The Problems With Belief by Jim Walker
This paper attempts to show that, indeed, one need not own beliefs of any kind to establish scientific facts, observe and enjoy nature, or live a productive, moral, and useful life.
A long read. But a good one.
OrphanCrow
JoinedPosts by OrphanCrow
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583
What is the purpose of life?
by slimboyfat inwhile reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.
because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".
i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.
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OrphanCrow
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48
"Basics of Blood Management" by Dr. Petra Seeber and Dr. Aryeh Shander - Inaccuracies and Myth
by OrphanCrow inpatient blood management arose out of bloodless medicine and alternatives to blood transfusions.
pbm has been accepted as the standard of care in australia and has been implemented into the health care systems of other countries such as canada.
a prominent promoter of pbm has been aryeh shander from englewood hospital in new jersey.
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OrphanCrow
Thanx Wonder...
Just a quick comment about this quote in the Polish article:
He (who?) also did a statistical review of 1,026 operations (REVIEW not REPORT is this relevant?) and determined that the risk of surgery in patients of the Jehovah's Witness group was not substantially higher than for others [6, 13]
"Who" refers to Dr. Cooley in this context. The reference is to the Dixon/Smalley article and does not cite the Colley 'review' itself:
6. Dixon JL, Smalley MG. Jehovah's Witnesses the surgical/ethical challenge. JAMA. 1981;246:2471–2.
The next quote in the Polish article also cites the Dixon/Smalley article:
Similarly, DeBakey communicated that in the vast majority of situations involving Witnesses, the risk of operation without the use of blood transfusions was no greater than in those patients on whom he used blood transfusions [6].
This is what theDixon/Smalley article actually said:
Similarly, Michael E. DeBakey, MD,
communicated "that in the great
majority of situations [involving Wit
nesses] the risk of operation without
the use of blood transfusions is no
greater than in those patients on
whom we use blood transfusions"
(personal communication, March
1981).So here we have evidence that this 'evidence based' article really doesn't have evidence at all - all it has is the word of two WT men who claim that the reviews/reports said what they say the report/reviews said. That is all. Hearsay evidence.
Constructed 'evidence'. Not backed up by evidence simply because the evidence isn't accessible. We have no way whatsoever of testing those claims. We have no way of knowing what those report/reviews left out.
What is really weird about all this is that these citations have been accepted by peer reviewed journals. Nobody has challenged the Dixon/Smalley claims. Nobody has demanded proper citation and reference to original reports/reviews themselves.
I want to see those 2 reports. I want to read them for myself. I want to know the context of the conclusions and what the reports actually said. I want to see the statistical analysis. Scientific investigation demands that. Without those reports being produced, the interpretations of the WT men do not stand the rigors of scientific investigation.
Wonderofyou, I will have to spend some time reading the entire article...and chasing down the citations. Thank you for posting it.
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"Basics of Blood Management" by Dr. Petra Seeber and Dr. Aryeh Shander - Inaccuracies and Myth
by OrphanCrow inpatient blood management arose out of bloodless medicine and alternatives to blood transfusions.
pbm has been accepted as the standard of care in australia and has been implemented into the health care systems of other countries such as canada.
a prominent promoter of pbm has been aryeh shander from englewood hospital in new jersey.
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OrphanCrow
Sherdless, yes, Shannon Farmer and Axel Hofmann (both JWs who are affiliated with the HLC) were instrumental in establishing PBM as the standard of care in Australia.
A Canadian blood bank educator had a response to that article:
News about Shannon Farmer has been really quiet since the Australian story broke. But, from what I can tell from the little that is out there online, he is still hanging on the coat tails of Axel Hofmann, who is actively involved in Austria's blood management program.Australia's National Blood Authority (NBA), a well respected government organization that does much valuable work, appointed Shannon Farmer, a Jehovah's Witness, as the key consumer representative on a government panel developing new transfusion guidelines for Australia's hospitals. Nil inappropriate about that except Mr. Farmer didn't declare
- Formally, or otherwise it seems, that he was a Jehovah's Witness.
- His consultancy work since 2007 to an Austrian business involved in commercial tendering for patient blood management projects around the world.
- Receiving fees for consulting and lecturing from multinational pharmaceutical companies,e.g., J and J.When informed, the NBA said it would review the details. Whether or not possible conflicting interests are of "sufficient conflict" is a moot point.
Fact is they were not declared and at the time of his appointment Farmer was described as "consumer" and "independent consumer advocate". An NBA spokesperson is quoted as saying, "The NBA believes any potential conflict of interest, real or perceived, should be declared."
So far as I can tell Shannon Farmer is not a physician nor a PhD researcher, yet:
- He's an Adjunct Research Fellow, School of Surgery, at the University of Western Australia, where he's listed as an author on multi-authored papers about blood.
- LinkedIn shows he's an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow Centre for Population Health Research, Curtin University.
- He's lectured extensively on bloodless surgery and blood conservation.
- He's apparently an expert on transfusion medicine.Yet it's hard to discover which degrees he has, where he went to school, or any of the normal qualifications of someone who's an author, lecturer, and expert on TM, with university appointments.
And none of the above profiles even hint that he's consulted for years to Austria's 'Medicine and Economics' business involved in commercial patient blood management projects globally.
How can you not know that someone you appoint to panels developing national blood transfusion guidelines is a member of a religion that forbids transfusion and earns big bucks implementing blood management programs internationally? How can you say, when information comes to light, 'These aren't sufficient conflicts'?
Isn't this equivalent to someone being appointed to a government panel on the future of private laboratories in Alberta (Canada, UK, you name it)- Who is a member of a political party whose policies are pro-private medicine (pro-private everything)?
- Who consults for (perhaps partially owns) a private laboratory consortium bidding for government contracts?Sorry, the non-physician Jehovah's Witness as TM expert and global blood management consultant who advises on transfusion guidelines, didn't declare potential conflicts, makes millions off blood management, and was initially listed as a consumer and consumer advocate doesn't meet the sniff test.
Or...he's a fine fellow, does good work, and the NBA thinks it's okay that he didn't declare potential conflicts, despite their policies, because the conflicts are not serious ones?
The Australian journalists who wrote the original article that exposed Farmer and Hoffman received an award for their work:Cathy Saunders and Martin Saxon won the award for Best Print/Text News Report for their Sunday Times story “Blood & Money”
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"Basics of Blood Management" by Dr. Petra Seeber and Dr. Aryeh Shander - Inaccuracies and Myth
by OrphanCrow inpatient blood management arose out of bloodless medicine and alternatives to blood transfusions.
pbm has been accepted as the standard of care in australia and has been implemented into the health care systems of other countries such as canada.
a prominent promoter of pbm has been aryeh shander from englewood hospital in new jersey.
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OrphanCrow
....with more thoughts on what Dixon/Smalley said about Cooley's report
The reason I am bringing up an seemingly unrelated article - the Dixon/Smalley article - on a thread about the Seeber/Shander textbook is that it is the Dixon/Smalley type of promotion that was critical in the formation years of blood management. It was published in 1981, right after the official launch of the hospital committees.
The Dixon/Smalley article quotes from a report that they claim they had petitioned from Dr. Cooley. However, the Cooley report has never been published. It doesn't exist anywhere except, presumably, in the Hospital Information Service's archives. A person cannot check the source and in fact, it isn't even sourced in the article.
Given the WT's poor record of taking quotes out of context, I would discard any information that is inferred from a quote that is not referenced.
And yet...that quote shows up over and over again online...it has been used and misused to promote bloodless medicine. And there is no way to check the quote for what Dr. Cooley had actually said. We have no idea what the rest of the report said and it is suspiciously unavailable. On that basis, it is a bogus quote. It cannot be checked.
That is the kind of promotion that the WT engaged in - promotion that used a shady interpretation of a quote and no reference for the quote.
And speaking of bogus...retracted medical studies have found their way into the Seeber/Shander textbook.
Basics of Blood Management contains references to at least 3 medical studies that have been retracted:
3. A New Plasma-Adapted Hydroxyethyl Starch Preparation: In Vitro Coagulation Studies
All three of those studies were co-authored by Dr. Joachim Boldt, the 'expert' who was quoted in an Awake! magazine as supporting bloodless methods.
More about Dr. Boldt's fraudulent research here:
https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5664231412203520/wts-expert-on-blood?page=1&size=10
And here:
Joachim Boldt (born September 29, 1954[1]) is a German anesthesiologist who was previously considered a leading researcher into colloids. He has been stripped of his professorship and is under criminal investigation for possible forgery of up to 90 research studies.
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Blood, the US Army, the US Navy and the Watchtower Society
by OrphanCrow inthe watchtower society blood doctrine is intricately linked to clinical trials in blood technology.
the wts deliberately changes and manipulates the blood doctrine in order to fill the requirements for medical testing in the field of blood technology.
it has been happening since the start of the blood ban and has continued for the last 70 years, leaving untold numbers of dead and maimed jws in the wake of the societys quest for everlasting life here on earth.. .
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OrphanCrow
wonderofyou: So Englewood received a sum to train military. Does this mean that the military surgeons were allowed to watch and to take part in J.W. patients surgery - especially in lifethreatening situations - as well?
Of course army surgeons operated on JWs. Englewood's bloodless program is primarily used for JW patients.
If such things happend, did the patients got a chance to save their life after support through a competent member of HLC by e.g. an alternative method, which could have saved life, so that the patient - maybe a children - could have been saved at Englewood instead of being exsanguinated?
You don't understand what is happening. The HLC would be involved in the patient's care through the entire process. The HLC would be working with the US army surgeons at every step of the way, including directing the JW patients into the program.
So the question arises: Were J.W. excepted from those trainings with the army because they would have been informed of that army-cooperation and could have undersigned a form that they wouldnt allow such cooperation in surgery with army?
I don't know. That also raises the question as to whether or not all those hundreds (thousands) of JWs, who have already been part of US Army funded studies for various medical procedures and products, would have been informed that their compliance with bloodless methods was part of military research. This is not a new phenomena - it has been happening for decades - likely for as long as the blood ban has been in place.
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What is the biggest hypocrisy you have seen as a witness?
by HereIgo ini have far too many to name, but ill start with obscene music, gambling and cussing like a sailor.
all the while preaching to "worldly people" about their impending death at armageddon.
thoughts?.
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OrphanCrow
Another blood hypocrisy.
A JW cannot be a blood donor. They do not donate blood.
But...this very minute....right now, there are JWs using products made from blood. Blood that came from donors.
The WTS approves blood fractions - where do you think these "fractions" come from? Blood donors of course. And lots of them. For example, 250 cc of albumin, (which is a WT approved blood product) requires 35-40 donors.
The WTS has made the JWs into vampires - they are 'allowed' to suck on the world's blood supply (through a straw, mind you...just fractions) but the JWs are banned from giving anything at all back. Not even one f**ing drop. They are banned and excluded from donating to the blood supply.
8 million people who cannot give blood to the world's blood supply.*
But...they can take from it.
And they do.
Every single bloodless procedure in the States will use donor blood at some point. It is inevitable. Blood fractions are a part of 'bloodless' treatment.
Right now, there are JWs scattered all over the world who are taking blood fractions - products that have been made from the world's blood donor pool. They are sucking on our blood supply. And giving nothing back.
Hypocrites.
And the blood management movement, that the HLC alliance promotes, has the nerve to claim that the reason the world needs their brand of medicine is...because there isn't enough donors.
*to add...those 8 million potential donors is a low number. There are thousands and thousands of people who have left the JWs years ago and still carry that WT blood phobia inside their heads. Untold numbers of people who are terrified of giving blood. Who could give blood. But won't.
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What if Jesus Christ was not put to death by the Romans but instead died a natural death?
by deegee inaccording to christianity, the death of jesus was a miscarriage of justice.
so then, what if there was no so-called miscarriage of justice so that jesus was not put to death by the romans but he instead died a natural death?
would christians still receive the forgiveness of their sins and their hoped for salvation?.
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OrphanCrow
I am going to share my isegesis of the Jesus myth. My own interpretation. And no, I don't have sources. I don't need any to interpret bibble myths. After all, my interpretation has as much validity as anybody else's interpretation of a mythic story.
Jesus had to die and shed blood. He couldn't just die. The shed blood was really important. And, it had to be a male who died - the act had to reaffirm divine patriarchy.
If you go back far enough in the history of human culture, early notions of 'god' and origins of life logically led early humans to conclude that 'god' was a woman. God had to be - after all...if god created everything, the woman was the best example of creativity - she made babies. She made life. Life came from inside of her. Ergo...God was a woman.
Lots of stuff happened through the course of human cultural evolution and of course, we know that patriarchy eventually became the model for the 'divine'. The female divine eventually was replaced with the male divine. And the male, in order to be seen as the originator of creation, had to bleed. Like a woman.
So, Jesus came to earth and shed his blood. For mankind. For men. He didn't come to save women - he didn't have to. Women already bleed.
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What if Jesus Christ was not put to death by the Romans but instead died a natural death?
by deegee inaccording to christianity, the death of jesus was a miscarriage of justice.
so then, what if there was no so-called miscarriage of justice so that jesus was not put to death by the romans but he instead died a natural death?
would christians still receive the forgiveness of their sins and their hoped for salvation?.
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OrphanCrow
Stephane: He could have been beheaded like James for example.
But that would have made for really bad icons. What the heck would you hang on the wall? Just Jesus' head?
Nah...the cross is handy - it makes for better art . A severed head would be messy and hard to hang on the wall
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583
What is the purpose of life?
by slimboyfat inwhile reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.
because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".
i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.
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OrphanCrow
DJS: Nine months ago Looter pretended to be 17. Now he's almost 21.
At this rate of aging 3 years every 4 months he will be 30 in one year and an old man in approximately 4 years.Do you think he is even a man? Boy?
'He' seems to have to emphasize 'his' gender all the time. I wonder why that is? Eh...maybe he has a gender complex of some kind. And an age complex
Eh...whatever. I'm gonna go and read Abraham's Ten Commandments. Gotta go check to see if Abraham said "thou shalt not lie"
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Morbidity and mortality risk in J.W.. patients
by TheWonderofYou inhttp://www.glowm.com/pdf/pph_2nd_edn_chap-72.pdf.
ta more recent (2009) study from the netherlands16 concluded that: ‘women who are jehovah’s witnesses are at a six times increased risk for maternal death, at a 130 times increased risk for maternal death because of major obstetric hemorrhage and at a 3.1 times increased risk for serious maternal morbidity because of obstetric hemorrhage, compared to the general dutch population.’.
the article highlights how j.w.-women are managed.. .
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OrphanCrow
Women in the JW religion.
No power.
And not only that...a greatly increased risk of dying from loss of blood.
JW women. The most vulnerable with the least amount of power.