Posts by A.Fenderson

1

One Big April Fool

by lavendar in

jw
friends

on this april fool's day.....my thoughts are of my jw family member...who i deeply love.

a fool for letting himself get suckered into joining this insideous cult.

from the very beginning, we tried to warn him.

A.Fenderson

I have come to the conclusion that nothing is going to shake my family member's faith in the WTS....UNTIL he starts to doubt & question the Organization ON HIS OWN.

Unfortunately for those of us who would prefer to see our loved ones free of this controlling cult, what you said here does seem to be a fact. And maybe he's not a fool so much as in need of something that association with the JWs and the WTS can seemingly provide him--many intelligent people are taken in by cults like this because they want or even need something to believe in to make their lives meaningful and livable. So don't write him off as a fool, but stand ready to discuss his doubts and issues with the WTS-- at his own pace--when they start to surface. Meanwhile, you have the opportunity to prove to him that "worldly" people's love is not conditional, unlike the JWs'.

54

For born ins- what tipped you off it was wrong

by teela(2) in

jw
friends

at a young age i remember watching tv and commenting why is the red cross always helping people and we don't.

the second big one is if the witnesses only started up in 1890 - 1900 did jehovah not have anyone else doing the preaching work?.

as a child i don't think we think about theological problems so what tipped you off?

A.Fenderson

Philosophy and anthropology classes really got my brain open to new ideas and to really examining my existing beliefs (not the blatantly disingenuous lip-service the JWs give to the idea of testing out your faith). At the time, the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn also really made a large impact on me, especially the interpretation of the Cane & Abel story as a metaphor for a pivotal moment in human (pre)history.

Brocephus: The Revelation book... realized it was all made up stuff.

Yeah, but as I recall there were some pretty sweet-ass pics in there. Plus, once you realize it was all a drug trip (amanita muscaria or somesuch), it kinda makes you want to trip balls yourself, at least once--or maybe that's just me.

13

DO YOU suffer from PARADIGM poisoning?

by Terry in

jw
friends

slow death by poisoning is a bad way to go!.

like that old story about boiling a frog.

(gradual heating keeps the frog from jumping out of the pot).. not knowing why you are slightly ill or not at your best keeps you from seeking remedy.. .

A.Fenderson

Unfortunately, there's no such thing as a true paradigm, therefore none can be said to be false, either:

Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one grid with another grid, and amending grids in hopes of finding a perfect one that will account for all reality and will, hence, (say unenlightened westerners) be True. This is illusory; it is what we Erisians call the ANERISTIC ILLUSION. Some grids can be more useful than others, some more beautiful than others, some more pleasant than others, etc., but none can be more True than any other.

...

The point is that (little-t) truth is a matter of definition relative to the grid one is using at the moment, and that (capital-T) Truth, metaphysical reality, is irrelevant to grids entirely. Pick a grid, and through it some chaos appears ordered and some appears disordered. Pick another grid, and the same chaos will appear differently ordered and disordered.

Reality is the original Rorschach.

Principia Discordia, page 50.

If, however, you go a level deeper than merely looking at paradigms/grids, to the level of looking at the ways in which we are can choose to assign meaning and gain knowledge--i.e. epistemology--then a thorough comparison among the alternatives generally leads any sane individual to rate empricism more highly than, say, divine revelation.

35

I hope I'm not the ONLY one...

by YoursChelbie in

jw
friends

is there anyone besides me who would like to get a group together for dinner, maybe at a local tgi fridays?.

there's some faces i would really like to meet again.. i don't think that here in the dallas/north texas area, we've had a gathering in a while.. so if you have any suggestions for a particular day?

we could see when it would be convenient for most people.

A.Fenderson

I'm about half-way between Oklahoma City and Dallas, so I have some interest--assuming newbies are invited.

12

How do you cope with Type II diabetes?

by linp24 in

jw
friends

question for forum members who have type ii diabetes:.

how do you cope with this disease?

do you have side effects from the medication?

A.Fenderson

I'm not diabetic, but I am genetically-disposed towards insulin-resistant diabetes (a.k.a. Type II): this is one of the reasons I've been maintaining a low-carb diet for several years now, and plan on doing so for the rest of my life. I don't feel deprived or like people think I'm weird for being on this diet--it's far easier to do than it sounds to many people, and far less conspicuous than you might think. At first it was just about losing my beer-belly (and it does work incredibly well for me to lose and maintain weight), but the more reading I did about low-carb diets, the more it seemed a very healthy life-choice for anyone, though especially those who are prone/predisposed towards or even experiencing insulin resistance.

The two books that I found the most helpful and interesting regarding nutrition, weight loss/maintenance, and insulin-related issues were Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution by Robert C. Atkins, and Eat Fat, Lose Fat by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig.

21

JW's say Worldly People are Better Off DEAD

by UnDisfellowshipped in

jw
friends

jehovah's witnesses and the "better off dead" doctrine.

for decades the official jw teaching was that "worldly people" (non-jws) would be "better off dead" because "the wages sin pays is death" and once you have died, you have paid for your sins, so then jehovah is free to resurrect you (as long as you had not committed the "unforgivable sin").. whereas, if you had not died and had remained a worldly "unbeliever" when armageddon arrived, jehovah would have destroyed you and doomed you to everlasting destruction in gehenna.. this "better off dead" doctrine never did make any sense to me.

why would jehovah resurrect you if you died the day before armageddon, but if you stayed alive until the next day you would be destroyed and doomed forever to the lake of fire?

A.Fenderson

What's the JW consensus (if there is one) these days on what constitutes the "unfogivable sin?" I thought it had been speculated that it was suicide, but I'm not sure I was actually told that was a GB-approved interpretation.

6

When Heros let you down?

by acolytes in

jw
friends

iam a proud lynyrd skynyrd fan-but even this skynyrd fan was to ashamed to take to the counter and buy their degrading christmas song album.

i have followed my favourite football team through many humiliations and say never again.

iam always however (in the cold and rain) at the next game!!!.

A.Fenderson

Megadeth's Dave Mustain getting "saved"--unreal.

5

Skeptic Satire

by metatron in

jw
friends

it's all about a duck!.

http://drboli.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/the-duck/.

metatron.

A.Fenderson

@ziddina: Ah, I read your post too quickly, didn't know most of it was a quote. However, duck, depending on how it's prepared, can be damnably tasty--never had the duckling a'l'orange, myself, though I feel that Thai crispy duck is devine.

25

The 100th Monkey

by startingover in

jw
friends

the 100th monkeythe japanese monkey, macaca fuscata, had been observed in the wild for a period of over 30 years.. in 1952, on the island of koshima, scientists were providing monkeys with sweet potatoes dropped in the sand.

the monkey liked the taste of the raw sweet potatoes, but they found the dirt unpleasant.. an 18-month-old female named imo found she could solve the problem by washing the potatoes in a nearby stream.

she taught this trick to her mother.

A.Fenderson

OK, now we're making progress, getting quantifiable data we can compile to start forming hypotheses:

threshold for monkey psychic-field learning: ~100 monkeys.

threshold for sheep psychic-field learning: ~1 sheep.

threshold for human psychic fart-boasting: ~1 human (though the onus of prooving that no one had ever farted at work before that day falls squarely on John Doe (with whom I am LOLing)).

Or perhaps we need to consider the 1:1 simultaneous events mere cosmic synchronicity, on the presumption that in any given situation, the threshold for psychic-field learning is greater than one instance? Then again, can sheep/persons with very high charismas (say 19) cause 1:1 psychic learning?

We need more data, people--please share.

56

Is Rock music satanic?

by Weeping in

jw
friends

in the following statements, rock musicians testify of an outside power that has taken over them while writing and performing rock music.

some of them have actually identified this power as demonic: .

in smash hits magazine, bon jovi says: ".

A.Fenderson

The first concert I attended was King Diamond--a (then) card-carrying member of the original Laveyan Church of Satan (though I didn't see said card). He was one of the few artists actually mentioned by name in Lavey's works as being a true COS-style Satanist. I have much respect for the philosophical and existential views of Lavey, though I don't know that all the ceremony, pseudo-mysticalism, and ritual is really necessary to make it all work.

Anywho, so far as I know, I didn't become possessed or anything as a result of the conert, and in fact (waking up with blood smeared on my hands from time to time excepted), everything's been pretty much the same since.