Thursday, June 30, 2011

This generation definition changed by Jehovahs witnesses


Jehovah's Witnesses in "Generation of 1914" doctrinal Crisis: Will the JW transform from Cult to Church in the post-2014 era? June 29, 2011 By john thomas Didymus


Dawson writes with reference to the failure of 1975 date previously set for Armageddon by the leadership of the Jehovah's Witnesses:

Singelenberg’s detailed analysis of the nature and consequences of the 1975 prophetic disconfirmation of the Jehovah’s Witnesses presents an interesting test case of the role of leadership, one that falls between the extremes examined so far. The leaders of the church responded quite strongly, though not too quickly, to the failure of 1975. They chose, however, more or less to repudiate the prophecy, even though they had promoted it. They hid behind the vagueness of the prophecy’s terms of reference, terms that may well have been kept vague as a safe guard against the possibility of failure. This definite yet compromised response prevented a full scale disaster, but it cost the church many members in
the short run.






The Governing body of the Jehovah's Witnesses has for decades taught that the beginning of World War I, in 1914, marked the commencement of Jesus' invisible Parousia in heaven, and that the generation of 1914 which saw the commencement of Jesus' Invisible presence (will not "pass away" (Matthew 24:34) before the occurrence of a catastrophic Armageddon which will destroy all "enemies of Jehovah" (read: all none Jehovah's Witnesses). With repeated attempts at setting the length of a generation having failed, the governing body of the Jehovah's Witnesses (which calls itself the "faithful and discrete slave class"–remnant of the 144,000 described in Revelations 7:2-4) introduced, in 1995, a new doctrine of the length of a generation now termed the "two overlapping generations doctrine."
Recent comments by former Witnesses, on Jehovahs-Witnesses.net , on this new doctrinal innovation by the leadership of the Jehovah's Witnesses, suggests that the group may well have commenced a post-2014 era of transformation from "cult" to mainstream leaning organization in which expectation of doomsday is postponed sufficiently to allow time for the original "generation of 1914" cult belief gradually and quietly dropped and finally openly repudiated.
The governing body of the Jehovah' Witnesses explains its new "overlapping generations" teaching in a study edition of the Watchtower Magazine, April 15th, 2010 (pg. 27-29), as follows:
Although we cannot measure the exact length of “this generation,” we do well to keep in mind several things about the word “generation”: It usually refers to people of varying ages whose lives overlap during a particular time period; it is not excessively long; and it has an end. (Ex. 1:6) How, then, are we to understand Jesus’ words about “this generation”? He evidently meant that the lives of the anointed who were on hand when the sign began to become evident in 1914 would overlap with the lives of other anointed ones who would see the start of the great tribulation.
Leon Festingers et al after conducting what is now widely acknowledged as a classic study of a UFO cult in 1954. He published the result of their study in "When Prophecy Fails." The study noted the tendency of doomsday cults, like the Jehovah's Witnesses, to adjust to failure of prophecy by rationalizing in a manner which makes it unnecessary to give up the basic assumptions and beliefs underlying their world-view. In terms of the theory of cognitive dissonance, Festinger et al, explained that groups generally adjust their beliefs in conformity with their behavior. Thus, the more committed an individual is, in his behavior, to an outcome ( an imminent Armageddon, for instance) the greater the compulsion to reduce the tension created by circumstances which challenges the validity of the belief by adjusting one's set of beliefs.

Jehovah's Witnesses in House-to-House Preaching
The cognitive dissonance theory explains the resilience of groups termed "cults" in the face of a consistent pattern of failed prophecies. Consonance seeking behavior by rationalization would appear most pronounced in doomsday or millenarian cults, and the Jehovah's Witnesses have long been recognized by scholars and experts in the field as the best example in western culture of groups seeking reestablishment of consonance by spiritualizing rationalization of failure of prophecy. The rationalization process is intimately involved in the adaptive changes by which doomsday millenarian "cults" survive, thrive and even transform fringe "cult" identify to mainstream "church" identity in the era of their life histories following failure of cult establishing end-time prophecy.
The best example of a process of spiritualizing rationalization in transition from cult to church in recent American history is provided by the Millerites who, after a series of disappointments culminating in the "great disappointment" of 1844 (with regard to their highly publicized date-setting predictions of the second-coming), managed to adjust their belief systems by spiritualizing the "great disappointment" in their "Investigative Judgment" doctrine, and have survived today in the form of the mainstream Church, The Seventh Day Adventists.
According to Dawson in his, When Prophecy Fails and Faith Persists: A Theoretical Overview, rationalization of failure may sometimes also involve attribution of failure of prophecy to human error, an approach which appears to be the main strategy of the Jehovah's Witnesses governing body in the recent cognitive consonance seeking doctrinal reviews(spiritualizing rationalization having been the basis of establishment of 1914 as date of "invisible coming" or parousia of Christ, following the failure of Armageddon date setting at 1914).
Dawson writes with reference to the failure of 1975 date previously set for Armageddon by the leadership of the Jehovah's Witnesses:
Singelenberg’s detailed analysis of the nature and consequences of the 1975 prophetic disconfirmation of the Jehovah’s Witnesses presents an interesting test case of the role of leadership, one that falls between the extremes examined so far. The leaders of the church responded quite strongly, though not too quickly, to the failure of 1975. They chose, however, more or less to repudiate the prophecy, even though they had promoted it. They hid behind the vagueness of the prophecy’s terms of reference, terms that may well have been kept vague as a safe guard against the possibility of failure. This definite yet compromised response prevented a full scale disaster, but it cost the church many members in
the short run.
In his When Prophecy Fails and Faith Persists, Dawson explains that the survival of a cult, when prophecy fails, may depend on the intensity of dissonance felt in the first place and, secondly, on the ability of the leadership in dissonance management. Dawson suggests that for most cults which survive the failure of prophecy, dissonance may not have been as intense for insiders as perceived by outsiders (religious beliefs being unlike scientific beliefs). Those members for whom dissonance was most intense are those who defect while those who stay form the nucleus of a new "settled" organization which may actually expand proselytizing efforts in period following failure of prophecy and gradually acquire a mainstream status.





Source

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Greece explodes into chaos

Greek police fired teargas and battled masked demonstrators who attacked the financeministry on Wednesday after lawmakers passed the first of two austerity bills demanded by international lenders to stave off default.

First Obama Kills Osama With A Bullet To His Face Today Obama Wins Another Round For The People...

Deep into his concurrence in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decision affirming the constitutionality of Obamacare, Justice Jeffrey Sutton riffs on the fundamentally economic nature of any decision involving health insurance. To make his point he drags in none other than billionaireWarren Buffett, who once said his company makes “more money when snoring than when active.”

Sutton invoked the Sage of Omaha to demonstrate that “inaction is action, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse, when it comes to financial risk.”


To the fatalistic view that Congress will always prevail and courts should step back and let the people, if offended, speak through their political representatives, I say that “courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, in order, among other things, to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority.”

Indeed, the majority’s reasoning raises an interesting question. To justify the individual mandate, they cite the huge costs the uninsured impose on the insured — $43 billion in 2008, adding $1,000 a year to a family health policy. It was to correct these flaws in the national insurance market that Congress acted, they said...


When Warren Buffett tells shareholders …“[i]nactivity strikes us as intelligent behavior,” …he is not urging the Board of Directors to place him in a Rip Van Winkle-like stupor for the next year. He is saying that, of the many buy and sell recommendations that came across his desk that year, the best thing he could have done is the informed, even masterful, inaction of saying no to all of them.

Whether the Commerce Clause regulates inaction, Sutton said, is besides the point. And ultimately, the voters will decide whether Obamacare is a good idea. The U.S. Supreme Court approved a national bank back in 1819 in the absence of any specific constitutional authorization and it was up to the political process to determine whether that was a good idea. In the end, Sutton wrote, “there was no third national bank.”

Click Here For The Rest Of The Article


Facebook’s Zuckerberg Is Now Richer Than The Google Guys

Jun. 28 2011 - 5:30 pm | 32,892 views | 1 recommendation | 7 comments

Paragraphs five and six updated.

In news reportedearlier this week by my colleague Tomio Geron, publicly-traded closed-end mutual fund GSV Capital bought 225,000 shares of the social networking giant Facebook at an average price of $29.28 per share or a valuation of about $70 billion. Its stock is up about 40% since the news.

The $70 billion valuation is also a 40% premium to the $50 billion we used to measure the fortunes of the six Facebook billionaires back in February when we were putting together our list of World’s Richest People. Its shares have traded even higher on secondary markets.

At the time we valued Facebook’s chieftain Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth at $13.5 billion. Today, based on the new numbers/new investment, Zuckerberg’s mostly paper fortune (we figure he has quietly sold about $1 billion worth of shares) jumps past $18 billion. The other Facebook billionaires including Dustin Moskovitz, Eduardo Saverin, Sean Parker, Peter Thiel and Yuri Milner are all richer too. Continue to read at this link.


The conviction of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich represents a courtroom victory for United States Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald after a series of defeats, but to get this win, Fitzgerald had to convince a jury that sharp-elbowed politics is something for which a man should spend time in prison.

The most controversial charge Blagojevich faced was that he planned to sell Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat. But Fitzgerald decided to come out swinging, terminated the wiretaps on Blagojevich’s home and office, arrested the then-sitting governor, held a sensational press conference, and called it a wrap before this alleged sale would have even taken place. Fitzgerald was obviously unwilling to wait out the unfolding situation to see if the governor was really serious about “selling” the seat to the highest bidder.

Had Blagojevich actually followed through with the sale of a Senate seat, Fitzgerald’s heavy-handed prosecutorial approach might have been justified. But in light of the fact that no seat was sold, and that these appointments are regularly used to for political benefit, the reasonable doubt that a crime was actually committed would appear to be overwhelming. For a US Attorney who is known for “crossing his T’s and dotting his I’s,” you have to wonder why Fitzgerald didn’t spring into action after the sale of the seat, once the dirty deal was done. Blagojevich’s own writing may give us a clue. Blagojevich claims in his memoir, “The Governor,” that the goal of the Senate appointment was to get a political opponent out of the way, not to sell the seat for cash. If this scenario is to be believed, then Fitzgerald went forward with the case when he did because, had he waited until after the seat was filled, there would not have been a case since the seat would have been awarded not for cash, but for quite traditional political advantage.


Continue reading here


Sunday, June 26, 2011

4th of July at Villa Vellano 2011 Summer Shooters Standings

Joe H
8 Bullseye
July 4th 2011




The VillaVellano 2011 Target Shooting Tournament

Standings June 25 2011
.177 Pellet Rifle with Scope
65 feet Target Is A Soda Can

Joe H. Mississauga 8 Bullseye
Dick S. Rochester NY 6 Bullseye
Fd Mississauga 5 Bullseye
Lorus Thorold 4 Bullseye
Sandy B Georgetown 3 Bullseye
Phil Stoney Creek 3 Bullseye
Pierre Mississauga 2 Bullseye



Yet to qualify:


Jim M. Brooklin
Rob D. Etobicoke
Bruce Whitby
Greg Georgetown
Simone Georgetown
Joe Hakim Mississauga
Mike M Wasaga Beach
Dennis M Mississauga
Stefan S Toronto
Rens R Collingwood




Sunday, June 19, 2011

U.S. cops rescued from edge of Niagara Falls

NIAGARA FALLS, ONT. - Two American police officers needed a rescue from a Canadian helicopter pilot when their boat became stranded in a river here Saturday after they themselves rescued four teens from a disabled motorboat headed toward the falls.

And the stranded officers couldn't wait to get out of their troubled boat, their rescuer said.

"They were both very excited," Ruedi Hafen, a pilot with Niagara Helicopters, said Saturday after he'd been involved in the rescue. "They both wanted to get off that boat."

At about 2 a.m. Saturday, New York State Parks police got a call about a disabled vessel with four people aboard. The boat was in the Niagara River near the Three Sisters Islands, about 275 metres from the brink of the Horseshoe Falls, Sgt. Mark Van Wie said.

The boaters were near the water intake area for the hydroelectric plants on the American side of the river, and well inside an area off limits to boats.

It wasn't clear to police where the people aboard the 18-foot motorboat were from or whether they'd run out of gas or encountered engine trouble, Van Wie said.

Two New York parks officers set out in their own boat to rescue the stranded teens. They got them back to shore, but in the course of the rescue, at about 4:15 a.m., their own boat ran into trouble because of heavy fog.

The officers dropped anchor and waited for a rescue.

A helicopter in Erie County, N.Y., was fogged in and couldn't help. The Canadian Coast Guard in Trenton was too far away.

So Hafen's team swung into action.

Hafen flew his helicopter out with an employee and Niagara Parks Police officer Const. Shawn Black, who was lowered to the boat to give the two stranded officers harnesses.

Hafen made two trips from the boat to shore, each time with one of the stranded officers and Black dangling from a 33-metre line attached to the bottom of his blue Bell helicopter -- a far cry from the chopper's usual role, giving tourists a bird's eye view of the falls.

At about 8:30 a.m., four hours after the two stranded officers anchored their boat, they were finally back on shore.

Saturday afternoon, the abandoned boat was still anchored in the river, only the windshield visible.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Liu Qian Magician Will Blow Your Mind...Explain This One!

This is the most amazing Chinese Magician, the sound is in chinese, you may wish to turn the sound down or off, the illusion will be just as amazing without the distraction of the sound. You will see the magic right before your eyes.

One word of warning...the best is his finale so be patient and watch the whole video.
Enjoy!

Monday, June 13, 2011

Alexander Watchhurst written up when his team raises 13k or cancer research

Dufferin Relay for Life raises $131K

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Battling cancer can last a lifetime, but raising money to help find a cure took less than a day.
On Friday (June 10), Dufferin County’s second annual Relay For Life welcomed residents to a 12-hour fundraiser and festival at the Orangeville fairgrounds to celebrate the lives of cancer survivors and its victims, while raising money for the Canadian Cancer Society.
More than 300 supporters and 55 teams walked through the night, and helped raise an estimated $131,000 in pledges and donations, a number Lynn Lowe, chair of Dufferin County Relay For Life, was thrilled to see.
“It’s phenomenal,” she said. “The teams really came to bat this year and the team totals were just fantastic.”
Last year, the event raised $53 million across Canada and just more than $100,000 in Dufferin County. Lowe said she was confident they could beat their previous total this time around, and was proud to see a large number of younger supporters at this years event.
“We had a great youth presence,” she said. “It’s amazing how many of those guys stayed up and partied all night long and just kind of kept this energy going.”
The opening ceremony allowed local cancer survivors to perform a lap in a course lined with homemade lanterns, to a surrounding and cheering crowd consisting mostly of the teams, united in outrageous fashions, that were responsible for the money raised.
“Last year (the teams) got a taste of (Relay For Life),” Lowe said. “But this year so many teams put forth such a great effort.”
From dusk until dawn, multiple bands entertained the committed crowd while various meals and selections of food were continuously served throughout the night.
Games such as a three-legged race and wheelbarrow races were among the activities that kept the festival alive during the wee hours of the night and into morning.
“Cancer does not stop for nighttime,” Lowe said. “Relay For Life is overnight because cancer never sleeps.”
Orangeville District Secondary School student Alexander Watchurst addressed the crowd early on, thanking the volunteers and committee members for organizing Dufferin County’s second Relay For Life, a cancer fundraiser Watchurst has been attending and supporting since 2003.
“When people deal with cancer, they feel alone,” Watchurst said. “But events like Relay For Life can bring together people in only a way that people who have faced cancer can understand. It brings them together to feel like a family.”
Having been diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia at two years old, Watchurst battled cancer during the early stages of his life. He was forced through treatments for the better part of three years, and at age five, was told he had overcome the disease.
“I was told I could go back to living a normal live,” he said. “But there’s always the risk afterwards that you could relapse and the cancer could come back.”
But the time he spent in hospitals motivated the 18-year-old to continue the fight against cancer, and since his first encounter with Relay For Life in Brampton, it’s been a cause and event he’s proudly supported with his friends and family.
At this year’s event, Watchurst’s team, The Watchurst Basement Dwellers, personally raised $13,000 in pledges and donations and placed first for most money raised among the 55 teams. But Watchurst was just happy to see the community band together through the fundraising process.
“It’s so amazing to see a small community like Orangeville bring in all that money and come together and create such an empowering event,” he said.
Next year’s event will be held in June as well, and Lowe says as of next week, her and the committee will be preparing for Relay For Life 2012.
For more information on how to volunteer or get involved with future Relay For Life events, visit www.relayforlife.ca/dufferin.



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Friday, June 3, 2011

Zuckerberg kicks ceglia right into jail for fraud?

Mark Zuckerberg
Image: AP
See Also:

Facebook Says It Doesn't Know Whether The Emails From The Guy Who Says He Owns 50% Of The Company Are Fake

Facebook 700,000,000

BOOM: Facebook Just Nuked The Case Of Paul Ceglia -- The Guy Who Claims He Owns 50% Of Zuckerberg's Stake In The Company

Earlier today, Facebook responded in full to the lawsuit brought by Paul Ceglia, the upstate New York wood-pellet salesman who says Mark Zuckerberg gave him half of the company 7 years ago.
Facebook's response was, in short, a big can of whup-ass.
Last month, when Paul Ceglia filed an amended complaint with dozens of purported emails backing up his story, we thought Facebook might have to dole out a humongous settlement to make Ceglia go away.
Facebook immediately denounced the emails as fake, of course, but the emails didn't read fake, and Facebook did not offer a compelling explanation for how Facebook knew the emails were fake (at the time, it may not have had one). And based on some of Mark Zuckerberg's other behavior as a 19 year old, it seemed conceivable that Ceglia's claim--as preposterous as it sounded--might actually be plausible. Especially because a major law firm, DLA Piper, had examined Ceglia's evidence and concluded that Ceglia's claim was genuine.
Well, after today, we suspect the folks at DLA Piper are wishing they had never heard of Paul Ceglia.
Last fall, after Ceglia filed his original complaint, Facebook did a few things.
First, they hired the investigation firm Kroll to investigate Ceglia and see what else they could dig up on him. Ceglia, of course, had already been charged with fraud in connection with his wood-pellet company, which wasn't an asset to his case, but, hey, everyone makes mistakes, and maybe Ceglia really had intended to deliver the wood pellets that he took cash deposits on.

Paul Ceglia
Image: Classmates.com www.classmates.com
Well, Kroll found that Ceglia had once tried to sell a Florida orange grove he didn't own. Kroll found that Ceglia had sold several plots of land in Florida on eBay that Ceglia represented as "buildable" that weren't buildable and were later declared worthless. Kroll found that, to jack up the prices of these worthless land sales, Ceglia had engaged in shill-bidding on eBay. Kroll found that Ceglia had forged government documents to aid in the Florida land sales. Kroll found that Ceglia had sold land that he didn't own in New York State and pretended to sell land that he did own--taking the money and keeping the land.
In short, Kroll basically found that Ceglia is a career con-artist.
The second thing Facebook did, after Ceglia filed his amended complaint with the purported emails last month, was hire an investigator to analyze Mark Zuckerberg's Harvard email account (the one through which he had presumably corresponded with Ceglia).
The investigator found approximately 175 emails between Zuckerberg and Ceglia in the relevant period, but none of Ceglia's purported emails.
The investigator also found emails showing that, far from Ceglia getting screwed by Zuckerberg (which the purported emails show), Zuckerberg got screwed by Ceglia! Specifically, the real emails, which are still resident in Zuckerberg's Harvard email account, show that Zuckerberg did contract development work for Ceglia and that Ceglia never paid him for it.
Given that Zuckerberg's Harvard email system did not contain the emails that Ceglia filed in his amended complaint, there's only one possible way Ceglia's claim can be genuine: If Mark Zuckerberg selectively deleted every one of the emails cited in the complaint. While this is theoretically possible, it seems highly unlikely--especially in light of the story told by Ceglia's purported emails.

Nice try, fella.
In those "emails," a nervous Mark Zuckerberg is trying to back out of his deal with Ceglia by offering to return the $2,000 Ceglia gave him to develop "the face book."
In the real emails, the one the investigator just found in Harvard's email system, a nervous and grovellingly apologetic Paul Ceglia can't come up with the $11,000 he owes Mark Zuckerberg for developing Ceglia's site, which was called StreetFax.
And Facebook didn't stop there. Facebook also hired a document analyst to examine the "contract" that Ceglia produced last summer. The document expert said the contract is an "amateurish forgery."
And Facebook hired a linguistic expert to analyze the language used in the real Zuckerberg-Ceglia emails (found in Zuckerberg's Harvard email system) and compare it to the language used in the Ceglia emails. The expert concluded that Mark Zuckerberg is not likely the author of the "Mark Zuckerberg" emails that Ceglia produced.
And so on...
Basically, Facebook went nuclear on Paul Ceglia, and they've blown him and his claim to bits.
Facebook filed all this evidence in support of a motion for "expedited discovery," in which they will be allowed to seize all of Ceglia's computers, forensically analyze them, and prove beyond any doubt that Ceglia forged both the "contract" and the "emails." (At which point, in addition to losing his case, Ceglia could easily be charged with criminal fraud and put away for a long while).
Facebook wants the "expedited discovery" in part so Ceglia can't drag the case out and force a settlement, which may well have been his and his lawyer's plan all along.
(Facebook can't go public with litigation like this hanging out there.)
This afternoon, after Facebook launched its missile, the major law firm that gave credence to Ceglia's claim and evidence, DLA Piper, released a statement. The statement said the following:
"Mr. Ceglia welcomes the opportunity to expedite discovery in this case and disagrees with the opinions within the filing, which have been made by those who have not examined the actual contract at issue in this case or any of the other relevant evidence."
Note the wording: "Mr. Ceglia welcomes the opportunity to expedite discovery..." Not DLA Piper. Mr. Ceglia.
That wording suggests one of two things:
Either DLA Piper is already wishing it had never met Ceglia and is distancing itself from him (in preparation for cutting its losses and dropping the case),
or
DLA Piper is doubling down and planning to file a motion against expedited discovery in an attempt to draw the case out and force a settlement.
Either way, based on the evidence Facebook filed today, we're done. Unless DLA Piper and Paul Ceglia can provide an extraordinarily compelling explanation for why we should ignore all of what we learned in Facebook's response, we're going to draw the same conclusion that Facebook has: Paul Ceglia is an inveterate scam artist and this claim is a fraud.
See Also: BOOM: Facebook Just Nuked Paul Ceglia's Claim

Thursday, June 2, 2011

The Guy Who Says He Owns 50% Of Facebook may go to jail for fraud Just Filed A Boatload Of New Evidence -- And It's Breathtaking

Lawyers for Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg just introduced a new pile of evidence in their case with Paul Ceglia, the man who claims to own 50% of Zuckerberg's Facebook stake.

The new evidence/allegations are seriously damaging. Ceglia could end up in jail for this.

We've pulled out the key pieces from the new court filing via Forbes' embed of the filing.

In short, Facebook's attorneys say the contracts are "amateurish" forgeries produced by a serial scam artist.

They've also analyzed Mark Zuckerberg's emails from the period and found no trace of the emails Ceglia used to make his case -- emails that Facebook has always contended are fake.

They are asking the court to speed up the discovery phase of the trial, allowing them to seize Ceglia's computers and prove indisputably that, once again, he has committed criminal fraud.

Amazon