Posts by donkey

10

Launching into a thorough investigation.

by Blueblades in

jw
friends

have you pondered the "evidence" of the world-----of history------of science----of philosophy-----of psychology?

have you personally,without the help of others,launched into a thorough investigation concerning god,the bible,and jesus christ?

while i myself am still in pursuit,i am not yet finished nor have i come to any absolute conclusions about anything i am asking of you in this post.

donkey

Blue,

All you have to go on is faith. If evidence was to be found then scientists would have confirmed it - that is afterall what they do. Contrary to what religious writers say scientists generally are truth searchers for observable, provable facts.

All that creationists have been able to come up with can be classified into theories of myth or "logical conclusions" based on huge assumptions (eg. since the world was designed there must be a designer who must be god).

For quite a while I lived with my doubts while clinging to my religious beliefs. I look back now and I see that I did it because I wanted to believe in something and I wanted to believe that a higher power was in control of everything and was going to either make the world better or give me a better life after this one. However, wanting something to be true does not truth make. Wasitng your life believing and spending time and money after beliefs in something as nebulous as god is something akin to insanity. Don't believe me...then take a look at something like what the Batonka Tribe do - they knock out the teeth of their wives at their wedding ceremony as they beliee this will bring the blessings of Nyamami-Nyamami (their god) to their marriage. Now we look at that and say what a bunch of savages, but they are acting in accord with their belief. The same goes for those faiths who believe in circumcision. Are these people insane or misled or pleasing god? When we take whatever actions we do (like giving up our money, time, ambitions, desires, pleasures) for some god....how are we any different? Do we have evidence that our god is stronger than Nyamami-Nyamami or that Nyamami-Nyamami is false? The Batonka cannot supply any more proof that Nyamami-Nyamami is real than any Christians can and they cannot supply any less proof either.

Either way I am off to the dentist now

Jack

20

How do you manage your money?

by Billygoat in

jw
friends

as a child, i used to baby-sit kids in the neighborhood for money.

it wasnt much, but $2 or $3 an hour to a 14 year-old back in the early/mid 80s was pretty big stuff.

on new years eve when a lot of parents were clamoring for baby-sitters, the price would go up to $5 an hour, which was awesome.

donkey

You will get many different answers to this question...most of them are wrong (look at the outcomes and measure the results for yourself).

First off you have to ask the right questions and get the right perspectives. If you have a job and work for money who are you doing it for? Hopefully you turn around and say: “I am doing it for ME” and not “I am doing for XYZ credit card company”. That being said if the reality of where your money is being spent is on paying creditors you have effectively given up your time to work for someone else only to have them pay someone else and NOT you.

I have helped a few people get out of debt by using the following method which accelerates the removal of debt and eventually becomes a savings/investment plan.

In order to pay off debts you have to pick the right ones to pay off first. Which are those? Make a list of the debts you have and sort the list in descending order by interest rate (the highest interest rate first throught the lowest interest rate). Let’s take an example:
Suppose you have 5 accounts A, B, C, D and E. Suppose the rate for A is 10%, B is 12%, C is 12%, D is 18% and E is 9%.
Sort them as follows:
D, B,C,A,E
Lets say further that the minimum payment on each is $200 and lets say you can afford to save $200 per month. So you pay the minimum on B,C,A,E but pay for D you pay off $400 per month unti it is paid off. You then take that $400 per month and apply it to the next debt which happens to be B – so you are paying off $400 + $200 (you had to pay off the minimum on B anyway) and you keep going like this until you have all your debts paid off in this manner. Once they are all cleared you now have $1,200 per month to save/invest which was previously being used to rent a lifestyle.

It takes time and discipline but many have done it and many have gone on to reap the rewards. You work for YOU not for some lousy creditor. It is up to YOU to ensure that YOU see the rewards for your efforts. We have all been in tough situations before and most have been in debt – unfortuantely most of us never learn to get out and stay out of debt and will die poor having had a miserable old age because we don’t have the resources to take care of ourselves.

I could go on for ever on this subject, mortgages, investing asset protection but I feel this board is not the place for this and I do not want to be responsible for the actions of others.

Jack

60

TIME TO IMPLEMENT THE GARYBUSS PHILOSOPHY!

by Dansk in

in view of what has recently happened to rozalyn (rebel) i believe anyone who is considering attending a judicial committee should take note:.

i have always tried to love others from my own childhood upbringing.

i have been treated like a traitor.

donkey

Dansk,

As far as elders go - I agree totally. Where I draw the distinction with what I have read from Garybuss is that I will never write off my family. To each his own.

Jack

60

TIME TO IMPLEMENT THE GARYBUSS PHILOSOPHY!

by Dansk in

in view of what has recently happened to rozalyn (rebel) i believe anyone who is considering attending a judicial committee should take note:.

i have always tried to love others from my own childhood upbringing.

i have been treated like a traitor.

donkey

60

TIME TO IMPLEMENT THE GARYBUSS PHILOSOPHY!

by Dansk in

in view of what has recently happened to rozalyn (rebel) i believe anyone who is considering attending a judicial committee should take note:.

i have always tried to love others from my own childhood upbringing.

i have been treated like a traitor.

donkey

Dansk I am so sorry for what you have gone through.

That being said I disagree with the Gary Buss approach. I will take the conditional love from my family rather than the approach "if you won't let me hug you then I can't love you" approach.

I view religion (particularly the JW religion since it affects me personally) as a disease. My family is afflicted with the disease - so I ask if they were afflicted with a physical disease or a different mental disease and they could not or did not wantg me to hug them or care for them....I know they aren't thinking clearly and I will still love them unconditionally.

It is the opposite approach - I will shower them with love and see if my love is stronger than what they get from their spiritual brothers.

Jack

52

Would you be willing to admit it if you've been a hypocrite?

by onacruse in

for the last 20 years of my association with the jws, i was, more or less, a hypocrite.

they taught things i didn't believe, but i went to the meetings and, by my presence there and by my "non-answers" i in essence supported something that i didn't believe.. it's a hard thing to say "i was a hypocrite.".

i was.. craig

donkey

OK, I confess I am really a mule.

17

Physical and/or Spiritual

by Inkie in

no doubt all (with few and rare exceptions) believe that the physical world exists.

however, what i should like to know is, how many here believe that a spiritual world exists?

and, if you believe that a spiritual world exists, do you believe that the two worlds (or universes, call it what you like) each exist separately and distinct one from the other?

donkey

I have seen the Green Demon. It is a bad little monster.....the bastard got me DFed from here!!!

40

Check your IQ in less than 13 minutes

by JH in

jw
friends

thanks to quinah and nathan natas of another forum, here is the link to check your iq.

http://www.iqtest.com/.

it says i have an iq of 139 .

donkey

Donkey said:
I got 84
Dumb Ass!

40

Check your IQ in less than 13 minutes

by JH in

jw
friends

thanks to quinah and nathan natas of another forum, here is the link to check your iq.

http://www.iqtest.com/.

it says i have an iq of 139 .

donkey

I got 84

8

Is false hope better than none?

by GinnyTosken in

jw
friends

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.

donkey

From my own reading and thinking I see much evidence of evolution and zero to support God. Over the past year I have been keenly interested in evoltuional psychology as it seems to hold many of the keys as to why people actually need to believe in God,

That being said I will try to distill my thoughts as simply as possible here:

As humans our primary function is survival-centric - self preservation is our purpose above all other. Our psyche is also centered to survival and as such fear and hope are dominant to meet that end. Without hope meaning/perceived life-purpose is generally considered lost and without it humans tend to revert back to primitive instincts and behaviors.

I have no hope - and I well know the void I have inside me and how painful it is when I think about that void so I avoid thinking about it. On the otherhand I also despise ALL religion and what it stands for (many play the mental-masturbation game and say they are spiritual vs religious...a kind of self denial - but so be it) and I personally hope that the WTBS is correct in their predictions about religion being destroyed. But on the flipside I understand how key HOPE is to the survival of our species and if their is one thing religion does well it gives people hope (yes the placebo effect works well doesn't it?) so I just don't see this happening and if I am to be realistic I should not want this to happen either and should sacrifice my ideal of a world without religion for a world where hope still lives.

I wish I still had hope - perhaps then my view of life and the world would be different.

Jack