mindmelda

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Posts by mindmelda

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  45

  Your Opinion----What's The Worst Way To Go?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  we all fear death.

  nobody in their right mind wants to die.

  most people say that if they have to go, it would best to have it happen while asleep.. but, in your opinion, what's the worst?.

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  mindmelda

  "Death is caused by swallowing small amounts of saliva over a long period of time." George Carlin.

  I'm afraid of heights...falling off of something high and plummeting to my death would be horrible!
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  6

  How to start a cult - the video

  by Amha·’aret in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  anyone seen this?

  its very good, seems to cover everything.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnnse5xyp6e.

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  mindmelda

  I have a friend who came out of a Hindu communal cult, an ashram. Our experiences in some ways are eerily alike. We always joke that between the two of us, with our combined knowledge of mind control and various religious symbolism, we could make the world's best cult, something for everyone!
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  4

  "Legalism"

  by Chalam in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i just posted this link in another thread legalism (theology) - wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

  i mentioned the term to my jw friend once.

  he didn't seem to understand so i explained.. anyhow, i think people will especially enjoy the list from further down the page :).

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  mindmelda

  Chalam, I enjoy your comments immensely, I just want you to know. "Legalism" has been on my mind quite a bit lately and that was all very interesting.

  I don't do rules too well, but I do principles wonderfully. I don't think of Christ as overly rule oriented. There were times he broke the Pharasaical (man's) laws to help those in need or teach or heal. He broke customs of his time and people to reach out to those in need. But, he never broke a principle of God.

  I tend to think it's pretty simple. Just do what Christ did. He never added burdens to people's faith, nor did he hand down lists of rules or law. But, he spoke about godly principles based on love.

  Adding to that just detracts from Christ.
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  85

  Not having a paradise earth in the future makes me sad - What about you?

  by BonaFide in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  yes, i am enjoying realizing the truth about the truth.. but there is another side to it.

  the world as we know it didn't seem to me to be the way that god intended it to be.

  i know i was brainwashed, but it felt good believing that all the bad things would be changed.

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  mindmelda

  I feel sad about that too. I've not been away from the JW stuff that I've quite gotten over that.

  But I have to say, I always wanted to partake at the Memorial, feeling that it was right, but I felt I'd be disbelieved.

  I really feel "born again" by holy spirit now. I want to be with Christ when I die.

  Yeah, I know, some people would say that's just replacing one religious fantasy with another, but hey...it's my fantasy. LOL

  I am focusing in the meantime on living a more healthy and realisitic life without waiting around for Paradise and tiger petting to have some joy in life.

  If only the economy would cooperate! I have no fun money right now! Dangit.
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  8

  Feedback for my next Freeminds article on how to use my Tough Questions Series....

  by Tuesday in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  these are only portions of blood, even when combined they do not make up full blood.

  these are only portions of blood, even when combined they do not make up full blood.

  if when blood is separated its no longer considered blood, then why dont you accept blood transfusions in general?

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  mindmelda

  The blood factors allowed to me is like being told it's okay to eat peanut butter, jelly and bread, but not to combine them into a sandwich and eat them.

  So ridiculous!

  20 years ago, I took a blood faction to prevent my future children from having hemolytic anemia, a dangerous and even deadly condition. This condition occurs when the mother is Rh negative and her husband contributes an Rh positive factor to their baby, making the child Rh positive. The mothers negative antibodies attack the child's positive ones and kill off the red blood cells of the baby to some degree, sometimes fatally.

  I had a JW midwife during my pregnancy and she privately encouraged me to take the faction, which is called Rhogam or RH immunoglobulin and told me she'd never tell, and I promised I wouldn't divulge that she encouraged me to take it. It was kind of an iffy thing 20 years ago as to whether that was okayed by the WTS and I always wonder if it had been known if we'd have both gotten in trouble for it.

  Only 15% of people are Rh positive. But Rhogam is made from blood. It's from the antibodies of women who have become Rh sensitized in pregnancy and their blood is donated to extract the factor from it.
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  33

  Guilt trip on R&F if you don't preach

  by bobld in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  there is a certain feeling in the air,that you must preach and to knock on doors.they like to as an example,if you know that there's a tornado or some bad weather is coming and you don't say anything or warn the people,you bear resonsibility for the lives lost.the wbts looks at it the same way.thus the gulit trip for not going from door to door.. now this is about as stupid as a queer in a whorehouse.the gb of the wbts should be guilty of not warning the people,by modern technology methods.they should be using,t.v.,radio,internet,satellite etc.not this bull dung of going from door to door.how would they like it if a tornado hit their new printery in wallkill,n.y.

  and the government sent troops form door to door to warn their volunteer workers.how about their properties in brooklyn,n.y.

  so don't give me this guilt story of preaching from door to door as the most effective.just look at the history of how many people lost their lives in the past due to tornados because they did not have the modern technology of warning people as compared to today.get off you high horse and if you think your message is so important to warn people than use the proper methods.. bob.

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  mindmelda

  Getting people to do it is a lot cheaper. Air time and radio time in major markets would cut dramatically into profits.

  Rush Limbaugh only gets heard as much as he does because he's packaged very cheaply for rural radio markets who will take anything to fill air time.

  So, if that's what it takes to get him on the air, imagine what investment it'd take to get a JW program regularly on radio, forget TV!

  But, mostly the preaching work is designed to keep you in it as much as it is to get converts. Doing something inherently difficult makes some people believe even more that they have the true religion. You're sacrificing time money and dignity to preach, so you want to invest more belief to justify the sacrifice of all that. Basic cult psychology.

  You don't think Hari Khrishnas go out and solicit because they love it, do you? Nah, same control factor. Do something demeaning for your faith, you want to justify staying with it that much more. The martyr factor, masochism, whatever.
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  8

  Could a gay-lesbian candidate be elected President?

  by The Berean in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  there was a time when blacks and women could not even vote.

  so what's next?.

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  mindmelda

  Probably too many fundamentalist and or conservative groups consider them to be too outside the social norm now for that. But, openly gay, bi, transgendered and lesbian people are holding all kinds of other prominent positions in religion, politics, and business.

  They're not going away, as far as I can tell. *G*
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  15

  Why are you glad to be out of the BORG?

  by cognac in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  as i sit here, holding my precious baby girl, i'm grateful that the blood issue and d'ffing will never come between us.

  i'm grateful in the way that i can love my baby unconditionally because this cult won't ever come in between us.

  a love much bigger then me that i can't even comprehend but that i can simply take in and enjoy because i was lucky enough to be able to escape!.

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  mindmelda

  I'm glad because I can give my kids a more normal life than I had, too.

  I'm gald because I don't have to feel guilty for not believing the unbelievable.

  I'm glad because I don't have to be bored out of my skull at mind numbing meetings.

  I'm glad I don't have to try to indocrinate people with crapola to save myself from a terrible death at Armageddon.

  I'm glad that I don't believe that God is a big mean cranky bastard who apparently wants most of the people in the world to die.

  I'm glad I'm not a self righteous know it all asshat JW anymore, because they don't really know spit.
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  27

  The Power of Faith

  by AllTimeJeff in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the power of faith (latest blog o' mine).

  there is a big difference between looking at a picture of the empire state building and actually visiting it.

  to have a friend tell you that it is great, that it is amazaing, awe inspiring and grand won't do it justice until you see it for yourself.. in a similar way, there is a big difference between having a healthy faith, and being told to have a healthy faith.. many who used to be jw's, as well as a fair number of christians, spend a lot of time on ex jw boards, looking to promote a simple thought.

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  mindmelda

  Oh, I don't think being religious has been officially catagorized as a mental illness, at least not yet. LOL

  But, I do think it could be due to an inherently different way of looking at things. Psychologists have some evidence that different personality types are more prone to be religious or irreligious, or to be more introspective, spiritual or idiosyncratic about beliefs.

  I'm a pretty liberal believer, and I don't discount science at all. I find room for God in science, as many do. I don't see any contradictions in the kind of spirituality I embrace and practice and science or evolution.

  Religion is often just codified versions of rational and practical human behavior. Most of the basic rules of religion are universal as we all have a fairly low tolerance for thieves, scams, cheats, murder, wanton violence, they all destabilize our groups and communities. The other stuff is just decoration and probably there to define oneself as part of a group or NOT part of another group, which is a fairly strong human need for some.

  That's why religions which focus on the rules become the basis for division, eventually. Only the people who have this need to define themselves strongly with a certain group will be willing to follow the more extreme ones and only the easily misled and masochists will follow abusive ones for too long without protest or rebellion.

  I think spirituality or that vague feeling most of us experience of wanting some connection to the rest of the universe or what is beyond the senses is pretty innate in humans. It's not even a bad thing, it's a good thing as it feeds creativity and intuition, some other uniquely human attributes, but it gets misapplied in some terrible ways, doesn't it?
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  11

  Only in Texas

  by PEC in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  watch the video and tell me what you think.. officer tasers woman 72 during traffic stop.

  philip.

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  mindmelda

  The cops down here in Texas can be really on the defense. But, there are some obviously abusive and criminal activities going on by police here too.

  A whole town here made the national news for "highway robbery", confiscating people's money and valuables during arrests for routine traffic violations and never returning them, and finally spending them on town entertainments and themselves.

  Pretty crooked I think....they say the law allows for it. I wish there was a law that allowed ME to take people's money at gunpoint and get paid for it, too. LOL