Posts by Defianttruth

My wife belongs to a small nondenominational church here in town. She really wants me to go. I have my reservations. I am creating a list of questions to ask him.

What happens when he and I have theological differences?

What conflict of interest resolutions will he accept?

Membership requirements.

What path must I exercise to reach God?

Can you think of anymore questions than that.

13

College On The Cheap! Have You Thought Of Attending College? You Can Very Cheaply!

by ÁrbolesdeArabia in

lots of friends and jws are dealing with depression, some are sad they never went to college and wonder what it's like to get a degree.

the watchtower guilted her members by telling them they were worldy if they wanted a higher education.

college in community schools were free when i took ap classes in high school.

Defianttruth

Here's my two cents.

When picking which degree program an individual wants, he or she should investigate the market. A quick trip to to Monster.com will show a certificate in welding is more fiscally valuable than a PhD in Ancient Literature.
I would suggest a degree that makes one eligible for a license or certificate. Such as engineering, nursing, teaching, accounting, or a similar line of study.
Even if you are looking at a graduate license program like JD or MD get an undergrad degree in something licensable. No one ever said, "We can't hire this Doctor because he is also an engineer." If an individual has a nursing background and are also an attorney the sky is that person's limit. But if grad school doesn't work out for an individual, he or she has a career to fall back on.
With that being said, all accredited 4 year programs qualify for a commission in the military. Most services push O4 and up to seek graduate studies and will help you pay for it.
If you want to study Ancient Literature, make it your minor or your masters. My Masters is field related, but not specifically in what I do. It does help me specialize in my career field.
If you are a nontraditional student seek a company that will help you.

42

i'm curious about human intelligence and beliefs as a natural phenomenon.. i've long suspected that even the most "normal" and well-educated person harbors "fringe" beliefs.. the purpose of this thread is not to mock beliefs of any kind.

rather it is for all of us to toss in to a pile our own unprovables so .

we can, as a group, evaluate how natural and non-neurotic such thinking might well be.. .

Defianttruth

I'm doing a fiberglass project today and have lots of down time to work with between coats. This subject makes me think. I was thinking about my hypothetical spaceship earlier. Lets say it has to be huge. It must have enviromental, waste managment, navigation, and many other systems. I think an aircraft carrier would be a good platform to examine do to its size and wieght. Wiki says the USS Enterprize wieghs 100,000 tons. Just to get through a years acceleration at .9 gs to 30,000k/s we would use 3,840,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Joules of force, and require 16,400,000,000 horse power. That get's us moving. Now we can cruise for a century or two. After that we have to use the same amount of energy to slow down. A total of 7,680,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules about the energy produced by 4 nuclear plants city block sized and wieghing millions of tons.

42

My questions for YOU

by Terry in

jw
friends

i'm curious about human intelligence and beliefs as a natural phenomenon.. i've long suspected that even the most "normal" and well-educated person harbors "fringe" beliefs.. the purpose of this thread is not to mock beliefs of any kind.

rather it is for all of us to toss in to a pile our own unprovables so .

we can, as a group, evaluate how natural and non-neurotic such thinking might well be.. .

Defianttruth

I got to thinking about the 95 years of acceleration for 10gs I did that math in my head. I reworked it on paper and its .9g for 1 year. I should be more carefull. Scotoma: The problem with a warp is it would be impossible for matter to go through with out being destroyed. The gravitaional and electo forces would be stagering. Not to mention the theromdynamic probems with being in a warp. How long could one last at -450f. its around 57,000,000 btu/hr of heat flow for 1 inch of 1000ft 2 of aluminum. That would be one cold space ship.

42

My questions for YOU

by Terry in

jw
friends

i'm curious about human intelligence and beliefs as a natural phenomenon.. i've long suspected that even the most "normal" and well-educated person harbors "fringe" beliefs.. the purpose of this thread is not to mock beliefs of any kind.

rather it is for all of us to toss in to a pile our own unprovables so .

we can, as a group, evaluate how natural and non-neurotic such thinking might well be.. .

Defianttruth

1. As far as UFOs go, I think the physics rule out any visitors to our blue ball. Before I have to go through a speed of light discussion with someone. It is impossible for a carbon based life form to travel even close to the speed of light.(from our frame of reference It gets a little complicated outside of that, but for us the only frame of reference we have is our own.) The gravitational and electro forces would make space warping impossible. Do I think we could get a spacecraft to go close the speed of light absolutely.....Not!!!!!!!!! So even unmanned spacecraft are out of the question. Gliese 581 C is over 20 light years away. It is the only planet we have found that might be able to keep water in a liquid state. Water is the bastion of life as we know it. How far away is that? Well, if we convert it to km it is 1.89x10 14 km. Lets look at some history. The fastest man made object ever build was a satellite built almost forty years ago to study the sun. We launched it from earth and sent it to the sun on an elliptical orbit. This is important be cause as the object orbits closer to the sun it is able to use its kinetic energy relative to the sun. Earth is a long way from the sun. The sun's gravitational force pulls the object closer and accelerates it at amazing numbers. We used the Earth relative position to pull the satellite into a very high velocity. In other words, we cheated. If we had to leave the gravitational pull of the sun we would have to fight this force. All said and done , we achieved about 70 km/s top velocity. Lets say we had a huge leap in technology. One that is mind boggling and we build a craft to maintain .1c (30,000km/s) . If we were to make the trip at this velocity it would take us nearly 199years to reach this planet. (frame of reference is important here the 199 years is how long the space ship would travel for a person on earth watching the spacecraft travel. The people on the space craft would make the journey in 199.8 years) And thats not counting years of accelerating and decelerations. If the acceleration was slow it could take thousands of years. If we accelerated at 10 gs it would take us 95 years to achieve this velocity. I don't think you could live more than a few hours under this amount of force, much less 95 years. It would be impossible to raise three generations under these extreme conditions. Could you imagine mateing and childbirth? I could figure out what acceleration we have achieved with man made objects and multiply that by 420 just like I did velocity, but I don't really want to work out the integral for the trip using acceleration and deceleration this morning. Lets just say it is no easy feat changing velocities that quick moving away from the sun. Could a group of people spend thousands of years away from earth? Even If we used multiple generations, where is the energy for environmental control going to come from? Energy for operating the growing and sustaining the generations? If there was a 1 in 100,000 chance of contacting space debris per day there is a great chance the space craft will be destroyed. How are we going to protect the craft from corrosion over great times and extreme conditions like these? We won't have a mine to get metals from. So to answer the first question. Yes, there may be life in our Universe besides us, but No, we will never see it.

Psychic powers!!!!!! Please... There are only 4 know fundamental interactions in the Universe Gravitational, Electromagnetism, Strong nuclear, and Weak Nuclear. Also known as non contact forces. The nuclear forces don't work in a macro environment either. Show me someone tie Psychic powers to one of these forces and I will be a believer. Please don't post some fringe "scientist" research on this subject. The nicest word I can come up with is quack to describe these individuals. (The scientist not the believers. I don't care what people believe in)
Conspiracy theories, Kinda...... Do I think the government hides things from citizens for the betterment of the government. Yes, I do. Do I think something as complex as a multiple target attack involving the deaths of thousands of people could be kept a secret? No, too many people like to talk.

4.Religion. This is where I pull away from main stream science. I was in my house while I was in school watching tv. I flipped thorough the channels and I saw my Department head preaching on the local church channel. I was flabbergasted. This was a guy who had multiple Phds from Duke. I thought how could he believe in God. I wanted to but couldn't anymore. I came from a cult background and thought it was all hooey. So one day, I was working on a project for this guy and asked him how was he religious when he had the knowledge he did. He looked at me with a smile. I think he could see how serious and perplexed I was by all this and said, "You can't always be an absolutist there will be things you don't and won't understand." and walked away. I thought about his words for years. I didn't fully understand them until I had my first child. The first time I held her I knew there was magic in the Universe. I couldn't measure it, describe it, or quantify it with any known means, but it was there staring me right in the face.

Everybody is different. I think if your belief interest you or helps you accept conditions you can't control the idea is a good thing. Sometimes it's nice to have a little magic.

I will not have a WBTS funeral.

by Defianttruth in

jw
friends

i read another thread on a jw funeral.

it talked about that horrible recruitment speech that is given at every funeral.

i do not want my children who are in morning of my death to have to deal with any of my former cults craziness.

Defianttruth

I read another thread on a JW funeral. It talked about that horrible recruitment speech that is given at every funeral. I do not want my children who are in morning of my death to have to deal with any of my former cults craziness. So here's the plan.

I'm going to edit my will to state I do not want any services. Period. I just want my friends and family to be there for my wife and kids. (her family not mine the cult ones) I'm going to the Grand Teton National Forest this summer. I'm on a work trip so the kids won't be there. I'm going to bury something for them in the forest. I will record the location with latitude and longitude. I will then create a GIS map and photos so the site can be found. I will place a thumb drive in my safety deposit box along with enough cash to pay for the trip out to the park and back with extra money for plenty of fun along the way. After I die, I want to be cremated and my wife can keep my ashes until my youngest child is 24. If I die after this time the plan will be affective immediately. At this point in time, my children will be given the key to my safety deposit box. Inside, they will find the cash, a thumb-drive with the directions of the site for my ashes to be spread and the site of where I hid their gift.

I can't figure out what to hid for them. It has to be something they will always remember.

I know this sounds like a scavenging hunt involving dear ole dad's remains, but this trip has a few objectives.

It will assure my children take at least one trip together as adults.

It will get my remains to the place I feel god made for me.

it will give my children one last adventure to go on with me.

It will be a great story to tell my grand children.

It will solidify my weirdness to everyone, but I don't care.

12

The Elephant in the Room

by skeeter1 in

with a name like skeeter, i have plenty of relatives that could be on a day-time paternity talk show.

i talked with some this week.

their lack of want to improve their situation drives me nuts.. 18 years ago, relative betty gets pregnant as a teenager, had a baby (we'll call her mary), very quickly abandoned mary to grandma, came back pregnant with another child 5 years later, grandma pays alot of betty's & mary's bills, grandma used to say that betty was jealous of mary (mary is pretty, thin, and can do well in school.

Defianttruth

I knew a skeeter once. Also I know, Scooter, Jelly Bean, Snicker poo, Spook, Bubba, Crawfish, Catfish, and various others. Atleast, she was 18. My grandmother was a grandmother at 29. Do the math on that. When she died she was a living great great grandmother. The current generation of breeders live in a 30 Yearold trailer which has a hole in the floor big enough for the dogs to climb through. Non of them work and all are on welfare imagine that. Big empathetic hug.

22

business as usual in my kingdom hall

by nowwhat? in

we have a very dedicated, sincere, humble, older elder body in our hall.

along with a pretty zealous group of publishers.

[even though no one has come out of our territory in 35 years] it seems i am the only one aware of the pattern of false prophecies and mistakes by the society.

Defianttruth

Searcher, I have a question. Please do not think I am being argumentative. You assume that having love for your brothers would mean no war for God's true religious organization. Is it showing love to allow 6 million of your Jewish brothers to be innocently murdered by His and Her government while you sit on your hands? Would it show love to sit on your hands while a foreign Army invaded, killed, and raped your neighbors. I always had issues with the WTBS position on military neutrality.

They like to use he who lives by the sword as evidence, but that doesn't make sense. He who lives my the motorcycle will probably die by the motorcycle. I think it was a proverbial comment by Christ and not a commandment.

Do they not know the first Gentile ever was a Roman Soldier? He was an officer for the Roman Army. (The same army that carried out Christ's Death Order) The only way to get out was death. They didn't have a nice comfortable pension. No where did it say he had to resign his commission. He just became a Christian. These guys were not the soldiers we are accustomed to today. They were vicious, killers who took no prisoners and would torture people for fun. Cornelius was one of the ones in charge of them. Why would the Apostles mention his job if it wasn't important. They could have said he was an employee of the republic, but they didn't. The apostles knew nations had raged wars for a long time and would rage wars in the future. They knew a nation that did not protect its borders could never be allowed to safely exist. If Catholics never fought in wars England would never existed. If Protestants never fought in wars England would never existed. So on and so on. If it was wrong for a member of God's true organization to be a member of the military. It would not allow everyone in the country to worship. A nation has to have an army or they will not be left alone. The world needs soldiers for peace and the apostles knew this.