Damn it! I hate to hear that. I hate it that such things happen. I'm feel a pain in my chest and I didn't really know Oompa, not much. I looked up his moniquer and now I remember him. I saw his Facebook page. He leaves a lot of memories behind. I'm conflicted. I feel we are ultimately responsible for own lives, but that doesn't mean other's didn't have a hand in it. I DO blame the WTBTS for the cruelty and torture they impose on people. I'm so sad that they broke him. I'm glad those m*therf*ckers don't have control of me anymore. Yes, they have blood on their hands, those pityless bastards.
Posts by Etude
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630SAD news about OOMPA......
by redredrose inour friend, oompa, has passed away.
just recieved the news a couple of hours ago, and have almost no details.
it happened today or yesterday, he took his own life.
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114
The Bible-- Full of Errors And Inconsistencies?
by Recovery ini noticed in the "magic" thread many former jw's no longer adhere to the bible as the unerring and accurate word of god.
if you feel this way, can you please list any specific reasons/arguments as to why not.
this thread isn't for debating purposes, but simply for listing.
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Etude
King Solomon "etude, remember that the Bible was written over centuries by many authors", that thought never escaped my mind. This is why I singled out the idea that if some will redact for reasons of revisionism in an effort to conform with a particular view (which is an important reason why the gospels contradict each other and omit events from each other), it's possible to assume the opposite. That is, not that they added words ("circle" for example) to conform to a view, but that they omitted words (or a genealogical entries) in order to support an opposing view. I guess we have to look at individual examples. The one we're discussing, whether and if it's a circular earth on a circular ocean or a spherical earth must exclude the mention of "corners" as a support for assuming that the ancients believed the world was flat and having corners.
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38
Schizophrenia
by frankiespeakin inwhile doing some personal research on the subject i came across this.
basically in the jungian world it is discribed as an overpowering of ego by the unconsciousness.
"if the human race survives, future men will, i suspect, look back on our enlightened epoch as a veritable age of darkness... they will see that what was considered 'schizophrenic' was one of the forms in which, often through quite ordinary people, the light began to break into our all-too-closed minds.".
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Etude
I had a friend (roommate and ex-bethelite) who developed schizophrenia, which manifested itself after two suicide attempts. Ever since, I've been interested in the disease and try to learn about it as often as possible. I saw how the drugs disconnected my friend from some of his faculties (not being able to form coherent thoughts) and I saw the ineffective treatment professional therapy was providing him.
I'm convinced that there are multiple causes for it. And if genetics are involved, it may only mean that it may provide a propensity for its onset and not be a direct cause. Studies done with identical twins where one has it and not the other demonstrate that genetic inheritance is not always the culprit. Some researchers have suggested Epigenetics as a possible carrier for molecules that affect one person and not another with identical genes.
There are mild and extreme forms of it. My friend was seeing "monsters" on the wall and was hearing voices. Dr. Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, a behavioral neurologist that made several important discoveries while at U.C. San Diego, has demonstrated that an imbalance of chemistry, either too much or too little of one chemical that inhibits the activity of a part of the brain or makes it get out-of-had with activity, can send our thoughts into extreme states (thinking one is Jesus and can walk on water, that one understands everything in the universe, etc). Some of his patients experience this pathology after and because they suffer from seizures, other's because of damage due to an accident.
Frankly, I'm reluctant to make a distinction between biological or neurological or chemical causes. In the end, everything that happens inside the brain is due to transmissions of chemicals triggered reciprocally by and for electrical impulses (some chemicals trigger electrical impulses and some electrical impulses trigger the production of other chemicals). That they fail to work, may be due to genetic errors, to accidents or just an innate bad structure in the brain from physical forces or environmental triggers that prevent the normal from happening. Turrets is an interesting disease that shows the lack of control of specific parts of the brain while the sufferer still remains "functional" in most other respects. In a sense, that pathology is very similar in function to schizophrenia but with much less severe consequences.
It really pains me to see people who suffer with ailments like schizophrenia or Dementia (which slowly eats away your brain and robs your personality). I consider them by far the cruelest of diseases.
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114
The Bible-- Full of Errors And Inconsistencies?
by Recovery ini noticed in the "magic" thread many former jw's no longer adhere to the bible as the unerring and accurate word of god.
if you feel this way, can you please list any specific reasons/arguments as to why not.
this thread isn't for debating purposes, but simply for listing.
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Etude
Leolaia, I truly respect your opinions and your craftiness for supporting what you say with research. However (oh no!), the reason I mentioned how a circle would not be associated (within this discussion) with a flat surface is because of Finkelstein's reference regarding Daniel 4:10-11 (his post 1143), which prompted King Solomon to inform me that "And neither circles or spheres have corners (much less 4 corners)." You make a fine point by mentioning the "circle of the earth" as in Isaiah 40:22 to suggest a circular land mass on a flat surface. But Job 26:10 and Proverbs 8:27 refer to the circle over the "watery deep" or on the "surface of the waters". So, while that would agree with your presentation that a circular Earth was bounded by a circular ocean, it contradicts the references to corners of the earth (as many ancients believed, especially the Bible writers). So, I'm thinking that (at least some) believed that the Earth might have been flat and circular sitting on a square ocean, or that the Earth was circular sitting on a circular ocean, thereby not having any corners, or that the Earth was spherical and that the "corners" reference was to what they were used to, as when you look for something in all corners of a room (yes, a metaphor but a very logical one that would apply to a lot of people, except Eskimos and Indians living in Tepees). At some point, we would have to assume that they believed the ocean surrounding the circle-Earth was square and not a circle in order to support the "corners" theory (if they believed that the term came from a square flat earth). I don't know. I think that a lot of that is subject to speculation and is all inconclusive. I merely suggest one possibility.
I sometimes wonder how much some ancients actually believed about their own bullshit, especially the priests who had plenty of opportunity to see where their own predictions and beliefs failed. I tend to think that religion in those days was a tool for the educated to keep the uneducated in place. Even in relatively recent times, royalty in the 17th and 18th century probably didn't really think that their rule was divinely ordained. It's just something they perpetuated in order to keep the little people in awe of them. The more elaborate they made their universes the more I tend to think they were being artistic and poetic rather than literal and truthful.
I agree with all the other stuff about Martin Luther, the non-freezing of the mammoths, errors in the Bible, the bull about the mark of the beast (666), the bull about organs of cognition and that Exodus ever happened. But by now, we're way off topic.
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114
The Bible-- Full of Errors And Inconsistencies?
by Recovery ini noticed in the "magic" thread many former jw's no longer adhere to the bible as the unerring and accurate word of god.
if you feel this way, can you please list any specific reasons/arguments as to why not.
this thread isn't for debating purposes, but simply for listing.
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Etude
And, mP, when you say: "You must understand that the translators have selected 'circle' so it would appear the Bible is accurate", you need to realize that many translations, almost as many who mention "circle" actually don't use the word "circle" in those texts. I don't know the exact reason but in some cases it is to be more generic or perhaps even poetic in the translation. Using your premise as a basis, I could argue that the translations that didn't use the word "circle" deliberately omitted it in order to conform to the common belief that Earth was flat and deny the reality that would have threatened their theology. After all, the Catholic church fought all efforts to suggest otherwise. Don't you think there would have been other religious contingencies that would have wanted the same?
So, to sum it all up, I'm not arguing anything in regards to the "inspiration" and the veracity of the Bible. That's a big leap I think some of you have made regarding my declaration against the suggestion that the Bible doesn't mention that the Earth is round. And I'm not suggesting that because the Bible may agree with reality in one instance that it is not riddled with fallacies or that it arrived at that reality correctly.
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114
The Bible-- Full of Errors And Inconsistencies?
by Recovery ini noticed in the "magic" thread many former jw's no longer adhere to the bible as the unerring and accurate word of god.
if you feel this way, can you please list any specific reasons/arguments as to why not.
this thread isn't for debating purposes, but simply for listing.
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Etude
Whoa, that's a lot of stuff coming at me. It's all good. The reason I cited several texts and several translations (I didn't cite all that I found) is to suggest that when many different scholars translate a word as "circle", they're probably alluding to a common idea, perhaps more than a round area in the ocean or on the ground (since the horizon does not seem to curve down or up from any particular perspective). I shouldn't have said in post #201: " But you can't have a circle anywhere near a flat surface. " What I meant to say is that a circle should not be equated with a flat surface with corners (alluding to the "corners of the Earth" saying and assuming that by "Earth" we mean the ground and the oceans, lakes, rivers, etc).
I assume (and not because of the Jeehoovees) that if a circle is mentioned, it would infer at least a round Earth because mention of "corners" in our discussion was being used by some here as an indication that they (the bible people) believed the Earth was flat (and probably square). I use "corners of the Earth" precisely for the reasons you mention, King Solomon. Did you miss that? And if I say: "My heart goes out to you" it is for the same reasons and not because I'm offering you a transplant or have another organ that is anything but figurative and metaphorical. I'm a monist and know that I "feel" with my brain chemistry.
I don't whether or not the Bible is purposefully being metaphorical by using the terms "corners". That's why I said that if some believed the Earth was round, the people who wrote Genesis may not have believed the same. I'm simply suggesting that, along with other cultures, some may have believed or known the Earth was round (spherical). To say that such conclusion is invalid because it's fabricated to support an argument is no less valid that to suggest it is not a valid conclusion without producing specific contrary evidence. In this case, I do believe that the idea of "circle" in the Bible inferring a spherical Earth is at least open to interpretation.
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41
hello I recently got away from the so called "truth" looking for people to talk to
by LuLu4YouYou inhello my name is louis.
i have seperated myself from the jws and am looking for people to talk to.
i dont have many people in my life who will even speak to me anymore or even acknowledge that i exist.
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Etude
Well, I'm not a lawyer. But it seems to me that you would eventually have to end up in court and argue your situation to get your kids back. I would judge that you made a good decision to have someone else care for them while you were strung out. If you've cleaned up your life, you should be able to demonstrate that you are now a responsible and that you can provide the right care for them. If some significant time has gone by, you may want to ask the kids if they want to live with you, just to get a feel for the situation. You can also assess how difficult the family member with control can make things for you. But don't say anything until you're ready to make several moves ahead of the other person.
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Dang: 9 years
by FlyingHighNow ini just realized this is my 9th jwd/jwn anniversary.
what a long strange trip it's been.
i am very grateful to simon and ang for providing this site.
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Etude
Congratulations! After having been away for a while, I came back only to find that I signed up a little over 10 years ago. And Armageddon hasn't come yet!
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vote poster Raypublisher ; WT EXPOSED OF THE MONTH
by JunkYardDog inthis guy did a hell of a job recording his jc.
and slamming the elder in part 4 if his series of youtube's known as jwstruggles.
i take my hat off to this guy.
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Etude
Can I vote twice or more? "Balths ath big ath churchbelths!"
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hello I recently got away from the so called "truth" looking for people to talk to
by LuLu4YouYou inhello my name is louis.
i have seperated myself from the jws and am looking for people to talk to.
i dont have many people in my life who will even speak to me anymore or even acknowledge that i exist.
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Etude
Louis, that's a major saga you just posted. Welcome to this site and know that many people here have also had major upheavals in their lives. You can take comfort in that the majority have been able to heal and go forward in life. I know you can get your kids back. With a good start and clean life, it would be the best revenge for those who are now indoctrinating your kids and possibly exposing them to abuse. Hang in there. Vent, vent, vent. We're listening.
