My parents gave me the latest "public edition" watchtower and it has 4-page festival of circular logic and hypocritical quote-mining entitled "Is Evolution Compatible with the Bible?"
The opening salvo is golden, because they go and shoot themselves in the foot with it later on: "Is it possible that God used evolution to create men from beasts? Did God direct bacteria to develop into fish and then to continue developing through reptiles and mammals, so that finally a race of apes became humans?"
They then go on the usual logical merry-go-round saying that humans originated from one man because the bible says so, then onto ad-hominem attacks on liberal religious types who accept both the premise of evolution AND the bible (insert scripture about ears being tickled) then out comes the gist of their whole argument: mankind must have come from one man because the concept of the fall from perfection and the ransom would be invalidated if he came from apes.
They then bring out the pick-axes and start to quote mine by bringing in "Professor of biochemistry Michael Behe" to discredit all those silly evolutionists because Behe argues against biomolecular evolution as being irreducibly complex. Ignoring for a minute the fact that Behe's arguments have been rejected by the scientific community, BEHE HIMSELF AGREES WITH THE THEORY OF COMMON DESCENT!!!!!
That's right, the entire second half of the article is constructed around Behe's attacks on biomolecular evolution AS IF he were attacking the theory of common descent.
Gah, I'm just really pissed off that this sort of crap is still being published over twenty years after that farcical Creation book. Also, you'll notice that the art department dredged up the old props from the blue book in order to make the illustrations.
Society's latest stance on Evolution in Jan 1, 2008 WT (bonus quote mining)
by marmot 32 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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marmot
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mavie
Wow, would it be possible to get a scanned copy of the article\watchtower? I could use this in my upcoming JC.
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mavie
I found a link to a scanned pdf. The first link doesn't work anymore but some of the others do.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/146012/1.ashx -
mavie
Another "gem" from the article:
"Evolution presents modern man as an improving animal. The Bible presents modern man as the degenerating descendant of a perfect man." - pg 15
Not really. Richard Dawkins entitled one of his books "The Blind Watchmaker". In it, Dawkins explains how the mechanism of natural selection can explain the complex adaptations of organisms to their environment. The subjective label 'improving' can only mean one thing to Dawkins and other evolutionists, being an adaptation which helps the organism survive longer and thus have a greater chance of procreating.
The WT uses the term 'improving' in the context of Bible history. In the time of Adam men routinely lived to ages of 600 plus years. "Modern man" can only live 70 or 80 years according to the Psalms. The WT would measure 'improvment' in the number and quality of years a person lived. Dawkins would use the term 'improving' quite differently.
Sorry WT, try again.
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mavie
Nova recently aired a great program about Intelligent Design. In it, Michael Behe is made to look like the fool he is. Maybe the WT should have watched this before printing the Jan 1st edition.
Watch it here.
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FreudianSlip
"Public Edition"? Are there non-public editions? What's this all about?
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mavie
"Although evolution is usually presented in scientific language, it is really a religious doctrine. It teaches a philosophy of life and an attitude toward God. -- pg 16
Then this:
"The Bible stresses the importance of evidence when it defines faith." -- pg 17
!!
Actually WT, evolution is a theory not a religious doctrine.
That is: "A logical explanation, or a testable model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise falsified through empirical observation. It follows from this that for scientists "theory" and "fact" do not necessarily stand in oppostion."
Did you catch that WT? Here it is a little different.
"Scientific theories are essentially the equivalent of what everyday speech refers to as facts."
Sorry WT, try again.
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FreudianSlip
Wow Mavie, I'm stunned at that quote..
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marmot
Freudian, as of January 1, 2008 there is a public edition of the Watchtower to used in the field ministry and a "members only" edition (often jokingly referred to on this board as the Kool Aid edition because that's how the rank and file will find out when it's time to lace up the Nikes and drink their cyanide Kool Aid)
And thanks for that link to the NOVA report, Mavie. -
DanTheMan
Fortunately for the WTS most JW's have their heads buried in the sand and don't know that Behe's ID arguments have been refuted a zillion times over. The internet is dangerous indeed, lol.