Posts by XandersEvilTwin

34

The USA and the 'Divine Mandate'

by Abaddon in

jw
friends

having had a bizzare (for a european) preoccupation with american history in the 19th c, i do find that current american foreign policy still has implict in it the religiously inspired rationale that enabled americans to seriously claim that the ethnic cleansing of the west, and the genocidal behaviours that this often entailed, was because god wanted them to do it.. from certain newspaper articles i've read it seems as if some of those in the white house believe that bush getting in despite not having the majority of the popular vote was a sign, and that 9/11 backed up their belief that bush was a man put in a certain place for a certain time and role.

that bible studies are a regular expected activity of white house staffers.. now, this makes me very nervous.

i prefer my religious fanatics to come from developing countries that may have weapons of mass destruction, rather than from the most powerful millitary country in the world with more weapons of mass destruction than the rest of the world put together.. obviously just because it was in a newspaper doesn't mean it's true (yesterday's guardian i think).. but what do you think?.

XandersEvilTwin

.

Edited by - XandersEvilTwin on 31 January 2003 20:0:40

28

Help - how to reason from 'best out there'?

by Xander in

okay, another discussion with the brother.

he did mention i was a bad influence, but, feh, he still talks and listens a little, so i'm not too worried.. i've got him whittled down to - "if nothing else, at least this org tries to follow the bible the closest, every other religion has serious flaws.".

this is kind of a hard one to beat, as, in the end, what the society says is generally quite good and positive.

XandersEvilTwin

I did get him to crack out his Interlinear for a brief verification that god's name (as the witnesses would have it) never actually occurred in it. That was good for a shocker.

I was hoping to get into more translation errors - that one in Rev I didn't know, but sure enough, it looks like you are correct (the only WT literature I made a point of keeping is the Interlinear), the Greek is the same!

I'll be writing that one down!

Stuff like this one is good - translation and teaching errors in literature still considered 'current' or 'accurate', etc.

(sorry about using the dup, but this is kinda time-sensitive)

28

Help - how to reason from 'best out there'?

by Xander in

okay, another discussion with the brother.

he did mention i was a bad influence, but, feh, he still talks and listens a little, so i'm not too worried.. i've got him whittled down to - "if nothing else, at least this org tries to follow the bible the closest, every other religion has serious flaws.".

this is kind of a hard one to beat, as, in the end, what the society says is generally quite good and positive.

XandersEvilTwin

Sadly, he has no problem with 'new light' replacing 'old light' - so bringing up articles anything other than RECENTLY has no impact at all. The old "Yeah, that's how it WAS, but imperfect men, blahblahblah, NEW LIGHT is...." etc.

other religious organizations which are similar in beliefs to the witnesses.

This seemed to be a very good angle, I think I made some success with this one, but my knowledge of non-mainstream religions is sadly lacking.

Other examples would help a lot.

(damn posting limit! LOL)

32

A Story About Faith

by jgnat in

jw
friends

fiancee .

she paced back and forth, fiddling with her hands, fiddling with the ring.

"how can you just sit there so calm, so relaxed, so...unmoveable?

XandersEvilTwin

Millions of men and women have fallen in love in the past --- and made a success of it. Knowing that this is possible, this couple yearn for it themselves.

But they have no reason to think that a successful relationship is in store for them. Many relationships have ended. Many have continued with either or both partner miserable. And true, some have succeeded.

I'm not saying they can't have a belief that their relationship would work based on prior experience. If they had, say, been living together for some number of years, been through hard economic times and good, war and peace, etc, and stuck together, then I'd say they would have reason to 'know' their relationship would succeed.

We don't have any reason to think (given the limited data in the above story) any of that is true. Indeed, I would argue the author intentionally paints such things as NOT having happened - that their belief in their relationship's future success IS merely Heb 11:1 faith. IE., they just WANT it to be true.

"faith" is one of the most misused words in the English language

Well, it doesn't help that 9/10 of the definitions of 'faith' are not how you are using it above. In any case, I think the original author painted a picture designed to illustrate Heb 11:1 'faith' - IE, faith with no reason for it.

Blind faith? No. Like I said above, I make a choice to have faith, with eyes wide open to the potential consequences.

'Blind faith' does not mean faith with no understanding of consequences. 'Blind faith' is believing an event or result will occur based on no accurate information.

You could say you have 'faith' that god created the universe. You have no proof of that, and if you simply wanted it to be true, that would be 'faith'.

I should not say I have 'faith' in evolution, because there IS proof it occurs. It is more appropriate to say 'I KNOW evolution occurs' rather than 'I have FAITH it occurs'.

One implies that there are facts to back your conclusion or belief up. The other implies there are not.

(Yes, I am aware that there are alternative definitions of 'faith', but none seemed appropriate to the above story. It SEEMS that the author was advocating Heb 11:1 faith, and that is the type of faith I argue against)

the "enlightened" way men and women should approach marriage. Failure is built into it.

First define, of course, what you consider that 'failure' that is built into it. I would be quick to point our a marriage that ends is not NECESSARILY a failure. A marriage in which either or both parties are every unhappy IS, however.

(sorry about the dup account posting, but I have been sitting on this post ALL DAY, and the stupid post counter just isn't resetting).

5

creating batch files

by ballistic in

anyone good with batch files under nt 4?.

my win 95 / 98 batch file is similar to this:.

start "c:\program files\kazaa\kazaa.exe".

XandersEvilTwin

Not sure why you are putting anything in front of the file name, though. Those are both .exe files, if you specify them in the command, they'll run themselves.

Also, it would help if you gave us the exact syntax of the error that occurs with the batch file (or, exactly what happens). Run the file from the command prompt, so the output from it stays visible.

26

Living together before marriage=promiscuous?

by Witch Child in

this is part of someone else's post;.

"we had a controversy recently related to this.

our last pastor (a great guy, a harvard grad and a ph.d.) said he would not marry persons with one address (they could live together and fornicate all they wished, they just could not flaunt it) and some condemned him for intolerance!

XandersEvilTwin

Either you have everybody else blocked, or you should hit refresh (F5).

(I'm posting from this account in case you DO have mine blocked)

43

Educate me on JW dating!

by Delicious_Daniel in

i really like this girl who ive been told is a jw.

im not sure about jw's and their beleifs of dating so i have a few questions.. 1) are jw's allowed to date outside their religion?.

2) what are jw's beleifs on pre-marital sex?.

XandersEvilTwin

if you consider giving somone a birthday present stalking thats fine

That's not what I consider stalking. I consider buying someone a TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLAR birthday present ANONYMOUSLY and then dropping it off at their DOORSTEP at FOUR IN THE FRICKIN MORNING as 'stalking', yes.

And more than a tad weird that you haven't talked w/ her for a month prior and many months since.

I mean, am I wrong here?

Does anyone else not have warning bells going off in their heads?

Would YOU all want this guy knowing where you live??

43

Educate me on JW dating!

by Delicious_Daniel in

i really like this girl who ive been told is a jw.

im not sure about jw's and their beleifs of dating so i have a few questions.. 1) are jw's allowed to date outside their religion?.

2) what are jw's beleifs on pre-marital sex?.

XandersEvilTwin

I spent 250 dollars on this Roxy watch

walked to her house at 4:00am in the morning and left it in an unmarked box on her door that had her name on it.

I hadn't seen her for a month prior to that, and havnt seen her since

I dont have anyway to contact her for 9 more months

walked to her house at 4:00am in the morning

Hmmm...how about...instead of education on JW dating, we give you education on NOT FRICKIN STALKING SOMEONE!!!!!!

Just a thought.

21

I've never lived

by DanTheMan in

jw
friends

been doing a lot of reflecting lately, about my life and this crazy world.. fear has dominated my life.

i have barely lived because of it.

i just exist, that's about it.. when i was growing up, it was bullies at school.

XandersEvilTwin

Seeing as how I'm forced to post from my Evil Twin account for now, my advice will be suitably scathing:

Dude, you need to get your head on straight and GET THE HELL OUT OF THE CITY.

Really. Some folks like city life a lot, you don't sound like you do. Get a nice pad out in the country (NOT A SUBURB - just as bad as cities), genuine country-like. You'll be surprised how much getting back in touch with nature helps.

Cities are an abomination - they dehumanize us, detach us from what really matters. If you know that moving in to one, and move out soon, you'll be fine. I can't imagine how people survive living there.

ALSO! You should travel around the country. Get to see some of the beauties of nature.

Course, I'm pagan, so biased.

But, generally, nature = healing.

Get out, enjoy it.

Join some sporting clubs - Kayaking is a blast, as is simple canoeing, archery, whatever gets you outdoors.

MEET PEOPLE!

(EDIT: country doesn't mean 'hicks-ville'. I'd never live somewhere further than 30 min from a Best Buy or grocery store, and CERTAINLY never anywhere without DSL internet access. Yet, I'm definately out in a small town area).

Edited by - XandersEvilTwin on 16 December 2002 22:41:25

29

Star Trek Nemesis

by Robdar in

.

was hellagood.

robyn

XandersEvilTwin

Well, I like, but only because I'm utterly obsessed w/ Romulans.

It's a very, very good Trek flick. Perhaps I am jaded because I've seen too much 'Enterprise' lately, and that show has REAL script problems, but a good flick.

Yeah, there are SOME problems w/ the plot, but nothing that could not be explained away with a line or two of throwaway dialogue (which probably was, and hence, we may yet see in the DVD). It's not so bad that you couldn't tell what those explanations would have been, though.

Now, 'Enterprise', OTOH....OMG, *that* proves Trek needs new writers more than anything. I mean, these guys don't even THINK about what they are writing. Remember - no universal translator. The Comm officer, Hoshi, trying to understand a new language. "They say they are....Romoolans" "RomUlans" corrects T'Pol....

Wait a minute....they called themselves...in untranslated speech....ROMULAN!?!? What?!?! Since when do space aliens obligingly name themselves after ancient human legends?!?! Or, at the very least, name themselves after something that directly translates to ancient earth legends?? That a Vulcan knows more about than Hoshi!?!?

(For those who don't know - apparently everybody at Paramount - Romulus and Remus were the twin brothers who, in mythology, founded the city of Rome and the Roman Empire. According to older Trek lore, the human surveyors named the twin planets Ch'Rihan and Ch'Havran as 'Romulus' and 'Remus' before contact had been made with the natives - subsequently called by humans 'Romulans'.)

--------------------

Oh, yeah, back on topic....

Yeah, not a bad flick. I'd rate the top few as:

1) ST:VI (if for no other reason than Christopher Plummer makes a fetching Klingon)
2) ST:Nemesis (well, Romulan, yeah....)
3) ST:II (okay, Ricardo Montelban has some cool lines....)
4) ST:First Contact
5) ST:Generations