Interesting thread. I have nothing to add that hasn't already been said but I wanted to say "thank you all for your comments".
Now brothers and sisters, let's take our song books out and turn to song 68.....
The Probabilty of there being an Intelligent Designer
by cantleave 140 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Chalam
What puzzles me is : does the rejection of an abusive organisation have to entail the rejection of a creator in whom we, having been deceived by the WTS but not being totally stupid, had believed wholeheartedly ?
That is an important question.
For anyone who has been born into a faith in a Creator, there comes a time when they move into adulthood when they have to decide if it is really for them.
My parents gave me that choice at 16 years old "you wanna come to church still"? I voted with my feet.
However, 20 years of adult life and I was still looking for peace, purpose, answers.
I found those in the living, personal God through Jesus.
The trouble is with those who have found that the faith they were brought up with is false is that there is a domino effect. Sure, the house of card needs to come crashing down, "jehovah" of the WT is a false god, and the WT are an idol.
However, seek the true living God! Just because the WT told you a pack of lies does not mean that God ceases to exist or cannot be known.
There is one way to find the Father and that is through the real Jesus, not some impostor the WT portray. The real Jesus says this
Revelation 3:20-21 (New International Version)
20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. 21 To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne.
Revelation 22:17 (New International Version)
17 The Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.
Blessings,
Stephen
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38wastedyears
What puzzles me is : does the rejection of an abusive organisation have to entail the rejection of a creator in whom we, having been deceived by the WTS but not being totally stupid, had believed wholeheartedly ?
The thing for me is, I never DID believe wholeheardtedly in God. I started questioning the whole idea of a God when I was about 3, and even then, I wondered where HE came from. If you go by the logic of "Everything that exists had to be created", then who created God? It has always, and will always, come back to that for me. When I left, I was finally able to accept my true beliefs and give up on this idea of a god that I had lived with my entire life. I didn't reject God simply because I wanted to reject the WTS.
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moshe
We have intelligent design? Maybe so, we have Big Mac's, and KFC, the favorite of JW's everywhere as OutLaw has shown us.
Over 90% of Earth's living creatures are now extinct- that needs to squared away with the design part of the equation. Create it just to see it go extinct, how is that intelligent? If the design wasn't good or right or perfect, then why in the #*%, did god create it in the first place? Go to the beach and pick up one grain of sand- what are the odds that you would pick up that one particular teensy grain of sand?- and yet you did just that.
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BurnTheShips
The chain of causality cannot extend backwards infinitely. This would create a paradox. If there was an infinite chain of cause/effects, then it would take an infinite amount of time to arrive at the present. An infinite chain of events cannot be formed by successive addition, and the flow of time is a form of successive addition. The present moment of time is the sum of all previous moments if time. Therefore the Universe had a beginning. And the beginning itself had to be before causality, before time itself. It had to be an eternal (not the same as infinite!) uncaused cause.
EDIT: Let me add, due to an interesting exchange above, that philosophy undergirds science, not the other way around.
BTS
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cantleave
Sorry to have "lit the blue touch paper yesterday and stood well back". This was an interesting debate.
Wobble brought up a question about the variety of life that suddenly appeared during the cambrian period. Here is a possible explanation.
http://www.questia.com/library/encyclopedia/cambrian-period.jsp
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Doug Mason
Some Sabbath-keeping Elohist priests wanted to prove the universality of the Sabbath. So they created a story with that intent. We now know that their story is scientifically inept, but that was not their concern. Where did they get the information? Who told them what happened? Were there some Stone Age people who passed this on? How do we know that no mistakes were made when the information was passed on orally down the generations? Especially as there were no people around during those first five "days".
Another group of priests, this time they were Yahwists, wanted to show the divine origin of marriage and that women were subsequent to man and came from him. I cannot understand why any woman or man would accept that position today. So these priests wrote a story - just as Jesus used parables - to get their point across. The people who gathered these two accounts did not worry that the stories contained inconsistencies, as that was not the objective. Just see the differences in the two accounts of Man and Woman.
Is it likely that this all-knowing God did not know where Man and Woman were? Is it possible that God did not know what Adam, Eve and Snake had been up to? And a snake that talks? And a fruit that provides knowledge?
When did death first exist? Were the ocean depths filled with vegetarian beasts? Who told them they were now allowed to start eating one another? How long does the light take to travel from the stars? How come there was light before the sun existed? How could there have been day and night of 24 hours when there was no sun? The stories are theological exercises, not a scientific treatises.
The "Intelligent Designer" is so ineffective that most animals are now extinct.
At least Evolution is a Theory, which means it has evidence in support. Creationists do not even have a Theory, just a hypothesis. Discover the meaning of the term scientific "theory".
Give me a break. Does God expect us to leave our brains behind when we pick up the writings of these ancient people?
Doug
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lifelong humanist
cantleave
Sorry, I pressed the wrong button!
Enjoyed reading through many of the posts on this interesting thread.
I'm more than happy with Dawkin's arguments for non-intelligent evolution. Intelligent Design seems just wrong, with animals and plants that seem to be 'badly designed', not 'fit for purpose'. Most lifeforms that we can examine have/are surviving because they work well and hence survive, most of the time. How long this will remain so, is a difficult question to answer.
The entire subject is just too complex for me to grasp - I'm just 'totally satisfied' and genuinely happy to accept that no 'god' was involved with the on-going evolution of the many millions of lifeforms inhabiting our strange planet.
lifelong humanist
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cantleave
Well said Doug. Nice reasoning.