Posts by Xander

between sips of mcginty's cerebral tonic for clear thinkers, i have been reading a book by martin seligman called learned optimism.. seligman began by researching learned helplessness.

he describes one of his early experiments:.

the third dog was left alone.

Xander

I pondered this in terms of my JW experience. In many ways, it was much easier to be an optimist as a JW. If I did something bad, I could blame it on sin, the weakness of the flesh, or the temptations of this world and Satan. If something bad happened to me, it was likely persecution. None of this was certainly going to last forever because the end was coming soon. Weakness would not undermine everything I did if I only had faith and relied on Jehovah. My actions were not futile. I was part of a dramatic moment in human history, part of a large army!

Funny, in that I always read the JW experience as the exact opposite.

It was a haven for doomsayers and gloom-mongers.

Your actions WERE futile, because they had no meaning at all. At least, in reality, one human CAN make a difference, but it is well know it will usually not be much. In JWdom, no human makes a difference.

You can't EARN salvation - no matter how hard you try, it means nothing, god will save you or not based solely on his own mercy.

Preaching the kingdom isn't anything special - it's an obligation, to be sure, but if you didn't - 'the rocks themselves would cry out'. IE., the very effort you spend everyday putting all your energy into is nothing that god coudn't just will into being if he really needed to.

Finally, there is all the parts pointing out that nobody makes a difference. Remember the "I planted, but Apollos watered" parts? Drilling into us the idea that no one of us was anything special - it all took a group effort?

Finally, there is the latest 'new light' that the end will come when it comes, regardless of whether the kingdom news had ACTUALLY been preached to every last person or not. IE., not even working as a group, preaching your heads off will make the end come any sooner or later.

4

Anyone know what's on the Two Towers extended DVD?

by Xander in

just curious, probably going to get both again, anyway, but i'm wondering what they added in the additional 35 minutes.. .

couldn't really find anything in searching around the sites for the movies, but, then, i don't spend much time there.

.

Xander

Riiiiight....

What KIND of additional footage.

I hear 43 min - that's quite a bit.

What's it all about?

4

Anyone know what's on the Two Towers extended DVD?

by Xander in

just curious, probably going to get both again, anyway, but i'm wondering what they added in the additional 35 minutes.. .

couldn't really find anything in searching around the sites for the movies, but, then, i don't spend much time there.

.

Xander

Just curious, probably going to get both again, anyway, but I'm wondering what they added in the additional 35 minutes.

Couldn't really find anything in searching around the sites for the movies, but, then, I don't spend much time there.

Anybody know?

4

Rumsfield: Iraq may have fully complied with UN inspections before war?

by Xander in

u.s. defense secretary donald rumsfeld appeared to support that premise tuesday, saying a possible reason that iraqi chemical and biological weapons have not been found was that saddam's government had destroyed them before the conflict.

link here.. certainly interesting implications, if true.. so, what, we invade other countries even if they do follow all un resolutions, but fail to file the proper paperwork?.

but, the war's not about oil, though, right?

Xander

Bump for those who haven't seen it.

(It seems especially appropriate in view of this thread)

18

Living near nuclear power plants

by JH in

jw
friends

do you think that nuclear power plants are safe, either from terrorism or malfunctions?.

i live about 10 miles from the only nuclear power plant in quebec.

every now and then they talk about either closing it down or upgrading it.. would you mind living close to a nuclear power plant?

Xander

Amazing has posted here some very good information in the past on the safety of nuclear plants that was very informative. He seems to think there is nothing to worry about if I remember correctly

What's interesting, too, is it's not just the safety concern.

Coal burned in your typical coal power plants is not entirely pure. It does contain trace amounts of various radioactive materials, and given the hundres of thousands of tons of coal burned each year....there is actually more radioactive debris pumped into the atmosphere each year from coal plants than radiation emitted by the Three Mile Island accident!

13

The WT on witchcraft

by figureheaduk in

felt a little bored earlier so i decided to take a trip over to the wt's badly researched propaganda official site, when i stumbled upon this little gem concerning the wiccan faith:.

http://www.watchtower.org/library/w/2000/4/1/article_02.htm.

it's the usual waffle from the (old) boys in brooklyn about paganism is worshipping satan, only the bible (and by implication that the wt) is the absolute "truth" blah, blah, blah.

Xander

Is this just a comment on the people I know, or is a more widespread thing on people leaving the organisation?

I think it may be organization-related.

For example, many people upon leaving become curious in it, or, say, Catholicism (which the JWs are also big against), but not so much into Islam or Judaism.

Why?

Probably because of how much energy the JWs spent against Catholicism and witchcraft - those who leave generally do so because they discovered too many lies in the organization, causing them to loose faith. Once they start seeing all these lies, they start wondering (naturally), 'what else has the organization lied about'? The obvious thing to do would be investigate some.

It's not so much rebelling as curiosity, I think. If you were told a car you just bought had a great, new, transmission...that turned out to be junk, and great, new wheels...that had many thousands of miles on them, and were junk, and a brand new cooling system....that didn't work, and had obviously been reworked several times....well....you start wondering about the rest what the salesman said about the car, too, and you have it checked out.

25

What The F..................!

by Englishman in

jw
friends

maybe i'm in need of some enlightenment here.

through the means of educational tv (such as the simpsons), i have always thought that a sufferer from tourettes syndrome cussed and swore for most of his waking life.. however, just a few moments ago, i encountered this in thursdays the times:.

manchester united expect to complete the acquisition of tim howard, the american goalkeeper who suffers from tourettes syndrome, within a fortnight.

Xander

i wonder if there's ever been a JW with TS.

Yup, I do/did, in fact, have it as a JW - no meds, btw.

do you think the JWS would theink the person would have a demon?

That was a pretty common assumption.

he does cough, clear his throat, have jerky movements with his arms, claps, etc

That is more like what mine was. As years pass, the 'twitch' moves around. Sometimes it's simply a muscle twitch in my arm, for a while I had to toss my head side to side....honestly, it's really VERY irritating.

one of her tics was to say "F**k me in the A**Hoooollleee" man, can you imagine...not even realizing your saying this

And anyone who says that is bullshitting you. It only takes a little concentration (as in, if you know you have it, you pretty much ALWAYS have this level of concentration) to know when your 'tic' is going off, and, generally, you are very, very conscious of it, as even simply hand or arm twitches is quite socially unacceptable.

with extreme concentration some tics diminish or go away completely

That's true, and why most people with it are generally quite fine.

As you can imagine, it was a REAL problem for me (and, I'm assuming, many with it) at meetings. Because you got bored (and I was a super-duper-uber-JW...and STILL frequently got bored), you start twitching (or whatever). Of course, before the Awake article on it, most JWs refused to believe such a thing was anything but demonic posession - that it happened more during meetings and less when watching 'wordly' entertainment like TV or movies was a sure sign!

(As an aside - anyone else every get intensely irritated at JWs who refused to believe anything medical science or science in general discovered until it was in an Awake? Very annoying).

Anyway, in addition to concentration, getting lots of sleep helps it almost completely go away. I'm talking a LOT more sleep than is needed. I'm 24 now, and if I get about 14 hours of sleep, I can go through the rest of the day completely twitch-free. A more normal 6 to 8 hours leaves me battling twitches all day, and if I get less than that, it's quite difficult to get through a day.

As with anything, you just have to be conscious of your limitations, and work within them. I try to get plenty of sleep when I can, and try to stay concentrated as much as possible, and, as a result, most people I know have no idea I have to deal with this all the time.

4

Rumsfield: Iraq may have fully complied with UN inspections before war?

by Xander in

u.s. defense secretary donald rumsfeld appeared to support that premise tuesday, saying a possible reason that iraqi chemical and biological weapons have not been found was that saddam's government had destroyed them before the conflict.

link here.. certainly interesting implications, if true.. so, what, we invade other countries even if they do follow all un resolutions, but fail to file the proper paperwork?.

but, the war's not about oil, though, right?

Xander

It would take fifteen years at maximum oil capacity (after spending 30 billion in upgrades to achieve this) just to pay for the war, let alone, doing it for oil.

Indeed, and you think the Bush family, let alone the US, plans on not existing 15 years from now?

Nations regularly take actions not expecting an immediate benefit. The US wanted a stake in the region of the world's largest oil reserves, and now the US has a piece of land there. Coincedence?

Also, Iraq was in material breach for other violations including the act or omission in cooperating with the Un inspectors

Been through this already:

Iraq was complying just fine.