LOL. Just last night in our meeting, during the local needs section, they pulled up the video projector. We were told that they org wanted us to see this video before the next visit. The whole theme of the video was about the love that CO's have for us. There was an noticeable amount of "we love each and everyone one of you" despite not really knowing you. We miss you when we leave, etc etc. The mention was made that some people think that they are there to chastise and feel scared but they wanted to assure that they were there with the intention of working together. There was also an insistence on "supporting" the visit in "any way we can"
StarTrekAngel
JoinedPosts by StarTrekAngel
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How Scary Are Circuit Overseers Now?
by minimus inback in the day, when the co came to the congregation, it was quite stressful for the elders and often, the rank and file.
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is it as big a deal as it used to be?.
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Drama played at pioneer school
by StarTrekAngel ini was having breakfast at home earlier this morning when my mil sat down at the table.
she started re hashing her previous day with us (wife and myself).
she was relating a story she got from another close relative who just finished the pioneer school.
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StarTrekAngel
I was having breakfast at home earlier this morning when my MIL sat down at the table. She started re hashing her previous day with us (wife and myself). She was relating a story she got from another close relative who just finished the pioneer school. I got into the conversation half way so I did not know if this happened in a social gathering or something else. She was referring a play that went on as follows...
One brother played the role of an angel. He was standing guard at the entrance of paradise. Another brother approached. I guess either after the big A or resurrection. He wanted to enter the paradise but the angel stopped him and said
Angel- I need to see if your name is written in my book
Brother- it should be
Angel- I don't see it here and that means you many not enter but lets us find out if there is a way we can help you. Did you attend all meeting?
Brother- I believe I did.
Angel- Lets us ask. Chair (as in chair from the KH), did he attend all meetings?
Chair- Yes he did, but for the most part, he kept me warm. Nothing else
Angel- Fair enough. Insight book, did he read you?
Book- (coughing) Not so much, that is why I am covered in dust
Angel- Watchtower magazine, did he ever picked you up and study you?
WT magazine- No not really, and considering that I have lost weight, he should have been able to. (this las one really made me laugh. Lost weight=got thinner)
In a nutshell this concluded the play. It was only then that I realized that this wasn't some brother trying to play artist. This was at the pioneer school. There was a few other examples but this were the highlights. Nowhere there was any questions to wether this brother was honest and loving or if he showed any other christian qualities.
I pointed that out to my mother in law and she said that is exactly what she needed to hear from that play. Something that made her think how she lacked appreciation for Jehovah's provisions (namely books and magazines). I had to re iterate I was referring to the other christian qualities that I mentioned. That got her thinking but after a while, she changed the subject.
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WHEN people leave a cult...MAN landed on the moon? Or critical thinking......
by The Rebel ini believe anyone who has voluntarily left a cult has shown they can adapt to new solutions, and have used " critical thinking" skills otherwise most would not have left.. yet i believe a safe place for support is still needed and this safe place i believe is searched for.. now i may not measure up to much in ways of education, but for me personally " critical thinking skills" = " new" a " new" way of thinking, that takes time for me the individual to be visual and to contemplate.
and the more i read about " critical thinking," the more convinced i am that i can live with the ridicule of those that claim i do not possess it.
furthermore i would say those that criticise others " critical thinking skills," often luck the sensibility and thoughts to snore, spit, and fart....nor would they understand a room full of tobacco smoke and cheap booze...where " critical thinking " can often be found in its most profound, in the most sensitive poems and "pictures" that were ever drawn.
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StarTrekAngel
Viviane,
I think I have at least three situations in which you pointed out the same things and when I either offered an apology or a clearer explanation you banished. You have a tendency to drop this kind of statements and disappear. Based on your last post here, I would expect you would hang around and help us see what we lack. Thus applying your compassion.
In another note, I don't see how you can compare critical thinking with a skill like playing golf. If there is anything that shows me your lack of both, critical thinking and compassion (on your own words), is this last idea. For once, thinking, critical or not, is what makes us humans as a whole but also what makes us unique among other humans. It forges a lot of what we know as life. Playing golf is entertainment for the most part. Learning golf is not nearly as difficult as critical thinking. Not even ballpark (sounds familiar? I still waiting for you to accept my apology on that other thread, which would not bother me if I didn't respect you). Having critical thinking skills is a matter of perspective. If I am talking to a golfer and I have knowledge of golf, I can discuss golf matters with him but if I don't l don't know golf, then I don't have the skills to critically think about golf. Therefore, telling someone that they don't have critical thinking skills is an absolute statement and will always be offensive. An emotional answer is expected because you just offended the very nature of self. Telling someone "you don't know shit about golf" if it is clearly evident by his game, is different.
Like i said in another thread, for a rocket scientist, the rules of orbital mechanics are common sense.
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Theory of Evolution and humanity are moving in parallel, and in opposite direction too!
by iconoclastic inproponents of evolution theory was comfortable with their easiest method of induction that says something like this: i saw a blind man in the us, then in russia, then in australian, then in africa ..., hence all men are blind.
yet proofs are abundant for the decline (opposite of evolution) we experience globally!.
1) most humans declined into greed, the result of which is climate change which has the potential to wipe out all life from the earth.
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StarTrekAngel
Saint,
1) Agree. Abundance was there for some but in many cases, the most precious bounty had to be chased and it could also attack you. It wasn't an easy life. This was ok while we were living in small groups. This does not work well when we have to feed millions. We quickly saw the benefit of raising and growing our own food. However, some noticed that they could manipulate other to feed them instead of having to hunt themselves. Look at some of the prescriptions for the priests of Israel. I am trying to keep this short but even in a culture of abundance, you still had to go up to the three and pick your own fruit.
2) True, but I believe that his prediction has worked for the current situation. I am not sure if he made any further predictions, but could it be said that the same ability to communicate will eventually brings us back together? May be the collective human race is acting like when you meet a new friend. We are now at a stage of misunderstanding each other because this ability to communicate has just brought us together. May be this same ability will finally help us settle our differences and end up bringing us closer.
3) Totall agree
4) Is difficult at this stage to tell if decease is winning the battle. We may have won over many of them but we don't know the long term effects. A long time ago, the development of antibiotics was seen as a win. Today over prescription is seen as a lurking danger. Sure it was our fault, but it shows that we grow in waves, not always in a straight line upwards and it shows that what we consider an absolute success today, may not be that much after all and may need rethinking. Hopefully longer term adjustments are detected and made soon before it becomes and irreversible problem. We are living longer, but is also understood that in many places the morbidity (a measure of the quality of life) is severely declining towards the later part of life. People are getting chronic deceases earlier in life.
5) My grandfather use to say how screwed up the world was getting and I could not understand what he was talking about. I am now beginning to have the same feeling but I can not help and see that, if he thought the world was bad in the 80's, that he would be totally outraged by the world of today. I also see from history that there are some things in which we have improved, in a way, not absolute. We don't sacrifice humans in an altar anymore, but we do sacrifice them in the name of other things by means of war and hunger. Could it by that here we also grow in waves?
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Theory of Evolution and humanity are moving in parallel, and in opposite direction too!
by iconoclastic inproponents of evolution theory was comfortable with their easiest method of induction that says something like this: i saw a blind man in the us, then in russia, then in australian, then in africa ..., hence all men are blind.
yet proofs are abundant for the decline (opposite of evolution) we experience globally!.
1) most humans declined into greed, the result of which is climate change which has the potential to wipe out all life from the earth.
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StarTrekAngel
True. Evolution is full of dead ends. Not everything evolves for the "better". At the end, survival is what shows if evolution adapted to the current situation.
However, some of the points iconoclastic brings up, are the very reasons why I strongly believe in social evolution as well. In the animal kingdom, life is not respected the same way humans do. Survival of the fittest does not care about moral values in the animal kingdom. We humans are driven to save and conserve every life and we consider this idea to be of a higher order of thinking (I am not here to debate wether this is correct or not, is just a fact and I agree with preserving life). At the same time, we pretty much live in the same environment as the animals and therefore under some of the same rules. We have introduced some rules of our own, namely religion, finance, technology, etc. Some of the by products of the above, like global warming, deforestation, etc, have taken its toll on the planet much much faster than what is known to be common in evolutionary changes. In other words, we have introduced a ripple in the evolutionary order, bigger than any other drastic weather change on record. Social evolution has its effects on this as many of the above. Could this be one of the dead ends? May be, but I can not help and see how our social and moral values have contributed to the overall decisions made. This wasn't all driven by instinct. True, there is a degree of it, we are programmed to survive and as such, we will consume. But even in the animal kingdom some animals think twice about things. Some tarantulas protect a tiny race of frogs from predators because this frogs eat insects that would otherwise eat the tarantula's eggs. If that was the case for humans, in some cases we would have eaten the frog before we realized what kind of benefit it brought to us.
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WHEN people leave a cult...MAN landed on the moon? Or critical thinking......
by The Rebel ini believe anyone who has voluntarily left a cult has shown they can adapt to new solutions, and have used " critical thinking" skills otherwise most would not have left.. yet i believe a safe place for support is still needed and this safe place i believe is searched for.. now i may not measure up to much in ways of education, but for me personally " critical thinking skills" = " new" a " new" way of thinking, that takes time for me the individual to be visual and to contemplate.
and the more i read about " critical thinking," the more convinced i am that i can live with the ridicule of those that claim i do not possess it.
furthermore i would say those that criticise others " critical thinking skills," often luck the sensibility and thoughts to snore, spit, and fart....nor would they understand a room full of tobacco smoke and cheap booze...where " critical thinking " can often be found in its most profound, in the most sensitive poems and "pictures" that were ever drawn.
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StarTrekAngel
There is some truth to what you are saying. Critical thinking is definitely in short supply but at the same time, perspective and context can change the angle of reasoning.
In the other hand, there are people whom sole purpose in life is to pick apart the belief of others. My boss at work, for example, can enter a debate of almost any subject. He spends most his days reading and reading, hardly sleeps. Unfortunately, unless he started the discussion, he tends to not contribute anything meaningful to the discussion but rather centers in picking apart everyone else's statements to judge them in isolation. I would not have a problem if he disagrees with me. I can say white, he can say black, not an issue there. I have a problem though when you rather make a goal to say is not white but I am not going to bother showing you why I believe is black. Some people have left the cult but they don't realize when they have become a cult themselves. I don't mind if someone has a belief that is somewhat unfounded or is a grey area. However, if you are willing and ready to discuss it, don't walk away in the uncomfortable moments. It does nothing for your cause.
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New convention theme
by StarTrekAngel injust wanted to post here real quick, as many have joked about it.
we had an announcement in our cong last week about the upcoming one day assembly.
the title of the assembly is "imitate jehovah".
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StarTrekAngel
Yeap. Well I tend to try and put myself in their place. Even if I did not believe in God, I would first put myself in a position of a believer and ask them... did not Jesus say that he and the father were one? Do we not, as JWs, preach that imitating Jesus means imitating Jehovah? Why do we then, need too separate conventions? Are we following two different Gods? -
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Nice Old Dears Tried to "Witness" to me Today
by cofty inan older man and wife - ray and mary - got chatting to me today.
they were tourists admiring local wildlife.
i gave them a few tips on where to go to see some interesting things and it wasn't long before they were telling me about how awful the world is "nowadays" and paradise yadda yadda.
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StarTrekAngel
Nice Cofty! I have already copied and pasted some of your others postings, especially the one regarding blood, in a notebook where I keep all relevant information. You know, a day of reckoning with elders is in my future. Might as well be prepared. There are some parts of this that I need to keep. -
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Epigenetics and Why Women are Stripey
by cofty intake five minutes to learn something new today.... here is a very brief introduction to epigenetics with an interesting practical example.. ....
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StarTrekAngel
Ahh! I have to love you Viviane! I thought we were in this forum to not read more than is necessary into people words. I am trying to keep my explanations short. It was just an opening statement into the idea that many of us have never heard this type of conversations. I feel the need to explain my role in the matter so that no one thinks I am pretending to have qualifications that I don't have. I am not claiming to be an expert. I am trying to explain to cofty why I feel the way I feel about certain medical professionals. Nothing more.
Where is the pretend knowledge? I said I felt misunderstood, not ignorant. I know I am ignorant in many things. I tried to explain my experience from my perspective and Cofty may have felt that I was bashing the many researchers and doctors who have helped advance the human cause.
Is that a bit more clear?
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What woke you up?
by Israel Ricky Gonzales inin march of 2014, i was a very active jw, a ministerial servant, gave a public talk, was an attendant for the memorial, and one of 4 cleaning captains for an international convention of 40,000+ attendees.
so what woke me up?
an innocent comment from a co-worker about the candice conti court case rang a bell that could not be unrung.
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StarTrekAngel
Many issues were dormant inside of me in my case. Had some moments or flashes of awakening. I remember vividly when a co-worker challenged my knowledge of the org. He knew more about it than I did, despite never being a JW. On top of that, he was not regarded by many as being a centered person. He was related to the owner of the company and behaved as someone who was untouchable but from his attitude, he seemed like a not-so smart person. He challenged the whole 1975 thing and me, being the nice newbie JW that I was, tried to pull out the "new light" card. A few months after that, a KM article posed the question "Did JWs really falsely predicted the end in 1975?". I was thrilled. Jehovah was finally going to put this question to rest. I excitedly expected that session. Only to find out the entire article dismissed the issue and instead, encouraged people to concentrate on the positive works made by JWs. Totally evaded the answer.
That was the beginning of the end for me, now in retrospect. It took many years, but here I am finally. I even got baptized after that, not knowing what I was really getting into.