i know this is one huge rant, but i want to put my own questions and doubts in writing.. i am a fading jw who has become agnostic... i still believe in "god" and "jesus," but i simply cannot explain to people why i believe in them.
i just do.. about the existence of god: it is an infinite regress.
"all things were created by someone"... well... who created god?
It's just a property of the universe to accumulate order in some places at the cost of others.
The energy of a system as a whole always decreases, and the entropy always increases. Eventually the sun will run out of fuel, the planets will stop spinning, etc... eventually all will be cold, energy-less, and life-less. (If you take the 2nd law of thermo to its logical conclusion).
i made a graph of the new members from 2012 to 2013 in all countries that had positive growth, and graphed them against the country's gdp per capita.. .
the general trend is, as expected, less growth the more money there is in a country.
but there were some unexpected results.
X is GDP, Y is change in publishers from 2012-2013.
Absolute numbers does not necessarily favor larger countries. Phillipines = 96M, Mexico = 120M, Brazil = 198M
The trend is obvious if you take the data as a whole...
i need help with writing an article regarding vaccinations, organ transplants, and blood transfusions.. i am doing my research using limited amounts of non-wt sources and mostly just the actual wt literature.. what i am having a hard time understanding is:.
most of the articles in the golden age, at least at the beginning of the anti-vaccination stance, are actually written by contributors.
since there are very pro-vaccination articles and then lots of anti-vaccination articles, how can i determine the actual wt viewpoint on vaccinations?.
Now I found this gem (the gem is in the Spanish version of this):
The "bona fide objection to vaccination" part, in Spanish, actually says "Christian Scientists or Jehovah's Witnesses"
Can someone help me find the actual laws that state that a person HAS to be a JW/Christian Scientist to be able to qualify as a religios exemption to vaccinations?
The more explicit, the better! Please help me to find a website...
THANKS!
The English version:
http://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/articles/vaccination-exemptions
Forty-eight states allow exemptions to vaccination for religious reasons. Some states statutes indicate that to receive a religious exemption, a family must belong to a religious group with bona fide objections to vaccination. They may, as Iowa does, ask a parent to attest that "immunization conflicts with a genuine and sincere religious belief and that the belief is in fact religious, and not based merely on philosophical, scientific, moral, personal, or medical opposition to immunizations." Other states simply require that a parent sign a form stating that he or she has religious objections to vaccination.
Several legal cases involving the constitutionality of religious exemptions to vaccination have been tried. The rulings have in general upheld the right of states to mandate vaccination in spite of parents’ religious beliefs. At the same time, courts have often found that requiring parents belong to certain religious groups to qualify for religious exemptions violates the Constitution’s Equal Protection clause. The argument is that the Equal Protection clause should protect all people who claim a religious objection to vaccination, not only those who belong to a certain religion with recognized objections.
The Spanish Version:
http://www.historyofvaccines.org/es/contenido/articulos/exenciones-la-vacunaci%C3%B3n
Cuarenta y ocho estados permiten exenciones por razones religiosas. Algunos estados requieren que una familia pertenezca a un grupo religioso en particular que desaliente o normalmente decline la vacunación, como los Científicos Cristianos o los testigos de Jehová. Otros estados requieren que un padre de familia firme una declaración jurada en la que se exponen las objeciones religiosas contra la vacunación.
Se ha intentado plantear varios casos legales donde se arguye la constitucionalidad de las exenciones religiosas a la vacunación. En general, los fallos han respetado el derecho de los estados a obligar la vacunación, a pesar de las creencias religiosas de los padres. Al mismo tiempo, con frecuencia los tribunales han descubierto que pedir a los padres a que pertenezcan a ciertos grupos religiosos para validar las exenciones religiosas transgrede la cláusula de protección equitativa establecida por la constitución. El argumento es que la cláusula de protección equitativa debe proteger a toda la gente que reclama una objeción religiosa a la vacunación, no sólo a quienes pertenecen a unas cuantas religiones con objeciones reconocidas.
i made a graph of the new members from 2012 to 2013 in all countries that had positive growth, and graphed them against the country's gdp per capita.. .
the general trend is, as expected, less growth the more money there is in a country.
but there were some unexpected results.
I made a graph of the new members from 2012 to 2013 in all countries that had positive growth, and graphed them against the country's GDP per capita.
The GENERAL trend is, as expected, less growth the more money there is in a country. But there were some unexpected results. Any idea what could have made the trends shown?
it seems most of the us growth is in spanish-speaking territory, and of course, there is growth in the nations where spanish is the predominant language.
most sites oriented around ttatt, are english-speaking.
there seems then to be a great need for translators...for instance, imagine if there was a spanish version of www.jwfacts.com.. unfortunately, i dont speak this language.
For example, for those who are bilingual:
Compare Paul's article: http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/directed-by-holy-spirit.php
with this one, which, using different WT sources, reaches the same conclusion: http://testigosincero.blogspot.ca/2012/12/guiados-pero-no-inspirados.html
Or this one: http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/faithful-discreet-slave.php
With this one: http://testigosincero.blogspot.ca/2012/11/quien-es-el-esclavo-fiel-y-discreto.html
This one has a gap (none in Spanish, some similar, but none that consider the development): http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/governing-body.php
The one on false prophets, jwfacts: http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/jehovahs-prophet.php
This one has been written by a Christian Apologist, but it is almost a carbon copy of Paul's article: http://www.miapic.com/falsas-profecias-de-los-testigos-de-jehova
This one has a gap: http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/light-gets-brighter.php
This other one too: http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/organization.php
This one has a Spanish article, but it is not nearly as complete: http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/salvation-only-for-jehovahs-witnesses.php
http://www.la-verdad-de-la-watchtower.net/news/%C2%BFcreen-que-son-los-unicos-que-se-salvaran-/
So the "core concepts" area is lacking in Spanish...
Imagine searching for all these topics, and having them ALL in just one site...
i know this is one huge rant, but i want to put my own questions and doubts in writing.. i am a fading jw who has become agnostic... i still believe in "god" and "jesus," but i simply cannot explain to people why i believe in them.
i just do.. about the existence of god: it is an infinite regress.
"all things were created by someone"... well... who created god?
I did not assert it, I am just wondering about it... But I responded to my own question.
it seems most of the us growth is in spanish-speaking territory, and of course, there is growth in the nations where spanish is the predominant language.
most sites oriented around ttatt, are english-speaking.
there seems then to be a great need for translators...for instance, imagine if there was a spanish version of www.jwfacts.com.. unfortunately, i dont speak this language.
Ok so, first things first: Let's not re-invent the wheel.
Here are the facts:
1. There ARE many excellent articles written in Spanish that tell TTATT
2. JWFacts also has many excellent articles, but they are in English.
3. There is NO "central" exJW website in Spanish, like JWFacts. Unlike JWFacts, a Spanish JW who wants to learn TTATT has to go through dozens of websites, some being very poorly written, some going on and on about the Illuminati/Subliminal images theme.
So here's what I propose and will get going ASAP:
1. Do a site map for JWFacts.
2. Lookup as many articles that are written in Spanish about the subjects that JWFacts has.
3. Fill in the gaps.
4. Submit everything to Paul, and then work with him and make a JWFacts in Spanish.
I think, imho, that the most important subject should be the blood issue, since lives are literally at stake. Secondly, we have to have CoC and CCMC / Hassan available in Spanish. The rest of the topics can be done later.
i know this is one huge rant, but i want to put my own questions and doubts in writing.. i am a fading jw who has become agnostic... i still believe in "god" and "jesus," but i simply cannot explain to people why i believe in them.
i just do.. about the existence of god: it is an infinite regress.
"all things were created by someone"... well... who created god?
Since there's different hypotheses of abiogenesis, it's hard to say broadly, other than to say all of the credible ones take into account the energy input required.
I would expect a credible abiogenesis hypothesis to take into account the second law of thermo.
Everything tends to disorder unless there's an outside energy source. In our case, the sun. In the case of extremophiles, geothermal vents, etc... life needs energy to keep alive.
What could have made chemicals, which tend to a lower energy state and disorder, to have self-replication and to have this "survival mechanism" that needs energy and consistently changes, just to meet the need for self-propagation and self-preservation?
the two terms are still useful to distinguish between interactions of laregly carbon-based molecules which are commonly seen inside living matter, vs the interactions of matter outside the body...
Correct... much like "sunrise" and "sunset" aren't technically correct, they are still used in common language.
i know this is one huge rant, but i want to put my own questions and doubts in writing.. i am a fading jw who has become agnostic... i still believe in "god" and "jesus," but i simply cannot explain to people why i believe in them.
i just do.. about the existence of god: it is an infinite regress.
"all things were created by someone"... well... who created god?
I know that there are a lot of questions on my mind, and I know that I haven't had time to read the enormous amount of information you have given here, but I have another one:
Did abiogenesis at one point "divide over zero" in that it violated the second law of thermo? (I am thinking no, since all life needs energy from some source, most get it from the sun, others even from minerals...)
I haven't examined this issue in depth, but just in terms of the chemistry and energy, is life fundamentally different? I know that calling chemicals organic or inorganic is not accurate since that was a term used to describe the apparent inability to sinthesize "organic" molecules... well that died when urea was sinthesized... (or soaps, depending on what you want to use as the first organic molecule sinthesized)...
it seems most of the us growth is in spanish-speaking territory, and of course, there is growth in the nations where spanish is the predominant language.
most sites oriented around ttatt, are english-speaking.
there seems then to be a great need for translators...for instance, imagine if there was a spanish version of www.jwfacts.com.. unfortunately, i dont speak this language.
hildebrando, hijosdelawatch, someone will be upset because of posting guideline 8.
