Posts by bohm

13

Awake 1980 said: Movie Exorcist 1 + 2 Caused demon attacks and murders!!

by Witness 007 in

awake 1980 12/8 p.11- "since the release of "the exorcist" some years ago, many reports are on file of adverse effects it had on many who saw it.

mureen was an athiest......"it was the most terrifying thing i have ever seen.

it was horrible.

bohm

Damn... and when i saw it, the demons made me believe it was an unintentionally funny horrorflick...

Powerfull stuff. I am going to get baptized now :-).

15

The JW library CD - Are the articles in their original version?

by bohm in

jw
friends

hey!

i stumbled on something on jwfacts.com.

on this page (http://jwfacts.com/index_files/1800s.htm) it says: (my emphasis).

flaks: Welcome to the board! I dont know what you or your parents background it, but i applaud you for doing independent research - this is the core issue. If you are just starting out, i would very much recommend you to read some of the excelent sites there are on jehovas witnesses, for example jwfacts.com or

If you want to help your parents... well, first and foremost, im not an expert, but i think the most important thing is to understand exactly how complicated things are psychologically for them - i would very much recommend you to read "Releasing the bonds" by stephen hassan - it really provides a roadmap for how one should educate oneself in order to help others.

You might be a bit disappointed to read it is also about other cults than JW, but that is really a strength, since it is very important to give them examples from other cults (scientology, moonies, mormons, you name it...) and let them draw parallels themselves - but much more about that in the book.

if you want information for yourself on jw, i would recommend jwfacts.com, http://www.quotes-watchtower.co.uk (especially the one called the "jensen letters") and if you want books, then crisis of conscience and "apocalypse delayed".

Best of luck! you might want to post your story when you feel ready for it, it sounds interesting :-)

55

The Value of Pi, The Mysteries of Pi and e and the Bible.

by Chalam in

pi and the bible has been the subject of debate before.

however, i had not seen this information which clear up the 1 kings 7:23 issue before so i am posting here.

also, the two constants, pi and e encoded in the first verse of the ot and nt respectively, see second article.. full details in the url at the start of each topic.. the value of pi.

bohm

Looks like this is turing into another science/atheism/secular humanism vs God thread. I generally avoid those!You write that scientists change their mind all their time and im curious about that statement, can you give some examples?
In my understanding, Newton's and Einstein's laws were though of as absolute until it was found that they aren't.

I think i understand the source of confusion. They was most certainly not. Einstein spend his years after general relativity trying to marry it with the ideas of quantum mechanics. Newton disappeared into mysticism, but considering how many other phenomena he was working with in a scientific way after his laws, i very much doubt this is the case even for him.

I can tell you with abselute 100% confidence, that every respected person working with physics know that all the great theories, quantum electro dynamics, quantum chromo dynamics, general relativity, newtonian mechanics, statistical physics, string theory, electrystatics/dynamics, evolution, the confusing thing called "chaos theory", etc. etc. is completely wrong. yes, thats right! no explanation for everything! nobody ever claim that!. A physical theory today is a way of understanding, interpreting and predicting (usually in a quntitive manner) a collection of phenomena. Every physical theory i know of has a domain, that is, a length scale, energy scale or something like that where it works, and it has a scale where it does not work. For example, for cars, trains, buildings, fluids, - newtonian dynamics get you a long long way, which is why i have spend quite a lot of time understanding and using it. Its not everything, but its damn usefull for building a bridge!. Now, newtonian dynamics can be generalized in general relativity, and thats quite neat so you can calculate on black holes, spin-precission (there is a sattelite, Gravity Probe B doing that just now, i would recommend you to google it and read about why its there and how it works, its very fascinating stuff!) and the orbit of mercury, but it breaks down when you do quantum mechanics, and it all become quite dodgy when you try to apply it to the young universe.

Besides, changing minds and learning there is a new new collection of phenomena a given theory does not describe is not the same thing. A theory is only accepted when it has shown itself to be usefull in calculating and predicting a number of phenomena. thats called experiments, and because the theory is generalized, or shown to be wrong, it does not stop being usefull for what it was originally employd to; that was why i mentioned the example with computers.

55

The Value of Pi, The Mysteries of Pi and e and the Bible.

by Chalam in

pi and the bible has been the subject of debate before.

however, i had not seen this information which clear up the 1 kings 7:23 issue before so i am posting here.

also, the two constants, pi and e encoded in the first verse of the ot and nt respectively, see second article.. full details in the url at the start of each topic.. the value of pi.

bohm

Not to be pedantic, but i personally dont look for science to answer questions such as morality, the nature of love and what my purpose is. I think about how i can reconsile myself with the ide that i will properly never get an answer in my lifetime.

It is also wrong to say science may not answer the big questions - perhaps it can be shown the universe is tuned and exist because all other options are mathematically impossible. Or WHEN (it is not a matter of if!) we have a theory of the mind, we can answer questions such as free will vs. determinism and a lot of other neat stuff.

Science is slow because humans are limited, and therefore we must begin with the small questions. We have been working with small questions for many thousands of year now and has made progress - my example with the computer screen is because it simply makes me sick to hear the "but scientists change their mind all the time"-argument. Its not like scientist will say: "oh thats right, maxwell equations and quantum mechanics is wrong after all, so we cant make transistors or LCD screens", and they will suddenly pop out of existance? - hell, i think we have answered some pretty big ones allready, like what most of the shiny things in the sky are or how people get sick and babies are made.

I will accept that God is the ultimate scientist when he manage to get a paper through peer review.

You write that scientists change their mind all their time and im curious about that statement, can you give some examples?

17

"Wow. This is really offensive."

by Kudra in

jw
friends

that is what one of my jw facebook friendss typed as a comment to my "what kingdom hall asshole are you?

" fb quiz result.. i replied that it is just a joke but i will take it down if it insults my friends!.

here is the link to the thread i made about the quiz here on jwn:.

bohm

Cognetive dissonance at its best!. Its easier to go after you than try to reconsile how she is living her life compared to how she wants to be. Nice answer to her though, i love the word "harlot", i wish it existed in my language :-).

55

The Value of Pi, The Mysteries of Pi and e and the Bible.

by Chalam in

pi and the bible has been the subject of debate before.

however, i had not seen this information which clear up the 1 kings 7:23 issue before so i am posting here.

also, the two constants, pi and e encoded in the first verse of the ot and nt respectively, see second article.. full details in the url at the start of each topic.. the value of pi.

bohm

IMHO science can keep "answering" questions but quite often it changes its mind or disagrees with itself and it never seems to answer the big questions

I think its quite interesting to read that statement on a computerscreen and think of how many centuries of science went into making THAT possible. If Big G wanted us to believe in the bible, why put in subtle clues that required all kinds of dodgy nonsense manipulations? Why not just write: The first 8 digits of the one millionth prime is: ...., and that would prove it once and for all.

No, God prefers to have a gazillion very special people make a gazillion different very special excuses for why God want it such that everything in the bible makes it LOOK like it is just another false religion, but he wants us to believe it anyway OR ELSE....

Regards!

5

Apostacy (at least > 10'000!!!) amongst the anointed: a mathematical analysis

by bohm in

jw
friends

in another thread there was a discussion about weater the amount of anointed (and in particular, the dropoff).

i have tried to calculate it here.

these are my assumptions which i very much need someone to check out.. there can be only 144000 which have *died* while they had their heavenly call before armageddon.some of these are allready selected in early christianity.in 1935, all the remaining anointed was selected.

bohm

Tuesday:

Yes it was yout thread, but i couldnt find it when i wrote the post.
I wrote it because i looked at a graph on jwfacts of the number of annointed at the memorial, and saw it had been relatively constant since about 75, and i thought to myself that it looked kind of funny because it was to flat. So what i wanted to do was to try to simulate what would happend to the demography of a large population of annointed choosen in 1935, but where some might deflect (like ray franz), and be replaced by other annointed ones (choosen from the baptized which i assumed was distributed as the general population, see the post). The input data - the 72000 - was just selected more or less just to match the number participating in the first memorials.

I am not calculating children leaving, becuse i assume being annointed is not something that is enherited. Hence i fix a chance PER YEAR of a given annointed deflecting. I know the true propability for any baptized jv to leave per year is about 1-1.2% (this is reported in the WT), and i assumed that for a given annointed it would be 0.5% (the annointed are more faitfull). I will agree its properly in the high end, but this is not my point, lowering it to just 0.1% would make it very bad for the WT, because we would expect far fewer partakers. Now, as black sheep said, i misunderstood the current light on the annointed class, and was not aware that the WT says God may still not have reached the 144000, and with a constant influx of new members it is offcourse possible to maintain a steady population of annointed (as in the past 3 decades). There is also another possibility i didnt take into effect, namely that a number of those claiming to be annointed are only fakes, but i see that as a problem for the WT - if many of those claiming to be annointed are lying, is it really a good idea to make them prepare the spiritual food?!?!

Well, its only a calculation. I might try to add the effect that the heavenly call is not closed and see what the effect of a number of "newly-annointed" each year will have on the graphs. I dont think it will save the wt though: 9000 simply seem like a very high number when so many professed to be annointed in 35.

5

Apostacy (at least > 10'000!!!) amongst the anointed: a mathematical analysis

by bohm in

jw
friends

in another thread there was a discussion about weater the amount of anointed (and in particular, the dropoff).

i have tried to calculate it here.

these are my assumptions which i very much need someone to check out.. there can be only 144000 which have *died* while they had their heavenly call before armageddon.some of these are allready selected in early christianity.in 1935, all the remaining anointed was selected.

bohm

Thanks Blacksheep!

It seems i overlooked two effects: 1) There is a influx of newly annointed ones beoynd 1935, 2) there is a percentage of those claiming to be annointed who are not.

Since it would be most fair to let both of these figures vary over time there seems to be to little data to properly conclude annything without making assumptions... However, a question one may answer is: "what total influx would be required to keep the number of annointed ones constant over 3 decasedes", and one may be able to guesstimate the number partaking in the memorial (may be that a certain percentage of total population jv is crazy to claim being annointed without actually being it?). But i think i will leave that untill i have found quotes in the WT which may help answer these questions.

However, i still think one may conclude one thing: The development over the past 3 decades is not consistent with saying a *large* number of annointed ones was singled out in 1935.

5

Apostacy (at least > 10'000!!!) amongst the anointed: a mathematical analysis

by bohm in

jw
friends

in another thread there was a discussion about weater the amount of anointed (and in particular, the dropoff).

i have tried to calculate it here.

these are my assumptions which i very much need someone to check out.. there can be only 144000 which have *died* while they had their heavenly call before armageddon.some of these are allready selected in early christianity.in 1935, all the remaining anointed was selected.

bohm

Hello!

In another thread there was a discussion about weater the amount of anointed (and in particular, the dropoff). I have tried to calculate it here. These are my assumptions which i very much need someone to check out.

There can be only 144000 which have *died* while they had their heavenly call before armageddon.
Some of these are allready selected in early christianity.
In 1935, all the remaining anointed was selected. They was selected amongst those who was alive in 1914.
In the following time, some have turned away from JV. They have therefore been replaced by others.

in order for my analysis to hold true, these assumptions must be true. it is especially the second last one i am worried about.

This is what i did. I assumed there was an initial number of "remaining anointed" selected in 1935, and that they was choosen from an age distribution proportional to the general populations distribution of people between 21 and upwards (ie. they had to be alive in 1914, but no further assumptions on their age).

I assumed there was a constant (across time/age) amount of apostacy. i set this to 0.5% per year (Papo), and when a person became an apostate, another had a heavenly call; the other person is selected from the general population at random (ie. a baby may be selected by god, but may realize it only at a certain age).

Now, i got the age distribution from http://www.censusscope.org/us/chart_age.html and the death rate from http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/table4c6.html . I then assumed half of the annointed had been selected in the previous centuries (2000 year is quite a long time so this seem to be a bit in the low end), and simulated the development of the number of anointed. The result is in the following plot.

To the left there is the total number of people partaking at the memorial. Notice the increase is due to a high number of young ones who was selected by God coming of age (ie. i only assumed people aged more than 35 will report to being annointed, which is certainly true today).
The vertical line is the total number of apostates over the year, the value is about 14'000 (Nice job, devil!!!).
The amount of people partaking in the memorial today should be about 5600 with these values (or rather, all anointed age more than 35, note some may be annointed but without knowing it, so this is an over-estimate!).

To the right is the age disribution of annointed today. The "spike" at 90 years of age is from people who was babies in 1914.

Now the fun thing :-). If the assumptions i have made are correct, we can estimate the amount of apostacy we must have in the organization to get the amount of anointed at this years assembly, given a certain amount of people who was selected as annointed in 1935 (the "start-annointed"), but since its kind of late in my timezone and i havent verified the assumptions made above, i will leave that untill it is verified.

Sincerely!

55

The Value of Pi, The Mysteries of Pi and e and the Bible.

by Chalam in

pi and the bible has been the subject of debate before.

however, i had not seen this information which clear up the 1 kings 7:23 issue before so i am posting here.

also, the two constants, pi and e encoded in the first verse of the ot and nt respectively, see second article.. full details in the url at the start of each topic.. the value of pi.

bohm

Chalam: Newtons laws (or rather, a subset of them) is made more precise in special relativity. Special relativity is generalized in general relativity. General relativity is in conflict with quantum mechanics, and it is properly the greatest problem of the 21st century in physics to find a new theory which contains them.

This thing about the speed of light - well, varying speed of light has been proposed to help maintain casual structure during the inflation periode of the universe and to support the 6000 years idea of the universe. Allthough i got a A+ in general relativity i am really not qualified on commenting on these things, but i think it would be best to wait propegate these ideas untill there is a viable theory for describing them, and that there are emperical support for them. Right now, studies of distant quasars as well as the okla reactor indicates no change in the periodes they cover. note this does not indicate changes in the speed of light during the inflation is impossible (which, lets face it, is a periode where we can only say something *really* weird happened).

I dont want to say varible speed of light is impossible... the fact that we have no idea of what constitute about 95% of the universe (dark energy/dark matter) is a hint that we are missing something big and the laws has to be rewritten. Variable speed of light is certainly an option.

However, there are two ways of doing science. In one way you carefully create theories, test them against nature, and see if changes are required, and remain objective. Then there are the WT way where you go though the litterature picking out speculations and quotes which support your position and disregard everything else.

I prefer the first.