Posts by Mephis

He has a video up which shows the e-mail from his ISP. It looks legit, or at least unless Cedars has decided to throw away all the activism work he's done.

Whether that will be the letter released now, who knows. But WBTS seems to have taken ownership of the one in the OP here.

39

Has NASA discoverd flowing water on Mars?

by The Rebel in

jw
friends

nasa is holding a press conference today entiltled " mars mystery solved".

speculation is they will announce the discovery of flowing water on mars?.

the significance of this is that it raises the possibility of possible past life or future existence on the planet.. the rebel..

It's possible. Mars had a billion years of atmosphere and oceans, which were then lost around 3.5 billion years ago. Which, give or take the odd handful of hundred million years, is roughly when life on Earth began.

39

Has NASA discoverd flowing water on Mars?

by The Rebel in

jw
friends

nasa is holding a press conference today entiltled " mars mystery solved".

speculation is they will announce the discovery of flowing water on mars?.

the significance of this is that it raises the possibility of possible past life or future existence on the planet.. the rebel..

Mephis

Not intelligent life, not in my life time, but, assuming infinite universe, it's out there somewhere. But microbial life, I'd not bet against finding evidence for it in the next 50 years. We know that some Earth microbes can survive in even vacuums for at least short periods, as well is in our own atmosphere. Ellen Stofan (chief scientist at NASA) reckons we'll have strong indications within a decade, and evidence within 20 or 30 years. There's self-interest there in terms of funding further exploration, but the science types I know and chat with are all believers in something to be found in the Solar System.

39

Has NASA discoverd flowing water on Mars?

by The Rebel in

jw
friends

nasa is holding a press conference today entiltled " mars mystery solved".

speculation is they will announce the discovery of flowing water on mars?.

the significance of this is that it raises the possibility of possible past life or future existence on the planet.. the rebel..

Mephis

Have a friend who works at JPL (he does testing and problem solving stuff for the last rover and has recently been working on a proposal to get another mission to Mars running). But we've argued between us for years over the potential for life elsewhere in the solar system. He's far more optimistic about it than me, but he's looking to some of the places where oceans are pretty darned likely to exist now rather than Mars. Europa and Enceladus may be the ones where things get very interesting. The more we've explored the solar system, the more assumptions about life, and what we thought allowed for it, get challenged.

Do wonder if anything has managed to survive Mars losing its atmosphere and oceans. Or even if there's evidence to be found of something which was once there.

39

Has NASA discoverd flowing water on Mars?

by The Rebel in

jw
friends

nasa is holding a press conference today entiltled " mars mystery solved".

speculation is they will announce the discovery of flowing water on mars?.

the significance of this is that it raises the possibility of possible past life or future existence on the planet.. the rebel..

Mephis

Spiders would be fine too I think punkofnice. Ziggy will be happy.

20

Question: What would it take to get the BORG'S tax exempt status REVOKED?

by Black Man in

jw
friends

i've always wondered about this.

i've always felt the main reason the borg made publishers do time slips/field service reports was to show that they are doing a community service to justify their tax exempt status.

we all know about their money grabs with the kh build scams, their selling off millions of dollars in real estate, etc.

Mephis

UK theoretically has a public interest test, but there's little appetite to fight religions over it really. Exclusive Brethren had to make changes (cosmetic ones at least) before they got it, but they still received it. Think they'd have to be very, very stupid with refusing to introduce child protection policies to force the authorities here to remove tax exempt status from them. And they've shown that they're stupid in all sorts of ways, but not in their ability to tell half-truths to avoid that.

17

Revolt Brewing At Headquarter and Different Branches and The Governing Body Is Losing Credibility Among It's Staff

by Brokeback Watchtower in

in my mind i see this as a very real situation developing rapidly world wide as these child molestation pay out become public knowledge and can no longer be denied or kept secret from the r&f.

pretty soon the governing body will be the but of many jokes at headquarters and abroad.

they are being caught red handed while robbing the cookie jar.

Mephis

There can't really be a revolt at branch level. All of those for which I've seen documents, require one to be a JW elder in good standing to have a voice on what happens. That's the control mechanism they have over it from Brooklyn. They can just clear everyone out that way if they should ever need to.

Personally, I think there will be people who'll leave, because they've been treated like crap, but the rest will buy into the idea that the GB is always right etc etc etc.

33

A simple explanation for the financial changes

by JeffT in

jw
friends

as i've mentioned from time to time, i'm a retired accountant.

i have tried many times to come up with some logical, sound business reason why the wtbs has made the big changes in its financial arrangements: taking the congregations savings, the monthly donations per congregation etc.

i finally came up with the answer.. the leadership of the watchtower society is batshit crazy.

Mephis

Jehovah jireh gone horribly wrong as growth and per publisher donations flatline in affluent countries?

Do wonder where the money has gone all the same. Must be talking hundreds of millions in USD from the accounts and nominal 'deposits' held at Bethels in the affluent countries, on top of the steady inflow of money from the faithful. Have they just hit the wall after years of overspending?