cynicus

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Posts by cynicus

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  25

  question...

  by wonderwoman77 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  my boss posted this question and i cannot find the answer...anyone know... what is the one sport where the observors and the participants do not know the leader or winner until it is over?

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  cynicus

  Blindfold chess comes to mind...

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  Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.
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  57

  JW Rules That Are Just "Too Much"!

  by Ephanyminitas in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i'm curious: what rules have you dealt with that were just "too much" -- whether they were "official" (i.e.

  in print) or not?.

  i think a good, general one is r-rated movies.

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  cynicus

  *** w86 4/1 31 Questions From Readers ***

  Approved association with Jehovah's Witnesses requires accepting the entire range of the true teachings of the Bible, including those Scriptural beliefs that are unique to Jehovah's Witnesses. What do such beliefs include?

  That the great issue before humankind is the rightfulness of Jehovah's sovereignty, which is why he has allowed wickedness so long. (Ezekiel 25:17) That Jesus Christ had a prehuman existence and is subordinate to his heavenly Father. (John 14:28) That there is a “faithful and discreet slave” upon earth today 'entrusted with all of Jesus' earthly interests,' which slave is associated with the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses. (Matthew 24:45-47) That 1914 marked the end of the Gentile Times and the establishment of the Kingdom of God in the heavens, as well as the time for Christ's foretold presence. (Luke 21:7-24; Revelation 11:1512:10) That only 144,000 Christians will receive the heavenly reward. (Revelation 14:1, 3) That Armageddon, referring to the battle of the great day of God the Almighty, is near. (Revelation 16:14, 16; 19:11-21) That it will be followed by Christ's Millennial Reign, which will restore an earth-wide paradise. That the first to enjoy it will be the present “great crowd” of Jesus' “other sheep.” John 10:16; Revelation 7:9-17; 21:3, 4.

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  Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.
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  26

  Any one here Know much about homeopathic med's?

  by lydia in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hey i am just wondering again - ( i know i might just get lost ..but????).

  has any one here done any research or ever practiced homeopathic medicine??.

  i am looking into it and would lve any input on it..

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  cynicus

  Balance yes, understanding no: When one of my kids developed a simple medical complaint (finger warts) allopatic stuff (Formula-W and all that) didn't help a bit. Some homeopathic fluid made them disappear in less than a fortnight! Another kid of mine, younger and of opposite sex, had exactly the same problem some year later. My wife immediately went for the homeopathic medicine and guess what? Nothing happened. Two weeks of Formula-W and all warts gone.

  I don't understand that, although I know all about the personal treatment thing, the holistic approach, gestalt-stuff and awww --- but it only proves to me that there's no such thing as simple medicine. To me any doctor or healer is equally bad. And those who lie, no matter whether they sell the real mc coy or snake oil, are the worst. That I do understand.

  Yet I learned to be balanced and eat some humble pie since I've experienced firsthand that sometimes things work (not only with the warts), and sometimes they dont. You can't cure cancer tumors with magnets, the sound of bagpipes, or the use of leeches, for sure, and sometimes you can't even cure them with X-rays or chemo. QED.

  Mulan, thanks for your balanced reply, whilst I notice that I might have sounded more harsh than I intended.

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  Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.
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  26

  Any one here Know much about homeopathic med's?

  by lydia in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hey i am just wondering again - ( i know i might just get lost ..but????).

  has any one here done any research or ever practiced homeopathic medicine??.

  i am looking into it and would lve any input on it..

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  cynicus

  It wasn't that long ago, that today's alternatives were the norm. In Europe and Asia, they still are traditional medicine.

  It wasn't too long ago that these same norms taught people that the world was flat, that the sun revolved around the earth, or that earth was the centre of the universe. That there was something as aether between the planets, that flogiston actually existed, that elves and fairies weren't only make believe, that Jews were an inferior race, that it was ok to use black people as slaves, etc, etc, etc. Really, Mulan, this argument is so flawed! Semmelweiss or Hahnemann, Pasteur or Paracelsus, Lister or Mesmer, you are still comparing apples and oranges. Yet there are people who believe that magnets can remove the calcium from their tapwater, that sheer Israeli-Austrian mindpower can bend spoons or make old clocks tick, or that cards do predict the future, not to mention what's written in the stars.

  Mulan, no offence, but In Holland we have a saying 'whose bread you eat, whose word you speak'... I can understand your view but you have to realize that amongst others, homeopathy is a dangerous business, almost as dangerous as being a JW. I am equally quick to admit that traditional or allopathic medicine can be very dangerous too. However, it is the state of mind of alternative medicinists that gives me the creeps, and in some cases makes me very angry. Sick persons need help, and often they find themselves in a negative downwards spiral of denyal and ridicule by persons around them. And I've seen too many times that alternative medicinists are only too happy to provide their solutions, not to say cures to those who have no hope. If you deny insuline to a diabetes patient, the outcome is simple: the patient dies, no matter how much sound-scales she listens to, how many different color-aroma combinations are viewed/inhaled, which particular Reiki-master is invoked, how many liters of her own urine she consumes, or which colloidal mineral are being held to her body, or how many prayers were said by all the Kuhlmanns, Popoffs or DiOrio's of this world.

  Quite recently a quite rational not to say skeptical TV personality over here who was diagnosed with BREAST CANCER, very dangerous although treatable, she decided to believe alternative medicinists who told her that it was only a bacteriological infection that could be treated with some magnetic wonder device. She died a cruel death within several months, at the age of 45, still experiencing her daily magnetic treatments.

  Cynicus' First Postulate:

  Alternative medicine is equally dangerous as eschatological cults.

  And as far as Europe goes, alternatives are NOT considered traditional, most certainly not in the part where I live. Thank you, I only live there.

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  Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.
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  26

  Any one here Know much about homeopathic med's?

  by lydia in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hey i am just wondering again - ( i know i might just get lost ..but????).

  has any one here done any research or ever practiced homeopathic medicine??.

  i am looking into it and would lve any input on it..

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  cynicus

  There are dangers too.

  http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/homeo.html

  Alfred Vogel was never disfellowshipped AFAIK. You can find his biography at:

  http://www.bioforce.ch/en/a.vogel/alfred_vogel.html

  In recent years, most of Alfred Vogel’s findings and research has been confirmed in scientific studies. This gives the people who work for his company the strength and courage to put into practice the high standards set by Dr. h.c. Alfred Vogel, honorary doctor for medicinal botany at the University of Los Angeles.

  This is a very questionable statement though. The story below is fairly interesting, especially since the WTBS has found it important to publish several times about scientific fraud in the last decade. Both Bioforce AG, and its Dutch subsidiary named Biohorma bv ( http://www.biohorma.nl ) have been involved in accusations of such scientific fraud. As a result of publications about this, Biohorma has since in their Dutch advertising and publications refrained from calling him 'doctor' anymore but in other countries they hold on to the lie, as illustrated by the biography of their own site. Dutch Biohorma private stock owners, management and senior staff are all JWs.

  Volgens Zwitserse krantenartikelen (Die Weltwoche, 23 oktober 1986, Schweizerische Handelszeitung 15 september 1989, St.Galler Tagblatt, 10 en 13 september 1986) gaat het om de University of California. In de Schaffhauser Nachrichten van 8 oktober 1996 schrijft Clemens Umbricht in een paginagroot artikel dat het gaat om de University of California, Los Angeles, 1952, en ook in Swiss Pharma (vol. 5 (12), 1983, p.27-33) staat in een artikel ter gelegenheid van het 20-jarig bestaan van Bioforce AG in Roggwil TG weer de 'University of California in Los Angeles' genoemd. Vogel moet ook erg trots op zijn titel zijn geweest, want zelfs zijn handtekening in het voorwoord van Anders beter worden ziet eruit als: 'Dr h c A Vogel'.

  According to the Swiss newspaper articles (Die Weltwoche, 23 october 1986, Schweizerische Handelszeitung 15 september 1989, St.Galler Tagblatt, 10 and 13 september 1986) it is the University of California. In the paper Schaffhauser Nachrichten of 8 october 1996 a full size article written by Clemens Umbricht is stated that it is the University of California, Los Angeles, 1952, and also Swiss Pharma (vol. 5 (12), 1983, p. 27-33) contains an article for the occasion of the 20-year anniversary of Bioforce AG in Roggwill where the 'University of California in Los Angeles' is mentioned once more. Vogel was apparently very proud of his title since even his signature in the foreword of Anders beter worden ('Healing in different way') looks like 'dr h c A Vogel' [hc = honoris causa, a honorary doctorate].

  Maar bij deze universiteit is geen 'Dr. Alfred Vogel' bekend. Die universiteit heeft voor mij alle jaren van 1868 tot 1972 doorgezocht (na 1972 werden er geen 'honorary degrees' meer gegeven). Ook een department, instituut of studierichting die correspondeert met de naam 'Institute of Osteopathy, Chiropractic and Naturopathy' heeft niet bestaan als onderdeel van de University of California. Een verzoek om opheldering bij Bioforce zelf leverde ook niets op. Dit bedrijf, dat de naam van Alfred Vogel te pas en te onpas voorziet van het prefix 'Dr. h.c.', was na ruim drie maanden zoeken niet in staat documentatie over te leggen die opheldering kon verschaffen over de herkomst van deze titel. De president-commissaris van het miljoenenbedrijf liet me weten ook niet te begrijpen welk wetenschappelijk doel deze vraag diende.

  But there is no 'dr. Alfred Vogel' known at this university. The university has searched on my demand all years from 1868 to 1972 (after 1972 honorary doctorates were no longer granted). There also was never a department by the name of 'Institute of Osteopathy, Chiropractic and Naturopathy' as part of the University of California. A request for more information with Biohorma didn't produce any result. This company, that in and out of season prefixes the name of Alfred Vogel with the title 'Dr. h.c.' was after a search of three months not able to show any documentation that can give an explanation about the origin of this title. The CEO of this company worth millions told me that he couldn't understand what scientific goal was served by this question.

  Eigenlijk gaat het om twee vragen: hoe kon, tijdens het leven van Vogel, de aanduiding 'University of California' (mogelijk gevestigd te Los Angeles) veranderen in 'California University, Los Angeles', en de tweede vraag was wat dat dan wel voor instelling was en wat die te maken had met een instituut voor osteopathie, chiropraxie en natuurgeneeskunde?

  In fact there are two questions involved: how could, during the life of Vogel, de designation 'University of California' (possibly located in Los Angeles) change in 'California University, Los Angeles', and the second question was what kind of institution it was and what it had to do with an institute for osteopathy, chiropractic and naturopathy?

  Als het instituut was opgeheven, was de universiteit dan misschien blijven bestaan? Instituten kunnen vergaan, maar universiteiten blijven bestaan. In Nederland zijn toch hele faculteiten gesloten in het kader van bezuinigingen? Een telefoongesprek met de University of Southern California leerde me dat het begrip 'honorary doctorate' daar niet bekend is. Bij de California State University wisten ze precies wat ik bedoelde, maar die verleent geen doctoraten, laat staan eredoctoraten. Overigens is 'medische botanie' een vreemde omschrijving voor een eredoctoraat. Het vakgebied van een eredoctoraat wordt meestal heel ruim omschreven. Ook wordt er bij de verlening van een eredoctoraat niet over een nacht ijs gegaan, en een docent die helaas snel vertrekken moet even nog zo'n papier geven lijkt een ongebruikelijke gang van zaken.

  If the institute indeed was discontinued, was the university still existent? Institutes can disappear but universities do not. In the Netherlands whole faculties were closed down as of cost reducing. One telephone call to the University of South California learned me that the title 'honorary doctorate' is not known there. At the California State University they knew exactly what I meant, but that university doesn't grant doctorates, not to mention honorary doctorates. Anyway, the description 'medical botany' is quite a strange one for a honorary doctorate. The specialty of a honorary doctorate is in general described in very broad terms. The grant of such a doctorate is normally not an easy process, and to give a teacher who is a hurry to leave such a document just before he leaves, seems very unlikely.

  

  Eén raadsel heb ik wel kunnen oplossen. Er heeft een 'University of California of Liberal Physicians' bestaan, en wel gevestigd te Los Angeles, maar die is verdwenen, en alleen hun blanco diploma's zijn nog maar te vinden in het Museum for Questional Medical Devices (zie Skepter maart 1997). Dit museum had ze gekregen samen met veel andere spullen die beschikbaar kwamen toen de American Medical Association haar kwakzalversmuseum ophief. De blanco diploma's zijn ondertekend door president Carl Schultz N.D. D.C. D.O. en secretaris Karl M. Pretz N.D. Het handschrift van beide heren lijkt nogal op elkaar (2). N.D. staat voor Naturopathy Doctor, D.C. voor Doctor of Chiropractic en D.O. voor Doctor of Osteopathy. Ik heb niet kunnen achterhalen of deze CULP meer was dan een diplomafabriek, wanneer en waarom ze zijn opgeheven. John B. Bear, een deskundige op het gebied van niet-traditionele opleidingen en auteur van een regelmatig vernieuwd handboek (in 1982 getiteld How to get the degree you want) op dat gebied kon me niet helpen. Ik denk aan de slotwoorden van Eco's De naam van de roos (1980): '... een enkele keer was er een half blad gespaard gebleven, schemerde er een incipit, een titel door. De roos van weleer bestaat als naam, naakte namen houden we over.'

  I have been able to solve one puzzle. There indeed was a 'University of California of Liberal Physicians', seated in Los Angeles, but it has disappeared, although their blank diploma's can be found in the Museum for Questionable Medical Devices. This museum received them together with a lot of other artefacts when the American Medical Assocation discontinued their museum of quackery. The blank diploma's are signed by president Carl Schultz N.D. D.C. D.O as doctor of chiropractic and secretary Karl M. Pretz N.D. The handwriting of both gentleman is stunningly equal. N.D. stands for Naturopathy Doctor, D.C. for Doctor of Chiropractic, and D.O. for Doctor of Osteopathy. I haven't been able to find out if this CULP was anything else than just a diploma factory, or when and why they were discontinued. John B. Bear, an expert in the field of non-traditional education en author of a regularly updated handbook (titled in 1982 How to get the degree you want) could not help me. I'm reminded to the last words of Eco's The name of the Rose (1980): '... sometimes half a page had been salvaged, and an incipit, a title, was legible. The rose of old times exists as name, naked names are what remain.'

  The full Dutch text of this article can be found at: http://www.skepsis.nl/vogel.html The author, Jan Willem Nienhuys studied mathematics at the University of Utrecht, and was a teacher for many years at the Technical University of Eindhoven. He co-authored Discrete wiskunde (Discrete mathematics, 1991) and The 'Mars Effect' (1996).

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  Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.
• 
  36

  President Bush

  by Rado Vleugel in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  in the netherlands and many other european countries president bush of the united states of america is considered as a man with low intellectual capabilities and a narrow minded unilateral view on the rest of the world who uses one-liners in stead of founded argumentation.

  but in the us he is seen by most americans as a wise and great statesman, a marvellous leader in difficult times.. i am interested how jws in congregations from different countries look at president bush although they usually dont openly have an opinion about politicians.

  opinions from ex-jws are of course also welcome.. rado vleugel.

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  cynicus

  Rado, can I draw your attention to the all-American website:

  http://www.presidentmoron.com

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  Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.
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  11

  Farkel - you can believe this CARP!

  by Nathan Natas in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

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  i dunno, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

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  cynicus

  :6o9 - sex with a fish? Is that Kosher?

  Leviticus 11:9, 10 (NWT)

  9 "'This is what YOU may eat of everything that is in the waters: Everything that has fins and scales in the waters, in the seas and in the torrents, those YOU may eat. 10 And everything in the seas and the torrents that has no fins and scales, out of every swarming creature of the waters and out of every living soul that is in the waters, they are a loathsome thing for YOU. 11 Yes, they will become a loathsome thing to YOU. YOU must not eat any of their flesh, and YOU are to loathe their dead body. 12 Everything in the waters that has no fins and scales is a loathsome thing to YOU.

  From what I can see I it has scales allright, so who are we to judge? According to the above I'd say even necrophilia is ok, since you don't need 'to loathe their dead body'.

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  Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.
• 
  13

  Thank you for your patience

  by Simon in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  first of all, my sincere apologies for the recent disruptive posts.. while i've had to give them my attention i want to say a big "thank you" to all the posters who don't cause trouble, use the forum as intended have had to put up with a few idiots.

  i assure you that i will continue to do everything i can to keep things running as smoothly as possible.

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  cynicus

  The fact that I am silent doesn't necessary mean I agree with your actions or viewpoints. Nevertheless I *do* admire your persistence and efforts to keep this place running. Consider that a compliment please!

  However, if you look around at various *big* fora (such as slashdot) you will see that user driven moderation, rating based filtering etc (what does the current rating system offer other than some nice bar graph?), is probably the way to go. I consider what is happening right here as 'growing pains' which aren't easy (having three that seem in the middle of it...) But it gets better: puberty is coming up!

  Simon, I don't believe that you and your wife can't police this site (and IMO you shouldn't need to want to) if it grows a little bigger than it currently is. I believe in self-organizing systems, and therefore it might be wise to provide some sytem tools to actually let the system organize itself. I'd say that if you provide the often called for 'ignore'-feature to start with you'd probably see a lot of flak and unwanted stuff fade away. Hell, since you brought up my patience, I'd be willing to sacrifice the threaded view or even better, the NNTP interface that is long overdue.

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  Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.
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  18

  How many of us have had issues with Blood??

  by lydia in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  how many of us have had a problem with the blood issue when you were a dub??

  what help were the elders in the cong?.

  are you still opposed to taking blood??

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  cynicus

  How many of us have had a problem with the Blood issue when you were a Dub?? How did it go? What help were the Elders in the cong?
  Are you still opposed to taking blood?? if so why??

  problem: multiple times, made us leave eventually.
  how did it go: all right: child was yellow, sunlight made it go away.
  help: zero. I knew more about it than they did.
  still opposed: hell no!
  why not: because it's a morbid and sadistic human tenet.

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  Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.
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  44

  My visit to WT official site

  by larc in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  englishman has a thread about the generation idea and the apostates - most interesting.

  after reading this, it occured to me it would be interesting to go to the official watchtower internet site and use there search function on different words and see what they had to say.

  here is what i found out.. first of all, they do not show complete articles.

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  cynicus

  I don't know why Cygnus is questioning you. It is evident from my search and the search of others that the official WT website is designed to selectively include propaganda and exclude information they have published that could come back to bite them.

  The question, my dear Larc, was very specifically targeted at the search engine on their CD-ROM product known as the Watchtower Library. The CDROM is from a technical viewpoint completely self contained, that is all software and all data required to do the searches are on each and every copy of it. On a website there may be hidden data, specific search routines with special heuristics that drive its behaviour. It is however almost impossible to prove the presence of such 'special heuristics' from a website.

  If Cygnus [sic] wants proof, he can read the entire thread and/or do his own search on the sanctified thread of the official, divine and pure religion, that is maintained by a channel of communication from Jehovah himself to Brooklyn.

  It is not a matter of wanting proof about the web-site... I'll gladly take your word for that. When I laid eyes for the first time on the WTBS-website the word 'propaganda' came to mind without even having browsed through it.

  The CDROM is a different ballgame though. I've established myself that the WTBS-publishers are kind of 'unprofessional' in the way they treat changes to their published materials: instead of publishing an 'erratum' they just go ahead and silently make changes whenever it pleases them. In a similar way their concordances are edited. Not all references on every lemma are completely indexed and 'old light' is notoriously removed from the indexes.

  It would be really exciting if I could prove that they do this or similar also with their electronic library on CDROM. I know a great many witnesses who have developed a kind of 'dependency' on this product, and even Farkels reply above sufficiently proves that it is a very powerful instrument indeed.

  How deceiving and dishonest would it be if they indeed built similar 'special heuristics' in that search engine so that particular topics would be difficult to find in an automated way. I just asked Farkel if he could provide an example of that. If that is indeed possible I'd like to prove the point unequivocally and illustrate it by reverse engineering their CD-ROM and make the publications thereon available in plain text files so that they can be searched with any search software available. In that way such a dishonesty could be proven to anyone.

  However, it is a shitload of work to reverse engineer such a product. As I mentioned in my previous note to Farkel, the WTBS initially used a third-party product called FolioViews to e-publish the New World Translation on floppy disk. FolioViews was a very well known entity to any Novell-user or -system operator, since Novell has used the same software to make all their system documentation available to their users. However, when the Watchtower library got published they didn't use the Windows version of FolioViews or any other comparable third-party product, although these were available at that time.

  In general constructing such a product your self is much more expensive than buying it. Of course that principle is founded on the economical principle that labour has an associated intrinsic cost, and in case of the WTBS this is obviously substantially lower than in the rest of the industry. Often such thirdparty software is based on a royalty payback scheme. And since the WTBS distributes their CDROM for free that might have been even more lucrative, but that is mere speculation.

  Anyway Larc, before embarking on a project that would easily consume a couple of months of my free time, I'd like to know for sure that I'm really fighting a true windmill here. So I asked Don 'Farkel' Quijote de la Mancha about the shortest route to the nearest windmill, so that I, beloved donkey of Sancho Panza, Dapple, can have a go at it.

  

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  Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.