it doesn't take much to get this old sod very happy.
i just received the bestest christmas pressy ever, my lil boys email address, wey heyyyyy, now i can write to him directly, celtic is one happy man now.. when you only see your only child every 5 months or so for a few days, this means the world to me.. just wanted to share.. peace.
celtic.
Just read your post - I'm so glad Mark. He's a cute kid and I can't believe he's old enough already to be able to email you! I know this sounds really stupid but I remember when he was born!! I feel so old!
Great news. If I don't talk to you in the meantime - have a great holiday. Mum, Nathan and Jason are coming over to mine for lunch. Should be a good day.
Take care and I'll catch up with you soon!
ask yourself one thing, seriously.
would the person you are with die for you?
would you die for them?
One of my favourite albums at the moment is Parachutes by a band called Coldplay. There is a line in one of the songs that says simply "for you I'd bleed myself dry". When I first heard this song, I was with this guy and I questioned whether or not I would in fact bleed myself dry from him. The answer was no - we finished shortly afterwards!
Like you, my son is the only person I would instantly give my life up for without even a thought. Life without him would not be worth living. That's true love.
I have felt this for a man before...but he left (boo-hoo!).
for those of you that don't know, i was raised a witness from the time i was five.
i remember celebrating one christmas.
my mother was studying then and didn't want to support my dad, but she gave in one last time.
I posted something similar a few weeks ago and I got a fabulous response from other members of the board.
After some thought, I decided that I would do what I wanted for Christmas, so I have made a few decorations and have bought presents for my family. My Mum and brother are coming around for Christmas lunch and it will be the first Christmas we have ever spent together. I must say that I'm looking forward to it.
One of the reasons why I decided to do this was exactly as you said: many common things have pagan origins. The rules about what are "right" and "wrong" practices have been MADE UP and I think that we've come from a culture where this has been conveniently forgotten!
My conclusion: don't do anything that you're not entirely sure about but give you're daughter a family Christmas. I don't want my son to miss out the way I did.
What ever you do, have a good one!
why i'm not a dub:.
we: maybe we cant solve all of the worlds problems, but weve already solved plenty of them so far, and there are a lot more we can solve if we give more of ourselves to help our fellow humans.. dubs: we cant solve all of the worlds problems, so why bother trying to solve any of them?
well just sell books, and youd better buy them.
Totally agree with you - great post.
I often think that if Jesus got off the bus in my town one day, the last place he'd want to go to would be the Kingdom Hall.
Nope, peddling the prolific stream of crap gushing from the sewer mouth of the WT is the only way they know of surviving. It's easier to take someone else's teachings off the spoon rather than research and create some ideas of your own.
Oh, a final thought - if you celebrate Christmas then God will kill you. That's me for the chop then, best get bladdered!!
an interesting article on why we shouldn't get too smug and self-righteous about our supposed liberal and free western society.
the disease of fundamentalist religion still manifests symptoms in so-called "free" west:.
body and mind: religious repression - western style: appliance of science: the row over embryonic stem cell research shows that plenty of minds in the 'secular' west are still happy to suppress science, warns thomas barlow .
A very complex moral issue.
"And now all this soul searching about a bunch of cells".
I assume this refers to tbe human embryo. Western society, therefore won't allow the use of cells from an embryonic human being for research and yet, let it grow a few weeks in a womb so that it has its own heart and other organs and then kill it, drag it out and throw it away? And yet...someone riddled with cancer or suffereing from a degenerative disease who wants to die peacefully cannot enlist the help of a loved one to help them on their way...
The whole issue of morals is a dodgy area. When we talk about freedom in this area, could we not also refer to the freedom of the human being in embryo form? Should that person not have the freedom to grow and develop? Am I missing something here? (Please enlighten me if I am talking out of my ass).
The point I'm making is that no one is right or wrong. Morals are fluid depending on political and temporal context.
Same point as you then, Expatbrit. Westerners don't have all the answers. Coming to think of it - who does?
i've almost forgotten why i thought jw's were the truth.. there i was thinking about it as i drove in my car yesterday trying to remember why.but i couldn't.. prehaps its because there was not one reason but a hole host of things that seamed to fit at the time.. i cannot remember a point when i started to doubt, but i did read a lot of scientific books which helped tune my brain a little bit.. i also noted that the maganzines (w&a) were very small a had very little content i found this very strange as i noted that science writers went to great pains to prove a point where as the societiy seemed happy with a few lines and a quick conclusion.but the society expected people lives to depend on its information.. but i wanted to know why i believed to avoid making the same mistake twice.. so after consideration i've come to the conclusion i was under the influence of misinformation by the society and had asumed these people knew what they were talking about and were unbaised and always checked their facts.. now i know better and will make a goal to always research myself to a higer than "normal " level before i except unusual things as true.. so i belive i was a witness due to misinformation , but this problem effect us all in many ways, how do we know we are being well informed when we read something?.
well there is a majour problem in the fact that a lot of people find reading boring , we enjoy being entertianed and to learn can be hard.
i have had to force myself to read things i didn't enjoy in order to understand something important.i am glad after that i have done it ,but i didnt enjoy it.. yes people read little and prefear it when everthing is given to them on a plate.. i belive that lack of education and a lack of a critical mind coupled with the dumbing down of society in general will lead people into religious traps and pseudoscientific errors.. we must encourage education and the desire to learn in our children.. the dumbing down i see in society worries me.
Interesting thread, Sleepy. Ignore those who really don't have anything important or constructive to say.
To continue with your thought ... I was just discussing this topic with my Mum this evening (also an ex-JW). I have just started a degree in media studies and have had my eyes opened to the ways in which culture/the state/commerce/religion control the masses. Might I suggest that you look into some of the ideas of neo-Marxism. A few things will really ring true.
No wonder JWs don't allow their children to go to college - far too much free thought would blow a huge hole in most of their beliefs and their methods for spooning them out.
it would seem that there are many who upon leaving rigid and structured religion, end up taking an interest in becoming pagan.
there are many misconceptions of just what it is that paganology stands for.. to find out more, maybe take a look at these two sites, and tour around, to see and experience, more than just a glimpse into the ancienct land, from which earth i come from.. spirit of place.
cornish language studies.
Another thought provoking post, Celtic.
RF: ever been to Cornwall? Those fallen down old rocks are part of our heritage and natural history. I'm sure other parts of the country/world could benefit from a few fallen down rocks. Rotten teeth or products of a powerful battle between elements and civilisation?
Kind of brings us around to Celtic's thought really. The Celts were far more in tune with the land and sea through their spirituality. Shame modern society isn't. Maybe we wouldn't have a hole in our ozone layer.
I'm going off to look at those sites now. Cheers Mark!
Mebyon Kernow: Onen Hag Oll
(originally posted by armageddon1975 on yahoogroups).
"a donation to a charity.
good idea.".
Breathing
well sometimes we are.. look we have the knowledge and experience to help a lot of people.must of us have one time been jw's and understand how many think.so lets not put them off by being too negative.. when we were witnesses most of us were quite happy .
we tried to be good people , to put into practise principles that many people think are good.
we did this sometimes even when we didn't want to , because we thought god would hold us accountable and because we cared for people .
I've heard this called "teeth gritting harmony".
Sums up the happy lives of JWs very well.
i was on my way to install a cd-rw for a friend of my wife, who's son is a friend of my grandson.
i invited him to come along with me.
on the way he began to question me about religion.
Big consideration for all of us who are parents, grandparents (great grandparents!). I have no idea what I'm going to tell my son when he gets older.
How do I know whether my beliefs have been programmed in to me or if they are really what I believe??? How do I pass this on to my son??? So I guess I feel the same way as you.
So, the way I see it is that we just enjoy our children for now. I hope that one day he'll have some answers for me (just as I have had some for my Mum).
Anyway, your grandson sounds like a real thinker. Children can teach us so much.
Missie F
