Hi all, I've been having some small but effective chats with my wife of late. She is, I hope, starting to think about some things a bit better now regarding the WTS. When I told her of the rule about not hugging in the prayer, she thought it so absurd and thought I was telling lies until she saw it herself. She said she wants to 'talk to the elders about it'. A good step. But onto my point. One of our conversations was about the hippo being the closest living relative to a whale. She agreed, and so I asked her why she agrees if she believes what JWs teach. She said why are they related? I explained about a common ancestor and a branching tree of evolution. I explained how the DNA was similar, like Humans and Chimps, etc. She said to me "Of course their DNA is so similar because God created them in a similar way and to all live in this planet's conditions." So I like to think I understand evolution but I could use help formulating a response. I already did the 'if we evolved from apes, why are there still apes' already, but the phone went before I could answer the point mentioned above. Suggestions? And what do you who accept evolution as fact, as I do, usually come across from JWs specifically trying to disprove it? What are your!,better refined than my, answers?
Creationist Evolution
by GapingMouth 22 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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bohm
GAPINGMOUTH: Ofcourse what your wife say is true and it does not present a problem for creation that the DNA look more similar the more similar the animals are. The problem is the /way/ it look similar.
The DNA evidence for evolution is extremely solid and, in my oppinion, the strongest evidence for evolution by far. I also believe the watchtower is afraid to discuss it, and depends on its members to be in a continiuous state of misinformation otherwise they would be in deep troubles. I have read no books or articles by them that even touch it.
So what is it? I would recommend you to begin here: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/. Check out the sections on molecular evidence.To actually answer your question. The problem when you discuss DNA evidence is that you need to educate your wife so she is able to understand the evidence. This sound like a big process, but most people have a pretty good intuiative understanding of what DNA is and in my experience you dont need more than a couple of minutes. I have had good success with this argument, and i simply structured my presentation the same way as his. you can find it here as a video: http://www.5min.com/Video/How-Chimp-Chromosome-13-Proves-Evolution-11049.
There is a lot of these small presentations floating around on various blogs. If you are more interested, I would suggest you wrote a local university and explained who you were and ask them for references. These kind of things are discovered all the time because ALL the DNA of ALL species HAS to show evidence of common descent OTHERWISE EVOLUTION WOULD BE WRONG.
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bohm
Here is another one, this is also a ralatively simple presentation, but about another type of evidence. Notice the prediction he make at the end. You might ask your mom if creatinists able to make ANY predictions about the world they live in?
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/09/cats_candy_and_evolution.php
After talking about these tings for a while, I would ask her why the watchtower does not write anything about these lines of evidence, when they print out articles about pizza and other stuff that has nothing to do with God. Is it because they do not care, because they do not know enough, what?
I once asked a JW why the watchtower didnt try to get some members into university and set up a research department and once and for all show why evolutionists are wrong. I mean, right now they say that evolutionists only get results because they are biased against God, so why not show how unbiased research look like?.
He said that was because it was to expensive and they had other things to do, like preachin. I said the watchtower had 7 million believers who are willing to throw in free manpower. And they could send their members, the best of the best, to countries where university is free.In the end, he said that they didnt do that because nobody would care. gah. i said that I certainly cared, the fact that their litterature about evolution was of so poor quality was very important for me. I asked him why they then cared to debunk hell and the trinity, if people didnt care for evidence anyway. He then went in complete reverse and began to repeat himself. scary shit.
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Black Sheep
She used a predictable responce.
You need to know what their responce will be before you ask a question. Some of their responces may seem pretty weird to you, but they are good enough to keep them happy and that is all that matters to them.
The better questions are the ones where they don't have a Watchtower provided answer that makes any sense, the trick then being to keep them on topic, which is possible if you are determined enough. You don't have to get them to admit defeat. They like to think they are honest, so just getting them to knowingly lie to you might be enough to get them thinking again.
I don't spend any time on evolution with my family as they use anything like that as red herrings to get away from what I would rather discuss, but I would never turn off a TV program about it in their presence.
Cheers
Chris
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Doug Mason
Evolution has reached the stage of being a Theory. In science, a Theory implies that something has been proven and is generally accepted as being true. Because Evolution is a Theory it can be used to underscore modern science, such as in the work of medicine.
Darwin was not the first evolutionist; for example, Lamarck (1744-1829) proposed his theory in the very year Darwin was born, 200 years ago. Darwin (1809-1882) worked on his ideas for a long time and only rushed into print when he heard that another was about to publish their ideas on the evolutionary process. He got much of his ideas from observing the behaviour of natives in South America.
Regarding Apes and Man, have you researched all the latest information regarding Ardipithecus?
Creationists have no demonstrable evidences that enable their ideas to reach the status of a Theory. At best it can be called a hypothesis. Their’s is a negative campaign that is predetermined by their concerns at the conclusions that would be reached. Their prior concern with the end-point affects their reasoning.
Where did the community that wrote Genesis get its information? It’s not valid to reason that it was transmitted orally for thousands of years from Adam, since that assumes there was an Adam in the first place, which makes the reasoning circular. It’s not reasonable to say they had adequate scientific knowledge to formulate a scientifically sound hypothesis.
When was their story written? When did writing first become a viable means of communication? It is likely that the Torah began to be written about the 8th century BCE, to be refined by the priests during or shortly after the Babylonian Exile.
What was the motive of the groups that conceived and refined the story? The parallels of days 1 to 3 with days 4 to 6, culminating in the Sabbath, indicate that the motive was to embed the Sabbath into the universality of mankind. It would therefore be reasonable to say that the writers started with the religious agenda of establishing their sacred day, and that is the reason the story is structured thus.
Since they did not use YHWH in their account, but rather used the God El, it should indicate a probable source of the story. The second account of Creation, the YHWH account, focuses on the creation of Man. The desired conclusion determined the story.
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The WTS has greater problems, for it does not believe the days are 24-hours, but that each day is either 1000 years or maybe even 7000 years. So it does not believe the story literally, either. And the interdependence of animals and plants could not be sustained were each created so far apart.
What about the matter of death and dying? Everything that is eaten was once alive. Everything.
How long does it take light to reach the furthest star from one side of the sky to the other? How long does it take light or radio signals to reach us from the bodies in deep space? Far far longer than that proposed by Young Earth Creationists.
Rather than attack the evidence that provides the facts of Evolution, the Creationists need to provide sufficient evidence to produce a Theory, not just a preconceived hypothesis.
It is not up to us to tell God how he has to work. If evolution does not fit our preconceptions, then it is we who must accept that God works according to his own ways, not ours.
A key feature that makes humankind very different from others is our preoccupation with our death and the afterlife.
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bohm
I think evolution, the ark, etc. is really explosive stuff, but only if used right. Why? Because it show again and again that the watchtower is interlectually dishonest.
One thing you can be 100% sure you will never read in the watchtower is this:
"We believe that jerusalem was destroyed in 607BC. The evidence is very strong. But if you do not trust that date, ask yourself this: What other date did Jerusalem fall? Secular historians, archeology and christendom has no theory about when Jerusalem fell, yet they tell us 607bc is false.".
Why? Because it is a lie! You can ask any historian and he will say 586/7bc. Sure, they can be wrong - who cares - but if you say they have no theory you are either misinformed, and that would be pretty unlikely since minimal research will give you 587bc, or simply filling people with shit. It opens up all kind of nastyness, like asking why the hell nobody has considered reading a book, any book, on the subject, or spend 20 seconds on google, or you could draw attention to proverbs 18:13 about understanding a subject before replying to it - "why do you believe jehova made sure that was in the bible?"
YET THEY DO THIS KIND OF SHIT WITH EVOLUTION ALL THE TIME!
Here is an example - The very first 2 minutes at the very first meeting i attended the guy managed to say TWICE that evolutionists had no theory about how human emotions developed, and had no way to explain why altruistic feelings came about. Notice the wording. That statement is as cathegorical false as the one about 607bc. There is no way to rat out and come up with a rationalization. That leave the with a choise: Is the guy just making up this shit as he goes along, or is he being lied to?
Another example: Read up on how evolution is defined, either on talkorigins, wikipedia, etc.. Now tell your wife: "Look, i really want to discuss evolution with you, but im really confused by what the watchtower mean with evolution. So im not trying to nail you on a technicality, im just checking we are on the same page here: How would you define evolution?". There are two choices. Most likely, she have no idea except it is wrong. She will likely confuse it with everything from big bang to the theory life arose from an organic soup. MMM-mmm. Proverbs 18:13.
The other case is that she get it right. EVEN BETTER!. Ask why the watchtower GOT IT WRONG in their book about evolution ("Life? How did it get here", ca. p. 20).
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kriptonian7
Being away for so long, i do not know what is being taught now. But remembering it seems like the basic view for JW's on evolution is very very simple. Something cant come from nothing. You put the parts to a watch into a wash machine and run it, will it ever fall together and form a watch? That was the example I was told to use in service.
I beleive in creation, but I also believe that "life" was created so complex that it has the ability to adapt and change on its own. If anything this is a testament to Jehovah's miracle. I trained my body in martials arts for years to be able to break cinder blocks with my knuckes. My body adapted over time. My bones have gotten harder my skin a little thicker and it does not hurt like it did. This is a simple version of evolution.
Viruses change and become harder to kill all the time. These things are ignored because they are not apes or people. So did God create the aids virus? Or did it evolve from something else? Look at people in general. Did God create chinese, black people, white people, indian (feathers or dots) , samoans, or any other ethnicity all at the same time? Or did we slowly start to inner mingle with each other over time and our DNA started to mix and "evolve"
I beleive in a CreationalEvolution. If God...if Jehovah is all powerful then why couldnt he start the BIG Bang for shits and grins and see what it did?
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bohm
kriptonian7: hey! welcome to the forum!
When i read your post it bring up some things, so please dont think that i want to flame you, i just want to offer you a piece of my mind.
A very common problem in the evolution debate is that people discuss it without really being able to define evolution. Thats pretty unique - there are very few that will say 'i dont believe in einsteins field equations because space is empty, and an empty thing cannot be bend, so this whole notion of warped space-time is wrong.'. I mean, to discuss something, and to throw out a scientific theory, you got to know what it actually say: what is the definition, what is the evidence. And trust me, with evolution there is a very very long list of evidence. If you are interested, i would recommend the following page to you:
and
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/macroevolution.html
To take the argument with the clock - its completely bunk. Its in the watchtower litterature because they dont give a rats ass about teaching their members. To get some more constructive critisism, take a look on this site where a genetic algorithm is used to construct a clock:
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inkling
I trained my body in martials arts for years to be able to break cinder blocks with my knuckes. My body adapted over time. My bones have gotten
harder my skin a little thicker and it does not hurt like it did. This is a simple version of evolution.Well... no, it's actually not.
If I try and explain why it's not, am I going to end up regretting the effort?
I'm not being snarky here, I just need to know if you are sincerly interested
in understanding the theory of evolution.[inkling]
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kriptonian7
I have never read into evolution fully, I just always imagined that we were made to adapt and change to our surroundings. Our environment and a need will dictate how life will respond.
Inkling, not being interested in learning about something is just ignorant. I left the witnesses at a young age because my questioning of of things was slowly becoming that of "disfellowship material" . I separated myself so not to hurt my family or put a strain on them.
So inkling, only a fool would reject knowledge. Ill decide what to do which said knowledge after I process it.
And bohn..thankyou for the welcome.
And to be honest with everyone. I am really not sure what I beleive thus why i stumbled onto the forum, searching i guess. I have slowly started to develope my own beliefs. Kind of like the Jeet Kwan Do of religion. Take what is useful and disregard what is not. Sort of a smooth freestlye of beliefs.