I agree JWS....the Jdub world is full of fairy tale speculation and false logic....speculation when utikized as doctrine is dangerous and atrocious whether youre a free christian, atheist, agnostic, etc...i respect cofty and NS's beliefs which is something i did t do as a JW...if im completely ilhonest i became a know-it-all self- righteous prick....whike comfortably disguising it as love when i told others about "the truth".
Asked my christian co-workers.....
by DS211 36 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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NeverKnew
Neon
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NeonMadman
For many Bible-believing Christians, the Bible is sufficient. If it doesn't mention dinosaurs, then they are not an essential of the faith and we don't need to know about them
Which is as concise an answer to, "what's wrong with faith-based thinking?" as it would be possible to imagine.
It kills curiosity and investigation. It crushes a unviverse full of wonders into the confines of a Bronze Age book written by ignorant pre-scientific nomads.
Perhaps I expressed that thought badly. I didn't mean to imply that scientific matters, or for that matter, other endeavors of human knowledge, are of no use or interest to persons who believe the Bible. What I meant to say is that they are not essentials of the faith. They are not, from a biblical standpoint, necessary for salvation. There are many things that are true that have no bearing on one's spiritual condition. Dinosaurs, dendrites, dead empires and double-entry accounting are all valid fields of study, but are not spiritual in nature. There is no need at all for belief in the Bible to "Kill curiosity and investigation," but there is a distinction as to what is needed in a spiritual sense. Dinosaurs may be fascinating to some people; I can take them or leave them as an item of study. Stuff that fascinates me might bore you.
Remember that I made this remark in the context of responding to your earlier question, " Why do fundies have so little interest in the things they believe their god made?" One would think that a person who so passionately advocates reason might avoid the use of such an obvious hasty generalization. The premise behind the question is simply not true. First, not all "fundies" are the same, and second, many whom I am sure you would class as "fundies" are simply fascinated by various aspects of nature and the universe, and study them intensely.
Now here's the difference with JWs. Everything is essential. If the Watchtower tells them that the orange and purple spotted wild beast in Third Hezekiah is a symbol of the 2004 Olympics, they have to believe it, under penalty of disfellowshipping. If the Society says that leprechauns exist - even though the Bible says no such thing and, in fact, never mentions leprechauns - JWs will be required to accept it and will attempt to defend it to the death. That's how this relates to the original question of this thread. The Bible doesn't say what the animals ate or whether they had meat to eat before the flood. But the JWs have to have an "official" answer to everything, and once that answer is rendered, however speculative, they will stick by it. Which actually makes them more vulnerable intellectually than if they simply regarded that as an unnecessary speculative concept. That was my point. Hopefully I've made myself a bit clearer now.
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cofty
But Neon if a christian believes that his or her god made all the flora and fauna why would they not be interested in the details to the point of obsession?
It is my experience that conservative christian belief and interest in the discoveries of science are inversely proportionate.
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NeonMadman
But Neon if a christian believes that his or her god made all the flora and fauna why would they not be interested in the details to the point of obsession?
No offense intended, cofty, but that strikes me as a silly question. Can I enjoy driving my car through the countryside without being able to explain every detail of how an internal combustion engine works? In much the same way, it is entirely possible to appreciate both the creation and the Creator without having a detailed knowledge of biology, geology, astronomy, physics, etc. Different people have different interests, and there is only so much time in life to spend looking into interesting things.
It is my experience that conservative christian belief and interest in the discoveries of science are inversely proportionate.
Then your experience is lacking, or else you have bought into the "new atheist" party line. Ever heard of Copernicus? He was a priest. William of Ockham, Tycho Brahe, Francis Bacon, Johannes Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, Blaise Pascal, Isaac Newton, Daniel Bernouli, Luigi Galvani, James Clerk Maxwell, Louis Pasteur, Lord Kelvin, Marconi, George Washington Carver, Max Planck, Werner Heisenberg, Werhner von Braun, and many more. They were all Christians, and don't seem to have been hampered in the least by their Christian faith with regard to "interest in the discoveries of science."
Really, it's only within the last generation or so that atheists seem to have become dominant in the sciences. Historically, the majority of great thinkers in Western culture were at least religious people and the majority of these were Christians. It was specifically the motivation you advocate that drove many of them - a desire to more fully understand the Creation and Creator. This, not atheism, has been the impetus for the growth of science and reason over many hundreds, even thousands of years. Even today, there are many Christians in the sciences holding advanced degrees and making significant contributions. Unfortunately, the new dominance of atheists makes it more difficult for them to function in academic settings, since atheists don't generally (or historically) extend the same tolerance toward those of faith that they expect for themselves.
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cofty
See what you did there...
I said " why would they not be interested in..."
you turned that into...
"having a detailed knowledge of biology, geology, astronomy, physics, etc."
it's only within the last generation or so that atheists seem to have become dominant in the sciences
Isn't that like saying it's only in the past 30 years that computers have been so widely used in scientific research.
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NeonMadman
See what you did there...
I said " why would they not be interested in..."
you turned that into...
"having a detailed knowledge of biology, geology, astronomy, physics, etc."
See what you did there? You trimmed your own quotation to make it seem that I had misrepresented you. You didn't just say "why would they not be interested in...". You said, "why would they not be interested in the details to the point of obsession?" Having an obsession about the "flora and fauna" that God created would seem to me to imply a "detailed knowledge" at least in the area of biology. But if you are going to insist on that for believers, why stop there? God also made the earth and the universe, right? So we need to have a detailed knowledge in all of those areas, too, according to your reasoning.
it's only within the last generation or so that atheists seem to have become dominant in the sciences
Isn't that like saying it's only in the past 30 years that computers have been so widely used in scientific research.
No, I don't see that it is. Computers simply didn't exist until 50 or 60 years ago, and have only become widely affordable within the last 30. Before computers, there were calculators, slide rules, abacuses etc. And I'm sure they were widely used in scientific research in their times as the most advanced technology available. 50 years from now, if there is more advanced technology available, I'm sure that will be used then. So the rise in the use of computers over the last 30 years has more to do with availability than anything else.
Atheists, on the other hand, have been around for thousands of years, but have only recently come to dominate in the sciences. I don't think this has anything to do with the advance of technology. Rather, I think it has to do with the rise of a philosophical commitment to materialistic naturalism in academia. Once, science was seen as a means of determining truth, but not the only means of doing so. Now, science is regarded - completely on the basis of faith - as being the sole means by which truth can be known. Even for those things science cannot explain, it is presumed that someday science will discover the answers (a bit of a "science-of-the-gaps" argument, if you will).
There is a difference between science as method and science as philosophy. I have no problem with science as method, as long as we can acknowledge that it may not answer every question, particularly ultimate questions. Science as philosophy, on the other hand, is based on philosophical presumptions that are unprovable, but are accepted essentially by faith. An example of this would be Carl Sagan's famous line from Cosmos: "The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be." Really? Can you prove that? Where is the level of "evidence" for that statement comparable to that which is routinely demanded when someone argues for the existence of God? Where are the skeptical challenges to that faith-based assertion? Science deals with the physical world. It has no bearing on the non-physical and cannot prove or disprove its existence. But the new dogma is that anything that can't be explained by science (at least in theory, whether or not an explanation is currently available) simply cannot exist. Those who reject the party line tend not to progress in academia, and so the sciences become dominated by atheism. The reasons have more to do with politics than truth.
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bohm
Neon: Atheists, on the other hand, have been around for thousands of years, but have only recently come to dominate in the sciences. I don't think this has anything to do with the advance of technology. Rather, I think it has to do with the rise of a philosophical commitment to materialistic naturalism in academia. Once, science was seen as a means of determining truth, but not the only means of doing so. Now, science is regarded - completely on the basis of faith - as being the sole means by which truth can be known.
This is interesting on many levels. Firstly you should be aware that I have never heard phrases like "materialistic naturalism" being used by actual scientists as part of their research, nor does scientific education (in academia) consist of being taught to only adhere to one particular philosophical view. Rather, it consist (roughly speaking) of learning about experiments, ideas and theories so as to allow scientists to gain new knowledge about the world and apply existing scientific theories in various situations such as to create new technology.
Secondly I see you prefix your entire argument with an "I don't think". In other words, your argument seem to only consist of your own speculations -- would it be an instance of "materialistic naturalism" which I have been indoctrinated with as part of my scientific education to ask why you suppose any of your accusations and sweeping statements are true?
Finally, I am all for there being more than one method for gaining new knowledge, but clearly all methods are not equally good (for instance asking the oldest man one knows or flipping a coin is not considered good ways to determine the validity of a scientific idea). Can you perhaps explain how your proposed alternative method works in practice and give examples of some of the discoveries which it has made which can be independently confirmed to be true?
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jws
BTW, I was wrong. There was a command given to the animals at Genesis 1:30:
And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
So, initially, man and beast was supposed to be vegan. After the flood, Noah was given animals for food. One assumes animals also started to eat each other at this point.
Now the apologist will say that maybe the command to eat other animals was given at some earlier point. Perhaps at the fall. Who knows? But they will use some gap in what is written to speculate on a solution.
And let me say, what bad timing for such a rule. You've only got 2 of most animals, 7 (or 7 pair?) of others, plus any babies they had on the ark. Now you let them eat each other? How many species went extinct in one day alone? Or had to continue with only one male/female to die out later?
I often see in jest unicorns standing by watching the ark float away - they missed the boat. Maybe they made it but were the closest species to the big cats when god proclaimed them food.
Not that I'm really asking these questions. I know it's all fables.
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NeonMadman
This is interesting on many levels. Firstly you should be aware that I have never heard phrases like "materialistic naturalism" being used by actual scientists as part of their research, nor does scientific education (in academia) consist of being taught to only adhere to one particular philosophical view. Rather, it consist (roughly speaking) of learning about experiments, ideas and theories so as to allow scientists to gain new knowledge about the world and apply existing scientific theories in various situations such as to create new technology.
Maybe the term "materialistic naturalism" is not the best one to use. The idea that I'm trying to sum up is the concept that nothing exists outside the material universe - that matter and energy are all there is, and that the supernatural is not merely outside the realm of science, but is non-existent. That presumption has implications that are found in many disciplines, even theology. The higher critical movement of the 19th century, whose general line of thought still dominates among liberal theologians, was based on just such a presumption. Since the supernatural either does not exist or is irrelevant to our world (as in deism), miracles are impossible. We then start to interpret things about the Bible and religious history in that light - for example, as we discussed in another thread, the presumption that the Gospels must have been written after 70 A.D. because they speak of Jerusalem's destruction. True prophecy, after all, cannot happen. But as I pointed out over there, that reasoning is circular. The Gospels purport to tell of true prophecy occurring. We can't falsify them based on the presumption that prophecy can't occur.
So my point is that, while the presupposition of materialistic naturalism may not be advocated by name in academia and the sciences, the idea permeates the environment, and the upshot of that is that it's practically required to be an atheist to function in that arena - or, if one is a person of faith, to at least keep one's mouth shut about it. If you don't think that's so, I'd suggest looking into some of the cases of scientists whose research and reason have led them to believe that the universe was intelligently designed. Often, they are marginalized and ridiculed, and some have lost their positions because they didn't adhere to the conventional wisdom. This wasn't the case in times past. It was understood that science applied to the physical world, but there was no need to exclude the possibility of the supernatural. It was just seen as a realm where science had no application.
Secondly I see you prefix your entire argument with an "I don't think". In other words, your argument seem to only consist of your own speculations -- would it be an instance of "materialistic naturalism" which I have been indoctrinated with as part of my scientific education to ask why you suppose any of your accusations and sweeping statements are true?
I'd hope it's clear that whatever I write here is my own opinion - informed, I believe, by things that I read and observe and the thought that I have given to them. I'm not so arrogant as to insist that I couldn't be wrong or am beyond correction. Obviously, if new information came to light of which I am unaware, it might be necessary for me to change my opinions. My reading and observation to this point have led me to believe that what I write is true - can you say any differently about what you write? Isn't it your own opinion, based on your own study and experience, and subject to change if further information comes to your attention? Oddly, my experience with some atheists has been that this is not the case for them. I've had atheists demand evidence for the existence of God, and then, under questioning, admit that no evidence could ever be presented that would convince them to believe in God. That any evidence they would be shown would need to be reinterpreted under the presuppositions of what I have called "materialistic naturalism." Is that any less "fundamentalist" thinking than that of the most hard-nosed Baptist? At some point, it becomes a question of the will, not of the intellect.
Finally, I am all for there being more than one method for gaining new knowledge, but clearly all methods are not equally good (for instance asking the oldest man one knows or flipping a coin is not considered good ways to determine the validity of a scientific idea). Can you perhaps explain how your proposed alternative method works in practice and give examples of some of the discoveries which it has made which can be independently confirmed to be true?
I think I have already partially covered this in my previous remarks, but to reference it back to my earlier statements about scientists who were also Christians in earlier times: these scientists believed completely in science as method, and so do I. The means of rational inquiry offered by the scientific method are applicable in a wide range of disciplines. However, these same scientists also believed that there were things that science could not explain and could never explain. They believed in a higher form of knowledge gained by revelation from the One responsible for the existence of all those things that science can analyze. They never saw a conflict between the two, as seems to be the case today. They believed in an intelligent design behind the universe - I'm not talking about six-day creationism here, but the reasonable conclusion that when one sees a universe with an overwhelming appearance of design, one may conclude that there is most likely a designer behind that universe. It seems reasonable also to believe that such a designer cannot be analyzed or known by the same methods by which the universe is measured (i.e., the physical sciences), but would have to make its presence known through revelation.
You may be rolling your eyes about now, but that's what a majority scientists believed for many centuries. They saw no conflict between the physical sciences and the existence of God. They believed in both. As I have pointed out earlier, it's only in recent decades that this has changed in the scientific community, and I believe that this change stems more from ideological than scientific grounds. That's just my opinion, of course, and I can't go back over the last 30 years or so and trace every nuance of change in the philisophical thinking of the scientific community. But based on my own observations, this is how I see it.