konceptual99

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Posts by konceptual99

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  14

  Outstanding new book out today for you atheists, agnostics, humanists, naturalists and free thinkers

  by Cornbread in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i 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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  konceptual99

  Damn....
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  171

  RC 2016 Leaks & Releases

  by wifibandit in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  in an effort to reduce the number of posts, this year i will try to add links to this post.

  now, on with the leaks & releases!

  first up.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nzvwhflss4.

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  konceptual99

  The irony of the convention theme of loyalty against the video leak along with the entire convention outline in Spanish is priceless.

  Thanks Wifi and all those with access and a conscience.
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  31

  Availability Crisis of Conscience.

  by Ben131895 in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  most of us are desperately waiting for the availability of a legal crisis of conscience.

  deborah dykstra provided us with two updates.

  on december 12, 2015 there was a clear statement about the copyright which stopped all illegal activity in spreading electronic versions & prints.. finally, she promised a new update by or before may 6.. so far no new update.

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  konceptual99

  As far as publishing to Kindle is concerned....

  https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A2VHRJZXET0TWT

  As far as short run hard copy printing is concerned, rightly or wrongly, Cedars showed how cheaply and quickly this could be achieved.

  Before anyone flames me down I support the distribution of the book in a structured way by parties with the rights to do so, The above are just a couple of points to indicate how quickly something could be done. Perhaps a little simplistic as I know the copyright owner wants to cover a number of bases both with print and electronic media and has had a lot of things to consider with copyright, ill health and so on, but there was a tremendous amount of goodwill here and elsewhere to supporting the copyright holder's aims and this is being eroded by lack of visible progress.

  In the meantime distribution of the book as a shared PDF is no doubt continuing unabated.
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  11

  All or Nothing: The Slippery Slope of Watchtower Morality

  by Londo111 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  there is a common saying that “the crime should fit the punishment”.

  a minor violation should receive a minor correction; a major violation receives a major punishment.

  take the example of a kid who accidently spills soda on the carpet.

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  konceptual99

  Stories like Moses not getting into the Promised Land for his one mistake, the fellow getting fried for trying to stop the Ark of the Covenant falling off the cart and bears eating groups of kids simply for being silly kids are used to justify draconian punishments when elders jump to knee jerk reactions when a little time, reasonableness and mercy would bring a far better long term situation.
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  11

  epica- ice cores

  by joey jojo in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  epica- european project for ice coring in antarctica.. kind of old news but fascinating.

  over the last 10 years or so, this organisation has analysed ice core samples taken from antarctica.

  drilling more than 3000 metres into the permafrost, they produced the longest, continuous record of earths climate extending back almost 800 000 years.

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  konceptual99

  Check half way down this page

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/487530006/my-letter-bethel-about-flood?page=5&size=10
  
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  11

  epica- ice cores

  by joey jojo in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  epica- european project for ice coring in antarctica.. kind of old news but fascinating.

  over the last 10 years or so, this organisation has analysed ice core samples taken from antarctica.

  drilling more than 3000 metres into the permafrost, they produced the longest, continuous record of earths climate extending back almost 800 000 years.

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  konceptual99

  Oh yeah - top job Cornbread as well...
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  11

  epica- ice cores

  by joey jojo in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  epica- european project for ice coring in antarctica.. kind of old news but fascinating.

  over the last 10 years or so, this organisation has analysed ice core samples taken from antarctica.

  drilling more than 3000 metres into the permafrost, they produced the longest, continuous record of earths climate extending back almost 800 000 years.

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  konceptual99

  Great timing. I read and article on this in New Scientist during the WT study yesterday and was going to post a topic on the subject of ice cores and flood. I too searched for "ice cores" on the WT Library and found no trace of any mention of them except for one...

  It's a picture credit from page 10 of the Was Life Created brochure where they use the picture of some bacteria that were found in 3km deep in an ice core taken from a glacier in Greenland with an age of 120,000 years . You can see the same picture and read more about this here:

  https://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Chryseobacterium_greenlandense

  The full credit is:

  Penn State University, laboratory of Jean Brenchley, and with kind permission from Springer ScienceBusiness Media: Extremophiles, Novel ultramicrobacterial isolates from a deep Greenland ice core represent a proposed new species, Chryseobacterium greenlandense sp. nov., January 2010, Jennifer Loveland-Curtze;

  They refer to the picture as "subterranean bacteria". In the text they state the following:

  Earth: Just one hundred grams (3.5 ounces) of soil has been found to host 10,000 species of bacteria, not to mention the total number of microbes. Some species have been found almost two miles underground!

  The last sentence is referenced to this article in the bibliography:

  http://cips.berkeley.edu/events/planets-life-seminar/chivian.pdf

  The synopsis is:

  DNA from low-biodiversity fracture water collected at 2.8-kilometer depth in a South African gold mine was sequenced and assembled into a single, complete genome. This bacterium, Candidatus Desulforudis audaxviator, composes >99.9% of the microorganisms inhabiting the fluid phase of this particular fracture. Its genome indicates a motile, sporulating, sulfate-reducing, chemoautotrophic thermophile that can fix its own nitrogen and carbon by using machinery shared with archaea. Candidatus Desulforudis audaxviator is capable of an independent life-style well suited to long-term isolation from the photosphere deep within Earth’s crust and offers an example of a natural ecosystem that appears to have its biological component entirely encoded within a single genome.

  So the "subterranean" bacteria is not just from under the earth, but from ice that has been there for 120,000 years. And the organisation is implicitly admitting it.

  So, you can ask any Witness if the polar ice caps were there before the flood and they will almost certainly say "no" because they all think the climate was in equilibrium earth wide due to the rain canopy. This suggests something different and it's from right out of a publication.

  
  

  
  
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  171

  RC 2016 Leaks & Releases

  by wifibandit in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  in an effort to reduce the number of posts, this year i will try to add links to this post.

  now, on with the leaks & releases!

  first up.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nzvwhflss4.

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  konceptual99

  "Br. Brown" being in this video just shows that you can marry young, be a wife beater, divorce her and still get accepted to Bethel.
  For reals.

  Are you making some kind of allegation against the actor or am I missing something?
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  28

  I cringe when I think about the talks I gave.

  by James Mixon in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  you brothers who gave talks do you thinks about the crap you spoke from the platform.. thirty years old, no knowledge what so ever of the world we live in, barely making the grade.

  to graduate from high school, a year and half in jc college and now with schooling of jw higher.

  education i thought i was a hell of a speaker.

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  konceptual99

  Great OP and thread.

  I used to think I was a good speaker but I now realise I had more in common with a parrot.
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  174

  Awake #4/2016: Homosexuality

  by Designer Stubble in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  the new awake is up on jw.orgwith the legalization of gay marriage in many countries, they decided it was time to show: "what does thebible say about homosexuality?

  "does the bible promote prejudice?still, some people would say that the bible promotes prejudice against homosexuals and that those who adhere to itsmoral code are intolerant.

  ‘the bible was written at a time when people were narrow-minded,’ they claim.

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  konceptual99

  There are two aspects to the problem I can see.

  The first is how one interprets homophobia. For some, simply disagreeing with homosexuality (as the Bible does) constitutes homophobia whereas for others the margins are broader. Does disagreeing with Islam make one an Islamaphobe? Does disagreeing with Christianity make one a Chrisianphobe (does that word even exist???)?

  You might argue that an individual's sexuality cannot be treated in the same way as something like religion or a political view but then you have to ask what about the view of hetrosexual adultery or fornication. Witnesses disagree with this as well - does their public condemnation of this in itself constitute some kind of phobia or hate speech?

  The second aspect is tolerance. It's quite possible to disagree with a religious or political view yet tolerate, respect or even be friends with someone who holds a view different to yours.

  Witnesses would argue that they tolerate gay people just as much as they tolerate anyone else outside of their organisation. They would claim that a gay person can become a Witness. They would use that as an argument to suggest they are not homophobic.

  The problem is that the club rules do not permit a gay person to lead a fulfilled and open life and be a member of the club. Is this homophobia or yet another case of the balancing act that humanity has to undergo to try and square the circle of free speech, free thought, tolerance, acceptance, equal rights and so on?