I just finished watching a documentary about Jericho (on YouTube) mentioning the origins of the Jewish/Christian deities and Moses stories (Epic of Gilgamesh amongst others).
Interesting to watch documentaries on the origins of human civilization, especially in that area and how people just amalgamate these things and compare them to the Bible and other religious ideas.
People are an interesting bunch.
Those can all be boiled down to:
- God is not all powerful
- God is not all knowing
- God is not all loving this is a result of being all-knowing and all-powerful
The way out of that is to accept God is none of the above, he is human and makes human mistakes, no need to elevate him to god-status.
The simplest test: can he make a rock he himself cannot lift (yes -> he is not all powerful, no -> he is not all knowing).
The way out the JW's think is that God is not all-knowing. But if you're not all-knowing, you cannot as a result be all-powerful, knowledge is power.
this topic is to focus on status updates & advice (no opinion or politics please).. status.
latest status is that it's serious, probably isn't going to be contained and most large companies are making contingency plans, cancelling large events etc... which i don't think would happen if it was just people being alarmist.
the incubation period means it may have already spread further and infected many more people than are currently known, so expect jumps in the numbers over the coming days and weeks.. tracking.
@Simon: On the other hand, the government won't have to fund as many people in elderly care and hospitals.
My parents were complaining about the same policies in Belgium that with a bit of tinfoil hat seem to be designed to maximize death amongst the most vulnerable (the elderly). They are basically treating it as a form of involuntary euthanasia and a lot of the elderly still in their own homes are fearing having to go to a home as a result.
My mother said they were refusing to bring those above a certain age range to the hospitals and had doctors and nurses go to the homes for care which off course continued spreading and spiked the numbers over the last couple of days with 50% of their dead now in (government funded) elderly care institutions.
i listen to rush most days for entertainment.
i agree with him on some issues and disagree on others.
but today he said something i believe is an out and out lie.
If we’re still talking about the OP question - Rush isn’t wrong on that.
It’s a simplified way of looking at it but yes, a vaccine is deactivated virus or particular portions of it’s RNA so your body has an immune reaction. Humanity has been doing that since the Middle Ages, it was called variolation when doctors would infect people using either pustules of people dying from smallpox or by getting people cowpox as an inoculation against smallpox.
And he is also right on the flu vaccine, we don’t know what the next strain of the flu will look like so we just kind of guess using last 6 months worth of flu strains. The flu mutates about every 6 months but generally you’re fine if you get every other strain.
The problem with the COVID-19 is that there is no ‘similar enough’ vaccine. The initial SARS outbreak was the only close enough virus and funding into a vaccine for SARS was discontinued by the Federal government in FY2016. Even though funding for NIH has once again grown over the last 2-3 years, you don’t just start up a vaccine study from scratch in 3 months time, we’re talking 5-10 years under a regular funding regime. This could be accelerated somewhat to 1-2 years provided the FDA doesn’t attach a bunch of red tape to the approval process but it’s not “let’s just spin up a vaccine from what we have”
i support local and state and federal government’s power to safeguard the public.
i wonder is it getting to a point where we will be told we can’t go out anymore, can’t use your phone or computer anymore because of the viruses that we can get, etc.
are we prolonging this virus at all ?
300,000 American soldiers died in WWII defending your freedom from an oppressive government. 750,000 died in the Civil War defending your right to freedom from an oppressive state government. Many more have died since.
Why would you accept an EU-style all-powerful government bureaucratic dictatorship today when we (UK, US, Belgium and France) kicked the Germans out of power twice already? Because you got a scary cough?
I’d rather die than go back to the EU and their inane taxes and regulations, because that’s the only way you’ll get a government large enough to manage tracking down every citizen with a weird cough.
People point out how well China and South Korea handled the crisis - they’re also de-facto dictatorships, the government doesn’t have to ask permission to board you into your house and shove a mask up your face. South Korea doesn’t have protections in place for ‘colored people’ or gays or Christians. China will simply disappear you if you talk too loud.
interesting.
just reported today that 560 were laid off at trump's doral resort / golf club here in the miami area.
up the road from me, one of trump's major resorts (the one he plays golf at a lot) is laying off most of the staff.. i am surprised since there is that federal support for businesses that if you don't lay off your employees, you get government support.
@under the radar: Rich people don’t have money freely available to just donate to the people they employ. No rich person is keeping the cash under their mattress or in a back room so they can swim in it from time to time.
Most of the money within the ‘rich’ class, is tied up in investments and stocks. Things that represent value but aren’t liquid. Eg. Jeff Bezos is worth billions only if Amazon does well, because most of his money is in stock options. If Amazon does poorly, Jeff Bezos becomes more poor, if Amazon fails as a business, Jeff Bezos could be bankrupted and live on the streets.
Creating a business is an immense amount of responsibility and risk. If you succeed, you may get rich, if you don’t, you are personally accountable for thousands of jobs. Also, if you are having a savings account for your business, as some businesses do, they need that money to pay a load of other things. If you say “well, I’ll donate it to my employees” what are they going to do when they have to start the factory back up? Who is going to pay for the supplies? Who is going to pay for the salaries before the invoices are paid?
Business and economics isn’t ‘rich vs poor’ it’s risk vs reward. You take a job at a factory, it’s low risk, you can always get another one. You set up a factory, you probably invest all your savings, double mortgage your house and get massive loans from the bank. If it happens to pay off, don’t be jealous unless you set up your own factory.
since this virus, i have noticed that nearly all of the take out joints in my area are closed.
.
I can walk to my Chinese restaurant(s). All still open. Have been getting takeout from both Americanized Chinese as well as higher end authentic Thai and Chinese foods.
2020-04-addendum letter.. https://docdro.id/n0hm6tg.
2020-04 shepherd the flock of god elder manual.
https://docdro.id/llechtz.
Interesting, when I first saw these books a long time ago, the WT didn’t assert copyright on them so they could claim they didn’t exist. Now that they know these are going to be leaked, they put a copyright on it.
i'm generally not a trump fan but i do agree that things that affect the entire country should be handled in a centralized manner.
trump is stating that he will dictate when the states can open up again.
many governors, dems and reps, are fighting that saying that they have the power, not the president.
@smiddy3: The president has pretty much unitary branch powers and sole power over foreign policy. This means the DOJ and all foreign policy are under his purview unless congress has taken those powers in the past (which is the case with many departments of the executive branch eg. CDC, FEMA, FEC, FDA, FCC, EPA)
i really don’t know.
did they have it?
.
@fulano: in those places are neither Witnesses nor lockdowns.
