Posts by neverendingjourney

41

Counting service time in a creative way

by nevaagain in

jw
friends

couting time and, how to count time while doing as little service as possible is often a hot topic around witnesses.

i even overheard pioneers discussing about it.

they call it "creative time counting" (i translated that phrase from a different language so bear with me ;-).

neverendingjourney

I've written about this extensively in my prior posts. It was realy eye-opening to me to realize that most pioneers were either lying on their time cards or using ludicrous "creative" techniques that were patently against the rules to pad their field service reports. There was one regular pioneer whom I never saw out in service. Yet he once told me that as long as your neighbors saw you with a tie on you could count your time because you were giving testimony by the simple fact of being in service clothes.

I wasn't the type of guy who carried around a stop watch, but there were clear rules on the subject. Almost all pioneers found it perfectly acceptable to keep counting time even during a 2 hour lunch break. If I ever questioned them about it, they would find ridiculous way of justifying it, such as saying that so-and-so 5 year old was present and you could keep counting time so long as there was an unbaptized person present and obviously the 5 year old qualified as such. Most of the time, though, there wasn't even an attempt to justify themselves.

18

Jim Holt: Why does the universe exist?

by Brokeback Watchtower in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoruuqjd81m

neverendingjourney

Crazy coincidence, but this short video was uploaded today on World Science U's youtube channel. It's touches exactly on this discussion.

If you find this sort of thing fascinating, you might want to browse that channel's video selection. You might also enjoy their companion channel, world science festival.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm4R688pTRo

18

Jim Holt: Why does the universe exist?

by Brokeback Watchtower in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoruuqjd81m

neverendingjourney

Really NEJ, that's interesting. So why did he put it in a pop physics book I wonder? I'm just reading The GrandDesign at the moment. A bit misleading isn't it?

It's not a controversial point I'm making. Notice that Hawking couched it in terms of "according to M-Theory," which is a subset of string theory.

Note the following excerpt from an interview with a leading string theory researcher, Brian Green:

Do you think string theory will ever be accepted as widely as, say, the theory of general relativity? What would it take for that to happen?

Well, the real reason why general relativity is widely accepted is because it made predictions that were borne out by experimental observations. The primary one that put general relativity on the map was its prediction of the bending of starlight by the sun, which in 1919 was confirmed by observation during a solar eclipse. That was the moment when general relativity emerged from the realm of theory and entered the realm of being a piece of reality as we know it.

For string theory to have the kind of acceptance of general relativity, it's got to do the same thing. It's got to make a prediction that is borne out by some experiment. And as yet, we haven't quite gotten to the stage where we can make definitive predictions which, if they're found, the theory was right, and if they're not found, the theory was wrong.

But we have gotten to the stage where we can make some rough predictions for things that might happen at the future accelerators that are now being built, in particular one in Geneva, Switzerland, called the Large Hadron Collider, which should be ready about 2007 or 2008. If some of the predictions that string theory says might happen are borne out through experiment at that accelerator, then I think it's quite possible that string theory would be as accepted as general relativity.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/conversation-with-brian-greene.html

18

Jim Holt: Why does the universe exist?

by Brokeback Watchtower in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoruuqjd81m

neverendingjourney

I had no idea it is now totally accepted by physicists.

I don't think that's technically correct. From what I've read and seen, many physicists believe the math points firmly in that direction, but there has been no observational evidence confirming these ideas. Until string theory is able to make predictions that are confirmed by observation, these ideas remain firmly in the hypothesis stage.

119

How many of you followed the WTS direction on education years ago and have been screwed by it?

by Julia Orwell in

jw
friends

i'm really interested in this question because i've heard for years that if you forgo further education and go pioneering, when you have a family down the track you will get a good job because jehovah will provide for you because you pioneered.

as long as i was a kool-aid drinker, even then, i thought, "how does pioneering pay your bills?

surely education should come first.

neverendingjourney

I'd feel silly complaining about how the WT screwed me given how badly others were affected, but that being said, the WT's policies did lead to a 6 year delay for me.

I graduated high school when I was 17 in order to pioneer and pursue kingdom interests. I languished around a bit until it came together for me in my early/mid 20s. Once it clicked, I went back to school and got my bachelor's degree at the age of 27.

Had I had parents who encouraged me to go to college (or at least didn't discourage me), perhaps I would have gone straight to college and graduated at the age of 21 instead. Alls well that ends well, though. My career has gone pretty well for me, six-year-delay notwithstanding.

In contrast, my parents are approaching 70 and have nothing but social security and government assistance to get them through. I won't let them starve, but I will not set myself back financially to help them out. They made their bed and they need to lay in it.

5

Where's all my old posts??

by DATA-DOG in

my profile says that i have only made 86 posts?!?!

wth?!?

where are all my awesome posts from the past???.

neverendingjourney

I wouldn't be devastated if my history disappeared...posted too many intimate details of my personal life on earlier threads, basically treating JWD as my diary. That was all good and well until I started meeting a few people from this site in the real world. That's when the anonymity disappeared, at least with respect to those specific people.

35

Hi! Long time lurker finally signing up!

by LosingMyReligion in

jw
friends

ok, so the time has finally come to register an account on this site.

not that i think i have much to contribute to the discussions here, but more out of a desire to show that yet another person has learned ttatt.

i am a fader, not discussing ttatt with anyone as i know the inevitable outcome it would have.

neverendingjourney

Do you have any documentaries you would recommend to explain these concepts in a way that makes it understandable for someone who is not well educated in science?

Although it's a bit dated, I would highly recommend the original version of Cosmos by Carl Sagan. Sagan had a real gift for putting complicated scientific concepts in terms the common man could understand.

It was once available on Netflix. If it's no longer on their streaming catalog, it might be on youtube.

35

Hi! Long time lurker finally signing up!

by LosingMyReligion in

jw
friends

ok, so the time has finally come to register an account on this site.

not that i think i have much to contribute to the discussions here, but more out of a desire to show that yet another person has learned ttatt.

i am a fader, not discussing ttatt with anyone as i know the inevitable outcome it would have.

neverendingjourney

I feel that the complexity and the order of everything in the universe is a sign of a plan, or order if you like.

We all go through our own journey in discovering where we fall on these questions, but let me suggest that an unfiltered view of the universe actually reveals a considerable amount of evidence of a chaos, randomness and disorder. As witnesses we were selectively taught examples that might suggest design while ignoring everything else. There's a considerable amount of literature on this topic as well as good scientific documentaries if you, like me, prefer documentaries over books.

Best of luck to you.

20

Is child abuse becoming the 'Benghazi' of exJW's?

by Simon in

i've been noticing a trend recently that seems to becoming prevalent in posts which i think is a little sad and counter productive where, whatever the topic is actually about, someone will be keen to remind everyone about child abuse issues within the wts.. any sort of abuse, especially that of children, is a very serious issue but i'm not sure it's prevention is necessarily best-served by brining it up at every opportunity.

it ends up looking a little like the republican party's obsession with benghazi where they harp on about it to such an extent that people have become blind to it and it almost becomes a punchline.

people become less and less convinced of the claims because they hear them too often.. trying to turn any discussion into including comments on it, however well-intentioned, starts to look misguided at some point.

neverendingjourney

Part of the problem is that there isn't anything particularly pernicious about the Watchtower's treament of child sexual abuse as compared to other major religions.

It's hard for us who've been personally affected by this religion to keep its importance in perspective. It simply doesn't register in people's consciousness. It would garner perhaps a footnote in a history book written about our era. So everyone's attention is focused on similar issues that occurred within the context of larger more established religions that they actually know and care about.

I'm sure it's frustrating for those who want to call attention to pedophilia issues within the Watchtower, but the reality is that people don't see the need to focus on a problem in a minor religion that's already been extensively covered in the context of the Roman Catholic Church (among others).

Perhaps some of that frustration is expressed on this forum in the form of repeatedly bringing the issue up where it may not really belong.

10

Testing to see if I can start a post at all

by Open mind in

jw
friends

i tried starting a thread with a picture of an irreverent nativity scene and i guess the hoooly spirit must have stopped it.. .

now just seeing if i can start a thread at all.. .

om.

neverendingjourney

Your holy spirit comment made me remember something.

I found this site about a year after I stopped going to meetings. I was mostly out, but I still believed it was the truth on some level. Or at least I felt there was enough of a chance that it could be the truth to where I didn't want to completely "go apostate."

After a few long nights of reading the board, I began to put any lingering doubts to bed...sort of. I remember composing a terribly long introductory post spanning several pages on Microsoft Word. Then I tried to cut and paste it onto the forum using my newly-created account....and....nothing. I kept getting error message after error message. Maybe it was the programming/indoctrination or maybe there was still some lingering doubts way inside my subconscious, but I didn't attempt to post my story until many weeks later. When I was a witness and something like that would happen I would attribute it to the holy spirit trying to lead me in the right direction.

After a while I learned it was simply a well-known quirk of the forum software. If you wanted to cut and paste you had to use Microsoft notepad or some other cheap software that didn't come with a bunch of coding. The software threw up whenever you tried to paste something with a bunch of source coding (or whatever it's called). In hindsight, I'm glad I was never able to post that original story. It included way too many personal details. The introductory post I eventually submitted was extremely long anyway, and I probably cut it down to a quarter of the original length.