Leolaia

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Posts by Leolaia

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  79

  Have You Ever Seen Or Met Anyone Famous?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i'm not talking about any gb members, either!.

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  Leolaia

  clearpoison....I am positively jealous.
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  36

  New Pattern regarding Science in the Awake

  by konceptual99 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  reading the first couple of awakes for 2013 i think there is a pattern developing.. they have the regular "could it have happened by chance" article on something amazing in nature but they are also interviewing a scientist who is also a witness.

  this is a pretty interesting tack on a number of levels.. firstly it is sending out the implicit message that "look, this educated person accepts creation, the flood and every other account that is at odds with generally accepted science, so that should give you confidence that you are right as well".

  secondly, as a magazine designed for public comsumption is suggests to non-witnesses that there are many well educated people who accept the bible.

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  Leolaia

  Massimo Tistarelli was born on November 11, 1962 in Genoa, Italy. He received a degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Genoa, Italy in 1987 and the Phd in Computer Science and Robotics in 1991 from the same university. Since 1986 he has been involved as project coordinator and task manager in several projects on computer vision and biometrics funded by the European Community. Massimo Tistarelli is currently Full Professor in Computer Science and director of the Computer Vision Laboratory at the University of Sassari, Italy. His main research interests cover biological and artificial vision, biometrics, robotic navigation and visuo-motor coordination. He is author of more than 100 papers in scientific conferences, books and international journals. Prof. Tistarelli is the principal editor for the Springer book “Handbook of Remote Biometrics”, published in June 2009.

  None of that has anything really to do with biology, genetics, or zoology. His opinion about evolution is not necessarily informed by anything in his expert knowledge.

  Scientists may hold crank ideas outside of their areas of expertise. Barry Fell for instance was a professor of invertebrate zoology but was more wildly known for his pseudoscientific work in archaeology and linguistics.

  "For any scientist to assume that because he is highly educated he cannot therefore be deluded nor deceived, is a grave error. The layman has much greater difficulty differentiating between the real scientists and the scientists who are simply — innocently — wrong and have chosen to take up residence in that fabled — and increasingly crowded — Ivory Tower. While a scientist in a free society has the same right as any other citizen to speak out on any topic he wishes, many reputable scientists choose to speak or write publicly on subjects outside their established fields of accomplishment or expertise. When a scientist purports to speak authoritatively outside his field of knowledge, he may then be exploiting his reputation — accomplishments and attributes — and playing on that reputation to extend his authority in a possibly unrelated field. An academic who has achieved credibility in the field of statistics cannot legitimately claim that he therefore speaks authoritatively on politics, nor that he is able to detect trickery. In today's society, we are very accustomed to see celebrities — all too often people in science — endorsing various products and services that have no relationship whatsoever to their professional lives, and motion picture stars sell soap and mortgage plans freely without arousing very much wonder from the public about why they are found on our TV screens and in our magazines performing this task. We are easily blinded by glamour and reputation, which often do not lend any validation whatsoever to such endorsements. This applies both to movie stars and to Ph.D.s." — James Randi.
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  36

  New Pattern regarding Science in the Awake

  by konceptual99 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  reading the first couple of awakes for 2013 i think there is a pattern developing.. they have the regular "could it have happened by chance" article on something amazing in nature but they are also interviewing a scientist who is also a witness.

  this is a pretty interesting tack on a number of levels.. firstly it is sending out the implicit message that "look, this educated person accepts creation, the flood and every other account that is at odds with generally accepted science, so that should give you confidence that you are right as well".

  secondly, as a magazine designed for public comsumption is suggests to non-witnesses that there are many well educated people who accept the bible.

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  Leolaia

  Reminds me of the old Nicholas Kip article in the Awake! many years ago.
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  198

  Rutherford's smear campaign (a must read)

  by Leolaia in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  there has been some interest recently about the moyle case, and how it may have set a precident in what became the society's disfellowshipping policy.

  in july 1939, the chief legal counsel of the watchtower bible & tract society, olin r. moyle, resigned from his position in a protest over conditions at bethel and rutherford's mistreatment of workers.

  he did not want to continue living under those conditions and he felt he could effect positive change for his brothers by taking such a stand.

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  Leolaia

  There is a lot more, but I've been sidetracked this month....I hope to get back to it in a few weeks.
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  12

  When did the Watchtower first raise the idea of 1919?

  by moggy lover in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  with all the changes arising from the shifts in watchtower "understanding" of its own prophetic ministry, i think we can discern a slow but detirmined interest in elavating the date 1919 to almost iconic standards - soon to displace the other date of significance, 1914.. my question to those with access to watchtower material is: when in fact did the watchtower leadership first mention this date as having any significance?

  popular watchtower mythology proceeds along the lines of jehovah coming to his temple in that year, and on inspecting the then watchtower leadership, chosing them to be his exclusive spokespersons on earth.. although this supposedly took place in 1919, it was certainly not in that year that there was any awareness that such was occurring.

  it was many years after when this first began to be pressed.

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  Leolaia

  It was in the August 15, 1919 issue of the Watchtower where the antitype of Elijah-Elisha was reinterpreted. The older belief was that Elisha prefigured the great company class. The new view claimed that the harvest that ended in the spring of 1918 represented the "Elijah work" and the new work announced by Rutherford that year (see the August 1, 1919 issue of the Watchtower, p. 230) commenced the "Elisha work". So already in 1919, the year was viewed as of significance. Thus we have later references to 1919 as the start of the Elisha work (see the 15 March 1921 Watchtower, p. 93).

  I found this other curious reference to 1919 in a 1920 Watchtower:

  "As constructed, the Grand Gallery is narrow and steep, and its ascent must be made cautiously and circumspectly. The ascent has always been difficult, until recently. On entering it this time, we discovered that steps have been built the full length of the passage, with an iron hand-railing on either side, so that now one walks up it as he would up a staircase in a building, with supports on either side. The writer was interested to know when this was installed. There are men about the Pyramid who have acted as guides for years. Several of these were sent for and closely questioned. They all agreed that the material was brought there and the construction of this stairway and iron supports began early in July, 1919, and the work was completed about the first of October, 1919. Immediately the writer recalled that it was about the first of July 1919, that the idea was conceived of publishing THE GOLDEN AGE, the first issue of which appeared October 1, 1919. THE GOLDEN AGE announced, and continues to announce, that the establishment of Messiah’s kingdom is at hand, that the time of restitution is here, that the old world has ended and the new is beginning, and that millions now living will never die" (15 December 1920 Watchtower, p. 379)
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  92

  Which posters are male and which are female? Am I getting it wrong?

  by Lozhasleft in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this is baffling me...someone suggested a day or so ago that outlaw is female?

  and what about bandontherun ?

  is that a lady too?.

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  Leolaia

  The symbols were available when I joined but I saw them as kind of a distraction and pointless. Maybe I didn't want to be pigeonholed as Sister Leolaia, lol.
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  15

  5 Common Misconceptions About the Bible

  by undercover in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  a blog on huffington post.... interesting thoughts...that mostly would go flying over the average jw's head, those that think they know the bible oh so well.... i've highlighted certain points that pertain (technically they all do, but some really stand out) to how jws view things.. my main reason for posting this is so i can find it easily later, as it'll disappear from huffpo eventually.. .

  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christine-hayes/5-misconceptions-about-the-bible_b_2173965.html.

  when it comes to the bible, modern americans are at a distinct disadvantage.

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  Leolaia

  A good blog post. Pretty much echoes what I've said here for years and summarizes the general approach to the Bible in scholarship.
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  33

  If you use two spaces between sentences . . .

  by compound complex in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  some of our writers do the above.

  is it automatic formatting on your computer or do you do it deliberately?

  i am interested in the whys and wherefores of how you write.

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  Leolaia

  I put two spaces because that is what I was taught in typing class in middle school and high school. And it has become an ingrained habit. I also do prefer the look of a double space which to my mind indicates a longer pause than the single space following a comma or semicolon. I know this has been abandoned long ago in professional typesetting style, but it's how I type.
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  105

  Bigfoot Is Real

  by metatron in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  http://networkedblogs.com/f8tw1.

  they got the dna to prove it.

  there are other dna studies, too - although the ones i've heard about concluded that it was an unknown primate, not a human.

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  Leolaia

  On the more skeptical side, here is a 70-page thread discussing Melba Ketchum and the DNA claim. I haven't read it so I don't know what it brings up, but I think its worth a read.
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  33

  Why would anyone think the 7 times of Daniel 4 should have two fulfillments?

  by jwfacts in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  each prophecy in daniel had only one fulfilment.

  why believe inconsistently that daniel 4:9-32 should have two fulfillments?.

  daniel 2: an immense image representing kingdoms.

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  Leolaia

  In other words Neb, the king of Babylon (which represents Satan's Org) stands for the Kingdom of God. Does that seem just a little bit silly? But silly is what Joe Rutherford and his minders were good at.

  I've made a similar point often as well. From another thread:

  "The incapacitation of a Gentile ruler is supposed to symbolize a period of Gentile hegemony over the earthly representative of God's kingdom (the Gentile times), and not just any ruler but the very Gentile ruler (Nebuchadnezzar) who overthrew God's earthly organization (Judah)....The Gentile ruler Nebuchadnezzar symbolizes the very thing he destroyed whereas his own seven-year humiliation is supposed to symbolize Gentile supremacy, starting with his own rule!"