Posts by JeffT

9

Hunt begins for legion of ‘missing’ children being educated at home

by rebel8 in

jw
friends

a person who used to post here is quoted in this article.. i hate to be a biotch, but since this has happened multiple times here, let me just say this: please do not be an asswipe and "out" her here because it would connect her real name to her username on this forum, and all the highly personal stuff that goes with that.

disclosing that is her decision, not yours.. ok, now that we have that out of the way, here's the article.

it's pretty great to have the political and religious radicalism connected to dubbery in this way.

JeffT

There are right and wrong ways to home school. We have our teenage granddaughter in a home school support system that is a vast improvement over the local public schools. The program is modeled on some very progressive systems in places like Finland. They are grouped by ability rather than age and very strongly encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning. In the time we've been involved with the school (six or seven years I think) all but one of the graduates has been accepted at every college they applied to. That one student had to settle for her second choice.

There are some good programs out there, don't tar all of them with the same brush.

25

Is the USA too big?

by Diogenesister in

fred deftone on another thread about the tragic events at m. stoneman douglas school:.

the us constitution wasn't written for 50 states either.

the country has gotten too big and i think the solution is fragmentation.

JeffT

If the Feds stuck to governing the issues that the Constitution gives to the Fed Govt and left everything else to the States, there would more local control over 90% of the divisive issues.

This. The constitution very clearly splits responsibility and authority between the states and the Federal government. The federal government is authorized to regulate relationships with other governments and between the states. Everything else is left to the states. We need to stick to that.

Just before the start of the Constitutional convention George Washington asked James Madison if he was proposing a Federal Government or a National Government. Madison's reply was "Federal." (I'm trying to find my source for this, it's somewhere in my home library I will post it when I find it, in the meantime look at Federalist papers 39 & 46). The distinction is crucial. Under a federal system the constituent generally have authority over their own affairs.

Bottom line, the American people need to stop expecting Washington DC to do everything and let the states handle those things that are within their area of responsibility.

50

Is it a Gun Issue or a Mental Illness Issue or Both?

by minimus in

jw
friends

we have had another shooting.

many are blaming trump and the republicans and the nra.. is it because of guns that there are so many massacres or could it be that these killers are mental?.

do you think guns should be removed from our society so that these atrocities never occur again?

JeffT

Simon, some of the first gun control laws passed in this country banned African-Americans from owning one. That is a bit of history nobody wants to talk about, its hard to enslave people who have guns.

50

Is it a Gun Issue or a Mental Illness Issue or Both?

by minimus in

jw
friends

we have had another shooting.

many are blaming trump and the republicans and the nra.. is it because of guns that there are so many massacres or could it be that these killers are mental?.

do you think guns should be removed from our society so that these atrocities never occur again?

JeffT

How do you guys feel about the fact the NRA lobbyists virtually buys off your politicians in contribution funds - with which they get elected.

It's not just the NRA. Our politicians are all bought by somebody.

Flipper: Those kids were shot by the National Guard, you know the people I'm not supposed to need a gun to protect myself from.

24

What Do You Think of The News Media?

by minimus in

jw
friends

i used to pretty much believe anything they would report.

now, though, i find myself questioning “journalists “, with the realization that much of what is said may be inaccurate or slanted..

JeffT

If you want slanted news with a right wing agenda watch Fox. If you want slanted news with a left wing agenda, just about anything else will do. There are no journalists anymore, it's all propaganda.

10

Internet Search Engines And Some Of The First Things I Typed

by Brokeback Watchtower in

it was back in mid nineties 93,94 or 95 before it became what it is today.

anyway they had a bunch of search engines and the first thing i typed in it was jehovah witness, then jesus christ, next came lsd, magic mushrooms, nude pictures.

i think in that relative order.. i remember reading a different story about jws in germany during the nazi era, not anything like the 74 yearbook's depiction.

JeffT

Call me a curmudgeonly old git if you like but it does seem like so many folk want to be 'spoon fed' their apostasy these days.
I'm liable to call you a lot worse than that. When my wife and I left in 1988, would had to do all our research at the public library. Talk about the opposite of spoon fed. We had to read entire books to get the information we needed. And that was after walking barefoot through the snow to get there. It was up hill both ways.
How's that for being an old curmudgeon? Now get off my lawn.
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21

A crisis of scientific reproducability

by Outahere in

https://www.nature.com/news/1-500-scientists-lift-the-lid-on-reproducibility-1.19970.

more than 70% of researchers have tried and failed to reproduce another scientist's experiments, and more than half have failed to reproduce their own experiments.

i didn't know it was so widespread...but it's a big problem in biology/medicine..

JeffT

I grew up around scientific research. My father was an award winning cancer researcher, I did some low-level lab work for him, and later worked for the college of Pharmacy at Washington State University. The fact that something can't be reproduced doesn't mean the work was done wrong, or that the results are incorrect. New information is frequently discovered because different researchers get different results.

Here's a good example (I worked for a professor involved with this when I was at WSU). In the 1970's the big alternate medicine for cancer was laetrile, also called Vitamin B-17. It was made by a processing fruit pits, usually peaches. It was not approved in the US, there were a lot of clinics selling it in Mexico. (I knew some JW's that went there for treatments, they died.) The FDA was never able to reproduce the results some researchers claimed. What they eventually found was the the biochemistry of fruits from different places varied. Make laetrile from a peach grown in Walla Walla and you got a different chemical compound than you would from one grown in Yakima.

There wasn't any problem with that the scientists did, they working working with different materials. And since there was no established chemical definition of "laetrile" the results were never reproducible.

43

Falcon Heavy

by Coded Logic in

the falcon heavy is set to launch today.

if successful, it will become the most powerful rocket in use (twice as powerful as the delta heavy).. as it's the very first attempt, elon musk has said he thinks there's a 50/50 chance of it not blowing up.

so should be interesting.

JeffT

Simon, most of what we now know about the Earth came to us via the space program. Without the ability to collect data from all over the world at once, and then analyze it, we would not even know climate change was taking place. If you want to take better care of the planet, invest in the space program. Right now we only have one data point for our understanding of how planets work. We need to get other places to fill in the gaps in our knowledge.

16

New Loophole Created: You can cheat on your spouse without him/her being able to divorce you

by ILoveTTATT2 in

jw
friends

the new "pillowgate" video exposed a loophole in the witnesses´s thinking, showing how dangerous and stupid legalism is.. this loophole is sure to destroy many people´s lives.. 1) they said that two men masturbating at the same time in front of each other does not constitute "porneia".. 2) "porneia" is the only biblical reason for divorce.. 3) from 1) we can also get two women masturbating in front of each other, or a man and a woman masturbating in front of each other, does not constitute "porneia".4) most people would consider masturbating at the same time with another person to be cheating, and a logical reason for divorce.. so this will lead to many witnesses going to the elders and being told that they cannot divorce this person who clearly cheated on them.

then, if this person (the "innocent mate") divorces and marries someone else, then that person would be the one possibly disfellowshipped!the implications of the loophole are so stupid and so damaging!i predict another flip-flop.

"considering things more closely, this is "porneia"... or doubling down on it ("sorry but that is what the biblical limits are") or just fading away into those things that only 1% of jw´s know it´s a rule....

JeffT

In Crisis of Conscience, Ray Franz relates the case of a woman who couldn't divorce her husband even though he'd had sex with an animal. That also was not "pornea."

3

Writing a story

by HowTheBibleWasCreated in

i was listening to the audiobook of the silmarillion at work awhile ago and noted that the 'creation story' basically included, god, the devil, angels and even a special people (elves).

(btw gandalf is obviously a jesus-like figure).

i got to thinking that much of the prose of the bible could easily be reworded.. after all bibles like the world english bible are copyright free.

JeffT

Thomas Jefferson took a pair of scissors to the Gospels and cut out all references to God. He ended up with a (slim) book of what he considered advice for living a good life.