on came in.
i decided that they must want to be approached since they were advertizing their witnesshood on their clothing.
nothing could be further from the truth.
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Carlos_Helms
"Isn't this the greatest lie ever, that you'd destroy your own son's name to defend known idiots?"
Dawg...this may not mean much to you now, but a bad name amongst idiots is not a bad thing in a universal context. It might even be heroic.
Dawg, if you haven't done it already, tell your dad how you feel. You're 45-ish, right? I lost my dad two years ago. By the time you're in your 50's the old guys start dropping like flies. Tell him now, regardless of how you think he might react...then tell him again. As a father myself, few things transcend religion like God-given paternal instinct. It is THE (and this is no bull), THE most powerful force in the universe. It appeals to the very soul of all good men. The world is crap for one reason and one reason only: paternal instinct has been dismissed as insignificant and unimportant. I was able to "come together" with my father, one father to his father, after years of estrangement and, before he died, he knew (really knew) that I loved him - and I knew he loved me. It is a rift which must be unrifted.
You're a strong man, Dawg. Save the bottle for the good times. Talk to dad and then let's go for a wild turkey (or 4).
Carlos -
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Why do you put up with crap off your JW famlies?
by dawg ini see where many of you have jw family members that give you a ration of crap once in a while; i've heard many rationalizations as to why some of you refuse to speak out.
as many of you know, i wrote a series of letters and exposed my apostasy formerly; in the letters i told my family they had better beware of shunning me of treating me like a pile when they run into me, i realized that i couldn't make them accept me into their houses, but in public was a different matter.
i basically told them that in public, especially at funerals, that i would rain down a load of crap on any family member that shunned me or treated me badly in anyway.
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Carlos_Helms
In hindsight, I'm going to have to back Mr Dawg on this one. I've changed my tune a little as I realized that there are as many circumstances as there are people in the situation. Nevertheless, it's a "pay me now or pay me later" situation with family members. I'm probably better than most at concealing true feelings about someone or something; but even I can't hide them indefinitely. Is it better for people to be suspicious of your position than to know who you are and what you stand for straight up?
Mr Dawg and Mr Buckster no doubt have personality types conducive to a "don't mess with me" approach - and, consequently, family members or associates who are afraid to mess with them. It's a matter of respect...and respect is situational. Ray Franz and many others have my respect - not for their sheer physical presence - but for their sincerity and intellectual presence. Whatever it is, the respect was probably earned ahead of time. But it isn't the end of the world if you aren't already respected. Consider the audience and go out and earn it. Slowly or all-at-once, it doesn't matter. At the end of the day (and regardless of what people say) all anybody wants is a little respect.
Not everyone will have a strong or intimidating physical presence. It's not necessary. Jesus won people over by his approach: gentle when needed, direct when required. Even the Pharisees respected him. Jesus didn't go out looking for a Pharisee to fight...the Pharisees came looking for him - and he was ready. Thing is, Jesus had confidence and never vacillated - and that scared the bejeezus out of them. His strength wasn't in his physical power, but in the knowledge of his rightness. I've found that the watchtower's power is founded on it's people's weakness. It counts on mamby-pambies, in OR out. There is a vicarious thrill amongst JWs when we whine and moan because we're not completely weaned from mother's tit and we're cranky about it. Regardless of what it says, it's a parasitic relationship. It has little use for strong people who take a stand for what is right. It has zero use for people who don't need it.
Like the Pharisees, even knowledgeable people are sensitive to their own hypocrisy. Like Mr Dawg, I see the hypocrisy in the JW version of "love" - which is nothing but a world-wide, addict/enabler, conditional "love" dependency relationship that seven-million people drool all over themselves about. It's complete and unadulterated BS.
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The Hope For Our Dying Home-Earth...An Inconvenient Truth
by justhuman inyesterday it was the day of the global inviroment.
as i walked to the street going to work, the main square of the capitol was filled with small children and their teachers with huge paintings, songs, art work with recycled elements demanding a cleaner plannet.
when the old generation will pass those little ones that will take in charge with all the inviromental education they had they will go for a better world.i'm sure about it, you could see it in their small eyes.
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Carlos_Helms
http://www.oism.org/pproject/Slides/Presentation/Slide1.png
It would appear that the same political hacks that we call leaders have agendas that lie somewhere outside "for the good of the whole." Only a dumbed-down populace could ever enable such a fraud as "human responsibility for global-warming" to be perpetrated upon mankind.
http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm#Message5976
I haven't yet learned how to copy and paste an active link...so you'll have to copy and paste to your browser. You'll be amazed.
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What Things Used To Bother Your Conscience?
by minimus ini have to admit that not much actually "bothered" my conscience.
what about you?
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Carlos_Helms
No problem, Caliber. I appreciated the honesty of your response. It was the one immediately after your's that got my attention.
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What makes someone so sure...
by loosie inthat a surpreme being is gonna help us?.
on another thread that i started i asked what is wrong with the new age ideas.
some people seem so afraid of it.. one poster mentioned that new age stuff is incorrect because jesus is for sure gonna come take us away from this world.. now i am opened minded.
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Carlos_Helms
Well...the truth is, nobody really knows all the details of "the divine plan." Some have claimed to understand and have been made to look foolish in the process. If I manage my way through a tough test of some sort, there will always be those who know someone "more deserving" or at least "as deserving"...so why not them? Situations such as the one St Ann spoke of are, to us, great unknowns. We aren't privy to all the whys and hows by which God does things; but to me, if something appears to defy any other logic, it may indeed be to fulfill a particular purpose in the divine plan. Only the one who sees the end from the beginning can fully understand why things happen as they do.
Fire away.
Carlos -
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Can we get a Newbie head count?
by kzjw ini haven't been here long...so is it just me or are the long standing jwd members noticing an influx of newbies?
to me it seems they are on the rise!
newbies stand up on this thread, be counted -- and welcomed!
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Carlos_Helms
Eleven!
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What Things Used To Bother Your Conscience?
by minimus ini have to admit that not much actually "bothered" my conscience.
what about you?
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Carlos_Helms
What bothered me was that "little something" inside me that told me that I wasn't being true to myself. I was neither spiritually nor intellectually honest with myself - and as such, my conscience became shredded. But the peculiar social atmosphere of Jehovah's Witnesses which screamed at me 24/7: "you must perform admirably in order to be measured favorably," distracted me from those "inner voices" of truth and reason that were forced into a whimper in the distance.
Upon my release from the watchtower, I relied upon certain mantras that I repeated over and over in the hopes that one day I might believe them; absolutist statements used to artificially-bolster my pre-weakened self-confidence. Whether it be an "I'm never this" or an "I'm always that," I went on about my merry way thinking that, if I said it enough times; OTHERS just might believe that I'm the person I claimed to be - a "man of great character" without the needs typically associated with the weak - even if I didn't believe it myself. I almost always rang hollow.
The greatest teachers of human nature were, at one time, the worst students of human behavior. So I'm not inclined to believe anyone who uses "always" or "never" to describe himself. In fact, my experience tells me that those who rely on absolutes to describe themselves are desperately attempting to convince themselves of something that's very likely untrue; but because they've "said so" for such a long time, they've convinced themselves that it is. For instance, I recently heard someone say something to the effect, "I never feel guilty." Taken at face value, that can mean one of two things in my book: either that one is perfect - or that one is a sociopath.
So, if one authoritatively claims that "he has no conscience" or that he "never cared about stumbling others," I'm left with the same conclusions based upon the statements alone: either one is perfect...or a sociopath. Likely, neither of those is true. Unfortunately, due to a rampant lack of self-honesty in the world, I rarely take people at face value. Rather, absolutist statements (particularly on internet discussion boards), tell another tale altogether (let the reader use discernment).
Carlos
