TD

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Posts by TD

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  78

  Which dog breed do you like?

  by Panda in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  well , with so many posts about pets i thought i'd ask this question.

  we have 3 great pyrenees dogs.

  the oldest is 11yrs and the youngest is 4yrs old.

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  TD

  ...All of them!
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  33

  Murder is wrong because...

  by logansrun in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  [your answer here].

  bradley.

  ps...my english class debated this subject for an hour today without a consensus!

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  TD

  I think the common dictionary definition of "murder" works just fine. ---The unlawful killing of a human being by a human being.

  Man is a social animal and human society originally consisted of family groups bound together largely by filial affection, which is normally instinctive.

  As human society grew and evolved into clans and tribes and tribal alliances and ultimately into nations and national alliances, man has had to embrace an increasingly wide and diverse group as "family."

  Since instinctive affection alone is hardly sufficient for this task, successful human societies have out of necessity adopted as a moral axiom, the innate value of human life. The entire concept and definition of murder revolves around this principle.

  The short answer therefore is, Murder is wrong because the victim has the right to life

  None of the exceptions (e.g. Capital punishment, Various forms of justifiable homicide) violate this answer because they all involve situations where a perpetrator has voluntarily given up that right to life in some way, usually by engaging or attempting to engage in a murderous act.
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  95

  What grammatical errors bug you the most?

  by poppers in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  for me it's the use of : .

  it's as a possessive - it's means "it is", so if you don't want to say "it is" don't use the apostrophe.

  there are others that bug me but this one is the worst.

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  TD

  The only one that really gets under my skin is the mindless JW invocation of the partial predicate, "Abstain from blood."
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  51

  Another example of WTS anthropology - The Flood and racial differences

  by Pole in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  here is another paradox resulting from the wts stand on the flood:

  1. jws seriously believe in 2370 bc as the date of the flood

  2. they also believe that by the 1st century ad racial differences had been well developed (i mean differences in the outward appearance of course, and not their early racist views for instance).

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  TD

  XQ,
  
  I know you're not being contrary. The global flood story is riddled with problems from top to bottom and a believer has no choice but to play the divine "What if" game over and over and over.
  
  I think it reaches a point where you have God intervening so many times to circumvent what are ostensibly his own physical laws as they pertain to meteorology, engineering, genetics, geology, and anthropology that you have to wonder why.
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  51

  Another example of WTS anthropology - The Flood and racial differences

  by Pole in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  here is another paradox resulting from the wts stand on the flood:

  1. jws seriously believe in 2370 bc as the date of the flood

  2. they also believe that by the 1st century ad racial differences had been well developed (i mean differences in the outward appearance of course, and not their early racist views for instance).

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  TD

  The human race has never experienced an evolutionary event even remotely comparable to the flood story. The Toba catastrophe theory posits a reduction of human forbearers to thousands, not 6

  Reduce a mammal species to only three closely interrelated breeding pairs and it will die out ---period. Again, there have been more than enough captive breeding programs of endangered species in the last century to know this from direct observation. Even in programs of as much as 25 breeding pairs you still have to introduce at least two animals from outside the group a minimum of every 10 generations. If you don't do this the entire program will be consumed by sterility and stillbirth

  Humans seen to know this intuitively and this is reflected in marriage customs almost everywhere. Small tribes of humans invariably set up either a moiety system for endogamous unions and/or practice some form of exogamy with other tribes.

  Take the Australian Aranda for example. Two unamed moieties divided the tribe in half. Each moiety was divided into two sections and each section was subdivided into two subsections. Although the tribe as whole was endogomous, the moieties were strictly exogamous. In othe words, marriages must cross moiety lines. Spouses had to be chosen from the proper subsection of the opposite moiety.

  In other cultures exogamy has taken the form of either buying the bride from friendly tribes and/or stealing a bride from hostile tribes.

  T he obvious purpose of all such systems is to preserve genetic diversity. Without it, small tribes die out.
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  76

  Are You SURE JWs Don't Have The Truth???

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  has anyone here ever questioned whether or not they made the right decision to leave the "truth"?......i'm sure glad i'm out!

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  TD

  I think anybody that still thinks in those terms is vulnerable.
  
  You can know the truth, you can tell the truth, you can even debate the truth, but when you start thinking of "truth" as something other than a concept, you are engaging in cult-think.
  
  Beware of any group that defines "truth" as a physical object that you can "have" or be "in."
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  51

  Another example of WTS anthropology - The Flood and racial differences

  by Pole in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  here is another paradox resulting from the wts stand on the flood:

  1. jws seriously believe in 2370 bc as the date of the flood

  2. they also believe that by the 1st century ad racial differences had been well developed (i mean differences in the outward appearance of course, and not their early racist views for instance).

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• 

  TD

  If the Genesis genealogy is to be believed, Shem had 5 sons, Ham had 4 and Japheth had 7 and each probably had an undisclosed number of daughters.
  
  It really doesn't matter, because the problem here is not the size of subsequent generations, but the size of the original bottleneck.
  
  This is not speculation. Because we have driven so many species to the brink of extinction, we have had plenty of opportunity to study genetic stochasticity and heterozygosity loss in populations.
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  51

  Another example of WTS anthropology - The Flood and racial differences

  by Pole in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  here is another paradox resulting from the wts stand on the flood:

  1. jws seriously believe in 2370 bc as the date of the flood

  2. they also believe that by the 1st century ad racial differences had been well developed (i mean differences in the outward appearance of course, and not their early racist views for instance).

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  TD

  The kind of demographic crash we're talking about here (e.g. Reducing the human race to three couples) would create a genetic bottleneck so severe that it requires an appeal to the JW notions of "perfection" and "being closer to perfection" because 6 is just not enough people for a viable breeding group
  
  
  In this case, all of the children in the first generation would be healthy, but they would all be (paternal) first cousins. Except for a brother or a sister, there would be no one else for them to marry but a first cousin. That alone greatly elevates the chances of blindness, deafness and/or mental illness in the second generation.
  
  
  All the children in the second generation not only would have had parents that were cousins, they would all still be first counsins once removed from each other. In other words, their only choice for a marriage mate would be another first cousin once removed whose parents were also cousins. And this only addresses the paternal side.
  
  
  Ordinarily you have 2 parents, 4 grandparents and 8 great grandparents. However the third generation in this scenario only has 6 great grandparents to go around, which means that starting with this generation, these children would all also be related on the maternal side as well.
  
  
  A breeding population in this deep of a genetic rut would eventually die out.
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  15

  Who wrote the Appendix to Chapter 14 in "Let Your Kingdom Come"?

  by VM44 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  does anyone know who did the research and wrote the "appendix to chapter 14" in the book, let your kingdom come?.

  this is the only place where the wts tried to refute the research coj published in his book, the gentile times reconsidered.. coj's book is not mentioned directly in the appendix!

  obvioiusly, as the wt would prefer that people not even know coj's book exists!.

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  TD

  I have to agree with JT (And by extension, Leolaia too)
  
  The average rank and file JW usually does not have any idea as to the timing and reasons of articles appearing in JW literature.
  
  The JW organization, for example, lost ground with many in the medical profession a few years ago when several articles critical of the JW blood policy appeared in professional journals. Much private discussion ensued and one of the things pointed out was that JW literature in the past has portrayed medical professionals who attempt to administer blood products as "Agents of Satan."
  
  The JW organization in short order, began to publish articles praising medical professionals. One article in particular extolled the virtues of the nursing profession.
  
  The average JW had and still has no idea why those articles were suddenly published.
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  34

  How do you handle JWs interacting with your children?

  by Nosferatu in

  1. social
  2. family

  this has been on my mind lately.

  i'll probably end up having kids in the near future, and i would not want my mother preaching to my children.. so, i must ask, how do you handle your jw relatives who try to preach to your children?

  how do you deal with a "gift" like my book of bs?

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  TD

  It's easy,
  
  Children do not readily accept JW beliefs, -- True converts are unhappy adults by and large.
  
  Just teach your children to think critically, to demand extraordinary proof for extraordinary claims and to politely reject BS out of hand and you'll save them a whole lot of grief from unsavory characters of all types ---Not just the JW's