Posts by Oubliette

31

Request for Research Help: WTS Views on Intersex Individuals

by Oubliette in

request for research help: .

several recent threads have gotten me started on an essay and i need some research help.

does anyone have access to anything the wt has ever published on intersex people (they might have used the now-outdated term: hermaphrodite)?

Request for Research Help: WTS Views on Intersex Individuals

by Oubliette in

request for research help: .

several recent threads have gotten me started on an essay and i need some research help.

does anyone have access to anything the wt has ever published on intersex people (they might have used the now-outdated term: hermaphrodite)?

Oubliette

RubaDub, yeah the WT Leaders are just about that crazy, but I'm actually trying to take a serious look at this issue.

Mans while poking fun at the lunacy of the Borg is also one of my pastimes, it would be good to show some sensitivity to the people that already have enough to deal with without the WT's ridiculous policies

If you have some actual references to contribute, that would be great!

56

What made you turn atheist or agnostic?

by LevelThePlayingField in

if you were a jw and are now an atheist or agnostic, what was the tipping point that made you turn to it?.

the reason i ask is i have noticed that many who leave the jw's seem to turn to atheism, versus still having some form of a faith.

have many of you given up on god first or have you had atheistic views first and then found atheism to be true.

Oubliette

Slightly longer answer: JWs convinced me all other religions were false. Then, after being an elder for a dozen years, it became painfully obvious that my religion was also false.

So now they are all false.

The only question left was this: if all religions are false, is there any evidence at all that God exists?

I spent a few years re-examining all of my beliefs, this time without being committed to any particular belief system. That sure made it easier. It actually didn't take very long to come to the obvious conclusion: The evidence is overwhelming that none of the gods that humans have ever worshipped exist, in particular that desert god of the Old Testament.

I'm fond of, and in complete agreement with, Carl Sagan's assessment of the situation:

The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by God one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying ... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity.

-

This does not, however, make me an atheist. As far as I'm concerned, claiming that there is no God is almost as irrational as claiming there is one. Again, I'll share a succinct comment from Sagan on that point as well:

An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do to be sure that no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed. - Conversations with Carl Sagan (2006), edited by Tom Head, p. 70

-

40

Boredom at the Kingdom Hall meetings

by RULES & REGULATIONS in

put aside all the stupid rules,beliefs,doctrines and practices of the jehovah's witnesses.this is one of the main reasons why i stopped attending all meetings!

boredom.

monotone speakers.

Oubliette

And each and every meeting somehow "the best one yet!"

56

What made you turn atheist or agnostic?

by LevelThePlayingField in

if you were a jw and are now an atheist or agnostic, what was the tipping point that made you turn to it?.

the reason i ask is i have noticed that many who leave the jw's seem to turn to atheism, versus still having some form of a faith.

have many of you given up on god first or have you had atheistic views first and then found atheism to be true.

Oubliette

Short answer: The evidence.

31

Request for Research Help: WTS Views on Intersex Individuals

by Oubliette in

request for research help: .

several recent threads have gotten me started on an essay and i need some research help.

does anyone have access to anything the wt has ever published on intersex people (they might have used the now-outdated term: hermaphrodite)?

Oubliette

Anders, wow, That's quite a story.

It must be very difficult for this person to maintain as a JW. I can only imagine.

I suppose it's impossible, but I would love to interview your friend and learn more about her experience.

I don't suppose we'll ever be reading about it as a "life story" in the WT or the Awake!

8

2015-12-15-BOE-Memorial Outline Updated--Is More Money Being Implied Here Also?

by Atlantis in

2015-12-15-boe memorial outline updated.. .are they demanding more money even in the memorial outline?

you decide... page 1 number 4:.

(4) besides attending this meeting, what else must we do to show our appreciation for what christ has done for us?.page 2 under the heading:.

Oubliette

Thanks Atlantis!

"The vast majority of those attending the Lord’s Evening Meal do not have the heavenly hope"

That's right. 100% is definitely "the vast majority"!

Obedience was explicitly mentioned twice in the outline:

In obedience to Jesus’ command, millions in 236 lands will observe the Lord’s Evening Meal tonight
You must obey the rules of the household (1Ti 3:14, 15)

-

Listen, Obey and Be Blessed - It's a cult!

12

The thing I have a hard time understanding with all the redundant bethelites

by joe134cd in

this has probably been touched on before but i thought i would mention it again.

the problem i have with all the redundant bethelites.

they were virtually getting free labour.

Oubliette

joe134cd: they were virtually getting free labour.

Not free, but certainly the economic equivalent of slave labor.

If an enterprise cannot be economically viable with a virtually limitless slave labor force of dedicated slaves, then that enterprise is not viable and is almost certainly being mismanaged by its leadership.

31

Request for Research Help: WTS Views on Intersex Individuals

by Oubliette in

request for research help: .

several recent threads have gotten me started on an essay and i need some research help.

does anyone have access to anything the wt has ever published on intersex people (they might have used the now-outdated term: hermaphrodite)?

Oubliette

A person who has corrective surgery so as to present himself or herself according to his or her primary biological sex can be baptized. - cg-E, p. 98

Thanks WiFi!,

First of all, this isn't even an accurate description of all intersex people, only some.

Individuals with Androgen insensitivity syndrome generally look completely female even though they have XY chromosomes normally indicating a biological male. These people are generally not identified as intersex until puberty when they fail to menstruate.

As explained in the article, Androgen insensitivity syndrome, published by the US National Library of Medicine:

"Complete androgen insensitivity prevents the penis and other male body parts from developing. At birth, the child looks like a girl. The complete form of the syndrome occurs in as many as 1 in 20,000 live births."

-

That same article continues:

A person with complete AIS appears to be female but has no uterus, and has very little armpit and pubic hair. At puberty, female sex characteristics (such as breasts) develop. However, the person does not menstruate and become fertile. ... Complete AIS is rarely discovered during childhood.

-

That beings said, the obvious implication of the statement from the WTBTS's "Correspondence Guidelines" is that a person that has NOT had "corrective surgery" cannot be baptized.

This demonstrates a stunning lack of understanding on the part of the WTBTS of this admittedly complex situation. That they lump all types of intersex into the now out-dated term "hermaphrodite" also betrays their ignorance and backwards thinking.

31

Request for Research Help: WTS Views on Intersex Individuals

by Oubliette in

request for research help: .

several recent threads have gotten me started on an essay and i need some research help.

does anyone have access to anything the wt has ever published on intersex people (they might have used the now-outdated term: hermaphrodite)?

Oubliette

Simon: ... the intersection of two small sets (JWs and people born intersex) may mean the WTS has never felt like it needed to offer an opinion on the subject
Diogenesister: I heard a statistic that 1 in a hundred kids is born with both sets, or parts, of genitals to some extent

How common is intersex? - According to the Intersex Society of North America, "the number comes out to about 1 in 1500 to 1 in 2000 births." This works out to 0.05 - 0.07% of the general population.

So, if we do the math with the following assumptions:

Current World Population: 7.4 billion - (Worldmeters.info)
JW Publishers 2015: 8,201,545 (2015 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses)

-
And assume that the JW population is roughly representative of the overall human population worldwide, then there should be somewhere in the range of 4,000 to 5,500 intersex Jehovah's Witnesses.

It's not a huge number, but it's also not insignificant.