Posts by FrankWTower

33

GAME OF THRONES (Season 3)

by SophieG in

ok i cannot believe that no one has mentioned this series.

does anyone watch?

did you see sundays masterpiece and have you read the books?

FrankWTower

I'm loving it. I used to think The Walking Dead was awesome, but now it's boring in comparison.

Since I don't have HBO, I watch it online. There's a site where you can check out every episode (tv-series . me).

The Red Wedding was brutal!

17

Ouija boards and science

by FrankWTower in

there is an interesting new article at guardian.com on things like dowsing, ouija boards and other scams.

it illustrates how there is a scientific explanation for ouija boards, and how dowsing won't stand up to scientific scrutiny.. here's a summary:.

the ideomotor effect is also behind the supposed power of ouija boards to communicate with the dead.

There is an interesting new article at guardian.com on things like dowsing, ouija boards and other scams. It illustrates how there is a scientific explanation for ouija boards, and how dowsing won't stand up to scientific scrutiny.

Here's a summary:

The ideomotor effect is also behind the supposed power of Ouija boards to communicate with the dead. Sometimes referred to as 'spirit boards', Ouija boards typically consist of a round board marked with all the letters of the alphabet, the digits one to nine, and the words "yes" and "no". Sitters place their fingers lightly on a specially constructed heart-shaped piece of wood known as a planchette and proceed to address questions to the spirit world. The technique also works simply by using letters and numbers written on pieces of paper and arranged in a circle on a smooth table, along with an upturned wine glass in place of a planchette.
Amazingly, in response to questions, the planchette (or wine glass) often appears to move around, pointing to various letters and numbers to relay the responses back from the spirits. Once again, we are dealing with an example of the ideomotor effect. Although the illusion that the pointer is being moved by some outside force is extremely strong, the truth is that the sitters are actually moving it without realising it.
Whether the device is a Ouija board, a divining rod or a bomb detector, the ideomotor effect is capable of producing powerful illusions that can be exploited by the unscrupulous. Those whom they fool are usually well-intentioned, often highly intelligent individuals. But the demonstrations used to convince them of the claims are never carried out under properly controlled conditions. If anomalistic psychology shows us anything, it is that intelligence and good intentions are no protection against self-deception. The only way to avoid being taken in by such effects is through the use of properly controlled, double-blind tests.

Here's the link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/apr/27/ouija-boards-dowsing-rods-bomb-detectors

FYI, the ouija board is manufactured by Milton Bradley and is sold at Toys-R-Us. I would expect such an evil, spritualistic tool to be crafted and sold by practicioners of the occult, not at your nearest toy store. It's just another phobia instilled by the WT to clueless JWs.

9

How do I convince my scientific-minded, 11-year-old son of the existence of God or a superior being?

by FrankWTower in

i was about to go to sleep when i found this brilliant answer to a question asked on quora.

check it out:.

let's talk about god.

FrankWTower

I was about to go to sleep when I found this brilliant answer to a question asked on Quora. Check it out:

Question: How do I convince my scientific-minded, 11-year-old son of the existence of God or a superior being?

Answer (by Anonymous):link

You can, exactly because faith is not subject to logic.

I am an atheist, but I will not judge you for trying to convince your son to believe in the existence of God, he is your son and it is only your business how you want to raise him. Having said that, from my experience, if you are thinking of trying to give him some "scientific" explanation of God. Stop. It won't hold up. Yes, even for an eleven year old. I have tried it myself. It doesn't quite go down well. Even if he believes your "scientific" explanation initially, it wouldn't take him long to check it up on the internet and find that it is full of logical fallacies.

Here are a few suggestions which might be more effective, they mostly consist of appealing to his primitive instincts to "override" his rational mind.
Fear: It is one of the most powerful of the emotions. Appeal to his fears. Fear of death: Tell him, no God means he will cease to exist after death. No, don't just tell him, make him witness. Take him to a funeral. Fear of eternal damnation (Pascal's wager). Describe hell, in detail, tell him it is real, show him portraits, read him accounts. Fear of the metaphysical: Talk about cases of possessions, demons, ghosts. Tell him anecdotes. Make them up if needed. Be creative. Fear of Uncertainty: Tell him how uncertain life really is, and how many things depend on factors that are out of our control, then gently enter God as a means to feel in control. Remember, if you can't pull, push!
Guilt: If you are a christian, excellent! Tell him how Jesus died for your sins. No, not just tell him, show him: The Passion of the Christ. More than once if required. Other religions, no problem, it must have some story of a benevolent God and ungrateful people and how it doesn't end well for them.
Morality: Create doubt in his mind, e.g. without God, there is no purpose of his existence etc. Ask him, if he doesn't fear divine judgement, what is preventing him from committing the acts of unspeakable evil? Tell him about the Communists and the Nazis and the atrocities they committed. Tell him, how Nazis used Darwinian Evolution theory to justify the Holocaust.
Self-doubt: Catch him when he is at his weakest. Flunked a test? Let's talk about God. Lost a match? God. Pet died? God. Let him experience the soothing warmth of the arms of God. Say, "leave it all to God". You can add extra details if you want, like positive reinforcement- a nice hot beverage. Once he gets used to using God as an emotional crutch, no amount of rationalization can get him to throw it away. Even if he does, other factors mentioned above will lead him back to it. :)
Love: Try to associate the love he has for you with the love for God. Introduce God as a surrogate parent figure who will always be there for him, even if you aren't, to make things alright for him, because he loves him.
But still you want to talk about science? Really? Ok. Here are a few ground rules. Literal explanation of bible and science are quite incompatible. Really, they somehow got the age of the universe off by a factor of 10^7 (don't ask me!). Whereas if you are a Hindu you are in luck. They somehow managed to get the order right. Nevertheless, avoid that. Say it is all allegorical.
Always focus on the upper limits of science- the things it can't explain well. Like the origin of the universe, nature of our consciousness, origin of life etc. Then claim that Bible/Koran/Bhagvat Gita/Torah/Other has all these answers.(But of course they are hidden so you will have to read them regularly and belief in God is absolutely necessary for any revelation). Talking about revelations: Emphasize the superiority of revealed knowledge over that obtained by empirical means (It is known).
Quantum Mysticism: I don't think such a situation will arise with an eleven year old but who knows. If he is interested in physics, read The Tao of Physics, make him read too. That book is your friend. In short, it "relates" the quantum jargon to religious jargon. Tell him how many of the physicists like Schrodinger and Oppenheimer were interested in religious texts and how they claimed being influenced by them. This will be especially effective in case you are a Hindu. Those Manhattan guys were really big fans of Hinduism.
Einstien: There was a story circling around the internet featuring young Einstien and his professor about how he argues about the existence of God. That one is proven to be fake. Avoid that, it will hurt your credibility. Avoid Einstien altogether if you can. His beliefs were complicated.
Beauty of Nature: Be careful with this argument. Before you start arguing how the complex design of the human eye warrants a designer, be warned, that one and similar arguments get obliterated by the theory of evolution. Instead, it is a much better idea to argue about the mathematical beauty of the laws of physics. This is endorsed by many prominent physicists, so that's great. Add to that the problem of fine tuning of the fundamental constants, and it should be more than enough.
Ok, for now this seems to be enough, try these and see how it goes. Keep me posted on the updates, I am curious too.

Awesome stuff. Good night.

108

July 15th Study Edition Is Up..

by confusedteenager in

jw
friends

not sure if anyone mentioned this yet, but yeah.

they just posted up the new watchtower...with the confusing new information.. time for me to go dive into this "new light" and try to see what sense it makes.

of course cedars already nicely did a run down for us.. .

FrankWTower

YOU GUYS! I found a joke in the article!

On paragraph 16 on page 18 of the third article, the second sentence states (about C.T. Russell and the first bible students): "These loyal men and women exposed false doctrines and spread spitirual truths."

Yeah, truths that the WT has changed over and over again. That's hilarious. I can't believe how millions of JWs will never spot things like this even after the WT regurgitates this stuff repeatedly.

27

Stay Alive Til 2020

by FrankWTower in

jw
friends

i've been playing around with wt statistics recently, helped by the great data available on jwfacts.com.

i wanted to share somehting with the community, maybe you've seen something like this before.. continuing the trend of decline seen during the last 30 years, i was able to extrapolate the year when wt growth might finally end.

if trends continue, we may only have to wait about 8 more years, 9 years to see it reported if the wt decides to report it at all, to see publisher growth end and possibly reverse.. the graph shows the annual growth rate of average publishers during the last 31 years.

FrankWTower

@cedars,

Not at all. If you remember, the "stay alive 'til 75" quote was in reference to the supposed end of this "system of things" in 1975. The DO who said it (can't remember his name) was talking about staying alive spiritually until the end, or at least that's my understanding. In my case, I mean to stay alive intellectually until we see, not the end of the WT, but at least the moment when it begins its decline in worldwide membership.

If I'm wrong about the year, at least I based my extrapolation on mathematics, not on WT superstition.

27

Stay Alive Til 2020

by FrankWTower in

jw
friends

i've been playing around with wt statistics recently, helped by the great data available on jwfacts.com.

i wanted to share somehting with the community, maybe you've seen something like this before.. continuing the trend of decline seen during the last 30 years, i was able to extrapolate the year when wt growth might finally end.

if trends continue, we may only have to wait about 8 more years, 9 years to see it reported if the wt decides to report it at all, to see publisher growth end and possibly reverse.. the graph shows the annual growth rate of average publishers during the last 31 years.

FrankWTower

I've been playing around with WT statistics recently, helped by the great data available on jwfacts.com. I wanted to share somehting with the community, maybe you've seen something like this before.

Continuing the trend of decline seen during the last 30 years, I was able to extrapolate the year when WT growth might finally end. If trends continue, we may only have to wait about 8 more years, 9 years to see it reported if the WT decides to report it at all, to see publisher growth end and possibly reverse.

The graph shows the annual growth rate of average publishers during the last 31 years. Data for these figures can be found here. I used Microsoft Excel to extrapolate the decline trend.

WT Decline

May the force be with us.

22

How to make your exit with minimal pain while still living at home with your parents

by sseveninches in

as requested, i've made a new thread with the info i posted on a previous thread.

this is intended for young jws who have woken up from their anesthesia but still cannot move, or in other words, have learned ttatt but are still living with parents and are afraid of getting kicked out if they make their opinions/findings known.

i am included in this group of people, because i myself still live at home with parents.

FrankWTower

This is great, sseveninches. I hadn't really thought about distancing myself from current JW friends. Looks like I'll have towork on that.

116

The "30 Other Lands" in the Worldwide Report - revealed!

by cedars in

i've just uploaded the third article in my four-part "under the microscope" series - looking at the society's claims to be god's sole channel with mankind.

a link is below:.

http://jwsurvey.org/cedars-blog/under-the-microscope-the-watch-tower-societys-claims-to-divine-direction-part-3.

FrankWTower

The muslim world is watchtower-resistant.

The "Other Lands" In Detail

by FrankWTower in

this is some research i've done on the 30 "other lands" figures from the wt year book.

thanks to cedars and his 30 other lands post.

i've based in on that.. the population data was gatherered from wikipedia.

FrankWTower

This is some research I've done on the 30 "other lands" figures from the WT year book. Thanks to Cedars and his 30 Other Lands post. I've based in on that.

The population data was gatherered from Wikipedia. The publisher figures were taken from the 2012 year book. I also added in figures from 4 other large countries to show just how much preaching is being done by the WT.

the 30 "other lands"

This data puts WT preaching into perspective. It practically ensures that less than 50% of the world's population alive today has never been preached to. Although, you'll never hear that at the meeting.

4

James A. Shapiro, Professor of Microbiology qouted to support Creationism.

by dark angle in

my brother, clinging to creationism quoted prof. james a. shapiro to support his idea.

this our facebook dialoge:.

him:innovation, not selection, is the critical issue in evolutionary change.. thirty years ago, i was at a conference in cambridge, england, to celebrate the centennial of darwin's death.

FrankWTower

You were eloquent, thurough and based on sound logic. I love how you brought up the quote mining argument. More JW's need to be educated on quote mining, a common WT practice used to attempt to discredit the scientific community and any other source of information that contradicts them.

Shapiro's quote doesn't even contradict science anyway, it merely states that we don't know everything right now. Some questions we have may take science 10 years, others 100 years, and others 1000 years to answer. It is a logical fallacy to think that whatever we cannot currently explain is unexplainable and was therefore an act of god.