That was funny Radar!
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings." - William Shakespeare
Mindchild
JoinedPosts by Mindchild
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5
Apostates instruments of Satan?
by radar ina very faithful jehovah's witness.
an elderly lady was well-known for her faith and for her boldness in talking about the good news of the kingdom.
she would often stand on her front porch and shout "praise jehovah!".
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A geophysicist looks at the "Life" book
by Mindchild ini was going through some files on my computer tonight and discovered something i wrote a few years back for an elder serving as a congregation po who claimed he was trained as a geologist (fat chance of that when i actually started asking him questions he didn't even know the basics) and claimed that the societies life book was a very scientific and comprehensive piece of work.
in fact, he claimed that if i could show otherwise, he would use the information in a public talk he was giving that related to the subject.
i blew him off at first because this is just about the same odds of winning the lottery but he kept after me and then taunting me that i had no answer for him.
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Mindchild
Just a few comments about the posts above...
Thanks Rhett for sharing the info about Francis Hitching.
Wow Mommy, you got Mommy to say "uncle?" Cool.
Joseph, you asked...
does any of you have something better to offer than everlasting life in a paradise on earth?
Here's my take on things, if I got into an accident and say damaged my spinal cord, would I want my doctor to give his estimation of my chances accurately or to lie and tell me I was going to recover completely and not to worry about anything? I decided a long time ago I would rather trade accuracy over fiction. At least this way, I can make the best of my future and have the most productive life possible now instead of dreaming about something that will never come and serving the interests of a falsehood with the intent to survive at all costs. Outside of this one main selling point, the other thing I can say is that we are certainly living in interesting times and perhaps we are going to experience a very special time in human history...it might be quite a ride.Jan..good job on trashing the old Evolution book, man was that ever an embarassing thing for Witnesses when someone confronted them with the faked quotes!
Skipper
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings." - William Shakespeare
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Questions about physical security at conventions
by Mindchild incan someone here tell me what the current policy is in jw conventions in terms of inviting the public.
is the public invited only for the special talk on sunday or can they come in at any time?
if a memeber of the public does come into the assembly hall, are they escorted or kept under surveillance the entire time or just a short while?
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Mindchild
Thank you very much Seeker4
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings." - William Shakespeare
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14
Questions about physical security at conventions
by Mindchild incan someone here tell me what the current policy is in jw conventions in terms of inviting the public.
is the public invited only for the special talk on sunday or can they come in at any time?
if a memeber of the public does come into the assembly hall, are they escorted or kept under surveillance the entire time or just a short while?
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Mindchild
Can someone here tell me what the current policy is in JW conventions in terms of inviting the public. Is the public invited only for the special talk on Sunday or can they come in at any time? If a memeber of the public does come into the assembly hall, are they escorted or kept under surveillance the entire time or just a short while? Is there any checks made for weapons made for individuals coming into the assembly or convention center?
I'm looking for recent and accurate information please.
My thanks in advance.
Skipper
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings." - William Shakespeare
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if i was god
by rekless ini would without question let mankind know who i am.. i would bless all those who worship me and give them their every needs.. i would also remove the curse of death and go ahead and remove the devil.
really why should i have to kill billions just to prove i am god.. live let live and remove all the written laws.
place the law of love as the only law.. there would be no sin because i made rlues to be broke therefore i would remove these rules.. it wasn't until i told adam ,son this is my apple don't eat it.. i on the other hand would have said, adam this is my apple tree i love you eat and show eve my tree and let all things be shared between you and me.. it is hard for me to beleive a god would place restrictions on his creations then kill them for for such a phoney reason.
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Mindchild
Here is an example of my own thinking more or less along the same lines.
Imagine that you are an orphan child. Your parents left you right after birth and have never been back to see you. Instead they gave you a long letter which was poorly written, hard to understand, in a foreign language and left more questions than it answered. In spite of all this, the letter claims that your parents love you very much and are constantly thinking about you. They even made great sacrifices for you. Some day they will come back and get you and your life will then be wonderful. The letter goes on to describe that your father is a great carpenter and has built many homes (with Mom’s help) and if you want to, you can go check out the construction sites and learn to appreciate just how skilled and special your parents are. Even more, this letter lays down all kinds of silly rules and regulations you must follow until that glorious time when you will be reunited with your parents. Worse yet, if you don’t follow these rules and regulations, they will come back and kill you!
Well, I, the orphan child...went to the various houses that God built and found them poor shabby shacks that were dangerous to live in. Even worse, I discovered that God was just a ancient mind virus that drives people crazy. More violent deaths and persecutions have been caused by this human affliction than anything else. God is a wanted criminal and someday I hope this master deception will be locked away and let us be in peace.
Thus, I disowned God and realized the great lie. It was sad to see my dreams crumble, my invisible buddy turns out to be nothing but a fantasy but that is part of growing up and being fully human. We have enough problems of our own making without adding this troublemaker to the mix.
Skipper
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings." - William Shakespeare
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10
A geophysicist looks at the "Life" book
by Mindchild ini was going through some files on my computer tonight and discovered something i wrote a few years back for an elder serving as a congregation po who claimed he was trained as a geologist (fat chance of that when i actually started asking him questions he didn't even know the basics) and claimed that the societies life book was a very scientific and comprehensive piece of work.
in fact, he claimed that if i could show otherwise, he would use the information in a public talk he was giving that related to the subject.
i blew him off at first because this is just about the same odds of winning the lottery but he kept after me and then taunting me that i had no answer for him.
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Mindchild
I was going through some files on my computer tonight and discovered something I wrote a few years back for an elder serving as a congregation PO who claimed he was trained as a geologist (fat chance of that when I actually started asking him questions he didn't even know the basics) and claimed that the Societies Life book was a very scientific and comprehensive piece of work. In fact, he claimed that if I could show otherwise, he would use the information in a public talk he was giving that related to the subject. I blew him off at first because this is just about the same odds of winning the lottery but he kept after me and then taunting me that I had no answer for him. So, I just decided to spend a few hours and read through it on the condition that we would "study" this book on my terms...that he had to respond in like to my rebuttal. He thinking that the "trooth" was invincible, immediately agreed and told me that he would even bring a friend of his along too (hmm, does this sound familiar?)
So, for your reference, if you ever need this material, here are my notes that you can compare with the pages in the Life book (more comments at end)
Chapter 2, P 4-9
The basic argument presented is that evolution is not an established fact and that even evolutionary experts are in doubt and disagreement about evolution.
This is FALSE. There is no argument among the life scientists about evolution as a process but there is a lot of disagreement about the mechanisms of that process. Further, the original Darwinian theory is recognized today as only a crude step in the right direction and is not accepted as the complete model of evolution. There are also several epistemological mistakes in these paragraphs. For instance “experts” are quoted who are not even in the biological field and journalists. This is the same as me finding someone off the street to support my view. It has no validity.
P 10
The origin of life proof problem is stated. There are several theories as to the origin of life and experimental results that show the building materials needed can be easily created in the conditions that existed in early Earth. We also see complex amino acids in space and some have hypothesized that perhaps meteorites could have introduced life. This is an ongoing investigation but no clear answers exist. Still, the fact that something is not well understood or undiscovered doesn’t mean the line of thinking is invalid. Black holes were theorized decades in advance of their actual discovery, the same for orbiting extrasolar planets.
P 11-13
The writers are making a very old intellectual mistake here. The argument presented is the complexity issue. Essentially something as complex as an eye, ear or brain are so fantastic in their performance, surely this indicates that causal evolutionary development is false.
This line of reasoning of course is flawed. I will use this illustration to show you why. Let’s say you and I are walking along and we discover a brand new Sony Walkman radio laying on the ground. If I were to tell you that this piece of equipment could be easily made by just about anyone without any experience in electronics and without much in the way of technical training, you would think I was crazy, and rightly so. We both know that complex integrated circuits, computer chips, etc. make up this device. On the other hand, if we discovered an extremely simple and primitive crystal radio instead of the Walkman, then my story would be much more plausible.
The mistake then in the complexity issue is that the authors of this book are saying there was NO early primitive models of the eye, ear, and brain. This is completely false. We know of enormous numbers of such examples. We can easily find “eyes” in some organisms that only grossly detect light and ears that only hear very large sounds. The same holds true for simple neural nets for brains. An earthworm doesn’t do calculus! The primitive structures developed at different rates in different species and they were working structures that provided some advantage over species that didn’t have those. The reason that we still see the primitive structures in existence today is because of the environmental niche they followed (i.e. fish in dark caves don’t have well-developed eyes).
P 14-16
The argument made in these paragraphs is that the fossil record does not support evolution.
I’m afraid I have to disagree here. First they are making statements about early evolutionary theory which assumed a gradual transition for all species through the fossil record. New evidence points to casual mechanisms that show discrete jumps in many species. Still, we do find several cases of gradual evolution from the fossil record for some species. Further, when you look at the number of factors that must come into play for the proper preservation of a fossil, it is amazing we have the number and selection we do which show clear changes over time. However, fossil evidence is no longer as important as it once was because of genetic tracing of different species.
P 20
You should note we are talking about methods of evolution being in conflict not the process of evolution itself. It is the nature of the scientific method to have controversy and skepticism until the old theory is discredited.
P 21
Evidently the authors are completely ignorant of modern evolutionary theory. There are several new tools and theories that show the gaps are normal.
P 22
Natural selection is easily understandable as an important tool in the evolutionary process. When mutations developed that gave an advantage to an organism in its environment, that organism had a better chance to survive and pass on its genetic code to further generations. The accumulation of such changes is a primary factor in evolution. Yet the authors are completely in the dark about this!
P 23
Here we have another nonspecialist with his unprofessional opinion. In any case, Darwinian evolution as taught in the 50’s (which seems to be what the authors assume evolutionary theory still is) had been radically updated with tools and information that provide a much clearer understanding of the process.
P 24-25
I have never heard of this Francis Hitching. Is he some creationist or what? In any case, his arguments have holes big enough to drive a truck through. I’ve already mentioned that we now know that a continuous and progressive fossil record for all species is not to be expected because of DNA jumping. The function of genes is to pass along the evolutionary code to future generations. The fact that the genetic code is not unchangeable is easily observable by looking at human or animal mutations. What evolution scientist teaches random step by step mutations at the molecular level as being a mechanism of evolution. I don’t know of any. This guy is obviously an idiot.
Chapter 3
Geological science doesn’t support this general order at all! Please supply any evidence at all to back such a claim! It would take lots of research to refute this in detail but I will supply some of the relevant facts here from my memory of geophysics.
P 34 talks about an established order supposedly supported by scientists. Point (2) mentions a primitive earth enshrouded by heavy gases and water. In fact these gases were so thick that light could not penetrate the surface. We know that water vapor is a greenhouse gas much more potent than C02. If the atmosphere was so full of water vapor that light could not penetrate our planet would be very much like Venus with a surface temperature hot enough to boil lead. It would cause a runaway greenhouse effect that would heat up the surface to the point where chemical bonds would be broken and enormous amounts of other greenhouse gases would flood the atmosphere. Additionally, the Sun was much more active in its earlier history and would have increased the greenhouse effect substantially.
Later supposedly after all the water vapor and toxic chemicals somehow vanished the introduction of life was supposedly in this order: Plant life and next comes sea life and flying creatures followed by beasts and lastly man. Do you really think scientists support this order? LOL! Their claim that it is really makes me wonder where they are getting their information. This order is only possible if you believe in direct creationism. It certainly doesn’t match any evolutionary evidence we have.
To end the story of what happened, I printed out a copy for him and this other Witness. They stood there reading it a few minutes and I noticed his face was getting redder and redder. He tried to change the conversation to something else, but I called him on it. At that point he just told me that it doesn't make any difference at all to him if science doesn't support either the Bible or the WTB&TS. He said he knows in his heart it is right, see's it in how happy he is, all the usual line of crap. I just picked up my copy of the the Life book and threw it in a nearby trash can and walked away. He never talked to me again.
Skipper
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings." - William Shakespeare
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15
Lloyds Refuses To Insure WTS
by ISP iner...i got this.. london, nov 15 (reuters) - lloyd's of london, the global insurance market, said on thursday it will not quote for several risks proposed to them by the watchtower bible tract society(wts).. the 300 year old insurance market, facing its biggest ever single loss of 1.3 billion pounds ($1.87 billion) from the november 11th attacks on the world trade centre has apparently adopted a safety first approach.. a lloyds representative said we were prepared to quote for their buildings insurance but there were certain aspects of the deal we could not entertain.
he added they wanted us to insure them against the financial consequences of making false prophecies.
we were advised that this may not be viable in view of the past history.
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Mindchild
Love it ISP...had me going the first few paragraphs...LOL
Skipper
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings." - William Shakespeare
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Is anyone looking for an ex-dub roommate?
by Mindchild ini thought i would post this and see what happens.... i'm wondering if anyone in the ex-dub community and who lives in the usa is looking for a roommate right now?.
my business requires me to do a lot of traveling but for several reasons i've decided that i want to have a home base where i can leave my stuff, make myself some home cooked meals (resturant food gets old if you eat out all the time) and just do some r&r on my days off.
i can certainly afford to rent an apartment or house (up to $1,000 a month) but then there is no cool people to talk with and all that jazz.
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Mindchild
Hey you guys are cool...Vegas is tempting but maybe I would be spending all my time figuring out how to beat the odds..LOL!
Not to worry about the burnt goat offerings and Satan worshipping...the important thing is can you handle the orgies?
Skipper
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings." - William Shakespeare
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Is anyone looking for an ex-dub roommate?
by Mindchild ini thought i would post this and see what happens.... i'm wondering if anyone in the ex-dub community and who lives in the usa is looking for a roommate right now?.
my business requires me to do a lot of traveling but for several reasons i've decided that i want to have a home base where i can leave my stuff, make myself some home cooked meals (resturant food gets old if you eat out all the time) and just do some r&r on my days off.
i can certainly afford to rent an apartment or house (up to $1,000 a month) but then there is no cool people to talk with and all that jazz.
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Mindchild
Hey Rekless,
I'm pretty flexible actually. My business I'm working with is in the college textbook business and as long as there are any universities or colleges within a 3 hour drive, I'm covered. I've lived in over two dozen states before. Right now I'm in Minnesota and would like to be somewhere warmer in the winter.
I figured I would just see if there was anyone on here looking already for a roomie otherwise I can just check out the zillions of ads on Yahoo for roomies.
Thanks for asking.
Skipper
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings." - William Shakespeare
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9
Is anyone looking for an ex-dub roommate?
by Mindchild ini thought i would post this and see what happens.... i'm wondering if anyone in the ex-dub community and who lives in the usa is looking for a roommate right now?.
my business requires me to do a lot of traveling but for several reasons i've decided that i want to have a home base where i can leave my stuff, make myself some home cooked meals (resturant food gets old if you eat out all the time) and just do some r&r on my days off.
i can certainly afford to rent an apartment or house (up to $1,000 a month) but then there is no cool people to talk with and all that jazz.
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Mindchild
I thought I would post this and see what happens...
I'm wondering if anyone in the ex-dub community and who lives in the USA is looking for a roommate right now?
My business requires me to do a lot of traveling but for several reasons I've decided that I want to have a home base where I can leave my stuff, make myself some home cooked meals (resturant food gets old if you eat out all the time) and just do some R&R on my days off.
I can certainly afford to rent an apartment or house (up to $1,000 a month) but then there is no cool people to talk with and all that jazz. So, if you are actually looking for someone please feel to drop me a line and let's see if there is some mutual interest. Would prefer a warmer climate but will look at other options as well.
Skipper
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings." - William Shakespeare