Posts by shepherdless

40

Introduce myself

by dantoole87 in

i'd like share why i went from being a teenager determined to work in full time service for jehovah my entire life, to now being on here commiserating with you all.

i use to be an atheist but i now believe in god.

but i'm not preachy about god.

shepherdless

Welcome!

Its like a 30 year old that believes professional wrestling is real. Sorry bro, but eventually you have to give up that delusion and realize its only sweaty guy opera.

Great analogy.

168

Where to draw the line: how Platonism haunts our discourse and the search for exorcism

by slimboyfat in

jw
friends

in the discussion about race i adopted a position i am not entirely comfortable with.

i think there is a sense in which it is useful to distinguish categories of description that can be fruitfully defended (apples and bananas) and those that cannot (caucasian or other racial descriptions for example).

but there is a more fundamental sense in which i believe that everything is socially constructed, every single line you can think of.

shepherdless

Well if God or some other deity was involved in making PI the value that it is, why did he/she/it have to make it an irrational number? Damn unnecessary complication, if you ask me. Same goes for the Euler number.

Not to mention, the idiot god that wrote the bible thought that PI was exactly 3.

By the way, I remember learning the mathematical proof at Uni, a long time ago, that:

PI = 4 x (1 - 1/3 + 1/5 - 1/7 + 1/9 - 1/11 + 1/13 ...)

From that infinite series expression, you can calculate PI to as many decimal places as you like.

315

Flat earth vs round earth

by Jrjw in

my brother has been talking about the earth being flat and some big conspiracy going on to make people beieve otherwise.

what are people's thoughts on this?.

shepherdless

Question for Kairos.

The flat earth map seems to show, for example, Sydney and Johannesburg on opposite sides of the world, and a straight line between the two would go somewhere near the North Pole. Yet Qantas is selling flights between the two cities that take a little ove 11 hours. How do they do it?

48

Watchtower Releases 2017 Grand Total Figures!

by darkspilver in

jw
friends

2017 grand totals.

branches of jehovah’s witnesses: 90. .

number of lands reporting: 240. .

shepherdless

If we assume that there are less converts and more born-ins who are getting baptized, would the above statement of yours take the premise that more and more JW kids are staying in the religion and then having kids who are becoming JW's, thus repeating this cycle and the rate of publisher increase is equaling the world population growth?

It would appear from past figures that in places such as USA, Canada, Europe, Japan and Australia, this is what is happening. There seems to be few converts, and the numbers are made up of born-ins. Unsurprisingly, numbers are stagnant in such countries.

In Latin America and other strongly catholic countries, there is still growth. In Christian African countries, where there is strong population growth, there is often a massive increase in numbers and a lot of those countries already have higher ratios of JWs to population than many Western countries.

Because, if JW's have low retention rate( born-ins are leaving the cult) and outside converts are also less, then the peak publishers should go down at some point.

That is probably already happening in some Western countries. On another thread I all but proved (using Australian census data) that decline is now inevitable. Better to just rely on “average publishers” not “peak publishers” when trying to work out what is going on, by the way.

For e.g. In my congregation of 40 publishers, almost everyone is a born-in JW, i.e. all had witness parents. There has not been a single convert in years, but the publisher number is increasing because existing witnesses are having kids who are growing up as JW's. So, in reality, in my cong, born-ins are staying in the org. Is this a worldwide trend?

From memory, you are in India? In many Western countries, a number of born-ins leave when in the 15 to 25 age bracket, but a lot of them drift back in, particularly when having their own kids, sometimes dragging a spouse in with them.

20

Congrats Australia votes yes gay marriage! Awesome!

by Witness 007 in

well done aussie's 60% voted yes.

i really did not think this would happen here there is alot of gay phobia.

i saw men on the streets holding signs "vote no.

shepherdless

Hi fulltimestudent, sorry to be slow to respond. Brief responses as follows:

1. I hadn't kept up with the news on Pell. Perhaps I had missed it because the allegation (at least as reported) is very vague at the moment.

2. In relation to Abbott being pugilistic:

I see a strongly opinionated man who is intense in the way he approaches the causes in his life. Would you call his attitude pugilistic? I would...

I agree.

...and could believe the above incident. You may not - but there are times when there is only one witness to an event.

I don't know whether it occurred. The point is that it was denied and, without re-hashing details, it is dubious. Political opponents of Abbott at the time portrayed it as undisputed fact, as does your original post. That prompted my reply.

3. Is Abbott like Trump?

I don't think either of us are too worried about this one. For what its worth, I would describe Abbott as far more like Pence than Trump. (And I am not a fan of any of the three of them.)

4. "But how deeply are Abbott's religious beliefs involved in his political agenda?"

I have to point out that further down in the article that you quote:

Kelly needs a lot more evidence and more examples before his proposition holds that Abbott is deeply indebted to Santamaria in his policy stances. But he raises two fascinating questions. First, is Abbott drawing on some instincts deeply lodged in Catholic social teaching? The evidence is slight.

Anyway, I think we both like to see accuracy and support for positions. Sorry to be a "kill-joy".

BTW: I enjoyed reading your articles on the history of Korea.

20

Congrats Australia votes yes gay marriage! Awesome!

by Witness 007 in

well done aussie's 60% voted yes.

i really did not think this would happen here there is alot of gay phobia.

i saw men on the streets holding signs "vote no.

shepherdless

I am not a fan of either Tony Abbott or Cardinal Pell, but I just feel I have to correct a few things in FTS’s post.

First we have,Tony Abbott. A former (very) conservative Prime Minister ( a bit like one D.Trump),

D Trump and T Abbott are not alike. Abbot is a career politician and an ideologically conservative one. Trump is not a real conservative. He is a populist who says things that appeal to a conservative base.

Now Tony, who in his student days gained a reputation for slamming opponents in student politics, against walls and threatening them with worse, was also once a novice priest and is still very much a supporter of the church.

This “reputation” comes from one allegation by one person about one incident that allegedly happened on a University campus, first reported (I think in David Marr’s biography of Tony Abbott) about 20 years after the event. Abbott denied it, and nobody else says they saw it took place. Yes, Abbott trained to be a Jesuit priest, and quit. I don’t know to what extent he could be said to be “supporter of the church” but 2 things make me doubt that:

1. Even David Marr, who is about as anti-Abbott as you can get, and documented Abbott’s long career in politics, said Abbott was a completely secular politician.

2. When the Royal Commission into Child Abuse was announced, Tony Abbott, as leader of the opposition, immediately supported it, and it became a bi-partisan project. That is significant, given he pretty much opposed everything else the government of the day tried to do.

and having come under some unwelcome suspicion as having had a specific liking for younger boys

I have not previously read any suggestion to that effect. The criticism of Pell is that, in his role, he must have known there was a problem and he didn’t act, or he acted to cover it up.

54

Fasten Your Seatbelts - The Crazy Has Started (Also, bring the Koolaid)

by berrygerry in

from facebook:just saw my jw mother after not seeing her for more than 2 years.

when i do see her, it is brief, she never asks about my life, doesn't ask about my 4 children her grandchildren, doesn't ask about my grandchildren...her great grandchildren, she doesn't ask about my other 2 brothers that she is also alienated from, she doesn't ask about my brothers family.

she doesn't talk about the jw/org either.

shepherdless

I noticed from the reddit site as well, that there iseems to be a bit more hysteria than normal.

I wonder if this is just the result of a few JWs becoming a little more delusional, as a result of recent less-than-encouraging recent news. One part of the typical JW brain must be noticing consolidation, Hall sales and less printed material. Maybe other parts of the brain for some JWs are just ramping up the search for signs, to drown out any thoughts that they want to avoid thinking.

20

Congrats Australia votes yes gay marriage! Awesome!

by Witness 007 in

well done aussie's 60% voted yes.

i really did not think this would happen here there is alot of gay phobia.

i saw men on the streets holding signs "vote no.

shepherdless

One reason the vote was needed, was that it was an election promise.

However, probably the main reason was the difficulty individual members of Parliament were facing in their own branches. Just to explain, political apathy in Australia makes it easy for small aligned groups to control branches. But the apathy is so prevelant that even small aligned groups are hard to form. In my electorate, there were about 10 branches of the political party holding that federal seat. I saw first hand how a christian alignment got effective control of 8 out of 10 of those branches (ie branch stacking and putting office bearers in place), despite the typical member not being religious. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that that is a relatively common thing to occur in Aust; Christians being one of the few that can pull together a small but effective aligned group.

Controlling branches means controlling the appointees to the committee that selects and vets potential candidates. Politicians don’t want to be dis-endorsed. When Labor was in power for 6 years, Labor wouldn’t legislate SSM, despite strong community support, control of both houses, and a lot of noise within. Neither would the LNP Coalition more recently, despite even stronger public support.

Now the vote allows the politicians to move forward and introduce SSM, without fear of repercussions. Obviously the survey was a waste of money in one sense, but it probably was the only realistic way forward.

20

Is it really possible to disprove the Watchtower?

by Coded Logic in

dear brothers and sisters,.

considering the end is so near at hand we thought it important for to reiterate that it's absolutely impossible to prove god's "one true organisation" wrong.

there is nothing on heaven or earth that could ever be shown to be false or incorrect in our entire .

shepherdless

I don’t think it’s possible to prove JWs are wrong. It’s not possible to prove they’re right either, of course, until Armageddon comes.

I think it is easy to prove (to any sensible level or standard) to a rational, logical and impartial person, that the JWs are wrong. It is just impossible to prove it to a thoroughly indoctrinated JW.

20

Is it really possible to disprove the Watchtower?

by Coded Logic in

dear brothers and sisters,.

considering the end is so near at hand we thought it important for to reiterate that it's absolutely impossible to prove god's "one true organisation" wrong.

there is nothing on heaven or earth that could ever be shown to be false or incorrect in our entire .

shepherdless

My wife once told me that the fact that Armageddon didn't come, just shows that the "new light" is correct.