Reasonfirst

Reasonfirst

Joined

Posts by Reasonfirst

Background

Viral epidemics or pandemics of acute respiratory infections (ARIs) pose a global threat. Examples are influenza (H1N1) caused by the H1N1pdm09 virus in 2009, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003, and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) caused by SARS‐CoV‐2 in 2019. Antiviral drugs and vaccines may be insufficient to prevent their spread. This is an update of a Cochrane Review last published in 2020. We include results from studies from the current COVID‐19 pandemic.

Objectives

To assess the effectiveness of physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of acute respiratory viruses.

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The conclusions are sure to be controversial, because the use of masks is deeply imbedded in medical orthodoxy.

  • Vanderhoven7
    19

    Are Jehovah's Witnesses who are disfellowshipped allowed to communicate and comfort each other while waiting to be reinstated?

    by Vanderhoven7 in
    1. watchtower
    2. beliefs

    i just read about a disfellowshipped person who was looking for other disfellowshipped persons to socialize with.

    what does the org have to say about this?.

    1. Linda14
    2. Reasonfirst
    3. Gorb
  • Reasonfirst
    Reasonfirst

    The main problem the witnesses have is that the whole basis for their practise of DFing is FAKE (that's the bible, of course).

  • mikeflood
    48

    No more public WT & Awake?

    by mikeflood in
    1. watchtower
    2. beliefs

    have you guys noticed, this year 2023 no more public edition magazines...i wonder how they are gonna spin that fact.

    1. Journeyman
    2. Vidiot
    3. Vidiot
  • Reasonfirst
    Reasonfirst

    Another "BAD" memory:

    Who could place (sell) the most magazines?

    In good old Aussie land, the champion must have been a guy called Vince McNee. He's an interesting character.

    He came from Brissie (Brisbane), and had been raised in a catholic orphanage, local witnesses spoke of him being the 'illegitimate' child of a certain local Catholic priest.

    Whatever the truth of that, he certainly had certain Irish charm characteristics and could give spell-binding talks.

    In Sydney we first got to know him when he was appointed as a circuit overseer, and was willing to do things a little differently.

    Like witnessing on Sydney's suburban train network. His technique was simple. Start from one end and work the 8 carriages to the end. He'd approach the passengers, holding out the two magazines, and say, "The latest, 20 cents!" Whether it was his Irish charm or whatever, I don't know, but he could place 100s of magazines in a day.

    If you were travelling on the train network, and found WT's and Awakes scattered around, you'd know that Vince had been on that train. The fact that the mags. were on the floor indicated that few had been read.

    The Train dept. soon became unhappy with the litter, and banned sales of any product on the network.

    I said Vince was an interesting guy. He was twice, invited to Gilead, and twice dismissed from Gilead. I never heard why.

    He finally came to an end, when no longer used in any organisational capacity, his wife came home unexpectedly one day, and found him in the shower with a certain handsome young ex-bethel brother.

    He was divorced, and disfellowshipped, and I never heard of him again.

    But he could certainly place magazines!

  • joey jojo
    4

    How tall was Goliath?

    by joey jojo in
    1. watchtower
    2. bible

    goliath was a big dude, 6 cubits and a span, or about 9 feet 9 inches.

    the septuagint version of the bible and the dead sea scrolls, on the other hand, both state his height as 4 cubits and a span, or 6 feet 9 inches.. his armour weighed a bit over 40 kg, about the same weight as a modern soldier would carry.

    his spear sounds impressively heavy at 600 shekels, however , this is only about 6 kg (13 lbs), easily carried by a man of average strength, let alone someone with training.. the difference lies in whether we should believe the masoretic version of the bible, or the septuagint.. the masoretic text was written about 1000 years later than the septuagint and it is what the new world translation and a lot of protestant bibles are based on.. although the septuagint was accepted by 1st century jews, it is believed that medieval jews were not happy with the septuagint, as it lent weight to the argument that pointed to jesus as the messiah and they wanted to distinguish the jewish tradition from christianity.. jesus and other new testament writers (whoever they were) quoted the septuagint.. in an effort to support his own world view and to distance himself from the catholic church, martin luther chose the masoretic text over the septuagint on which to base his translation, which is ironic as the masoretic text was written, partly to separate itself from christianity.. when someone says they 'believe the bible', or, they 'live their life on what the bible says'- can that person really explain how they can trust the history and process of whatever bible they believe in came to be?.

    1. peacefulpete
    2. joey jojo
    3. Reasonfirst
  • Reasonfirst
    Reasonfirst

    So think about it?

    Several versions of the David and Goliath story, Which one was inspired?

    Can we really bel;ieve that the old man in the sky "inspired" humans to write his propaganda?

  • mikeflood
    48

    No more public WT & Awake?

    by mikeflood in
    1. watchtower
    2. beliefs

    have you guys noticed, this year 2023 no more public edition magazines...i wonder how they are gonna spin that fact.

    1. Journeyman
    2. Vidiot
    3. Vidiot
  • Reasonfirst
    Reasonfirst

    Since I'm now old and nearing the end of my life, I'm not having many new experiences to remember, so one of the things my mind does (to keep itself busy) is to regurgitate old ones.

    So no more print magazines. Oh! Shit! Have I got some memories.

    Yeah! The day I arrived at a new special pioneer assignment (the previous guys had thoughtfully left the tenancy of an old one room farm building for me), and on the table was a stack of several hundreds of WTs and Awakes, still rolled up in the bundles, as posted by the WTS. This I think, was a hangover from Russell's days when bible societies (not only the WT bible and Tract one) would provide bible literature to 'colporteurs' at highly reduced rates to support themselves while flogging bible shit across the country.

    A Circus serpent, (Ron Walters, if any Aussie remembers him) arrived shortly after, and I innocently asked him what to do with those old magazines. He snapped back at me, "Place them, of course." This NSW country town had a population of about 4000 and my only transport was a bike to cover the sparse rural areas.

    I thought about it for a while, and concluded the mags deserved a christian burial. The soil around my hut was too hard, So I biked a few km out of town. to a bridge over a nearly dry creek, and buried them under the bridge.

    It rained a few days later, and the next time i went over that bridge, I found that the rain had caused the creek to flow, and the mags. were floating, reproachfully, face up to old YHWH.

  • Vanderhoven7
    19

    Are Jehovah's Witnesses who are disfellowshipped allowed to communicate and comfort each other while waiting to be reinstated?

    by Vanderhoven7 in
    1. watchtower
    2. beliefs

    i just read about a disfellowshipped person who was looking for other disfellowshipped persons to socialize with.

    what does the org have to say about this?.

    1. Linda14
    2. Reasonfirst
    3. Gorb
  • Reasonfirst
    Reasonfirst

    My funny story about associating with another DFed witness.

    I have a FB page associated with the degree I did some years ago (it's about Asian History). Anyway, one day I saw the name of a Jw, who had first studied with me. It turned out to be him.

    I asked if he was willing to have a conversation? He said yes, so we did. He said he could talk to me as he was disfellowshipped. That shocked me. He came from a good JW family, had been a Circuit OS, and a Gilead graduate and a missionary.

    So I asked why he was outed? And, he told me the story. His first wife had died and a few years later he'd married an Asian woman (also a JW). He claims he came home early one day and found her in bed with 3 men. Wow! So he started divorce proceedings, But when the elder's asked the wife if the story was true, she denied his claim.

    Result, the elders disfellowshipped him.

    Is his story true, and if I hadn't known him so well in the past, I wouldn't have believed it, and I really don't care either way. A little while later he refused to talk anymore, so I guess he was seeking re-instatement.