I just finished this series and left conflicted. Overall, I enjoyed it, but had nagging negatives about it too that I did not want to have. These things have just sat there, eating at my enjoyment of the experience and the more I think about them, the more they bother me.
On the positives: The series is beautifully written, acted and filmed. I loved the setting, the slow burns and depth and richness of the characters. I love watching movies and shows that surprise me... I don't want to see the obvious Hollywood cliches and signaling. This series had none of that. It entertained me and kept me wanting to see what happened next with each episode. This is not the case with some shows at all; I will leave them abandoned as I am want to do with a meal I am not enjoying - just not worth the time and calories to finish. This show: I gobbled up.
But as time the episode came on that told me what genre this movie was based on, I was a little disappointed. No, this is not a traditional show of that genre because it has a scientific twist to it, but still, in the end it was a show about "V-------s". Just accept it, that is the basis of the show. I had to.
But the thing is, the Vs in this show are depicted as the "bad" and the rest of the town (except the crazy religious nut lady who takes over) are the good. At least that is how the show portrays them. But why are the Vs bad? Are they not also just part of "nature," "evolution," "the universe?" Are they not part of "God," the "I am who I am" that the "good" character (who was a drug addicted, rock and roll wannabe who ended up pregnant and in an abusive relationship) quoted in the end, thus putting an exclamation point of what most non-believer/athiests adhere to? If there is no "god" then why are the Vs bad? Wouldn't the world be better off with everyone being a V? If not, why not? It's all survival of the fittest, no? Why is there a moral judgement being made against Vs? Who's to say that they don't deserve to survive and the rest of mankind be replaced?
These were the questions I had once everything ended and I watched the closing credits. They are things I had not really thought of in that way at all. It had me asking myself that even an obvious non-believer/atheist writer who created this world believes that mankind is better off without Vs, better off with "love" for each other (a real abstract thing when looked at from an evolutionary standpoint) and sacrificing themselves for the better of humanity while quoting from scripture "there is no love greater than one who would die for others."
The thing is, why do all the Christians have to either be A) Crazy, B) Controlling, C) Naive sheep to the slaughter, D) Weak or perhaps all the above? Are there no strong, decent, compassionate, intelligent, insightful, balanced religious people in the world?
Why are all the heroes of this series either Gay, or drunken manslaughterers, or ex-addicts, or Muslim? The Christians were pretty much just a bunch of weak dummies, with the exception of the one psycho, power-hungry clergy-woman.
In the end, this show was to me a walking contradiction, trying to have it both ways: depicting inherent weakness and futility in religion, yet referencing it repeatedly as the basis of the best in the human experience.
Brock Talon
JoinedPosts by Brock Talon
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10
MIDNIGHT MASS on Netflix is extraordinary (horror)
by Terry ini will post a **spoiler** in a few minutes.a 7 part horror movie on netflix titled midnight mass blew me away and i thought i mightrecommend this limited series (only seven parts.first of all, there is a word never ever mentioned by anybody in this horror drama.that is for a good reason.
a very good reason.
i won't mention it either or i'd ruin part of the build-up inside the plot.suffice to say, this horror story is a very fresh take on a well-trodden path we've all been down many times (if we are fans.
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Brock Talon
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6
Will your wife let you......
by mickbobcat ini grew up in the 70s and had a few of the posters young guys have.
farrah fawcett and bo derek in 10. i just bought a vintage copy of both for my work shop.
my wife says she does not care but you never know.
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Brock Talon
I married a partner not a mother.
Here here!
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My latest novel is now available on Amazon, I think you might like it.
by JeffT inmy latest novel, “armageddon’s disciples” is now available in both print and kindle versions.
a brief description:.
“when three “disciples” of the word of god foundation discover seventeen-year-old alice lahti dead in their meeting hall, detective ed franklin quickly finds a tangled web of toxic relationships, sexual abuse, blackmail, murder, and bizarre failed prophecies.
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Brock Talon
Good Lord, Jeff! 50 chapters and 400 pages? Leo Tolstoy would be jealous.
The book does sound intriguing... I might partake if I get the time.
Wishing you many, many readers.
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14
My 20 year anniversary
by new boy inafter being a jehovah's witness for 52 years, today marks my 20 year anniversary of being out of the borg!
i turned in my letter of disassociation on september 18th 2001. it was read to the congregation on september 19th, my wife's birthday.
of course the years have had its difficulties but it has also had many wonderful experiences and epiphanies.
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Brock Talon
Congrats, Keith. It's good being free.
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I have never been to Las Vegas.
by Iamallcool ini would like to visit las vegas one day.
if you have a choice, would you want to live there?
low humidity sounds good to me.
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Brock Talon
I've been to Vegas probably 20+ times. The earlier times were personal trips, the remaining mostly for business.
When you say "Las Vegas" I assume you mean the strip, which gets all the attention, but there are actually lots of cool things to do off the strip as well. Over the years, as my business often required me to stay for 5, 6, 7 days at a time, I grew tired of the place. But that only happened slowly because there were so many things to do there and each year there was something fresh to see or do. So while it would be easy for me to say now that I do not really like the place much any more (which would be true) it would also be a bit hypocritical of me because I actually enjoyed going there at one time quite a bit.
For the record, I am not much of a gambler, I don't smoke cigarettes (but do enjoy a cigar now and then) and my drinking is relatively modest. As such, the casino action itself never really interested me. It was all the other "stuff" that was so enjoyable.
Vegas is a place that everyone should experience at least once in their life. It's like a Disney theme park for adults. -
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How do JW feel about CBD?
by Iamallcool ini am not so sure if i am willing to discuss cbd with my jw aunt.
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Brock Talon
No one here has seemed to weigh in on how JWs feel about CBD. I've been out so long now, I have no idea myself and I don't really care.
To me, being against CBD would like being against aspirin. (But I wouldn't put it past some self-righteous JWs making a stink about it.)
And like aspirin, it does not work for everyone.
I tried the sublingual drops myself: bought a six month supply. I doubled up on the dose after month two.
NOTHING.
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15
Get Vaccinated or Get laid Off
by StephaneLaliberte ini’m personally for the vaccine, took two shots and would take a third if asked.
but i know a friend of mine that doesn’t want to take the vaccine who works for the government and now is faced with this choice: get vaccinated or get laid off.
i don’t agree with this measure as it is totalitarian and runs against my core belief in individual freedom.. now, with that being said, what i don’t understand is that my friend still won’t get vaccinated.
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Brock Talon
Would these dreaded maladies get reduced in threat despite an uproar? Thoughts?
1. The smallpox vaccine prevented the spread of smallpox. The COVID-19 vaccines do not prevent the spread of COVID-19.
The CDC and other pro-vaccine camps attempt to counter this fact by claiming that vaccines "reduce the rate" of spread, but really, how can this be known? Besides that, their faith in the vaccines themselves are refuted by their own recommendations after getting a vaccine: Get all the boosters. Continue to wear a mask. Continue social distancing, etc.
See: https://www.cdc.gov/smallpox/vaccine-basics/index.html
2. Smallpox had a worldwide mortality rate of 30%. COVID-19 worldwide mortality rate is 2% (allegedly)
Note: The U.S. mortality rate for COVID-19 is even less and that is if you accept the dubious mortality numbers to begin with, given the WHO, CDC, and others have been counting people who die WITH COVID-19 the same as those who die FROM it. On your deathbed with cancer and then get COVID-19 to finish you off? COVID death. Go through a windshield in an accident, get rushed to a hospital and they find you have COVID-19 and you die? COVID death.
Note: I am not in the camp of people who read that one report about only 6% of COVID-19 deaths have no co-morbidity as meaning the number of COVID-19 death reported can then be reduced by 94%. That is much too simplistic. But I AM in the camp of those who believe the reported numbers of COVID-19 deaths have been counted in a way that no other disease in history has been counted and errors on the side of being inflated. That much is absolutely irrefutable.
See: https://www.health.harvard.edu/a_to_z/smallpox-a-to-z
See: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
3. Smallpox cannot travel to and from animals, mutate and come back again. COVID-19 variants can.
See my previous post: https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5080390732611584/why-covid-19-vaccine-mandate-wrong
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We need to stop being frightened to death by people trying to control us. We need to think for ourselves, seek out the facts as best we can about our options (like any disease) and make our own decisions on how to treat ourselves.
We do NOT need to be led over the cliff like a bunch of lemmings.
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Who is the SEXIST MAN ALIVE in 2021?
by pistolpete inanthony fauci.
https://nypost.com/2021/09/15/the-guardian-proclaims-dr-anthony-fauci-sexiest-man-alive/.
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Brock Talon
Dr. Fauci should be declared "The unsexiest manslayer alive" -
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Get Vaccinated or Get laid Off
by StephaneLaliberte ini’m personally for the vaccine, took two shots and would take a third if asked.
but i know a friend of mine that doesn’t want to take the vaccine who works for the government and now is faced with this choice: get vaccinated or get laid off.
i don’t agree with this measure as it is totalitarian and runs against my core belief in individual freedom.. now, with that being said, what i don’t understand is that my friend still won’t get vaccinated.
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Brock Talon
To answer your question, see this post:
https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5080390732611584/why-covid-19-vaccine-mandate-wrong
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29
Why did Lloyd Evans say in one of his latest video
by mickbobcat inso i was watching an evans video he just put out where he was interviewing a man about how the cult treated his daughter who was rapped as a criminal.
the man said his wife's first experience with an apostate site was here.
i could tell by the look on his face he did not like that site and then could not help himself and said that he could not recommend going to this site.
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Brock Talon
there is a tendency for it to become a motivation to perpetuate the thing itself and to invent things to use to continue the money-making activism, even if there is nothing really that warrants any 'activisming'
So, so true. I have watched for years as people like Al Sharpton will perpetuate race issues without any REAL intent on fixing any real issues, lest the problems be actually addressed and potentially solved and their living dried up.
Example: It was actually frightening to see Al, and the rest of the Black community, label Donald Trump a racist the minute he came down the elevator to announce his running for president. Frightening because I had known for years that Donald Trump was the DARLING of Democrats, Liberals, Progressives and the like, and all were fast close friends with Trump. When I heard Trump was running for office I thought to myself "here is a non-politician type who could actually help change things and possibly bridge the gap between blacks and whites, liberals and conservatives." (Although I admit that I thought he had a snowball's chance of actually getting elected.) But instead of leveraging Trump's desire to help the Black community once he was in office (he reached out early and often to them) he was bitterly rejected and labeled a racist by the likes of Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, et al. These were people who previously were good friends with "The Orange man." Sure, Donald was a brash, loud, bullying, wife-cheating ego maniac who said dumb things, but he was THEIR brash, loud, bullying, wife-cheating ego maniac who said dumb things. But now, the "activists" believed it was better to make Trump out to be a racist so the hand wringing and black activism could continue in earnest - anything to keep the activist engine running and those coffers full. Heaven forbid we as a country actually SOLVE any real black vs. white issues that may exist. It was there and then that I realized what fakes, liars and charlatans these people really were. They did not care one blasted bit about the actual issues, everything was motivated by politics, money, power, and the like. That much became crystal clear.
Meanwhile, these same "activists" just LOVED Joe Biden, a career politician with a proven track-record of racism. The current Vice President aptly called Joe out on this during the presidential debates, but then awkwardly tried to walk it back after being asked to run for VP with her racist running mate. What a crock.
But hey, what does that matter to the activists? Now they can continue with hand wringing and activism some more! These are the same people who gave Obama a pass at doing A BIG FAT ZERO for the Black community in 8 years of office, but excuse away Trump's criminal justice reform, pardoning of a black prisoner, support of Black Colleges, etc. that actually DID help the Black community.
Hypocrites.
That is why the problems that the black community complains about NEVER GET FIXED, at least, in their minds, because their activist leaders makes sure they don't.
In the end, most "career activists" end up being con men and con women for exactly this.