Posts by IT Support

I should have said that I'm looking for a good site that I can suggest to an old JW friend. He emailed me a couple of days ago, after not having heard from him for almost four years, asking how I was. I rang him last night and we chatted for more than an hour.

Anyway, he's only just starting to ask questions, and I don't want to frighten him with anything too 'radical' ... !

nvrgnbk, interesting quote, but I don't think I'll send him to a Satanist site.

bigwilly, much as I value JWD, I don't think he's ready yet for threads on Strip clubs or Gay Sexual Behavior ... !

I'm really looking for factual, information sites, rather than discussion forums.

GGG, funnily enough, Beyond Jehovah's Witnesses was one of the first sites I looked at. Yes, it was very gentle.

AlphaOmega, CARM looks good, I don't remember seeing it before.

Hermano, don't forget the Quotes site lives on, in all the various mirrors that were set up following the original's demise.

Jwfacts, useful list, thanks.

--

Freeminds is another source of excellent material. I'll always be appreciative to Randy for the help he gave me.

Having said that, I think I'll suggest Beyond JWs and AJWRB (thanks skeeter and Witness 007) to my friend.

Thanks for all your input. I really enjoyed going through all these sites again.

PS: Another couple I remember: www.607v587.com, has good information, but it's hard to read! And "The Truth vs. the truth" (http://libertyunbound.com/archive/2003_10/cox-truth.html) by Professor Stephen Cox.

37

Which is your favourite anti-JW web site?

by IT Support in

jw
friends

there a loads of anti-jw sites out there.. if you had to choose just one as being the best (apart from jwd, of course!

), which one would you pick?

perhaps which was most helpful when you were leaving?

IT Support

There a loads of anti-JW sites out there.

If you had to choose just one as being The Best (apart from JWD, of course!), which one would you pick? Perhaps which was most helpful when you were leaving? Or if someone asked you now for information about the 'religion,' where would you recommend they look?

And why do you think it is best?

2

Elders manuals!--by request!

by Atlantis in

elders manuals by request!

request from researcher: atlantis could you post the links to the elders manuals again because, the links to the previous post on this subject are no longer active?

my reply: no problem!

IT Support

Many thanks, Atlantis.

1

There's hope yet for the Americans!

by IT Support in

looks like richard dawkins, sam harris et al are doing a better job of 'preaching' than jws .... .

http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=downey_27_5.

.

IT Support

It seems the page is not displaying properly when embedded. Here's the text:

The Godless Freshman

Allen B. Downey

Allen Downey is an associate professor of computer science at the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in Needham, Massachusetts, and the author of How to Think Like a Computer Scientist.

According to a survey by the Higher Education Research Institute, students entering college are staying away from religion in record numbers. Nineteen percent have no religious preference, and more than 23 percent have not attended a religious service in the last year—a new high in the thirty-nine-year history of the survey.

In 2006, more than 271,000 students at 393 colleges participated in the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP), a longitudinal study of college freshmen. The CIRP survey includes questions about students’ backgrounds, activities, and attitudes. In one question, students were asked their “current religious preference” and given a choice of seventeen common religions and Christian denominations, “Other Christian,” “Other religion,” or “None.” Another question asked students how often they “attended a religious service” in the last year. The choices were “Frequently,” “Occasionally,” and “Not at all.” The instructions directed students to select “Occasionally” if they attended one or more times, so a nonobservant student who attended a wedding and a funeral (and follows instructions) would not be counted among the apostates. Figure 1 tracks students’ responses from 1968 to 2006.

THE ECSTASY OF APOSTASY

The number of students with no religious preference has been increasing steadily since the low point of 8.3 percent in 1978. The apostasy rate is also increasing, although a sharp increase in the late eighties was reversed for a time in the early nineties. Both numbers have been climbing steadily since 1997. The rate of growth from 1980 to the present has been between 0.25 and 0.35 percentage points per year, which is consistent with other observations from the sixties and seventies. Since 1997, the rate may have increased to 0.6 or 0.7 percentage points per year. At that rate, the class of 2056 will have an atheist majority. Both curves show a possible acceleration between 2005 and 2006. This jump may be due to increased visibility of atheism following the publication of books by Sam Harris, Daniel C. Dennett, and Richard Dawkins.

The gap between the curves represents the number of students who profess a religious preference but admittedly never exercise it. This “hypocrisy gap” closed substantially in the nineties but increased in the last few years. The size of the gap may reflect the level of social pressure on nonbelievers to declare association with a religion.

The survey results show a persistent gender gap: 21.2 percent of men reported no religious preference, but only 17.4 percent of women did. Similarly, while 25.7 percent of men reported no participation in religious services, only 21.2 percent of women did. These gaps have been consistent over the history of the survey, but it is hard to say whether the apparent difference in religiosity is real. Women may be as likely as men to disbelieve, but professing atheism involves a tradeoff between the satisfaction of philosophic consistency and the discomfort of social stigma. Men and women might assess these costs and benefits differently.

Not surprisingly, students at religious colleges were more religious, but not as much as one might expect. For example, 9 percent of students at Catholic colleges had no religious preference, and more than 15 percent had not been to church in the last year. Students at historically black colleges are actually more religious. Only 6 percent reported no religious preference, and only 8 percent hadn’t attended a religious service.

IN LOCO PARENTIS

The survey also asked about parents’ religion. Almost 15 percent of the students’ fathers have no religious preference (at least according to their children), compared to 10 percent of mothers. The generational lag tells an interesting story. Fathers now are at the level of nonpreference displayed by male students in 1998; mothers are at the level of female students in 1997.

In 1988, when these students were born, the average maternal age in the United States was a little over twenty-five. So we would expect the generation lag to be twenty-five years for mothers and a few years more for fathers. But the actual lags are only eighteen to nineteen years, which suggests either that some parents came to atheism after entering college or that their children underestimated their devoutness. Both may be true, but the hypocrisy gap supports the second explanation, assuming that children based their response on what parents do rather than what they say.

THE GENERAL POPULATION

College students are hardly a random sample of the population. People with more education are less likely to believe in heaven, the devil, miracles, and the literal truth of the Christian Bible. However, contrary to many people’s expectations, educated people are more likely to attend services. So, we expect the students in this sample to be less believing than the general population but also more observant.

There is reason to think that the rate of secularization in the general population is faster than what we see in this sample. Over the lifetime of the CIRP survey, college education has democratized; the percentage of high-school graduates who enter college immediately after graduation has increased from roughly 50 percent in 1970 to 65 percent in 2003. Over this time, CIRP has included more poor students, more racial minorities, and more students from families with less education. These groups tend to be more religious than the general population, so we expect their participation to increase the religiosity in the sample. Thus, the observed decrease probably underestimates the trend in the general population.

SECULARIZATION

The theory of secularization—that there is a global, long-term trend away from religion—is controversial. Early sociologists, notably Max Weber, hypothesized that secularization is a predictable effect of rationalization—the increasing tendency for social actions to be based on reason rather than emotion or tradition.

In the 1950s and 1960s, many sociologists of religion defended strong theories of secularization, but, since then, several of them—including Peter Berger and Harvey Cox—have reversed their positions, arguing that religion is resurging in some areas, including the United States.

The data presented here speak directly to this debate. The CIRP survey has posed almost the same questions to a large sample of a consistently defined group for almost forty years, and the results show a clear and consistent trend away from both identification with religious sects and participation in religious services. These data make a strong case for secularization in the United States that has, if anything, accelerated in the last decade. (See also Tom Flynn’s “Secularization Resurrected,” on page 15 of this issue.)

Further Reading
Astin, A.W., L. Oseguera, L.J. Sax, W.S. Korn. The American Freshman: Thirty-Five Year Trends. Los Angeles: Higher Edu¬cation Research Institute, UCLA, 2002.
Berger, Peter, ed. Grand Rapids, Michigan: The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics. Grand Rap¬ids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1999.
Hawkins, D.A., and M. Clinedinst. “State of College Admission 2006.” National Asso¬ciation for College Admission Counseling, 2006.
National Survey of Family Growth, U.S. Department of Health and Human Ser¬vices, Hyattsville, Maryland, 1997.
Pryor, J.H., S. Hurtado, V.B. Saenz, J.S. Korn, J.L. Santos, W.S. Korn. The American Freshman: National Norms for Fall 2006. Los Angeles: Higher Education Research Institute, UCLA, 2006.
Smith, T.W. “Counting Flocks and Lost Sheep: Trends in Religious Preference Since World War II. Chicago: GSS Social Change Report No. 26, National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago, 1988.

Figure 1: Percentage of entering freshmen reporting no religious preference and no attendance at a religious service in the last year.

1

There's hope yet for the Americans!

by IT Support in

looks like richard dawkins, sam harris et al are doing a better job of 'preaching' than jws .... .

http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=downey_27_5.

.

IT Support

Looks like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris et al are doing a better job of 'preaching' than JWs ...

http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=downey_27_5

Wikileaks for whistleblowers

by IT Support in

jw
friends

thought this site, wikileaks, might be of interest to anyone who has any incriminating wt documents to share .... our primary interests are oppressive regimes in asia, the former soviet bloc, sub-saharan africa and the middle east, but we expect to be of assistance to peoples of all countries who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations.... .

while having a gdp and population comparable to belgium, denmark or new zealand, most corporations have nothing like their quality of civic freedoms and protections.

internally, some mirror the most pernicious aspects of the 1960s soviet system.

IT Support

Thought this site, Wikileaks, might be of interest to anyone who has any incriminating WT documents to share ...

Our primary interests are oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we expect to be of assistance to peoples of all countries who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations...

While having a GDP and population comparable to Belgium, Denmark or New Zealand, most corporations have nothing like their quality of civic freedoms and protections. Internally, some mirror the most pernicious aspects of the 1960s Soviet system. This is even more striking when the regional civic laws the company operates under are weak (such as in West Papua or South Korea); there, the character of these corporate tyrannies is unobscured by their surroundings.

Wikileaks endeavors to civilize corporations by exposing uncivil plans and behavior. Just like a country, a corrupt or unethical corporation is a menace to all inside and outside it.

The anonymity of the 'leaker' is guaranteed:

Wikileaks incorporates advanced cryptographic technologies to ensure anonymity and untraceability. Those who provide leaked information may face severe risks, whether of political repercussions, legal sanctions or physical violence. Accordingly, sophisticated cryptographic and postal techniques are used to minimize the risks that anonymous sources face ...

Our servers are distributed over multiple international jurisdictions and do not keep logs. Hence these logs can not be seized. Without specialized global internet traffic analysis, multiple parts of our organization and volunteers must conspire with each other to strip submitters of their anonymity.

However, we will also provide instructions on how to submit material to us, by post and from netcafés and wireless hotspots, so even if Wikileaks is infiltrated by a government intelligence agency submitters can not be traced.

However, the site's not yet quite ready:

Wikileaks has been running prototypes to a restricted audience but is still several months short a full launch. This is because we need something that can scale well to an enormous audience. The level of scalability required has been made clear by the immense response to the leak of Wikileaks' existence - and it's taken us by surprise.

http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikileaks

56

The Rutherford Exposed: The Story of Berta and Bonnie thread

by Lady Lee in

jw
friends

i have been trying to open the thread using various link.

link to my posts on the threadlink in info on rutherfordlink in best of farkeli am getting an error message on eachy one.. can anyone else open this thread?

or have a link that opens it.