Posts by JeffT

27

Christian bakery ordered to pay $150 000 to gay couple

by cofty in

an oregon bakery that refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex marriage has lost its appeal..... the judge has ordered 'sweet cakes by melissa' to pay $150 000 damages to rachel and laurel bowman-cryer.. discrimination is illegal, and religious superstition is not an excuse.

how long before jws land in court under similar circumstances?.

JeffT

I have mixed feelings on this subject. Wife and I are in the midst of planning a lesbian wedding for our daughter and I would not want to hear some one say they won't serve us. On the other hand, using this as precedent, somebody could sue an African-American bakery for not serving a KKK event. It's going to cut both ways.

27

An interesting comment given by an older brother during the prayer yesterday.

by My Name is of No Consequence in

i have been a regular visitor to this site for several years now.

i never really felt the need to set up an account and post...until now.

at the close of yesterdays meeting, an older brother gave the prayer.

JeffT

When I got out of college for the second time in the early eighties (as an accountant), desktop computers were just coming into widespread use in small businesses. Because I was just out of school I had received some good training in using the computers. I worked with a lot of old-school green eye shade type accountants who had a really hard time adjusting to the new technology. Some of them took night classes and tried to keep up, a few decided they were washed up and went into a different line of work. For those not used to them, it can be a very hard transition.

I can only imagine how frustrating it is for people who several years ago did not feel the need for such “gizmos and gadgets”.

It's worse than that. A few years ago the WTBS was telling them they should not learn this technology, that it was unneeded, a waste of time, and would lead to apostasy and porn addiction. Now they're being told to use it in field service and they don't know how, nobody is teaching them and I'm sure they feel like the older accountants I knew, washed up. Another tragic example of the Watchtower screwing up people's lives.

13

Is Watchtowers view & practices currently split in two? Split leadership direction?

by thedepressedsoul in

i've been deeply following jw "culture" the last 2 years and i am getting the impression that the leadership is currently split in two different directions.

on one hand you get this sense of a happy, joyful and less strict religion and on the other hand there is still this strict, harsh religion of the past.

let me explain more.. there have been a lot of video's lately that show dancing in kingdom halls, bethel dancing to the "happy" song, jw.org downplaying their beliefs and making it sound like daisies.

JeffT

I started to write a blog post a while back on this subject, and gave up for lack of information. The big question is: is this deliberate or the actions of a confused organization? I don't know and neither does anybody else due to the lack of transparency. We're left trying to read tea leaves.

I've seen organizations of various sorts go into this kind of split personality behavior when the leadership is divided. It is very possible that we're seeing a war between the PR/business side of the operation and the service dept/religious bunch on the other. In this scenario the business people have seen the numbers and know they need to build a broader organization so they are trying to mainstream the religion. At the same time the hard core religious types are trying to continue the tight control mechanisms.

Or it could be they've just decided to say one thing in public and do something else entirely in private.

70

Be nice to theists - they are victims of their genes

by cofty in

identical twin studies show there is a strong inheritable component to religiosity.

thomas bouchard studied identical and fraternal twins raised apart and tested them on religious attitudes.. the correlation for the former turned out to be 62% compared to just 2% for the latter.

his colleague.

JeffT

I wouldn't. Neither am I sorry for people who are theists. Why are you?

I'm just pointing out that both sets of people got to where they are by the roll of the dice when the sperm hit the egg. If this study is correct the atheist didn't get to his position by virtue of superior intellect any more than the believer got to his via superior moral character.

70

Be nice to theists - they are victims of their genes

by cofty in

identical twin studies show there is a strong inheritable component to religiosity.

thomas bouchard studied identical and fraternal twins raised apart and tested them on religious attitudes.. the correlation for the former turned out to be 62% compared to just 2% for the latter.

his colleague.

JeffT

If religiosity is determined by genetics, so is non-religiosity, it just means that religious people don't have the religion gene. It would be equally valid to say "feel sorry for atheists they're victims of their genes."

13

Victoria/Vancouver/Seattle

by happysunshine in

hey everyone!.

i live in victoria (canada).

anyone in my area?

JeffT

I live in the Seattle area as well.

39

My sister was invited to a Judicial Committee

by opusdei1972 in

today i called to my sister and she told me that two elders went to her house to announce her that a judicial committe is waiting her in the kingdom hall this friday.

she told them that she will confirm if she will go.

however, i have told her that she shouldn't go, instead she should ask them to write a formal letter, with signatures, asking her for which charges she should be submitted in a private room with two men (or three?

JeffT

Call a local TV station and see if they want to cover the proceedings. It would make good TV when the elders block the door and refuse to let them in.

26

WT's subtle attack on Wikipedia!

by Wonderment in

did anyone notice this wt's subtle attack on wikipedia?

they wrote (from the 2011 yearbook of jehovah's witnesses, pp.

9-10. source: 'tracing all things with accuracy'):.

JeffT

I regard Wikipedia as a good place to start for an overview of a subject. However I would never quote it in a scholarly work.

43

Dear typer-ers, you're doing it wrong!

by Simon in

there are many things wrong with the world, many injustices and crimes committed.

what if we could stop one of them?

wouldn't it make the world a slightly better place?

JeffT

OK, so what about the Oxford comma?

Do you want "cars are available in red, green, black, and white;" or "cars are available in red, green, black and white?" Style guides can be cited for both using it and not using it. Are we following MLA, APA, Chicago, etc; or AP and Canadian Manual?

22

How do flood apologists explain these?

by marmot in

spear points dating to thousands of years before the flood (or even adam's alleged creation, for that matter) found preserved in situ among mammoth bones in naco, arizona.. or the 14,000 year-old footprint of a child at a mammoth hunting camp unearthed in a bog in monte verde, chile:.

the kicker is that this isn't even the oldest evidence for human settlement of the americas.

since the wt loves to trot out frozen mammoth carcasses as "proof" that mammoths died in the flood, who were these mammoth eaters in north america?

JeffT

warnings are out that radiocarbon may soon find itself in a crisis situation.

Written in 1981. Maybe he and the Watchtower are using the same dictionary to define "soon."