Posts by maxwell

163

Moral absolutes

by Aztec in

i keep saying i am going to start a thread on this topic so here goes.... what, if anything, is always morally wrong?

murder, rape, incest?

how much do you think your belief, or lack thereof, in a higher power influences your opinion?.

hmmm. Of those three examples murder, rape and incest, I can't think of any circumstance where rape is not wrong. I have heard of women who have rape fantasies, believe it or not, but if you want it, then by definition (those querky definitions), its not rape. Murder? Is it murder when you kill someone in self or family defense? Incest, thought of as bad these days but was acceptable in past cultures and in certain circumstances in some cultures today.

When I was a JW, I had a lot of moral absolutes. Now, I don't know that there is a God. Yes, I think my lack of knowledge and loss of interest in making the pursuit of knowing the unknowable has affected my view of moral absolutes. Is it always bad to lie? Is it ok to tell a white lie? Personally, I think at times its best just to withhold information, but as my mind stands now, I would not think badly of someone for telling a "white" lie if there is such a thing. I hear people shout about honesty more than anything.

58

How old were you when you got Baptised?

by El Kabong in

jw
friends

i was 13 at the time.

i wanted to get baptised before the end came in 1975. .

back then, 13 was borderline young for baptism, but from what i've been reading, some are now getting baptised as young as 9 or 10. .

maxwell

12

My father got baptized at 11, but I still thought I was doing it at a fairly young age relative to most people, but looking at this thread, I can see that I wasn't all that unique.

35

Will Lance make it number 5 this year?

by Stan Conroy in

jw
friends

the tour is just over 1/2 way, and he is only 21 seconds ahead.

tomorrow is the individual time trial.

i think that will be the determining factor.

maxwell

Glad to see a few other people on this side of the world following the Tour.

Even though Lance doesn't appear to be as strong this year, I'm still rooting for him to win. He's only a few seconds ahead, but he's been holding off all the attacks along with his teammates.

I just got cable this week for the first time in my life, and they do NOT carry OLN! I think I will be requesting that they add this channel. Maybe they'll have it by next tour. We only have basic cable which includes three dedicated sports channels, ESPN ESPN2 and ComcastSports and I haven't caught any of them make a mention of cycling. One of the stations was showing some good old boys on a boat fishing this morning. I can't believe more people would rather watch that than the Tour. I suppose it is cheaper to just sit out on a lake and watch some people throw a fishing line into the water than to follow those guys pedaling for over 100 miles on bikes. But I've been checking the standings everyday on Yahoo. I know some other websites have better coverage, but that kept me up on the standings.

LDH, yes I happen to have the Breaking Away DVD. I didn't know about it till a few months ago. I was on a newsgroup/discussion group about bikes and someone pointed to a page with a bunch of movies about cycling. So I saw several titles and thought I might be interested in them. So I'm going into Border's one day with my wife and I just happened to see it there re-released on DVD. I thought what a find and bought it. I also have Quicksilver on DVD, originally came out early 80's, about some bicycle messengers in NYC.

52

Would you be willing to admit it if you've been a hypocrite?

by onacruse in

for the last 20 years of my association with the jws, i was, more or less, a hypocrite.

they taught things i didn't believe, but i went to the meetings and, by my presence there and by my "non-answers" i in essence supported something that i didn't believe.. it's a hard thing to say "i was a hypocrite.".

i was.. craig

maxwell

Yes, I would. But it would be hard to do so if someone told me as an insult. It would be not be as hard if someone calmly and logically pointed out the hypocritical element. I was hypocritical in my last few days as a witness as I played the role. I was hypocritical a few years before that when I was at a "low point spritually" ( I was planning on leaving and living it up, even though I still believed the religion). I think many of us have some views and actions that are somewhat hypocritical. Seems to me that almost any view that a person holds to be absolute can make that a person a potential hypocrite in some form or another.

64

Were You Ever Put On Restrictions?

by minimus in

jw
friends

as a jw, were you ever put on restrictions?

how did you feel when you were told that a certain "privilege" was being taken from you?

were you given any warning by the elders in charge that what you did merited a removal of some sort?

maxwell

I had the microphone privileges taking away because I was a drum major in the band in High School. I was a little miffed at first, but felt cool about it later. No need to worry about doing that little chore and less of a need for people to be pointing at me like I'm some sort of example. Parents needed to raise their children without comparing them to me. Second time I lost them because of low field service time. Again, a bit of a relief not to have those chores. No need to worry about getting there 20 minutes ahead of time. I still believed a lot at that time, so I kind of enjoyed being able to sit at every watchtower study and answer questions without juggling the mike.

27

Racism in the WTS

by RR in

jw
friends

.

quick question, has anyone ever experienced racism in the wts?.

rr

maxwell

The congregation I grew up in was mostly black at times all black. When my family first came to the congregation, there were three white families. Two of them could have been considered one since together they made three generations of one family actually. The oldest of that group was an elder. Eventually all three families moved to other congregations where there was a majority of white families. We had another white brother move in He became an elder for a while but eventually moved also. The congregation had a big good bye party for the first white elder when he left. I never talked with the elder about his reasons for moving but I get the impression that there was some strain on him there. I do remember one white "sister" in the family that didn't contain an elder speaking with my mom and saying she never got invited to anything. So I'm sure that figured in her decision to go to another congregation.

35

Having children ??? did the Watchtower have an affect on your decisions ???

by run dont walk in

i remember growing up and thinking that there was no way i would have kids ......... why ???

....... because i did not want to raise them the way i was raised, in the borg.

i went through hell, why put a defenceless child through that.

maxwell

I am convinced the reason JW stats maintained for all these years, in industrialized countries, is due to all the children/grandchildren that continued with the JW tradition.

I kind of agree with that statement. At all the assemblies I went to, a significant percentage of those getting baptized would be preteens to teenagers who were of course children of JW parents. My parents were married in 1972, and I, the eldest of 5 children, wasn't born until 1977. They have never spoken much about 1975 and when they did they gave the impression that 1975 wasn't too big of a deal for them, but I wonder.

Personally, the Watchtower rhetoric contributed to my decision not to have children some before I left. But now I still don't have the desire. Some might blame the Watchtower for taken the desire out of me. But I have never had the desire, don't have the desire now, and I don't ever anticipate having the desire. Parenting is the most important job a person can do, and I just don't want to do the work. The planet is in no danger of underpopulation and there are plenty of other people doing good and bad jobs at parenting. Our species will survive.

40

Check your IQ in less than 13 minutes

by JH in

jw
friends

thanks to quinah and nathan natas of another forum, here is the link to check your iq.

http://www.iqtest.com/.

it says i have an iq of 139 .

maxwell

Jourles, that was my suspicion, so I simply skipped over the personal information part, and I didn't get a score either.

33

Theocratic School Talks, they were the worst ! hated doing them, did you ?

by run dont walk in

jw
friends

remember back to the days you were in the theocratic school and had to give talks, were they the worst or what, i remember they were suppose to run about 6-8 minutes, i had some short as 3. the talks were pointless, you would just throw some mumble jumble together and go up and talk, first the introduction (and don't forget your gestures), then read the weekly scripture and then the conclusion, all your words of wisdom.

i would rank this second on the worst list next to field service (still # 1).. how about you, did you enjoy doing them ?

did you even prepare for them ?

maxwell

Outlines were only provided for the the elders giving talks on Sunday and on Assemblies. But in the school you were eventually supposed to progress from writing out your talk word for word to just writing yourself an outline and giving your talk extemporaneously. But you better believe that if your outline wasn't based on Watchtower publications you would probably be counseled about that. Even for the #2 talk. Your background material and outline for talking about application was supposed to be based on a little research in the Watchtower publications. I used to look up the scriptures in the index and on the CD and find some application and compose an outline using that. There's always direction from the organization. But I'm sure a few were brave enough to make up their own stuff, but that would have been at least frowned upon.

40

Check your IQ in less than 13 minutes

by JH in

jw
friends

thanks to quinah and nathan natas of another forum, here is the link to check your iq.

http://www.iqtest.com/.

it says i have an iq of 139 .

maxwell

Didn't I see something like on an episode of "King of the Hill"? I don't know if you guys get that show in Canada.

Anyways, they wanted me to pay to get some certificate after I filled out the test or maybe my IQ is too low to figure out how to get my score for free. I have my doubts about any shortened form of the real test.