Was it ever really about the bus coming? More and more, I suspect that it was only about having people waiting for something.
hybridous
JoinedPosts by hybridous
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53
When will they realise that the bus isn't coming?
by eyeslice ini was still a kid and living at home at the time, and so that must have been well over 30 years ago, that i heard ron drage (now a senior member of the uk bethel) say "if you are waiting at the bus stop it, is better to be 10 minutes early rather than miss it".
what he was referring to of course was the then then 1975 issue; in other words armageddon has arrived yet but it just round the corner and we are a little early for it.. i don't know what brought this to my mind the other day but i got to thinking, surely if you are waiting for a bus and you get there 10 minutes early and it doesn't then turn up, how long do you wait?
10 minutes, 15 minutes, half an hour, an hour, two hours?
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easier to leave...born ins or joined later???...i know the answer........
by oompa inwell at least i know it from my own friends and geographic region........... but i will wait to hear your response....i am fourth gen btw...and unfortunately birthed.... and did a good job at raising a fifth dammit....oompa.
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hybridous
Born-in-but-never-baptized here...
I've developed a narcissictic edge since I left. I think it goes back to the enormous set of stones it took for me to stand up, all alone, and say THIS IS CRAP AND I DON'T BELIEVE IT. Damn the consequences. I told the truth.
And yes, I do think I'm someone special for many reasons, especially that one. How many people thought what I thought but caved to the pressure to stay in and shut the hell up?
Again, not to diminish what any one of us has endured - we're all here for the same reason! But born-in is born-behind-the-8-Ball. It's amazing that any of us learn to function or think at all.
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No One to Carry On!
by AK - Jeff ini recall the 'core' families that made up our little congregation in the 60's and 70's.
i had not thought about it, but the very vast majority of those families have left zero members carrying on the 'legacy' of the 'troof'.
here is the way it breaks down - the names have been changed to protect the innocent [or guilty].. the colsons in 1970 - dad, mom and two sons.
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hybridous
I think Gayle sums it up best...
Jehovah's Witnesses - not a generational religion, not meant to be, too hard to be.
This religion makes a lot of demands. Part of what made those demands tolerable was the notion that it wasn't supposed to go on forever. Hell, it wasn't even supposed to last the lifetimes of the people who originally joined.
I'll bet those chains are quite heavy after a few generations.
This has played out where I live, also.
Kids from strong witness families might stay in the cult, get married...but they aren't breeding. I don't quite get it. The WT, to my knowledge, hasn't in some time actively campaigned for young members to stay childless, so I'm left with the notion that they are choosing this on their own.
I was born-in. Of my peer group growing up, at least 1/2 are out. Of those 1/2 remaining in, 1/2 are having families. Not good numbers for the business. Given that the WT knows this, I often wonder if the magazines will start championing having kids and raising them in the cult. It's their best source of monied growth, right?
Of course, this will further discredit the 'end-is-near' mantra, but money talks.
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Why I can see no reason to believe in Christianity
by free2beme inthose of us on this board, who live in the united states, know this country has a lot of christian history attached to it's founders and current political state of things.
if i look in the yellow pages, under christianity, in the church section and browse the listed selection; i will quickly notice that the large majority of options are christian based in one way or another.
with this said, more then likely you are working with christians, living next door to them or related to them in your life.
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hybridous
I had a friend who killed himself. He was a caring and generous person, who probably suffered from some chemical imbalance that went undiagnosed. He was not JW, although he raised in a very dysfunctional household and experienced abuse and neglect. His parents failed miserably to teach him the tools to cope with lifes challenges and make good decisions.
Hence, when problems came along, he climbed inside a bottle and attemped to dull the pain. He was unsuccessful and spraled downward until he decided to end his life. He was agnostic, and never claimed Christianity as his faith.
I was quite distraught when I learned of his death, and happened to be listening to a local Christian talk show on the radio. I called in, to explain my friend's life and death and ask what kind of hope I could cling to for my friend. I was answered with silence.
You see, it didn't matter that he was born into a shitty family and learned destructive behavior. It didn't matter that I was treated better by him, than ANYONE else I've met who called themselved Christians. It only mattered that he failed to 'Accept Christ' (whatever that means) and therefore, he is without hope.
The realization of this forced me into a whole new paradigm. What kind of God writes off my friend like that? Not one that deserves my devotion. Where is the justice for my friend? It was then that I realized how absolutely useless Christianity is to me, as I would demand justice from a just God.
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how hard is it to move on?...lose everyone?...start new???
by oompa ini have already lost nearly all my friends....maybe just a handful will even be social........but i so hate to lose my mom and dad and my jw son.....one is df......so he still shows that he loves me.....but damm........i so hate to lose the little bit of fam i have left.......is that normal?......stupid question.....i guess i know from my time here....i so hate these guys that can take them away.....oompa.
i know a bunch of you have done it.....just please help me through it...........
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hybridous
how hard is it to move on?...lose everyone?...start new???
I think you already know. It's hard.
Yet, it's easier than the alternative...
There is something wonderful about living an open and honest life. Now that you know too much, you can't live it within that box. It helped me to know that I wasn't the first one blazing the trail. Others had gone before me and were there to give friendly advice and lend a helping hand.
They let me know I could make it through. Because they had made it through. And now, you can make it through.
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hybridous
Ah - Undercover beat me to it...
I support and recognize the right of an individual to adopt or discard any belief system as they see fit.
Just don't abridge my right of free speech when I hold your belief system to the fire of logical scrutiny.
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Watching 60 minutes about the bail out ....on top of Persian rugs.
by restrangled inguess what...i saw 2 persian rugs worth at least 10,000 a piece as the bail out was discussed.. i heard nothing.....i was just looking at those rugs....how about putting those up for sale?....like the rest of us our going to have to do to make ends meet....as if we all had persian rugs...... damn this makes me angry.. r..
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hybridous
They should have to do as the rest of us when business is failing.. be forced to sell all that they have and the money should be used to help get us out of this problem...
Agreed, Dawg. Still, this clearly won't happen. Who gets blamed now? I say it's our political class. Party labels are an intentional distraction. But both parties are 'coming together' now. Who loses? We do.
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Pro-Fiat Money... Debate Me and get your A$$ Kicked...
by Confucious inalrighty.... all in good fun here.. but i feel like the tough guy calling out anybody and everybody.. but people have been talking bad about the federal reserve and the united states fiat money system.. i thing it's good.
it keeps a balance.. after all... all money is fiat.. even if we returned to the gold standard - all money is fiat.
it's just a representation of "what people will pay for what.".
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hybridous
how long do you think it will be until we run out of gold?
We'd never run outta gold. As it diminished in available quantity, like everything else, it would go up in price. Until it was too expensive for people to want to trade dollars for. The link between dollars and gold never had to but static and set for all of eternity to be useful. But there had to be some kind of official relationship to protect people who owned dollars from what is happening right now.
But that's precisely what gave the dollar its power. The willingness of the fincancial establishment (as perscribed by the Government at the time) to trade, at any time, those pieces of cloth/paper, for something else that was rare and hard to create. When dollars=gold, then its not likely that people would rush to exchange dollars for gold, because dollars are something you can have confidence in, and are certainly more convenient.
Your argument that a thing is only worth what someone else will pay for it, is basically true. But the argument for gold goes to the fact that the alternative is terrible.
The true anchor of money is NOT the commodity behind it.
If the anchor of money is not a hard commodity behind it...then what shall it be? Is there one at all? Money is indeed a bridge for goods and services, but in order to function in that capacity it must relate in some meaningful way to the two. That's the point of gold (or oil, or silver etc...). That's the way in which it relates.
You don't need gold to anchor it.
You could anchor it to Big Macs.
Yes, I suppose we could anchor it to those. But now you've changed the argument, because a currency guaranteed in Big Macs (or anything else for that matter) is not a fiat currency.
That's the point and the central weakness of fiat. You're not guaranteed any amount of any commodity at all. There's no set relationship between fiat dollars and anything else, and as such, it is dangerous and unstable, as history testifies to.
Gold has served as the default currency for millenia because it is rare and hard to obtain. It represents the effort and work it took to mine/purify/or otherwise obtain. Now dollars, on their own, not representing gold...how hard are they to create? The government creates them at will to cover it's own financial melfeasance, so I'd submit that it's not hard at at all to create an excess of them.
I'm sure you know already what an excess of dollars means to those of us who have our wealth stored in them.
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Pro-Fiat Money... Debate Me and get your A$$ Kicked...
by Confucious inalrighty.... all in good fun here.. but i feel like the tough guy calling out anybody and everybody.. but people have been talking bad about the federal reserve and the united states fiat money system.. i thing it's good.
it keeps a balance.. after all... all money is fiat.. even if we returned to the gold standard - all money is fiat.
it's just a representation of "what people will pay for what.".
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hybridous
there will always need to be a "piece of paper" that represents that gold.
I think it's worth noting that paper dollars used to be exatly that. They were redeemable for a set amount of gold.
And during that time when dollars could not be systematically devalued for political convenience, the United States experienced much prosperity.
A dollar in 1912 bought pretty much what one bought in 1812. Inflation wasn't there to confiscate and eat up peoples' savings.
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Pro-Fiat Money... Debate Me and get your A$$ Kicked...
by Confucious inalrighty.... all in good fun here.. but i feel like the tough guy calling out anybody and everybody.. but people have been talking bad about the federal reserve and the united states fiat money system.. i thing it's good.
it keeps a balance.. after all... all money is fiat.. even if we returned to the gold standard - all money is fiat.
it's just a representation of "what people will pay for what.".
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hybridous
Here's my complaint about fiat money.
Let's pretend there's no money, we are neighbors who barter with each other. One weekend, we agree to a deal whereby I paint your shed in exchange for 2 chickens. We both have come to the agreement that my labor and time is worth 2 of the many chickens you raise in your yard.
So I perform the job to your satisfaction. But I don't want the birds right now, maybe my freezer is too full, or maybe you don't have enough to spare at the moment. So you write an IOU telling me to come back in a few months where we can settle.
Problem is, when I come to collect - you now declare the note is worth only ONE chicken. What happened to the buying power of my labor, between service and payment? This is a scam, and if you don't honor our agreement I won't do business with you anymore, and your reputation on the street is suspect.
This is analogous to fiat dollars. The instability is problamatic.
I take issue with your statement that all money is fiat. There's a world of difference between creating numbers in a database and actually twisting gold (or other metal) out of the ground.
Empires have come and gone, and so have their fiat currencies. Every fiat currency ever invented has failed after being inflated into oblivion. Hard money cannot be created so easily, and is therefore something of a protection, I think.