Posts by funkyderek

11

What convinced u"paradise earth" was ridiculous?

by chuckyy in

jw
friends

what was the one line of thought that convinced you that a paradise earth was a ridiculous notion???.

chukyy.

funkyderek

Erosion.

Yes, erosion, "the process by which the surface of the earth is worn away by the action of water, glaciers, winds, waves, etc." (dictionary.com). I had studied the process and effects of erosion in school and occasionally seen it on the news or documentary where a house that was once tens of feet from the edge of a cliff collapsed as the cliff was gradually worn away over decades or centuries. It occurred to me that such erosion was inevitable given the nature of the planet we live on, and that this would not change even if humans were perfect. So unless Jehovah put a forcefield around cliffs and mountains and coastlines to stop them being eroded, eventually all the land on earth would disappear. From there it's a short step to realising that everything on earth and indeed the universe will come to an end. Friction will slow down the rotation of the earth, the sun will run out of fuel until there is nothing left. Sure, the omnipotent Jehovah could step in and artificially hold things together, but then, why didn't he just do it right in the first place?

41

Share something Odd about yourself

by KW13 in

jw
friends

i have extra lil tiny bits on both ears.

i have an extra large thingy..

funkyderek

(Mr.) flipper:

I have skin between my middle toes on each foot. So my middle toes on each foot are webbed ! That's why they call me Mr. Flipper !

Oh, I thought that was because you had appropriated your wife's username; or does she have webbed toes too?

43

im an atheist and i like the idea of being an athiest but its kinda hard

by Lotus65 in

jw
friends

im an atheist and i like the idea that comes with freedom of though and analytical thinking that follows being atheistic vs having a religion im just kinda in a jam because i need to try and find something to completely lose the thoughts in the back of my head that say what if im wrong and i "suffer" because of it.

i feel that if i can find something to destroy these thoughts i can be alot more comfortable with my views and opinions.

anyone have any thoughts on what i should do.

funkyderek

jaguarbass:

I seem to have severely overestimated your intelligence. I do apologise, it won't happen again.

4

They're Called "Programs" For a Reason

by metatron in

jw
friends

it struck me that i frequently attend weekend seminars..... or educational sessions .... or study groups.... but as a witness i attended "programs".. how appropriate!

they are honestly telling you that the purpose is not education or enlightenment, it's "programming"!.

that's the key to being a zealous witness, you see, being programmed.

funkyderek

metatron:

It struck me that I frequently attend weekend seminars..... or educational sessions .... or study groups.... but as a Witness I attended "programs".

When was that? I remember meetings, schools, conventions, assemblies, visits and studies but no programs.

23

Written Review

by Mysterious in

do they still do this?

i used to memorize the pattern of true and false answers.. my mother told me that when she was younger the elders used to actually mark your answers

funkyderek

I didn't mind them so much because I could do them quickly, the questions were easy and it meant I didn't have to pay attention to someone talking. But at least when I was young it was a real test. They would hand out the examination paper at the start of the meeting and that would be the first time you saw it.

But then they changed things so you got the test in advance and it became another thing you had to pre-study. That also ramped up the boredom level a notch. You knew the questions, you knew the answers. Getting less than 100% just meant you hadn't prestudied.

Like most things in the Wacky Watchtower World, it's become an exercise in sheer pointlessness.

72

Bank of America took $3000 out of my checking account without telling us!

by LovesDubs in

jw
friends

we are filing bankruptcy in three days.

we finally got enough money together, which included our government incentive check, to pay the lawyer to do it and last night saw two withdrawals from our checking account!

perfectly legal the bank says.

funkyderek

LovesDubs:

You are an ass Funky.

Indeed. It's rather naive to expect everyone on a discussion board to agree with you. You've been here long enough to know that's not how it works. Robust disagreement is a necessary and enjoyable part of posting on this board.

Im sure in my position you would just continue to put money into the bank so they could continue to take it. Right? Suuuuure you would.

I can't even begin to imagine how I would get into a position like that. But I like to think that in the future I will continue to pay my debts in a timely manner even if I'd prefer not to.

Oh wait..I forgot..you are PERFECT and this never would happen to YOU. My bad.

It's not something that happened to you. It's something you did. You borrowed money and now you can't afford to pay it back. So yes, it is your bad.

We had planned to file Chapter 13 so we could work this OUT with our debtors but you seem bent on making me out to be a criminal and a sneak so have at it.

Not a criminal. This seems to be perfectly legal. But if you owed me money, I'd certainly be pretty miffed that you weren't going to pay it all back, especially when you had assets and income that could be used to do so. Your decision not to pay your debts in full is certainly no less sneaky than the decision of one of your creditors to collect on one of those debts.

It cant POSSIBLY be that after 54 years on the planet without so much as a TRAFFIC TICKET to my name, paying every single bill every month on time since I was 16 years old...that I could have fallen on hard times. Noooooo cant be THAT.

Of course it's that. It's exactly that. You fell on hard times, and instead of having savings that you had sensibly accumulated during the good times, you instead had debts. You had wrongly assumed that the good times would continue and had borrowed on the strength of that. You should have known that it was a risky strategy as your lawyer and all those big legal documents you had to sign would have made abundantly clear. Don't get me wrong I sympathise with you just as much as I envy those who've become rich when the pendulum swung the other way but that's the nature of the game. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. It's hardly fair to complain about the rules just because you're losing.

I have three children to house and feed and take care of. There is no FUCKING WAY Im putting any more money in front of these asswipes so they can take my mortgage payment AGAIN and make me not only file bankruptcy but FORECLOSURE on my HOME.

By all means, prioritise your debts, but don't blame your creditors for trying to get what is rightfully theirs.

They arent looking to "work with me" at all...and they havent lost a damn dime on me.

It sounds like you still owe them money, money which you intend never to pay them (otherwise why would you expect them to take more?). So it seems they have lost money on you, and probably a lot more than a dime. Again, if I'm wrong, I apologise.

Have a nice day.

You too. I hope things work out for you.

3

Will Armageddon be just?

by wobble in

this is prompted by a thread about how the good news cannot reach all people statistically,my question is, .

jesus said judgement is based on how people treat his brothers,(matt.

) as jdubs beleive only a few thousand of christ brothers(the annointed) remain on earth what basis is there to judge people who have never come into contact with them?.

funkyderek

How could it possibly be? Even in areas infested by JWs, how could any reasonable person be expected to listen to them? What, Lord, you mean those people with the magazines? They were the one true religion? You gotta be sh*tt*ng me?

43

im an atheist and i like the idea of being an athiest but its kinda hard

by Lotus65 in

jw
friends

im an atheist and i like the idea that comes with freedom of though and analytical thinking that follows being atheistic vs having a religion im just kinda in a jam because i need to try and find something to completely lose the thoughts in the back of my head that say what if im wrong and i "suffer" because of it.

i feel that if i can find something to destroy these thoughts i can be alot more comfortable with my views and opinions.

anyone have any thoughts on what i should do.

funkyderek

jaguarbass:

They say there is no such thing as an atheist in a fox hole, or an atheist in a life boat.

Only assholes say that. Whatever truth it has is no more profound than saying there are no clean underpants in foxholes.

I've read Dawkins, all he does is change what creationist say by 5%. His books are the same as an evangelist with a 5% twist to no God.

Then you haven't read Dawkins at all, or if you have, you've somehow completely misunderstood everything he's written. That would not surprise me, although I doubt very much you've read a significant amount of his work. You really don't seem up to the task.

Read Darwin and research it and you will find Darwin and Dawkins both tell you why evolution is impossible dont take my word for it.

The beginning and end of that sentence manage to contain good advice although I'm sure that is purely accidental. Everybody should read Darwin and Dawkins (to be honest, there's not that much need to read Darwin's work for an understanding of evolution, the science has of course moved on in the last century and a half) and nobody should ever take your word for anything, for obvious reasons.

The middle of the sentence, of course is more your style, being as it plainly is, complete nonsense. Darwin managed to show not only that evolution takes place but in broad principle how it happens. Dawkins and many many many other scientists since Darwin, have refined the original theories and found a superabundance of supporting evidence, to prove beyond all doubt that evolution is a fact, and demonstrate in exquisite detail how it happens.

Have you ever seen anything come from nothing?

Can you shake up a bag of screws and come up with a clock?

Had you even seen Dawkins on a TV chat show - let alone read his work - you wouldn't even think of asking such inane questions. What have they got to do with evolution by natural selection? The first question of course is always assumed by the theist never to apply to his god. Something can't come from nothing except an all-powerful intelligent creator. What nonsense!

Atheist appear to have a vendetta and anger that clouds clear thinking.

Of course, that's why people don't believe in gods, because they want revenge. It's hard to believe that there are people so eye-wateringly moronic that they think atheists only pretend not to believe in imaginary beings because they're angry at them. It's a cheap and lazy shot even from someone as profoundly idiotic as you.

Dont take my word for it check it out.

Again, some accidental good advice. Nobody should ever take your word for anything. Luckily, I don't think that's very likely.

That little voice in the back of your head is reality and common sense.

I bet you wish you had a voice like that in your head.

43

im an atheist and i like the idea of being an athiest but its kinda hard

by Lotus65 in

jw
friends

im an atheist and i like the idea that comes with freedom of though and analytical thinking that follows being atheistic vs having a religion im just kinda in a jam because i need to try and find something to completely lose the thoughts in the back of my head that say what if im wrong and i "suffer" because of it.

i feel that if i can find something to destroy these thoughts i can be alot more comfortable with my views and opinions.

anyone have any thoughts on what i should do.

funkyderek

Lotus65:

im just kinda in a jam because i need to try and find something to completely lose the thoughts in the back of my head that say what if im wrong and i "suffer" because of it.

That's one of the tricks religion uses to keep people enslaved. If the consequences of being wrong are sufficiently horrific, many people will err on the side of caution. That's why hellfire and Armageddon are made to sound so scary. Conversely, it is also why heaven and Paradise are made to sound so great. None of them is actually real but by being made so vivid, they can have a disproportionately strong effect.

i feel that if i can find something to destroy these thoughts i can be alot more comfortable with my views and opinions. anyone have any thoughts on what i should do.

You're doing it already. By examining why you have these thoughts, you can discover the best course of action. Study philosophy and you'll soon see that you're not the first person to ask these questions. There are of course lots of different answers, and I certainly haven't found a foolproof way of determining which one is correct. Be very very wary of anyone who claims they have.

what did u guys do when u became atheists?

I found it relatively easy. The evidence for the existence of gods just wasn't there. Once I realised this, I had no problem with worrying about what imaginary deities might do to me.

i feel like its alot easier to remain agnostic and in a state of neutrallity rather than to actively choose a position. what do u guys think?

Well, if you're not sure, then by definition you're agnostic. But not all possibilities are equally likely, so strict 50/50 agnosticism is not always the best option. For example, the likelihood of a wacky 19th century apocalyptic American pseudo-Christian sect actually being true cannot completely be discounted but it should not be given the same weight as the possibility that it is a load of bunk, the position most strongly supported by the evidence. Just shrugging and saying "I don't know" is probably the easiest answer but that doesn't mean it's the best.

27

Painter born without eyes baffles both the artistic and scientific worlds.

by Yizuman in

jw
friends

who said people born with a disability can't do anything?

holy smokes!!!.

yiz

funkyderek

Satanus:

I wonder what randi would say..

Not a lot. I have no doubt he'd be impressed as we all are, and while I was expecting a quasi-supernatural element to this story, there really isn't one. Yizuman's headline is very misleading, the scientific world isn't baffled by this, it's a blind man essentially painting with Braille and using the correct colours which he has memorised by rote. I don't want to take anything away from what is a remarkable achievement, but there's no "woo-woo" involved here, just good old-fashioned triumphing over adversity.

It's a shame that some people can't appreciate his acheivement for what it is without inventing unnecessary paranormal "explanations".