Posts by rem

55

Demons / Urban Legends! Which Is It????

by Big Jim in

jw
friends

has anyone on this board ever experienced contact with demons?.

i have heard demons talked about for years, however i have never known anyone that has had any real experiences with them, i have only heard storys.. .

(some quotes).

rem

Slayer,

Is it possible someone was playing a prank on you? Maybe your sibling? Not sure how he/she could pull that off, but I know me and my brother and sister would do things like that to spook each other out. During storms, me and my brother would take a camera and flash it in the window to make my mom think it was lightening. It used to freak her out - it was fun. She always wondered why there was no thunder, though.

Maybe after all these years someone will fess up? Just a thought. I think there has to be a more prosaic explanation than spirit creatures. I remember my brother and I used to spook ourselves out and we almost knew we could see little men walking in our hallway. They looked like shadows on the wall. I know now (and even then) that we were just scaring each other and they really weren't there, but it did seem real at the time. I think my brother might still believe it really happened. Brains are really funny.

rem

14

JWs and odd health practices

by Seeker in

jw
friends

i noted a long thread earlier that dealt with the frequency with which jws will accept medical practices that are far out of the mainstream.

kinesiology, and herbs, and the like were all mentioned, and there was much discussion about whether these things should be taken seriously or not.

i do not want to get into such a discussion, but wanted to talk about why i think jws are so frequently involved in such health pursuits.. someone mentioned that jws are trained to be suspicious of the medical establishment, and that's right.

rem

Seeker,

This topic is great! My father-in-law gets sucked into every hippie health fad that comes around. When my wife and I were dating, he was busy growing Kumbucha mushrooms all over his house (smelled nasty!). Now he has huge pots of wheat grass growing all over the place. He really believes in this stuff. I just laugh - it'll be something else next year.

As for your idea - that is actually something I've seriously contemplated (I’m sad to say). I know it's not really ethical, but judging from the credulity of the public in general and JW’s in particular, we would be fools not to develop some scheme to profit from this ignorance. I think magnets might be good because they are harmless and pretty popular now days.

I don’t think I’ll ever take that path, but it does seem like easy money. Just use some fancy scientific-sounding terms like “Ionic transfer” or “Quadratic magneto-energy field”, or make a comment to the effect that your product works through “Quantum mechanics” and we’ll be millionaires in no time!

rem

137

Face/Pyramids on Mars! What do you think?

by qwerty in

jw
friends

the things you look into without the wt cynical mind behind every thought.. [ http://www.geocities.com/area51/6683/cydonia-face.html].

qwerty .

justa surfin!

rem

OK guys. This is getting ridiculous. There is no artificially carved, mile long face on Mars. There are no artificial, intelligently designed pyramids on Mars that have any relation to the man-made pyramids on Earth.

First of all, here is a photo of the area in question with the "face" and "pyramids":

nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/image/planetary/mars/f035a72_processed.jpg

Here is the latest close-up photo of the "face":

nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/image/planetary/mars/mgs_cydonia1_processed.jpg

Hmmm. Doesn't look like a face at all. Guess we can forget about all of those conspiracy theories. Oh, wait - I forgot about those hand-crafted pyramids. Those must have been designed by intelligent creatures, right? Wrong.

The pyramids on Mars are very similar to rock formations in Arizona and Antarctica called dreikanters. On Earth these structures only reach a few feet tall, but because of the extreme speed of Martian wind (up to half the speed of sound!), huge mountains have been eroded in the same manner that the Earth formations have. Surely no one believes that these dreikanters on Earth are manmade.

But what about the pyramids' location that is precisely aligned with the so-called face? This is taken from an essay by Sally Stephens from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific:

In order for the alignment to work, Mars' equator would have to be tilted 17.3 degrees relative to the plane of its orbit around the Sun (it is now tipped 24 degrees). It is possible that Mars at one time had such a tilt. But, in this case, there are so many possible variations, with so little to restrict them, that random chance would no doubt produce some apparent alignments. Given that proponents had the freedom to choose any of a number of solar or celestial alignments, any time since the beginning of the solar system, and to move the planet any amount to fit an alignment, the fact that one can be found is not proof that it was intended.

People who believe in these wacked out theories should really learn about Richard Hoagland's crazy ideas and conspiracy theories, including UFO visits and new age physics. He's really gone off the deep end, and unfortunately, he's seemed to take a few gullible people along with him. It is sad.

Here is a link to an excellent essay by Sally Stephens from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific that completely debunks all of these crazy claims and exposes Richard Hoagland for the wacko that he is. Oh, by the way. Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy have also been found on the surface of Mars and Venus. Just more proof that the aliens are out there, I guess. :)

http://www.aspsky.org/education/tnl/25/25.html

I hope you enjoy this great article! Hopefully this 20 year old non-mystery can finaly be laid to rest.

rem

60

Muhammad is my savior!

by d0rkyd00d in

jw
friends

just kidding.

but i need some sort of lead in to my question.

when you are born, you are born into a religion.

rem

John,

:Try reading the Bible and tell me if it isn't God's Word. Try studying the history of Israel and tell me if it is not prophecied in God's Word. Try studying the history of the church and tell me if it is not prophecied in God's Word. Try studying the history of the world and tell me if it is not prophecied in God's Word.

Been there done that. I have many bibles and books of apocrypha, books on the history of Israel. I have seen no prophecies that could be explained by simpler means. I have seen no evidence for any inspiration from God in the Bible. I see nothing significant in the history of the church that leads me to believe it has any backing of some Higher Power. The history of the world is no more prophesied by God than it was prophesied by Nostrodomus. I was just as much a Bible thumper as you are, but I after an honest look at the facts, it was clear to me that the Bible is the work of man.

:The Hindu Vedas or any other religious books says man can achieve salvation by way of works. IN short, you are your own god, you save yourself. The Bible does not teach that does it?

Why are you comparing other religious works to the Bible? How do you know you should not be evaluating the Bible in relation to the other religious writings? Maybe all of the other writings are correct and the Bible is wrong (it does seem to be in the minority in the Salvation department)? Your sentence is nonsensical to a person who does not believe the Bible is the supreme authority. Before a rational person will believe the Bible to be the supreme authority, there needs to be evidence of this. There is none.

:The Wages of Sin is Death (Romans 6:23). Since you never died nor offered yourself as a sacrifice why in the verld should I believe that you will take away the sins of the world. You don't even come close to the Messiah description in Isa 53. Read Romans on why you are not unique :-)

My religion has nothing to do with the Bible. My disciples live by my words which are transmitted to the world through inspiration. I transfer my thoughts to a trained monkey which posts my commandments on jehovahs-witness.com under the handle of REM. This is their Bible. My ways do not require death for Salvation. My disciples - yes even the whole world is saved through my Life.

Don't worry my son, you are saved by the graces of REM. I don't mind that you are steeped in the false religion of the JHWH Bible. I am a much kinder and forgiving God than the ones humans invented.

You are blessed, my son

rem

137

Face/Pyramids on Mars! What do you think?

by qwerty in

jw
friends

the things you look into without the wt cynical mind behind every thought.. [ http://www.geocities.com/area51/6683/cydonia-face.html].

qwerty .

justa surfin!

rem

Logical,

You are telling me that you've never seen interesting cloud formations? Clouds that look like dogs, faces, cars, etc? There certainly doesn't need to be any intelligence to create a form that looks like something under certain circumstances and at certain angles and lighting. Richard Dawkins has a great example in his book "Climbing Mount Improbable" of a rock on earth that looks like a sculpted face from certain angles, but we know it's just a natural formation.

Geez. This is getting ridiculous. Exactly what queen does this face look like? Oh, no one in particular? Just a face? Yeah, you've convinced me of both past intelligent life on Mars and a huge worldwide conspiracy to cover-up the amazing discovery. Sometimes I wonder if there is any intelligent life on Earth!

rem, who can barely see what he's typing after going to they eye doctor and getting his pupils dialated.

29

Yeah Yeah I'm back

by joelbear in

jw
friends

i couldn't stay away.

i love you guys.. abaddon's and ldh's recent posts hit close enough to home that i decided to post again.. i think the selected memory and split personalities go hand in hand.. the selected memory helps keep the cult personality happy and gleaming no matter what damage the suppression does to the real human or the real human's family and friends.. a couple of years ago i was talking about my childhood with my parents and they both acted stunned when i said i was still angry with them because they didn't want me to go to college (i gave up several scholarship offers, etc.

to become a pioneer and eventually go to bethel).

rem

Joel,

Just wanted to say a quick "Welcome back, bro!". You were missed!

rem

60

Muhammad is my savior!

by d0rkyd00d in

jw
friends

just kidding.

but i need some sort of lead in to my question.

when you are born, you are born into a religion.

rem

Mulan,

We are hearing you loud and clear, but you are not understanding the question. Your authority is the Bible. That is where your belief that Jesus died for all comes from. You dogmatically state this claim even though you have no evidence that the Bible is in fact God's word. You have no more reason to believe what the Bible says than to believe the writings of the Hindu Vedas. Thus your claim that Jesus died for all is baseless.

As for John's comment about Jesus unique claim "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me." I say: "REM is the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me."

Now I've just started my own religion and Jesus' claim is no longer unique. How can you prove that I have not just saved all of mankind?

rem

137

Face/Pyramids on Mars! What do you think?

by qwerty in

jw
friends

the things you look into without the wt cynical mind behind every thought.. [ http://www.geocities.com/area51/6683/cydonia-face.html].

qwerty .

justa surfin!

rem

It's amazing to me how the conspiracy theorists accuse real scientists and skeptics of making assumptions. They are the ones assuming that there is a huge cover-up by the government. What these people don't realize is that scientists are not controlled by any one government. NASA is not the only space exploration organization on the planet. Other governments have been involved in space exploration and have access to a lot of the same information that NASA does - and a whole heck of a lot more information than the conspiracy theorists do. Do you really think that the American government can keep a cover-up like this under wraps? We can't even keep our National Security secrets secret! So where is the concrete data, besides fuzzy photos and rampant speculation?

With all of the thousands of square miles photographed and mapped on the surface of Mars is there any question why there might be at least a few funky looking natural artifacts? Add to that the fact that Mars had different erosion characteristics that Earth, it's easy to understand why we might find weird looking mountains. Also, the fact that human seem to see human faces pretty easily (on the moon, clouds, etc.) it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that all we have here is an interesting rock formation and a whole lot of active imaginations run wild with baseless speculation.

rem

1

c14 #1

by uncle_onion in

jw
friends

the thesis said:.

there are many examples where the dating methods give "dates" that are wrong for rocks of known age.

one example is k-ar "dating" of five historical andesite lava flows from mount nguaruhoe in new zealand.

rem

OU,

As has been stated in other posts, K-AR dating is not accurate for samples that are young (younger than millions of years). It would be like trying to measure the width of a hair with a yard stick. K-AR dating is only useful for very old samples - millions of years. The results that are published here are completely in line with what would be expected in trying to date such a young sample with this inappropriate dating method. Also, the results are within the accepted margin of error, it's just that the sample is younger than the margin of error.

rem

3

The Bible (A famous quote)

by Big Jim in

jw
friends

whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, whith which more then half the bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon then the word of god.

it is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.. thomas paine.

1737-1809,anglo american politicl theorist, writer

rem

Along the same lines, Bertrand Russell and Robert Ingersoll have written some great works about the Bible to expose how ridiculous many of the Bible stories are. They truly were great free thinkers of their time, much like Thomas Paine.

rem