Posts by OrphanCrow

24

Legal scholars: JW court cases before Supreme Court were "accidental wins."

by TerryWalstrom in

the outcomes of jehovah's witness court cases, to most first amendment scholars, the witness successes in court, especially the supreme court, were accidental.

legal scholars have uniformly dismissed the witnesses' methods for bringing about first amendment cases, referring to their legal successes as mere unintended consequences of fanatical preaching.

for example, legal scholar bernard schwartz noted that jehovah's witnesses, "who became involved in trouble with the law were only seeking to propagate their unpopular creed.

OrphanCrow

Terry, I have read the article by Henderson and I think that your opening post misrepresents her paper and focus of research.

It appears, both from your title and your selection of text to use for quotes, that she is in agreement with the statements that you selected. The statements you selected from her paper were presented as opposing views to her thesis.

Henderson is not in agreement with the selected text - she is stating those things as pre-existing views in scholarly circles, and her paper is an attempt to correct those misconceptions.

The thesis of her paper is that the First Amendment legal cases that were won by the WTS were carefully planned, and that the WTS had a legal strategy that was not at all "accidental".

71

TO THE STUPID ATHEISTS:

by atheist_R_stupid in

being that this is not "ex jws" and in fact, more driven by atheists talking a bunch of crap, im not even going to address you people like you know anything about jws because you dont.

nor am i going to assume you know the bible because none of you do.. and yes, im speaking down at you all because you men have actually went out your way to make a site to speak down at an entire group of people.

yet i bet you cant even handle a single uswer talking down at you, like you talk down about jws can you?.

OrphanCrow

Embiggening vocabulary and spelling:

Pallet:

Palate:

71

TO THE STUPID ATHEISTS:

by atheist_R_stupid in

being that this is not "ex jws" and in fact, more driven by atheists talking a bunch of crap, im not even going to address you people like you know anything about jws because you dont.

nor am i going to assume you know the bible because none of you do.. and yes, im speaking down at you all because you men have actually went out your way to make a site to speak down at an entire group of people.

yet i bet you cant even handle a single uswer talking down at you, like you talk down about jws can you?.

OrphanCrow

Anyone else?

Oatmeal cookies and tomato juice. So good.

28

A Mind at War

by cappytan in

right now, i feel like my mind is at war with itself.. on the one side is reason, logic.. on the other is tradition, hope and fear.. reason and logic are challenging life-long beliefs.

they are telling me, "is this any more believable than the story of the lord of the rings?".

certain doctrines of my belief system are crumbling.. my mind still wants to hold on to the belief in a creator, his son jesus and the bible.

OrphanCrow

Do I take that path? Or do I ignore my reason and thinking ability to preserve such things as family, friends and comfort?

Cappytan, stay true to yourself. When you look in the mirror, it is best if you see yourself honestly - when all the chips are down, you are the one who has to live with yourself.

Fear is hard to conquer. Cultivate courage. Be fearless.

125

WTS leader rants against higher education

by hoser in

jw
friends

on jw tv.

anthony morris is ranting against higher education.

he is blaming parents for enrolling their kids in college.

OrphanCrow

The Watchtower Society's stance against university is grounded in its historical roots.

During the late 1800s and early 1900s, home study courses that were designed to focus on specific trades and bodies of knowledge were developed by the International Correspondence School. These home study courses were promoted as being beneficial because they did not include any other knowledge than that which was applicable to one particular trade.

At about the same time that Thomas Foster was developing ICS' home study courses, Charles Russell published and sold his Home Bible Study course.

Two early cohorts of Russell, Clayton Woodworth and George Fisher, were heavily involved in the ICS. They were both textbook writers for ICS at the time that they wrote The Finished Mystery.

Clayton J.Woodworth did much of the writing for The Golden Age magazine and the correspondence school influence is apparent in some of the articles. For example, the Feb. 18, 1920 issue of The Golden Age (pg 339) has an article on the bee keeping industry and at one point in the article the author gives a plug for correspondence schools:

Mail order courses in beekeeping are also to be had for the benefits of those unable to attend college

The anti-university stance of the WTS has been around since its inception.

33

what type of faith do you REALLY want?

by atheist_R_stupid in

i find that when talking people who say they "used to be a jehovah's witness" they say words that show they have in fact, never been one.

it's like a man that worked for the post office for 30 years in a main major urban hub like chicago or new york... and you ask him, "in your last position, what was your rdo?

" and the man says "whats an rdo?".

OrphanCrow

Sometimes you might "pull a nooner" (leave at lunch)

Oh.

I always went back to work after 'pulling a nooner'.

111

Conti Appeal Preview - Oral Argument Jan 14

by Chaserious in

with hopefully a good deal of interest here in the conti appeal tomorrow (or later today, depending on where you are), i thought that on my ride home from work tonight i'd preview what to expect and what i think the key issues are for any who are interested.

i have had a busy few weeks and haven't had time to read everything, but i had some time to look at the appeal briefs during my work commute the past couple days.

it'll be interesting to see what develops out of the network news coverage of this case.

OrphanCrow

Your point seems to be that the elders were well-intentioned rubes who didn't realize that their actions would put any children in danger.

In a court of law, ignorance does not equal innocence.

24

Jehovah's Witnesses recover best from surgery, despite refusing blood.

by nicolaou in

that's' the headline of an article in the sydney morning herald.

my jw family are sharing it with glee on facebook right now.

here's the link; .

OrphanCrow

Of course the JWS jump on this bit of biased information thinking Aha we don't need BTs after all, its all a needless scam, are no blood doctrine was right all along, thank you Jehovah.

Yes, it would be like the Amish using traffic fatalities as justification for riding in a horse and buggy instead of a car.

24

Jehovah's Witnesses recover best from surgery, despite refusing blood.

by nicolaou in

that's' the headline of an article in the sydney morning herald.

my jw family are sharing it with glee on facebook right now.

here's the link; .

OrphanCrow

BTs have saved millions of lives since its inception as a medical procedure.

Exactly. The WTS promotes its flawed blood doctrine as though abstaining from blood is a good thing when it is not. The WTS, in their promotion of bloodless programs, emphasizes the negative aspects of blood transfusions and ignores the life saving properties of blood transfusions.

Blood transfusions saves lives.

Blood transfusions saved my life.

24

Jehovah's Witnesses recover best from surgery, despite refusing blood.

by nicolaou in

that's' the headline of an article in the sydney morning herald.

my jw family are sharing it with glee on facebook right now.

here's the link; .

OrphanCrow

I would hope that whenever possible, all possible preparations are diligently carried out for all patients who anticipate surgery so that blood isn't necessary. When it is given as a bandaid for unskilled surgery, then you will have more issues.

'Bloodless surgery' is not as simple as just going in for surgery and not receiving blood. The process of undergoing 'bloodless' surgery involves different equipment and different procedures than 'ordinary' surgery. In a 'normal' surgical procedure, your blood isn't drained out of you first, your blood isn't taken outside of your body , washed, and then transfused back into you. In normal surgery, you get to keep your blood inside your body while it is happening - in bloodless procedures, you don't. One of the goals of bloodless medicine is to keep the patient alive as long as possible without blood in their bodies.

About Shannon Farmer et al...

Farmer has never declared a conflict of interest during his involvement in blood management programs. Neither did Axel Hoffman or the many other JWs involved in bloodless management programs.

http://traq.blogspot.ca/2014_06_01_archive.html

Australia's National Blood Authority (NBA), a well respected government organization that does much valuable work, appointed Shannon Farmer, a Jehovah's Witness, as the key consumer representative on a government panel developing new transfusion guidelines for Australia's hospitals. Nil inappropriate about that except Mr. Farmer didn't declare
Formally, or otherwise it seems, that he was a Jehovah's Witness.
His consultancy work since 2007 to an Austrian business involved in commercial tendering for patient blood management projects around the world.
Receiving fees for consulting and lecturing from multinational pharmaceutical companies,e.g., J and J.
When informed, the NBA said it would review the details. Whether or not possible conflicting interests are of "sufficient conflict" is a moot point.
Fact is they were not declared and at the time of his appointment Farmer was described as "consumer" and "independent consumer advocate". An NBA spokesperson is quoted as saying, "The NBA believes any potential conflict of interest, real or perceived, should be declared."
He's an Adjunct Research Fellow, School of Surgery, at the University of Western Australia, where he's listed as an author on multi-authored papers about blood.
LinkedIn shows he's an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow Centre for Population Health Research, Curtin University.
He's lectured extensively on bloodless surgery and blood conservation.
He's apparently an expert on transfusion medicine.

And none of the above profiles even hint that he's consulted for years to Austria's 'Medicine and Economics' business involved in commercial patient blood management projects globally.
How can you not know that someone you appoint to panels developing national blood transfusion guidelines is a member of a religion that forbids transfusion and earns big bucks implementing blood management programs internationally? How can you say, when information comes to light, 'These aren't sufficient conflicts'?
Isn't this equivalent to someone being appointed to a government panel on the future of private laboratories in Alberta (Canada, UK, you name it)
Who is a member of a political party whose policies are pro-private medicine (pro-private everything)?
Who consults for (perhaps partially owns) a private laboratory consortium bidding for government contracts?
So far as I can tell Shannon Farmer is not a physician nor a PhD researcher, yet:
Yet it's hard to discover which degrees he has, where he went to school, or any of the normal qualifications of someone who's an author, lecturer, and expert on TM, with university appointments.

Not only is Australia's blood management program spearheaded by prominent JWs, almost all of those involved in bloodless surgery clinics in USA are JWs.

Submitting to 'bloodless' surgical procedures is sort of like going to an abortion clinic run by the pope and managed by prominent Catholics.