Posts by shepherdless

48

"Basics of Blood Management" by Dr. Petra Seeber and Dr. Aryeh Shander - Inaccuracies and Myth

by OrphanCrow in

patient blood management arose out of bloodless medicine and alternatives to blood transfusions.

pbm has been accepted as the standard of care in australia and has been implemented into the health care systems of other countries such as canada.

a prominent promoter of pbm has been aryeh shander from englewood hospital in new jersey.

shepherdless

Hi OrphanCrow, were you aware of the following newspaper article from Western Australia, May 2014?

http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/how-two-jehovahs-witnesses-were-paid-millions-to-restrict-wa-blood-transfusions/story-fnhocxo3-1226921294173

The article is lengthy, but here is a cut-n-paste of the start:

How two Jehovah’s Witnesses were paid millions to restrict WA blood transfusions

THE WA Department of Health has paid almost $4 million to two Jehovah’s Witnesses, neither of whom is a medical doctor, to roll out a statewide program to cut blood transfusions to thousands of patients being treated in public hospitals.
The Sunday Times can reveal the two men, Axel Hofmann and Shannon Farmer – whose religion is vehemently opposed to blood transfusions – won the lucrative five-year contract in 2008, with an American associate, without having to bid for the job...

17

Young Ones Leaving

by pale.emperor in

in the congregation that i grew up in there were about 30 children under 16 (myself included).

as time went on they one by one slipped away from the meetings and most never got baptized.

of those 30 children only myself and two other girls stayed and got baptized.

On another thread, by sbf titled " New study - JWs by far the least educated religious group in Canada, Australia and New Zealand", I added a table created from Australian census data, relating to young ones leaving. Here is a repeat:

To explain, what I did was take 5 year cohorts from each census and lines them up so that you can see in each age group, how many remained JW's over a 5 year period. Eg, there were 5119 JW's between the age of 15 and 19 in 2006, but in 2011 that same group (now aged between 20 and 24) dropped to 4597. The fourth column is just the difference between columns 2 and 3, for ease of reference.

One of the questions in the 2011 census was in relation to which state or territory you were living in in 2006. Using the answer, you can tell which ones were living overseas, shown in the fifth column. The sixth column is just the 4th col, less the 5th col, for ease of reference.

This data shows the kids leaving in droves from 15 to 24. However, it also shows a trickle back in subsequent years, and those re-attending taking young kids in with them. It didn't occur to me until after I prepared this chart, but my wife is a classic anecdotal example of this drift back. I know another ultra-dub who was born in, was completely out and df'ed as a young adult, and rejoined decades later.

So, unfortunately, if history is a guide, some of the 30 children that pale emperor knew will probably drift back into the borg, over time.

11

Assembly day - La Féria, tx stats

by StarTrekAngel in

just quick post for stats.

1300 attendance .

4 baptism, 3 adults and 12 year old son of an elder from my cong.

shepherdless

Wow. 0.3%. Yet of the dozens or so reports of statistics I have seen over the last 6 months or so, only 1 or 2 have got close to 1%. I can't wait to see the yearbook stats at the end of the year.

Raising only $1 per attendee speaks even louder. Perhaps that kid will live long enough to see the end of one false religion.

583

What is the purpose of life?

by slimboyfat in

while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

shepherdless

The purpose in life?

Like any other self-replicating DNA, your purpose is to breed and procreate. However, you have an intellect that allows you to do all sorts of things; even override your purpose.

10

Self Delusion

by Coded Logic in

once upon a time there was a "kiai master" who trained his students how to knock people over - no touch - with purely the power of his chi.

how he came to think he actually had telekinetic powers - or how his students became accomplices in his self delusion - i have no idea.

but he was so convinced he could actually do these things he issued a challenge and put up $5,000 for any martial artist who could beat him.

shepherdless

I guess sometimes reality hits you in the face. Literally and repeatedly, in this case.

Strange that the Kiai Master believed his own b.s. I think a key element in his self-delusion is that he had so many sycophants (ie his students) supporting that delusion. There is an obvious parallel there with JWism and other cults, in that regard.

.

87

Evolution Gap - Where's the Fur?

by shadow in

evolution paints human ancestors covered with fur.

fur has several benefits as stated by britannica "the pelts of fur-bearing animals are called true furs when they consist of two elements: a dense undercoat, called ground hair, and longer hairs, extending beyond that layer, called guard hair.

the principal function of ground hair is to maintain the animal’s body temperature; that of guard hair is to protect the underlying fur and skin and to shed rain or snow.".

shepherdless

Ruby: it kinda sounds that the snake that is able to roll with the dice is the one that is the fittest - but wait doesn't this involve chance more than anything else?

Betting at a casino always involves chance. Yet the "house" always wins in the long run.

87

Evolution Gap - Where's the Fur?

by shadow in

evolution paints human ancestors covered with fur.

fur has several benefits as stated by britannica "the pelts of fur-bearing animals are called true furs when they consist of two elements: a dense undercoat, called ground hair, and longer hairs, extending beyond that layer, called guard hair.

the principal function of ground hair is to maintain the animal’s body temperature; that of guard hair is to protect the underlying fur and skin and to shed rain or snow.".

shepherdless

jacobm: Yes, I understood what you mean't. We are either having a communication problem, or you are not being forthcoming. I'll ask again: How can the strongest, most agile, best adapted snake reproduce with the female if there are hundreds of other snakes all in a ridiculously complex wrestling match? There are too many variables.

For natural selection to occur, it doesn't need to be the single no 1 "fittest" male snake that gets to reproduce. It just has to be one that is more fitter than the average.

But of course, you already knew that; you are just being silly.

57

How do we know JWs are wrong and how do we convince others JWs are wrong: logic versus persuasion

by slimboyfat in

we like to think we are logical and have good reasons for for our beliefs.

no more so than when it comes to our reasons for rejecting the truth claims of jws.

we reject their version of history, such as the date of the fall of jerusalem, because it doesn't agree with the historical evidence.

shepherdless

Back to the original topic.

It seems to me that SBF's view on what is more likely to work to drag someone out of the cult is valid, because it negates what really keeps them in. People are a lot less logical than they think they are. The advertising and marketing industries are clearly aware of this.

The following video titled "Bending Truth" relates to how people get drawn into a cult and how they get manipulated. It particularly discusses "cognitive dissonance". It seems to me that the way to get a typical cult member out is to reverse the cognitive dissonance, not using logic and reason.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=IaUhR-tRkHY

60

The problem of sex (or why I'm not an atheist)

by EdenOne in

as i write this under the shadow of the walls of saint jorge's castle in lisbon, two very bored jws are standing just five metres away from me with a literature cart .... in my journey away from jwism i accepted evolution as a fact.

i also became anti-religion, agnostic and apatheist.

and, while i lean towards the persuasion of the atheist arguments, there are a few reasons that make it difficult for me to completely discard the notion of an intelligent origin of life.

shepherdless

Vidqun starts with:

Think of DNA as a manual of how to build a cell/organism.

then goes on:

The manual, as information, cannot arise by itself, from organic or inorganic matter. You need someone to write the manual and its applications.

and

The manual needs to be written (programmed) for that. The question is: Who wrote the manual?

Wikipedia says:

To beg a question means to assume the conclusion of an argument—a type of circular reasoning. This is an informal fallacy, in which an arguer includes the conclusion to be proven within a premise of the argument, often in an indirect way such that its presence within the premise is hidden or at least not easily apparent.

Thanks for the practical example, Vidqun.

12

Sunday Tv - Jehovah's Witnesses Paedophilia in Australia

by berrygerry in

if only someone had listened back then!.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy8b22hs9me.

shepherdless

The date 23 August 2002 appears early on in the video. The host of Sunday (Jim Waley) in that episode left the show in December 2002.

Hence it aired somewhere between late Aug and Dec 2002.