I think it's funny that the WT links them to reptiles, relying on the literality of the term dinosaur, which I think means "great/terrible lizard." Yet increasing evidence points to dinosaurs' closest living relatives as birds, at least for one main branch of the dinosaurs. Researchers in China keep finding rather amazingly well-preserved fossils of lovely feathered dinosaurs. So much for lumping them into one "kind" --as if snagging a pair of geckos for the ark would do the trick. A hen and rooster would be closer!
Cadellin
JoinedPosts by Cadellin
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12
JWs came to my house today
by enigma1863 ini got an unexpectedvisit from an elder an a new guy i never met before.
he said jehovah hasnt forgotten me.
they said all jws are filling out an emergency contact information form.
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Computers have successfully replaced college professors
by moshe inhttp://techcrunch.com/2013/01/15/how-californias-new-online-education-pilot-will-end-college-as-we-know-it/.
-while faculty worry about the quality of online courses, the truth is that our education system, primarily designed to test rote memorization, is built to scale and be independent of teacher interaction.
a review of research by the department of education in 2009 found that "students who took all or part of their class online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction.".
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Cadellin
As someone who's both taken online college classes and who currently teaches at a large four-year university, I think it's a stretch to claim that computers will completely replace traditional face-to-face classroom instruction. Online courses run a very wide gamut from little more than a glorified correspondence course to truly top-notch classes with educational quality to rival the best bricks and mortar.
However, online classes have a much higher attrition rate than traditional classes. It takes a heightened level of motivation to keep going, simply because you don't have the physical presence of classmates and a professor who will hold you to account as she gazes in your eyes. When I did (an admittedly unscientific) survey of my students, I found that a high percentage of them had taken online classes but preferred face to face because it was easier. They told me that when you're on your own, you have to figure everything out yourself. Sure, you can email your teacher a question, but you've got to wait to get a response and then maybe it's not clear and you have to ask again, etc. Conversely, most questions can be explained/handled in person in a fraction of the time.
As well, in my classes, I spend a lot of time working with students step by step as they brainstorm, draft, revise and so on. We do mini-lessons on the fly as they need them--I respond in real "real time" based on what they're currently doing and need. That said, I think MOOCs and similar venues definitely have their place, especially for higher level college courses and non-traditional students who are typically more focused and motivated. There's no question the education landscape is changing.
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Salon article on how the internet is killing religion (references Jwfacts!)
by JonathanH inhttp://www.salon.com/2013/01/16/religion_may_not_survive_the_internet/.
congrats to our very on jwfacts for getting a shout out from salon.
the part where the mention jehovah's witnesses links to jwfacts.com.. .
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Cadellin
Thank you for posting this. It was one of the best written, well-thought-out reads I've had in a while. All I can say is--TRUE!!!
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please help
by joyfulfader ini am posting to ask this group of wonderful people to help my friend who is with me now.
we are discussing her serious doubts and the barriers she is facing as the wife of an elder with small children.
she is desperately looking for help to pull away without causing dissention in her otherwise very good marriage.
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Cadellin
Hi: I was in the exact situation when I began to wake up. I had a wonderful elder husband, many years in ft service and a small child. I would be happy to help her in any way, since I totally understand what she is - and will be --going through.
She needs to know that there is no easy road in her situation, especially if all of their mutual fams are JW and if she wants to be keep her marriage together. That said, difficult doesn't mean impossible. Cagefighter said there's no easy way to leave a cult and that's quite true. However, I would add that there's no wrong way to leave, either. Leaving is leaving, no matter how slowly one needs to structure her fade.
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April 15, 2013 Watchtower - p. 22-26: Organization-Obsessed Much???
by sd-7 inthere's a study article "make sure of the more important things", and in no uncertain terms the article makes clear that "jehovah's organization" is the most important thing.
the term "organization" or "jehovah's organization" is used a whopping 24 times in the article, including a subheading titled: "follow the example of jehovah's organization".
i thought organizations were entities, but that sort of subheading makes it seem like the organization is one giant person whose example we can follow.
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Cadellin
Many years ago, I worked as a corporate paralegal. My job was to create corporations for clients and maintain them through their life cycle. Yes, life cycle. As I filed Articles of Incorporation, maintained annual minutes, revised Bylaws and mission statements and, sometimes, file Articles of Dissolution (corporate death), I often felt like I was caring for actual persons who had a name, assets, family members and a mission in life. And, legally, I was.
Corporations become imbued with a life that extends beyond their immediate utilitarian purpose and take on an essence or meaning of their own. I think Kant differentiated between animals and humans by noting that humans are aware that their lives are an end in themselves and not merely a means to an end. That's exactly what eventually happens with the "personhood" of a corporate entity. It becomes larger than a mere means to an end and becomes an end in itself--it takes on a weird and creepy kind of personhood. The humans begin to serve the interests of the corporation instead of the other way around. This is exactly what has happened with the WTBS.
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Anyone Else See Les Miserables?
by BizzyBee ini went to see it today - by myself (mr bee is on a golf junket).
i was glad that that i was by myself because i cried so much at the end, i wouldn't have wanted to be with anyone who wasn't crying - and that would not have been mr bee!.
les miserables the current film is adapted from what is considered one of the half-dozen greatest novels of the past 150 years and one of the longest novels ever written.
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Cadellin
I went with my teenager and we loved it. Mind you, I think the live production was better and they could've cut at least half-hour from the film w/o hurting it. I thought Russell Crowe's singing was excellent and though Hugh Jackman did a good job of Jean Valjean, he couldn't sing to save his soul. The orgiastic melange of sentimental Catholicism and libertine ideology with which the movie ended was a bit much, but I still enjoyed it.
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Is This the Safest Time To Be Alive?
by 00DAD insafest time to be alive?
matthew chance takes a look at whether or not we live in a safer world today than any other time in history.. http://www.rr.com/video/2322994712.
of course this contradicts jw perennial gloom-and-doom prognostications and wt end times eschatology, but if you even could get one of them to sit down and consider the real facts, they'd probably just say, "see, we're getting closer to the cry of 'peace and security!'".
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Cadellin
I've read Pinker's book and found it fascinating. Your chances of dying a violent death were many times higher in the past than they are today and Pinker does an admirable job of analyzing the convergence of a range of contributing factors, including the influence of the Englightenment and diminishment of religious thinking.
One question to get someone thinking is--if you could be transported to some other time period to spend the rest of your life, what would you choose? Oh, and by the way, there's a caveat: You'll also be transformed into a woman, a person with a physical disability, someone of a minority ethnicity or someone who's gay. NOW--when would you like to live??? It's easy to forget that for someone in one of those categories, the vast majority of time periods have been horrible. For example, to get a glimpse of what life was like for women, you only have to check mortality rates in medically unserved countries like Afghanistan and Yemen (and probably others) and find that as many as 20% of women die from childbirth-related causes and as many as 50% of children under the age of five die. Up until relatively recently, that was the norm everywhere.
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What was it about Bethel that woke you up?
by cognisonance inone the how many exbethelites thread it was mentioned that some think one either leaves down the path towards apostasy or as a 100% true believer.
i'm curious what experiences did you face at bethel that woke you up (or started to at least)?.
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Cadellin
This is a great thread. I just want to chime in and concur with everything that has been said. I had a very close relative who was a "heavy" at Brooklyn. He was elderly but when young sisters would come around on tour, he would make a big deal about hugging them and kissing their cheeks, etc. Everyone chuckled and thought it was "cute" but it made me embarassed. Not only that, but he would do it in front of his wife!
My husband was at Bethel b/f we married for several years. His overseer was the worst sociopathic asshole I've ever encountered (and that's saying something). The way he treated my husband was despicable--even by "worldly" standards, and yet he remained in perfectly good standing. He would go out of his way to berate my husband until he was literally crying (this was b/f I came along and my husband was a tender-footed twenty year old with a naive, well-meaning heart) and would not leave him alone until he made sure he was in tears. He would also do the same thing to my husband's older sister who worked in the same department--verbally abuse her until she was sobbing, then leave.
When we got engaged, we applied to remain at Brooklyn as a couple. My husband was given an excellent report by his table head, and his home overseer but his work overseer said terrible things about him. Now, I'm not naive--it may be that some of those things were true regarding minor shortfalls. But he was regularly pulled onto jobs that had a short deadline because he was the only one who could get things done when the crunch was on. Because of his overseer's spiteful report, we could not come in to Bethel after our marriage and my husband was absolutely crushed.
Of course, in retrospect, it was the best thing that could have happened!! Ironically, a few years later, his overseer's experience was in one of the mags as a model of faith!!!! We both could NOT BELIEVE IT. I was still active and "unawakened" at the time, and even then, it gave me pause to think that holy spirit had directed this psycho's life story be printed as spiritual food??? I realize now that was the first stirrings of my own epiphany regarding this nutty religion.
Everything that has been said regarding absolute lack of recourse to underlings with grievances and the iron-fisted dictatorial rule-bound mentality is true--and more!!
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Update on the Mermaid
by Cadellin ini don't post here that much, though i read posts everyday.
it's mostly because of the ie7 problem (don't use ff that much).
anyway, that's beside the point.
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Cadellin
Thank you for all your kind words. Believe me when I say it helps tremendously!
Flipper: He was an elder but since we moved, he has not been reappointed. This is probably due to the fact that both his wife (me) and his child (who's 14 now) refuse to go. He's actually okay w/not being reappointed (I think he's kind of relieved not to be doing the kind of heavy lifting he was doing in our prev. cong.) and I'm fine either way. But yes, I do have to be circumspect about what I say.
OTWO: Thank you for your reassurance. Yes, now that I've thought about it, I don't think it changes anything. And I do love him dearly, and him I as far as I can tell.
Blondie: No, I don't think he's getting impatient. Well, hmm. Now I'm having second thoughts. I think that, just as we "awake" to the truth about the "truth" in stages, believing spouses have to get used to the inactivity of their awakened spouse in stages. Initially, when we moved here, he wanted me to go to one meeting/month, which I did. But I'm not now (yay) and maybe this is reverberation from that realization.
Idrnomo: Great idea, but I honestly don't know what effect it would have. I think he just might read parts of it if no one were looking but he might just as easily decide that his loyalty's been tested far enough and run to the BOE.
LITS: We can commiserate! Yeah, I have to wonder how believing spouses just "don't get it." Funny thing is, my dear hubby will go to worldly events with me, talk extensively about the political situation (he followed election stats devoutly), read fiction that would be nixed by most JWs, and make references to how climate change is going to affect life on earth but we'll both be gone by then. All of which reflects a profoundly non-JW perspective. I think there's cognitive dissonance up the ying-yang going on with him.
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Fall of Giants---Ken Follet
by ldrnomo inone of the most freeing things i've been able to do since fading from the watchtower's tendril like grasp is, "read what i want to" i particularly enjoy historial novels because they entertain and inform all at the same time.
i'm just finishing the first of a trilogy "fall of giants" and there was a paragraph that made me think of the great influence of propaganda machines (probably because i was so influenced by the watchtower) i am hugely aware of it's power to lead people all over the place like the waves of the sea i suppose.. here is the paragraph:.
maud knew the proprietor of the mail, lord northcliffe.
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Cadellin
I like Follett, though I find some of his work a bit too violent for me (weak stomach). But, yeah, that quote resonates. If that isn't what the WT does, I don't know what is!