Half banana

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Posts by Half banana

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  13

  Would you ever......?

  by ctrwtf in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  list as an accomplishment on a resume, "i escaped from a mind control doomsday cult?".

  sometimes when i reflect on it, the magnitude of this accomplishment amazes me..

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  Half banana

  Good on you Kate!
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  475

  What is the alternative to JW?

  by Formerbrother in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i mean this with all due respect, i would like to hear from genuine people who think jw have it wrong and then what is the truth?.

  im not talking about silly little quibbles here and there.. is jehovah real?

  the the bible is word?

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  Half banana

  Acty person let me make a point. I mentioned climate history to clarify and illustrate what a fact is. We can only find out what anthropogenic, i.e. humanly induced, climate change is by having a researched and analysed understanding of the normative factors in climate behaviour over geological time.

  This modern and necessary approach is the only way to find resolutions to difficult problems. But by enormous and striking contrast; the carrying forward of the obsolete pattern of faith and belief in spirits is a colossal waste of human energy, time, manpower, money and direction.

  The world has changed and sorry to say you have not spotted it.

  No longer can religious belief mobilize people to improve humanity, that day has passed. We can now be grateful to the human intellect for the comfort, health and longevity we now enjoy through scientific method and application. In this new technologically based world we have the time and health to help our families to improve their lot...not prepare them for the fulfilments of stale ancient fables or pervert their minds with ludicrous and dark tales of devils and divine wrath.

  Belief in gods and devils was an idea from the nursery of mankind. It reached its zenith in the dark ages when the church ruled the peasants in abject fear. My goodness it’s a much happier prospect without those grim fantasies.

  Please recognise that the basis for faith is found in the emotions not in facts... there is no solid ground for belief in belief. It may make you happy... but it never delivers.

  However if you have evidence for what you are saying is true, let us know.
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  13

  Would you ever......?

  by ctrwtf in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  list as an accomplishment on a resume, "i escaped from a mind control doomsday cult?".

  sometimes when i reflect on it, the magnitude of this accomplishment amazes me..

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  Half banana

  I agree with the consensus. To publicly admit you were a JW is like partially undressing at an interview to show your prospective employer a vast and hideous surgery wound, you may be able to cope with life but what would he or she think of you? Surely it's better simply to take justifiable but private pride in having escaped.
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  70

  Freddy Franz, One of the smartest men of his day????

  by DwainBowman in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  back in my teen years this story swept through jw land, that according to, the guinness book of records , freddy franz, was listed as one of the seven, most intelligent , men in the world.

  dose anyone else remember this?

  i remember trying to look it up, but never found anything in print, and ii point that out once or twice , and was told a co, had told about it, and he wouldn't lie!

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  Half banana

  To me Fred Franz was the last true JW Adventist preacher. He retained the reedy declamatory tones which could have been heard at the end of the nineteenth century. He was fixated on his own interpretation of the outplaying of “end times” events and I’m pretty sure he saw his role as the final instrument which Big J was using to declare it. It must have come as a great surprise for him to find himself alive in the year 1976 without Armageddon.

  Most JW leaders were narcissist, egoist, sociopaths or a mixture of these. From listening to Fred Franz close up, I got the impression of a personable individual, benign in intent, self deprecating but perhaps fixated to a psychotic degree. Barbara obviously has been able to give a more considered appraisal, and indeed the journalist may have even got to the heart of the matter!

  I heard him declare at the UK Bethel extension opening in 1984 wistfully saying how in the future we may be able look back and find out just how the year 1975 fitted into the scheme of things. He could not let go of his supreme error or admit it to be wrong. I’m sure he felt it was to have been his glorious swan song. The Watchtower however never apologises for error since it would appear as if God was not leading them.

  Imagine how much of the thinking and life decisions of JWs throughout much of the twentieth century had been determined by this one man Fred Franz. He had persuaded not only the rest of the hierarchy of his eschatology but all of the readers of the Tower. Like all his predecessors he just cried wolf when there was no wolf...he had no divine inspiration and nor has any JW ever given the slightest demonstration of divine insight...not even a scrap!

  Just think though; how many millions of lives have been miss-spent on the strength of the words of this lunatic Fred Franz?

  He may have had some education but in this regard he was only a one eyed man in the land of the blind.

  JWs will believe anything if it is written in the Watchtower or if it enhanced the power and glory of their leaders...what a futile life it is to be a Jehovah’s Witness?
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  25

  Is a piano inevitable?

  by slimboyfat in

  1. social
  2. current

  i was at a concert last night and the presence and stature of the piano struck me.

  and i thought: if the piano wasn't invented when it was, would it have been invented by someone else instead?

  or if there was a world the same as our, except with a different history, would it have pianos now too or would it be modern world, similar in many respects, only without pianos?

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  Half banana

  The essence of evolutionary change must be the chance of new environments opening up in which organisms and sometimes newly evolved organisms can thrive. This does not make any animal or plant inevitable as a distinct genome. Not that you suggested a parallel of nature with the development of the piano but do so would not be fair since the comparison with human cultural artefacts i.e. musical instruments or poetry are not like with like.

  Evolution has no evidence of being ‘driven’ but the design of musical instruments does.

  The former is random, the latter culturally engineered. Pianos exist because they are or refinement of earlier less tractable instruments. You could then argue that with the tendency towards mankind improving his own world, the clavicembalos of JS Bach would inevitably be supplanted by an improved form, an evolved and better-suited-to-its-purpose form.

  As Atomant has noted above; the electronic organ has partially replaced the piano...was that "inevitable"?
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  20

  Again: Where is Jesus?

  by Wonderment in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the watchtower of december 2015 reports the following reaction of a family with four teenagers in the country of rwanda with the publication of the nwt, and how grateful they were for it.

  the wt magazine said: .

  things changed when the new world translation in their language became available.

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  Half banana

  David J, yes that's the cunning plot; it's all invisible! The whole caboodle, Jesus, Big J, 1914, the kingdom, the paradise etc. It is an enormous edifice built on invisible foundations promising the most improbable rewards such as resurrection and everlasting life. Pure fantasy.

  People are duped into this madness by religious crooks like the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses.

  Wakey wakey people!
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  32

  Apathy trolley chat

  by punkofnice in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i was in a different city this weekend so i decided to natter to 2 bored jws on the apathy trolley.i just nattered, nothing thought provoking or anti witness.

  i was waiting for someone so hard time to spare.what struck me was, that no matter how many times i said that i don't believe in god, they spoke to me as if i did.

  they kept asking me how god would feel about stuff.

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  Half banana

  I know what you mean Stan.
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  475

  What is the alternative to JW?

  by Formerbrother in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i mean this with all due respect, i would like to hear from genuine people who think jw have it wrong and then what is the truth?.

  im not talking about silly little quibbles here and there.. is jehovah real?

  the the bible is word?

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• 

  Half banana

  I guess Acts 5, 29 contains the most oppressive statement ever to be unleashed on people who have no sense of self worth.

  We are born free (as J.J. Rousseau said) but everywhere people are in chains. If you believe the Bible as words from God... your fate is sealed, you are a chained victim to the power of a priesthood.

  Acty friend, it would do you a lot of good to get out of that slave mentality and learn that the Bible is a book of folk magic only made "sacred" by the Catholic Church in the fourth century.

  Listen again to what you have asserted; there is no basis for it except in the imagination. The only information worth knowing and using is that which is measured, recorded and critically questioned.

  There is overwhelming evidence that there was no flood, it did not and could not have happened. Likewise Eden bears all the hallmarks of myth. Why believe myth as if it were fact?

  God is a concept which is not available to the five senses and therefore anything, yes anything, can be imagined to be God and what he does ...and don't the intermediaries between men and God know it! Think again please and base your thoughts on evidence in future. The Bible is literature, not evidence.

  Climate change incidentally is the norm...it just doesn't happen at the human life-scale but the over geological time. It takes roughly 100,000 years to go from the peak of the ice-age episode to the inter-glacial temperature maximum (which we enjoy today) and back again with various temperature peaks and troughs in between. The temperature graph over the long period might be illustrated by the irregularities seen in the ebbing and flowing of a tide going in and out. This is science; not conjecture.
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  20

  Again: Where is Jesus?

  by Wonderment in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the watchtower of december 2015 reports the following reaction of a family with four teenagers in the country of rwanda with the publication of the nwt, and how grateful they were for it.

  the wt magazine said: .

  things changed when the new world translation in their language became available.

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  Half banana

  Forget Jesus and Jerhoover, let's just worship the GB directly and do their sacred work.........
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  19

  "You wouldn't want to bring reproach on Jehovah's name, would you?"

  by Esse quam videri in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  what would be your reply?.

  my reply: jehovah is big enough to take care of himself.. yours?.

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  Half banana

  Jehovah, a name drawn from an ancient Canaanite idol, is a total irrelevance.

  Unless that is, you believe that dumb idols have power...and if you do; there is little hope for you... and you deserve to have your life stifled and ruined by the modern priests of Jehovah! (HQ in NY should you be interested)