timsimmk

Bro. Jackson didn't say that Jesus went to Magadan in John 6. He said that he went to "this general area", referring evidently to the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. He only put Magadan on his diagram to show where the places were relative to each other. That's my take on it.

1- Where do you want to live ? Ocean or mountain ? Or normal flat country side ? In a city of some sort hopefully. 2- What job do you want to learn, do at first? I'd like to be a transportation designer. 3- What do you want to produce? I mean imagine you have a market/barter/giveaway place, near your local kingdom hall, in Paradise, what do you want to bring here ? Intellectual produce i.e. designs for technology. 4- What hobby do you want to develop? Learn art/music, etc... ? Being a better guitar player.

It's interesting that Aled said in the quote above that he wasn't familiar with the song so it seems that he didn't approach the Society himself and ask to use the song for a Christmas album. It seems that the record label must have sought permission instead. Perhaps they didn't tell the Society what it was to be used for. I'm sure the brothers had the best intentions, we'll just have to see what comes out as there must be many people making enquiries about this.

Actually, I should point out that I liked some of the casting. I thought Spock and Kirk were well cast, as were Sulu and Chekov, but I'm not sure about Uhura and Scotty, I know lots of people liked Simon Pegg as Scotty but I'm still not sure. The best for me was Karl Urban as McCoy. He has the portrayal of Deforrest Kelley to a tee. It's like watching the original McCoy, the best portrayal of any of the characters in my mind.

I thought there was something about the story allegedly coming to the author after hearing some beautiful music, and that this was interpreted to be demonic communication?

I agree with Florent. It's not one that I would read personally. But I want to emphasise that I don't mean that the Society were promoting spiritism, as their stated purpose was that people be warned about the dangers of spiritism by the book. I also don't think that anyone who has read it is guilty of spiritism. It's a conscience matter for me, much like watching certain movies.

"Ignite the red matter" did it for me. Since when is that an appropriate line for Star Trek? Something like "engage the quantum resonance cascade" would have been better, but creating a singularity with a blob of red stuff is perhaps one of the silliest things I have ever seen in Star Trek. I also didn't like the fact that engineering looked like a brewery, and was indeed filmed in one I think. The large hadron collider type from Into Darkness was better, but still nothing on the "classic" films IMO.

You know what you're right! I guess it's just difficult to say "United States people". I suppose I would say Americans for people from the USA and North Americans for the broader context. BTW, New Yorker is probably my favourite American accent...or should that be New Yoiker?

I think that it may be wise to leave it alone personally. I am not stumbled by the brothers promoting it as it were though, as I can see that their intentions were entirely honourable. They wanted people to be warned about spiritism. It's just a shame that back then the brothers were a little less-than-cautious at times as to how they went about it. Of course we have been taught by Jesus as head of the congregation to me more cautious nowadays. Brother Russell once stated that astrologers were also pointing to 1914 as a significant year. Many accuse him of supporting astrology, but actually in context he condemned astrology as of the devil and said that he had come across the predictions of astrologers (perhaps by a less-than-sensible reader of the WT) saying that 1914 was significant and it occurred to him that even the devil can tell a truth when it suits him. He was not supporting or specifically using astrology to support his Biblical teachings, but unfortunately he has been misrepresented. That's the beauty of hindsight I suppose.

I love the remastered TOS (I loved the original as well, but I really like the way they have tastefully done the remastering) and I also like the other series as well, Voyager arguably being the best. I hated Star Trek '09 with a passion, and Into Darkness was well acted and had a good plot, but still fails on so many levels for me.

I have listened to Stairway to Heaven backwards, and importantly, did not read what the lyrics backwards supposedly are, so that I could go from my own hearing, not from anyone else's suggestions. I have to say that it just sounded like gibberish to me. Like it's been said, it can be hard to hear exactly what's being said even forwards in many songs, so our minds tend to "fill in the gaps" as it were and we think we hear something, even forwards, that isn't even there. You can test this, think of a song where you think the lyrics sound weird, then look up the real lyrics and listen to the song again, and all you can hear is the true lyrics. I think that some brothers back in the 70s got carried away with an Awake article that reported on the issue and advised caution without endorsing the view that backwards messages were true or not. Of course it was in the media in the 70s especially in America with the Evangelicals so brothers thought it was true and were talking about it at conventions etc. The thing is that it's a shame that people often now think that all so-called heavy metal is Satanic. Don't be stumbled anyone, but it isn't. I listen to some music that would probably be called heavy metal by some, that has nothing to do with Satan or immorality or anything. Like all music, it's about being selective. I've heard people say that you shouldn't listen to rock music or rap music (which isn't music to me ) or such-and-such a genre because it's Satanic or whatever. You just can't make generalisations like that, otherwise we could say you shouldn't listen to classical because some of it is false religious or patriotic.

People mock us suvveners for dropping our t's, my response is at least we don't drop the h and the e! Everywhere else: "it is not in the tin" Yorkshire: "tin tin tin"

Yes, although I am from Britain, I know that there are many different American accents and dialects. I can also just about tell the difference between American and Canadian and Australian and New Zealand, which many Brits can't do. I can only tell because of studying them. American Canadian "About" "Aboot" Australian New Zealand "Fish and chips" "Fush and chups" One thing that annoys me, speaking of the "English accent" issue is people (including fellow Brits) saying that I am from England. As it happens, it is true that I am from England, I am ethnically English, but there are many people from the UK who are not. Even though brothers and sisters who are Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish are not nationalistic about their "country" they just find the geographical incorrectness of being called "English" annoying. I usually refer to myself as being from Britain, or Great Britain, which by-the-way is the geographical name of the island I live on, it has nothing to do with the "greatness" of the nation, even though it is used that way a lot, especially by worldly patriots. The Romans discovered that the natives of the island of the coast of Calais and the natives in north-west France were ethnically similar and spoke similar languages. They called the natives "Britons", and they called the island "Britannia", meaning "land of Britons". In the Middle Ages, Geoffrey of Monmouth in his work Historia Regnum Britanniae distinguished between the two areas inhabited by Britons by referring to the small part of France as "Britannia Minor" and the much larger island as "Britannia Major". Translated into English we get "Great Britain". Interestingly Ptolemy also used the term "Great Britain" to distinguish the large island from the smaller Ireland, which he called "Little Britain". North-west France is called "Brittany" and in modern French it is called "Bretagne", and the island is called "Grande Britagne". They are literally calling the island "Big Britanny". So I tend to identify as being from the island Great Britain, but because of modern associations with the British Empire, I usually drop the "Great" among brothers in case they get the wrong impression. Sorry for the long post, only geographical history is a passion of mine so inaccuracy is a pet peeve too.

Excuse me? Brits do know how to spell "colour" c-o-l-o-U-r is it not? "Millenniums" is one that annoys me. And axe without an e... Mispronounced Biblical words can be annoying, but I try to remember that not everyone can be as good at pronunciation as everyone else.

Personally I think that some of the JW.org pics have been Photoshopped. The one of the bus particularly springs to mind. I don't agree with this kind of stuff, I think it presents us as being peddlers of a website rather than preachers of the Bible, but as I say, I think some of the "adverts" aren't real. I haven't seen this sort of thing in our congregation or our region. People wear the little badges (which I personally don't agree with either), but none of the ties or anything. I don't have a problem if people do wear JW.org badges, I personally wouldn't though. I stick to the Society printed materials, i.e. the JW.org leaflet that we distributed in the campaign a couple of years ago. I prefer instead to walk Bible-in-hand on field service to make it clear that I am there to preach from God's Word, not just to distribute literature. Not that there's anything wrong with our literature, but I don't want people to think that that's all we do.