Gopher

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Posts by Gopher

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  33

  Do I have PTSD. I comment on three exjw blogs almost everyday

  by trujw in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i guess i have issues.

  or am i just soo awesome.

  please don't tell me i am becoming danny hazzards twin.

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  Gopher

  Sometimes letting it all out is great therapy. After you let go of enough, you may tire of it and retreat. Or you may become a senior member of the boards and help some people see their way through the post-JW trauma THEY are going through.
  
  I started posting on this board 12 years ago and have gone away from time to time, but still keep coming back here. I guess I just want to help and have my say. Since I'm like that, with over 10,000 posts here, I'm not about to recommend a therapist for you -- I'd have to get one for myself first.
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  18

  Improving Critical Thinking Skills

  by GloomySunday in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i'm out of the jw religion, but still have trouble thinking critically.

  when i was in, i had no idea what a logical fallacy was, i used all sorts of false arguments, yes, even "if man evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?".

  i would fall for just about everything.

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  Gopher

  Sunday: Here's a webpage you may find interesting: It talks about nine strategies for critical thinking in everyday life.

  http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/critical-thinking-in-everyday-life-9-strategies/512
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  24

  Forum maintenance

  by Simon in

  1. forum
  2. announcements

  i will be doing some maintenance on the forum today so don't be surprised if some pages take a while to load now and again, you get an error or the site doesn't respond at all.. if this happens, please just wait a minute and retry.. many thanks!.

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  Gopher

  I'm also having the issue where I look for posts under my name and it gives me back posts under some other random username in the forum.
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  14

  PROOF: JWs are NOT "God's Organization!" - (When Apostates Get Reinstated)

  by Oubliette in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  our good friend, raypublisher, just posted this thread: .

  reinstatement hearing secretly recorded ... .

  since i personally know the young woman involved, i was very interested.

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  Gopher

  Cold Steel said: "Sometimes light acts as particles, and sometimes it acts more like a wave. Both are contradictory, yet both apparently are true."
  
  Regarding Watchtower light: Sometimes their light goes in circles, sometimes it completely reverses directions. This is a contradiction, but apparently both things really happen in their wacky world.
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  371

  Design or Non-Design, finally we know, Darwin's Doubt

  by QC in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  if you want to read the definitive explanation on fossils and how life arrived its covered in darwins doubt, by s.c. meyer.

  this is a game changer.

  the bomb!.

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  Gopher

  Here is the claim from QC:

  It's FIRST to get the Big Bang ORIGIN of the universe right; It's FIRST to get the EXPANSION of the universe right; It's FIRST to get "let there be LIGHT" in the universe right; It's FIRST to get the ORDER of creation right.

  Below is a skeptical analysis of Genesis chapter 1.http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/science/long.html

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  1. "In the beginning"
     When was the universe created?
     The Gap Theory1:1-2

  2. God creates light and separates light from darkness, and day from night, on the first day. Yet he didn't make the light producing objects (the sun and the stars) until the fourth day (1:14-19). And how could there be "the evening and the morning" on the first day if there was no sun to mark them? 1:3-5

  3. God spends one-sixth of his entire creative effort (the second day) working on a solid firmament. This strange structure, which God calls heaven, is intended to separate the higher waters from the lower waters. 1:6-8

  4. Plants are made on the third day before there was a sun to drive their photosynthetic processes (1:14-19). 1:11

  5. God lets "the earth bring forth" the plants, rather than creating them directly. Maybe Genesis is not so anti-evolution after all. 1:11

  6. In an apparent endorsement of astrology, God places the sun, moon, and stars in the firmament so that they can be used "for signs". This, of course, is exactly what astrologers do: read "the signs" in the Zodiac in an effort to predict what will happen on Earth. 1:14

  7. God makes two lights: "the greater light [the sun] to rule the day, and the lesser light [the moon] to rule the night." But the moon is not a light, but only reflects light from the sun. And why, if God made the moon to "rule the night", does it spend half of its time moving through the daytime sky? 1:16

  8. "He made the stars also." God spends a day making light (before making the stars) and separating light from darkness; then, at the end of a hard day's work, and almost as an afterthought, he makes the trillions of stars. 1:16

  9. "And God set them [the stars] in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth." 1:17

  10. In verse 11, God "let the earth bring forth" the plants. Now he has the earth "bring forth" the animals as well. So maybe the creationists have it all wrong. Maybe God created livings things through the process of evolution. 1:24

  11. God gave humans dominion over every other living thing on earth. 1:26

  12. God commands us to "be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over ... every living thing that moveth upon the earth." 1:28

  13. "I have given you every herb ... and every tree ... for meat."
      Since many plants have evolved poisons to protect against animals that would like to eat them, God's advice is more than a little reckless. Would you tell your children to go out in the garden and eat whatever plants they encounter? Of course not. But then, you are much nicer and smarter than God. 1:29

  14. All animals were originally herbivores. Tapeworms, vampire bats, mosquitoes, and barracudas -- all were strict vegetarians, as they were created by God. 1:30

  15. "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." He purposefully designed a system that ensures the suffering and death of all his creatures, parasite and host, predator and prey. 1:31
  16. The Genesis 1 creation account conflicts with the order of events that are known to science. In Genesis, the earth is created before light and stars, birds and whales before reptiles and insects, and flowering plants before any animals. The order of events known from science is just the opposite. 1:1-2:3
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  11

  ~Humble and Childlike~

  by freeflyingfaerie in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  you remember the 'encouragement' to be teachable, humble, like little children.... well, children ask questions, and lots of 'em.... so, what happens when we keep on wondering and have questions that demand answers?.

  according to jw's, a person has to stop being teachable like little children.

  a person is told not to do any real research (which requires humility, a sense of wonder, and openness to new ideas and concepts)....for fear that research done outside of the organizations approved sources- their own- a person may discover contradictions and lies.

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  Gopher

  They want their followers to be childlike in the sense of listening when they're being taught, and submissive when they're being given orders. These days, they also want their followers to be childlike in the sense of having the teachings "dumbed down" or simplified into a few catch-phrases or buzzwords, rather than considering context and past history as adults may do more often.
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  5

  generation

  by Skinnedsheep in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs
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  Gopher

  Skinnedsheep,

  This page contains the picture of the 5/15/84 Watchtower cover along with dates of death for the generation that they said "will not pass away".

  http://www.jwstruggle.com/2011/02/cover-picture-the-generation-of-1914/
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  31

  MUST SEE VIDEO: "Read God's Word the Bible Daily" sign removed from Brooklyn, NY Watchtower Bldgs

  by disfellowshipped1 in

  1. social
  2. current

  http://tmblr.co/zsx0ostmun3w.

  hundreds were present in brooklyn to see this event..

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  Gopher

  My sister was in New York a couple nights ago, and she sent me pictures of the Watchtower time and temperature sign still flashing atop one of these buildings.
  
  The Brooklyn headquarter buildings still belong to the Watchtower. Their headquarters are under construction in Warwick, NY and should be ready for use in 2017.

  http://jwsurvey.org/cedars-blog/green-light-for-warwick-hq-as-brooklyn-sales-pass-the-billion-mark
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  71

  Are You Upset My Miley Cyrus' Performance On MTV Awards?

  by minimus in

  1. social
  2. entertainment

  i'm not, even a little bit and i don't understand what the outrage is all about..

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  Gopher

  Aside from the Oscars and Grammies, most awards shows don't feel like they are worth spending time watching.
  
  In the media, I caught part of what Miley did. It reinforced my view that most awards shows aren't worth spending time watching.
  
  (I am Not sure what the target age of the MTV awards is, but most of MTV's original programming seems to be geared to amuse a certain subset of people within the 15 to 25-year old range.)
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  5

  Sending Mentally Diseased Apostates To The Gas Chamber For Over 100 Years.

  by Narcissistic Supply in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  on behalf of the watchtower corporation i would like to thank you for your help.2004 360 furman street sold for $205 million.

  2006 67 livingston street sold for $18.6 million.

  2006 89 hicks street sold for $14 million.

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  Gopher

  I'm just waiting to see the sale price (non-taxable profit) they will make from selling the 25 and 30 Columbia Heights buildings.