yeah, Atlas Shrugged. God I love that book.
In fact, forget Crisis of Conscience - Atlas Shrugged should be compulsory reading for anyone on this forum.
Hank Rearden:
"An issue of guilt, he thought, had to rest on his own acceptance of the code of justice that pronounced him guilty. He did not accept it; he never had. His virtues, all the virtues she needed to achieve his punishment, came from another code and lived by another standard."
PS - If anyone wants it, I've got a PDF.
Posts by 10p
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18Great Strides Have been Made!
by Sunspot insince i last posted here, some wonderful blessings have come my way!
my oldest son who i shunned in 1981 and who has since cut me out of his life....has finally "come around" and we are making some real headway towards being in each other's lives again.
he has restored an old 1933 ford jalopy and asked me if i wanted to go for a ride in it with him!
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10p
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17
THE best sentence in the whole Bible that summarizes what i think...
by RedPill2006 in"what is truth?".
35 years of a jw life i have come to the conclusion that this got to be the best sentence in the bible and reflects my thinking.
three words......only three words, in form of a question that could have saved me over 30 years of %$#% experiences with the wt.. think about the deepness of this sentence....
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10p
I'm with you, Nathan and Majestic - I have NO idea how Ecclesiates got into the bible - because it contradicts the rest of the bible completely. No hope of going to heaven/resurrection nada - eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you may die! I'm sure the last verse of eccl was tacked on by a scribe at a later point in time, because it is the only verse that mentions worshipping god at all, in fact all it says is 'fear the true god and keep his commandments'.
As an aside ... here is a verse we read many times at the hall, but we never seemed to get to the end - I only just noticed this now...
9:5 For the living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all, neither do they anymore have wages, because the remembrance of them has been forgotten. 6 Also, their love and their hate and their jealousy have already perished, and they have no portion anymore to time indefinite in anything that has to be done under the sun.
doesn't sound like they're going to a new order! -
14
South Africa Court Saves Baby's Life
by fjtoth innews 24. cape town, south africa.
court saves baby's life.
09/07/2008 09:37 - (sa) .
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10p
He emphasised that the parents did not oppose the application, but could not give consent themselves.
Who wants to see their child die over a stupid religuous rule? These parents thanked god that night that the court forced this on their child and saved his life. They prayed to Jehovah to thank him that the worldly rulers overruled his stupid rule and saved their boy's life. They probably didn't word it like that - but they couldn't help themselves but pray and thank Jehovah that their boy lived - and that is exactly the meaning of their prayer, whether they realise it or not. The irony is sickening. Thank Science and Medicine that the child lives!!! -
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2008 Keep Yourselves In God's Love--PDF!
by Atlantis in2008 keep yourselves in god's love--pdf!
bookmarked searchable reduced to 2.4-mb from (anonymous-5) please note the "appendix" of this book!
click the link at the bottom of the next page.
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10p
actually, the directness makes it easier to attack.
Like appendix 1, "How to treat a disfellowshipped person" says :
Regarding everyone that "does not remain in the teaching of the Christ," we read: "Never receive him into your homes or say a greeting to him. For he that says a greeting to him is a sharer in his wicked works." (
2 John 9-11 )
From the New World Translation itself - 2 John 9-11:
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Everyone that pushes ahead and does not remain in the teaching of the Christ does not have God. He that does remain in this teaching is the one that has both the Father and the Son. 10 If anyone comes to YOU and does not bring this teaching, never receive him into YOUR homes or say a greeting to him. 11 For he that says a greeting to him is a sharer in his wicked works.The scripture actually says ANYONE who does not believe in Christ should be shunned. Its is in fact not 'Regarding everyone that "does not remain in the teaching of the Christ"'.
It will be easy to point this out to my wife- that you can even see why the GB had to split up the quotation like that, so that they could twist the meaning of the scripture. Otherwise, they could have just quoted the scripture verbatim.
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60
OK, let me explain....
by dawg inso, the last few threads i've written have been about telling your families and friends how you feel; many of you have given me the reasons you don't speak out to your families, but i want to tell you the main reason you should.
please let me explain.... .
i keep on stressing this point because how it makes you feel, i'm telling you all, that for over 19 years, i let information about my thoughts out slowly, then the tipping point... at my uncle's funeral 2 february's ago, while listening to my family pontificate at dinner about who so and so is pioneering and the like, it hit me that i was sick to the core of them throwing their bullisi*t beliefs at me like i was inferior or something.
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10p
dawg!
Your post resonated with me deeply.
I'm about a quarter way through Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged". Have you read it?
Its like you're living amongst madmen. You know the truth. You face reality as clearly as you can see it. You dont believe anything ... faith is for the fearful. But they look at you like you are the weak one.
I feel like you feel, like Winston Smith (1984) and Francisco D'Anconia (Atlas Shrugged).
I want to shout out at them. I do. But will it accomplish anything? Would it be like Homo erectus trying to teach a gorilla to make fire?
Would I feel better? If I used my energy to accomplish nothing, I would not. If it caused even one of my family to awake from their stupor, I would be elated.
I think of the all the intelligent people who were tortured by the mob, because they dared to express a different opinion. -
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No school for you: confirmation of CO outline on education
by raindog ini just spoke with my dad after he returned from an elders meeting.
the co did say that elders would have to step down from their positions if they supported their child getting an education.
the reasoning behind this is that an elder is encouraging their children to attend college, they would not be able to counsel the rank and file on the issue.
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10p
Man, oh man.
If this is really true ... I think its a lot bigger than any other changes so far. Dropping the bookstudies was a GOOD, LOVING thing from the GB (in the eyes of Joe publisher). But this is just cult-like, and the publishers see it that way too.
Spoke to my wife about it. She was dumbstruck. She always defends what they say, but this time... At first she started saying "oh they've never said you CANT go to university, just not to live on campus and to be careful etc etc." When I told her that it was made black and white to the elders in a secret meeting with the CO (all those friday night elders meetings with the CO are top secret. They lock the flippin door to the kinddom hall !!) she actually went a little white. And she didn't go to the meeting today, and chose to play computer games instead. No explanation, she just didn't go. And I didn't ask why. I can only hope its because she's in that in-between place we all go when we first start to see the light. Pray to the non-existent gods for me on this one! *chuckle*
I know most of the elders in my congo are pro education. In fact, probably most in the city. This methinks will be like a mortar bomb in the western congregations. I really and truly think this could be their biggest mistake ever. I know this will really cut to the core and start some serious doubts in a number of educated and pro-education elders I know personally. One elder's wife I know quite well wanted to go back to school to renew her nursing qualification ... now I wonder if that will be allowed?
Like blood, the trouble with education is in the definition - as others have said, is high school 'education'? What if you are so slow to learn that you spend 4 years in study for a 1-year diploma? what if... what if ... what if ... ?
My sons are going to get as much of an education as they want. Thankfully I woke up before we decided to home-school them. Home schooled kids are so out of touch with reality. -
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No school for you: confirmation of CO outline on education
by raindog ini just spoke with my dad after he returned from an elders meeting.
the co did say that elders would have to step down from their positions if they supported their child getting an education.
the reasoning behind this is that an elder is encouraging their children to attend college, they would not be able to counsel the rank and file on the issue.
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10p
oh boy, this sounds like it will get as complex as the blood issue.
what if you study correspondence for a full degree, but work hard and do it in 2 years?
what about apprenticeships?
is it just desk-jobs that are wrong? can you become an electrician through a polytech - is it only university that is off limits?
and when you say the elders wouldn't have freedom of speech to counsel the others ... what are they going to be counselling them then? Is this just step one before they clamp down on all the pubs?
either way ... they are going to lose a hell of a lot more than they have bargained for on this one. I'd say they've miscalculated hugely on the mood amongst the 'sheep'.
Most dubs I know are very pro education these days, and had got the impression the GB was easing up on this and that the easing would continue. -
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Women being in subjection...a sore subject
by milligal ini was raised jw and of course the whole theory that a man is the head and the woman must respect her husband and be in subjection to his authority was ingrained in me from a young age.
my mother, (oddly enough) chose the jw religion, dragged my father in kicking and screaming (he later served as an elder for 17 years) and she complained constantly about men being in control and her pains as a woman in subjection.
now, i already have a good idea about my mother's problems.
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10p
Funny, I believe this religion allowed some very strong women to run the show.
Yes, I think in western society on the whole, the men strut around like they own the show, but the women are pulling their puppet strings.
In fact, it reminds me a lot of those nature shows. Humans are animals too.
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19
Fantasizing about the end of the Jehovah's Witnesses?
by Bring_the_Light ini'm pretty new here.
after being on my own 10 years, i'm finally coming to grips with my past (which i previously just ignored/didn't think about).
thanks for existing everyone, its been very existential.
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10p
If everyone was smart like you, then I'd say it'd end in at most 10 years. Access to the internet would open the minds of too many elders for the religion to keep going.
BUT, most people are not smart enough to work things out themselves ... they will hang on the every word of the org to time indefinite.
If you think I'm wrong, ask yourself why most people are still religious, even though ALL religions can be shown to be false. -
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Have you ever seen someone else abort a fade?
by Mickey mouse inthinking back i've seen a couple of examples of brothers who have almost slipped out of the organization.
stopped attending meetings for months, inactive in field service and then come back with a vengeance.
in the two particular cases i'm thinking of both came back as real company men and have risen through the ranks to levels they previously hadn't attained.. i sometimes wonder whether they were consciously struggling with apostasy and chose for whatever reason to plunge back into the organization?
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10p
not exactly ... but when trying to encourage me after I stopped attenting meetings, this is what our PO told me:
"When I was about 18, I had doubts about the organisation, and I was just about to leave. But I decided to give it a go, and went auxilliary pioneering. And that really strengenthed my faith, being out with the brothers and sister who had such strong faith, and teaching others about the truth."
I never said anything, not wanting to fight unwinnable battles that would only leave me worse off ... but I wanted to ask him: "so what were your doubts, and did you ever get rational answers to them ... or did you just learn to ignore them and rest on that wonderful, blind faith?"