Liberty93

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Posts by Liberty93

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  12

  Did you feel you missed out as a JW kid/teenager?

  by BlackTwisted in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am not gonna lie, i know i did somewhat, and here's my story of it.. .

  i remember my mom and her girl-friend (yes, she was bi-sexual, her gf was a lesbian.

  ) and my mom's gf..um..let's call her jill (not her real name) was very..well, not very but was somewhat strict almost over everything, i remember i couldn't evfen watch that 70's show!

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  Liberty93

  No, because I did alot of it anyway. I mentally seceded from the Witnesses when I was 13 or 14.
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  107

  Need to vent/ask opnion/advice on new renter in my house

  by bluesapphire in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  okay, so my girls all moved out and we had three empty rooms and a lot of bills to pay.

  so we decided to rent the upstairs room with its own bath.

  we also have a three car garage and the single car garage is fully drywalled, has its own entrance and is huge.

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  Liberty93

  Blue,

  Being molested isn't a problem like losing your job. Things like that leave people completely broken. Were you molested? Have you ever had a situation push you to the point where suicide looked like an attractive option because it was better than spending the rest of your life exhausted mentally and physically?

  If not, then don't judge her. Judge her actions, but not her. False friends have probably helped her for years to keep from facing her problems, but I guarantee you that she isn't using you. She's lonely, lost, and desperately afraid in a world that demands far more from her than she can ever give. Trust me, I know. This has happened to people in my family.
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  41

  has anyone looked into Buddhism?

  by poor places in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i've started reading a book called the modern buddhist's bible and i'm liking a lot of things about the religion so far.

  of course i don't know much yet, but there seem to be some very good points to buddhism.

  one thing i love is the emphasis on "killing" the ego (or whatever you might want to call what buddhists try to do with their egos!).

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  Liberty93

  Regardless of how you feel about Buddhism, just sit down and give it a try.

  You don't have to attend any services, or read any special books, just sit indian style a comfortable position with your back straight, head slightly down, mouth closed, and breath in and out slowly through your nose, and pay attention to your breath.

  That's really all it takes to start. Try it for 15 minutes and see where you go.
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  41

  has anyone looked into Buddhism?

  by poor places in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i've started reading a book called the modern buddhist's bible and i'm liking a lot of things about the religion so far.

  of course i don't know much yet, but there seem to be some very good points to buddhism.

  one thing i love is the emphasis on "killing" the ego (or whatever you might want to call what buddhists try to do with their egos!).

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  Liberty93

  Poor places,

  The emphasis isn't on killing the ego. In Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche compares our situation to being like a monkey in a room, able to look out through the windows at the world, but not able to actually interact with it. He says, "The more the monkey attempts to destroy or control the walls, the more solid and oppressive they become, until at some point ... Each time he seems about to achieve pleasure, he is rudely awaken from his idyllic dream; but his hunger is so demanding that he is not daunted and so continues to constantly churn out fantasies of future satisfaction. The pain of disappointment involves the monkey in a love-hate relationship with his dreams. He is fascinated by them, but the disappointment is so painful that he is repelled by them as well."

  From a Buddhist standpoint, that's basically what we do every minute of every day - either fill ourselves with memories of the past, or churn out fantasies about the future, constantly missing the experience of the beauty of consciousness. The belief in an inherently existing world of seperate and inherently existing beings locks us into a pattern where we stop interacting with things as they are in this perfect present moment and instead interact without our concepts about those things in a game of hopes about the future and fears about the past. This, I think, is the point of Buddhism - work hard and attain your own salvation from the gods and demons in your heart by realizing that your inherent nature is actually, for lack of better terms, a perfect manifestation of the unspeakable and inconcievble state of enlightenment in a form free of fixity and solidness.

  Being nice, or being calm, are good, but are absolutely not the point, and to say that they are strips Buddhism of the power that it possesses and which most "religions" lack - to realize that YOU ARE already the very thing you want to be, and that what you're searching after is something far more magnificent and splendid than anything you could have ever imagined.

  For what it's worth, the vajrayana, with which I am familiar, says nothing about homosexuality. The Dalai Lama was speaking for himself, and was most likely talking about rules of conduct for practitioners of outer tantra where cleanliness and purity are of paramount importance. The Dalai Lama is emphatically NOT a "Buddhist pope" - while he is well-respected, he only speaks for himself, and the only people obligated to listen are his students. Neither is masturbation. The person who said that needs to read the stories of the mahasiddhas who took street hookers as consorts to attain realization... I've never heard ANY lama say anything against being gay, and it is definitely not out of some desire to avoid losing students.

  Also, if I were you, I would avoid lineages like aro g'ter (the meditation courses that got mentioned) or the "New Kadampa Tradition." Aro g'ter was basically invented wholecloth by a guy who abandoned his teacher, and are famous for inventing texts and and using photographs of their group's founder with unwitting lamas to make it seem as if they are supported. In vajrayana, lineage is of paramount importance for the transmission of the uncommon practices that help you to realize your nature. This guy basically tried to create his own lineage, which is a GIGANTIC no-no. NKT has a whole host of problems that they try to conceal. It's more Witnessy than I'd care to mention. If they aren't protesting the Dalai Lama, they're trying to deal with the latest sex scandal or using someone who has been a member for less than a year to give teachings. You'd be far better off to go with someone reputable. is an issue we all encountered as Witnesses - we thought that we were just being opposed by wicked opposers and apostates, until we started thinking and realized that we were in a very problematic group. You'll notice the same thing with aro g'ter and NKT - the only vajrayana buddhists who don't say that they are very problematic groups are the people still on the inside. If you take teachings with them, you'll probably have to start over if you go to any other teachers. I've also heard some really, really freaky stories about the NKT, but I won't go into those here, because not everyone might believe me. :-p

  But enough about that. You should really read Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche's stuff. He was a lama who came over to the West from Tibet in the 1960s and knew how to talk to westerners like few people could or can. The great advantage of CTR, in my eyes, is that he didn't water-down the traditional teachings into "just be nice and calm" type stuff, but he also didn't tell people that they couldn't questioning. That's the big difference between Buddhism (and dharmic "religions") and the Abrahamic religions - in Christianity and whatnot, questioning and doubt are suspect at best. In Buddhism, they are NECESSARY.

  Sorry if I was long-winded. :-p

  Liberty
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  12

  Electronic Cigarettes?

  by pr0ner in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i'm working for this company blu cigs.

  what are you general opinions on them?

  i'm going to be doing pr and events stuff for them in the future.

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  Liberty93

  Yea, but if you use dickheads as a market, won't that pigeonhole your product?
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  31

  JW's don't go church... they go to the Kingdom hall

  by loosie in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  do you remember correcting everyone who would ask you where you go to church.

  the jw reply was usually something like....we don't go to a church we go a kingdom hall.

  jw's just have to be different you know.. yesterday i went to my citys museum.

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  Liberty93

  Excuse me, on NOT calling it a church
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  31

  JW's don't go church... they go to the Kingdom hall

  by loosie in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  do you remember correcting everyone who would ask you where you go to church.

  the jw reply was usually something like....we don't go to a church we go a kingdom hall.

  jw's just have to be different you know.. yesterday i went to my citys museum.

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  Liberty93

  They're so big on calling it a church for the same reason that they're so big on all the other jargon - they use "in group" language to seperate themselves from outsiders. And they also update the language every so often so that people can't just drift back in like nothing happened after they leave for awhile.
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  30

  "New Light" on "New Light" creates a dilemma (July 15, 2010 WT)

  by pirata in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  for the majority of my years in the truth, the "new light" did not bother me at all.. i reasoned this way: "the faithful slave is imperfect, right?

  logically they're going to make mistakes.

  the main thing is that they're trying to do god's will they best they can and stick as close to the bible as they understand it.

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  Liberty93

  What's really funny is that only one of the passages they cite has ANYTHING to do with what they're claiming.
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  14

  Has a music Video ever discribed your Life?

  by Darth plaugeis in

  1. social
  2. humour

  this video is from a brazil rock group charlie brown jr.. i first saw it a few years ago and ... well let me break it down.. (it's in portuguese but the lyrics don't matter.... love led zeppelin... but can someone tell me what plant is saying in trampled underfoot?).

  1. bar scene darth being told he can't have fun..for it is written.. 2. darth gets hit by the truth and get hurt and gets blamed for his pain.. 3. after being beaten by the truth.....he discovers it's all about money!!!!.

  4. darth feels freedom with this new information.. 5. the truth does not like darth knowing this and comes after him.

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  Liberty93

  Not quite a music video, BUT this describes the several years before I could go through a day without feeling like I wanted to jump out of my own skin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h06m9n__H_I

  Not made for these times
  This is the end my friend
  I wasn't made for these times
  (and) I want to fly away
  To a simpler time
  To a better day
  Who am I to believe in?
  Who are you to believe in me?
  (I'm just) a junkie, a drunkard
  A bastard, a monster
  Hiding from my sins
  A broken prophet
  From a dead end street
  But we live in such terrible times
  I gotta speak my mind
  'cause inhumanity is all I see
  It's right in front of you
  It's right in front of me
  I testify 'cause I'm damned if I lie but...
  Who I to believe in?
  Who are you to believe in me?
  I wasn't made for these times
  And sometimes I'd like to
  Tear out my eyes
  And be blind
  To this world that I see

  This is the end my friend
  I wasn't made for these times
  (and) I want to fly away
  To a simpler time
  To a better day
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  3

  Percentage of publishers that are baptized?

  by Gayle in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  and how old does a "publisher" (one that turns in a 'report') have to be?

  i forget how that works.. most churches require their members to be baptized to be counted.

  but jws count publishers, though maybe not baptized, so that would be a lot of their children.. i do see the percentage of jws baptisms are clearly decreasing, though their "publishers" percentage they claim are increasing..

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  Liberty93

  How the hell do 276,000 people get baptised in once year? That would average out to 756 people a day.