it's no secret that both remaining a jw or leaving the wts can take a toll on mental health.
some will suffer from depression and ultimately some will have thoughts of suicide and a few will succumb to those.. but i don't recall ever seeing any hard stats or studies on it though.
i'm sure we all know of some people who have committed suicide but i don't know if, because you may have loose association with a much larger pool of people through the religion, that this only seems higher or maybe not be actually higher than the general population.. what i mean is, you go to a kh here there maybe 100-150 people, you attend circuit and district conventions with many tens of thousands - if any one person commits suicide then you likely hear about it and it becomes part of the anecdotal 'evidence' that is then put forward as a fact that there is a higher rate ... but is there?.
It's commonly assumed that JWs have high mental illness and suicide rates, but I am not aware of any strong evidence to support it.
Personally I know a lot of JWs with mental health problems and I've know 3 JWs who committed suicide, and heard of others. Anecdotal evidence suggests to me JWs do have a problem. But I don't know of any firm empirical data to back it up.
i'm think with the president having the ability to use nuclear weapons the need for a psychological exam should be a must for world safety because of the very real damage an easily offended narcissist could do if in a narcissistic rage he had access to nuclear weapons.
since he has clearly shown he has all 100% of the signs that he is one,, surely he can be impeached over this even in conservative run house and senate.
i think the united states owes the world that precaution to not let a mad man have access to nuclear weapons.
Democracy is a fine principle, and I'd support it almost all the time. But preservation of human life on the planet is also a worthy goal. And if it's a straight choice between upholding democracy or preserving the human species, then in this one instance, I'd vote for survival over democracy. The fear that this might set a dangerous precedent is not as great as the fear that this mad person will visit annihilation on the planet. When the mushroom clouds ascend what fool is going to say, "it's what the people wanted, we had to accept it."
i'm think with the president having the ability to use nuclear weapons the need for a psychological exam should be a must for world safety because of the very real damage an easily offended narcissist could do if in a narcissistic rage he had access to nuclear weapons.
since he has clearly shown he has all 100% of the signs that he is one,, surely he can be impeached over this even in conservative run house and senate.
i think the united states owes the world that precaution to not let a mad man have access to nuclear weapons.
Trump is clearly a dangerous narcissist. I have no doubt about this whatever. If Trump at any point needs to choose between suffering damage to his ego or blowing up the planet it is not at all clear he could stop himself from blowing up the planet. Ego is so all consuming for narcissists that they will do absolutely anything to avoid loss of face.
But won't people around him stop him? Unfortunatley the system doesn't work like that. I heard a general explain that the exact protocol around nuclear decision making is classified, but the public should be in no doubt the system is designed for speed to carry out presidential orders, it is not designed for deliberation or debate.
Americans should have thought about this and voted accordingly. I don't know what can be done now other than cross our fingers and hope for the best. I am not optimistic about survival of the next few years if Trump is in charge. I guess the best hope is that he is arrested or impeached fairly quickly.
as far as i know, the "creation" book is out of print ?, am i right?.
well, i was searching for new watchtower articles trying to debunk, for instance, human evolution.
so, i did my homework, for the first time, so as to read past and updated papers and books on human evolution.
JWs can budge on anything if they want to. Russell was comfortable with the idea that animals evolved but humans were a special creation. Modern JWs could revert to that, or they could even accept human evolution too, as the Catholic Church does. I am not saying they will necessarily, but it's possible, I don't see why not.
as far as i know, the "creation" book is out of print ?, am i right?.
well, i was searching for new watchtower articles trying to debunk, for instance, human evolution.
so, i did my homework, for the first time, so as to read past and updated papers and books on human evolution.
Jwfacts lists some misquotes in the Creation book toward the bottom of this page.
http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/misquotes-deception-lies.php
The Dawkins one is my favourite (they quote the words in red):
Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, 1976, p.ix:
"This book should be read almost as though it were science fiction. It is designed to appeal to the imagination. But it is not science fiction: it is science. Cliché or not, "stranger than fiction" expresses exactly how I feel about the truth."
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just a bit of fun..
Maybe I'll work out how to do it later and come up with something.
as far as i know, the "creation" book is out of print ?, am i right?.
well, i was searching for new watchtower articles trying to debunk, for instance, human evolution.
so, i did my homework, for the first time, so as to read past and updated papers and books on human evolution.
The Creator book was notable for its almost complete lack of discussion of evolution. It talks a lot about the origin of the universe, the origin of life, the meaning of life, the Bible and so on. Nothing much about natural selection, the fossil record, and all the things the blue Creation book majored on. It's as if they gave up arguing about evolution and retrenched with the cosmological argument, meaning of life and divine revelation.
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just a bit of fun..
Being technologically completely inept, could you explain how to create these graphics? Can I do it on my iPad?
just writing down some notes to share with jws when i meet them.
here are a few of the problems of logic i see in their doctrines.
perhaps you can add to them.. systemic contradictions – jws boast about fighting for religious freedom – that is their freedom to share their differing views with people outside the organization - yet there is no freedom amongst members to disagree with any official teaching within the organization without the threat of losing friends and family.
It's true that the WT has taught that all Christians between 100 AD and the early 20th century were anointed. But it's also the case that they reckon that most of those who professed to be Christians were false Christians in that period. So their numbers work in their own terms.
By the way, since they dropped the 1935 date as the cut off for anointed, I am not sure if they do still definitely teach that all Christians between the first century and the twentieth century were anointed. It's certainly what they used to teach when they had the 1935 date. At the moment what they teach appears a bit ambiguous. Maybe they will "clarify" at some point, especially if the numbers look increasingly incredible.,
as far as i know, the "creation" book is out of print ?, am i right?.
well, i was searching for new watchtower articles trying to debunk, for instance, human evolution.
so, i did my homework, for the first time, so as to read past and updated papers and books on human evolution.
Has the extent of plagiarism in the blue Creation book been laid out fully anywhere?
Yeah WT publications don't do extended argumentation any more. They just point to intelligent design type arguments and appeals to authority.
