Posts by fulltimestudent

35

Useless Majors

by Sea Breeze in

jw
friends

i was passing through a very liberal college town recently during rush hour.

so, i decided to stop for some refreshment at a fine-looking establishment and wait for traffic to die down.

a young waitress waited on me who probably could have been stevie nicks twin when she was young.

I've specialised in Asian history, and if I was in my twenties, I'd likely be heading for either High School teaching, or an Academic career. (Though, there is a current alternative choice - becoming one of those talking heads on TV who can explain why the present Eurocentric (aka, western, aka white supremacy) system will never end).

But what I really want to say, is that SB's young girl (who he seems to be deriding) has made a remarkable choice. It's a very interesting field of study. How did primitive man manage to select the primitive plants that were selected and learn the skills that allowed them to develop into the important crops we use to feed the world today.

I have no idea what the curriculum of the young woman's degree course includes, but plant breeding (as some call it) is today a very important branch of science. Here's one definition: (quote) -"Plant breeding is the science of changing the traits of plants in order to produce desired characteristics. It has been used to improve the quality of nutrition in products for humans and animals. The goals of plant breeding are to produce crop varieties that boast unique and superior traits for a variety of agricultural applications."

I'm not suggesting that this young woman's course covers the science behind plant breeding, but can easily imagine that it covers the primitive plants used and how they may have managed to improve them.

Once, I may have imagined that all that was done by a magical process produced by a loving father/god, and if I had I may also have derided the young woman's choice.

2

The End of the (Jewish) World

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

it really wasn't the end of the jewish world in70 ce, when the romans laid siege to jerusalem.

jewish thought, since it had developed a philosophical (i.e.

fictional) foundation, survived until today.

fulltimestudent

It really wasn't the END of the Jewish World in70 CE, when the Romans laid siege to Jerusalem. Jewish thought, since it had developed a philosophical (i.e. fictional) foundation, survived until today. I wanted to play with significant words, so used that title. Some readers of this site may be interested in the post.

The article I'm posting (from a site called Heritage Daily) has a tidbjt of information about the way the Romans knocked down old YHWH's defensive walls around his sanctuary, and used this painting by David Roberts to illustrate the article.

The article was headed: AN ARCHAEOLOGIST FROM THE ISRAEL ANTIQUES AUTHORITY HAS IDENTIFIED THE POSITION OF THE ROMAN SIEGE ENGINES USED IN THE ATTACK ON JERUSALEM DURING THE JEWISH–ROMAN WARS.

If you're interested here's the link: https://www.heritagedaily.com/2022/08/archaeologist-identifies-position-of-roman-siege-engines-used-during-attack-on-jerusalem/144375

13

Jesus prophesied Global ''heat waves''

by RULES & REGULATIONS in

https://www.jw.org/en/library/.

keep on the watch!.

record-breaking temperatures worldwide—what does the bible say?.

fulltimestudent

Jw (indeed all 'christian') theology belongs in the shit can of history.

112

Are You Concerned About Inflation?

by Simon in

i saw a statistic the other day that something like 25% of all the debt that the us has incurred since 1776 was created in the last 12 months.

that's because they have printed so much currency and instead of letting that stop them, they are going to continue printing more to go on a spending spree on crazy green-new-deal schemes and union handouts.. does anyone think that this can be anything other than inflationary?

they are effectively stealing the wealth of everyone to then hand money out to people.

fulltimestudent

Thnx for the run-down GabAhouse. I guess there are always pluses and minuses.

Some things are hard to understand, I can't figure out how anyone borrowing to buy a house and pay it off over 20-30 years, doesn't consider that the current (still) low interest rate are not permanent and could increase. But, I don't have that worry, because years ago, (after a divorce and giving everything to my former wife) I put all my efforts into buying an apartment, and paying down the loan in only a few years

I don't have, and don't want a car, so (being old) I can go anywhere, on public transport, in a roughly 100 km radius for a maximum cost of $2.50 (per day). That's just been fixed, by the government, for another year, so I don't have to worry about petrol cost.

That leaves food. So I don't buy stuff that's gone up, and like you I'm lucky enough to have an Aldi store close by. I've notice tinned food hasn't changed a lot, but here, I'm thinking that stuff is based on lasts years crops, so will likely cost much more next year. F & V (fruit and veg.) is way up, but the main growing area close to Sydney has been flooded three times recently and crops completely wiped out. The growers all over Australia have also been hit by covid. During the shut-downs, the migratory, temporary workers were not allowed to enter Australia resulting in less crops being planted.

But that's just me, for others , inflation is a problem, and if it gets out of control, it's going tl be tough.

112

Are You Concerned About Inflation?

by Simon in

i saw a statistic the other day that something like 25% of all the debt that the us has incurred since 1776 was created in the last 12 months.

that's because they have printed so much currency and instead of letting that stop them, they are going to continue printing more to go on a spending spree on crazy green-new-deal schemes and union handouts.. does anyone think that this can be anything other than inflationary?

they are effectively stealing the wealth of everyone to then hand money out to people.

fulltimestudent

Ummm! Australians are feeling the inflationary effect too, inflation is officially supposed to be 5%,

But I noticed (a previous comment) a suggestion that it's around 9% in North America, but a few days ago I read this article by an American citizen name of David Goldman claiming that the real rate is 20% (in the USA). If he's right, you guys have my sympathy, because at the rate of 20% it's hard to stop. And, my mind jumps to the last days of Chiang Kai Shek and his Guo Min Dang (KMT) party government, where you needed (some say) a wheelbarrow full of paper money to buy a loaf of bread.

https://asiatimes.com/2022/07/americans-face-20-inflation-for-essentials/

14

Results of Australia's 2021 Census- More Unbelievers than Believers

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

this abc (a national government owned media group) report states:.

"for the first time, fewer than half of australians identified as christian, though christianity remained the nation's most common religion (declared by 43.9 per cent of the population).. meanwhile, the number of australians who said they had no religion rose to 38.9 per cent (from 30.1 per cent in 2016).".

fulltimestudent

Jeffro, said in part , "unless ‘believers’ means ‘only Christians’?"

The simple counting was easy to spot,. The more interesting aspect is how a national media group chose to interpret this data. Which is why I titled the post the way I did.

interestingly, The Sydney Morning Herald, part of another National Media group, ran a similar headline, I didn't use it because it has a paywall.

And, so Jeffro "unless ‘believers’ means ‘only Christians’" is apparently how some wanted to see this data, which is interesting from a sociological viewpoint.

14

Results of Australia's 2021 Census- More Unbelievers than Believers

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

this abc (a national government owned media group) report states:.

"for the first time, fewer than half of australians identified as christian, though christianity remained the nation's most common religion (declared by 43.9 per cent of the population).. meanwhile, the number of australians who said they had no religion rose to 38.9 per cent (from 30.1 per cent in 2016).".

fulltimestudent

This ABC (A National government owned Media group) report states:

"For the first time, fewer than half of Australians identified as Christian, though Christianity remained the nation's most common religion (declared by 43.9 per cent of the population).

Meanwhile, the number of Australians who said they had no religion rose to 38.9 per cent (from 30.1 per cent in 2016)."

15

Homeopathy and Jehovah's Witnesses.

by jojorabbit in

years ago, the jws did not like modern medicine.

vaccines and other things were all deemed bad.

this gave rise to a lot of jws getting into alternative medicines.

fulltimestudent

Thanks ga1998 for clarifying some details about A. Vogel. Since my previous post I recalled a memory of Vogel from my disordered ,memory bank.

It occurred at some National assembly in Sydney (but my memory fails as to what year), I was looking after something to do with visitors to the assembly, and Vogel turned up at my post requiring transport to his accommodation. Everyone else working in that section had finished and I had to get him to wait until I could leave the assembly site, and drove him to his accommodation myself.

The weekend after I was scheduled to give the PT at Engadine congregation on the south side of Sydney and Vogel turned up (apparently because of the name 'Engadine.').

Nothing startling, but as ga1998 has already made clear, Vogel was certainly a JW, and I agree his products were oriented more to naturopathy than to homeopathy. Many Jws in Australia (including myself) had and used his book ,'The Nature Doctor.' And, I think I still had one of his 'Bioforce' products in my medicine cabinet until a few years ago. Cant even recall now, what it was and what it was supposed to 'cure.'

Again, I make the point, that when Samuel Hahnemann conceived his ideas (in the 1790s), what we now call 'medical science' did not exist in any useful form. However, the work of his followers (Homeopaths) in 'proving' (testing) remedies, likely led to a greater knowledge of what health benefits may exist in some plant products.

15

Homeopathy and Jehovah's Witnesses.

by jojorabbit in

years ago, the jws did not like modern medicine.

vaccines and other things were all deemed bad.

this gave rise to a lot of jws getting into alternative medicines.

fulltimestudent

Vogel was certainly a witness. He once spent several weeks staying with a JW family I knew in Tahiti. He used to walk around the island (so they told me) picking leaves off trees and telling them what it was good for. It is my understanding (that apart from his bread, once well-known in Australia) his products were a mix of homepathic medicines and herbal medicines. They were, as SBF remarked, extremely popular in Germany, as this Bloomberg news item discusses.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-10-12/homeopathy-doesn-t-work-so-why-do-so-many-germans-believe-in-it#:~:text=Roughly%20half%20of%20Germany's%20population,re%20satisfied%20with%20the%20treatment.

The above article also points out that homeopathy is also popular in India, where it is seen as akin to traditional ayurvedic medicine.

To understand the popularity of homeopathy we need to appreciate that it came into use in a time when orthodox medicine was not very advanced either.

But I do appreciate that its popularity in the JW org, is just a minor bit of evidence that the HS did not tell the the FDS that it was going to be superseded by evidence-based scientific medicine.

And as for Alfie Vogel, he did, I understand, finish his life disfellowshipped

32

Who are the 144,000? Considering the immediate context of Revelation chapter 7

by raymond frantz in

who are the 144,000?

a critical examination of the teaching of the 144,000 from the perspective of an ex jx considering context and other references .this is from a series of videos called new light where i scrutinise all the major teachings of the watchtower.. https://youtu.be/aaseuzr-sxs.

fulltimestudent

How do your make sense out of religious people's fantasies?