snare&racket

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Posts by snare&racket

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  33

  New "Donation Arrangement" is a DECOY!

  by The Searcher in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  put yourself in the org's position - distasteful as that is - and come up with a solution to solve the problems of not only recovering their stock market losses, but also, ensuring an increase in their dwindling revenue stream.. the major problem is, donations are voluntary (with no future guarantees) whereas pledges are compulsory - in the heart and mind of the giver!.

  however, far too many will probably forget/refuse to keep up their monthly tax - with no way of knowing who is 'paying the man', and who is not.

  master stroke - make plan a 100% certainty to fail in the first year, based on the 'anonymity' of the setup.

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  snare&racket

  I agree buddy, I think you are right.....there will be a direct debit arrangement by 2016.
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  38

  Miami Has New Young Partakers

  by James Jackson in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  snapper creek (miami, fl) congregation, had 2 pioneers (female), partake at the memorial for the first time.

  one is 20 years old, the other 23.. the gt delayed again!!

  !.

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  snare&racket

  When you think about it, it is quite funny that this all revolves around two young people sipping some wine bought at a local miami store.
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  53

  Ayahuasca / DMT.... anyone else curious?

  by snare&racket in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  ever since reading about dmt and hearing people discuss it, my new post-jw open mind wants to experience it.

  anyone here tried it or feels the same?.

  http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ciqzhzax4ro.

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  snare&racket

  Space madness, you will just have to wonder &/or disagree. But please do it quietly.

  Tik Frankie and Nancy, do you have any experience and what was it like? Was it a dream like state but with more awareness, was it similair to other drug experiences? I would never consume a source of DMT illegally or outside of a designed study etc to be honest, too chicken and I have done enough pharmacology in the lab to know moles matter! Titrate baby!

  I am REALLY interested in the neurolgical mechanisms it stimulates, I would love to do a study using functional MRI during an experience and see if I could associate it with memory/input collation during sleep. There has only been a handful of studies as of yet, would be fascinating to explore the biology involved. The fact organisms (including humans) can metabolise and activate DMT channels indicates it has or has had an evolutionary role in nature.

  Interesting stuff.
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  3

  Inventor of MRI is a creationist? I'm shocked beyond measure

  by will-be-apostate in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i'm watching the bill nye vs. ken ham debate.

  there is this scientist (raymond vahan damadian) referred by ken who invented the mri.

  raymond says he's a young earth creationist, that he beleives the earth was created on six 24 hours long days.. how can somebody that smart completely ignore all the evidences that proves that the biblical view of earth's origin is wrong?.

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  snare&racket

  For me it is insignificant either way, egyptian worshipers of Ra worked out the circumference of the earth using triganometry, Ra was still a made up god. Einstein was a deist, doesn't matter a jot to what is true.

  Arguments from authority are illgoical and unconvincing and make evident a lack of evidence.......because instead of presenting opinion, you should present evidence.

  Rsymond has been openly christian a long time as have the christians in science he works alongside. It is no threat to his career, because he doesnt write papers in journals claiming to have evidence for god this is just his opinion on a piece of video film, it isn't science....and that is why it is also irrelevant.

  3% of scientists (pew 2009 study) reject evolution and belive god created the universe. Check the names out for yourself, they are a small group and pop up everywhere, including Ken Ham's presentation. Being a medical doctor and inventor does not give you authority to speak for evolutionary science, paleontology, cosmology, abiogenesis, world history..... etc etc. But it doesnt STOP you from vocslising snd presenting evidence either, but none of them do, they just present opinion based on bible verses and hope that uninformed people will be swayed by their status.Scientists do not do opinion, they seek evidence.

  I interviewed a creationist biologist that helps write crestionist text books. He offerend NO evidence, just listed gaps in evolutionary knowledge not yet explored or resolved and concluded by admitting that he would always take scripture over scientific evidence as an authority. So it is important to know these things when you hear them.

  The easy solution is to simply ask......"show me your evidence and I'll believe you"

  By the way the biologist emailed me the next day and asked me to delete the interview and retracted permission for me to publish his answers.
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  53

  Ayahuasca / DMT.... anyone else curious?

  by snare&racket in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  ever since reading about dmt and hearing people discuss it, my new post-jw open mind wants to experience it.

  anyone here tried it or feels the same?.

  http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ciqzhzax4ro.

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  snare&racket

  The same person saying you dont need drugs to enjoy life drinks coffee & tea, eats cake and maybe smokes.... its just chemistry, but society has formed bias and moral fences largely built on ignorance which I believe has it's own dangers. Yes drugs are dangerous, many things are. Drugs also treat disease and contribute to research and knowledge.

  I made it clear, I have a sincere scientific interest in ayhuasca specifically as do many modern academics. As fot its risks, it is exactly as I said:

  What are the risks of taking DMT?

  • DMT can produce very random, and sometimes very frightening, effects, which feed off a person's imagination.

  • If panic sets in, the experience can be scary and confusing.

  • Flashbacks sometimes happen. This is when part of the trip is subsequently re-lived after the original experience.
  • DMT could have serious implications for somebody who has a history of mental health problems. It may also be responsible for triggering such a problem in someone predisposed but unaware of this.
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  53

  Ayahuasca / DMT.... anyone else curious?

  by snare&racket in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  ever since reading about dmt and hearing people discuss it, my new post-jw open mind wants to experience it.

  anyone here tried it or feels the same?.

  http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ciqzhzax4ro.

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  snare&racket

  Yeah Graham Hancock is interesting. been a joe Rogan fan since episode one.
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  51

  So Spill the Beans, Brothers: Were There More or Fewer At this Year's Bore-Fest

  by steve2 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  the jw date-worshipped memorial has just completed its bleak worldwide commemoration.

  that wasn't a dust cloud you saw; it was a millionfold hearts limply beating themselves into another round of great tribulation expectations.

  i was knocked into a deep, deep sleep by the imagined experience of being at several thousand consecutive kingdom halls as the platformed drones spat forth the predictable sludge that, once released, hits and stains white clothing and bleach is useless.. we know that memorial attendance worldwide has dipped for two consecutive years since 2011 when it reached a high of 19,374,737 and for the promised land, obama's usa, the all time memorial attendance high was also 2011 when it hit over 2.5million (2,563,518) but shrunk in shame back to 2,502,055 in 2012 and spluttered upwards a handful or two to 2,504,114 last year.. so, what was attendance at the date-obsessed bore-fest this year in your neck of the woods?

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  snare&racket

  To me, knowing how many baptised people usually attend a kingdom hall (7 million people) then looking at how many they claim attend the kingdom halls for the memorial (19 million), every kingdom hall should on memorial night have AT LEAST over double and almost triple the normal baptised members in attendance. They simply don't and I have never believed their memorial figures,

  Claiming over twice as many of normal baptised members in attendence at every hall means that statistically, if one hall doesnt achieve it, another now has to treble its attendece, if that hall didnt do that, another has to quadruple its attendence etc etc etc...

  I went to several halls on memorial nights in several countries and though it had a spattering of more people, it certainly never more than doubled in baptised publisher numbers anywhere.

  I am sure all JW's look at the memorial figures and think 'wow that sounds like alot of people' and a little red alarm rings subcosciously, because they know they dont see their hall have triple attendence on memorial night.....
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  16

  Cain and Abel: Literal or allegorical? Symbolic?

  by Jon Preston in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i would love to hear a believers point on this!

  from an interesting point of view:.

  "jehovahs witnesses, and some others, believe that humans did not eat meat until after the flood.

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  snare&racket

  The idea of humans not eating meat is highly inaccurate and had to be made by people long ago ignorant to reality. You can't just magic humans into meat eating, from our DNA up, everything would change drastically, we would literallly become a different species over night.

  Our teeth, our mouths, our stomach, our intestines, our liver, our pancreas, our saliva all have functions specific to eating meat alone. When you eat something you break it down over several stages to a tiny chemical molecule. Every stage of breaking down requires chemicals and proteins to make it happen, these chemicals and proteins all need making and distributing in the body. By adding meat to the diet we are changing the human from the ground up! A 'human' that did not consume meat would be very different, have longer intestines, different teeth, jaws and faces, would have a different pancreas and liver and a wildly different lifestyle. Animals that feed on vegetation spend their days grazing, some human ancestors spent up to 90% of their time eating as it was so energy inefficient to consume vegetation.

  Only when we evolved enzymes to break down meat and developed fire to aid that process could we have 'spare' time to develop cultures and societies, over hundreds of thousands of years.

  This is not guess work, this is all evidence based. As for modern day vegetarians, they have to supplement their diet with essential amino acids and take advantage of farmed and processed foods with high calories and sugar. Adam of the bible had wild greens and fruit trees....... even if they were easy to find his whole life would have been consumed by eating.

  We have plants with energy from the sun, tiny animals and insects eat the plants, then slightly larger animals eat the smaller animals and plants in greater quantity, then larger animals again eat the animals that eat the animals and the plants .......at every stage the energy being carried in an animal increases drastically, so that the energy and raw material available increases every level. The higher up the chain you eat, the mire energy you can consume in less time. The animal and plant kingdom work on this basis of energy transfer, the idea of animals not eating animals is ridiculous, the energy from the plants to the larger animals can only get there by consumption of other animals OR by spending all day eating vegetation non stop and by having long intestines, consantly metabolising what you consume. Such as with cows etc.

  When I learned all this, I gave myself a big facepalm. While we are at it, try finding a source that lions can or ever have lived off straw lol..... doesn't exist. The urban myth about the london zoo feeding the lions straw during the war as repeated in WT literature has no basis.
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  84

  Want to know why people accept evolution ?

  by snare&racket in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  do you have questions about or want to understand evolution?

  it is a difficult concept to communicate and so if it is not explained well , it is understandable that we would dismiss it.. i sincerely want to talk with people who want to learn more or see what all the fuss is about.

  we are all learning and increasing our knowledge all the time and it is good to go over facts with critical eye.. evolution we can discuss, looking at the foundational facts and evidence, one at a time for you to go and check, agree or disagree with and return.. no pressure to accept it, you can decide for yourself, also no mocking etc of what you have to say.. .

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  snare&racket

  Now they use >32 elements when radiometric dating, it is very accurate. Have a look at how they do it here....

  http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dating.html

  As for human ancestroy and the evidence we have, I really reccomend an interactive museum webpage from the smithsonian, you can see the fossils and evidence in 3D with explanations. if I lived in the USA i'd be there in a flash to see it in person. But just to get a basic appreciation take a peek... (focus on human ancestors and genetics sections)

  http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence
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  48

  Essay by Barbara Anderson: "What's in a Name?"

  by AndersonsInfo in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  whats in a name?

  posted on april 15, 2014 by barbara anderson http://watchtowerdocuments.org/whats-in-a-name/ .entry-meta-icons .entry-meta .

  .entry-header one morning at bethel in 1989, after the usual text discussion before breakfast, there was an announcement to the staff about the legalization of jehovahs witnesses in poland.

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  snare&racket

  Thank you Barbara,

  When I read of the tax issue in France, i.e. JW's in France had not paid tax and argued if they paid their bill it would empty their coffers and therefore they could not continue as a religion. They claimed it would negate their european right to freedom of worship if they paid ceasers things to caeser! Amazingly, they were allowed to forego their tax bill and shamelessly declared a victory on satan's perescuting world...

  That aside, your article reminded me of my thoughts when this happened in France. The tax bill would not at all wipe out the true financial status of Watchtower, and immediatly I realised why they seperate the religion into charities and companies throughout the world. The french branch of the JW religion is quite a seperate identity to that oF the American according to the tax man.....

  Watchtower

  Watch Tower

  International Bible & Tract Society NY

  International Bible Students Association UK

  etc etc etc.....

  Not only do they reduce liability, by being a seperate company to these sister organisations, but the real money all sits in one pot in the USA safe from the sources of the money. I read the UK tax report on IBSA in 2012 and was intrigued to read how they worded their financial arrangement with Brooklyn. The UK bethel admitted to sending 90% of it's income to an american charity (Watchtower) as the board believed it was what it wasyhe most beneficial use of the money and that it supported the goals of the charity it supported.

  Then I heard about how the society send money around the world, clearly laundering it via congregation and bethel accounts. It was raised following the congregation take over in the USA (menlow park?).

  So these legal entities and names are no accident. I have no doubt they are breaking laws all over the place too. When I was in the UK bethel, they had charity status and tax exemptions but were stopped from selling literature. But at night were printing literature, that they sold, in Africa.