Posts by Introspection

12

In love and confused

by Ardilla in

jw
friends

hey everybody!.

i wrote shortly before about this, and some of you gave me advices, which i really appreciated.

for one year he just flirted me like a child.

Daniela, my only advice to you is really listen to yourself, your body in how you feel, not just your mind. Listen to both together, because they are not really separate. The thing is someone else may offer good advice, but you have to recognize deeply, actually realize that it is good advice. Ask yourself "what is this that I'm feeling?" Accept the feeling fully, but that doesn't mean giving in to it and your mind takes a vacation so that you do something against better judgement.

I think I'm gonna end up talking about this in another thread, (judging by the title) but perhaps another question you can ask yourself is: Do I want romance or do I want love?

*corrected spelling

Edited by - Introspection on 14 September 2002 1:39:27

12

It's a Holo/Quantum World, Baby

by Satanus in

in the last few years, there have been a few books on quantum holograms.

a hologram is the little pic on credit cards.

from what i understand, if someone cut up one of those pics, the complete original pic would be on each one of the pieces.

Introspection

This is not an uncommon reaction. Douglas Adams documented one such occasion in the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

Taken from: http://fscked.org/writings/TotalPerspectiveVortex/

The Total Perspective Votex derives its picture of the whole Universe on the principle of extrapolated matter analyses.
To explain--since every piece of matter in the Universe is in some way affected by every other piece of matter in the Universe, it is in theory possible to extrapolate the whole of creation--every sun, every planet, their orbits, their composition, and their economic and social history from, say, one small piece of fairy cake.
The man who invented the Total Perspective Vortex did so basically in order to annoy his wife.
Trin Tragula--for that was his name--was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.
And she would nag him incessantly about the utterly inordinate amount of time he spent staring out into space, or mulling over the mechanics of safety pins, or doing spectrographic analyses of pieces of fairy cake.
"Have some sense of proportion!" she would say, sometimes as often as thirty-eight times in a single day.
And so he built the Total Perspective Vortex--just to show her.
And into one end, he plugged the whole of reality as extrapolated from a piece of fairy cake, and into the other, he plugged his wife: so that when he turned it on she saw in one instant the whole infinity of creation and herself in relation to it.
To Trin Tragula's horror, the shock completely annihilated her brain, but to his satisfaction he realized that he had proved conclusively that if life is going to exist in a Universe of this size, then one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion.

28

Does size matter?

by kenpodragon in

jw
friends

okay, mind out of the gutter now!!!

what i was wondering is, does size really matter in a religion.

after all jw's are one of the worlds smaller religions ... 6 million is not large!

Introspection

That all depends on the context of the question. (no, I'm not talking about gutter-ality) Does it matter to who, does it matter as far as the truthfulness of it is concerned? Well, it's not hard to see why it might matter to the leaders of the religions, generally they like to have a following. But as far as the truthfulness is concerned, I see no reason why it would be directly relevant. Of course, since religion is about belief anyways it's kind of meaningless as far as the number of *believers* are concerned, because even if it is true they only believe it, they don't really know it. Any understanding beyond the shallow dimension of belief would indicate that we should identify that individual as something other than a *follower* of the religion. Numbers really don't mean much, it's like "9 out of 10 morons prefer Toxic brand medication" - how well does it work? Or just simply how does it work? Does it work in terms of life?

In fact, isn't there something in the bible about this? Book of Numbers? Or Judges? (hmm, consider those words..) I remember once around the time the yearly stats came out there was a study with the scripture about how Jehovah condemned some military guy doing census or something, and I was like ummm ... doesn't this principle apply to this too?

12

In love and confused

by Ardilla in

jw
friends

hey everybody!.

i wrote shortly before about this, and some of you gave me advices, which i really appreciated.

for one year he just flirted me like a child.

Introspection

Daniela I emailed myself with the link to this thread, I'll read it when I have some time.

56

Are JW's only in it for the New System?

by In_between_days in

jw
friends

if the new world hope no longer existed, would everyone leave?

would some stay?

what do you think the reaction of the dubs would be if the new light was no armaggedon and no "new system"?

Introspection

It seems to me that this web sight has been put here by apostates for the reason of not building up the truth but tearing it down .I have found that to try and reason with an apostate is the same as try to tell a member of the K.K.K that blacks are equal to whites in the eyes of God .You will get every stupid argument in the book against it , and why , because they do not want to accept it even if it is right . They even go as far as to harass other who do accept it. So with this said I will bid you goodbye so that you can all tell each other how right you are .I wonder though if your arguments will hold water with Jehovah when the time comes after all he is the one that decides who is right.

Mo, you don't even have to listen to us, just look at what you yourself have written here. What have you done except point a finger at other people? You're preoccupied with how what is said makes somebody looks, rather than what's actually said. I have to say I haven't really seen any reasoning here. The person who speaks the truth won't always do it in a nice way to make you feel good. If you're really interested in what's true you're going to have to get over such insecurities, because that's only self interest, interest in how it makes you feel and how it makes your religion look. By the way, you are responsible for your own feelings, making up a story about the other person who precipitated the event won't change that fact. When you come to some clarity about what's coming from you yourself then you'll be in a better position to see the truth. I can understand how someone like you coming to a website like this can be overwhelmed, especially when most of the people is saying something that doesn't jive with your beliefs, but understand that even harassment, if that is what it is, is just a threat to your self concept, not the truth. Take care and try not to stress yourself out too much.

124

Anyone still bothered by the demons?

by wednesday in

jw
friends

hi i'm wednesday and born and raised in jw.-inactive several years.

i have had a number of iincidents that appear to demonic've had spirit beings sit on my bed at ight and talk to me i've been literally touched by things unseen.

now i know the jw are big on demon stuff.

Introspection

Hi Wednesday,

I can understand how it's the only way of thinking you know. I just posted a relatively brief explanation today of basically where I'm coming from, I'd like to invite you to read it here:

http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.aspx?id=36464&site=3

Now based on that and what you wrote in your message, it sounds like both Jehovah and Satan are in denial about what is. See, another way of looking at the almighty and God's will is that there can be nothing else, God's will IS what is, by definition. Of course, this is a very different view of God too, but if you have any separation and even outright opposition then there can be no harmony, and also no absolutes - because when you have two it becomes relative, and God's supposed to be absolute. So you see, the concept you were taught as God cannot, by definition, be an almighty God just by virtue of the fact that there IS opposition. It doesn't matter "how it will turn out in the end", because if at any point in time something other than God's will occurred in any part of the universe that means he is not all-mighty doesn't it?

For you, I'd say dropping belief is probably the important thing, and basically you could say it's a matter of surrender to God, it's just a different set of language describing the same thing. Of course, this doesn't mean you sit around on the couch all day and wait for food and drink to be brought to you, but it's a matter of acceptance. If you look carefully at this acceptance, you'll find that it's also where unconditional love is found. You don't say I'll love you if you're a certain way, or when you do this and that, you accept them as they are. Sometimes the object of your love (this of course is really not an accurate use of the word, as there is no separation) may not do nice things, but that doesn't mean you can't love them. This is of course why Jesus said love your enemies. You mentioned the unloving attitude bothers you, I guess what I'm telling you here is that you don't need to receive it from anyone else, (certainly not from people that's just in denial themselves) but it can work through you directly. The thing with that is before it would reach anybody else, the love has to reach you first.

Look, if you could choose between having God and having books about him, which would you choose? Yet you can always have the first, because even all the religious people say God is accessible all around don't they? But that means dropping your beliefs about God, I only even use the word because I have to describe it in some way, but the less preconceived notions the better. When you get a clearer head you can read more, but at this point all those loaded words will proabably only confuse you. And of course, being around people who like to argue with reality and make up their own stories wouldn't help either. It's probably good to take a break from all that.

56

Are JW's only in it for the New System?

by In_between_days in

jw
friends

if the new world hope no longer existed, would everyone leave?

would some stay?

what do you think the reaction of the dubs would be if the new light was no armaggedon and no "new system"?

Introspection

It is quite clear that the majority of the people here if they ever got baptized in the first place got baptized with the wrong frame of mind.

Hmm. Now why did you say "wrong frame of mind" rather than heart condition? I mean, that's what we're talking about isn't it? Now that I've said that you might say "oh yeah, that sounds better" - but why didn't you?

I'll let you in on a little secret. The reason why problems get brushed under the big piece of carpet called imperfection is because the witnesses are under the mistaken impression that it's all about the mind. They may render lip service and cite the scripture that says whole heart, soul and mind, but there is little actual understanding of this. That is why no amount of study will get rid of the imperfections. Of course, in this context we're not talking about something like not turning in all your hours, but major screw-ups. I don't even mean organizational or stuff about chronology issues, but rather how people are really wronged. You don't do that because you're imperfect, that happens when you have a dead heart. And so it goes, it's just a matter of supporting the organization and perpetuating this mind stuff that can only argue with the honesty of your heart. (by the way that's basically schizophrenia right there) That's not spirituality, not remotely. You might want to quote the scripture about the heart being treacherous and is desperate at this point, and that's true with some behaviors, but not at the deepest level. This is precisely why 'apostate information' bother witnesses. After all, if you don't think there's any truth to it why would you be disturbed? Yet every witness I know who has looked at anything that disagrees with the society (so not necessarily apostate) becomes disturbed, sometimes just mere mention of it will disturb them - it's one of the few things in life I've observed to be consistent every single time. It shakes them to their core, and it is from the same place that they recognize a very real possibility that they are wrong. Oh, better put it away before I find out the truth!

This simple fact that witnesses can never confront a challenge to their faith with any peace speaks volumes. Oh, to be fair I should acknowledge that some witnesses are not bothered by this stuff, but they of course basically ignore what the other person has to say - which is the equivalent of not looking at the other side at all. Half the time they don't even acknowledge the points being brought up and just goes on to quote whatever it is they quote, much like a machine.

20

Something to Believe In ....

by LyinEyes in

jw
friends

as i watched all the coverage of the 9/11 tradgedy, i felt just a fraction of the grief that the families who lost loved ones that day.

i shed tears, i lit candles , i even thought of praying.

i just hoped that god would read my heart and would help me to find faith in him again.

Introspection

How would you like to know it rather than just believe it?

To those that might be offended by my use of the word know over the word belief, is that based on a knowing?

I gotta say, I don't even care if it's most humans. As long as there are some that's.. good.

124

Anyone still bothered by the demons?

by wednesday in

jw
friends

hi i'm wednesday and born and raised in jw.-inactive several years.

i have had a number of iincidents that appear to demonic've had spirit beings sit on my bed at ight and talk to me i've been literally touched by things unseen.

now i know the jw are big on demon stuff.

Introspection

By the way, just wondering - is your name from the Adams Family?

124

Anyone still bothered by the demons?

by wednesday in

jw
friends

hi i'm wednesday and born and raised in jw.-inactive several years.

i have had a number of iincidents that appear to demonic've had spirit beings sit on my bed at ight and talk to me i've been literally touched by things unseen.

now i know the jw are big on demon stuff.

Introspection

Well good for them for venting, gotta let it out.. But you know, as far as I'm concerned none of that stuff really matters spiritually. I'm not sure where you're at with the whole belief thing as far as what you were taught as a witness, but you might recall there's the one scripture that says perfect love throws fear outside, or atleast that's how the NWT words it. But basically the idea is there. If you want to be free from fear, that certainly sounds like a good thing to look into doesn't it?