Posts by Happy Harvester

43

HOW CLEAN IS YOUR HOUSE? (fluff test)

by Mary in

jw
friends

ever see those two british women on tv that go into some slob's home that looks like something out of a stephen king novel?

take their quiz to see if you're a neat-freak, or a sloth-in-waiting: http://www.bbcamerica.com/content/100/quiz.jsp.

here's mine:.

Happy Harvester

I am definitely gonna clean for the in-laws big time (saturday-anyone want to help??)

I'd love to help . . . now, let me see if I can find my magic wand . . . be with you as soon as I find it . . . .

87

HOW MANY DIED DURING CRUSADES?

by writetoknow in

hitler, lenin, stalin, mao et al: .

(the heart of this statement is: darwin put an end to the belief that the animal and vegetable species..were created by god....) .

1856; d. 1939) sigmund freuds impact on 20th century thinking is almost too great to measure.

Happy Harvester

Here you will find a very clean, concise, understandable explanation of 29 evidences for evolution by common descent, if you actually do care to come to an understanding of this theory:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

I enjoyed reading this a few months back, and think you might also find it interesting. Good luck in your search, writetoknow.

-HH

87

HOW MANY DIED DURING CRUSADES?

by writetoknow in

hitler, lenin, stalin, mao et al: .

(the heart of this statement is: darwin put an end to the belief that the animal and vegetable species..were created by god....) .

1856; d. 1939) sigmund freuds impact on 20th century thinking is almost too great to measure.

Happy Harvester

The only sweeping generalization I make is based on fact - the fact of evolution - as established through more scientific studies and research than I could amass for you myself in a lifetime.

If you care to look at any of it, I highly recommed that you read at talkorigins. That is an excellent starting place for learning about scientific origins and evolution.

There are many more sites like it.

Evolutionary theory is a fact.

Culture evolved and developed as a result of the evolution of our unusually large brains and our desire as humans to create and control the environment.

That too is a fact, whether you believe it or not.

Saying you do not agree with facts because you don't isn't a proof against them.

It only validates your smugness to state that facts are tenuous generalizations, while suggesting that religion is some kind of extraordinary answer to the wonderful mystery of the origins of the cosmos.

87

HOW MANY DIED DURING CRUSADES?

by writetoknow in

hitler, lenin, stalin, mao et al: .

(the heart of this statement is: darwin put an end to the belief that the animal and vegetable species..were created by god....) .

1856; d. 1939) sigmund freuds impact on 20th century thinking is almost too great to measure.

Happy Harvester

Scientific research and statistical analyses aren't necessarily about imputing motives, although religiosity often is.

The person who compiled those numbers offered a rough estimate, based on educated guess work.

What kind of educated guess work or research have you offered?

18

Same DNA as Christ

by JH in

my mother is studying with the baptists.

it's her 2nd weekly study with a woman about her age, and today she told me this.. "did you know that those that have "accepted christ", have the same dna?.

then i told her, where did you see that?

Happy Harvester

Thanks so much for the belly laughs! I seriously needed to see that!ROFFLMAO

17

Anger

by dawg in

jw
friends

i'm not trying to defend anyone's actions including mine, but i can certainly see how many of us feel anger.... my father is a sucessful business man, loved in the community by the "worldly" and the jws alike; he's also very logical in almost everyway until we talk about the witnesses.

becasue he's so chrismatic, he's played a role in converting almost everyone in the family-i'm irish so it's one darn big family, into being devout jws.

when i think about how much i love my dad, and my family and couple that with the fact that the only beef we have with one another is the fact that i see through the gb lies; it makes me mad that the love i once felt will never be there again becasue of this division.

Happy Harvester

Lulu - It would be most unkind to put a stophold on the payment, would it not?

Or to demand a refund?

Well, go to the danged thing if you paid for it, unless it's not worth the trouble.

That's gotta' be one of the crapiest things I've ever heard.

87

HOW MANY DIED DURING CRUSADES?

by writetoknow in

hitler, lenin, stalin, mao et al: .

(the heart of this statement is: darwin put an end to the belief that the animal and vegetable species..were created by god....) .

1856; d. 1939) sigmund freuds impact on 20th century thinking is almost too great to measure.

Happy Harvester

You might find the answer to your original question, "how many died during the crusades" here, along with some other enlightening information on all the bad things people have done to each other before the 20th century:

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat0.htm

Here, someone else has done the arithmetic, since you really wanted to know:

Crusades (1095-1291)

Estimated totals:
- Wertham: 1,000,000
- Charles Mackay, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841): 2,000,000 Europeans killed. [ http://www.bootlegbooks.com/NonFiction/Mackay/PopDelusions/chap09.html ]
- Aletheia, The Rationalist's Manual: 5,000,000
Individual Events:
- Davies: Crusaders killed up to 8,000 Jews in Rhineland
- Paul Johnson A History of the Jews (1987): 1,000 Jewish women in Rhineland comm. suicide to avoid the mob, 1096.
- Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, v.5, 6
  - 1st Crusade: 300,000 Eur. k at Battle of Nice [Nicea].
  - Crusaders vs. Solimon of Roum: 4,000 Christians, 3,000 Moslems
  - 1098, Fall of Antioch: 100,000 Moslems massacred.
  - 50,000 Pilgrims died of disease.
  - 1099, Fall of Jerusalem: 70,000 Moslems massacred.
  - Siege of Tiberias: 30,000 Christians k.
  - Siege of Tyre: 1,000 Turks
  - Richard the Lionhearted executes 3,000 Moslem POWs.
  - 1291: 100,000 Christians k after fall of Acre.
  - Fall of Christian Antioch: 17,000 massacred.
  - [TOTAL: 677,000 listed in these episodes here.]
- Catholic Encyclopedia (1910) [ http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/ ]
  - Jaffa: 20,000 Christians massacred, 1197
- Sorokin estimates that French, English & Imperial German Crusaders lost a total of 3,600 in battle.
  - 1st C (1096-99): 400
  - 2nd C (1147-49): 750
  - 3rd C (1189-91): 930
  - 4th C (1202-04): 120
  - 5th C (1228-29): 600
  - 7th C (1248-54): 700
- James Trager, The People's Chronology (1992)
  - 1099: Crusaders slaughter 40,000 inhabs of Jerusalem. Dis/starv reduced Crusaders from 300,000 to 60,000.
  - 1147: 2nd Crusades begins with 500,000. "Most" lost to starv./disease/battle.
  - 1190: 500 Jews massacred in York.
  - 1192: 3rd Crusade reduced from 100,000 to 5,000 through famine, plagues and desertions in campaign vs Antioch.
  - 1212: Children's Crusade loses some 50,000.
  - [TOTAL: Just in these incidents, it appears the Europeans lost around 650,000.]

TOTAL: When I take all the individual death tolls listed here, weed out the duplicates, fill in the blanks, apply Occam ("Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate"), etc. I get a very rough total of 1½ M deaths in the Crusades.

87

HOW MANY DIED DURING CRUSADES?

by writetoknow in

hitler, lenin, stalin, mao et al: .

(the heart of this statement is: darwin put an end to the belief that the animal and vegetable species..were created by god....) .

1856; d. 1939) sigmund freuds impact on 20th century thinking is almost too great to measure.

Happy Harvester

Or do I just have to take it on faith that you would actually do good works because you care about people?

You may, if you like.

And why are your motives better then a Christian that has love of God in his heart?

I can only answer such a generalization with another generalization, and that is: Perhaps our motives are better because 'the love in our hearts' does not allow us to justify hatred or wage war against those who disagree with us, as often has been the case with "godly" people throughout history.

I do not say that all religious people are war-mongerers, any more than I would say all atheists are peacenicks.

That would be a generalization I could not prove, although, as Gopher, who tends to write in complete senteces, has suggested, much violence throughout history has been perpetrated by and through "godly" authorities, drunk with the so-called "love" of god.

87

HOW MANY DIED DURING CRUSADES?

by writetoknow in

hitler, lenin, stalin, mao et al: .

(the heart of this statement is: darwin put an end to the belief that the animal and vegetable species..were created by god....) .

1856; d. 1939) sigmund freuds impact on 20th century thinking is almost too great to measure.

Happy Harvester

So that means everyone thats a Christian does good works because of fear of God!

No. It simply means that many people do good things (and even bad things) and may not always be aware of how or why they do the things they do.

Cultures have evolved because human beings evolved the need and desire for them. Because we create does not mean that everything around us was created, though it's an understandable assumption to make. It is also just that - an assumption, not a fact.

26

On sending money and flowers to posters in loss . . .

by Happy Harvester in

if what is going on with this "trevorgate" thing is true, i think it is best to simply make a donation to a good cause, instead of directly to the person, unless you have absoulute, direct contact with the situation entirely.

because of my awakenings about all of my own family and jw mental health issues - and in light of the info i've come across today about linda and trevor - i am inspired to make donations to nami and other mental health organizations in the name of "trevor s." and other deluded or abusive people who seriously need help.. there are enough stressors and depressers in my life, without trying to help people who have imaginary problems, (although i don't doubt they too need help - just not the kind of help i can offer!).

if a person or people are laughing at us for our desire to reach out, be humane, offer compassion and act as a family in the way that many of us have been denied by the wtb&ts, the person perpetrating the hoax is so deeply damaged that seeking to punish him/her is counterproductive; however, he/she definitely needs to be confronted and face the natural consequences.

Happy Harvester

I did not intend to start an argument at all on the merits of helping anyone, just to say that I'd rather be sure I know who I am helping, than get involved in a scam.

Obviously, I do care about it; otherwise, I would not have brought it up.

I am so glad that help was available to all who have needed it, sincerely!

And one day, when I am able, I will get to an apostafest.

Rabbit, you have a PM that I'm also posting here because it applies to anyone else who might, understandably, feel as you do. I am making some major changes in my approach and attitudes about things and I am familiar with this forum, as many of you are also familiar with me:

I just wanted to respond to your reply to me at the thread on trvorgate.I actually have been posting at JWD for a couple of years, but have changed my screen name due to anonymity issues.I have exposed too many details about myself and my family here (particularly while drinking), and prefer to remain anonymous. I also asked Skully to please delete my original account because of this.If you have any questions, feel free to ask her about it, although I still prefer to remain anonymous.I will forward this PM to her, just in case you (or anybody else) cares to pursue it.I do not care to associate my new screen name with my old one for the reasons outlined above.