Wonderful, the smell of decaying brains once again spoils my morning coffee.
I just love your humor dude!
Skipper
Mindchild
JoinedPosts by Mindchild
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More evidence for the Flood
by Derrick inyou might want to consider an interesting article titled prehistoric beaches evidence for the flood (december 27, 1999) on the web site achievebalance.com in considering the global flood in noah's day.
the article is at the following link: .
http://www.achievebalance.com/think/flood.htm .
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Mindchild
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What playing with caterpillars taught me about Witnessing to Witnesses
by Mindchild inand begin investigating the true nature of the witness weltanschauung.
i?m not complaining in the least for someone asking me about what to do about this perplexing problem, i just wish i had a one-solution-fits-all answer that worked flawlessly.
hell, i would be happy with an approach that worked with odds of 5 to 1.
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Mindchild
In the five years or so that I?ve been in the ex-JW online community, I?ve gotten several personal communications from newbies and others asking me what I thought the best way was to get their friends and family to ?wake up? and begin investigating the true nature of the Witness Weltanschauung. I?m not complaining in the least for someone asking me about what to do about this perplexing problem, I just wish I had a one-solution-fits-all answer that worked flawlessly. Hell, I would be happy with an approach that worked with odds of 5 to 1.
Today, someone asked me this again and I?ve been thinking about it. I?m reminded for some strange reason of a little game I used to play when I was a kid with friendly little caterpillars who lived in my backyard.
You might know that a lot of caterpillars live in trees and walk on twigs and branches looking for those nice tasty leaves to eat. When they get to the end of a twig, they would feel around with their front feet trying to find a nearby twig to keep on walking. If that doesn?t work, they turn around and head back the same way they came to eventually find another branch to explore. Now the mean little kid I was, I liked to pick up a short twig and coax a caterpillar on it. I would let him do his little exploration run and when he got to the end of the twig he would turn around and come back, on his way back, I would pick up the twig at the other end and let him get to the end of it to see if he figured out if anything was wrong.
Well caterpillars are not very gifted mentally, and the poor bug would just keep going back and forth on the twig as long as I wanted to play the game and never get any wiser until it just got too tired and would just immobilize itself somewhere on the twig. My bizarre two-ended twig isn?t something that the caterpillar was capable of dealing with, as it didn?t have enough self-awareness to deal with the new complexity it was facing.
You know what? The Witnesses are a lot like these caterpillars on the twig. We have all been on that twig (the correct path of JW thinking) and when we found ourselves in a situation where there was no longer any solid footing (meaning facing questions we couldn?t or didn?t want to answer) we would turn around and get out of there. Witnesses have great ?apostate? feelers inside and when they are confronted with this problem the standard response is ?flight? or ?fight.?
If you are lucky enough to have a JW friend or relative who is open enough to have rich, non-threatening and honest discussions you won?t have too much difficulty providing them with enough material to really get them to start thinking and investigating. If the ?truth? really means something to them more than the social setting they find themselves in, they might actually start the process of exploring some new branches in reality. We all know that even knowing the ?truth? isn?t the ?truth? isn?t enough for a great many to leave. They have too much invested, are too fearful of loosing what they have, and won?t leave until the cost is lower. Still, you need to at least give them the opportunity to wake up and see for themselves what they managed to get themselves into, but how do you break through this insidious little protective loop they got themselves in?
My answer is similar to what happened in my own life experience. I was a hotshot regular pioneer who had all the answers. I was absolutely sure that the Witnesses were right and that everyone else was dead wrong, soon to be literally dead wrong. I thought I was pretty invulnerable to anything anybody could tell me about the ?truth.? That changed one day because of a Bible Study I had with a retired schoolteacher named Mr. Rea.
Mr. Rea was the ideal Bible Study. He always prepared well for his lessons. Never once failed to meet me on time. He came to the public talk, and Watchtower Study on a regular basis. And he was both a smart and funny guy. I just loved this guy, because he could always make me laugh. Everyone else thought highly of him too, and he was even a guest for dinner in our Witness home on several occasions.
But the clock was running out for Mr. Rea. Six months had gone by and even though Mr. Rea was coming to meetings something was holding him back He wouldn?t go any further, no door to door, no joining the TMS, no nothing more. Anyway, as much as I hated to do it, I told him one day that the elders told me to stop seeing him and studying with him because I was wasting my time. I asked him; just what is it that is holding you back? Well as strange as it seems, especially for a guy who had done everything he had in the last six months, he told me that he just couldn?t bring myself to believe in God because he couldn?t find any proof for his existence.
Now to me, this was the stupidest thing I had ever heard in my entire life. In fact, I laughed when he told me this. I actually thought he was joking but he wasn?t. I told him that I would bring tons of proof with me on my next visit and that I was confident that I could prove to him that God existed.
I must have spent three days getting material together and it came time to meet him again. I laid out my proofs in a clear and understandable way, and he in the same manner showed me why my reasoning behind each example was both flawed and wrong. It turned out that Mr. Rea was a former science teacher, and I knew I had to make the grade if I was going to show him the Witnesses were right. We had more and more discussions, he shot down every proof I had in flames. He showed me that the references in the Evolution book were in fact lies, misquotations, and sometimes made up. I had to go to the local college library to look them up for myself to see that he was right. When I confronted the elders with this discovery, they told me to stop associating with him immediately.
Well, needless to say, Mr. Rea planted some real doubts and also planted some self-awareness on my part that I too was running away from anything that didn?t match my conceptual reality. Things went downhill from that point forward with my own dancing on the Watchtower?s twig. I?m thankful, oh so thankful though to this kind teacher for helping me to wake up and start thinking. I don?t know if it would have been possible for me unless we were friends. I couldn?t just walk away from him; I had to try to ?save him.? Can this work for you as well?
Look at things like this; offer a new pathway for your Witness caterpillar friend to travel down. Don?t make it scary and confrontational or they will head the other direction and shun you. Exploit your relationship to your advantage. Ask them to help you reason some things out. Start with small things first, little things that really bother you. Don?t download the entire contents of JWD in printed form and hand it to them! Take baby steps and keep things funny and friendly. They need a new branch that welcomes them and a guide they can trust. If they are wondering where you are getting these ?horrible? ideas about the UN, child molestation, and so forth, well don?t you have a Bible Study you are conducting and this person is asking these questions of you?
Maybe all this is nothing more than you offering a branch to them and they accept or reject that path,. At least though you may have planted some ideas that someday might take hold and increase their brain activity enough to see the make believe world they inhabit. It really could be as simple as that.
Skipper
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One of my many weird ideas -- Babies
by logansrun in.
i freeze some of my sperm (not at home...at one of those "banks" silly) and then get a vasectomy.
you've got to admit, it's an awesome idea.. bradley
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Mindchild
Bradley,
You might want to consider the new options of male birth control for your objectives. It looks pretty promising.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_14198.html
Male Contraceptive Success in Australia
Monday, October 6, 2003
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian researchers said on Sunday they had conducted a successful experiment using two hormones to suppress sperm production, which they said could lead to the first injectable male contraceptive.
Men in the trial of 55 couples received hormone treatment over the course of a year using a combination of the male hormone testosterone and progestin, which is used in female contraceptive pills.
Scientists from Sydney's ANZAC Research Institute and the Prince Henry Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne said the aim of the trial had been to "switch off" male sperm production.
None of the men's partners became pregnant during the trial and none showed any side effects. The hormone treatment was the only form of contraception used during the trial, they said.
"This is the first time a reversible male contraceptive that will suppress sperm production reliably and reversibly has been fully tested by couples," the institute's principal investigator professor David Handelsman said in a statement.
He said a testosterone implant had been injected every four months and a progestin had been injected every three months.
"This shows the way for a final product to be a single injection containing testosterone and a progestin which will easily be given by local doctors on a three-four monthly basis and still maintain male sexual health," Handelsman said.
Developing an effective and convenient male contraceptive has been difficult, in part because of the rapid rate at which men produce sperm.
A recent British trial showed promise but side effects stopped the trial.
Testosterone is often linked with virility but treatment with the hormone can suppress the production of sperm by reducing levels of hormones called gonadotropins.
Too much testosterone can have harmful effects, such as reducing levels of the "good" cholesterol HDL. Experimental male contraceptives often include another hormone, such as a type used in female contraceptives, to block side effects.
Skipper
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Mindchild
29.98028% - Total Geek
Ok, I admit I could have scored higher, but I just don't like to think of myself not having a life.
Skipper
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I found God Today (not fluff)
by Mindchild inperhaps the oddest thing i've looked forward to doing for years is finding and activating my god spot in my brain.
my wish finally came true today.
if anyone reading this isn't aware of what a "god spot" is i would say in a nutshell that it is neurological response to magnetically stimulating the brain where many people feel "god like" experiences and describe either unusual illusions or intense religious feelings.
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Mindchild
Country_Woman asked me:
Did you enjoy the experience ? I would be afraid to damage my brain....
I guess I was more curious than anything else and wasn?t really thinking about enjoying the experience. It really didn?t have much of an emotional impact one way or another on me. And yes, it is possible to do temporary damage to your brain by using rTMS but I was quite careful and knew exactly how much energy I was working with and I have also worked with this equipment before in a laboratory setting, as well as consulted medical texts about energy density and exposure times. Thus, it was quite safe.
Imallgrowedup asked me:
Have you ever considered that if you had bouncing colored lights and ringing ears, that you didn't find the "godspot" at all?
From what I read of Dr. Michael Persinger?s experiments, my failure to achieve any kind of religious or spiritual experience by this experimental process is not that unusual. I have even read that people who have had rTMS induced religious experiences on one occasion failed to repeat it at a later date. There are many factors in one?s current neurology that can contribute towards or subtract from the desired outcome. As far as looking for God in my heart, I?m an atheist. I was really looking to explore the emotional significance that some people experience in their personal religious experiences, rather than finding proof of God?s existence.
Gumby, I have not read the book you mentioned ?The God Part of the Brain? thank you for the reference.
Loris, you mentioned in your quotation the work of Dr. Wilder Penfield and his work with a process called ESB (electrical stimulation of the brain). I?ve read a great deal of his work and of the results of his experiments are fascinating. However the hypothesis that consciousness exists outside the body or brain is not proven one way or another with this experimentation.
BeelzeDub, I haven?t read the book you mentioned and it looks promising for an interesting read. I have read articles about Neurotheology and there is a wealth of information anyone can find by doing a web search.
Gumby, I was raised in a third generation dub family. I got terrible grades through my primary schooling because of constantly being persecuted for being a Witness. Quite honestly, I think there were two things that started waking me up as a teenager about the truth of the truth, one was that I loved to read?especially science fiction (which led into reading science books) and the other was my having a long term Bible study with a school teacher who helped me to think and reason enough to start asking questions. The only good thing my expulsion from the Borg managed to accomplish was that I became an assertive self-taught exploratory learner who practically lived in the local college library. I learned enough doing that to realize how ignorant I really was about everything and later decided to go to college and get my educational act into high gear.
The said part is that there are lots of brilliant people out there in both dub land and ex-dub land that have the potential to become much more than they are, given the chance to enjoy a more educational enhancing life change.
Skipper
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I found God Today (not fluff)
by Mindchild inperhaps the oddest thing i've looked forward to doing for years is finding and activating my god spot in my brain.
my wish finally came true today.
if anyone reading this isn't aware of what a "god spot" is i would say in a nutshell that it is neurological response to magnetically stimulating the brain where many people feel "god like" experiences and describe either unusual illusions or intense religious feelings.
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Mindchild
imallgrowedup asked...
is there an english version (preferably about two sentences long) that would sum this up?
Let's see if I can make this a little easier to understand. You might say there are different theories of what is responsible for consciousness. In the post above, the author makes reference to the theory that consciousness exists outside of the human brain (a nonmaterial consciousness) but makes use of the brain for expressing itself. It is difficult to find a mechansim by which such a nonmaterial conciousness would interact with the material brain except perhaps by means of some unknown process in quantum physics. When we look at the human brain while active (like in a MRI scan) we don't see any one area of the brain as a focal point giving orders to the rest of the brain to do different things. So, if this theory is true of how nonmaterial conciousness works it has yet to be explained how it interacts with the brain.
Most neuroscientists have a more materialistic view that basically says that consciousness emerges from the interaction of neurons in the brain. This is a well established view and right or wrong, the people who believe it are very reluctant to accept evidence that doesn't fit their model of how the brain works.
Hope that helps answer your question.
Skipper
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I found God Today (not fluff)
by Mindchild inperhaps the oddest thing i've looked forward to doing for years is finding and activating my god spot in my brain.
my wish finally came true today.
if anyone reading this isn't aware of what a "god spot" is i would say in a nutshell that it is neurological response to magnetically stimulating the brain where many people feel "god like" experiences and describe either unusual illusions or intense religious feelings.
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Mindchild
Why do I feel like this thread has been hijacked by undisciplined fluffers? Well here is all I have to say...
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My head feels funny again :-(
by Mindchild inwell, the much anticipated interplanetary shock wave hit the earth about 20 minutes ago from a massive solar explosion a few days ago.
the geomagnetic field of the earth is ringing like a bell.
as per my previous posts on this subject (i.e did you get a headache today?
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Mindchild
Well, the much anticipated interplanetary shock wave hit the earth about 20 minutes ago from a massive solar explosion a few days ago. The geomagnetic field of the earth is ringing like a bell. As per my previous posts on this subject (i.e Did you get a headache today?) watch out for migrane headaches that are produced by the low frequency electromagnetic waves produced by the geomagnetic storm that produce eddy currents in the brain. If you feel heart pains, call 911 immediately as you may be having a heart attack (about 1/3 of all heart attacks come from geomagnetic disturbances)...Groan, where is my headache medicine at?
Skipper
P.S. this story is being carried by CNN http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/10/24/solar.forecast/index.html
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I found God Today (not fluff)
by Mindchild inperhaps the oddest thing i've looked forward to doing for years is finding and activating my god spot in my brain.
my wish finally came true today.
if anyone reading this isn't aware of what a "god spot" is i would say in a nutshell that it is neurological response to magnetically stimulating the brain where many people feel "god like" experiences and describe either unusual illusions or intense religious feelings.
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Mindchild
Perhaps the oddest thing I've looked forward to doing for years is finding and activating my God Spot in my brain. My wish finally came true today.
If anyone reading this isn't aware of what a "God Spot" is I would say in a nutshell that it is neurological response to magnetically stimulating the brain where many people feel "God like" experiences and describe either unusual illusions or intense religious feelings. The means to stimulate your personal God Spot haven't been easily available to the public because the devices needed are medical instruments called transcranial magnetic stimulators. I built and succesfully tested my own design of such a machine and used it experimentally to see what kind of results I would get by stimulating my temporal lobes with patterned r epetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS),
Using the technique that neuroscientist Michael Persinger at Laurentian University uses to magnetically stimulate the brain: http://www.aetheronline.com/mario/Heretic/insearch.htm it took about 14 minutes to notice anything out of the ordinary. The first effect was of enhanced phosphenes (these are bright lights that appear in a darkened room when you touch your closed eyes) induced by magnetic stimulation of my cortex, and this was followed by a mild ringing of the ears. I eventually began to feel very light and on the verge of laughing but there was no full blown visual hallucinations of angels, Gods, demons or anything like that but I did get that "spiritual kick" feeling that I had sometimes as a dub when I felt rarely at assemblies and "special" times when I felt close to God. It is difficult to describe what I experienced but overall I describe it as a letdown of what I expected. I had hopes of having at least a cool visual hallucination which talked with me. All I got instead was bouncing colored lights and ringing ears, plus pinpricking or goosebump feelings.
I guess I wasn't cut out to be the religious type after all.
Skipper
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Words you invented, or said the wrong way
by JH indo you have your own way of saying things, your own words for describing things?
for example, i don't say alzheimer disease, i say old timers disease.
why not, usually only old people get that.
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Mindchild
I had a heck of a time getting the right pronunciation down of chlorobenzylidenemalononitrile as it was a chemical I once talked about in public talks (not WTS talks). I kept saying it as chlorobenzyliDIEmalononitrite instead of the correct way. Once in awhile a college professor would call me on it and ask me if it was a regional pronunciation I was using. Sheesh, you don't get cut any slack in academic circles. But hey, terrible handwriting for doctors and professsors is completely acceptable. Good thing we have keyboards now.
Skipper
