Cicatrix

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Posts by Cicatrix

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  23

  VOMIT Link a Jehovah's Witness Sent Me

  by DevonMcBride in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  .

  http://www.ryanavery.com/musher.htm.

  devon

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  Cicatrix

  LOL!!
  
  "now I'm missing my bed"
  
  Well at least one original, nonindoctrinated thought came through.
  
  I wonder if the writer sincerely believes what they wrote (NEWBIE flashing in huge neon letters), or if it's just one of the myriads of ways they try to convince themselves that what they are doing is indeed a missive from God. How I remember those days well.
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  What are you favorite movies/tv shows to watch on Halloween?

  by Cicatrix in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  mine are (in no particular order) .

  "sleepy hollow" (a definite must for me) .

  "the diary of ellen rimbaur" and "rose red" .

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  Cicatrix

  Mine are (in no particular order)
  
  "Sleepy Hollow" (a definite must for me)
  "The Diary of Ellen Rimbaur" and "Rose Red"
  "The Others"
  "Mothman Prophecies"
  "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown"
  Disney's cartoon version of Sleepy Hollow
  "The Nightmare Before Christmas"
  "Little Vampire" (that little kid is soooo adorable;) ).
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  25

  Overcoming the Need for Approval.

  by Frannie Banannie in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  "he who carves up his own personality to suit other people soon whittles it away to nothing".

  letting go of fear and becoming fearless .

  by brian tracy .

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  Cicatrix

  Very interesting topic, and timely for me, Frannie. Thanks for the info.
  
  I just realized that I'm having difficulty with this when I found myself trying to get approval from a person by basically throwing out my ideology on her behalf, just to try and gain her approval. Then it occurred to me that this is the same relationship I've had with my parents.
  
  My mother just wrote me the other day, and somehow, instead of feeling better and more connected after reading her letter, I felt guilty, as if I haven't done my duty as a daughter. I've been expected by my mother to help financially support her and one of my sisters for years. And for years, I have, thinking that this is what families do for one another. Then I realized that because I was always loaning them money and giving them money, my own children have had to do without things like dental care. And I also realized that no matter how much money I hand over, there really is never any approval forthcoming, or rarely even so much as a thank you.
  
  I also realized that my mother, who is only seventeen years older than me, has come up with more excuses than Carter's got liver pills so that she doesn't have to work.She refuses to get a job, even though she has graduated from college with a bachelor's degree.She claims that she can't work because she has (the disease of the week), or her car has too many miles on it, or that it is also her duty to babysit for free for my sister who lives and hour away from her one way, and who also has a degree and is working. I find it kind of odd that she feels well enough to babysit, and has no problem with the idea of driving two hours per day to babysit, but won't rack up miles on her car to get a job!Instead, she expects me to send her money, even though I'm caring for four children, and trying to scrape together money not only for my college tuition, but my children's, also.
  
  Last year,I helped said sister out when she couldn't buy her kids school clothes. I bought her son some clothes and shoes, and do to so, I had to reduce the amount of clothing I bought for my own children, rendering them short on some stuff for that year. Her response-"I don't like shoes from KMart-I wish you would've bought him shoes from XXXX store." The store sold only designer shoes-the type of shoes I had never bought for myself or my own kids!
  
  I'm tempted to write my mother a nice pointed letter back, mentioning that I'm surprised that she is so worried about racking up the miles on her car to go to work, when she does so nearly every day to babysit for free, and to tell her that if she just broke down and got a job like the rest of us, whatever job she can find, she would be able to afford a phone and all those other niceties that her "unloving" children are making her do without!
  
  Don't get me wrong, if she was eighty, or younger and suffering from an ACTUAL illness, I would help her in a second. But I guess I'm just getting tired of the manipulation, and I've just realized that the ideology I was taught as a JW (you know, be in agreement, honor your parents, and all that) has kept me jumping to people's tunes like I have a case of St Vitus' dance or something, even when there is no valid reason for me to do so.
  
  I am aware this manipulation is happening now, but I still just automatically react. I guess it's gonna take lots of little baby steps to stop reacting.
  
  But I just took a couple of babysteps, anyway. I bought my children's school pictures for the first time in years, and I bought my son his first pair of non-discount store shoes (but not the expensive ones, lol).
  
  Whew, that felt good to get that out, heehee. Guess I can get off my soap box now.
  
  Thanks again Frannie, it's nice to know that others are struggling with this.
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  24

  Dinah, Jacob's daughter...

  by under74 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  okay, most people consider dinah to be a rape victim.

  but i have some questions about this.

  genesis 34:2 says shecom ?defiled?

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  Cicatrix

  LMAO Shotgun!I have that Two Babylons book, what page is that on?;)
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  47

  Top five films seen this year...

  by Brummie in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  1, i robot (though the very last 1 minute scene was stchupid) .

  2, eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.

  (jim carey, best film he's ever done so far).

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  Cicatrix

  1. The one with the alcoholic body guard and Dakota Fanning (can't remember the name)
  2. Butterfly Effect
  3. Spiderman 2
  4. The one with Angelina Jolie as a UN relief worker (I think) who falls in love with a colleague
  5. The other one with Angelina Jolie playing an investigator who has to find a serial killer
  
  I don't know what's up with my inablity to remember titles today, lol. Must be my cold.
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  65

  What Are You All Reading?!

  by Doubtfully Yours in

  1. social
  2. current

  so, what's everybody reading these days?.

  i used to read so passionately, but i've lost the hobby due to everyday life stress and distractions.

  i want to get back into reading again.

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  Cicatrix

  "Ahab's Wife" for the second time, and "Good in Bed."
  
  But I should be reading my Excel assignment in my computer textbook;)
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  24

  Dinah, Jacob's daughter...

  by under74 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  okay, most people consider dinah to be a rape victim.

  but i have some questions about this.

  genesis 34:2 says shecom ?defiled?

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  Cicatrix

  "Read "The Red Tent" by Anita Diamant. It's fiction but tells the story of Dinah in a completely different light."
  
  I second Princess on that. I was just going to ask if anyone had read it.
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  80

  Is Global Warming a Myth?

  by Sirona in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i've been reading about global warming recently and to be honest its getting more confusing by the minute.. some say there is so much evidence that it is caused by humans (burning of fossil fuels etc) but some say that it is a natural cycle that we shouldn't worry about.. http://www.junkscience.com/news/robinson.htm.

  what is the truth?

  are you concerned about our planet?.

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  Cicatrix

  "In fact, there is about the same amount of forest cover today as there was 100 years ago, even though we consume more wood per capita than any other region in the world. Isn't this proof positive that forests are renewable and sustainable?"
  
  Not if you consider the state of the forests 100 years ago. It was during this period in which much of the forests had been logged off, leaving new problems to deal with, such as erosion.Have you seen pictures from this era? I've seen pictures from that era, and I would have to agree that it IS begining to look the same again, at least in the state where I used to live-huge areas of clear cut that stretches over hundreds of acres. And we're not talking poplar, which regenerates from the root system. These are red pine and other fairly slowly maturing species that are being cut down and chipped up at an incredible rate in comparison to the rates of harvest in the past (those machines cost millions of dollars and someone has to make the payments on them somehow-even if it does mean more acres of clear cut have to be produced to pay for them).
  
  A lot of the wood that is "consumed" in the US today is being imported, and that's why we can "consume more wood per capita than any other region in the world."
  
  http://www.endgame.org/gtt-indo-imports.html
  These are some stats from a few years back, but illustrate what I mean concerning imports.
  
  Also, forestry manufacturers are now in a trend where they are merging into huge corporations to (in the words of an article in the October 2004 Southern Lumbermen magazine), "achieve significant cost synergies as well as market clout with customers and suppliers."
  
  The small foresters, who usually live in the area where they are harvesting, are now being replaced by larger corporations whose headquarters are often based well out of the areas they are cutting. I think this disconnection could be worrisome, in that there may be less awareness of the impact of clear cutting in the areas where a lot of clear cutting is being done, both environmentally AND esthetically (how many of you would enjoy living in an area that is nothing but acres and acres of stumps? I HAVE, by the way).
  
  Now before you start hurling the "fear monger" label at me, let me tell you a few things. My family has been involved in the forestry industry for several generations. I have had members work for both small forestry firms and very large forestry firms.I AM a tree hugger, in that I will always be concerned about the state of the forests and the impact of humans upon them, but I'm not the type to think we ought to abandon the use of forest products altogether. I do know that ideology and politics sometimes outweigh our ability to sit down and really think things through, though.
  
  The forests are renewable and sustainable if you don't harvest more than the capacity of the trees that are mature and ready to be harvested. When firms start to merge to "achieve SIGNIFICANT cost synergies as well as MARKET CLOUT with customers and suppliers" this makes me stop and think.
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  27

  Still prejudiced towards Halloween

  by Snapdragon in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i was just reading the thread on how to pick the proper pumpkin.

  (thanks xandria) it got me thinking how i still have this recoil factor when it comes to halloween.

  it was always "satan's holiday" that i still tell my friends that i probably won't participate in the festivities when i decide to have children.. what do you guys do about this issue?

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  Cicatrix

  Hi Snapdragon,
  If you click a little further into the Beliefnet article, it has links to the Religous Tolerance page that Gently Feral posted.They are really thorough articles.
  
  I found this site because my nephew was asking questions about Halloween. His wife doesn't want to let their kids celebrate it and he does. He was interested in what I thought about it, since I used to be JW and didn't celebrate it. He wanted something that he could use to educate his wife that she might actually look at. Other than providing him the info, I'm staying out of their debate, though, the decision about how they rear their children should be worked out betwen them, and I have no intention of siding with either one of them, though I will be happy to answer questions for both of them.
  
  "I'm pointing that out, because therein (in the misconceptions) lies the root of bigotry and religious intolerance."
  
  Sirona,
  I agree heartily with you:)
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  8

  We stopped by Satan's place. He says "Hi."

  by kwintestal in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  at least growing up i was told it was satan's house.

  we just made the long cross-canada drive to attend my wife's grandfather's funeral.. my wife has had somewhat strained relations with her parents since she became a jw, 8 years ago, and it seemed that this visit was going to be more of the same.

  one of the first things her mom said, was that they were having a mass for the funeral in a church.

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  Cicatrix

  While JW, I never hesitated to attend funerals or weddings of family members that were held in churches. It certainly rendered me part of the "fringe" class in my congregation, but it was worth it it in the end.
  
  There were some in my congregation who made a great show out of not attending funerals and weddings in churches.It was kind of funny that when one of their loved ones died and a non-Witness family member refused to attend the memorial service at the Kingdom Hall, they were incensed by the "persecution." I was amused that when it was them, they were "honoring Jehovah," but when their equally religious family member did the same, it was "persecution for Jehovah's sake."
  
  It was just one more incident on my list of wake-up calls;)