Not romantic at all. But it appears to me that there are plenty of romantic men and women out there. There's a whole industry out there geared toward people who want to be romantic including men. Consider the upcoming Valentine's holiday. It's not something I'm interested in, but if a person likes that sort of thing, go for it! There's a lot of things in this world that are worse than mushy, dorky expressions of love.
maxwell
JoinedPosts by maxwell
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25
Question for you Men: Are you a ...
by codeblue inhopeless romantic?.
i am a hopeless romantic and a woman.
until i met mr. cb, i had never heard a man say he also was a "hopeless romantic"...when he said that, i knew our connection would be sealed.. codeblue
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What's Wrong With AOL Anyway?
by Englishman inyeah!.
c'mon, you computer whizzkids, tell me why you rubbish aol!.
obviously, it's a dumb name to give to the uk sector.
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maxwell
AOL is perfect for someone who has little computer savy and yet wants to get on the net without a lot of training. Basically you put in the AOL cd and it does everything for you..
Yup... very true. I know some people who use their computer for nothing more than AOL Email and playing the shared games... like bridge.It's all they need and they are perfectly content with it.
A while back the joke I heard was AOL is "the Internet on training wheels". I've never had AOL, but considering all the control they exert over your computer I never wanted to use it. My first Internet connection through school required that we set up a dial-up connection inlcuding putting gateway addresses and DNS server addresses in the right places. It was all written out step by step for me, but after learning how to do that, I wasn't particularly thrilled when I got my first commercial Internet connection and they had software that did it all for you invisibly. Who's knows what else that software is doing to your computer.
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What is Love?
by dh in.
i haven't got a clue!.
most people have some first love experience, i don't, i've never been in love in my life, i just have a minefield of meaningless junk.. tell me a love story, i'm bored and miserable and it's cold outside.
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maxwell
1 Corinthians 13
1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; 5 it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; 10 but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. 13 So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Revised Standard Version-Bible.com
I am agnostic and I no longer see the Bible as an authoritative holy book, but I still haven't seen a better definition of love than that given at 1 Corinthians 13. I do take exception to some of the absolutes in verse 7 (For example, a person should not bear or endure abuse from his or her spouse in the name of love). However, I do think that overall its a nice broad view of love. There are other more specific types of love like romantic love or falling in love. But it seems to me that if you can "fall into" love, you can just as easily "fall out" of it. It would need some of the qualities above to be true life-long love.
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Spankings at the hall.
by avishai ini knew some parents who really beat the hell out of their kids.
anyone else remember this?
seems like when i was a kid, you could'nt go to a meeting without hearing screams of pain from either the b room or the bathrooms.
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maxwell
I got spankings in the early years and whippings after about 9 until about 12 or 13, always with a belt or a switch, not bare hands, but never any at the KH. My dad chose to discipline me at home. I am on of the opinion that corporal punishment can be effective for some children (for others it won't work or you just never have to use it with them) if administered in the right manner. I know a lot of people disagree with that these days. I remember that when they remodeled the KH I attended while growing up, they built a room where one of the stated purposes was for taking children that needed to be spanked. The KH is still there. It has two theocratic school rooms for a second and third school, a library/office where the elders usually met for meetings and this one room that only had a chair in it the last time I went there. I suppose they may have stated some other reason for having that room, but I can't remember any other stated purpose. I remember them joking about parents not having to take their children out into the cold to spank them. That did seem a bit overboard. The room wasn't particulary good for this. It was closer to the audience than either of the two school rooms or the bathrooms so if a parent chose to use it, everyone got a earful of the child howling.
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If you had to choose between Truth or Happiness
by dh inif suddenly you were confronted by someone who could grant it, and offered these two choices, which would you choose (if either).. 1.
(truth) you can have the answers to all of your questions, know and understand the absolute truth about all things, who we are, where we came from and how it all happened, and most importantly, you will be able to comprehend why.
the price of this insight is not cheap... you must leave behind everything you know; family, friends, pets, property, all things you value, you do not get to say goodbye and you will never see any of them again.. or.. 2.
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maxwell
It's hard for me to fathom such a situation. Like most other people I believe that I can find happiness knowing the truth. I don't believe this situation can exist, but what if I had that hypothetical situation where it was either one or the other? I probably would not believe those were my only two choices and I'd choose truth and be forced to suffer unhappiness while knowing truth.
Leaving the confines of that hypothetical situation, I can say that I don't believe happiness is 100% dependent upon the people in my life presently, family, friends, etc. So I don't think that leaving them behind would automatically mean unhappiness. Many of us have virtually done the same thing in leaving the JW. I do think that humans need interaction with other humans. So if the choice included leaving all humans behind and living the rest of my life solitary from humans, I'd probably just choose happiness. People become dysfunctional without regular contact with other humans and I'm sure I would do the same. Humans have survived for thousands of years on this planet in various states of delusion and I think many are happy.
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Traveling to Grand Canyon
by pc inwould like some information on tours to grand canyon.
we would like to take a trip there this summer with kids any suggestions??
thanks pc
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maxwell
My family went on a trip there when I was 10. I loved it. I don't know which rim we went to but we walk out to the edge at a number of places and I remember seeing the river looking like a little green snake way down in there. We didn't have time, energy, and perhaps money to take a trip down into the canyon. One of my little sisters was only 4 mos old at the time and the main reason for the trip was to visit an aunt who lived in Pheonix. We drove from Memphis, TN. But I've always wanted to go back and I probably will someday. We also stopped at meteor crater in Arizona. Another really cool hole in the earth.
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maxwell
Can I say what I would like to collect if I had the room and perhaps a little more money? I live in a small apartment so there is not enough room to collect the two things I'd like to collect, which are old computers and bicycles. There's a couple of old computers at my parent's house, that I wish I could have kept, but I simply don't have the room. I had to throw out my last computer when it went kaput. I would have kept it if I had the room. It doesn't seem to hard or expensive to find old computers either. Bicycles would be a little different. I'm not particularly interested in old ones, just different types. Right now I have two hybrid bicycles; one is closer to a road bike. But I'd love to own some road and mountain bikes in several different flavors and in working condition. Mountain bikes in full-suspension and no suspension. Then there's the recumbents. I'll probably eventually get a moutain bike and a road bike although I may have to sell one of my hybrids to make room. "How many bikes should you have? One more than you have now." Not sure who originated that but I like it. :) There's a comedy movie star (can't remember his name now) who's a friend of Lance Armstrong who has thousands of bicycles stabled in a garage somewhere in much the same way as Jay Leno collects cars.
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maxwell
I think it would have been kind of hard to get people motivated on principle alone. MLK made a lot of statements that stand on their own merit with no help from the Bible as a reference. But I think a lot of the motivation and hope for the regular people walked with him came from a belief that God was with them and that God was helping them. The references to Moses, getting to the promised land, using the principles of Jesus, etc. made people's nerves hard enough to go out and march even though they knew people were going to commit acts of violence against them.
Even today, I think it would be interesting to have a presidential candidate who was totally logical and perhaps had no belief in God and therefore did not try to apply any religious beliefs in government. But I doubt that any candidate who is not Christian could get elected in this country. People value passion, feelings and Christianity over logic and reason. And I think for large numbers of people to do the things they did to fight racism, it took a lot of passion and feeling. Personally, I'm agnostic, but religion provides a ready-made source for a lot of passion and feeling.
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57
Clubbing penguins is fun !
by Simon in.
http://www.damell.net/yp010.swf.
click on the bear once and then click again to hit the penguin ... see how far you can send it.. my high score is 327 .
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maxwell
Best was 320.5. Tried several times after that to beat it but could never break that 300 point mark.
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Further Education
by scotsman ini had lunch with a jw friend who's just finished a law degree.
she was saying that at the last circuit assembly the bethel speaker, (philip longstaffe) said that the society had not changed its stance on further education, and that college for vocational skills was all that they thought was ok. my friend's a bit of a free thinker (i'd half hoped that this lunch date was to tell me she had doubts, but no) so she doesn't give fig what they think.
i was actually appointed as an elder the month before i started attending uni and the co had told the other elders it was no reason to prevent my appointment.. anyone else heard this at their assemblies?
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maxwell
I remember a couple of articles. I don't have access to either now. But there was that study article loveis mentioned and there were some cover story Awake articles in early 1995 the year I graduated high school. One thing stands out in memory. One or both of those articles said the purpose of any education beyond high school should be to support the person in the full-time service. When I read the earlier study article, I still had no plans for going to college. Later in the middle of my senior year, I changed my mind convincing myself that the only way I would be able to work part-time and support myself in the full-time service would be to get a bachelor's degree. My parents were supportive, fortunately. I had convinced myself that with a degree in electrical engineering, I could open some sort of electronics repair shop, work part-time, make enough money to move out on my own and pioneer. It wasn't particularly logical thinking, but it jived with my JW beliefs, which aren't particularly logical either, and was a way to justify my post-secondary education. When that Awake came out, it made me feel a little better about my decision. As I went through college, I kind of let that plan slide and decided I'd go for regular job somewhere when I got out, which is what I did.
The change in the "generation" teaching probably also factored into my decision. We had always been taught the generation of 1914, so I didn't think I was going to grow old in this "system". All of a sudden dying of old age in this "system" was a possibility although I was still thought I should be serving God to the end. So employment skills became a little more important to me. I did not buy into that "trust God and he will magically make food appear on your table" crock. Although I was still convincing myself that this was the right religion, I thought perhaps I had better work in harmony with my prayers to God and my trust in God. It's not in the Bible, but I thought the phrase "God helps those who help themselves" was a wise one.
I never got any direct grief about my education from the elders. The only time I lost privileges (privileges being microphone duty, attendant, etc) was when my field service hours average went below 10, but they gave them back when they needed some workers, so there were no repurcussions there. There were some vague discouragements from the platform and maybe a little stronger from visiting elders. I do understand that elders and overseers in other areas were much more harsh about this. However, I doubt I would have paid attention to any demand to quit school. My beliefs at the time were that "God's Kingdom could come 5 years or 500 years from now and still be in this "generation" under the new definition (Really, if you think about that definition, it's indefinite. But they continue to try to push that urgency feeling.) and if I happened to grow old in this system, it would be my responsibility alone to support myself financially. They certainly weren't leaving me any large inheritance.