Posts by jst2laws

69

The "power" of positive thinking...do you believe in it?

by onacruse in

jw
friends

jst2laws

Can I drop in for a minute?

How you doing Craig? As usual you are thinking. That's what it is all about, THINKING. Not just 'positive' but all thinking has power. A person with dominantly negative thoughts disproportionately attracts negative events into their lives. The same is true of a person with positive thoughts. For example, if you go into a public place angry, depressed or anxious, you will more likely interact with angry, depressed or anxious people. And going into the public with the opposite frame of mind will get like results. It's called by modern philosophers the 'law of attraction'.

Since quantum physics has been proving for almost 100 years in sub-atomic particle experiments that the observer influences the outcome of the experiment, it is no great philosophical leap to assume our thoughts/consciousness can influence our experience.

But it is not just positive thoughts. It is ALL thoughts. As for as your experience with your friend with positive thoughts that turned sour for you, he 'intended' the results. Was he very sure he would make money? Did it work? But have you considered what your thoughts were throughout? These things are complicated and cannot be expected to reflect black and white cause and affect but decades of tests have shown the 'power' of thought/intention.

Steve

Hello HS. What you say about your wife made me smile. How are you both doing?

15

Cosmic Connection?

by Confession in

i have not been a big believer in the supernatural.

this isn't because the subject holds no interest for me; it's because i've not had many personal experiences to prompt such belief.

i've always been willing to listen to the experiences of others, and while there've been times i've been fascinated with some of them, usually i think they're figments of the imagination.

jst2laws

OK Confession,

Here is one from my pasts posts. I have had several lately, probably because I'm paying more attention and tuning my 'intention'.

Steve

15

Cosmic Connection?

by Confession in

i have not been a big believer in the supernatural.

this isn't because the subject holds no interest for me; it's because i've not had many personal experiences to prompt such belief.

i've always been willing to listen to the experiences of others, and while there've been times i've been fascinated with some of them, usually i think they're figments of the imagination.

jst2laws

Very interesting Confession,

Thanks for the email too. Your experiences tempt me to pontificate on the subject and I almost always regret it when I let loose. Just keep reading. You certainly were in the "now". I hope you do not forget the feeling.

Jst2laws

36

On our way to PA!!!

by AuldSoul in

jw
friends

ice and snow flurries most of the way there, and bitterly cold ... but we are thrilled.. a bad day today thanks to my father.

thanks, dad!

your prayer didn't work.

jst2laws

DUDE,

Where's my phone call?

Glad you are there and making new friends already. Don't forget it is a job, probably with some negative aspects to it. But you are OUT OF GEORGIA. Don't look back, are I'll have a mean former acquaintance of mine turn you into a pillar of salt.

STeve

58

My Bethel experience

by new boy in

jw
friends

because of the length of this, it will be done in two parts.

part 1. i when to bethel march 21,1970. at the time you had to be a pioneer for two years to apply, by the time i left in 1974 they were calling people in who had never pioneered..........average stay was 5 months ( they had signed up for 4 years)..........the reason they left was......well, it was hell.. one of the reasons was, knorr hated bethelites, but he loved the gilead students and why?

because when they screwed up they were thousands of miles away!........just before i got there, they had kicked out over 60!

jst2laws

Dear "brother" Casarona

Just thought I would make you sick to your stomach. Nice to hear from you again. It has been a long time. I wonder if I ever caught you up on the progress/lack-of regarding another good friend of ours from the press room, 'the animal' ? PM me and I'll fill you in. Actually it's disappointing. Hope your life is great. Continue the fine work and keep 'reaching out for greater privileges of service'. May Jah bless you. Steve

29

When did it all go wrong for the WTS? I say 1980's.....

by jambon1 in

jw
friends

after speaking to an elderly jw a few weeks ago, it occured to me that the wts genuinely experienced good times in the 50's and 60's, perhaps the 1970's.

it seemed a good place to be.

people seemed more relaxed.

jst2laws

Hello Jambom,

When they went wrong is relative to where you are and where you have been. If you are talking about their predictions for the future, they were wrong from the start in the 1870's. If you are talking about their doctrine they were wrong from the start in the 1870's. If you are talking about when did many of the older people on this board in mass start questioning the WT's status as God's spokesman, that would be about 1976. If you are talking about those who lived the religion and served out of love, things went wrong with the WT's handling of dissidence in the early 1980's. If you are talking about the more youthful on this board or perhaps yourself, when the WT went wrong is more relative to your personal experience that caused you to start to question. Basically they were wrong from the start. Truth is not a dogma. Spirituality is not an affiliation. And Religion is a distraction from the connection it claims to promote. They were wrong from the moment they sensed a need to disseminate their beliefs. STeve

50

And God Gave Us Grace [Mouthy!]

by compound complex in

jw
friends

dear newbies and others somehow unaquainted with our resident grandma,.

"...the watchtower is determined to doggedly hang on to the lie that the time of the end commenced in 1914. there is no other explanation for the watchtower's persistent and seeming incurable interpretive schizophrenia.

" [cc: emphasis] -------(e-watchman.com/essays/dawn_new_world_order.html --- sorry, it's not clickable[?]).

jst2laws

I'm glad to see you get a pat on the back Mouthy. You are an example to us all.

Steve

Merry Christmas Grannie Grace

199

Otherwise Engaged...

by LittleToe in

just a little breaking news:.

after several years of a great friendship with diane (previously posted as xena) things have started to really come together recently and i've succumbed to making an honest woman of her (or at least as honest as it's possible to make her.

last night (xmas day) i popped the question and she agreed to marry me (i wonder if she knows what she's let herself in for!!!)..

jst2laws

Uhhmm, who's going to be wearing the pants? We know who is famous for wearing

the skirt.

Congratulations to both.

Steve

48

I'm one of the EVIL SLAVE

by Amazing in

jw
friends

basd on my comment to another post titled "1979," i thought that this would make an interesting separate topic.. a little history: many here are aware that i was an ms and then elder and of the anointed while a jw.

i openly professed anointing for 20-years of the 27-years i was associated with the watchtower.

since that time, i have totally and completely renounced all but one watchtower doctrine.

jst2laws

Jim, Dude, you have to go the next step. From ms, to elder, to anointed, to apostate AND EVIL SLAVE, to . . . . repentant and once again ANOINTED MEMBER OF THE 144,000. Come on, you can do it. And then go on to be disfellowshipped, apostate and EVIL SLAVE AGAIN. How often has that been done? And then write your book about it. Aside from that, I have a question. If, by the standard WT view, the anointed were all chosen by 1935 and only replacements are chosen since then for formerly anointed who DIED UNFAITHFUL, how could the number of professed anointed ever INCREASE as it does from time to time? Seems like it should never increase if we are only dealing with replacing DEAD unfaithful anointed. Maybe God's accountants need new batteries for their calculators or someone in the personnel department is drinking too much. What do you think? Steve

123

Out of Mythic into Rational consciousness, the EX-JW Journey

by jst2laws in

i have been absent much for almost a year, reading, learning and breaking out of boxes, figuratively.

i'm hoping that sharing some thoughts and asking some questions might be fun, and maybe helpful for a few.

have you wondered how two people can look at the same information, go through the same experience as you, perhaps even be party to the same conversation yet come away with an entirely different perception?

jst2laws

Terry,

Well put. You sound more like a romantic in the post above and I for the most part agree with you. We are here to enjoy the experience, to live it. If we get obsessed with picking it apart we may miss the meaning of it.

But what if one were to step aside from the romance of life long enough to discover the wonder of what it is made of and still come back to the poetry. For me the experience of life began when I saw a movie five years ago called 'Mind Walk' about the things we are discussing. It was quantum physics that jerked me out of the materialist trap and allowed me to see it is not about "stuff". Life, as the atom, is not made of stuff. It is more spiritual, poetic, mystical and amazing. Most of all it is to be enjoyed, like Shakespeare.

Hope you have a good week-end.

Steve