Xanthippe

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Posts by Xanthippe

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  5

  I want it to be the truth, but I don't believe it. Unless I do but don't want to. Huh?

  by noonehome in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  if i did believe, i think i could have what it takes to be what's considered a 'good jw'....being a missionary actually really appeals to me.

  but obviously i couldn't live that life if i didn't believe in my heart it's the truth.

  i'm young, and interested in doing some kind of humanitarian work... kind of a secular equivalent of "serving where the need is greater.

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  Xanthippe

  Noonehome, great idea, if I was twenty years younger I'd do it like a shot.

  Try this site,

  www.workaway.info

  There is an article about it here,

  http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2014/jul/12/working-holidays-volunteering-breaks-lessons-learned
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  12

  R and me, part 2

  by Pistoff in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  so i am at the funeral for the son of an old mentor of mine and my closet truth friends.. .

  (i talked about r in a previous post, he was the most formative person in my life in the truth, and those of my family and friends.).

  i was pulled aside by r's wife; she tells me that r wants to talk to me.. .

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  Xanthippe

  Pistoff thanks for you two accounts, I really enjoyed reading them. Sorry for the loss of your mentor's son.

  I can't tell him that all will be well, that soon the new world will be here and he will see his son again, though it crosses my mind that maybe I should.

  It just struck me that now we are not in the cult we can't say things like this when people lose loved ones because what they believe is very personal and no-one would presume to say such a thing at a funeral the way JWs do.

  It's really sad that these old 'oak trees' are lost to you. I don't know what to say. I lost everyone I knew my whole life too. It's not normal is it?
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  37

  How many things did you toss out in the name of Jehoover

  by love2Bworldly in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i had a flash back yesterday.

  my non jw husband and i went to disneyland and bought my young daughter a set of 7 dwarf toys.

  after a few months i felt guilty and threw them away, thinking they were demonized.

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  Xanthippe

  My mother got rid of old plates from relatives that I now think might have been Spode. Furniture and clothes. China and silverware from relatives. We were so damn poor too. Grrrr! Couldn't sell it of course because of passing on the demons!
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  25

  BEING SHUNNED

  by JOHNROSS93 in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  after almost 40 years of being shunned by close family members, it never gets easier.

  my own mother is under the spell of the "organization" and won't even write to me.

  for a long time i sent her things - cards, news articles of interest, jokes, etc - i finally gave up.

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  Xanthippe

  Johnross I'm sorry your family are treating you like this, I know it hurts. My family have shunned me for twenty-five years. How am I dealing with it? Well like you I used to send my mother things. When my dad who was never a witness told me she had her purse stolen in a shop I posted her a new leather purse. No phone call and I found it in her things, unused, after she'd gone.

  One thing that really hurt was that when my daughter was born I took her to see my parents and my mother acted as though she was just tolerating the visit for the sake of her unbelieving mate and his granddaughter.

  Just before we left she picked my daughter up for the first time and brought her to our car. I put my arms out to my mother so I could put my daughter in her car seat and my mother was so desperate not to touch me she nearly dropped my baby on the drive. Her head would have smashed on the concrete.

  After a while I stopped trying to phone my siblings, that's how I deal with it now. I wont accept their attitude that possibly I can phone them and maybe they will speak to me if they feel like it or they might put the phone down as has happened.

  That is very wrong so I don't contact them now. It's hard but I refuse to let them abuse me and treat me as if I am evil. I wont play by their rules. In the real world if people repeatedly treat you badly you avoid them as toxic. As I now live in the real world that is what I do.

  I hope you find a way to cope with your family. I suppose I would advise you to choose whom you love and find new 'family' who value you for who you are rather than just where you were born.
• 
  18

  Can you spot the circular reasoning here?

  by DATA-DOG in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  when i used to read the bible on a regular basis, i loved "paul's" writings.

  anyway, can you see what is actually being said in the following passage?

  " if anyone thinks he is a prophet or is gifted with the spirit, he must acknowledge that the things i am writing to you are the lord's commandment.

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  Xanthippe

  This is what drives us nuts ...the catch 22.

  Round and round we go!

  *

  No matter how easy it is to explain all the wt failures,

  and the shunning & blood policies ....the watchtower has

  set-up and prepped the deluded dubs with 'get out of jail'

  clauses - clarity

  Clarity this drives me nuts too, that they have an answer for everthing and all their beliefs are tied up so tightly that it's a wonder anyone gets out.

  If you say the 1914 prophecy has not come true and it's now been 100 years, they are primed to say they are not serving Jehovah to any particular date and to make you feel guilty for pointing it out because you are so selfish and don't love Him.

  If you say what is wrong with a university education they say young people are bringing themselves into the danger of sexual immorality at college. Never mind the fact that the WBTS want to keep people uneducated and stupid so they can't see the contradictions in the teachings. Why do you want an education, do you want to be 'puffed up with pride' and be 'devoted to the reading of many books which is wearisome to the soul?'

  I know, makes me want to spit too!
• 
  60

  Goodbye JW net

  by snare&racket in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  forgive me for indulging in a goodbye but it would feel wrong not to,.

  i hope the discussions and atmosphere here do not change for it is a bubbling brew of doubt, bravery and sincere hunger for answers.

  these are healthy ingrediants for humans and especially for a jehovah's witness.. this forum offers not just the ability to ask without consequence, but it also offers the means to be real.

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  Xanthippe

  Well done Snare. You should be so proud of yourself and all that terribly hard work done with very little family support. You did it mate!

  Be happy. Have a great life.
• 
  37

  Clean the JUNK out of your vocabulary and it follows, you will clean up your ability to THINK

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  there are certain "junk" words that litter our brain, pollute our vocabulary, and play fast and loose with our reasoning.. one of those junk words is spirit.. the words means nothing, but extrapolations of its metaphorical pretense are everywhere!.

  we have five sense connected with our body link to brain.. hearing, vision, taste, touch, sense of smell.. with those five we are in touch with things as they exist.. reality is what it is.. through technology, science has been able to amplify our senses with microscopes, telescopes, x-rays, mri's, space probes, atom smashers, etc.. but--i assure you--none of this has produced evidence of "spirit.".

  the last thing that happens when you die is this.

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  Xanthippe

  The idea of gods and goddesses inspiring writings and the arts comes from Greek mythology but then Paul had a classical education so he would have known that.

  The Muses, the personification of knowledge and the arts, especially literature, dance and music, are the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne(memory personified). Hesiod's account and description of the Muses was the one generally followed by the writers of antiquity. It was not until Roman times that the following functions were assigned to them, and even then there was some variation in both their names and their attributes: Calliope (epic poetry), Clio (history), Euterpe (flutes and lyric poetry), Thalia (comedy and pastoral poetry), Melpomene (tragedy), Terpsichore(dance), Erato (love poetry), Polyhymnia (sacred poetry), and Urania (astronomy).

  Three ancient Muses were also reported in Plutarch's Quaestiones Convivales [8] (9.I4.2–4). [9] The Roman scholar Varro relates that there are only three Muses: one who is born from the movement of water, another who makes sound by striking the air, and a third who is embodied only in the human voice. They were Melete or Practice, Mneme or Memory and Aoide or Song.

  Gustave Moreau, Hesiod and the Muse (1891)— Musée d'Orsay , Paris

  However the Classical understanding of the muses tripled their triad, set at nine goddesses, who embody the arts and inspire creation with their graces through remembered and improvised song and stage, writing, traditional music, and dance.

  In one myth, King Pierus, king of Macedon, had nine daughters he named after the nine Muses, [10] believing that their skills were a great match to the Muses. He thus challenged the Muses to a match, resulting in his daughters, the Pierides, being turned into chattering magpies [11] for their presumption.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muse
• 
  20

  A fawn comes bleating, . . .

  by compound complex in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  at my open screen door, in search of mama.. i come into the living room (from the kitchen), we exchange glances for a moment, and he beats a hasty retreat.

  i am not mama.

  .. meantime, finches gather 'round the four birdbaths in my garden and splash about and share the latest birdland gossip.. .

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  Xanthippe

  I live in a wood.

  Lucky man! I go to the local National Trust property to see deer. They have red and fallow deer in the woods there.

  I do have an ash tree and a field maple as well as some smaller trees in my garden so I get plenty of birds. Gold finches, long tailed tits, robins, starlings, blackbirds and once a woodpecker. I have a tiny pond so I see frogs usually and dragon flies.

  Enjoy your wood CC.
• 
  20

  Do you intend to die?

  by new hope and happiness in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  as far as i know, all of us are going to die.

  our hope, our stories, and the fantazy of " good people" telling tales of heaven, or a new system, or future reassembling of our consciousness is not likely?

  do you still cling to it?.

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  Xanthippe

  I am not afraid of death, it's something I don't have to sit an exam for, have an interview or get any qualifications for. One of the few things I don't have to worry about or strive for. On the other hand I keep myself healthy and am at present losing weight beacause a heart attack or stroke is not a good way to go. I've lost a stone, ten pounds to go and I'm back to my twenties weight. Keep your weight down and your bones healthy for a good old age.
• 
  41

  favourite words...in any language

  by new hope and happiness in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i mean " courting" certainley sounds more dignified than " hanging out with a new squeeze".

  " comely" is a word i think should be used more often".

  i am going to try and use " jabberwockey" in a sentece today.. anyway do you have any favourite words, in any language?.

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  Xanthippe

  onomatopoeia

  stromboli

  snozzcumber (Roald Dahl's BFG)

  Pa Tak (Klingon)