Posts by kaik

27

Options for the EU? - A cartoon from the Lebanese Daily Star

by fulltimestudent in

kaik

Greece is broken beyond help. It is unfortunate, but nobody can fix their own mess except Greek alone. They need to figure out a way how to make their economy growing. However, they cornered themselves into the position, and their elective leadership isolate Greece from rest of Europe. They are without ally. I expect total disintegration of their economy, because their banking system had collapsed, and they would need at least 90 billions to restart the economy, which is 1% of GDP of EU. However, ECB would need to get all other 18 members to vote on it unanimously, which they wont. All of Eastern EU member are deeply against Greece, and Slovakia called for expulsion of them from EU.

Greece needs to reform and modernize their economy to be strong and enable generate extensive export. Greek export 1/3 of good what is generated by much smaller Slovakia. Czech Republic with the same population size, export 6x more. Yet, all these countries have lower income and lower per capita output than Greece. Something went horrible wrong in the past decade in the Greek economy. The leadership that is responsible for it should be jailed. Austerity only deepened the misery and very little was done in reforming the system.

With collapsing system, Greece may experience a military junta, and leave NATO and EU all together.

7

What was so new about The Theory of Evolution?

by iconoclastic in

the east had already been teaching the 10 stages of human evolution (that should happen in the life-span of a human being) using an allegorical story of 10 incarnations of god:.

1) fish (water borne life, a fish-like start in the womb of mother) amoebae or primeval evolution..

2) turtle (life moves into land, crawling child once outside the womb) amphibians..

kaik

Whatever any Eastern religion/philosophy teaches about evolution is irrelevant, as evolution is about change of species over time, from one generation to the next. This is taught in USA, Europe or Asia, and has nothing to do with "something spiritually evolved".

67

How do you feel about exJW's who resist our efforts to effect change?

by nicolaou in

i've met a few.

i'm not talking about the jw who, whether df'd or not, falls off the radar and just gets on with living a normal life - good luck to them and may there be many more!.

i mean the former jehovah's witness who is now enjoying all the benefits of a cult free life thanks to the efforts of many bloggers, posters and activists, but is critical of the efforts of someone close them to free more jws.

kaik

Some ex-JWs still hold belief that WT is the channel of God' communication, but organization is imperfect due human nature of the people. They get defensive of WT, and does not matter how many mistakes the organization makes. Some of the exJW crowd also hope to return once the WT "reforms" and gives them justification for their DA/DF. I met these exJWs like that, who are out for years, yet they internally feel connected to the WT.

31

What Road Would You Choose---IF?

by John Aquila in

say you could go back in time to when you were 15 years old.

no watchtower in your life.

but the experience you have now you could keep.

kaik

I would not change much because I generally have successful corporate career and I have earned a good education. However, I would change different path to it. I would not waste a time on my undergrad in my field, and later I had to go through various graduate courses and certifications to fill my gaps. It was just too expensive and time consuming.

If I knew my biological father would die in my teens, I would probably spent more time with him, as he left us due my mom became JW and he did not. I barely know much what he liked and what were his dreams/aspirations. I could hike, ski, mountain climb with him in my 15th birthday instead spending my teens years in KH.

131

On the Relevancy of The Institutionalization of Sin

by Perry in

child murder, sodomy & corrupting the human genome are not new sins, they are old ones.

what is new is their institutionalization.

but even that isn't totally new.

kaik

I never understood how someone would leave the WTS for any other religion. I just dropped my faith like a hot potato after 25 years of indoctrination in JW hullabaloo.

Some people feels that WT is not radical enough, and will leave to pursue even more radical, crazy religion with more extreme devotion that they had left behind.

18

Why would Jehovah and Jesus talk to Satan?

by hardtobeme in

if satan is the greatest apostate there is, why he was allowed to be in heaven?

job chapters 1 and 2 says that jehovah talked to him.

wasn't jehovah supposed to shun his son and set an example to all parents?.

kaik

This is one the most ridiculous part in the New Testament. Considering the nonsense Jesus and Satan go on hike together, Satan tempting Jesus, etc. From Judaism point of view, this does not make a sense, since Satan is not antagonist of God, but someone who is employed by Him.

131

On the Relevancy of The Institutionalization of Sin

by Perry in

child murder, sodomy & corrupting the human genome are not new sins, they are old ones.

what is new is their institutionalization.

but even that isn't totally new.

kaik

A sin is a human construct
What you believe is irrelevant in society that is defined by sets of laws not by your religious conviction
Majority of humanity does not believe in Jesus, never did
What adults do in the privacy of their bedrooms is not your damn business
"God, in his wisdom gives people what they want..... complete freedom in him, or from him.". nonsense sentence with the use of words "giving, want, and freedom". Parents of children dying with cancer or people born with deformities would disagree with you. There is a saying "If God wants, he will bless someone with blindness".

24

What percentage of the population are gay?

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

during the long debate on the question of gay marriage, there have been many competing answers to the question of, "how many people are gay?".

a very anti-gay christian minister in sydney, the reverend fred nile, (who is also a member of the state parliament) claims that the percentage is as low as 1%.. some university (u.of new south wales) research in sydney has suggested 5%, but the authors of the study cautioned that there was a problem in the fact that an unknown number of respondents would likely not admit to being gay.. there are other problems in asking the question.

for example, what does being gay mean?

kaik

The percentage of the homosexual men attracted to same sex is probably constant though the ages. Austrian and Prussian/German research is interesting, because it was first larger scientific approach to understand homosexuality instead of religious one and is well documented. In the case of Austrian Empire, there was an introduction for new criminal law that was put into the effect in 1855 and survived in most of countries build upon ruins of Austria-Hungary until 1950 or 1961 respectively. Many laws were analyzed by logical approach by inviting the best scientist the Austrian monarchy had from universities of Vienna, Prague and Gratz. Homosexuality was considered for decriminalization and the discussions were led by Dr. Purkyne, who presented the findings that 1:50 of men have permanent, irreversible attraction to same sex and do not wish to change that. However, emperor Franz Joseph was not interested in legalizing it, and the anti-gay law became effective for the next 100 years.

Forty years later, Austria-Hungary was engulfed with antisemitic waves that reached apex during so called Hilsner affair, where Jews were accused of ritual killing of young maidens. The hysteria originated after several unsolved murders of young women (four or five). Another murder of young woman was associated with local Jewish community and population singled out Jews as the perpetrator of the crime with Hilsner in lead. Nationalists from various Austrian nations accused Jews for committing sexual crimes against the Christians and seducing young men to homosexuality to weaken the morals. Czechs and Germans equally blamed Jews that homosexuality was introduced into the society by them. Various studies from arrest reports from 1890's to 1900 proved nothing that the Jews were more inclined to homosexuality than Germans, Hungarians, and Czechs. I think this was done after analysis of 14000 or so arrest records across the monarchy based for the same "crime against the nature". Actually the numbers were equally distributed among the population around 2%. Nationalists refused to accept that study and maintained well to the Nazi era claiming that Jews were recruiting Germans and Czech boys to homosexual behavior.

So any case, Victorian era concluded that 2% of men are totally attracted to same sex gender. That has not changed with present CDC statistics http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr077.pdf where in 2013 it was estimated that 1.8% of men are gay.

128

Looking Back In Retrospect To 1975...

by titch in

greetings, folks: so, it's been 40 years since 1975. and, if you were actively involved with the witnesses back then, the mindset of many was, that by early autumn of 1975, it would mark the anniversary of 6000 years of human existence.

and, the hope was then, that it would mark the start of the 1000-year of christ, from the heavenly realm.

but, looking back now, 40 years ago, in june of 1975, only 3 more months remained until early autumn.

kaik

I was just a kid, but I remember that my JW relatives told me that I do not have to worry about going to school because Armageddon is behind the corner. My parents were not buying anything because they would get all in new world. Eventually with the saving in, my dad bought a car in 1976. I remember it as was yesterday and he did it to annoy my JW relatives as the Armageddon had not arrived. My uncle told him back then if he waited a bit, he could get a car for free from all these exterminated unbelievers.

11

Is this a big reason that JW's are so attractive to some out there?

by dubstepped in

in another thread i saw it mentioned that this elder and his wife were trying to preach to the poster here and said that they liked that jw's had answers to their questions.

i've heard that over and over throughout the years, and it does make sense on a level.

people in other religions sometimes have questions and are told that this or that is a mystery, or that they just have to have faith, etc.

kaik

Many people joined JW as an act of desperation during the personal crisis and they have not see any way out like did my parents. WT offered a hope of impending changes, new world with petting zoos and good health. It suppose to happen really, really soon. I often wonder why my parents accepted bible studies with my JW relatives, but eventually only my mom got baptized. I think it was all due the difficulties the faced in the communist era. My father was a military officer, but was anticommunist and deeply Catholic. He was able to do his job during much liberal, and relaxed 1960's era in Czechoslovakia until Soviets crushed Prague Spring in 1968. Later my dad was purged from his job and lost everything, income, friends, allowances, social prestige. We had no place to live, he could not find job as he was enemy of the state. My aunt offered bible studies and my parents were on the hook. Jehovah was coming and he was much stronger than Soviet Union their tanks crushing the society. New world looked so good, and early 1970's WT promised the end of the system was months away. My parents got hope. My father eventually backed of from baptism, because he said that WT was making too much BS, and he could not reconcile his Catholic education with WT doctrine. After 1975 came and go, he said WT is based on lies. My mom 40+ years later still maintaining the hopes that the New World is coming really soon and she will not die.