Xander

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Posts by Xander

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  17

  Ashi's Apostasy---Part Last Formal Apostate

  by ashitaka in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  my future brother in law (futurebro) is a great guy, as ive mentioned.

  he really cares about people, doesnt want to hurt anyones feelings.

  yet, now he was trapped between doing the right thing, and possibly losing his parents.

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  Xander

  Yeah, man, good show.

  I wish I had your kind of luck with my family. Still working on it, but they all seem to be in big-time denial mode. Bring anything even remotely anti-JW up, they keep going on their topic as if I said nothing. Wife even cries time to time if I bring up anything about the j-dubs (dunno why - she hates them - I think she just wants to pretend that whole period of her life never happened, which I don't understand).

  A fanatic is one who, upon losing sight of his goals, redoubles his efforts.
  --George Santayana
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  29

  Questions for Evolutionists

  by RWC in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  it appears that alot of people on this board believe in evolution (either by that name or by another) as the explanation for the origins of life.

  to those people i would sincerely ask the following:.

  1. where did plants come from?.

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  Xander

  Sometimes you best show your intelligence by not replying.

  Seemed like a sincere question - if it was flame-bait, I would have expected more inflamatory accusations.

  At any rate, the sources posted in this thread have some good information. Read up, and post any more questions you have.

  A fanatic is one who, upon losing sight of his goals, redoubles his efforts.
  --George Santayana
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  29

  Questions for Evolutionists

  by RWC in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  it appears that alot of people on this board believe in evolution (either by that name or by another) as the explanation for the origins of life.

  to those people i would sincerely ask the following:.

  1. where did plants come from?.

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  Xander

  And more good points along those lines:

  The misconception about the lack of transitional fossils is perpetuated in part by a common way of thinking about categories. When people think about a category like "dog" or "ant," they often subconsciously believe that there is a well-defined boundary around the category, or that there is some eternal ideal form (for philosophers, the Platonic idea) which defines the category. This kind of thinking leads people to declare that Archaeopteryx is "100% bird," when it is clearly a mix of bird and reptile features (with more reptile than bird features, in fact). In truth, categories are man-made and artificial. Nature is not constrained to follow them, and it doesn't.

  A fanatic is one who, upon losing sight of his goals, redoubles his efforts.
  --George Santayana
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  29

  Questions for Evolutionists

  by RWC in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  it appears that alot of people on this board believe in evolution (either by that name or by another) as the explanation for the origins of life.

  to those people i would sincerely ask the following:.

  1. where did plants come from?.

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• 

  Xander

  And, here is another link that actually answers many of the questions you brought up:

  http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html

  A fanatic is one who, upon losing sight of his goals, redoubles his efforts.
  --George Santayana
• 
  29

  Questions for Evolutionists

  by RWC in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  it appears that alot of people on this board believe in evolution (either by that name or by another) as the explanation for the origins of life.

  to those people i would sincerely ask the following:.

  1. where did plants come from?.

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• 

  Xander

  Important read:

  http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-definition.html

  Defining what 'evolution' is. I kind of was heading this way above - in short, most of what creationists have a problem with is misunderstanding what 'evolution' is.

  Highlights of the article:
  It is important to note that biological evolution refers to populations and not to individuals and that the changes must be passed on to the next generation. In practice this means that,

  Evolution is a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations.

  and...

  When someone claims that they don't believe in evolution they cannot be referring to an acceptable scientific definition of evolution because that would be denying something which is easy to demonstrate. It would be like saying that they don't believe in gravity! (emphasis added)

  A fanatic is one who, upon losing sight of his goals, redoubles his efforts.
  --George Santayana
• 
  29

  Questions for Evolutionists

  by RWC in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  it appears that alot of people on this board believe in evolution (either by that name or by another) as the explanation for the origins of life.

  to those people i would sincerely ask the following:.

  1. where did plants come from?.

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  3. 
• 

  Xander

  I think that's the biggest mistake creationists make.

  They assume 'evolution' means one day a group of monkeys started giving birth to humans.

  No one is suggesting that. Evolution is a slow process of change. At some point, some group of primates started growing less hair, started standing upright. Over generations and generations, their brains became larger.

  A big part of the problem is our language. Looking at one animal, we say 'chimpanzee', at another 'human'. How different are they REALLY? How many changes does the chimpanzee's physiology have to go through before we call it something else? Evolution is about all those changes that go along the way - not just the name change! (As most creationists seem to believe).

  Since this is a JW board, I'll go ahead and forward that the 'Creation' book is one of the worst pro-creation books I've ever seen - it's poorly written, poorly researched, and likes to draw conclusions out of thin air.

  A fanatic is one who, upon losing sight of his goals, redoubles his efforts.
  --George Santayana
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  25

  please help my friend know she is not alone.

  by hungry4life in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  everyone on this board has always been there for me when i needed help and i appreciate it so much.

  now it is my friend that is in trouble.

  (the same one that i wrote about in most of my other posts particularly the ones about ray franz and coc).

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  Xander

  There is life-- great life after the Watchtower!

  A good reminder. She needs physical help first - get out of that situation. Secondly comes spiritual assistance, and there are a LOT of other options for that.

  There are a number of good christian religions, and there are a number of good non-christian religions. She can worry about that later. Right now, she needs to find one of the good SECULAR organizations.

  A fanatic is one who, upon losing sight of his goals, redoubles his efforts.
  --George Santayana
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  23

  Don't want to stumble anyone!

  by Beck_Melbourne in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  did you have narrow minded turds as elders/overseers in your congregation?

  yup so did i...they're everwhere.. "there was this one time..at band camp"....it was in a hired hall actually...where we used to organise congregation functions like farewells etc.

  this usually consisted of food...non alcoholic beverages...and some entertainment...usually square dancing and some skits...and a presentation or speech.. at one function a particular elder was offended that the 'gay gordon' was one of the dances for the evening...so he promptly left...yup...at the next function it was renamed the 'happy gordon'...as his conscience wouldn't allow him to attend otherwise.

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  Xander

  I knew a young brother (approx 18 yrs old) who used to play the piano at the Kingdom Hall...and he stumbled some individuals because he jazzed up the kingdom melodies

  ROFLMAO!!

  How long ago did you leave? You know they did a district convention part where they mentioned this? Drama, I think...something about making changes to god's provided gifts or something. One of the boys in the 'spiritual family' represented wanted to 'jazz up' a kingdom song, and he got counseled on it, which led to the flashback to 'ancient times', blahblahblah. (Anyone remember clearer what the whole deal was?)

  They even mentioned it in several parts in service meetings. Gawd, there must have been a rash of j-dubs-in-da-HOOD. Hehe.

  A fanatic is one who, upon losing sight of his goals, redoubles his efforts.
  --George Santayana
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  25

  please help my friend know she is not alone.

  by hungry4life in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  everyone on this board has always been there for me when i needed help and i appreciate it so much.

  now it is my friend that is in trouble.

  (the same one that i wrote about in most of my other posts particularly the ones about ray franz and coc).

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  Xander

  I still say 'get out of the house', especially if there's children involved.

  Right, yes, agree with you.

  Sorry if I kind of went of a tangent there.

  Short summary would be - elders won't help, they'll make things worse. Get out. Get out NOW.

  A fanatic is one who, upon losing sight of his goals, redoubles his efforts.
  --George Santayana
• 
  25

  please help my friend know she is not alone.

  by hungry4life in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  everyone on this board has always been there for me when i needed help and i appreciate it so much.

  now it is my friend that is in trouble.

  (the same one that i wrote about in most of my other posts particularly the ones about ray franz and coc).

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  Xander

  My question is this: if this man is studying with the JW's, and he's behaving this way, what 'remedy' does the study conductor have? Where are the elders concerning HIS behavior?

  I'm going to assume you never attended a kingdom hall in a poorer region of the country.

  To say the elders turn a blind eye to abuse cases is...well...an understatement.

  Men can be attracted to the JW lifestyle because of the submission that women/wives are supposed to exhibit. That means that if the woman in his life chooses NOT to accept this role, there WILL be problems that will NOT go away.

  And this is exactly why. As long as the husband is a publisher in good standing, the wife can bring no charges against him a JC would listen to. Remember, it takes 2 witnesses...

  And to top it off, if it just the wife's word against her husband, they typically take his side of it.

  I've actually seen this happening. Wife complains to elder about verbally abusive husband. Elders take husband aside and councel him for his wife not properly appreciating the headship principle (IE., complaining to the elders about her husbands 'headship'). And, of course, take wife and children aside and councel them on not appreciating godly headship.

  If this even happened at only one hall, but no, more than one....

  Know what, I'm going to step away from the keyboard for a moment here, this one is just a little too close....

  A fanatic is one who, upon losing sight of his goals, redoubles his efforts.
  --George Santayana