shepherdless

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Posts by shepherdless

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  11

  Purple Triangle

  by apostatethunder in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  has anyone noticed that the colour purple comes from mixing red and blue, and that the red triangle meant political prisioner and the blue triangle meant foreigner?

  purple also comes from mixing pink and blue, foreign homosexual or sexual offender.

  that's how the nazis wieved the bible students.

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  shepherdless

  Yellow comes from mixing red and green...

  You might want to check on that.
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  23

  The toxic JW Worldview

  by TD in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  sometimes i forget how small-minded, petty, provincial, mean-spirited ignorant and judgemental it was and still is.... then i sit down with a jw relative, hoping to have a normal conversation and realize there is literally nothing to talk about.. nothing..... current events?

  hobbies?

  your job?

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  shepherdless

  I get that, completely.

  Sometimes I wonder why they think Jehovah will only save a group of people who contribute so little, often don’t know what is going on in he real world, and often have to depend on Government services just to get by.
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  17

  Zoom meetings, how long ?

  by Phizzy in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i was wondering two things, 1: how long in total are the zoom meetings, i presume the sunday one is the longest ?.

  and 2: if you use zoom for free, the session only lasts 40 minutes, so do they have an intermission so people can log back in, or are all jw's expected to pay for the "privilege" ?.

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  shepherdless

  Long may the zoom meetings continue.

  I often hear them, or at least parts of them, from the next room, so I am vaguely up to date with what is going on.

  Others have discussed on multiple threads that it must be hurting the borg financially, and I agree. What may be overlooked is that it is also taking away what I think is the no 1 reason people participate in organised religion, and that is the social aspect.

  I think a lot of people, even if they don’t admit it even to themselves, like the social routine. It is a social outing that they don’t have to plan, organise or stress about. With zoom, most of the socialising is gone. I know JWs hang on after the meeting and say hello to each other, but there is little meaningful social interaction there, when everything said is heard by all, and only one person can speak at once. It is all friendly enough, but it’s just polite conversation (at least in my wife’s congregation). I reckon the longer zoom meetings continue, the more JWs will be forced to get there social interaction elsewhere, eg work etc, and forced to find other interests, and the whole JW thing will be just a task performed twice a week.
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  23

  What has SARS Cov 2 been doing since 2004?

  by BoogerMan in

  1. social
  2. current

  in 2002-2004 - during its first time around - that "pandemic" killed 774 people worldwide and then "evaporated.".

  strange how viruses "work.

  ".

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  shepherdless

  SARS didn’t “evaporate”. The SARS coronavirus had an unusual Achilles heel, in that a person did not become infectious until after that person displayed symptoms. That enabled authorities to contact trace more effectively and quarantine etc where necessary, until it was wiped out.

  Another factor that helped wipe SARS out, was that it was clearly a killer, killing a large percentage of those who got it. That quickly got everyone’s attention. You didn’t have people posting factually incorrect rubbish, or dodgy fallacious calculations saying it was no deadlier than the flu, etc.

  I also understand that there didn’t seem to be any asymptotic SARS carriers, but I am not sure of this point.
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  13

  Texas Governor Abbott Wants Bars Closed at Noon Today

  by RubaDub in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  yes, he a republican.

  but come on.. am i expected to come in, have a couple of shots, a few beers and leave by noon?

  what time should i arrive, 9:30am?

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  shepherdless

  Here in Victoria Australia clubs and bars have been open since last Monday 6 days ago...

  Hi Smiddy, I wonder if they will close them again soon, given the current upswing in cases there.

  (For those outside Australia, cv-19 seems to have been eliminated from Australia, except in Victoria.)
  

  Here in WA, they have just allowed dancing in clubs, provided anyone dancing maintains a 1.5m distance from anyone else. I haven’t seen it, but I can’t help wondering if they put little “x” marks in grid on the dance floor, like they do in grocery stores and department stores.
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  23

  Television segment on JWs and the Australian Redress Scheme

  by Listener in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  tonight there was an 8 minute segment allocated to reporting on jws regarding child abuse and the redress scheme.

  it was presented by lisa wilkinson for the project.the australian branch has issued a statement to the show advising that they will not be joining the scheme.. they state:.

  statement from the jehovah’s witnessesthe religion of jehovah’s witnesses does not have the institutional settings that the voluntary national redress scheme is designed to cover.therefore, the ministry for families and social services has been advised that jehovah’s witnesses will not join the scheme.jehovah’s witnesses have responded and will continue to respond directly to individual claims for redress in a caring, fair, and principled manner, taking into consideration the unique circumstances of each claim.. https://10play.com.au/theproject/articles/statement-from-the-jehovahs-witnesses/tpa200621ycelq.

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  shepherdless

  I am not sure what the effect of losing charity status would be, or even what that is supposed to mean. In Aust, each congregation is registered as an individual charity, and the overall organisation in Aust is also a registered charity. If all of them cease to be charities, then they probably have to register as companies, which would mean they would have to pay tax on income, produce proper accounts, and be potentially audited. Further, making donations to “worldwide preaching work” would probably be a misuse of funds.

  Alternatively, if they don’t register, as a company, and operate as a collection of like minded individuals, then that creates all sorts of other problems. For example, what happens to Kingdom Hall ownership? I suppose they could set up some sort of discretionary trust arrangement, but where land ownership is involved, that has to be recorded, and they would probably have to pay more tax than if they were regular companies.

  Further, I suspect that what they really mean by “losing charitable status” is that the various state governments may appoint an external administrator to each of the charities. That would be a true disaster for the borg in Aust. I doubt it would come to that, and there will be some negotiation before the borg ends up signing to the scheme.
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  23

  Television segment on JWs and the Australian Redress Scheme

  by Listener in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  tonight there was an 8 minute segment allocated to reporting on jws regarding child abuse and the redress scheme.

  it was presented by lisa wilkinson for the project.the australian branch has issued a statement to the show advising that they will not be joining the scheme.. they state:.

  statement from the jehovah’s witnessesthe religion of jehovah’s witnesses does not have the institutional settings that the voluntary national redress scheme is designed to cover.therefore, the ministry for families and social services has been advised that jehovah’s witnesses will not join the scheme.jehovah’s witnesses have responded and will continue to respond directly to individual claims for redress in a caring, fair, and principled manner, taking into consideration the unique circumstances of each claim.. https://10play.com.au/theproject/articles/statement-from-the-jehovahs-witnesses/tpa200621ycelq.

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  shepherdless

  Well, JWs in Aust are clearly talking about it. My wife didn’t actually see The Project episode, but she heard about it, not from me, but from someone in the borg.

  She also sent me a copy of that press release which (in her mind) justifies not joining the redress scheme.
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  35

  Two Doctors Present Local Data from California

  by Sea Breeze in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uatyyk3hxoc&feature=share&fbclid=iwar3wteffhrsovngi6fwhlg23nuljis43qi7ydvxy1ssc2ww_gjkkqa9jdmi.

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  shepherdless

  Okay. Agree flu death rate is 0.001.

  I think we have now established that even on most optimistic (in my view incorrect) interpretation of NY data, COVID-19 death rate is 0.005. That calc is based on your assumptions, not mine.

  The 2 doctors did not find anything. I will try to say it in another way. Around 30,000 people, ie 1% of California’s population who thought they were in need of testing, got a test and 12% were positive. That doesn’t say much about the other 99% who didn’t feel the need to get a test. To assume that the other 99% also would test positive at the same 12% rate is ridiculous.

  I haven’t seen the German study you refer to.

  My fundamental problem with your post is this: What is wrong with comparing the number of deaths to the number of people with antibodies, since that is a far more accurate way of determining the number of people who have contracted the virus?

  I don’t know how many times I can explain this. I will try again. By your own reasoning, 1.5 million (29.5 x 15%) New Yorkers have, or have had COVID-19. So far 23,000 of them have died. We don’t know how many more of them will die, but some of them definitely will. If every single one of them survives, then your calc is correct, and COVID-19 is only five times deadlier than the flu. However, overseas experience suggests that some more of this 1.5 million will die. Possibly 10s of thousands. That is “What is wrong with comparing the number of deaths to the number of people with antibodies”. It is not an accuracy issue.
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  35

  Two Doctors Present Local Data from California

  by Sea Breeze in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uatyyk3hxoc&feature=share&fbclid=iwar3wteffhrsovngi6fwhlg23nuljis43qi7ydvxy1ssc2ww_gjkkqa9jdmi.

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  shepherdless

  By the way, I didn’t respond to:

  Looks like up to 50% are without symptoms... nothing to recover from. So, that doesn't make sense. Using the number of people with antibodies is far more accurate.

  I never challenged you on that. That is another topic again. My primary points are:

  1. Your calc was out by a factor of 10; and

  2. Calculating a death rate using a denominator that includes people who have neither died nor recovered, is fundamentally flawed.

  In relation to your Trump and “fear mongering liberals” point, I will keep out of that political debate.
  
  
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  35

  Two Doctors Present Local Data from California

  by Sea Breeze in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uatyyk3hxoc&feature=share&fbclid=iwar3wteffhrsovngi6fwhlg23nuljis43qi7ydvxy1ssc2ww_gjkkqa9jdmi.

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  shepherdless

  Sea breeze, 0.5% is five times 0.1%, not half of 0.1%. By the way, I have seen others make the same or similar mathematical mistake both on this site and elsewhere.

  No one did that.

  You, in effect, did that. So did the doctors, by the way, at one point.

  Yes, the numbers keep changing.

  Perhaps there is a simple way to make the point. Look at the data for a country where most of the people have recovered, whether China (if you believe the data), Taiwan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand etc. Some of those countries (incl Australia) have tested very widely to prevent community transmission. Do any of them have a death rate of less than 1%?