Posts by Razziel

31

LIFE after JW: Why is it so difficult to keep a romantic relationship?

by cyberjesus in

Razziel

Try and look at it from their point of view. When you straight out say something is inappropriate or immoral, they take that as an accusation of something they may not even have thought of until you mentioned it. They also infer that you do not trust them. They will feel as if you are treating them like a child, and your relationship goes from being equal partners, to parent-child, and they will usually leave the relationship pretty quickly.

It's a fine line of letting your likes/dislikes be known without coming across as "this is how you have to dress/act if you want to be with me." It takes practice. To be crass, if you come across as condemnatory or controlling, you are basically taking a crap on their value system, which leaves most people deeply offended. Even if you really were compatible you can ruin the relationship just by the way you phrase things.

15

What would you all do in this situation?

by EndofMysteries in

- a married ex from a few years ago who has a kid now too, who after being with you got married within a few months, seems to decide they may have made a mistake, and want to meet you for a weekend but supposedly not to do anything wrong just for closure.

.

Razziel

Send her a video, titled "Closure", of you zipping up your pants.

27

Silent Lambs in Wikipedia to be deleted

by Gerard in

jw
friends

there are a couple of jw zealots campaingning in wikipedia to delete the silent lambs article.

i'd like to request your editing time in order to search for additional references to be included and make their censoring task imposible.

thanks.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/silentlambs.

Razziel

Yeah when I tried to make a comment, it put me on the editing page for the article. I went ahead and made a couple of grammar/syntax fixes.

27

Silent Lambs in Wikipedia to be deleted

by Gerard in

jw
friends

there are a couple of jw zealots campaingning in wikipedia to delete the silent lambs article.

i'd like to request your editing time in order to search for additional references to be included and make their censoring task imposible.

thanks.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/silentlambs.

Razziel

Whoever changed up the entry yesterday did a very good job. The format is presented much better than it was before, and the citations are improved. It still needs some proofreading for grammar and maybe a little fine tuning, but it's a big improvement on what was there 24 hours ago. One thing that should probably be added for fairness in the references is at least one link to the official website of JWs. Didn't there used to be a webpage on their site that explained their policies? I looked briefly but all I could find are those generic "how to protect your children" articles.

62

ONE! NO EQUAL!

by wannabe in

but he still wasn't finished, to my surprise, and i'd thought he was, with his last comment.

i thought!

Razziel

Here's my human analogy thought experiment...

If humans are created in God's image... What would happen to the human conscious if it was isolated by itself for an indeterminate period of time? It might fragment itself in an attempt to keep its sanity in an infinity of loneliness. Each fragment might become a distinct personality based on specific traits from the original singular personality.

In the case of a human being, seperate personalities would just be different manifestations of the same human. But in the case of a supreme being who wields the power of creation? Each personality could become a distinct individual while sharing the same divine essense.

Back to reality...

Personally, I've seen good arguments both for and against the trinity. Regardless of how you look at it, there is no black and white answer in the Bible. I see the trinity doctrine just like a scientific hypothesis. It's an attempt to harmonize multiple scriptures that state/infer both a singular God and three entities of divine origin into one doctrine that can explain all of the these scriptures satisfactorily (which is itself a source of dispute).

9

Who actually decides that a person is chosen by God to be an elder?

by brainwashed-from-birth in

is there an interview?

what sort of things do they look at, or expect out of the person?

besides being a man.

Razziel

Off topic, but if i remember correctly, the only biblical difference in scriptural qualifications between an elder and MS is being "qualified to teach." Using that criteria, a lot of elders should be demoted.

9

Who actually decides that a person is chosen by God to be an elder?

by brainwashed-from-birth in

is there an interview?

what sort of things do they look at, or expect out of the person?

besides being a man.

Razziel

I thought I read somewhere the GB doesn't vote on appointments anymore? That appointments are decided by the service department.

31

Why Do Americans Live Shorter Lives Yet Spend So Much for Health Care ???

by RubaDub in

jw
friends

every time i see statistics comparing average lifespans amoung countries, why is the usa so far down the list???.

with susposedly the best healthcare in the world (for those who can afford it), the last study i saw ranked the usa at number 38 in the world.

yet, we spend 4, 5 or even 10 times more per person on health care than most others.. what gives ???.

Razziel

In other developed countries, the market is also saturated with fast food and the population has a high proportion of overweight people. The epidemic of adult diabetes for instance is not just an american phenomena but affects almost 9% of the population of Europe. They still have a higher average life expectancy. Some would say its skewed even further because here in the US, drastic attempts to extend life are made even when quality of life is gone, whereas many european countries are more comfortable letting people go once quality of life is gone.

I think the big difference in a socialized health care system is preventative care. Here in the U.S. a lot of preventative care is not covered by insurance. If you have a high deductible, or no insurance, you don't generally even go to the doctor unless you are seriously ill. We spend most of our resources trying to treat catastrophic health problems instead of preventing them in the first place, though we are getting better.

That said, I don't see how socialized health care would work in the US without major system changes. It's an economic supply/demand issue. As big and clunky as our system is, it can hardly keep up with the patients it has now. Most adults I know have to wait at least a month (sometimes 2 or 3) to get an appointment scheduled. Opening up health care to all would result in the same thing that happened when the U.S. tried to regulate gas prices in the 1970's resulting in the oil crisis. Price fixing always results in shortages. The number of doctors and nurses in the US would have to grow dramatically before we could reasonably handles all the new patients in a reasonable amount of waiting time.

18

would you date this guy???

by highdose in

jw
friends

about 2 weeks ago i met a guy online, we chatted on the phone one evening and had a good conversation and aranged to go on a date this friday coming.. since then i have heard almost nothing at all from him!

i think about 2 texts and thats it!

in one of the texts he hints that he would like to see a picture of me "wearing alot less".

Razziel

He may have simply stopped when you didn't give him a scantily clad picture. But keep in mind...

Getting the girl a little interested and then completely ignoring them is a common tactic guys use. It makes girls who are insecure with themselves think "what's wrong with me?" or "what did I do wrong to make him ignore me?" Then when they finally meet up again, the situation has changed from the guy trying to attract the girls interest, to the insecure girl trying to attract his interest, thereby making her more pliable to his advances.

It doesn't work with self-confident women, but it's like shooting fish in a barrel with women who have low self-esteem.

I've never done this, and I hate guys who do, but it's a pretty common thing for guys who are experienced at seducing women.

36

What is Circular Reasoning?

by God_Delusion in

i know what circular reasoning is because i wrote about it, so i know i'm right .

http://www.jehovahswitnessblog.com/2010/01/what-is-circular-reasoning.html.

carlos.

Razziel

I do not know much about the relation between sedimentary layers and fossils contained therein beyond common sense and what's been posted in this thread. But from what's been posted, this doesn't look like circular logic to me. It looks like an unconstrained optimization problem, which on the surface, yes, looks like circular logic, but is not.

I deal with these types of problems a lot in engineering. You know there is a relationship between variable A & B through several other variables. But you don't know what the values of A & B are, or rarely any of the other variables for that matter. And unfortunately, your job is to find out what the best values of A & B are. But you don't have a reference point to start from, so A & B can be an infinite number of values.

I have to go to work and don't have time now to extrapolate on the math, but basically there are many valid ways to find the values of A & B. (The oldest probably being the golden-section search, and newton's method) They all involve initial guesses, and using that initial guess to recalculate the initial guess generally with an independent variable(s). Through several iterations, the calculated values for A & B will converge close to the real values of A & B.

On the surface that looks like circular logic, since you used A to find B and B to find A, when you didn't know the true values for either. But it's not. It's using a mathematical relationship to identify maximal/minimal values which correspond to the true values you're looking for. In this case, I would infer the key/index fossils are those which are put into the unconstrained optimization equations. By using multiple fossils, the convergence of calculated values would be even closer to the true values.