I've found biking and weight lifting to complement each other well. Running was getting hard on my joints so I switched to biking. With biking, a 2-3 hr ride is possible with my heart rate 'in the zone' the entire time. I'm shooting for a 20 lb drop as well. 10 down, 10 to go.
LayingLow
JoinedPosts by LayingLow
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43
Do you exercise or isn't that your thing.
by LouBelle infor the last 5 and 1/2 weeks i have been at the gym mostly twice a day except saturdays - i only have one training session.
each of my sessions is at least an hour long but can go for two hours.
i do various cardio in the evenings and do strength training in the morning.
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44
Being told what to say in Convention interviews
by passwordprotected inhas anyone else heard tell of interviewees in convention parts being told what to say?
the way i've heard it is you're contacted to be interviewed in a convention talk because you've had a great experience in some form or other and they need you to boast about it.
so, you meet with the brother handling the assignment and you go through your experience with him (boast about it).
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LayingLow
Several of the parts I had given were with well respected elders. They were guys that everyone really looked up to. Interestingly, these were the guys that kept asking me to alter my story to make it more interesting and to leave out things that were real. I remember feeling guilty about letting it happen but it gave me some insight into their real priorities. It was the company man attitude coming out, truth be damned...
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To ex-JW's who became real "Christians"
by startingover ini have a question.. what is your belief now regarding hell?
a place of torment?
the grave?
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LayingLow
I have seen some explanations for it being a burning place such as the parable of the rich man and Lazarus and several parts in Revelation (Particularly chapter 20). Those scriptures were the ones I could never reconcile with the gehenna=destruction.
Truthfully, I accepted for a while that since those two accounts are so vivid that it must be a reality but it squelched the love of God in me. Since then I have discarded the teaching again. I can't accept the person who would burn (forever) others as a loving anything. So I had to conclude one of two things.
1.) Gehenna= Eternal Death (Unconscious nonexistence)
2.) Gehenna= Spiritual state while living in paradise like the state of a wicked child who hates a parents love and the more the parent shows affection, the more they are in hell. (Actually fits in with Orthodox theology). In this instance the hell is self created by the evilness of ones own heart.
Luke is full of parables, and Revelation is full of symbology. I don't think it would be responsible for me to assume that God punishes people forever with no lesson in view simply because an account that most early Christians churches didn't read aloud from and many didn't view as canonical expresses a bad end in vivid symbolism (Sorry for the run-on). So I'm with 1 or 2. All through the scriptures God tries to teach a lesson. It seems so much unlike that character to torture people forever with no chance of repentance.
That's where I am at as of now. It is one doctrine they may have right (Along with Seventh Day Adventists, World Wide Church Of God, and others for nonexistence). Or the Orthodox church may have right also. (Sorry if this is poorly written but I'm in a terrible rush.) -
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Is the JW religion slowly turning into 7th Day Adventist?
by White Dove ina friend of mine says they seem to be.
her sister sent a memorial invitation and said, "will you be going to the memorial of christ's death?
" she said that the use of "christ" was strange.
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the unabashed aggression of Scientology
by Dogpatch inthe unabashed aggression of scientology.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocw90w44boc&feature=related.
you think ex-jws being shunned is bad.... there are bigger things out there!.
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LayingLow
I'm not sure if she is an ex scientologist. The reason being that she was asking how many crimes they were covering up. Scientologists are known for covering up crimes (actually committing them). In addition, the person who posted the video of her has her image as their profile pic and that profile has about 45 videos hosted which are primarily anti-scientologist.
I sent a PM on youtube in order for them to clarify. -
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What is the best question to ask a witness
by ImFreeatlast inlets have a free for all .
i would say why dont you have a book study anymore but that one is done to death... we had a witness recently and i asked for the latest jw only mag (he didn't realise i used to be in his cong... have i done that good a job at fading?
) it was a laugh to see the two of them struggle to come up with an answer.... ok lets here the best you can come up with, there has to be some better than mine, what question will leave them stuck for an answer...... .
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LayingLow
I think the 1914 question would be a good one. In addition, regardless of the year, why would they hold that the gentiles times ended before the great tribulation began?
Luke 21:20-24
20"When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. 21Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and let those in the country not enter the city. 22For this is the time of punishment in fulfillment of all that has been written. [** GREAT TRIBULATION??? ]23How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people. 24They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations[Since that's part of the GREAT TRIBULATION]. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. Since the last sentence is definitely in context of the great tribulation ending, and when it ends the gentile times end, how can the tribulation be future and the gentile times expiration be past? -
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Criticism worthy of your time
by johnnyc inas i read posts throughout this site, i became amazed at some of the criticism people have actually spent time creating, reading (as i did), and responding to.
dont get me wrong, some of what i read are good issues that seem worthy (to me) of discussion, but to be honest, i find that 90% of the posts are based on ridiculous petty topics that are obviously tied to a sense of deep hatred of the wtbts.
i can appreciate that some of the people who leave such post, and have this hatred, are taking their time to discuss such things as part of a therapeutic process to combat the fact they spent a large portion of their life dedicated to an organization they feel abandoned them at some point.
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LayingLow
If you want to fit a square block through a round hole be my guest. What have they done since Rutherford's days that would indicate that they now are more blessed or chosen by the Holy Spirit than they were before?
They don't hold that God just runs around abandoning Christian religions at any time. The WTBTS believes specifically that in 1918/1919 God abandoned the rest of Christendom. If you don't believe they were specifically chosen in 1918/1919 when they used the cross, believed in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit on all Christians, and worshiped Jesus (Check this one out!), then you don't believe they are God's Mouthpiece.
If anything, I think God abandoned them in 1918/1919 because that is when they really started pumping out personal opinions / changed core doctrines / changed time dates. Read the history of the organization when Rutherford first took over. He literally hijacked the corporation. Then he thought he was a prophet and kept having 'light' "flash up". Unfortunately for him those millions then living did die, Beth Sarim turned into a vacation spot (maybe fortunately for him), 1925 saw no significant events and proved him to completely devoid of prophetic insight. He said that he was more sure of 1925 than he was of 1914. I don't know if that tells you anything, but I think it should. -
365
Richard Dawkins Gets "Expelled" by Ben Stein!
by Perry ini just got back from seeing the new movie release "expelled" which is a documentary exposing the militant culture of supression regarding intelligent design in the scientific community.
in a "million years", i never would have imagined that ben stein could get the author of "the god delusion", richard dawkins to speak favorably about i.d.
(intellignet design).
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LayingLow
I'm not a scientist and I do not claim to be. For that matter, I'm not a philosopher either. Please just view my thoughts for what they worth.
Science looks at observable processes. Intelligent Design is not an observable process. I.D. will always look like a cop-out to scientists because it doesn't follow that a test can be done it.
This is my point: Imagine you knew a method by which something could build itself. Would that prove that it did build itself and wasn't built by someone else? No.
Imagine that something looked so difficult to build that it doesn't appear possible that it could have built itself. Does that prove that it was built by someone else? No.
I know that this is definitely over simplifying it, but here it goes: Imagine there is a field that has a charred area in it. Charred areas can be caused by lightning striking a tree and the conditions being right for the bolt to ignite the plants in the field. Someone could have also have lit a match. However years have passed and the area is grown over with charred parts still exposed. How do you prove which one it was? -
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Why do we get stumbled out of JW's because of imperfect people?
by reniaa ini see this a lot on this forum, loads of people saying they left jw's because of "hypocritical ....... ( put elder, pioneer, couple, sister, brother, governing body) here.. but?.
why would you expect any man-run organisation if you believe the bible, to have to be perfect and not be full of imperfect people that will come across as hypocritical?.
the bible examples from israelites onwards name anyone :- moses, king david, pharasees, paul the one thing the bible doesn't do is white-wash them it shows that however much we follow the laws we are always fighting our own imperfection usually failing every time and needing to be corrected sometimes punished (moses had to give-up chance of seeing the foretold land), so why do we hold this against jw's as a reasons not to be a jw's anymore?.
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LayingLow
I can't really comment on the statistics for why people leave the JW's. I know that from reading posts about how people had problems with the people, you might draw the conclusion that the reason they left was imperfect people. However, that may not be the case. I left for purely doctrinal reasons as did many others as you have read in their comments. If you read some of my posts talking about certain things I've seen in the organization you may draw the conclusion that people are the reason I left but that would the furthest thing from the truth.
Personally, I don't think that individual conduct disqualify a religion as God's favored people. Using the instance of Israel, God didn't choose them or keep them because they were righteous. He actually was just fulfilling his promise towards his friend Abraham.
Now the Father promises Jesus a bride, his body, Christians. Using the Abraham/Israel model, God will stay faithful to his favored people until the conclusion of the age. When Jesus returns a second time he will sift the weeds from the wheat.
Using the Israel model that you put forth, we should expect a group of people who were formed by God and later fell into wrong teachings and improper conduct. Eventually there would appear splinter sects and there would arise groups like the Pharisees who felt they had "the truth" and that all the other Jews (Christians) were dirt.
Does any of that sound familiar? How did it go for the Pharisees? Jesus came looking for those who were willing to be humbled and prepared for what God was soon to do.
The pharisees rejecting the rest of the Jews sounds so much like the JW's rejecting rest of the Christians. Was it necessary to become a Pharisee so that you could be saved when Jesus came back? Just a guess here but I imagine it will be a similar scenario when he comes back again.
On a side note, what was the defect of the Pharisees? Didn't they push an outward form of godliness but forget to be cleaned on the inside? The Holy Spirit is promised to indwell Christians in this age but the JW's stick to rules in order to show godliness and teach that the "great crowd" isn't indwelt by the Holy Spirit at all. What's the deal with that? -
365
Richard Dawkins Gets "Expelled" by Ben Stein!
by Perry ini just got back from seeing the new movie release "expelled" which is a documentary exposing the militant culture of supression regarding intelligent design in the scientific community.
in a "million years", i never would have imagined that ben stein could get the author of "the god delusion", richard dawkins to speak favorably about i.d.
(intellignet design).
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LayingLow
When I said spontaneous generation I meant it not in the pre-Pasteur sense (flies from mud). I apologize for that terminology. I meant it in the abiogenesis sense (life from non-life). I view abiogenesis as something seperate from evolution. I may have worded my post wrong if that is the confusion I caused you.