All the above being said, this will be a great milestone in humankind's history if it turns out to be true because it will open up areas of understanding and application we can only dream of, or not even dream of because the opening is so vast. It is for that reason that the entire question and any new theory that arises needs to be ruthlessly challenged. This is either the dawn of a new era or just a new error.
Nickolas
JoinedPosts by Nickolas
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197
What is "truth" - COULD Einstein Have Been Wrong?
by AGuest inmay you all have peace!.
just came across this article:.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44629271/ns/technology_and_science-science/?gt1=43001.
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197
What is "truth" - COULD Einstein Have Been Wrong?
by AGuest inmay you all have peace!.
just came across this article:.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44629271/ns/technology_and_science-science/?gt1=43001.
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Nickolas
*Forgive me for asking, but why is it okay for "you" to think "you" might be wrong... but not others (outsiders)?? Sounds a bit like religion to ME...
Subliminal text, Shelby?
I'm not sure I understand the question, because I think it's ok for others to be wrong too. I think we're all wrong. It's just a matter of degree. It has nothing to do with religion. It has everything to do with independence of thought.
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197
What is "truth" - COULD Einstein Have Been Wrong?
by AGuest inmay you all have peace!.
just came across this article:.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44629271/ns/technology_and_science-science/?gt1=43001.
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Nickolas
Call me wishy-washy... but I think I'll go with those scientists on this one and say it's a bit more than that
What differentiates the scientific from the religious mind is healthy skepticism, acknowledging that we just might be wrong. Tell you what, Shelby. If it turns out to be true, I'll wash your car. If it turns out not to be true, you wash my car. Deal?
Great post, btw, Qcmbr.
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197
What is "truth" - COULD Einstein Have Been Wrong?
by AGuest inmay you all have peace!.
just came across this article:.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44629271/ns/technology_and_science-science/?gt1=43001.
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Nickolas
Closure error. Remember those words. Remember cold fusion? This, too, shall pass.
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79
Do you think Witnesses would drink the "Cool-Aid" if told to do so...like Jonestown?
by Witness 007 injonestown 1970's, jim jones brainwashed his 900 member cult into committing mass suicide by drinking cyanide cool-aid.
only three escaped.
{the smart ones} one man hid under a building....another escaped into the jungle while armed guards dragged another member to get injected by force.
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Nickolas
This thread falls short of hysteria but is nevertheless an exercise in paranoia. The question goes to what the Watchtower is and is not and how it differs from sequestered cults like the Peoples Temple and the Branch Davidians. The Watchtower is without question big business. With around $1 billion in annual revenues and billions more in tangible assets it is one of the largest corporations in New York. That isn't coincidental. At the top is a hierarchy of men who admit to modest personal assets but who live like millionaires while they travel around the world, live in NYC apartments that most people in the city could not even hope to afford while exercising great power over the lives of millions of people. They are superstars within their own milieu, and they have power and the trappings of wealth without the burdens of wealth.
Where's the percentage in even trying to end it all in a blaze of self destruction? And is it even possible? Pulling it off would demand complete secrecy and the enlistment of virtually the entire hierarchy from the bodies of elders up. But elders are regularly resigning and exiting the Watchtower and because of the culture of the Society are doing so without telegraphing their prior intent. There is no way the Watchtower can tell them apart from those who are unquestionably loyal. The subversive elements within the Society, for example but not confined to the AJWRB, are made up of thinking men and women who do not wish to leave but to reform the Society's doctrines. These people, and those who are already harbouring doubts, would blow the whistle without hesitation. Kool-aid? Not going to happen.
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79
Do you think Witnesses would drink the "Cool-Aid" if told to do so...like Jonestown?
by Witness 007 injonestown 1970's, jim jones brainwashed his 900 member cult into committing mass suicide by drinking cyanide cool-aid.
only three escaped.
{the smart ones} one man hid under a building....another escaped into the jungle while armed guards dragged another member to get injected by force.
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Nickolas
Given the number of fake Jehovah's Witnesses who attend the Kingdom Halls for appearances sake but who no longer buy into the company line (and who come onto boards like this one to blow the whistle) I think we might get wind of something like this.
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79
Do you think Witnesses would drink the "Cool-Aid" if told to do so...like Jonestown?
by Witness 007 injonestown 1970's, jim jones brainwashed his 900 member cult into committing mass suicide by drinking cyanide cool-aid.
only three escaped.
{the smart ones} one man hid under a building....another escaped into the jungle while armed guards dragged another member to get injected by force.
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Nickolas
Yes, it's a different scenario. Metaphorically, many of them have already drunk the Kool-aid. They are living non-lives, with no purpose, no emotion and no joy. They are living their lives like robots, and they will never leave. Psychically dead
Sad to think, as you say talesin, that many are so brain-dead as all that. It's not the case with my wife, who I long to extricate from the Watchtower but who seems happy in it. She's one of the happiest people I know. But I have to agree with NewChapter's take on this question. It rings true from my perspective.
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Nickolas
First post, eh? The editor's a bit flaky, but you'll get used to it.
Try eBay. There's some interest in old WT publications, especially really old stuff, although pdf scans of them are becoming more available.
Welcome to the board, especially after more than 4 years of lurking. That's got to be some kind of record.
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269
The Hubble, Yahweh, the Bible, and faith.
by Nickolas inthere have been several threads in which the views of the universe provided by the hubble space telescope have been discussed.
i guess this will be another one.
there's a new series being broadcast here in canada on the oasis hd nature channel entitled hubble's canvas.
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Nickolas
Hello Awen. The advent of sexual reproduction is not quite as onerous a subject as is abiogenesis but similarly one of those things which are difficult to test experimentally. Despite the cost to the sexually reproducing organism there are evolutionary benefits to sexual vs asexual reproduction, about which we can spend a great deal of time discussing, and as much as it would accrue to a better understanding of the dynamic it would take the conversation onto an entirely different course - perhaps it would be worthwhile being discussed at length in its own thread.
For the sake of this one, a good theory might be that certain simple organisms developed the ability to fuse together into a temporary complex of sorts, in which ever so slightly different DNA strands were mingled immediately before something similar to asexual reproduction took over. This is not how it works in sexually reproducing organisms that normally (there are exceptions) share half of their genetic code with another individual that shares half of its genetic code and the two halves combine to form the set of instructions that will build the child organism. In the hypothetical, the entire genetic codes of each individual are mingled in an unstable complex and then the combination is halved into a more stable configuration almost identical to the genetic configurations of the original two organisms. Theoretically very few viable child organisms might result, but it would not take many to start the process, in particular when the child organism with a slight evolutionary benefit results.
What needed to happen within the evolution of organisms sharing their genetic codes with one another is to develop an efficient mechanism to transmit half of their genetic information to one another and for this there had to have developed some sort of interface. That interface at the beginning might have been entirely hermaphroditic, like a much simplified version of the sexual interface employed by bi-sexual annelids (like dew worms), but would over a slow progression of time differentiate into discretely different but perfectly complimentary interfaces, like a key in a lock in the case of the penis/vagina interface, or a pairing that is just two almost identical orifices, as in the case of birds, where the sexual differences are internal - one sex developing testes specialising in producing cells that contain exactly half his DNA and the other sex developing ovaries specialising in producing cells that contain exactly half of her DNA.
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13
If You Had 5 minutes to Create Doubt
by roxanesophia ini regularly encounter jw's i knew while studying and it kills me that they would likely not listen long enough for me to tell them the truth about the truth.
my mother says "don't even bother.
it's like finding out you were adopted.
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Nickolas
5 minutes is much too long. As a few have expressed above, the blinders would go up even before you were midway through your first sentence. I think you create doubt in 5 seconds with one well placed comment. Like wobble says, different people will respond to different triggers, the challenge is to figure out the trigger. The one that I perceive to have had an effect in my own circumstance is "Who is your mediator?" The response was "Jesus". My reply "You might want to verify that." A puzzled look and the conversation was over. Five seconds to plant a seed. Now to let it lay for a long while until the opportunity arises in conversation to plant the next one. Depending on the context:
"Do you know that the Watchtower held NGO status at the United Nations for a decade? That is rather odd given its condemnation of the UN.", or
"I see Malawi's in the news again. Terrible thing what happened to JWs there but at least the Society allowed the Mexicans to avoid persecution." or
"The Watchtower's listed as one of New York's top 40 corporations. Last figure I saw was for 2001. Almost a billion dollars in revenues."
One thought at a time, spaced well apart.