Posts by TD

34

Colorado Mass Shooting

by Simon in

terrible news out of colorado this morning of a mass shooting in a supermarket leaving 10 dead.. missing from the homepage of cnn is any description of the shooter.

that's because it's a muslim refugee from syria who was apparently anti-trump and not a "maga white guy" which would otherwise be included in every headline.. more kids in cages than ever before (but strangely, now no one in the media seems to care) and now this.. biden doesn't have the magic wand he promised after all, right?.

TD

If you consider the fact the M16 was actually developed and made by armour lite you are really splitting hairs if you think there is much difference between an AR-15 and a M-16 carbine . ( or whatever it is called now).

I'm aware that the original M16A1 was manufactured by ArmaLite. That doesn't change the fact that the AR family is a civilian variant (i.e. A derivative design) that was sold in Sears catalogs nearly sixty years ago.

It's not splitting hairs to differentiate civilian variants from their military cousins. Confusion on that point can land you in prison for a very, very long time here.

Ownership of an actual assault rife in the U.S. requires a Class III firearms license, permission of your local police department and an extensive background check.

34

Colorado Mass Shooting

by Simon in

terrible news out of colorado this morning of a mass shooting in a supermarket leaving 10 dead.. missing from the homepage of cnn is any description of the shooter.

that's because it's a muslim refugee from syria who was apparently anti-trump and not a "maga white guy" which would otherwise be included in every headline.. more kids in cages than ever before (but strangely, now no one in the media seems to care) and now this.. biden doesn't have the magic wand he promised after all, right?.

TD

Steel

...before switching to an AR-15 platform.

The Canadian military switched to the Colt C7 series in 1984. Variants still in service would include the C7A1 & A2 and its successors the C8A1, A2 & A3. All of these rifles evolved from the CAR15 (M16) platform, not the AR15

The AR15 is not an assault rifle; it's not a select fire weapon; it does not meet the criteria for an assault rife as published by the U.S. military and is not used as a service weapon by any military force on earth.

14

Avatar (2009) - a mixed-bag but entertaining movie

by LoveUniHateExams in

so a few months ago i saw avatar (2009) from beginning to end for the first time.. if i'd seen this when i was ten, i'd probably have loved it.

i find the film entertaining but i do have issues with it.. the movie is beautiful to look at, and there's definitely some interesting concepts.. but star wars it ain't.. first issue, the na'vi: these are blue-skinned humanoids with tails.. my first question is: why do blue monkeys who live 5 light years away on an extrasolar moon have african accents?!.

i know what writer/director james cameron is doing in this film.

TD

I enjoyed Avatar for what it was, but I also get a chuckle out of Mike Stoklasa's irreverent take on some of the more manipulative elements in the film.

In his words, "You may not have seen it. But your brain did."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJarz7BYnHA

6

I was looking at getting a set of the 1989 BV but not sure if it has what I want Help please

by mickbobcat in

so i am looking for the watchtower that has the part about within our 20th century armageddon will come.

but i know they changed it on some bv.

i have an offer to buy one on line but not sure what page i need them to take a picture of to let me see if its the changed version to in our time.

TD

Or did all the BV change this and its only 20th century in the single magazines.

^This^

Which makes it a gazillion times harder to find.

24

6000 yrs for mankind

by lastmanstanding in

i have a question to the board.. if someone asks you the below question, how do you respond?

please reflect on why you think the question was asked.

(background... the spouse was talking to dubs about 6000 yrs and wanted to tell them that it was proved false).

TD

Why did it take roughly 5700 of the roughly 6000 years under the religious model for humans to enter the industrial age? Why did we rely primarily on muscle power for so long when the building blocks of simple engines were all there? What does this say about the plausibility of the timeline?

Probably nothing.

Breakthroughs and innovations don't happen on a schedule. They happen when the right set of people and circumstances come together.

Written language, like art and modern music is a luxury and like all luxuries, it required a certain amount of leisure time to develop.

From what we know of prehistory, humans simply didn't have that kind of time. --Certainly not during the Glacial Age, which only ended about ten thousand years ago.

23

Did The Witnesses Mess Up Your Sex Life?

by minimus in

jw
friends

most of the witnesses i knew never really talked about sex.

whatever couples did was pretty much kept quiet.

every once in a while a wife might complain to the elders or a friend that the husband is too demanding or even immoral because of the sex practices the husband wanted.

TD

I don't have any complaints personally, but as a good observer of people, I would point out a simple fact:

The neural pathways that govern orgasm do not fully develop in either men or women until puberty.

In a repressive environment where adolescents are taught that it's a sin to touch themselves and that they should pray for forgiveness after performing simple acts of hygiene, normal development can be arrested or stunted.

It's not a problem for men nearly as much as it is a problem for women. Male physiology does not leave JW males much choice, but it's entirely possible for a JW female to enter into a sexual relationship (i.e. Marriage) having never experienced a single orgasm in her life and with only vague ideas of how to get there.

Worse, if she's waited much past the bloom of youth to get married, there is a chance she may never be able to get there or always have problems.

So yeah. I'd say the JW's have messed up a lot of people's adult lives.

24

6000 yrs for mankind

by lastmanstanding in

i have a question to the board.. if someone asks you the below question, how do you respond?

please reflect on why you think the question was asked.

(background... the spouse was talking to dubs about 6000 yrs and wanted to tell them that it was proved false).

TD

Jeffro,

όχι ακριβώς

I'm talking about a textbook example of proof of nonexistence. (Perhaps a misstatement on the OP's part)

That proposition is only provable in specific situations where a definite test can be devised; as in an exact science like mathematics.

24

6000 yrs for mankind

by lastmanstanding in

i have a question to the board.. if someone asks you the below question, how do you respond?

please reflect on why you think the question was asked.

(background... the spouse was talking to dubs about 6000 yrs and wanted to tell them that it was proved false).

TD

I don't understand the question myself.

Technically, the JW's believe that humans have been here for a little more than six thousand years, although it has been so long since they have discussed anything of this nature that most simply don't know and don't care.

Most other people believe, based on the physical evidence, that humans have been here a whole lot longer.

I'm not personally aware of any groups who believe it is less than six thousand years.

If I were asked the question, I might be tempted to point out that negatives can't be proven, but would probably just say, "I don't know" which is perfectly true. I don't.....

18

Accepting the reason why the Watchtower Corporation and its top leaders are endeavored to brainwash people

by Rocketman123 in

taking a close look at the operation of the jws religion you can observe technics of brainwashing orchestrated through the literature the wts publishes for its members such as the watchtower .. everything these men have done had calculating agendas, which were to firstly attract attention to the literature they published, to cultivate power toward themselves, to intentionally take control over people's lives and of course draw in money.. brainwashing (also known as mind control, menticide, coercive persuasion, thought control, thought reform, and re-education) is the concept that the human mind can be altered or controlled by certain psychological techniques.

brainwashing is said to reduce its subjects' ability to think critically or independently,[1] to allow the introduction of new, unwanted thoughts and ideas into their minds,[2] as well as to change their attitudes, values and beliefs.

TD

I don't know how many remember this thread:

https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/195895/thought-control-simple-test-jws

The answers from JW's were quite striking

17

"Modern Bibles" New World Translation - Part II

by Perry in

behold, the days come, saith the lord god, that i will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the lord .

amos 8: 11. .

most of us who have been raised as jehovahs witnesses since at least the 1960s were occasionally reminded of the scholarship of fred franz and his command of eight or more languages, including the biblical languages of hebrew and greek.

TD

There is no reason to believe the NWT was plagiarized and not a translation in its on right.

The ability to read Ancient Greek is actually not that unusual. It's not as popular a hobby as gardening, but there are still enough people who are into it to justify the translation of the Harry Potter books, for example, into Classical Greek:

One of the problems with this and similar threads is the treatment of Ancient Greek as a fantastically esoteric and obscure subject, when in reality there is a very robust and enthusiastic following among people with a knack for languages.

Franz lack of qualifications as a translator would more likely have been in other areas like history, theology, sociology and literature which are all very important in conveying the thoughts of a very different people in a very different time.

I've heard the idea that the NWT was borrowed from Rotherham before, but I'm not seeing it myself. One of the more legitimate criticisms I think you can make about it, especially in its earlier revisions, was the ugly Madison Avenue English.

There is a literary beauty to Rotherham's "Thou hast anointed, with oil, my head" that is completely lost in the NWT's "With oil you have greased my head" which conjures up an image of some poor schlub working under a car. (To be fair, the JW's eventually fixed this.)