Posts by maxwell

20

Does your past define you?

by Princess in

jw
friends

they were discussing this on the radio this morning.

are you defined by what you have done in your past, or is it the present experiences that define you?.

the dj and tracey lawrence (country singer) were trying to emphasize that we are defined by what we do now as opposed to our past.. are we as a group here an exception?

I was reading Dear Abby and someone wrote in about a guy who was 17 and had a gf who was about 15. He turned 18 and the parents of the girl turned him in for statutory rape. According to the story, wherever he goes now he will have to register as a sex offender. It seems his past will follow him around and be a significant part of defining who he is.

I think faults can have a bigger effect on who you are no matter when they happen. Past mistakes can follow you around for a long time, whereas good you have done in the past can be completely engulfed or ignored because of a present fault.

42

What if men had been in subjection??

by FlyingHighNow in

jw
friends

what would the wtbts be like if women were the leaders and men were in subjection?

would women treat men better than men have treated them?would the org.

be so controlling?would women be happier?would men and children be happier?would the org.

maxwell

Honey, clean out the garage.

Honey, cut the grass.

Honey, take out the garbage.

And no you can't go hang out with the boys at the bar.

Seems pretty clear who's in charge in some situations.

3

Demon stories...

by Tuesday in

jw
friends

in reading another post it got me thinking, do any of you remember all the stories you'd hear about demons showing themselves at studies trying to stop our "dear brothers only doing jehovah's work"?

i'd love to share mine right now but i don't type that fast and have to log in to work in like a minute i'll be back on my break to share mine, post any of your good folklore ones please i think we'll all get a good laugh out of it.

maxwell

I heard the smurf stories and various stories about demonized objects JW had unwittingly picked up at yardsales or houses some had bought.

Then there was a talk by a circuit overseer just before I got out. It was an in depth talk about demons and their capabilities. They can't read your thoughts but they can hear what you're saying, etc, etc. He told one story about a family that was studying and that had all of this supposedly demonized material, books, objects, etc. Well they gathered up all of this stuff and put it on the kitchen table and started taunting the demons along the lines of "We're with Jehovah now. You can't do nothing to us, ha ha..." Well the demons came and started choking or hurting one of the children, and they had to call the elders and run out of the house. The CO's point was that you shouldn't taunt them as they are powerful beings.

Then there was another story a little closer to home a little after I left. Supposedly a sister in the congregation that I used to attend had a demonized town house. Other sisters told my wife this and she actually talked to the sister. The elders had been there to try to "exorcise" them, but unsuccessfully. I haven't seen her particular town house, but they are usually sharing a wall with other people's townhouse and I was wondering in a joking sort of way why her neighbor's town houses weren't demonized as well. Can the demons not pass through firewalls? I have to admit I used to believe a lot of this stuff including the CO's talk a few months before I left. But now it seems like the hallucinations of people who perhaps belong in a mental institution.

12

Jealousy, and why it has no place in a relationship

by Maverick in

the watchtower likes to use being jealous for jah as a theme in many of their articles.

of course we all know they are talking about being loyal to the wts and not the true god.

but i wonder if many people get confused about the general attitude of jealousy and its place in a relationship between couples.

maxwell

I agree. I don't see any use for jealousy in a relationship. I would fight to protect my partner from physical or sexual harrassment as I'm sure a she would fight to protect me if possible. But I made up my mind a long time ago that I would never fight over anyone. If your partner really wants to be with you, there is no reason to fight for them verbally or physically when someone makes a move. They will always reject any outside advances just as Maverick's lady friend did. If they don't reject those advances or go further than innocent flirting, you simply are not an exclusive couple and if that's something you want, your search continues.

I've heard of some men who want to keeps tabs on their lady partners. They want to know who they've been with or they get threatened by a girls night out. She is supposed to be an adult with a mind of her own. An adult has a right to privacy at some times and has no obligation to inform you of his/her whereabouts at all times. If she really wants to be with you, you have nothing to worry about. If she doesn't, simply move on.

29

Did your Parents name you after a Bible character ..... or ..........

by xjw_b12 in

jw
friends

having been here for a few years, and corresponding privately with some of you i have noticed a lot of us have names that are from the bible.. so without giving too much away about yourselves :.

did your parents give you a name based on a bible character?.

did they do this while they were jws?.

maxwell

My real name is Manuel. I think perhaps my father may have been thinking of "Immanuel" in Isaiah when he named me that. But he also took Spanish in high school and retained a bit of it. Ironically, my name means "With us is God" and I no longer have a definite belief in God. But I always believed that a name is what you make it. I get to define my name by my life.

32

We should all be dead !!

by Simon in

http://www.davesdaily.com/strange-over25_02-04.htm

according to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's probably shouldn't have survived.

our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint.

maxwell

Well as a black guy, I've never had any desire to live in a 1960's America type environment, but from what I hear, there were definitely some good things about that time. Even some of my older family members have fond memories.

The difference in how active kids were then and now is one thing that really stands out to me. Riding bikes all day with no helmet? I've heard of some schools that have banned kids from riding bikes to school now. No way can you let your kid get to school under his own power, by walking or biking. The kid has to ride the bus or shuttled in the minivan even if he only lives a half mile away.

9

Guns, Doctors, and Lawyers?

by Tatiana in

jw
friends

a. the number of physicians in the us is 700,000. .

(us dept.

of health & human services) .

maxwell

I don't know the statistics, but I'd bet that there are a lot more intentional gun deaths. I suppose there's more danger there. Also no gun has ever saved someone's life without threathening and possibly taking another life. I also lean liberal, but am not against guns. My dad owns a couple of hunting type guns. There simply needs to be harsher penalties against people who use guns or any deadly weapon improperly. Guns aren't the only thing that are deadly. I bet you could do the same kind statistical play with cars, which can easily be intentionally used as deadly weapons. It would be harder to manipulate your doctor that way.

24

what do you prefer, love or good regular sex?

by dh in

i know some married women, and what disturbs me is that so many of them tell me that though they love thier husbands, they will go elsewhere for good sex.

sure they are flirting, but they don't sleep around with just anyone, they just have a husband & a sex partner/partners.

the women i am talking about range in age from being fairly young to 50+, so i wondered, is this normal or are the people i know just freaks?.

maxwell

If the love is the romantic type boy-girl love, I'd choose good regular sex. If you mean love in general, I suppose I would have to choose love.

When I read this question, it was kind of hard to see that hypothetical situation at first. There's always been people who loved me, parents, siblings, family members, friends, etc. So I don't know what its like to be unloved, however I do recognize the value of having love in my life. But I do know what its like to be without romantic love and my life was not any worse at the time. Good regular sex would be a more simple and purely enjoyable option.

30

I have a bone to pick with society...Re: MEN and KIDS

by flower in

jw
friends

why is it that if a man passes by at the mall or grocery store toting a baby or little kids along gets all kinds of admiring looks from strangers?

especially if he puts the kid in one of those baby pouch thingys....geez he may as well be a god.

if he has toddlers and they are acting up its not his fault hes doing the best he can after all.

maxwell

avishai said,

If your a woman and want to hold someone you barely know's baby, it's totally cool, in this society. Man? It's automatically assumed your a perv.

That reminded me of something my wife told me. She worked in a daycare center for a short while. At one point one of her female coworkers left on maternity leave and they brought a male and a female in to work in her place for a while. They decided they were going to keep one of them permanently. Now I must admit, I know nothing about the guys work ethic except what my wife told me and she said he was a capable worker, but basically the parents weren't interested in having him stay. They preferred the woman. They wouldn't let the guy work in the infant room when he was there either.

So yes I agree there's a perception that men can't handle children as well as women and so when you see a man with his kids, he may get unfair extra kudos. I might have even had some of those same perceptions myself. Whenever I encounter anyone with children, male or female, I try to give them their space, especially if they have the bouncy kind.

30

Money and career tips for EX-JWs....

by logansrun in

jw
friends

it's a safe bet that if you were raised as a jw, or if you came into it early in life, you have some strange ideas about money and finances.

the wt for decades made even minimal post-secondary education utterly taboo and only recently has capitulated that "some" extra schooling might be neccessary (associate degrees good, bachelors degrees bad).

the average youth raised a jw has little understanding of investment due to the apocalyptic worldview of the organization (why invest in a dying system when the big "a" is right around the corner?).

maxwell

I echo the 401K advice. I work for the government so we have the Thrift Savings Plan which is somewhat like a 401k. It's a tax-deferred savings plan and they match up to the first 5% of your income that you put in. Nothing can beat an immediate 100% return. We only have a few investment options in the plan, but they are so broad that it would be very difficult to have a 50% loss. It also helps that this money is taken out before you even get paid. I hardly even miss it. I started my payroll deduction for the Plan as soon as I had been there long enough to get the matching and there would be no reason to stop it now. I also used to play around with some of the calculators on fool.com. Just plugging a few numbers into some of those calculators will demonstrate that what others posters have been saying about time is true.