shepherdless

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Posts by shepherdless

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  123

  Message from Designer Stubble to the former JWR members

  by Designer Stubble in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  message from designer stubble to the former jwr members.

  first of all i am glad to see that many of you have found your way to this great forum, facilitated by simon.

  i am sure that after the dust of the jwr shutdown has settled, you will find this to be a good new home.. i would like to apologize for the sudden closure of jwr.

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  shepherdless

  OneGen - One of the first things I thought when I got wind of the plug being pulled:
  "Oh shit! Fugue's posts!"

  I thought exactly the same thing!
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  36

  Warwick, Queensland, Australia: Elders covered up rape of young girl

  by wifibandit in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  http://www.warwickdailynews.com.au/news/church-elders-covered-rape-young-girl/3047470/.

  and archived forever via the wayback machine.

  .

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  shepherdless

  I just want to address one point raised by jwundubbed, simon and flipper.

  The article read in part:

  In sentencing Harvey, Mr Andrews told him he had taken into consideration the fact he had already been punished by the church and through the breakdown of his marriage.

  I am no expert on this, but my understanding is that an Australian Judge pronouncing a sentence will explicitly list all matters justifying a reduction in sentence, as part of the process. The reason to do this is to block the defendant appealing and seeking a lower sentence. I actually saw that happen in a fraud case, a long time ago. The Judge didn't mention a specific matter, and defendant got a reduced sentence on appeal for that reason only.

  So when the Judge says he took those matters into consideration, it does not mean that they made any significant difference to the outcome. He is just stitching up one avenue of appeal.

  To be clear, I am not defending the sentence given; I just wanted to clarify that point.
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  71

  Evolution is a Fact #38 - The Origin of Complex Cells

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  in 1966 microbiologist kwang jeon was studying a population of amoebae in the lab when they began to die off unexpectedly.

  he noticed thousands of tiny dots in the cytoplasm of each individual which turned out to be a bacterial infection.

  most of them weakened and died but surprisingly a small percentage recovered and seemed to be back to normal.

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  shepherdless

  Sorry, vidqun, you have lost me now.

  .
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  119

  Jehovah's Witness Recovery is no more...

  by TimeBandit in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i just tried to go to the site and there is a goodbye message.

  i was a member there since 2010. i was really surprised.

  i had just started posting there again after being away for a while.

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  shepherdless

  Well that is a shock! People need to move on, I guess.

  I would like to thank Designer Stubble and those at JWR for all their collective efforts. I would also like to pass on my best wishes to the various members there. Even though I did not interact a lot on that site, I did read a lot of their stories and viewpoints. It was very helpful to me.
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  71

  Evolution is a Fact #38 - The Origin of Complex Cells

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  in 1966 microbiologist kwang jeon was studying a population of amoebae in the lab when they began to die off unexpectedly.

  he noticed thousands of tiny dots in the cytoplasm of each individual which turned out to be a bacterial infection.

  most of them weakened and died but surprisingly a small percentage recovered and seemed to be back to normal.

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  shepherdless

  Oh no! Not the flagella motor!

  Years ago, my wife and my mother in law sat me down and made me watch an hour long video by the "Discovery Institute" (a group that, according to Wikipedia is "best known for its advocacy of the pseudoscientific principle of intelligent design"). The video gave 3 arguments for intelligent design, the best of them being that flagella motor. All arguments could have been comprehensively covered in 5 mins, but it was stretched to an hour with lots of cartoon graphics and repeated explanations.

  That was one hour of my life I can never get back. Of course you can easily go on the Internet and find articles debunking the whole issue within seconds, but I could not get my wife or m.i.l. to even look at them.
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  71

  Evolution is a Fact #38 - The Origin of Complex Cells

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  in 1966 microbiologist kwang jeon was studying a population of amoebae in the lab when they began to die off unexpectedly.

  he noticed thousands of tiny dots in the cytoplasm of each individual which turned out to be a bacterial infection.

  most of them weakened and died but surprisingly a small percentage recovered and seemed to be back to normal.

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  shepherdless

  Hi Vidqun. I owe you a response, but it will have to be quick and brief. I might not be able to get back to this for a while. Here it is:

  1. Complexity:

  "scientists and researchers can’t work out above processes as yet..."

  This the whole point of my coloured car analogy. If I observe wheel tracks outside my house, I can't tell the colour of the car that drove by. Just because I can't tell you the colour doesn't mean I have to conclude there was no car.

  "In nature, one sees gradual decay, deterioration and disintegration, and not constant improvement as the evolutionist contend. This is contrary to nature and will not change even in a billion years."

  The second law of thermodynamics leads to that result, in a closed system. Anything that eats or absorbs energy in some way is, by definition, not a closed system. I think I am going to have to create my own O.P. on the laws of thermodynamics, because there have been fallacious posts on various threads by a number of people.

  2. "Coming back to complexity, evolutionists argue that our immune system (highly complex) originated from these processes (very basic and simplified). I find such claims difficult to digest."

  This is the complexity argument again. Not a separate argument.

  3. "symbiogenesis refers to the genesis of a new species or kind of life through the merger of two or more existing species. Endosymbiogenesis refers to the origin of a new lineage..."

  Surely if symbiogenesis is proven to occur, then endosymbiogenesis is likely to occur.

  4. "points to the fact that the process of natural selection do not favor xD amoebae, that underwent endosymbiosis, to survive in a natural environment."

  That is hardly surprising. It is probably why xD amoebae isn't found in nature. However, in a certain artificial lab environment (the environment in which it evolved) , it appears to survive better than its D amoebae relative. Isn't that what you would expect.

  5. I think this is the complexity argument again.

  6. This is the complexity argument again. I again point to my coloured cars analogy.

  7. "So a fork in evolution would take place at some juncture that would send archaea, bacteria, fungi and plants in one direction and animals into a different direction with no intermediate forms. This would happen randomly and spontaneously. In my mind that’s a long shot and why evolution should be viewed as a theory and not a fact."

  Why would there be an intermediate form? Why would an animal evolve to photosynthesize if it can just eat grass instead?

  8. "At least the researchers are big enough and honest enough to admit this. So if you oppose this point, are you really being honest?"

  I did not oppose anything. I just pointed out that your source seemed to say the opposite to your point.

  9. "Somewhere along the line the open processes became closed, which in our day can only be unlocked and changed by scientists and genetic engineers in specialized labs."

  Did it become closed? Perhaps genetic engineers don't have a spare million years or two to wait around, so they do things to speed up the process.
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  25

  Why a drop of over 3,700 publishers in the Democratic Republic of Congo?

  by freddo in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  looking at the figures for 2014 to 2015 the numbers have dropped from 180,343 to 176,585.. any idea why?.

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  shepherdless

  It is not just the 3,758 that have disappeared, there were 10,274 baptised in 2015 as well, so close to 14,000 must have left or died. That is a turnover of over 8% in a single year.

  
  

  The numbers for countries in that region tend to be odd. There are similar numbers of lots of baptisms but negative growth for countries such as Malawi and Republic of Congo (the other smaller country with the similar name). On the other hand there growth in publishers in Angola for the last couple of years outstrips the baptisms, which beggars belief as well.

  
  

  There is often an assumption that this religion is growing in the third world. I think the reality is that it is only growing in places such as Latin America and the Philippines. Even in Angola, if you believe the figures, growth is not quite matching population growth.

  I have never been to Sub-Saharan Africa either, by the way.
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  71

  Evolution is a Fact #38 - The Origin of Complex Cells

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  in 1966 microbiologist kwang jeon was studying a population of amoebae in the lab when they began to die off unexpectedly.

  he noticed thousands of tiny dots in the cytoplasm of each individual which turned out to be a bacterial infection.

  most of them weakened and died but surprisingly a small percentage recovered and seemed to be back to normal.

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  shepherdless

  I read this thread from start to finish, to try to understand it. There is some fascinating biology referred to above. A lot of it I never knew about before. Anyway, here are some questions for Vidqun, in relation to his/her lengthy last post:

  1. Complexity: Isn't your argument is like saying:

  "I don't know whether the first car that went past my house this morning was a red car, a blue car, or what colour. There are so many potential colours. Until we can prove what colour it was, we have to assume NO car went past my house."

  2. Amoebal Immunity: Your 4th sentence seems to contradict your first sentence. Also, how does the unidentified article extract support your point?

  3. Human cancer cells: What relevance is the name you choose to give to a human cancer cell? If we call a human cancer cell a "banana", will it become edibile? Also, what is the relevance of HPV causing cancer, to the overall debate. (Viruses aren't prokaryotes.)

  4. Natural Selection: You have quoted part of the 7th last para of a lengthy article written in 2004 titled "Gene switching in Amoeba proteus caused by endosymbiotic bacteria". Yes, the new life form wasn't a superbug ready to ravage the planet. The xD amoebae only out-populated its relatives when maintained in the same laboratory conditions within which it evolved.

  5. Super improved organisms: Why should they be? See 4 above.

  6. Unclear evolutionary history: See the car colour analogy in 1 above.

  7. Why did chloroplasts not find their way into the animal and human genome? I don't know but my guess would be that the first animals lived in the sea where there would not have been any use for chloroplasts, and by the time they walked on land, it was easier for them to eat vegetation and other animals? Maybe photosynthesis doesn't provide enough energy for an animal to walk around. Lack of chloroplasts in animals seems more of an argument FOR evolution, then against it, to me.

  8. "Again, the fossil record is full of gaps and do not support symbiogenesis as the principal mechanism of developing life forms." Yet the section you quote (wherever it is from) seems to suggest the opposite.

  9. Unnatural Gene Manipulation by Researchers: your supposed point seems to contradict the quote supporting your point 5.
  
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  80

  Islam is a religion of peace (2)

  by Coded Logic in

  1. social
  2. current

  in behalf of the horrific events of saturday night, i just wanted to take a moment to remind everyone that islam is a religion of peace.

  it doesn’t matter that the quran explicitly says that homosexuals should be stoned to death (7:84) - it’s still a religion of peace.

  and it doesn’t matter that the scriptures say that all gay men should be killed (sunan 1:152) - islam doesn’t in anyway condone violence.. it doesn’t matter that every mainstream imam calls homosexuality a sin "worse the adultery" - it’s not a religion of bigotry.. it doesn’t matter that 61% of muslims in the uk think gay acts should be made illegal - islam has nothing against the gay community.. it doesn’t matter that countries with sharia law actively persecute the lgbt community - islam is all about peace and love.

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  shepherdless

  I agree that there is a serious problem in relation to the rhetoric accompanying Islam.

  
  

  However, personally, I think the issue in the USA is more about the lunacy of allowing the average citizen to own an assault rifle. An AR-15 assault rifle is not a practical weapon for home defence or for hunting. It is designed for killing a lot of people, quickly, and seems to be the weapon of choice used in a lot of mass murders, including this latest one.

  
  

  Today, there are nutters justifying mass murder using the Koran. Tomorrow, it might be something completely different. In the past, various anarchist groups and others would have tried the same thing if the could have. If assault rifles were restricted, it would not stop such incidents, but it would make them harder to carry out, and with lower death tolls.
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  4

  The Jehovah’s Witnesses is considering a sale of the majority of its UK property portfolio.

  by JHK in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  every thing goes to heaven... what about money?.

  http://www.egi.co.uk/news/jw-sale-to-watch-out-for/.

  the properties are generally located in strong residential areas and interest is expected from residential developers and investors, retirement and care home providers, and hotel companies.. ibsa was not prepared to put a value on the portfolio but its most recent accounts for the year ended 31 august 2014 reported total fixed assets of £73m.

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  shepherdless

  This looks genuine. For those who do not want to click on the link, the heading, and first sentence of the article are slightly misleading; the article is only referring to properties in and around Mill Hill, not the whole "UK property portfolio".

  It makes sense that they would sell these properties eventually, once Temple Farm is built. However, I remember on another thread (about a week ago?) that the revised details for the Temple Farm complex have only been decided very recently.

  Watchtower must be in a rush. Perhaps the UK branch needs some of the proceeds to fund the work at Temple Farm, or perhaps Watchtower generally is just selling anything it can, these days.