Posts by maxwell

21

How superstitious are you?

by ozziepost in

jw
friends

for some time now, my profile shows that my average posts per day are 6.66. now to some people this could be a bad omen.

do you find that you try to avoid certain things because of "superstition"?.

well, are you superstitious?.

No I'm not superstitious. I didn't believe I was superstitious when I was a JW. But, in my opinion, the belief that praying to god for something causes it to happen is similar to the belief that performing some ritual such as carrying a rabbit's foot will bring one good luck. Even when I was a Witness, I used to get a sort of strange feeling when people said that Jehovah provided me with this or that. For example, a person is in need of food. They way some experiences would go, a person would only have to pray for it and it fell into their lap. No mention of the practical work and money someone expended to get food.

Now that I am no longer a Witness, I have no objection to participating in other people's harmless good luck rituals if they feel strongly about them. For example, before, I would never have thrown salt, or said good luck, or participated in the prayers of other religions. Now, although I don't believe in any of those things myself, I have no objection to throwing the salt, or holding hands in the prayer circle if it will make my associates feel better. And I have no reservations about saying good luck.

32

Can a Man Cheat on his Wife with Himself? AsK Prudence.....

by teenyuck in

jw
friends

you want fluff, i deliver...... this was in today's newspaper...... the writer is ann landers daughter.

she has her own column called dear prudence.

dear pru,.

maxwell

Ditto on the dummies procreating. They're trying to get dummies and idiots into all kinds of things these days, you know those books.

39

Do you remember your first date?

by Nathan Natas in

jw
friends

i'm having a "minimus moment" - .

i've got meat loaf's new cd "couldn't have said it better" playing, and the question occured to me - i'm sure all of us recall some details of their first date - anyone out there brave enough to tell us about their experience?.

(with thanks to minimus for the inspiration).

maxwell

Hmmm first date. Well there was the night we first showed mutual interest. We were at school and then I walked her to her car. We talked for a while and then ended up in her car making out. We were both JW. We never had sex before we were married, but on the first night my hands explored places they had never explored before. Anyways, our first official date was to see Grease on Ice. That was ok. Funny how no one ever got on us about chaperones except my sister. And when she did my father told her to drop it and that we were ok.

55

College and EX-JW Discontent....Questions and Stats

by teenyuck in

jw
friends

*many* ex-jws say that they were robbed of an education due to the wtbts and as a result, they feel that their families and the wt screwed up their life by depriving them of the opportunity to go to college and therefore, earn a high salary at a job they love.

here is a link to the us census which shows that approximately 26% of the us population graduates college.

page 5, towards the bottom, shows the college graduation stats.

maxwell

I guess this question doesn't really apply to me since I did receive a full paying scholarship and I took advantage of it. But I did want to comment that I've heard numbers similar to those before. I've never believed college was the end all answer. There are ways to be financially successful without college. I have known a few successful JW who had no college education. One was a contractor who built houses. His work was/is so much sought after that he had to turn down jobs. Another had a very successful landscaping business. Again they were so good, that they only accepted the jobs they wanted to do. I know a guy who cleans windows of high rise office buildings. He does >50K a year. Not rich, but a pretty good haul for a single guy. I think that's great. I can see him hiring people to work for him one day. People knock McDonald's jobs but if a person can stand the stressful hours and job pressures, rising up through the management chain in some fast food chains can work out pretty well as far as money goes. How much does a good mechanic make? I rarely complain about how much I pay a good mechanic. Do I want to get under the car and do this work or do I want to let this professonial do it?

Then you look at the other side. A college degree is definitely no guarantee of making more money or of a "good" job. When I graduated it took another 4 months before I was able to land a job that paid enough for me to move out of my parents house. The biggest problem for me was interviewing skills. I was fortunate enough to have a few people to help me out with my interviewing skills. If they had not been there, I might have been in a totally different situation. Of course right now, the job market isn't so hot so that will work to the disadvantage of someone who's looking for a particular type of job. And certain majors or job areas always have an overflowing talent pool. I think some parents and educators think college is the only answer. It is not. There are other equally respectable paths and college is certainly not a guarantee of anything. A degree might let you apply for a different set of jobs, but there are other hurdles to overcome.

4

Minority Report Becoming reality...retinal scanning

by searchfothetruth in

iris recognition - a new game of eye spy to speed the passenger's journey .

government wants system in 10 british airports by next year .

owen bowcott.

maxwell

searchfothetruth,

Yes, the article I read was about that same application for the similar technology, storing information about customers in order to predict what the customer will want to buy in the future. I know it specifically mentioned eye scans but probably mentioned other types of technology used for this purpose. It definitely brings up some privacy concerns. Embedding chips sounds even scarier.

I don't know if they do this in the UK but here, some of the grocery stores and drug/pharmacy stores give out discount cards. You fill out some identifying information and they give you the card, which is, of course, linked to your identifying information. Certains items will be marked down if you scan your card at the checkout counter. Benefit to the customer is cheaper items without the need to cut out coupons. However, I'm sure the merchants are also using those cards to catalog what the customer is buying. Sounds like the new technology will take things a few steps farther soon.

82

What If Jehovah's Witnesses Are Right?

by shamus in

the "what if" thing comes to mind... no matter how much i strongly believe that they are not, what if armageddon happened tomorrow and they were correct?

would you have any sorrow for being wrong???.

i, personally would not.

maxwell

Basically, I agree with everyone here. When I left, I wrote a letter to my parents explaining that I don't see evidence for a God. I said that if I was wrong, I would have the same ultimate end that I expect now. I expect to die someday. That is what has been happening as long as there have been people on the earth. That's exactly what JW's say is going to happen to me.

If there is some utopian afterlife as defined by JW, I am unwilling to participate in the blind unreasonable behavior necessary to attain it.

61

What does your online handle mean?

by iiz2cool in

jw
friends

a few of us use our real names as our handles, but most of us use something else, such as a nickname or a variation of our real name.

iiz2cool - it was not my nickname (i really don't think i'm all that cool), but that of an old friend named mike prezelj.

i won't go into how he got the name, but it happened when we were all very high, and you had to be there to understand.

maxwell

When I first posted here, I didn't want to reveal my real name. So I chose this name. When I was in high school, there was a girl who would sometimes accidentally call me maxwell. She wasn't being mean or rude, it only happened a few times and she was a good friend of mine for the most part and I kind of like the name, but not enough to change my real name. My real name is Manuel. See the both have the same first two letters and the last syllables sound the same.

8

Confused

by obiwan in

i have what i think is a good question.

the bible states that we should pay ceaser's things to ceaser, but god's things to god.

so this means to me that we should obey the "laws of the land" but gods laws are supreme.

maxwell

I'm no expert on JW doctrine, but here's my take. I think the two witness rule applies to JW judicial proceedings. They may be required to report an accusation of abuse to the government. The government would then conduct their own investigations to find out if the accusation is true and judicial proceedings if necessary. I don't think that would necessarily conflict with JW judicial proceedings. They wouldn't have to abide by government findings in their own judicial proceedings. It might create some bad situations. For example, the government's investigation finds that abuse has occurred, convicts and punishes the person. The JW don't recognize the conviction and allows the person full privileges after they are out of jail or finished with whatever punishment the government gives them. Of course, from the stories I've heard here, that has already happened.

57

How Do You Handle Death?

by minimus in

jw
friends

for most witnesses, the ressurection hope keeps survivors going.

i knew of some jw's that were in such denial that they would want to believe that "they're just sleeping but are still alive to jehovah.

" others would bust themselves "in the work", while others would "mourn as the nations do".

maxwell

I don't know how I will handle the death of a very close loved one as I haven't faced that yet. Seems like one of those things you can only know when you face it. I've had family members die, but none very close to me. While some JW's hold back grief, my grandmother does not. Every funeral I have ever gone to with her, she expresses her grief loudly. I used to think she was too animated, but my father once said, she's probably doing better than most because she lets it out. Hopefully, when someone dies close to me, I'll be able to take care of whatever responsibilities fall on me.

I do remember one or two viewings being held in the Kingdom Hall, which were completely separate (scheduled at a different time) from the funeral talk. I more remember them having a formal procession to view the body immediately before or in the middle of the funeral talk. But in recent years, before I left, I noticed that some funerals included neither. The casket might be opened before the talk for people to view the body if they like.

As for handling my own death, I won't. In the words of donkey "I'll rot." And hopefully very quickly without slowing the process with embalming fluid. I may even leave plans to have myself creamated. I see no reason to allow my remains to take up space for an extended amount of time.

4

Minority Report Becoming reality...retinal scanning

by searchfothetruth in

iris recognition - a new game of eye spy to speed the passenger's journey .

government wants system in 10 british airports by next year .

owen bowcott.

maxwell

Before I went to see the movie last fall, I read an article concerning stores that are considering using retinal scanning to id customers and remember certain things about customers. For example someone goes into the Gap (trendy casual dressing store in the US), and looks at certain stuff buys certain stuff, the person is unknowingly scanned and it stores what the person bought and what the person looked at and maybe even the person's body build. Next time the person comes, perhaps the person is directed toward merchandise that might be appealing for his/her particular profile which is recalled by IDing the person using the eye. So they store the same type of information that online merchants might store in cookies right now. Of course, there's other methods of iding a customer but that one did set off privacy concerns. Some stores were and may still be actually considering this. Presumably the customer would not know that he is being scanned. I wish I could get a link to the article, but it's probably in some archives I'd have to pay to access. When I went to see Minority Report, and I watched Tom Cruise walking through the city and his eye getting scanned triggering video ads directed exclusively at him, it reminded me of that article.