scotoma

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Posts by scotoma

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  49

  Republican Party is pretty much done!

  by free2beme in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  after leaving the jehovah's witnesses, i started getting in to politics.

  i naturally found myself going republican and voted a long those lines.

  however, with my more pagan nature and being pretty much against christianity.

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  scotoma

  All of this nonsense about whether Obama is left or right. He's neither. He is dead in the center - SELF centered aka narcissist.

  Progressives realize that Obama didn't deliver for them. He basically did everything the Republicans wanted. Kept spending money on war.

  Kept the drones flying. Kept guananamo open. Refused to prosecute Cheney for violating the constitution. Kept pushing Russia with Polish and Czech missile installations. Kept the Bush tax breaks for the rich when he could have easily ended it. Allowed insurance companies and drug companies to dictate prices for health care and didn't even allow a public option let alone national health care. Didn't do a damn thing for Mexican immigrants.

  Obama doesn't like people. He likes it when people like him. Things would have been no worse if McCain had been elected. They might have even been better because the racist Republicans wouldn't be trying to obstruct everything and the democrats would have seized control of the House in 2010.

  Sure he's leaning left now. That's because he wants to hob nob with the hollywood, & pop music stars when he's out of office. He knows he can be as bold as he wants now that he doesn't have to worry about reelection. He is thinking about access to the beautiful celebrities he can hang out with after he's no longer in office. I see extramarital affairs for him.
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  24

  Brilliant Robin Williams Quote

  by Amelia Ashton in

  1. jw
  2. friends

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  the loneliest place on the planet for me was the kingdom hall.

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  scotoma

  You all keep talking about "crowds" at the KH. Do you mean like "threes a crowd".

  I don't see crowds at the KH anymore.
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  49

  Republican Party is pretty much done!

  by free2beme in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  after leaving the jehovah's witnesses, i started getting in to politics.

  i naturally found myself going republican and voted a long those lines.

  however, with my more pagan nature and being pretty much against christianity.

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  scotoma

  Moshe has stated the brutal fact.

  Urban areas need big government. Big cities require more rules to manage large populations. Big cities require more services to function.

  The safety net for rural populations has always been the land. If crop prices are low you can always eat your own live stock, plant a larger garden and fill your root cellar. Or you can just sit on your back porch with your gun and shoot a deer or whatever varmint scampers by. People in rural areas know each other. People in cities know very few of the people in their neighborhoods.

  Creative types like to be around a lot of other people. More stable conventional types prefer wilderness. It's a temperament issue more than an ideological problem and that's why it can't be resolved unless there is good faith compromise.

  Libertarians are pot smoking republicans. They just want to be left alone to do what they want to do.
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  69

  New World Translation

  by MsD in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  it may seem like a stupid question but who was responsible for translating their version of the bible?

  i heard it was ray franz, several governing body members.

  does anybody have any legitimate info that can prove who exactly translated it?

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  scotoma

  There are definitely certain terms or phrases in the NWT that are suggestive of Fred Franz. Fred definitely seemed to be located somewhere in the Autistic spectrum or had obssessive compulsive disorder.

  I have a friend who is a former JW and has a Masters degree that required knowledge of ancient Hebrew. He felt the NWT was an excellent translation even though he had problems with some of the language.

  One thing he didn't like is the translation of the expression that indicates someone obeyed "he did just so". The Hebrew simply says a person was told to do something and they proceeded to do it. The idea that they followed instructions down to the most miniscule detail was never implied. This was evidence of Franz's OCD.
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  10

  The Key To Watchtower Defeat

  by metatron in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i have a dream.. i dream that one day, in the near future, the watchtower's hypnotic control of its zombie-publishers will end.. i dream that families will remain intact - who otherwise would have broken up.. i dream that young people "in the truth" will finally be allowed to grow up without the threat of being disowned, hanging over their heads.. .

  is my dream foolish?

  perhaps..... but it all depends on the answer to one question:.

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  scotoma

  Metatron:

  The key to Watchtower Defeat is the same for the defeat of all organizations: time and entropy.

  All systems run down. The tighter the system the larger the loss of energy trying to maintain organization.

  As soon as a movement becomes organized it loses its ability to adapt and becomes extinct.

  The really important things that take place on a planet like ours is accomplished by a movement not an organization.
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  69

  New World Translation

  by MsD in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  it may seem like a stupid question but who was responsible for translating their version of the bible?

  i heard it was ray franz, several governing body members.

  does anybody have any legitimate info that can prove who exactly translated it?

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  scotoma

  Anybody can put together a version of the Bible.

  The problem is when the translators etc. believe that they have been divinely appointed to produce the "correct" version.
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  19

  Terry, the advantage we have being 60 and older, we are smarter.

  by jam in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  how many folks knows the answer to these historical events, lol.. 1) after the long ranger saved the day and rode off into the sunset.

  the grateful citizens would ask, who was the masked man?.

  invariably, someone would answer, i don,t know, but he left this.

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  scotoma

  Really, that's why our short term memory doesn't work any more. Our brains are filled up with old shit.
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  82

  My 66th birthday is today!!

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  once i was little boy in fort worth, texas living with my maw maw and paw paw and mommy.. then, i was an 18 year old 6'4'' skinny 165lb religious nut being dipped in a baptismal during a local assembly.. suddenly, i was 20 and listening to a jail cell door clang behind me as a conscientious objector.. wow!

  23 years old and put on parole until my 6 years sentence was ended!

  i got married to a nice jw girl and had 3 kids!.

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  scotoma

  Wow. 7 kids. You should have been Catholic.

  No matter what...

  you have been biologically successful.

  People of the future are going to have to deal with snips of your DNA.
• 
  40

  Another visit from the elders

  by jonno12225 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  so i have another visit from the elder this week.

  this time they want to speak with my wife, still a believer and myself.

  i think they want to know my position about my children attending the meetings and some other things.. while preparing myself for it i though of a challenge for the elders and my wife.

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  scotoma

  People are not rational beings. Don't expect them to be.

  They won't tolerate a 1 degree deviation from their course.

  A 180 degree deviation taking them in the opposite direction is impossible.

  Do this experiment.

  Fill a cup with water.

  Put your finger in the cup.

  Pull it out.

  Did you make any difference to the cup of water? You just got your finger wet.

  That's why these discussion boards are so effective. People come here. They read the arguments. They make up their mind - in time.
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  28

  Jehovah's Witnesses and Divorce

  by Eustace in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i really hate divorce.

  it was my parents getting divorced that helped messed up my childhood.. part of why i came to conclude the jehovah's witnesses don't have the "spiritual paradise" they claim to is how many of their marriages end up in divorce.my parents i could dismiss as an exception to a general rule, but i could never understand how often it seemed to keep happening to lots of different people when the watchtower society teaches that divorce is wrong except in case of adultery.. but what really brought things home for me was this study by the pewforum on religion survey showing that even though jehovah's witness are less likely to be married than the general population, they're more likely to be divorced or separated.. http://religions.pewforum.org/.

  they really have a nerve telling people in the jehovah's witnesses religion that they shouldn't have sex outside of marriage when they've done so little to protect jws who get married, and their children, from the extreme stress and conflict of divorce.. it's really messed up.. heck, even the catholics they're are always dumping on have a lower divorce/separation rate than the jws.. jw divorced/separated = 14%.

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  scotoma

  Jgnat hit the nail squarely. It's not rocket science.

  I performed 3 marriages. All three are divorced. I once made a tally in the margins of my Watchtower (study on Marriage) of all the weddings I could think of attending. As a witness you go to a lot of them. Half were divorced.

  Once when Karl Klein was visiting my parents we were discussing the problems with the failed 1975 date. I mentioned how so many of my peers got married because they were afraid that if they died during the great tribulation they would never experience sexual intercourse. The result was a sunami of broken marriages. Klein said he would have to add that to the list of causalties of 1975.

  The big mistake is that the Watchtower teaches you that prayer, study, and communication will solve all your problems. They pay little attention to temperaments that just don't get along. They should at least allow couples to divorce without consequences if they are mutually agreeable to that solution.

  A lot of times the problems begin right after engagement. The mask comes off and people start showing their real personality instead of their courtship facade. So what clever rule does the society come up with? They declare you imature if you break an engagement and even take away congregational positions. Losing your responsibilities is viewed as a loss of Jehovah's confidence so you go against your intuition and marry setting the stage for a miserable life.