I have given some thought to how to do a baysian analysis on various quantities related to jehovahs witnesses demography; specifically stuff like the cummulative propability that a born in leave, or the average age at which it happens (from that and birth/age statistics it should be possible to estimate the current average age and try to figure out future trends in jw land). I think the two most relevant quantities in a poll would be: Your current age. The age you was babtized. The age you left and prior to leaving, how long did you fake attendance.
Furthermore it might be interesting to add: Age(s) at the time of leaving of those you know who left the witnesses, as well as number of siblings in/out, but it comes with some interesting problems when it comes to modelling.
Posts by bohm
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12Has there every been a JWD census?
by feenx ini'm curious if there's ever been a poll or some kind of jwd census.
how many apostates, active jw's, faded, df'd, da'd are there on the forum?
how about how many who were once jw's but now have moved on to another religion versus those who now have no affiliation?
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bohm
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28
How easy is it to pretend to be a spirtual JW?
by highdose infor arguements sake, lets say you walk into a hall where you are not known and introduce yourself as one of them, how easy would it be to pass yourself off as a fully paid up devout dub?.
i reckon i could do it even now, pull out a doudy dress, look misarble, say all the right things and thanks to jwn i'm in the know about all the most recent developments.
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bohm
Wouldnt the elders ask what hall you were in, and then look into your background to make sure you are not DF'ed or something like that?
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49
Changes after 1942 are new light from God or an apostasy by the Devil's influence?
by Andrew Derevyanko inthe scriptures and the physical facts clearly show that the work which bible students and jehovah's witnesses did from 1878 till 1942 are not just work of men charles taze russel and joseph franklin rutherford, who were chief servants in the visible part of jehovah's organization, but that such work is a product of god's spirit and in fulfilment of his prophecies written long ago through faithful men of old.. after the days of the apostles of christ jesus gross darkness covered those who were called christians and many began to practice religion or the traditions of men rather than the bible teachings.
then in 1878 till 1918 there was a work of preparing the way before jehovah's coming to the temple through his official representative christ jesus.
(malachi 3:1)such work was done to prepare before the lord a "people for his name" that such ones should be witnesses to his name and kingdom.
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bohm
OUTLAW, MRSJONES: I hope the new breed will sing better! :-).
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6
I am helping at a Carol Concert tomorrow..............
by carpediem inbloody hell, i feel so nervous.
i am half expecting satan himself to be sat there on the stage waiting for me.
what the heck did those witnesses do to me...........................
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bohm
I am going to sing at a gospel koncert in a church next week... I dont like to admit it, but I actualy feel a bit wrong by doing so...
Love, Miss Bohm
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43
Many JWs Have A Smug Punky Attitude...What About ExJWs?
by minimus inmany witnesses that i know have this attitude of superiority and "i'm smarter and better" than you.
are ex witnesses that much different?.
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bohm
Gosh - I just hate the attitude that rules among the young people in JW. They are so selfcentered. Everything they do have to be so different and their way of behaving so much smarter than other people. Rembember their parties - the clothes they wore, and the speaking tone they had. Everything was just crazy, and they loved it that way! They loved that people thought of them as cool....
Dont know if I explained this very well - nor if its like this in other countries.
Love, Miss Bohm
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13
E-Watchman vs. Tim Kilgore Resurrection/Recreation Smackdown!
by Tuesday inalright so it's not as heated as i make it seem in my opening, but i said i'd keep everyone posted on this.
i would've posted the video here to get everyone's feedback but the response wasn't anything i hadn't dealt with a hundred times before, now it's just in video form.
in fact it was supposed to be an answer to my first tough question about resurrection vs. recreation but it didn't even answer the question at all, at least i feel.
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bohm
By the way Tuesday - i am really looking forward to seing these videos, after i saw you destroy biblethumber. But i think there is a huge problem here about the soul : Its really not very well defined (ei. no scientific theory of the brain, so IMHO even from a scientific standpoint, the soul is not 100% ruled out, at least not if we allow for a wide definition), and i am afraid nothing more than semantics can come out of it - did he choose the topic?
Besides that - i think its really cool of you to take him on. I hope you get to touch more difficult topics.
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13
E-Watchman vs. Tim Kilgore Resurrection/Recreation Smackdown!
by Tuesday inalright so it's not as heated as i make it seem in my opening, but i said i'd keep everyone posted on this.
i would've posted the video here to get everyone's feedback but the response wasn't anything i hadn't dealt with a hundred times before, now it's just in video form.
in fact it was supposed to be an answer to my first tough question about resurrection vs. recreation but it didn't even answer the question at all, at least i feel.
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bohm
just a thing about teleportation. I took a course in quantum optics, and the guy who had it was leading a group who was in nature because of a teleportation experiment they did. Unless something radical has happened i have not heard off, i think this (and similar) is the teleportationexperiment you are referring to.
What they are teleporting is a quantum state and not matter. In quantum mechanics, there are properties of the system which may be independently measured, but cannot be known fully at the same time - for example the momentum and position of a particle, but in this case it was properties related to something called the spin, which is a longer story.
Anyway, since these properties cannot be measured at the same time (quantum mechanics dictate that once one of them has been measured, the value of the other *must* have been altered), it is not simply possible to measure the two quantum states and then prepare another atom at another location in the same way.
That was before this experiment: Essentially what they did was to transfer the (unknowable) combined quantum properties to a lighpulse, and then use the lighpulse to prepare a different atom in the same state. So regarding to the statement 'the original object must be destroyed' that is not true either: Nothing happened to the original atom, except its quantum state was altered - it must be so because of the quantum no-cloning theorem [no diceplay and no cloning - God is apparently a republican ;-)]. We can actually proove the quantum no-cloning theorem allready: If the state of the original atom was not lost, we could clone the quantum state a lot of times, and then measure the two quantum numbers independently on different atoms and estimate the original, unknowable, quantum state. But i digress :-).
Anyway, that was it. This has really interesting applications in quantum cryptography and possibly for building a quantum computer - and it is interesting to see what quantum properties and on which systems (atoms, electrones, holes in semiconductors, phonons and other pseudo-particles in superconductors) - but as far as i can tell it has nothing to do with teleporting anything biologically. As far as i know, the quantum state of the atoms in a virus matters didly squat as far as its biological function: A virus is a virus is a virus, so what we are interested in is a way to quickly assemble atoms - thats properly more like nanotechnology.
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29
Just recieved a mail from an elder
by bohm inhey, here is a little update on my fade:.
an elder have been calling me for a couple of weeks now... i didnt answer the phone, and after two weeks he stopped calling.
i was releaved... until today... i just recieved a mail from the same elder, telling me that he and another elder wants to visit me - he gave a bs reason about them rearranging the groups in the congregation and wrote they were visiting all the puplishers.
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bohm
Be a man. Say no. Don't lie. Who is the Father of the lie?
Whatever my girlfriend deside to do, i hope this WONT be it :-D.
Seriously, thanks for all the kind words, there was some very good suggestions - especially thanks to nugget and LWT, its the route we will take if the problem persists. The solutions might seem obvious to you, but its a really great comfort to hear from you and know we are answering them the best we can.
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7
Strange Blue Spiral Over Norway Today
by Hopscotch inhere is one link to an article about it with photos.
but you can just google it for some great videos and pics.
thoughts are it could have been a russian missile but the scientists aren't sure yet.. .
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bohm
it was a russian missile for sure:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx8i5EfmYU4
it has happened before:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN_y5r7vHio
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixLE3iuszbU
if i had been there, i would have been 100% sure i had seen a UFO, as in green men. i can understand how the UFO stories are born...
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61
"Autobiography of a Died-Again Christian"
by leavingwt ini enjoyed a number of the points in this essay.
dr. jaco gericke's deconversion story: "autobiography of a 'died-again' christian<snippets>.
it was a little late in the day, however, when i realised that studying theology can be a downright dangerous business for any believer.
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bohm
LWT: Those two analogies in your last post was very thought-provoking, i really want some good ammo against the 'hotel-california' argument (once you joined, you can never leave).
I found his phd, it is here: http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-03192004-135203/
You are right, he pretty much set out to disprove the existence of YAHWEH using 7 arguments. From the abstract:
Though not all seven of these devil’s advocate’s arguments may be equally devastating when viewed in isolation, in the form of a cumulative argumen against realism, they constitute seemingly irrefutable proof that Yahweh-as-depicted in the text does not exist. Consequently, realism collapses not only in Old Testament theology but also in any form of theism somehow related to, rooted in and/or dependent on realism in its discourse.
I think much of it is over my head, but some here might be interested.