Another nasty misquotation

by RunningMan 10 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  RunningMan

  On Tuesday, my wife had a talk in the Ministry School. It was taken from
  the Reasoning book and was on the subject of evolution.

  One of her arguments contained a quote from Carl Sagan that seemed to
  support creation. It said:

  "Carl Sagan, in his book Cosmos, candidly acknowledged 'The fossil evidence could
  be consistent with the idea of a great designer.'" - Reasoning from the Scriptures, 1985, p124

  This didn't make any sense to me, since Carl Sagan is well known as an
  evolutionist and athiest. So I looked up the quote. Here is what it really
  said:

  "The fossil evidence could be consistent with the idea of a great designer;
  perhaps some species are destroyed when the Designer becomes dissatisfied
  with them, and new experiments are attempted on an imperfect design.
  But this notion is a little disconcerting. Each plant and animal is exquisitly
  made; should not a supremely competent Designer have been able to make
  the intended variety from the start? The fossil record implies trial and error,
  an inability to anticipate the future, features inconsistent with an efficient
  Great Designer (although not with a designer of a more remote and indirect
  temperment)." - Cosmos, p29

  As you can see, the Society took 1/2 a sentence out of context and used
  it to imply that Carl Sagan said exactly the opposite of what he actually said.

  This type of dishonesty sickens me.

  I don't know if anyone else had noticed this quote, so I thought you might
  like to see it.
• 

  joelbear

  stunning.

  shows how tenuous the belief system is
• 

  Moxy

  thanks, ive also been enjoying some of the humourous #3 and #4 talks the last few weeks in the rs evolution section.

  Householder: "i believe in evolution. thats what i was taught."

  Publisher: "well have you ever considered what Heb 4:3 says, 'every house is constructed by someone but he that constructed all things is god.'"

  Householder: "hmm, you know, ive never thought about it that way."

  paraphrased but that basically sums it up, lol.

  mox
• 

  LDH

  that seemed to support evolution. It said:

  You might want to edit to change the word evolution to creation. Yes?

  Lisa
• 

  ballistic

  yes, Fred Hoyle (who lived in my congregations territory) is mis-quoted all the way through the evolution book. Maximus wrote a piece on these mis-quotes. You know what? FRED HOYLE HAD NOT EVEN SEEN THE EVOLUTION BOOK AND WAS ASTONISHED. God rest his soul.
• 

  Eusebius Hieronymus

  Sagan's next sentence likely was,

  "Could be, but the facts show otherwise."

  Remember his astonished expressions about JWs who embraced their faith in spite of dashed hopes and failed prophecies. I don't have it at hand.
• 

  outnfree

  Thanks, RunningMan, for the research.

  I'm sending your post to a friend of mine, trying to break down the walls of blind belief.

  outnfree
• 

  paulvarjak

  EH -
  Here's the quote you were referring to (off of Osarif's website):

  An interesting comment on this transformation was made by Carl Sagan in his book Broca's Brain (New York: Ballantine Books, 1979, pp. 332-333):

  Doctrines that make no predictions are less compelling than those which make correct predictions; they are in turn more successful than doctrines that make false predictions.

  But not always. One prominent American religion confidently predicted that the world would end in 1914. Well, 1914 has come and gone, and — while the events of that year were certainly of some importance — the world does not, at least so far as I can see, seem to have ended. There are at least three responses that an organized religion can make in the face of such a failed and fundamental prophecy. They could have said, "Oh, did we say `1914'? So sorry, we meant `2014.' A slight error in calculation. Hope you weren't inconvenienced in any way." But they did not. They could have said, "Well, the world would have ended, except we prayed very hard and interceded with God so He spared the Earth." But they did not. Instead, they did something much more ingenious.

  They announced that the world had in fact ended in 1914, and if the rest of us hadn't noticed, that was our lookout. It is astonishing in the face of such transparent evasions that this religion has any adherents at all. But religions are tough. Either they make no contentions which are subject to disproof or they quickly redesign doctrine after disproof. The fact that religions can be so shamelessly dishonest, so contemptuous of the intelligence of their adherents, and still flourish does not speak very well for the tough-mindedness of the believers. But it does indicate, if a demonstration were needed, that near the core of the religious experience is something remarkably resistant to rational inquiry.
• 

  betweenworlds

  If anyone has the Random house version of Broca's Brain, the same quotation can be found on pages 283 and 284

  "The important thing is to not stop questioning" Albert Einstein
• 

  freeman

  Hello RunningMan, that was a great post.

  It reminds me of something that happened to me. It was the WTBTS dishonesty in quoting prominent scientists in the evolution book that finally put the nail in the coffin for me.

  Want to hear the story? Here it is: A few years ago, and after many years of inactivity and feeling that the reason I had a problem with org/truth was fundamentally my fault, I tried for the sake of my family, to make a comeback. I had problem areas with the so-called ‘truth’, and one of these areas was evolution. My training and everyday experience involved in my employment was based on science, on deductive logic. In my experience all problems should have a resolution, somehow it all had to make sense. To me all things that are true and are within my ability to test them must be logical, and if it is not logical, it is likely false. But the ‘truth’, as a model, does not work within the bounds of logic does it? You have to fudge the test so to speak for it to pass muster.

  I’m what some may call, depending on your point of view, an impulsive, gutsy, or just plain foolish guy. I take chances, and so I decided to meet the enemy of my faith head on. Yes I headed right to the camp of the enemy, I went to ‘alt.origins’, home of the evolution know-it-alls. What I found there, much to my surprise, were very logical arguments, and more importantly, I discovered a critical review of the WTBTS evolution book.

  I had the grandiose idea that I could expose all the lies I thought they were telling about the society’s supposedly great book. Boy was I in for a rude awakening. Basically this paper shows many of the dishonest and out of context quotes the WTBTS made to bluster their position, more then a hundred. Of course I researched all this by reading for myself many of the scientific journals, books, that were allegedly misquoted. And you know what I found, don’t you? The critics were telling the truth all along; the society was full of shit!

  Forty years old and I wept just like a baby. It was as if a close family member had died right in my arms. The emotions all came rushing in, THE TRUTH WAS A LIE, THE WTBTS WAS A FRAUD, AND I WASTED A GOOD PORTION OF MY LIFE IN A CULT, AND OH MY GOD, THEY STILL HAVE MY WIFE CHILDERN!

  What you found RunningMan is but one example of the thousands of lies, misquotes, and half-truths perpetuated by this evil, evil cult. May you find peace.

  freeman