Posts by JeffT

30

When Did Higher Education Become Taboo?

by Wild_Thing in

jw
friends

i have been reading about the early history of russelites/jws and in the beginning, it seems the organization was formed and headed by quite a few educated people.

lawyers, doctors, businessman.

you could buy voting rights within the organization for $1000, which by today's standard would be somewhere between $15,000 and $20,000, something most of us do not have on hand, unless you are highly educated and/or wealthy.

JeffT

I can't find exact numbers just now, but I believe that college education was rare until about the 1950's. According to Wikipedia, in the early twentieth century there were only about 160,000 college students in the US. That changed post World War II with the GI Bill. Now there are about 18,000,000. In other words I don't think it was an issue for the WTBS until then.

Financially, they shot themselves in the foot with their position on it. It's hard to squeeze money out of folks with low income jobs. Contrast that to the Mormons, who encourage higher education and good jobs. The LDS is rolling in money.

32

EXJWSOLIDARITY!!!!!

by Luther bertrand in

given derek o'hares legal issues for his brave protests i have created an fb banner to show not only exjwsolidarity but also that we appreciate derek's protests.

if you have not viewed his protests go to the "derek ohare1" youtube channel.

here is the fb banner that was i created fix it to your own fb page and show support for derek and all strugglers!.

JeffT

Do some research on your avatar.

32

EXJWSOLIDARITY!!!!!

by Luther bertrand in

given derek o'hares legal issues for his brave protests i have created an fb banner to show not only exjwsolidarity but also that we appreciate derek's protests.

if you have not viewed his protests go to the "derek ohare1" youtube channel.

here is the fb banner that was i created fix it to your own fb page and show support for derek and all strugglers!.

JeffT

The thing about claiming "Civil Disobedience" is that it isn't a get out of jail free card. Civil disobedience worked in the case of segregated lunch counters and buses for a very simple reason: the police ran out of room to jail the people they arrested for breaking the law. This is an effective way to highlight an unjust law. Breaking the law to protest a religion isn't.

PS: I don't express solidarity with Roman Catholic extremists.

6

Reduce people's religosity through transcranial magnetic stimulation...

by Thursday in

found this interesting article in the december 2015 issue of the australasian science journal, on whether it might be possible to change a person's beliefs by stimulating their brain via transcranial magnetic stimulation (tms).. "the study by us and uk researchers recruited 38 undergraduate students, with each reporting they held significant religious beliefs and conservative political views.

participants in the experimental condition received tms to the pmfc for a period of 40 seconds, a process that reduces neural activity in this region for up to an hour.

control participants underwent a similar process, but with a low level of tms that has no effect on the functioning of the pmfc.. the researchers found that those who had received tms reported significantly less conviction in their beliefs concerning god, angels and heaven following a reminder of death than those in the non-tms control group.

JeffT

I'm seeing "A Clockwork Orange" in my head. IMHO brainwashing of any sort by anybody is just wrong. If you can't convince them you're right by stating a good argument, you need to rethink your own position, not f*** with people's heads until they think like you.

87

Did you get " Counseled " about the Music you Listened to While you were a JW ?

by flipper in

jw
friends

from the time i was a small boy - i loved rock n' roll music.

beatles, rolling stones, led zeppelin, hendrix.

i started getting slighted for the music i listened to as i lay in my bedroom listening on headphones to led zeppelin's song " black dog " at age 14 with my elder dad looking suspiciously at me as i'm rocking out .

JeffT

When i converted I trashed a lot of really classic Rock vinyl on the advice of a JW roommate. Got rid of Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Doors, and King Crimson. I've replaced most of it on CD now, but the King Crimson is hard to find.

6

Is a circle round?

by slimboyfat in

"christ, not this again!

there's a serious point to be made here however.

somebody published a study in the journal of personality and social psychology showing that disagreements about what constitutes a circle depend on your political perspective.

JeffT

I don't like the (in my opinion false) dichotomy between the two sets of political positions.

I support government aid for the homeless and unemployed, to an extent, I don't think it should be a life style. I support same sex marriage. I think drugs should be legalized and addiction treated as a medical problem.

I also think business owners have rights that need to be protected. We need a strong military. Prostitution should also be legalized for adults.

Where does that put me? BTW I think the object shown is a circle of sorts, but then I think that if you're driving on it, a figure eight is also a kind of circle.

14

Time Machine

by HB in

caveat 1: those who believe jesus is truly the son of god may wish to avoid this post.

although my thoughts are only proposed for mild amusement and interest and in no way intended to offend, for some, the concept behind the idea may be an affront to preciously held beliefs.

if that’s likely to be the case, kindly just don’t read.

JeffT

The merchants know what real gemstones look and feel like. They'd probably run you out of town on a rail. Modern beer wouldn't look like much more than water to anybody. I doubt they would recognized gummy treats as even edible. Somewhere I've seen a science fiction story along these lines.

13

A Thought Experiment

by InjusticeSystem in

i am hoping some of you may be up for participating in a little creative thought experiment .

the question i would like to pose (and if it has already been asked i apologize, for some reason i cannot search for topics on my mobile) is this: what would the evidence show if the jehovah's witness' literal reading of genesis was true?

i realize that is a fairly broad question, but for example a more pointed question could be: if the vapor canopy hypothesis is correct (i have confirmed with my elder father that this is still a currently accepted understanding), what evidence in our genome or that of other creatures or on earth would we expect to see?

JeffT

Not sure if your question includes Noah's Ark, but the JW explanation regarding "kinds" of animals is entirely inconsistent with their anti-evolution stance. We could not possibly have the numbers of species we have if the Earth was only a few thousand years old.

77

Did you KNOW Ray and Cynthia or the legal copyright holder? Only a few maybe had limited contact.

by blondie in

jw
friends

i have known all of them over the last 15 years, talked at length with them, and knew what their wishes were, the copyright holder and spouse spent even more time with them socially and helping them set up their arrangements for when ray and cynthia passed.

i don't believe that anyone else on this board or others was a confidant.

there is no need to prove it to anyone but the copyright office which is satisfied with this.

JeffT

Good grief, it's a book. Some of you sound like its a plot to take food away from babies. If you think they information is that vital, write your own book. You can cite CofC as a source. All the information is out there if you need it.

This debate about ignoring the law and the copy holder's rights will probably convince more JW's to stay in, than reading the book will convince to get out.

36

Revealing Watchtower tax returns

by Nambo in

please excuse if this has already been posted:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysyqish-l_e.

under the freedom of information act, this guy has tax returns showing where your money goes, where it is invested, companies like northrop gruman, monsanto, cigarette and porn peddlers, and we thought we where giving money to god!

i am quite sickened to discover i was giving money to the watchtower to invest in arms manufacturers..

JeffT

Thanks Blondie. On reading through that my first thought was to wonder who the target audience is. For starters there are not a lot of Witnesses with enough money to worry about setting up trusts. And most people who have that kind of money have lawyers and accountants to explain tax law to them. They don't need the WTBS to write up a simplified brochure for them. Are they trying to impress the sheeple that they have big support somewhere?

I'm continuing some research on those 990's. As of the most recent year (2014) the trust no longer owns any Phillip Morris stock, it does have a little bit of money in a couple of defense related companies, but not much. Most of the trusts money is held in blue chip stocks and bonds, which would be consistent with a requirement to invest low risk assets.

For some reason (what I'm looking at next) for the 2014 tax year the entity changed from an exempt trust to a personal foundation subject to taxes. I need to read some IRS docs to find out what's up with that. It paid about $12000 in taxes for 2014.