Posts by Odrade

Orgull, try google, myspace, facebook, 411, all the searches. I found my best friend like that, even though it had been 10 years. It was not an easy search, I tried a nickname and got a hit.

61

Look what I got last night :)

by misanthropic in

jw
friends

he's 7 weeks old, he's a chocolate lab and i named him tony.

his eye isn't messed up it just looks that way because i was trying to get his face to look forward while i pushed the button all at once.

he kept me up all night last night crying, but hopefully just like with my beagle he will outgrow that.

Doggy boot camp? Or hunting school? Which program are you using? I have two bad dogs that I've just starting using "The Culture Clash" methods on... seems to be working better. They are both quiet right now, and Murphy (mini-dach) just went on an entire walk without trying to bite another dog, or going bark-tastic at dogs and bikers...

19

"You have received nothing but love from us..."

by DeusMauzzim in

jw
friends

"... since you were raised in the truth.

we respect your decision to break your promise and walk away, but don't slander us by talking about [child abuse / ngo / malawi / insert here].

how would you respond to this?.

Odrade

If you married a man, then discovered he already had a wife or two, and the marriage wasn't legal, would you feel justified in leaving? After all, you made a promise to "Love, Honor and Obey, till death parts" you.

It was a promise based on faulty premises and outright lies, thus the promise is not valid. I will respect your request not to speak of pedophiles and Harlots with YOU, but that is all.

16

Don't eat at Mario's!

by changeling in

the anticipation for the sept km is making me crazy!

i hope this rumor is on the level.

if it turns out to be a hoax i will be crushed.

Odrade

I like it! I'd love it if instead of moving to Staten Island, Chuck and Suzie never ate at Mario's again, but DID discover a new fantastic restaurant around the corner where the owner himself revealed one or two of HIS favorite places nearby... ;)

17

Pulling The TriggerThe Watchtower's Discipline

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

pulling the triggerthe watchtower's discipline *disclaimer: .

the approach of this topic requires that you temporarily disconnect your emotions.

connected to the watchtower society and view this case from a different perspective.. the perspective of the thread.

Odrade

"Compared to nothing, most things look good."

I agree. While the WT did provide structure, and certain skills for me while growing up, there would have been many ways far more beneficial to acquire that training. For instance, I could have learned social qualities of teamwork by playing sports, learned speaking skills by being on the debate team, learned a clean-cut lifestyle by going to most any church, etc. Those things are not necessarily dependent on circumstances such as being raised within WT framework.

IF you are comparing it to NOTHING at all, then yes, I agree with your premise, being raised with WT values was likely better than nothing in those particular areas you mention. But it's a faulty argument, because think of all the other things you learned during your upbringing. You learned to memorize everything and research nothing. (Any research was done with an index and the WT volumes, where you would read the presented material. Full stop.) You learned to judge anyone, JW friend or "worldly" foe, if they stepped one millimeter out of lockstep with your "bible understanding/bible-trained conscience." You learned to get up and give a 4-5 minute speech, that you read off of a notecard, cobbled together from WT publications. (These are the most approved talks, TOO much "outside material" got you a talking-to after the meeting...) You were told not to blow your own horn when you did good, but learned that if none of the congregation heard about it you didn't get "credit." And that "credit," whether it was for more hours in service, talks, quickbuilds, bible studies, or informal witnessing, really determined your social standing.

You learned that, while it wasn't okay to be prejudiced against a person's color, it was perfectly okay to be prejudiced against the stay-at-home mom who wasn't pioneering even though she "had plenty of time," the publisher who STILL hadn't joined the TMS, the 19 y.o. kid who STILL hadn't gotten baptized, and all of the Catholics, Jews, Baptists, Methodists, SDA, LDS, other protestants, Buddhists, atheists... oh yes, and WOMEN, who are not permitted to challenge anything spoken by an overseer.

But yeah, compared to NO upbringing at all, I guess the WT training was better than nothing.

50

Conversation with street witnessor (?) becomes elder infused

by AuldSoul in

yesterday, thursday, july 26, 2007, a conversation with a street witnessor (isn't that what you would call someone involved in street witnessing?

) got joined by a walk-up elder turned into a great opportunity to witness to several bystanders (who even joined in the conversation).. i began by declining to accept the offer from the elderly woman who held up a "what does god require of us?

i said, "but, verne, you aren't going to the bible.

Odrade

I only used the arguments that I have posted on this forum previously, it was just in real life. It worked exactly as beautifully as I thought it would. The elder has never been taught a response for those points because the Reasoning book doesn't HAVE those points. The Watchtower Society has never commented on those points. And they can't respond on their own, can they? Not without permission from "mother", right?

What I didn't do was address the things he was ready for.

This is what I've been saying all along. (To myself anyways. :) ) Talk to the JWs about the trinity, hellfire, ransom, end times, etc... and they have answers they can parrot. More than that, they have the fervor of conviction because it has been hammered into their brains over and over and over...

Instead, by addressing something they don't really cover in publications or the "Reasoning" book, they have to access their own reasoning ability to try to reply, instead of just accessing rote and memory. Fantastic. We had my dad over for dinner tonight. I tried to do something similar... just slipping around the edges of reason. Not nearly so effective as what you were doing, but interesting still.

192

GOOD GOD!! WHY ARE THERE SO MANY.......????

by Terry in

jw
friends

....spelling errors on the topic headers?.

how much effort does it take to check your spelling before you post a topic??.

just read over some of the topics up for discussion right now and you'll see a very shocking (to me, at least) disregard for accuracy.. if you can't trouble yourself to get your spelling right how are the rest of us going to respect the fact you have your reasoning right either??.

Odrade

Good lord. Get over it, Terry. This is a discussion board where people come to process their experiences. Great things happen here that have absolutely nothing to do with spelling. The important thing is that people are INVOLVED, not that they know how to spell it.

(aside to Fe203 girl: nice tits)

5

If Your tree limb drops in my yard...ITS GOING BACK..I HATE NEIGHBORS

by restrangled in

jw
friends

here in florida, we have major yard work most of the year.. i have a neighbor that has tree limbs that drop off into my back yard.....the hell i'm going to deal with them.. so i wait till it's dark, and toss them back over the fence between our 2 yards.

sometimes, i find them back into my own yard.

i would never send limbs over the fence from my own trees from my own yard.. what the hell?........god i hate neighbors!.

Odrade

Yeah... not quite like that, but I have a neighbor who thinks that she can plant stuff in our yard. Also she put a little decorative (but falling apart piece of crap) wishing well in our yard because it would "look nice." Plus she has planted all of this "decorative grass" stuff (I call it noxious weeds) all along the side of our front yard since a tiny little one foot piece of our front yard is technically her property- actually it is the easement between our houses so one can access both of our backyards with equipment.

GAH! This same neighbor has a huge dead fir? tree right on the fence bordering our two yards, so all of the dead needles, cones and branches have been dropping off in our yard all the time, but will she cut it down? NOOOOOO.

And also, this same neighbor has a giant Western Red Cedar, which hangs over our fence by a mile, so all of the needle drop from that kills everything. At least that tree is healthy.

We also have a neighbor whose dog poops in our yard, but she is little, and we have an understanding that if her dog poops in my yard I will clean it and if my dog poops in her yard she will clean it. So it's all good. And if all the dogs go over and poop in dead tree lady's yard, we do shots of tequila! (Not really. But we do secretly do a little dance and cheer.)

30

You want some big Watchtower news? I think this is big news.

by under_believer in

just like the wts, the mormons (okay, the "church of jesus christ of latter-day saints," hey look, a religion with even less talent at picking a name than the jw's) hide their net worth.

nobody knows how much money they have, though estimates go as high as 30 billion usd.. .

well, this guy in portland is suing them for (what else) pastoral pedophilia, and part of the discussion of damages, the plaintiff argues, is the revelation of how much money the church has.

Odrade

I think there are stops along the way from State Supreme court to SCOTUS. I heard this too, thought it was significant, and also thought that this one was sure to go all the way in the judicial system, because surely the LDS will not let it drop if they get an unfavorable ruling.

What I'm most curious about is whether WT will be filing a "friend" brief, or whatever that is called, like they did with Jimmy Swaggart?