Posts by shepherdless

125

Flat Earth and Jw. Not possible?

by Earthmeasured in

sorry for my poor english, i hope to make not too many mistakes.

im a jw and in the last three years i have studied a lot the topic of the earth being flat.

i have a good scientific background so im not stupid or crazy.

shepherdless

Ok. Can you explain me the hypothesis made by erathostenes? He was making two hypothesis. One was that the earth is a sphere. The othe is that tha rays of sun are parallel. Isnt it?

Well, you have to remember that for at least 2 centuries before Erathostenes, the Greeks had concluded the Earth was curved for a number of reasons, including that there were star constellations visible in Egypt that were never visible in Greece. Initially, there were some who thought it was a cylinder instead of a sphere, but the math didn't work.

I think it is reasonable to assume suns rays are parallel, or to be more precise, light travels in a straight line (putting aside gravity and general relativity for the moment). No reason for light to bend, only because it enters a well.

125

Flat Earth and Jw. Not possible?

by Earthmeasured in

sorry for my poor english, i hope to make not too many mistakes.

im a jw and in the last three years i have studied a lot the topic of the earth being flat.

i have a good scientific background so im not stupid or crazy.

shepherdless

Eratosthenes arrived to define the radius of the globe. Or not?

Correct. If you can measure and compare the angle of the sun above 2 wells north-south of each other by a significant distance, then calculating the radius of the earth is a simple trigonometric exercise.

In short, the radius will equal the (difference in angle / 90°) x the distance between the 2 wells divided by π/2.

125

Flat Earth and Jw. Not possible?

by Earthmeasured in

sorry for my poor english, i hope to make not too many mistakes.

im a jw and in the last three years i have studied a lot the topic of the earth being flat.

i have a good scientific background so im not stupid or crazy.

shepherdless

Shepherdless. Tell me what eratosthenes obtained as a result

Earthmeasured, well the rest is just trigonometry. And simple trigonometry at that. Before going on, I would prefer that you acknowledge that the sun's shadow down a well can give a very accurate measure of the angle to vertical of the sun above the Earth.

125

Flat Earth and Jw. Not possible?

by Earthmeasured in

sorry for my poor english, i hope to make not too many mistakes.

im a jw and in the last three years i have studied a lot the topic of the earth being flat.

i have a good scientific background so im not stupid or crazy.

shepherdless

Hi Earthmeasured, perhaps we can start with something I hope we can agree.

When digging a water well, one would dig it vertically. This is especially so when it is a deep well. It would be a badly constructed well if every time someone lowered and raised a bucket into the well scraped the walls of the well with the bucket. That would cause a lot of dirt (from the well wall) to end up in the bucket each time it was raised.

Further, the bucket would act as a builder's plumb, to anyone wanting to detect if a well was not perfectly vertical. One could use the bucket and rope around the edges of the well to check with high precision. This gravitational measurement would have been as accurate in Eratosthenes' time, as it is today.

Can we start by agreeing on this?

125

Flat Earth and Jw. Not possible?

by Earthmeasured in

sorry for my poor english, i hope to make not too many mistakes.

im a jw and in the last three years i have studied a lot the topic of the earth being flat.

i have a good scientific background so im not stupid or crazy.

shepherdless

I ve asked to explain the eratosthenes experiment. Please, someone dares to do little debate?

I am happy to debate that with you, if you like.

125

Flat Earth and Jw. Not possible?

by Earthmeasured in

sorry for my poor english, i hope to make not too many mistakes.

im a jw and in the last three years i have studied a lot the topic of the earth being flat.

i have a good scientific background so im not stupid or crazy.

shepherdless

By the way, Earthmeasured, if you accept the Bible is the literal word of God, what do you think of the pre-bible texts such as the Urgaritic texts or the Epic of Gilgamesh, or why does the Bible have so many inconsistencies such as the ones mentioned in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB3g6mXLEKk

125

Flat Earth and Jw. Not possible?

by Earthmeasured in

sorry for my poor english, i hope to make not too many mistakes.

im a jw and in the last three years i have studied a lot the topic of the earth being flat.

i have a good scientific background so im not stupid or crazy.

shepherdless

Well, Earthmeasured, if you accept the Bible is the literal word of God, then it follows that the Earth is flat. It sounds like you already know about the correct translation of Isaiah 40:22 (and that Isaiah 22:18 uses a completely different word to describe a ball or sphere). There are a number of other Bible passages that convey a flat Earth as well. It is irrefutable.

44

Simon's Forum Is More Than Just a Forum!

by Atlantis in

jw
friends

friends:.

simon's forum is much more than just a forum where we come to expose the watchtower.

it is a place that simon wanted people to be able to come to, to receive help, support, or find a compassionate listener.. this forum has exposed the watchtower more times than any forum on the net.

shepherdless

I have only been on this site for about 3 years, but it really has been a godsend for me. So i am extremely grateful to Simon for that.

I have learnt so much and enjoyed the comments of many. I have used certain material, and one piece of material in particular from one poster (I have never told the story here) was instrumental in tipping my son out of the cult.

Best wishes to Barbara Anderson, Doug Mason, Nathan Natas, and Blondie. I have read many of their posts. Best wishes to you as well, Atlantis, and all the other regular posters; far too many to attempt to name.

12

JW Australian Finances

by Attewc in

i imagine someone has done this already, but i couldn't find it in a search.

feel free to move to another thread if i'm posting in the wrong one.. i've been watching leah remini's scientology show (eerily very similar psychological traits to jw's) and one episode talked about how australia now requires non-profit organizations to make their finances public, so i decided to look for jw's reports.. link to jw's reports:.

https://www.acnc.gov.au/charity/db994d2f8dec3cdfdbca01e8c8e28da9#financials-documents.

shepherdless

I missed this when first posted. I am looking at the financial statements for the first time, but I am pretty certaint they don’t include the individual Kingdom Halls, as they have their own separate financial statements (and the numbers would be too low, otherwise).

What really stood out for me in the 2017 statement is that “Related Entity Loans” makes up A$16.8 million of the A$25.4 million of total assets (66%), and at the same time, A$9.4 million out of A$10.4 million (90%) of total liabilities. The notes to the statement give no explanation. However, some might recall that the UK accounts revealed the Aust branch did give the UK branch (IBSA) an interest free unsecured loan of £2,927,881 a couple of years ago.

Without details of these “Related Entity Loans”, it is hard to know what is going on.

5

Population growth and demographics

by dropoffyourkeylee in

some recent news articles stated that japan's low birth rates are related to their population decline, and gave a link to the following article which i find interesting.. https://www.thoughtco.com/age-sex-pyramids-and-population-pyramids-1435272.

the age-sex pyramid graph is enlightening.

it makes me wonder what the age-sex pyramid for jws looks like and how it compares to the population as a whole.

shepherdless

Someone rang?

Here is the link to the thread sbf mentioned. It is actually Australian Census data only; no NZ data included.

https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5260866569109504/jw-decline-additional-data-from-aust-2016-census

Here is the equivalent graph I prepared, for JWs in Australia, based on census data. More detail in the above thread.

Like Japan, it is top heavy (ie has too many old people), which indicates population decline in the future. Unlike Japan (or any other country that I know of), the tree is leaning over considerably; there are significantly more women than men.

By generational descriptions, baby boomer women are the biggest group, and the next biggest group are gen-x women. If you look back at the thread, you will see that there aren't that many women currently in the Borg that are below 40, which will inevitably reduce the numbers born into the Borg in the future. The thread also shows this is a relatively recent phenomenon that has crept into JW demographics. Further, I explain that the data matches the limited data from the US Pew report, which suggests a similar scenario is playing out in USA, and probably most Western countries.