thank you, dear friends, for expressing your thoughts today on the importance of the arts in your lives.
many years ago, a number of threads were devoted to poetry, literature, even english grammar.
rather than resurrect an old thread -- usually with zero results -- i would like to introduce a new post, asking you to add some of your favorite verse.
@SBF,
Tried to find the LostLove poem. I can only find one by Robert Graves.
Is this the one you meant?
His eyes are quickened so with grief,
He can watch a grass or leaf
Every instant grow; he can
Clearly through a flint wall see,
Or watch the startled spirit flee
From the throat of a dead man.
...
thank you, dear friends, for expressing your thoughts today on the importance of the arts in your lives.
many years ago, a number of threads were devoted to poetry, literature, even english grammar.
rather than resurrect an old thread -- usually with zero results -- i would like to introduce a new post, asking you to add some of your favorite verse.
The following poem has always been my favorite.
And being reminded of it now (thinks for that), gives it a whole new meaning, fresh ex-JW.
Whenever I read it, it is accompanied by this song playing in my head.
I just love that melancholic feeling of making a choice and then not knowing what you're missing from the other options you had.
Isn't that appropriate....
The Road Not Taken
BY ROBERT FROST
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
what is the purpose of preaching if not for converts?.
basically, preaching by the jw's is to make converts.
this in itself implies that jehovah's witnesses believe that they alone have the only acceptable way to god and that everyone else is just not worthy.
Just saw an illusionist getting a 'victim' drunk on drinking empty glasses.
Two steps he explained:
JW do just this: imagine life in paradise, and then tell others about that.
Who cares trying to make converts...failed circus is meant to make JW believe their imaginary future....
And if someone can believe to be drunk in 5 minutes, guess what people can believe given a lifetime of indoctrination starting at birth....
in the last few weeks it seems that instead of one or two new posters a week we seem to be getting several every day.
many seem to be long time jw's who are troubled by the path of the organisation.
this is really encouraging to those of us who have been here sometime.. welcome!
@Simon,
Do you have some statistics about new accounts?
Maybe a nice graph showing new registrations over time?
:-D
how often do you, ........ no not that, how often do look at this forum ?
and how long does it last,....... no not that again (one track minds) how many looks are you addicted to a day?
keep coming back to see anything new, or do you look at posters who you know from experience have comments that will interest you?.
court denies summary judgement for laurel jehovah's witnesses congregation.
a motion for summary judgement is denied in a case against the laurel congregation of jehovah's witnesses and some individuals over child abuse reporting issues.a lawyer for the congregation maintained that elders were exempted from reporting requirements under a state law because of clergy privilege and confidentiality.the case resulted from allegations that elders did not report an unlawful sexual relationship between a woman and a 14-year-old boy, both of whom were members of the jehovah's witnesses congregation.. download the court opinion here.
http://courts.delaware.gov/opinions/download.aspx?id=235880.
What I find very awful about this case is that at the same time the Borg states they will comply with laws making reporting (even suspicions of) abuse mandatory in Australia, they are not complying with these laws in USA, even fighting the mandatory-reporting laws.
Double tongued liars.
Bloody snakes and serpents is what they are :-(
how often do you, ........ no not that, how often do look at this forum ?
and how long does it last,....... no not that again (one track minds) how many looks are you addicted to a day?
keep coming back to see anything new, or do you look at posters who you know from experience have comments that will interest you?.
I'm quite fresh awake, and my wife is still in, so I want to know what's happening and subconsciously probably still need more evidence Borg sucks bigtime.
So couple of times a day.
Mostly first thing in the morning and last thing in the evening.
It'll pass.
to myself it means to seek knowledge and understanding of are selves and the world in which we live.. unfortunately history has shown whenever one tries to connect to god and of his knowledge through men who say they themselves are connected to god through spiritual wifi ie.
gb members of the jehovah's witnesses for example, one usually ends up finding a accumulation of only man's acquired knowledge.
over thousands of years of trying to connect to a god(s) for help and answers, mankind has eventually relinquished himself to seeking answers through scientific investigative acquired knowledge of the world in which we live in.
The word God carries the same meaning to me as god and gods.
It describes a concept that I have no emotional attachment to or aversion against.
Even the notion true god or false god has lost the meaning it once had to me.
I used to think that the difference between true and false gods is that the true god (God) exists and should be loved, and false gods do not really exist and should be hated.
But...would I (or you) ever worship a god of which you thought it doesn't exist? I would never. And so wouldn't the Israelites.
Whenever they worshipped false gods, they worshipped gods other than JHWH, but they did believe these gods to be real.
If they didn't think they were real, they wouldn't worship them, right?
So to the Israelites the difference between the true god and a false god was that the true god was much stronger, and he is the only one that deserves to be worshipped. But both of them were real to them.
To me this was quite surprising to realise.
Because if they thought the (to me non existing) false gods really existed, how trustworthy are they when it comes to teaching us about any gods or God.
If they had enough evidence to think false gods were real, that speaks volumes about the level of evidence they needed to think a god existed.
They had just as much evidence to believe JHWH existed as they had for all the false gods.
And so do I. To me there is just as much evidence to support JHWH's existence as there is to support all those false gods' existences.
i used to think there was a true dichotomy between things in the physical world and things that were abstract or imagined.
but now i can't seem to understand why i ever thought that way.. i consider the mental to be a subset of the physical world (just as trout are a subset of fish).
all ideas, abstractions, imaginings, etc.
Btw Paul, you should try some lucid dreaming :-D Apparently there are some techniques to achieve this. I still want to try this someday, would be awesome
Then you can make your own reality, Matrix- or Inception-style.
You'll be able to tell the difference between the reality your (sub)consciousness creates when dreaming, and the one it observes when awake.
i used to think there was a true dichotomy between things in the physical world and things that were abstract or imagined.
but now i can't seem to understand why i ever thought that way.. i consider the mental to be a subset of the physical world (just as trout are a subset of fish).
all ideas, abstractions, imaginings, etc.
I think it might be the opposite. The appearance of a physical world is created by consciousness.
Interesting idea!
One of the reasons I believe this is my understanding of what scientists see when observing the smallest particles possible. I've read that subatomic particles only exist as particles while they're being observed and measured by a conscious being. Until then they're just waves of energy.
You may be referring to behaviour such as displayed in the double-slit experiment with light or you are maybe referring to the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics?
If not please state a source as I really like this type of stuff :-D
Anyway, as far as I know it's not so much that a conscious being observing the waves changes them into particles. It's just that for some phenomena it's impossible to measure all properties very exact at the same time. And sometimes observing/measuring one of those properties very exact, makes the other one almost impossible to measure or predict.
For instance, the double slit experiment gives the same result if no conscious being is watching them, but it's results are recorded for later viewing.
If this is true then it might also be true that the entire material world doesn't exist unless consciousness is observing it.
Does that mean that the material world you are observing is not the same as the one I am observing?
And we also know that we can take away a person's consciousness by changing his material properties.
E.g. I can remove your consciousness from my world by destroying or damaging your material body.
Or I could pause your consciousness by adding chemicals to your body (anaesthetics), and bring back your consciousness by removing the chemicals.
If the material world follows from our consciousness, I would think that would be impossible?
