Tnx, all! I do still lurk here on occasion, so I've been reading your posts even if you haven't been reading mine. ;)
Euphemism
JoinedPosts by Euphemism
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5
The Meditation Room (Memories of a Friendship)
by Euphemism in(warning: self-indulgent rambling ahead... i decided to write this for my own sake this afternoon, and i figured i might as well share it.).
i was a loner in college.
partly this was due to my religioni couldnt develop close friendships with classmates, since non-jehovahs witnesses were considered bad associationand partly to my lack of social skills, which made me a bit of a misfit even with my co-religionists.
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The Meditation Room (Memories of a Friendship)
by Euphemism in(warning: self-indulgent rambling ahead... i decided to write this for my own sake this afternoon, and i figured i might as well share it.).
i was a loner in college.
partly this was due to my religioni couldnt develop close friendships with classmates, since non-jehovahs witnesses were considered bad associationand partly to my lack of social skills, which made me a bit of a misfit even with my co-religionists.
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Euphemism
(Warning: self-indulgent rambling ahead... I decided to write this for my own sake this afternoon, and I figured I might as well share it.)
I was a loner in college. Partly this was due to my religion—I couldn’t develop close friendships with classmates, since non-Jehovah’s Witnesses were considered “bad association”—and partly to my lack of social skills, which made me a bit of a misfit even with my co-religionists. Through the lonely years in my teens when I was home-schooled, the Internet had been my primary social outlet. I participated in a couple of Usenet groups, geeky and somewhat twisted places whose members have probably moved on to 4chan, or wherever the interesting people at 4chan went when it was overrun by idiots.*
When I discovered the world of online Witness boards during my first year of college, it was a revelation. I could use the Internet—the medium that allowed me to hide my awkwardness and insecurity—to meet people whom I wasn’t religiously barred from close contact with. I left the first board I joined, because of excessive doctrinal laxity (they allowed a thread questioning the prohibition on blood transfusions); but over a year later, I found a more orthodox site; and in a few months, friends that I made there invited me to co-found our own board: The JW Zone. (Or sometimes, Z0ne.)
The Zone was many things to me. It was an experiment in incremental freedom—an attempt to loosen some of the religion’s more arbitrary restrictions on speech, thought, and behavior, without challenging the fundamental orthodoxies of the faith. It was also a chance to exercise a little bit of the power that, as a successful student of rule and doctrine, and the son of a prominent local elder, felt almost like a birthright. But above all, it was a welcoming social circle, the end of a long search for a place where I fit in.
Since we were spread all over the country, most of our interactions were online; but every few months we would gather in the hometown of one of our group, for a few days of surprisingly non-boozy college-kid (even though most were above college age) fun. As people’s flights were spread throughout the day, our parting-day ritual was going back and forth to the airport, the entire group sticking together, making a party out of whatever we did.
At one airport, I think it may have been Sacramento, we had time to kill between one trip and the next, so we wandered around the airport aimlessly. Finally, we ended up at the Meditation Room—a bland little chapel of padded chairs, blank walls, and not much else.
Luckily, no one was meditating, so the Meditation Room became our rec room. We talked and joked; we paid mock homage to each other; and someone was baptized with a Sprite bottle. Perhaps some traveler came by who wanted to use the room, and was chased away by our noise; I certainly hope not.
But although I am a quiet person, with that group I was not afraid to be loud. Probably we were obnoxious, but I didn’t worry about that. Certainly we were juvenile, but it felt okay.
Our little group changed over time, as people grew, romances happened, couples married, and hearts were broken. When I left the faith, the rules on former believers mandated a clean break. My friends also felt deceived that I had hid my apostasy for months. So the friendships ended with feelings of betrayal all around. A few folks were kind enough to at least say goodbye.
I’ve made good friends since then, and will hopefully make many more in my life. One of those friends said to me the other day that laughter and play are what make life truly beautiful. I wouldn’t quite phrase it that way—I don’t think they are sufficient conditions. But they are necessary. And so when I think of friendships past, I miss the Meditation Room.
*Or so I’ve gathered. I don’t really follow boards now, so no offense intended to any 4chan-ers out there, except for the dumba**es who hacked my wife’s DeviantArt account.
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Euphemism
This article doesn't actually give me much confidence in Jehovah's saving power, I'm afraid. Jehovah may have managed alright against those low-tech Egyptians, but as soon as they got over to Israel and ran into people with iron chariots, Jehovah got stuck. (Judges 1:19)
I'm pretty sure that the nations massed against Jehovah at Armageddon will have iron chariots: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrams_tank
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Someone help me understand!!
by sammielee24 ini always thought that the whole legal reason for putting up no trespassing signs, no soliticians, no religious persons, signs, was that it was my absolute right to privacy?.
i just had someone argue with me that there is no point to putting up these signs because i have no legal rights should any religious person choose to knock at my door.
that means that i have no rights or that my rights are always waved in the rights of any religious person - be they baptist, mormon, scientologist or mormons?
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Euphemism
From Watchtower v Stratton:
A section of the ordinance that petitioners do not challenge establishes a procedure by which a resident may prohibit solicitation even by holders of permits. If the resident files a "No Solicitation Registration Form" with the mayor, and also posts a "No Solicitation" sign on his property, no uninvited canvassers may enter his property, unless they are specifically authorized to do so
So even the Watchtower (the petitioners in this case) recognizes that legally, they are obligated to respect 'No Solicitation' signs.
(Just to add, in light of other recent threads: of course the legal remedy for a violation is lawsuits or fines, not personal reprisal. The reason why more people don't sue the Witnesses for trespassing is because it's simply not worth the bother for most people.)
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Euphemism
mkr32208 wrote:
I always assumed it was intended to refer to homosexuals but wouldn't all of that be covered by "men who lie with men?"
Actually, that goes into something I was reading recently apropos of Ahmadinejad's remarks (which Narkissos mentioned). The notion of 'homosexuality' as a sexual identity is a relatively recently one. As Leolaia's quote shows, Greek (and also Arab) cultures that accepted male-male sex perceived the 'top' role as merely another aspect of penetrative--i.e. male--sexuality; whereas the 'bottom' role was a distinct--and feminized--sexual identity. Hence Paul listing the two separately.
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Guess Who's Getting Married...
by SixofNine innow guess when.. .
ok, the who is easy.
the when is not nailed down just yet.
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Euphemism
Congrats!
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48
WTBTS Official Testified in the US Congress that Rutherford is Inspired
by Leolaia inmr. goux.
mr. goux.
mr. goux.
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The significance of this image...
by Awakened07 inthey say a picture is worth a thousand words.. .
to me, the picture posted below is one of the - if not the - most significant images i've seen so far in my life.
as i was growing up (a jw), i was taught that the universe was in perfect harmony.
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Euphemism
Interesting post, Awakened07, but I do see this a bit differently. When I was a believing Witness, I was perfectly well aware that the galaxies collided, and it didn't trouble me one bit. What's so 'perfect' about clockwork or stasis? I imagined God as an artist, creating a beautiful, dynamic cosmic system built around constant change. To take your car analogy, think of a craftsman who keeps building new and different cars by taking apart different cars and combining the pieces. It's not imperfection, it's creativity.
That said, we each had a different 'wedge'... something that didn't quite fit in our worldview, and got us thinking critically. If this served as the wedge for you, then more power to you.
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Property is theft?
by Narkissos infrom one language or one continent to another very similar words often have very different meanings.
perhaps notions too.. one striking example (for a french user of an english forum) is the political/economical use of the notion of "freedom / liberty".. for instance, "liberalism" in current english seems to be fairly equivalent to "left-wing" (on almost any issue, whether moral, social or economical).
in french, liberalisme points to low state involvement in economic or social issues, which is clearly a right-wing doctrine.
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Euphemism
Pardon me for resurrecting an old thread, but it was referenced on a more recent thread and I missed it the first time around.
I don't believe in property as a fundamental right in the libertarian sense; I view it as more of a pragmatically useful concept. Property rights provide the incentive to invest and be productive. There's no incentive for me to work and save money if I can't reasonably expect the money to still be mine when I retire. There's no incentive for people in South American shanty-towns to build better homes and communities if the government can force them to move at the drop of a hat.
That doesn't mean that any particular distribution of property is 'sacred', though. In the case of latifundios, for example, economic productivity might actually be improved if the land were redistributed to be owned by the people actually working it. But to gain the economic benefits, that sort of "one-time" adjustment would have to be made in a way that doesn't undermine the fundamental idea of property ownership, so that the new owners could borrow based on their land, be confident of recouping their labor, etc.
Nor do general principles tell us how to weight property rights against other rights. Several US states recently voted down proposals to require the government to compensate land owners for any regulation that decreased the value of their property. These proposals unfairly valued property rights above, say, the right to have a pollution-free environment.
A common challenge comes when ownership-based property rights clash with our intuitive model of property rights, which is based on use. E.g. "I've had this job 10 years, I'm entitled to it"; or "I've lived in this apartment for 15 years, it's my home." I think the law can recognize some of those claims (e.g. requiring severance based on a person's length on the job, or notice or relocation assistance for a terminated lease) without fundamentally altering the notion of ownership.
The only way I can see the notion of property ownership being unnecessary is in a post-scarcity society. Unless/until we reach that point, some form of distribution of resources is necessary, and individual ownership is the only way that's decentralized enough to allow an economy to grow in the long term. But I do think it's healthy to take a step back sometimes, and remember that ownership is a pragmatic tool, and not a fundamental moral right.
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Is this normal parenting behavior for JWs?
by oppgirl63 inlast night as i was waiting in my truck for my jw roommate to come out from tms, this lady comes out with a young girl crying.
i would say she was about 8 yrs old.
they were the only ones out there and i don't thing they saw me in my truck.
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Euphemism
Blondie... it's definitely true that region and local culture affect JW's view of corporal punishment. But surely you know that the WT also advocated corporal punishment quite explicitly from the 50's through the 80's? The WT is also very unusual in that it requires even very small children to sit through 2-hour lectures, and to be disciplined if they can't do that. I've been in congregations in Southern California, New York City, Spain, and Russia; and while not every family did it, in all of them it was considered normal and acceptable to spank kids at the KH for not sitting through meetings.