Steve2: the reddit post seems very suspicious, but the events described in the OP could be seen as independent confirming at least parts of them (check the dates)
Posts by bohm
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32The Congregational Make Up Research Project: WTB&TS wants to know you.
by oppostate inwe have a bethel speaker on the english side.
they're pretty regular up here since it's only three and a half hours drive from nyc.. but this is a special kind of visit.. it turns out he's involved in doing a special research project and the christian congregation of jw's wants to know us better.. in order for the broadcasting to address issues more meaningful for families, they want to know the demographic make up of the congregations.. he spoke with the secretary about young single publishers and couples 20-35 y.o.
how are they employed.
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32
The Congregational Make Up Research Project: WTB&TS wants to know you.
by oppostate inwe have a bethel speaker on the english side.
they're pretty regular up here since it's only three and a half hours drive from nyc.. but this is a special kind of visit.. it turns out he's involved in doing a special research project and the christian congregation of jw's wants to know us better.. in order for the broadcasting to address issues more meaningful for families, they want to know the demographic make up of the congregations.. he spoke with the secretary about young single publishers and couples 20-35 y.o.
how are they employed.
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bohm
This poster on reddit claims that there is a special department about bethel which specialize in gathering information about the JWs, presumably related to income:
https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/4j7ocl/rumor_new_psych_department_at_bethel/
It sounded a bit tinfoily but what do you know, someone from bethel is doing a survey....!
Since last September 1, I have worked in an almost clandestine department, installed in Patterson, in the area of the new video studio, an office with several faithful brothers, all university graduates (a graduate in sociology at Chicago and some older brothers from the service department, with the help of several elders of the U.S. franch service desk).
They have been conducting a study in more than 100 congregations across the United States, with fieldwork, taking advantage of special talks and Circuit Assemblies, developing profiles on:
Family Groups and age demographics - Young couples with children under ten years - Married Couples with teenage children under 18 - Adolescents and young ones under 25 years.
Beauty and Fashion trends of: - Young Couples - Teenagers - Young people under 25 years.
Racial groups in U.S. English congregations Racial groups in U.S. Spanish congregations
Economic situation of the congregation and members. - Property, vehicles, jobs.
The idea of the Coordinating Committee, which oversees this study on sociology and trends, is to analyze the real situation in all congregations in the United States, create a profile to modify procedures to advance the new e-cult 3.0.
It aims to soften some procedures, modify the [theocratic?] vocabulary and make some small cosmetic changes to be discussed within the Governing Body.
When we have more news, we will give more light, you can be sure!
The existence of this department is very confidential, they are scared to possible leaks. Traceable documents are very limited, and those who have done fieldwork know the use of all data that they have been collecting.
The same study is being done in Mexico during 2016-2017.
Hedmano Replicante and his girlfriend (former Bethelite) in Patterson.
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160
Beliefs About What Caused the Universe
by Perry inthe universe can be observed to be expanding.. an expanding universe must have had a beginning.
whatever begins to exist had a cause.
therefore the universe had a cause.
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bohm
Just to clarify, materialists starts with the assumptions we are here, now in a universe that is at least partly understandable through reason and experience. Reason and experience gets us back to about 13.7 billions years ago in the very early big-bang phase of our universe where we have no relevant experience and reason gives contradiction results. The logical conclusion is then not "it sure all came from nothing" but "we don't know".
Perry, YOU are the one who claims to know what lies outside reason. Stop projecting your arrogance onto others.
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160
Beliefs About What Caused the Universe
by Perry inthe universe can be observed to be expanding.. an expanding universe must have had a beginning.
whatever begins to exist had a cause.
therefore the universe had a cause.
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bohm
I know this is properly in vain but..
And something from nothing isn't magic? At least with magic you start with a magician. Materialists start with literally nothing. Why isn't this happening now?
this is false and it is not the conclusion of the Vilenkin articles (2003 and 2012 versions).
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Why education is a killer for doomsday cults.
by Half banana inif you were to read the watchtower literature and you believed it to be the exclusive divinely inspired interpretation of the bible, i suggest that you would not be learning anything useful, instead you would simply be absorbing the indoctrination of the jw org..
what is the difference between indoctrination and education?.
take any passage from the watchtower this sentence for example which assumes significance in the end of six thousand years of human history in 1975: “how then does this fit in with god’s timetable?”.
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bohm
What a great post. A quote that I often think about on this topic (I can't recall where I first saw it) goes something like this (I think i am butchering it pretty badly though): The difference between a scientific mindset and a non-scientific mindset is that a non-scientific mindset tries to label statements as either true or false whereas a scientific mindset asks how likely each statement is to be true and how we can know.
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36
Gorby says goodbye
by Gorbatchov inmy eyes for ttatt opened in 1995 with the generation change and the wt magazine stated "some witness thought that the generation started in 1914".
since 1997, with internet at low speed, i followed h2o hourglass, www.xjw.com and later on www.jehovahs-witness.net.. did a bachelor and post bachelor since then.. now, nearly completed with fading, i feel it's time to go on with my life and do some other things, spending more time with my wife abd children instead of thinking about jw topics in my head.
goal is being a better person and less grumpy at 45.... everything what could be said is already said.
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bohm
Best wishes Gorby -
160
Beliefs About What Caused the Universe
by Perry inthe universe can be observed to be expanding.. an expanding universe must have had a beginning.
whatever begins to exist had a cause.
therefore the universe had a cause.
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bohm
I have read the two articles in question by Vilenkin (and coauthors) and it might be relevant to state what the articles show and do not show because this is often being confused as it is on this thread.
What Borde, Guth and Vilenkin showed (and the proof is not in dispute) is that if you start out with a classical space-time, and you assume it has always been expanding, then at some point in the past at least parts of the space-time will undergo a singularity, i.e. our description will break down.
To put this in lay-mans terms: Suppose we ignore quantum mechanics and assume the universe has always been expanding, then at some point in the past our current laws of nature won't work anymore.
However I can't think of any cosmologist who would think that we should not take quantum mechanics into account when the universe is the size of an atom, and the BGV theorem does not do that because we don't know what that description should be. This is not me saying they are mistaken or ignoring something, they say so themselves in the paper!.
To use the BGV theorem to argue for God is no better than to say: "Oh gee, a simple model of the universe we know is wrong can also be proven to break down, therefore god must have made everything".
And it's even worse than that. In reality, some scientists believe the universe had a "beginning" (but this certainly include natural beginnings), and some that it did not. Even if we trust the BGV theorem despite being based on a known incomplete model of the universe that would still only leave us with those models of the universe where there is no beginning. it does not get us anywhere.
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45
Berkshire Circuit (UK)
by Dont_Believe_The_Truth ini'm hearing rumours of huge changes within the berkshire circuit here in the uk .
congregations being dispanded and kingdom halls closing down and being sold off.... official announcements within the next month apparently .
does anyone else have anymore info?.
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bohm
This is a very interesting thread, thanks for bringing it back up. It is too bad there is no coordinated effort to track the WTBS selling/buying of KHs. -
85
My letter to Bethel about the flood
by Cornbread ini've decided to go full public with a new username on this forum.
it's been almost a decade since i've been out and i don't care at this point who knows.
that being said, here's a letter that i'm mailing to bethel.
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bohm
Truthexplorer: okay, no worries. But lets stick with Carbon 14 for a moment. what is your explanation of the graph I showed on the previous page? in particular, why on your opinion does all these different methods converge on the same result if carbon 14 does not work? -
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Outstanding new book out today for you atheists, agnostics, humanists, naturalists and free thinkers
by Cornbread ini just got back from the bookstore and i can't wait to sink into it based on all the reviews and press it has been getting.
it's called the big picture - on the origin of life, meaning, and the universe itself by sean carroll.. “weaving the threads of astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, and philosophy into a seamless narrative tapestry, sean carroll enthralls us with what we’ve figured out in the universe and humbles us with what we don’t yet understand.
yet in the end, it’s the meaning of it all that feeds your soul of curiosity.” —neil degrasse tyson, host of cosmos: a spacetime odyssey*publishers weekly #1 most anticipated science book of spring 2016*"already internationally acclaimed for his elegant, lucid writing on the most challenging notions in modern physics, sean carroll is emerging as one of the greatest humanist thinkers of his generation as he brings his extraordinary intellect to bear not only on higgs bosons and extra dimensions but now also on our deepest personal questions.
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bohm
I am looking forward to reading it in the summer.