Topics Started by HB
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Spiritual people are more likely to be mentally ill, but at least they think life has more meaning.
by HB inas an aside to the recent thread discussing what 'spirit' is, this article is about 18 months old, but may be of interest if you haven't seen it before.. the study (or at least this summary of it described on the mail online news website), doesn't define what exactly is meant by a 'spiritual' person, but i personally take it as a very broad term covering everything from new age hippies who feel they have a relationship with the energy of the universe or those who are striving to reach innner calm by meditating and living a simple life communing with nature, to beliefs in astrology, feng shui, and a host of other paranormal phenomena, plus many shades in between.
some 'spiritual' beliefs are obvioulsy just superstitions, but others are currently neither provable nor disprovable by science.
maybe it's open to debate, but i guess if a belief can be demonstrated as 100% true by science, it's not considered 'spiritual'.. one interesting point is that apparently unlike some surveys undertaken in the us, this one from the uk found "no clear relationship between religious belief and happiness".. hope this doesn't offend anyone who considers themselves spiritual, that's really not my intention; but at least it's not branding anyone as "mentally diseased"!.
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BBC article lists ALL JW predictions for the end of the world
by HB inthearticle below is on the main bbc news webpage today.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-24432491 .
bob geldof has said the human race might have as little as 17 more years before "a mass extinction event".
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3
How Scientology Changed the internet - BBC article
by HB inthought some of you might be interested in this bbc article dealing with the ways that scientology has tried to prevent ex members spreading negative information about their church on the internet.. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23273109#.
the various battles between digital rights acticivist and the church of scientology are covered, particularly in relation to google and you tube.
this was quite funny in retrospect:.
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TV programme: Watchtower mags are Junk Mail
by HB inthought you might like to hear about a programme on uk tv (channel 4) yesterday in which jws featured.. it was a light-hearted and quirky programme called junk mail britain where the presenter who has hoarded all his junk mail for the past 5 years, went out into his community (willesden, nw london) to meet the people behind the various businesses and companies who were trying to get his custom via leafletting.. http://www.channel4.com/video/brandless-catchup.jsp?vodbrand=junk-mail-britain.
it was fun and much more interesting than you might think from this brief synopsis.
he met everyone from taxi drivers to pizza takeaway firms to find out how much business they got from junk mail and then interviewed some of the people who trailed from door to door dropping unwanted leaflets through letterboxes.
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New Creationist museum in Portsmouth UK
by HB init appears that creationist views are gaining a foot-hold here in the uk too.. see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7613403.stm.
by julian joyce .
bbc news .
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Church can be fun...
by HB infact is often funnier than fiction.
if you haven't seen this clip before, it should make you laugh:.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtppqotw3q0.
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UK / USA opinion poll
by HB innot sure - uk25% usa 11%.
yes it is a sin - uk 5% usa 33%.
yes it is a sin - uk 13% usa 40% .
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JWs at the door
by HB inyesterday, my 23 year old son mark was the only one in our house and was just drying off after a shower when the front doorbell rang.
he was expecting a friend to arrive, so he pulled on a pair of underpants and went to open the door and let his friend in, only to find two sweet-looking, demurely dressed middle aged jw ladies on the doorstep holding magazines.
mark was not particularly embarrassed, but the ladies were visibly taken aback by his appearance and were speechless for a couple of seconds.
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23
Horoscopes/star signs
by HB ina friend who is an intelligent high-flying business woman is going through a relationship break-up and is also recovering from breast cancer.
she is not religious but has been turning to 'new-age' beliefs to try to help her cope, (she has visited a numerologist and had her palm read).
she has just sent me an email with a description of 12 different personalities based on star signs.
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The Wrath of the Almighty
by HB ina very bad "groan" joke....... there was a painter named wayne who was very interested in making a penny where he could, so he often thinned down his paint to make it go a wee bit further.. .
as it happened, he got away with this for some time, but eventually the local baptists decided to do a big restoration job on the outside of their large church building.. .
wayne put in a bid, and, because his price was reasonable, he got the job.