i joined this site about 4 years ago and life was very different to say the least.
i was a jw and started the process of 'waking up' after experiencing life threatening blood loss due to complications of a pregnancy.
i was married with two kids (husband was an ms) and was a stay-at-home mom.
In legal defense cases, they always fall back on the excuse that shunning is a decision that individuals make of their own volition, nobody forces them to shun.
Also, there is the concept of 'ratification', which in essence means that a person who, upon reaching the age of majority, abides by the terms of a 'contract' that they entered as a minor, the terms of the contract are upheld. This too has been used to weasel out of legal wrangling related to the baptism of minor children.
i'm sick and tired of everyone claiming to be "offended".
if you are not politically correct, you will need to apologize for some perceived slight.. when i was an elder, i purposely avoided as much as i could, anybody that got easily offended.
.
"Being offended" is a way to control people to behave in the way you want them to behave.
Personally, I think "being offended" in today's politically correct environment is a way for people to cop out of having to hear or own up to the truth about themselves.
For example: ME: "You're a maple-sucking moose-humper!"
MSMH: "Eh! I'm offended by that!"
ME: "Sorry... I won't say that again." (even though it's true)
reading through a lot of the forum posts and wondered what tatt stands for (?).
any more acronyms that are special to this site?
something to make me think or laugh.
i've done the hitchens, dawkins, harris thing and as much as i rate them i'd like to move off at a tangent .
always enjoy philosophy or even something with a theological bent.. i'm coming to the end of heretic by ayaan hirsi ali and can thoroughly recommend it.. c'mon guys, don't let me down .
something to make me think or laugh.
i've done the hitchens, dawkins, harris thing and as much as i rate them i'd like to move off at a tangent .
always enjoy philosophy or even something with a theological bent.. i'm coming to the end of heretic by ayaan hirsi ali and can thoroughly recommend it.. c'mon guys, don't let me down .
something to make me think or laugh.
i've done the hitchens, dawkins, harris thing and as much as i rate them i'd like to move off at a tangent .
always enjoy philosophy or even something with a theological bent.. i'm coming to the end of heretic by ayaan hirsi ali and can thoroughly recommend it.. c'mon guys, don't let me down .
Nic, if you want a preview of Darrel Ray's book, The Thinking Atheist podcast has had him as a guest a couple of times.
very interesting article on the psychology of sexual abstinence and the effects it can have on sex life after marriage.
it focusses on an evangelical group for single men called "the river" but the attitudes will be familiar to born-in jws.. ___________________________.
..respondents had been told, since they were young, that women were nonsexual.
If a belief system can compel you to supress natural sexual drives, it can control every aspect of your life.
The problem with creating an artificial boundary "sex is reserved for people married to one another only" is that unmarried people - virgins - have this expectation that sex will be plentiful with a spouse, because it was completely absent prior to marriage. As well, it places pressure on people to marry too soon - not wanting to fall prey to sexual desire - and the couple might well be miserable because they really weren't that good of a match after all.
It also allows for false value to be attributed to the virginal state, comparing it to a new, never used "something" (car, house, etc.). The first sexual experience can be scary and traumatic and disappointing - it gets better with experience, of course - but good sexual experience should be compared to a diamond or precious metal that doesn't lose its value over time, rather than being something worthless and shameful.
My 2Ā¢, YMMV.
something to make me think or laugh.
i've done the hitchens, dawkins, harris thing and as much as i rate them i'd like to move off at a tangent .
always enjoy philosophy or even something with a theological bent.. i'm coming to the end of heretic by ayaan hirsi ali and can thoroughly recommend it.. c'mon guys, don't let me down .
I really enjoyed
"A Manual for Creating Atheists" by Peter Boghossian
"The God Virus" by Darrel Ray
"Zealot" by Reza Aslan
"The Better Angels of Our Nature" and "The Blank Slate" by Steven Pinker
"Infidel" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
"The End of Faith" by Sam Harris
today during the public talk the speaker said that satan was behind the new modern phones, which are like mini computers, so that the world would have easy access to pornography..
third post about the big disappointments that woke me up.
i'm writing them in no particular order.
these episodes made me bitter when they happened.
We used to make a point of having the CO & wife come over for lunch during their Congregationā¢ visits.
It all stopped when it was arranged for them to come, and an hour after the scheduled visit, they still hadn't arrived. Table set, food ready (okay, it was soup and a platter of various meats and cheeses for sandwiches, etc.), apartment spotless - and then he calls and said they'd been invited out to a restaurant, so they went there instead. No apology for bailing on us or making us wait. He asked if we could reschedule for the following day. I said that I had already made other plans for the next day. He made a snarky remark about that, to the effect that my priorities were out of order, and I replied that I could easily say the same about him, and hung up on him.
Even when we were asked after that to host the CO, I always declined and never, ever volunteered for that Privilegeā¢ again.
