scotoma

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Posts by scotoma

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  22

  US Dominance Fading Fast

  by metatron in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  http://www.businessinsider.com/pisa-rankings-2013-12.

  dead last in math and falling in other categories.. zerohedge announced this morning that the chinese yuan just passed the euro in trade finance globally.

  this puts it as #2, second only to the dollar.. metatron.

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  scotoma

  Fading is the right word. But at some point the competition for world dominance will cause instability that will break out in world war. Russia knows this and that's why it's using MacKinder's heartland theory to consolidate its power in their former border states. Look up MacKinder in Wikipedia. His theory states that the world consists of one big island (Eurasia-Africa) and whoever controls the world island is strategically situated to control the world.

  Without the USA buying stuff from the Chinese sweatshops China will revert to its old methods of keeping people under control - pruning theirpopulation through starvation. They have no need for war. War gets you more people to control. China doesn't need more people. They need space and raw materials. Russia has what China needs but war with Russia would be suicide because Russia could quickly bring all of China's progress to a halt by using a few of its thousands of nucelar weapons. A world without a strong USA would be under Russia's nuclear blackmail.

  This scenario could unfold quite rapidly in todays technology dependent world.
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  104

  knockout game, what the freak!

  by unstopableravens in

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  scotoma

  Since I am an atheist I realize that humans are ANIMALS. Humans are dangerous. It doesn't matter what color.

  I don't think knock out perps should be killed but if they kill or disable someone that should be the end of their participation in society.

  Since it's mostly a male thing (forget about race) it needs to be treated via castration. Give them a choice to surrender their gonads or stay in jail until their testosterone diminishes to a non-threatening level (around 50 years old).

  That should be sufficient to take the fun out of it.

  Males are always trying to move up in the hierarchy so they ultimately have access to more females. Same thing in politics, religion and business.

  It's an organic problem that requires a surgical remedy. Testosterone poisoning.
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  12

  My life time thoughts about Babylon the Great has fallen

  by Gorbatchov in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  friends,.

  since i was a very young boy (+/- 10 years old) i had thoughts when revelation 18:2 was studiyed at our kingdom hall.. babylon the great was for me new york.

  the center of the world, where all cultures are comming together.. next step for me, was that new york was the center of the universe for our jehovah's witness religion.. so i was connecting babylon the great with our own religion.. now with all the topics about the connexion between the watchtower corporations with investment billions, political influance, history cleaning and rebranding their business i could imagine when the society is going down, many corporations and politicians will say "shame, shame, babylon the great has fallen...".

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  scotoma

  There are at least 4 ways to view endtime prophecy:

  1. The atheist view that it is just a style of presentation of universal conflict between good and evil but has no connection with the real world.

  2. The preterists view that it all has been fullfilled.

  3. The know-it-all. It hasn't happened yet but we already know the full explanation of how it will unfold. (Includes JW's, Adventists, Born-Agains)

  4. Open ended approach: It hasn't happened yet but we will know what it means when it happens.

  The idea that Babylon the Great is a religious entity is a protestant idea. Most of the protestant reformers liked to say that the Catholic Church is Babylon the Great. JW's descend from that tradition only they extend that explanation to cover all religions except theirs.

  This is a serious flaw in JW teaching. There is no basis for believing Babylon the Great is a religious entity.

  The language of Revelation 18 makes no reference to religious features. The descriptors primarily refer to wealth and dominance of a political nature.

  The language of Revelation also makes it impossible to apply Babylon the Great to the Watchtower organization. In what way could you say the scripture at Rev. 18:23 applies to JW's "Your traveling merchants were the top-ranking men of the earth".

  If there is any fullfillment of the prophecies about Babylon the Great then the USA is the best candidate.

  "The traveling merchants of the earth became rich due to the power of her shameless luxury" _ Rev. 18:3b

  "The traveling merchants of the earth are weeping and mourning becasue there is no one to buy their full stock anymore" _ Rev 18:11

  "Too bad, too bad the great city, in which all those having boats at sea became rich by reason of her costliness, because in one hour she has been devastated._ Rev. 18:19

  USA is still the economic and military hegemon that has a kingdom over the whole earth.

  The idea that Babylon the Great is a religious entity or a collective religious entity can't be supported in any way by the Bible.
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  2

  Video stills from the latest talk by GB member Steven Lett....

  by sir82 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  ...at least, i think that's what this is...... http://www.today.com/id/19798680/ns/today-today_entertainment/?cat=tm.

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  scotoma

  Sir82

  I hear a super she-bear rustling in the brush.
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  10

  Shooting stars at end of JW video about New Tuxedo HQ

  by scotoma in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the videos on jw.org are nauseatingly corporate and propagandistic.. the smiling blondes that are showcased - the big executives sitting at their thrones (authoritative.

  desks).

  the workers clad in their orange safety uniforms like so many worker bees in a hive.. the word "love" used over and over again.

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  scotoma

  Yes AnnOMaly we know. So, what's the point.

  It wasn't a shooting star. But, it WAS a shooting star effect. To the ordinary observer of the video (me for instance) it looks like a shooting star and reminded me of the intro to a lot of warm fuzzy UFO movies (Spielbergs ET)

  As I said, " The JW.org is clever enough that if they didn't want the shooting star effect they could easily have removed it."

  "Airplanes: If you are shooting anywhere near civilization, you will most likely have some shots
  with airplane trails in them. I like to use the clone tool in Photoshop Elements to remove the
  airplanes. If it was a busy night, this could take a while, but your final product will look much
  better if you take the time to remove them. If there are a lot of airplanes on any particular night,
  sometimes I'll go ahead and render the star trails photo, and then decide which airplane trails are
  most offensive and just remove those. It's always best to go back to the original photos to remove
  the airplane trails, and then re-render the star trails photo. I have, however, discovered that if I
  decide to make a time lapse video of the photographs, then I like to leave the airplanes in for
  them. I think they have a very cool "shooting star" effect. Again, just my taste; you may think
  differently."

  ___James Vernacotola on Photography
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  10

  Shooting stars at end of JW video about New Tuxedo HQ

  by scotoma in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the videos on jw.org are nauseatingly corporate and propagandistic.. the smiling blondes that are showcased - the big executives sitting at their thrones (authoritative.

  desks).

  the workers clad in their orange safety uniforms like so many worker bees in a hive.. the word "love" used over and over again.

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  scotoma

  AnnOmaly,

  I must confess I'm not completely oriented to this planet yet.

  The JW.org is clever enough that if they didn't want the shooting star effect they could easily have removed it.

  I really don't care about the origins of any omens. But they seem to care about origins of such things.

  It just seemed like they were going for a little "magic realism"

  Professor Matthew Strecher defines magic realism as "what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded by something too strange to believe." [2] From Wikipedia
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  10

  Shooting stars at end of JW video about New Tuxedo HQ

  by scotoma in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the videos on jw.org are nauseatingly corporate and propagandistic.. the smiling blondes that are showcased - the big executives sitting at their thrones (authoritative.

  desks).

  the workers clad in their orange safety uniforms like so many worker bees in a hive.. the word "love" used over and over again.

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  scotoma

  The videos on JW.Org are nauseatingly corporate and propagandistic.

  The smiling blondes that are showcased - the big executives sitting at their thrones (authoritative
  desks). The workers clad in their orange safety uniforms like so many worker bees in a hive.

  The word "love" used over and over again. We love the brothers, we love the location, we love
  the RBC members (hate abbreviations that are OK on paper but smack of rigid hierarchical
  structures.) You're going to love this place. City lovers are going to love this lovely location.
  Women driving forklifts and working like men when they can't even talk from a lectern.

  And then at the end they show a starry sky that doesn't represent any part of the known
  heaven-scape and then they go wild with a bunch of shooting stars. How manipulative and pagan.
  Shooting stars are omens of good things to come.
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  8

  Articles on Quantum Mechanics in the magazines, how many?

  by VM44 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  how many articles on quantum mechanics have been published in the watchtower and awake magazines?.

  could someone with the wt-cd library check on this?.

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  scotoma

  I used to talk to a JW by the name of Frank Kappel?? (my memory isn't perfect) He lived in Oregon or Washington State.

  This was back in the 1990's when AOL had a religious discussion forum.

  He used his actual name. He authored a college textbook on Quantum Mechanics.

  He is dead now. But we had some interesting discussions.

  I saved an email from him where he answered one of my questions about the relationship between the four forces. I will try to dig it up.

  He was a very skeptical JW and definitely didn't believe in demons. He would defend JW's when compared to other religions but at the same time was critical of JW's.

  There were a certain type of free thinker that became JW's in the 1940's and 1950's. They were religious by their traditional upbringing and hadn't worked out the ideas that would have pushed them toward atheism. The idea that religion was a snare and a racket appealed to them.

  During that time when the cold war was raging JW's seemed to have a plausibile explanation of events. That has all faded.

  Frank was that type and coincidentally was a physics professor.

  I've known other highly educated people who became JW's after years of dealing with severe alcoholism. Guess they were in search of any kind of "higher power" that could get that monkey off their back.

  Let me know if anyone from the North West knew this guy personally.
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  47

  Could there really be something to the UFO phenomena? Amazing documentary

  by yadda yadda 2 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  it's easy to just poo-poo the ufo thing, especially if you're naturally very skeptical after your jw experience as i am, but when you see documentary's like this it seems undeniable that some kind of inexplicable phenomenon is occuring.

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  could vehement deniars of the ufo phenomenon please suspend their criticisms until they've at least watched the whole documentary, to be fair to others who are more open-minded on this subject.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjismjxshpg.

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  scotoma

  Mad Giant,

  I agree with you about these documentaries. They take so long to say something that could be said very simply with a few paragraphs and some short illustrative videos of about 30 seconds. If I want to listent to music or watch stock scenes on various topics I'll do that. Why stretch it out.

  About the laws of the universe. We simply don't know it all. We think we do. But then later we see that we were wrong.

  For example who would think that by spinning a coil of wires in a magnetic field would produce electricity. Such a simple idea that revolutionized our world. There may be a fairly simple way to jump dimensions. Like clicking the heels of some ruby slippers.
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  47

  Could there really be something to the UFO phenomena? Amazing documentary

  by yadda yadda 2 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  it's easy to just poo-poo the ufo thing, especially if you're naturally very skeptical after your jw experience as i am, but when you see documentary's like this it seems undeniable that some kind of inexplicable phenomenon is occuring.

  .

  could vehement deniars of the ufo phenomenon please suspend their criticisms until they've at least watched the whole documentary, to be fair to others who are more open-minded on this subject.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjismjxshpg.

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  scotoma

  Metatron states the problem clearly. The choice isn't between God and Atheism. There is the possibility of aliens of finitie power that can do amazing things because their technology is GOD_LIKE.

  The difference in believing in aliens and an all powerful all knowing god is that aliens are POSSIBLE beings whereas Omnipotent and Omniscient being is an impossibility.

  Alliens would have gone through the usual process that produces complexity which is modification over generations.

  Intelligence doesn't start with mind. The only minds we know about are embodied. Mind is an emergent quality.

  Even if there were positive proof of alien visitations if they don't talk to us they might as well be migrating birds flying south for the winter.