Reasons for Leaving JWs/Fatal Flaw

by patio34 21 Replies latest jw friends

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  patio34

  Hi all,
  I ran across this in "River Out of Eden" by Richard Dawkins (pgs 131-132) yesterday and it accurately sums up why I left JWs 9 months ago and, essentially, belief in a creator:

  Re DNA survivial: 'When the utility function-that which is being maximized--is DNA survival, this is not a recipe for happiness. So long as DNA is passed on, it does not matter who or what gets hurt in the process.

  It is better for the genes of Darwin's ichneumon wasp that the catepillar should be alive, and therefore fresh, when it is eaten (by the larvae), no matter what the cost in suffering. Genes don't care about suffering, because they don't are about anthing.

  If Nature were kind, she would at least make the minor concession of anesthetizing catepillars before they are eaten alive from within. But Nature is neither kind nor unkind. She is neither against suffering nor for it. Nature is not interested one way or the other in suffering, unless it affects the survival of DNA. It is easy to imagine a gene that, say, tranquilizes gazelles when they are about to suffer a killing bite. Would such a gene be favored by natural selection? Not unless the act of tranquilizing a gazelle improved that gene's chances of being propagated into future generations. It is ard to see why this should be so, and we may therefore guess that gazelles suffer horrible pain and fear when they are pursued to the death--as most of them eventually are.

  The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. ...

  (Going on to senseless tragedies that take lives such as bus crashes.) A theologian: "we do not know why there should be a God who lets these awful things happen."

  'On the contrary, if the universe were just electrons and selfish genes, meaningless tragedies like the crashing of this bus are exactly what we should expect, along with equally meaningless good fortune.

  Such a universe would be neither evil nor good in intention. It would manifest no intentions of any knd. In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find an rhyme or reason in it nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. ...DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.'

  Now, according to the Bible belief, & JWs, the answer to all this is Adam's sin. Before Adam's fall, all creation ate geeen vegetation (Gen. 1:30), presuming no violence in nature.

  However, as is now known, dinasours predated humans (hence, Adam's sin), so also did the predator-prey cycle.

  The alternate view is that a loving, just God designed this great killing, suffering cycle in the animal world. Would you?

  And, in Isaiah it's promised that in the coming world, peace among animals would be reinstated (the wolf lie down with the lamb). So the Gen. 1:30 statement seems to mean what it says. However, they did not know of the existence of dinasours at that time.

  So, I deduced that this was a fatal flaw in the Bible-Creator scenario. Evolution is the only theory so far that explains what we see in the killing fields of nature.

  What do you think?

  Pat
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  Moxy

  even as a kid, i couldnt reconcile this. why poison, webs, fangs, camouflage, etc? a nagging inconsistency that i can finally put to rest and ease my troubled mind.

  mox
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  Sirona

  I sort of mentioned this on the adams sin thread: I dont think that any god that may exist is anything like the way god is portrayed in the bible. God is not a "man". Mankind has attempted to personify that which he does not understand.

  If there is universal power that we do not understand completely, (I think there is), then I believe that the way things are is the way things should be. Its not a *perfect* world without pain, but lets face it, its only mankind who think that pain should disappear forever. The rest of the universe seems to get along just fine.

  You are right, the idea of a loving God is hard to believe when we look at "creation".

  Sirona
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  AlanF

  Good points, Pat & Moxy.

  I've long wondered why spiders would need a web, if all they once ate were seeds. Perhaps to subdue a seed as it struggles? Or why a cobra would need an incredibly effective nerve toxin. Maybe to paralyze a banana as it flees?

  A 1983 Awake! article really woke me up to how stupid the Society's teachings on this are. It said that because Adam had sinned and the human world became chaotic, it was no surprise that the animal world also became chaotic. How this translates to causing vegetarian animals to gain an instinct for hunting and killing was not addressed. The author obviously didn't realize that he was advocating evolution -- speeded up a million times.

  AlanF
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  JanH

  Very good points, Patio. Yes, nature is indifferent to suffering, neither good nor evil.

  The main objection to monotheism is that by creating a perfect God, we have an answer that doesn't meet the question. The problem of evil is just a problem because this postulated "God" is incompatible with the reality we know.

  - Jan
  --
  "Doctor how can you diagnose someone with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and then act like I had some choice about barging in here right now?" -- As Good As It Gets
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  comment

  I think I recall the '83 Awake Alan is referring to. There was a picture of a gorilla and it pointed out that gorillas were vegetarians despite having large fangs, which I found somehow reassuring at the time.

  Most Witnesses with questions who wish to remain Witnesses are happy to see that the Society has provided some answer to what they're worrying about. It's not so important to them whether the answer is a good one or not. The mere fact of the answer's existence is what counts.

  comment
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  hillary_step

  Patio34,

  One reason that people have been unable to accept the concept of a 'hunter predator' instinct in religious terms is due to the repugnance that we all feel at seeing animals eating other animals alive.

  So when the WTS comes along and produces a picture of universal harmony, with little Billy fondling a lion it all sits so nicely with our own desires. It is a matter of illusion, literally.

  To illustrate, while the lion and child are cuddling, what is the praying mantis eating? Imagine a praying mantis, eating its prey head-first as is their wont, but six feet in size. This issue cannot be reconciled until you make all creation the same size and then sort out who will be eating what in the New world.

  In the mid 70's, I bought along into the WTS a naturalist and zoologist who worked for the BBC, producing their nature program’s. We discussed this issue at great length, eventually producing between us an irrefutable thesis evidencing the impossibility of the natural processes of the earth being able to survive under the theology that the WTS dictated. We sent this 80pp. document to the Local Branch in London.

  Three months later I received back a curse note from them, encouraging me to continue in the Pioneer service and suggesting that we leave the research to the professionals as these questions would distract us from the 'all important work of Witnessing'. Lol.

  These days the WTS says very little about the subject, realizing their inadequacy in attempting to rationalize their own theology with reality.

  Thank you for an interesting thread - HS
• 

  waiting

  Hey AlanF,

  Back to the spider - the Awake! of 2/22/01, in the "From Our Readers" section, is the WTBTS Editor's answer to your question.

  Editor: The spider's manufacture of silk involves a number of incredibly complex mechanisms that scientists still do not understand after decades of research. Yet, they dogmatically state that this is all the product of evolution. We believe that this and numerous other examples illustrate the basic illogic of evolution and suggest that belief in that theory is more akin to faith than science. - ED.

  So, according to the WTBTS, because scientists don't understand everything after decades of research into millions of years of stuff - and millions of different stuff to begin with, evolution must be false.

  Thus, JW's believe - because the WTBTS has provided a fluff of an answer which they can now repeat because it's an easy answer.

  Thanks Patty, for the interesting thread.

  waiting
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  Mindchild

  Pat,

  Once upon a time men used to think that angels were responsible for making a flower open and close each day. We used to think that birds sang their songs to please humans but we know this is nonsense now. For a lot of people, it is hard to accept that we are very anthropomorphic and shape the information our senses process into a highly filtered conceptual reality. Collectively, people don’t prefer to look at life, the world, and the universe as it really is but rather as we want to see it.

  Our brains were well adapted by evolutionary and environmental influences thousands of years ago. They served us well then to become a highly adaptable species that flourished in many different geographical areas. This flexibility of the human mind to model reality in a variety of ways has lead though to much of the problems that we see in the world today. People get so caught up in their comprehensive world views that they don’t realize how easily we can be manipulated and deceived and assign moral and emotional values to events and memes that have little resemblance to another person with a different way of looking at the world.

  A good way to tell if our reality construction is flawed is to push our hypothesis and theories to the limits and see if they come up wanting. Looking at all the suffering in the animal kingdom, etc. is a fine way of doing that but you can take the same test and apply it to the universe at large and you find out that the JW view of a nice ordered and created universe is pure nonsense and that the universe is a very dangerous and chaotic place to be. It’s just a matter of time before some horrific disaster happens on a global or cosmic scale and entire galaxies get wiped out.

  Sounds to me like God went to sleep at the wheel.

  Skipper
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  waiting

  Hi Patty,

  (Going on to senseless tragedies that take lives such as bus crashes.) A theologian: "we do not know why there should be a God who lets these awful things happen."

  'On the contrary, if the universe were just electrons and selfish genes, meaningless tragedies like the crashing of this bus are exactly what we should expect, along with equally meaningless good fortune.

  In other words.........."shit happens."

  It’s just a matter of time before some horrific disaster happens on a global or cosmic scale and entire galaxies get wiped out. - mindchild

  In other words......"shit happens."

  waiting