Posts by JanH

133

Why Im ignoring my friends.

by refiners fire in

jw
friends

ive basically kept this under wraps in so far as this board is concerned, but ive decided to tell about it because, frankly, im under stress at the moment,am posting (when i post at all) a bit strangely and i wish to explain why im hardly posting, nor am i hardly responding to emails or chat requests from my friends here.

i apologize for the latter.

in a nutshell, my wife is sick, shes been sick a year now and the situation is getting worse.

JanH

Simon.

What is the lie? I wrote on "the other place", on Wed 21 Aug 2002 3:31:

For lying, nobody comes close to Refiner's.

Funny fact: Edward Gentry was never deleted from Simon's board, even for the most extreme example of lying & trolling.

And then I wrote again, on the same thread, on Thu 22 Aug 2002 21:04:

Hey folks
For lying, nobody comes close to Refiner's.

Funny fact: Edward Gentry was never deleted from Simon's board, even for the most extreme example of lying & trolling.
JanH wrote:
Simon reads this board! Now, after I wrote the above, Gentry (aka Refiner's) is deleted from JWD. See http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/members.asp?site=3&letter=E

LOL!

Between those two messages, a bit more than a day apart, the Edward_Gentry account was deleted by you. That is a fact. Again, where is the lie I supposedly told?

I foresee your apology, subsequently your evidence that I lied about anything.

PS: Where did you learn to call everything a "lie" if it's an inconvenient fact?

- Jan

Blogging at Secular Blasphemy

30

100 Greatest Britons.

by Englishman in

jw
friends

.

i wonder who will win?.

englishman..

JanH

Farkel,

Norwegian comics, e.g.:

Oh, but the problem is you don't read Norwegian, do you? Same with stand up comedy, of course. There are lots of them here, but outside Scandinavia, you will not know more about them than I know about e.g. great baseball players (US) or rugby players (UK & commonwealth).

Hmm, Norwegian famous people would include people like Edvard Grieg, Ludvig Holberg, Henrik Ibsen, Fridtjof Nansen, Edward Munch, Roald Amundsen, Thor Heyerdahl, Liv Ullman and Gro Harlem Brundtland but not Kent. I guess Kent is about as famous among never-been-dubs here as Ray Franz is among Americans.

UB, the UN guy who was killed was a Swede. The Norwegian UN secretery general survived It's actually interesting that Norwegians tend to become famous for succeeding and surviving (e.g. Amundsen) while 'the other guy' gets famous for failing and dying (e.g. Scott).

- Jan

Blogging at Secular Blasphemy

30

100 Greatest Britons.

by Englishman in

jw
friends

.

i wonder who will win?.

englishman..

JanH

Massive Nick Cave fan here, too

- Jan

Blogging at Secular Blasphemy

30

100 Greatest Britons.

by Englishman in

jw
friends

.

i wonder who will win?.

englishman..

JanH

It seems this is a list of those who did not make it to the famous top ten, which may explain some notable ones missing (e.g. Shakespeare, Churchill and Queen Elisabeth I)

- Jan

Blogging at Secular Blasphemy

25

Therapy

by Moxy in

jw
friends

im breaking a long absence to ask a question during this evening of soul-searching in what i believe to be the best place to ask it.

i dont know how many people are still here who remember me well, so first a 'hi and miss you guys' to those who are.. im wondering about therapy.

i always thought i had a pretty good handle on my life despite the upheaval of leaving the witnesses.

JanH

Moxy,

I certainly remember you very well. You always were one of my favourite posters on this board. I am sorry you run into hard times. Yes, you appeared to always be one of the more solid, unbreakable types here, which I guess just means you don't like sharing your private problems in public. I can relate to that, very well!

When I left the dubs, I was surprised at how well everything went. I joined a support group for exJWs, and met a lot of ex-dubs, many of which had serious 'issues'. During the next few years I ended up running the whole support group with my then-wife, which was a very time-consuming, stressing but also rewarding job. I learned that the mixture of JW and family issues had caused serious problems for lots of people, and that professional help was necessary.

I didn't come to a point where I myself needed professional help before a few years later, then (I think) unrelated to JW issues, but I benefited greatly from the work of a professional psychiatrist. Personally, I would not go to any other sort of professional, but that is of course my prejudices. I also benefit from a social medicine programme in my country that meant this cost me very little; and that may not be the case where you are. However, as much as I benefited from professional help, nothing can replace the care of real friends, and I am so lucky that I have quite a few.

Feel free to contact me privately if you want to. I wish you all the best! If you are struggling with problems, you should never, never, be struggling with them alone.That is the important part.

- Jan

Blogging at Secular Blasphemy

10

New SQL Query Tee Shirt

by COMF in

jw
friends

when i saw it, i couldn't live without one.

got it from http://www.thinkgeek.com.. for all you dba's: the query says,> select * from management where clue > 0.

> 0 rows returned.

JanH

COMF,

Brilliant! I want one of those t-shirts.

- Jan

Blogging at Secular Blasphemy

145

Analyzing evolution through Laws of Probability

by pomegranate in

jw
friends

any of you evolutionists ever crunch the numbers?

JanH

Crazy,

That something is the middle road between two extremes doesn't make it true. It is perfectly possible that either of the extremes are true. In the case of naturalism/supernaturalism, evidence has steadily favoured naturalism since the inception of scientific thought.

But you are right about one thing: all species now living have evolved from a common ancestor. That is a fact. Those forming theories about origins, naturalistic or supernaturalistic, must begin with the facts. Abiogenesis cannot be called a fact. There is, however, a very good case made that life orginated from non-life on this planet through natural processes.

- Jan

Blogging at Secular Blasphemy

145

Analyzing evolution through Laws of Probability

by pomegranate in

jw
friends

any of you evolutionists ever crunch the numbers?

JanH

Pome,

Your intellectual dishonesty is breathtaking.

- Jan

Blogging at Secular Blasphemy

145

Analyzing evolution through Laws of Probability

by pomegranate in

jw
friends

any of you evolutionists ever crunch the numbers?

JanH

Pome,

There are no actual transitional links in the fossil record to support the theory of evolution. All of the species of plants and animals along with their biological parts, traits, and characteristics are found already fully-formed or complete within the fossil record. For example, not a single fossil with part fins/part feet has been discovered to show that fish had evolved into amphibians. There are no fossils of partially-evolved species to indicate that there ever was a process of evolution going on.

Contrary to what you assert: If any such thing was found, it would totally prove Darwin's theory of evolution wrong. It would a real-life falsification of Darwin. Of course, no such thing exist.

All species are fully formed, yet all species are at least potentially transitional.

The only incomplete organ parts in species are rudiments and throwbacks to features of ancestor species. These are alone sufficient evidence that we know common descent is a fact. How could you otherwise explain the genetic code for teeth in living birds, or the fact that occasionally whales living today are born with complete legs on the inside of their bodies?

You have again demonstrated you don't even know the extreme basics of evolutionary science. Your arguments are nothing but straw men, either intentionally (you are dishonest) or unintentionally (you are ignorant).

If you showed just an itsy bitsy willingness to actually get yourself educated about biology and evolution, you could perhaps learn something.

- Jan

Blogging at Secular Blasphemy

19

Intelligent Design in the Universe

by metatron in

jw
friends

this will be complicated ( if you think any watchtower study article is 'deep', .

give up now).

so, according to popular images, god sits on a throne.

JanH

Zech,

I am not really sure what you are trying to say. Either you misunderstood what I tried to say, or you have a somewhat flawed understanding of how genes work.

The 'blueprint' analogy is flawed because a blueprint is a prety exact drawing of the completed product. If you look at a blueprint for a car, you will see specific parts of the drawing that corresponds to the engine, the shaft, and so on. Genes do not work that way.

The 'cooking recipe' is a better analogy. When you read a cooking receipe, you generally don't always find that parts of the recipe points to specific parts of the finished dish. You cannot point to one piece of the cake and find a corresponding single instruction in the recipe to explain it. There may, for example, be instructions about roasting a dish for so-and-so-long at a specific temperature. This single instruction will account for a large number of characteristics in the end product. Other instructions may have smaller effects, some on taste, others on appearance. The same principle is true about genes.

This is why it is often futile to search for 'the gene for' various diseases or traits in humans. The effect may well be genetic, but it is the probabilistic result of countless genes working together. Yes, you do have genes determining which eye colour you have, and you have inherited this from your parents, but it may not be a case of a single piece of code in your DNA that says "blue eyes" or whatever.

- Jan

Blogging at Secular Blasphemy