Further facts on the universe: it is 46B light years large but only 19B years old. This means that we will never be able to see the light from the oldest parts of the Universe. In a few billion years, no light from any new stars will be able to reach us, the sky will be static for a while, then eventually the stars will go out one by one to our viewpoint, even though they will still be there they’ll be moving away from us faster than the speed of their light. We are living in the only time period where we can see stars being born and see stars at all for that matter.
Anony Mous
JoinedPosts by Anony Mous
-
15
Name an Amazing or Unexpected Fact
by Simon ini saw this on twitter the other day and it blew my mind.. tyrannosaurus is closer to us than to stegosaurus.
that is, when tyrannosaurus lived, stegosaurus were already fossilized and those fossils were older than tyrannosaurus fossils are today to us, by a good 20 million years!.
in a similar vein, the star wars prequel movies are now older than the original star wars movies were when those prequels were released.. how about that we're closer in time to cleopatra than she was to the pyramids being built.. what 'ya got?.
-
-
-
20
Why did Paul call Jesus, “the firstborn from the dead”?
by Doug Mason in"jesus christ was resurrected on nisan 16, 33 c.e., the day when the jewish high priest offered up the firstfruits of the barley harvest.
this fits in accurately with jesus' being the "firstfruits" in the resurrection of the human dead.
(1 cor.
-
-
Anony Mous
It seems to be somewhat contradictory of a story though. If it’s interpreted as written, Paul was wrong. Jesus was not the first resurrected, not even to heaven.
Jesus was seen conversing with Moses and Elijah in the transfiguration while Jude mentions Michael disputing with the Devil over the body of Moses, who are considered in both biblical and Jewish lore to have been resurrected to an afterlife as well (eg 2 Kings chapter 2).
Likewise Enoch seemed to be sin-free and although at that point in history the concept of heavens and resurrections or even sin did not exist yet in Jewish lore, he was taken by God because the original text can be interpreted as saying he was free of blame. The concept of sinners not being able to coexist in the presence of God was known (the stories of Aaron and Moses, tabernacle and the presence of god meaning the absence of even the priests) so it makes sense that Enoch was considered free of sin. According to the Jewish Midrah, I believe 8 total figures of scripture are said to have entered heaven “alive” or without dying.
The Pauline doctrine however wants to establish a Christianity with strong Jewish overtones which is different than the gospel message. You can really split those two sets of stories (and John of Patmos and the so-called apocrypha would be a third version of more Miracle and Doomsday Cult Christians) into their own versions of Christianity. In the more Jew-centric versions, Jesus is simply the same person, the return of Moses etc, that is what Jews expected of a Messiah. However the more standalone version of Christianity in the gospels has Jews asking whether he was Moses or Elijah throughout the gospel, Jesus sort-of denying it but not really and the story of the transfiguration story kind of tried to suppress the idea altogether.
Suffice to say, reconstructing 1800-1900 year old religious sects to figure out what they each believed while history did its best to compound them into a single religion is really hard.
-
33
Memorial Prep question
by ExCircuitOverseer inso are individual witnesses being told to prepare bread and have wine on hand for the zoom memorial?
are they saying it’s “vital” or is it just a “suggestion?” .
-
-
Anony Mous
How about people that have/had a problem with alcohol? Having it in their home seems tempting. There may even be some that are legally not allowed to have/buy it (eg. adults between 18-21 in the US).
-
70
Report Card : How’s President Biden Doing?
by minimus ini give him an f for falling down on the job..
-
-
Anony Mous
Under Trumps plan the Federal government was supposed to have 100 vaccination sites. Biden has 4 tents.
Under Trump, 1M vaccine doses per day was just the beginning, Biden did not expand, instead set that number as his “challenge”.
Under Trump, more than 60% of school children were going to school 5 days per week. Biden set 50% of school children going to school 2 days a week as his challenge and is actively working not with doctors but with organized labor to write the CDC plans to further reduce access to schools for children.
Under Trump, once you got the vaccine you could go back to normal. Biden now wants you to wear 2 or 3 masks until AT LEAST Summer 2022 even compromising the efficacy of his N95 after he himself already got vaccinated and can no longer get sick or infect anyone.
Under Biden COVID is a huge risk for everyone and we should all stay 12ft apart, except if you’re an immigrant child, then they’ll literally pack you in a cage with 1200 in a facility built to hold 300 on a regular non-pandemic day and put you in a plastic box, 1 inch separated from another child in a plastic box with an aluminum blanket. And when the only reporter in the room that dares to ask how this is safe, they’ll literally tell him twice that this is “according to COVID CDC guidelines”.
So if my child can’t go to school until they have a one-on-one classroom, I’ll just tell them they are unaccompanied minors and CDC guidelines are okay if you then pack the entire school in a single classroom.
-
33
Memorial Prep question
by ExCircuitOverseer inso are individual witnesses being told to prepare bread and have wine on hand for the zoom memorial?
are they saying it’s “vital” or is it just a “suggestion?” .
-
-
Anony Mous
So can you drink it at the end or do you have to dump the bottle down the drain? I know there was some controversy about people taking the bottle home decades ago.
-
34
Colorado Mass Shooting
by Simon interrible news out of colorado this morning of a mass shooting in a supermarket leaving 10 dead.. missing from the homepage of cnn is any description of the shooter.
that's because it's a muslim refugee from syria who was apparently anti-trump and not a "maga white guy" which would otherwise be included in every headline.. more kids in cages than ever before (but strangely, now no one in the media seems to care) and now this.. biden doesn't have the magic wand he promised after all, right?.
-
-
Anony Mous
@Steel: there is no such thing as a civilian with access to “military style weapons”. Full auto and burst fire weapons have been banned in the US for nearly half a century.
I have a 9mm, .22 and even air gun semi-auto that looks like a “military style weapon”. I’ve seen mods of both rifles and handguns to resemble the characteristics of the other type of weapon. What exactly are you going on about?
A shotgun with slugs or buckshot and handgun would do a LOT more damage in an urban shooting than any rifle, yet the media only highlights these cases when long rifles are used and since it came to light it was a black/brown man doing the shooting, the case has all but disappeared from mainstream media front pages.
Even a knife wielded by a somewhat competent lunatic can kill many silently. Bolt actions have also been successfully used, particularly in the Las Vegas shootings a few years ago.
Other countries have more severe mass killings with knives (some with upwards of 100 victims) simply because their population nor their police have proper weapons. The US doesn’t even rank in the top 10 when it comes to mass shootings or in the top 20 when it comes to mass killings.
Gangs in Chicago alone kill more innocent people per day than the average mass shooting and they have the most strict gun laws in the country. Same goes for DC and NYC, you can’t even carry a gun in NYC.
-
46
Complexity, Evolutionists Biggest Problem
by Sea Breeze inrecently, some scientists modeled one of the simplest known cells - that of a bacteria.
it took an army of 128 computers running for 10 hours to process the data required in the 25 categories of molecules that are involved in this "simple cells'" life processes.
think about that for a moment - 128 computers running for 10 hours just to compute the data, not actually do it mind you; but just to model the known processes in one of the simplest known cells, which is many orders of magnitude simpler than a human cell.
-
-
Anony Mous
@Sea Breeze: that is indeed the current understanding of physics. Time is a construct of the current laws of physics as a result of the interaction of gravity and space, it has not always existed.
Although a lot of these things don’t make intuitive sense (we didn’t evolve to live in a place without time so it can be hard to understand) but the math is rather simple and easy to understand.
Simple things can have complex results, for example the Mandelbrot set is easy to compute and define (z^2+c) but infinitely large, complex and “beautiful” to look at.
Basically you have two proponents: infinite regression of more complex creators or the regression to zero of less complex things that create more complex things through simple processes. We have evidence to the latter, from zero you get virtual particles that eventually interact and create a Big Bang (which wasn’t really a bang but more of an inflationary period). For the former there isn’t much evidence, if any, nobody even amongst its believers agrees on the evidence. Arguing for more complexity as the cause of less complexity (turtles all the way down) is possible, just less understandable and not mathematically sound.
-
66
Watchtower fined in Belgium
by Vanderhoven7 injehovah's witnesses in belgium have to pay €12k fine for shunning policy.
news.
you have probably heard of the trial going on in belgium about the shunning policy of jws.
-
-
Anony Mous
@JeffT: this case is narrowly defined. In your example, Grandma cannot preach to your children without your consent. However, if you say that grandma should be hated because she is a Christian, then that is a basis for hate speech regulation and yes, you can be fined and jailed.
Again, in the US, we have freedom of speech, the EU has speech regulations. You cannot say you hate anyone in the EU for any reason without risking a fine. You can’t espouse hate for Jews, Islam, gays or other group identities in the EU without risking a fine. And yes, that means extremist groups are well visible in the EU society but remain officially non-existent. Political groups have likewise been persecuted for being “hateful”.
You can for example choose not to associate with ex members of your organization or your family, but if I say everyone else in the family should hate that person, then that is indeed a hate speech violation. The Christians often say “hate the sin, not the sinner”, JW unlike other groups in Christianity claim you should “hate the sinner”.
-
66
Watchtower fined in Belgium
by Vanderhoven7 injehovah's witnesses in belgium have to pay €12k fine for shunning policy.
news.
you have probably heard of the trial going on in belgium about the shunning policy of jws.
-
-
Anony Mous
You have to realize two things:
1) this verdict is in the EU. The concept of free speech and freedom of religion does not exist anywhere in the EU. State religions de facto also still exist there. While we can debate the drawbacks of this, the State has decided it is in its best interest to tightly control the population with taxes and regulations.
2) disfellowshipping is a form of psychological abuse. If it were true that, as the WTBTS claims, that its members have the freedom of association, that would be one thing covered by freedom of religion. But we all know lives are tightly controlled by elders and the organization and its members cannot exit without fear of physical or psychological reprisals by other members at the direction of its leaders.
This would be similar to saying a victim has allowed their abuse by an abusive partner by staying in a relationship, even though it is true in certain cases the victim bears some responsibility of excusing behavior, it does not absolve the partner from further abuse.
I personally agree that the organization should be able to qualify its own religious tenets without interference, but it should not be blanket absolved from the results of those tenets which have often qualified the tests for incitement to violent behavior.
-
12
Good News Everyone!
by Anony Mous inthe non-profit organization behind the jehovah's witnesses in kraainem, belgium has been convicted of inciting discrimination and hatred or violence against former members who chose to leave the community.
the court in ghent has fined jehovah's witnesses eur 12,000 but due to the indexation adjustment, the actual payout to the victim will be (at this point) 8 times higher.
the multiplier seems weird to us, for those familiar with us law, the eur 12,000 is the statutory fine, taking into account the devaluation of currency, the court system sets an indexed multiplier for fines, currently at 8 - similar to how fines in the us were set in the 1800's at $100 would now be several thousands of dollars.. it is likely that the jehovah's witnesses will pursue this case to the european court.. according to the prosecutor, this case is therefore mainly about recognizing the malpractices within the community, not so much about sanctions: “in our opinion, this is a blatant violation of the discrimination law.
-
-
Anony Mous
The non-profit organization behind the Jehovah's Witnesses in Kraainem, Belgium has been convicted of inciting discrimination and hatred or violence against former members who chose to leave the community. The court in Ghent has fined Jehovah's Witnesses EUR 12,000 but due to the indexation adjustment, the actual payout to the victim will be (at this point) 8 times higher.
The multiplier seems weird to us, for those familiar with US law, the EUR 12,000 is the statutory fine, taking into account the devaluation of currency, the court system sets an indexed multiplier for fines, currently at 8 - similar to how fines in the US were set in the 1800's at $100 would now be several thousands of dollars.
It is likely that the Jehovah's Witnesses will pursue this case to the European court.
According to the prosecutor, this case is therefore mainly about recognizing the malpractices within the community, not so much about sanctions: “In our opinion, this is a blatant violation of the discrimination law. I hope this can be a signal. This is an extensive, fundamental matter. They target a certain group and they isolate them socially and damage them psychologically. ”
The lawyers of Jehovah's Witnesses stated that the non-profit association is only a legal entity that is used by the community. How the members deal with their religion is not the responsibility of the association. Basically they are saying that the organization is not responsible for the way members treat each other after disfellowshipping, an argument which due to the documentation and harrowing stories submitted, the judge saw through.