Posts by OrphanCrow

21

Evolution vs Creation.

by The Rebel in

jw
friends

looking at the board, i see so many long threads on " evoultion vs creation " ect, ect.. therefore if " your" qualifications are only those of " an" uneducated j.w, may i ask one question?.

q) what makes you feel you are now qualified to comment with absolute ,authority on any discussion?.

i ask the above question because for most of us " ex-witnesses " logic is still words written in the pages of an awake" magazine.

OrphanCrow

The Rebel: Well when I was a witness my opinion was held by 9 million other people, however it was nice to come out in the minority. So now on this board I am pleased to have my " independent" views and my opinions.

I think the use of terms is problematic on this forum.

An "opinion" is not quite the same as "belief" and I notice that a lot of posters misuse the terms. By applying the word "opinion" to concepts that require belief instead of opinion, it skews understanding.

An opinion is a judgment based on facts, an honest attempt to draw a reasonable conclusion from factual evidence. (For example, we know that millions of people go without proper medical care, and so you form the opinion that the country should institute national health insurance even though it would cost billions of dollars.) An opinion is potentially changeable--depending on how the evidence is interpreted. By themselves, opinions have little power to convince. You must always let your reader know what your evidence is and how it led you to arrive at your opinion.

Unlike an opinion, a belief is a conviction based on cultural or personal faith, morality, or values. Statements such as "Capital punishment is legalized murder" are often called "opinions" because they express viewpoints, but they are not based on facts or other evidence. They cannot be disproved or even contested in a rational or logical manner. Since beliefs are inarguable, they cannot serve as the thesis of a formal argument. (Emotional appeals can, of course, be useful if you happen to know that your audience shares those beliefs.)

http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/teaching/co300man/pop12d.cfm

24

WTS investment in Ford-Werke - 1943

by OrphanCrow in

*thanks to reddit poster ahilexxx for this information*.

the watchtower society was invested in the german branch of ford motor.

in 1943, their investment was worth $597,595 ($8,363,677.95 in today's value - over 8 million!)..

OrphanCrow

*thanks to reddit poster Ahilexxx for this information*

The Watchtower Society was invested in the German branch of Ford Motor. In 1943, their investment was worth $597,595 ($8,363,677.95 in today's value - over 8 million!).

page 148 of this document:

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Ford.pdf

I am curious as to whether or not the WTS still has investment in Ford Motor. For a 'religion' that collects donations for 'the worldwide work', what the WTS actually does with their money instead of promoting 'the good news' is quite interesting.

I also notice that the WTS appears to be the only 'religion' that was invested in Ford in 1943. The WTS was just another business looking to optimize the money that they collected from gullible parishioners. Mind you, the WTS referred to itself as a business rather than a religion at the time that this investment was made. Religious status didn't get established until after the war.

I am curious...how much money does the WTS really have? Where else has the WTS invested their 'donations'? Does the manufacture of vehicles in Germany during WW2 fall under the category of 'worldwide work'?

5

"Jehovah’s Witnesses, Blood Transfusions, and the Tort of Misrepresentation " - Louderback-Wood

by OrphanCrow in

kelly louderback-wood has been discussed on a few threads on this forum, and i am not sure if a link to this essay has been posted before.

regardless...this is a valuable essay that helps a person wade through the misrepresentations that the wt publishes concerning their noblood stance.. jehovah’s witnesses, blood transfusions, and the tort of misrepresentation (download pdf).

the society’s main resource regarding its blood policy, “how can blood save your life?” (“pamphlet”), teaches both witnesses and interested persons about the religion’s blood prohibition.

OrphanCrow

smiddy: Barbara Anderson wrote about this a few years ago However it`s good to re-post info like this from time to time for all the newbies and to refresh our own memories.
Thanks to you both.

I agree. Even though the article was written 10 years ago+, it is good to keep it visible

The following article concerning Louder-back's article is a good one too. It was written in 2006:

http://www.equip.org/article/jehovahs-witnesses-embrace-new-bloodless-medicine/

This article first appeared in the News Watch column of the Christian Research Journal, volume29, number3 (2006). For further information or to subscribe to the Christian Research Journal go to: http://www.equip.org
The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, which governs more than 98,000 congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses worldwide, recently reaffirmed its ban on blood transfusions, despite growing pressure from Witnesses, former Witnesses, and lawyers to allow the procedure. A Watch Tower letter, dated January 3, 2006, urged its 6.6 million members to seek alternatives to transfusions from the emerging field of “bloodless medicine.” The five-page letter was sent to congregations less than a month after Florida attorney Kerry Louderback-Wood opened up a new avenue of suing the Watch Tower in an article she wrote for Baylor University’sJournal of Church and State.
Blood Money. Louderback-Wood’s article, “Jehovah’s Witnesses, Blood Transfusions, and the Tort of Misrepresentation,” argues that the Watch Tower can be held financially liable for the deaths of Witnesses who refused transfusions. The basis for the lawsuits is that the Watch Tower has bolstered its no-blood stance by misrepresenting historical, scientific, and medical facts in its main resource on its blood policies, a pamphlet titled How Can Blood Save Your Life? (available online at www.watchtower.org).
Past lawsuits failed because the Watch Tower’s ban is based on a religious belief—that the Bible prohibits eating blood. (The Watch Tower teaches that receiving a transfusion is the same as eating blood.) Louderback-Wood, a former Witness, argues that the appeal to religious freedom can be sidestepped if the organization is sued for twisting facts, including exaggerating the risks of transfusions while downplaying the risks of bloodless medicine.

full article at link...

37

JW Stand On Concealed Carry

by Cold Steel in

if a jw wanted to get a concealed carry permit, would the society have any moral or ethical problems with it?

in other words, if one of your elders noticed you were carrying concealed, would they be apt to just ignore it or would they counsel you on it?

.

OrphanCrow

There was an incident with JW prison guard in Argentina a few months ago:

https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5196463256633344/three-very-dangerous-men-escaped-from-high-security-prison-argentina-because-guard-jw-had-no-guns

61

Did the flood happen?

by BlackWolf in

so we were talking about noah for our family worship tonight and it ended with a little debate between me and my parents about how the flood was possible.

you know, where did the water come from, how did all the animals fit, etc.

of course it led nowhere and my parents came up with some strange theories like that there was "an expanse of water in the sky" and that's where all the water came from.

OrphanCrow

The book that Russell based his flood theory (and his wacky creation ideas) was written by Isaac Vail. The book was published in 1912. Isaac Vail was a "catastrophist"

For your reading pleasure (downloads as a pdf):

Waters Above the Firmament: The Earth's Annular System

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_geology#Vapor.2Fwater_canopy :

Isaac Vail (1840–1912), a Quaker schoolteacher, in his 1912 work The Earth's Annular System, extrapolated from the nebular hypothesis what he called the annular system of earth history, with the earth being originally surrounded by rings resembling those of Saturn, or "canopies" of water vapor. Vail hypothesised that, one by one, these canopies collapsed on the Earth, resulting in fossils being buried in a "succession of stupendous cataclysms, separated by unknown periods of time". The Genesis flood was thought to have been caused by "the last remnant" of this vapor. Although this final flood was geologically significant, it was not held to account for as much of the fossil record as George McCready Price had asserted.[101] Vail's ideas about geology appeared in Charles Taze Russell's The Photo-Drama of Creation and subsequently in Joseph Franklin Rutherford's Creation of 1927 and later publications.They interpreted the creative days of Genesis as six periods each lasting 7,000 years, with Adam and Eve at the start of the most recent 6,000 years, so that the Earth was around 48,000 years old.[101][102] Jehovah's Witnesses maintain this belief, but their literature is now less specific about the purported length of each creative 'day'.[103] The Seventh-day Adventist physicist Robert W. Woods also proposed a vapor canopy,[104] before The Genesis Flood gave it prominent and repeated mention in 1961.[105]

24

Those formula prayers. I want to scream

by stillin in

when the co is visiting, i think i hear "thank you , jehovah, for this special week of activity" until i want to vomit.. also "jehovah, please remember those sick and afflicted.

we pray that they can make a recovery and be back with us.".

stale, canned, institutionalized garble.

OrphanCrow

Don't forget the magical closing - "...we ask this through Jesus' name....amen."

If you don't end the prayer properly, the magic spell won't work. All that work for nothing...that prayer won't travel...it needs that Jesus name tacked on the end to get past all the demons trying to stop it from getting to heaven.

And never never say the Lord's Prayer - Satan's churches use that one because they can't say a real prayer like the JWs can. Saying the Lord's Prayer was right up there as far as sins go - almost as bad as celebrating the birth of baby Jesus.

22

Howto: get access to scientific papers

by Anders Andersen in

since most people are not aware on how to get (free*) access to scientific papers and journals, so here's a short list of resources.. search http://scholar.google.com for the paper.

maybe you'll get lucky and find it somewhere for free.. if you can only find a paid for version of the paper, get the title, doi (sort of like an isbn number) and link to the download page of the paper on the paysite.. if you don't know the doi, find it by searching your paper's title on http://crossref.org.

go to the libgen site (links here: https://sites.google.com/site/themetalibrary/library-genesis ) and search for the paper.

OrphanCrow

Thanks for trying, jwleaks. Some papers just aren't available digitally. That must be one of them

The article was cited in a paper on this thread:

https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5722917216190464/medical-doctor-describes-jw-death-from-noblood

I was interested in "the psychological distress of members of the multidisciplinary team caring for the patient has been poignantly described (Boggs, 1985). Watching a patient becoming blind, dying of epistaxis or struggling with air hunger while the remedy is close at hand but forbidden is hard."

5

"Jehovah’s Witnesses, Blood Transfusions, and the Tort of Misrepresentation " - Louderback-Wood

by OrphanCrow in

kelly louderback-wood has been discussed on a few threads on this forum, and i am not sure if a link to this essay has been posted before.

regardless...this is a valuable essay that helps a person wade through the misrepresentations that the wt publishes concerning their noblood stance.. jehovah’s witnesses, blood transfusions, and the tort of misrepresentation (download pdf).

the society’s main resource regarding its blood policy, “how can blood save your life?” (“pamphlet”), teaches both witnesses and interested persons about the religion’s blood prohibition.

OrphanCrow

Thanks for re-posting that link, Giorando.

i don't know why...but links to that site won't hold on this forum. For anyone who wants to download the essay, copy and paste the link to your browser.

The WT's literature on noblood promotion is inaccurate, manipulated and just plain...wrong. They use their usual tactics of sliding sideways and hiding behind the language.

It is difficult to de-tangle the WT misinformation and Louderback-Wood has offered a valuable resource with this essay. She does a good job of exposing the misrepresentations in the WT noblood literature.

5

"Jehovah’s Witnesses, Blood Transfusions, and the Tort of Misrepresentation " - Louderback-Wood

by OrphanCrow in

kelly louderback-wood has been discussed on a few threads on this forum, and i am not sure if a link to this essay has been posted before.

regardless...this is a valuable essay that helps a person wade through the misrepresentations that the wt publishes concerning their noblood stance.. jehovah’s witnesses, blood transfusions, and the tort of misrepresentation (download pdf).

the society’s main resource regarding its blood policy, “how can blood save your life?” (“pamphlet”), teaches both witnesses and interested persons about the religion’s blood prohibition.

OrphanCrow

Kelly Louderback-Wood has been discussed on a few threads on this forum, and I am not sure if a link to this essay has been posted before.

Regardless...this is a valuable essay that helps a person wade through the misrepresentations that the WT publishes concerning their noblood stance.

Jehovah’s Witnesses, Blood Transfusions, and the Tort of Misrepresentation (download pdf)

The Society’s main resource regarding its blood policy, “How Can Blood Save Your Life?” (“pamphlet”), teaches both Witnesses and interested persons about the religion’s blood prohibition. In addition to giving the Society’s religious interpretation, the pamphlet relies on quotes from historians, scientists, and medical professionals to bolster its no-blood position. This essay will first discuss the pamphlet’s misrepresentations of these secular writers and the availability of private action suits for persons harmed when a religious organization misrepresents secular facts. Furthermore, the Society’s blood policy is both complex and ever-changing with respect to acceptable blood techniques and permitted blood products. Thus, this essay will also examine misrepresentations within the dissemination of the blood policy that could leave both Witnesses and medical staff ill-advised. This essay does not address the veracity of other Jehovah’s Witness writings and is not meant to be an attack on the religion’s beliefs, including its belief that mankind should abstain from blood. It is meant, however, to further legal theory regarding the use of tort law as a narrowly tailored means for affording harmed persons legal redress.

Louderback-Wood offers a legal discussion of the concept of "tort of misrepresentation" and then, on page 8, she begins to dissect the WT's literature (*propaganda*) that promotes the noblood stand.

Society’s Main Blood Indoctrination Literature Misrepresents
Secular Facts
In making the transformation to not accepting blood, many
followers rely on the Society’s pamphlet, “How Can Blood
Save Your Life?” (“pamphlet”),36 which states, “Medical
evidence is offered to support blood therapy. Thus, you
owe it to yourself to get the facts in order to make an
informed choice about blood.”37 This claim to veracity
immediately precedes the Society’s particular version of the
medical risks surrounding blood and medical alternatives,
thereby suggesting that the medical information that
follows is factual.
This section discusses the pamphlet’s veracity through
analyzing the Society’s multiple misquotes of individual
secular writers including: (1) scientists and biblical
historians; (2) the medical community’s assessment of
blood-born disease risks; and (3) doctors’ assessments of
quality alternatives to blood, including the magnitude of
risks from foregoing a blood transfusion. This section will
then document the pamphlet’s near-omission of the
Society’s acceptance of blood fractions, an exception
clouded in obscurity as will be shown.

22

Howto: get access to scientific papers

by Anders Andersen in

since most people are not aware on how to get (free*) access to scientific papers and journals, so here's a short list of resources.. search http://scholar.google.com for the paper.

maybe you'll get lucky and find it somewhere for free.. if you can only find a paid for version of the paper, get the title, doi (sort of like an isbn number) and link to the download page of the paper on the paysite.. if you don't know the doi, find it by searching your paper's title on http://crossref.org.

go to the libgen site (links here: https://sites.google.com/site/themetalibrary/library-genesis ) and search for the paper.

OrphanCrow

Anders, I have been working on that topic for a long time. Bulky material.

Here is a little tidbit to start:

The 1981 article by Dixon/Smalley makes this statement:

Also, if a recently developed fluorinated blood substitute (Fluosol-DA) proves to be safe and effective, its use will not conflict with Witness beliefs.

Fluosol-DA had already been tested on Jehovah's Witnesses at this point (1979). That project - the testing of Fluosol-DA on human subjects - had been spearheaded by Ron Lapin and his JW cohorts. The Watchtower had already arranged the trials using JW subjects at the time this article was written. That is why the statement that "...if...Fluosol-DA proves to be safe and effective" is a really misleading statement - it already was being used on JWs. The Fluosol-DA would later be pulled off the market by the FDA.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6367719