Good grief!
Materialists, Jehovah's Witnesses & Biblical Christianity
by Perry 38 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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LisaRose
I have no idea what JWs teach about the age of the universe, but when I was a JW (I left 14 years ago) , they taught that the life began six thousand years ago, that each creative day was a thousand years long. Individual JWs may believe something different, it wouldn't surprise me, it's hard to fathom anyone believing that with all the evidence that is there, from the fossil record to DNA. They stopped publishing the blue Evolution book I remember from my day, it would be pretty ridiculous to try and pass that off now. I imagine the Watchtower will have to address it at some point, thy have lost all credibility in my opinion.
Perry, it's not materialistic to accept science that has been amply proven, it's just common sense.
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jgnat
For grins and giggles, I re-wrote the table.
Evangelical Biblical Literalist Jehovah’s Witness Stand-In Athiest Life started a few thousand years ago Who knows how long is a creative day? Life started millions of years ago Your works cannot redeem you You can redeem yourself by your works Redeem myself from what? It is appointed unto man once to die, then judgment - Heb. 9:27 There is no judgment after death Judged by an imaginary puppet-god? Jesus died for me personally as a scapegoat Jesus didn’t die for me personally This would be the desert prophet, repurposed by Paul, Constantine, and Luther to name a few? Dead souls are conscious (Rev. 6: 9-11) There is no consciousness after death There is no consciousness after death Jesus is our sole Mediator Jesus is not our Mediator Mediated on behalf of an imaginary puppet-god? “All Authority in heaven and earth” are given to Jesus Jesus is not in Control All I make out of life, I do myself. The New Covenant is for “all of you” The New Covenant is for an exclusive 144,000 mostly gone now. I have a mortgage, a credit card, and marriage vows. The signators have a name, an address, and signed on the dotted line. God is triune God is one god there is none before him. (Isaiah 45:5) More about this puppet-god. When are we going to discuss global warming? We are a tri-partite being “in God’s image” Body-Soul-Spirit There is no soul. We are honing in on the source of consciousness. Check out John Searle's work. New Testament is Final Authority A select group of spirit-directed men, appointed to the Governing Body, are the final authority. Authority can be assigned or removed based on the integrity of the work, by repeatabilility, under the scrutiny of my peers. None is good except God I am never good enough What is good? -
Perry
Oh I wholeheartedly believe in science Lisa.
Can you expalin an evolution process that would account for where all the information in DNA could come from?
DEVASTATING MATH PROBABILITIES
The possibilities of it occurring by chance are devastating.
"Based on probability factors . . any viable DNA strand having over 84 nucleotides cannot be the result of haphazard mutations. At that stage, the probabilities are 1 in 4.80 x 10 50 . Such a number, if written out, would read:
480,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000."Mathematicians agree that any requisite number beyond 10 50 has, statistically, a zero probability of occurrence (and even that gives it the benefit of the doubt!). Any species known to us, including the smallest single-cell bacteria, have enormously larger number of nucleotides than 100 or 1000. In fact, single cell bacteria display about 3,000,000 nucleotides, aligned in a very specific sequence. This means that there is no mathematical probability whatever for any known species to have been the product of a random occurrence—random mutations (to use the evolutionist's favorite expression)."—I.L. Cohen, Darwin was Wrong (1984), p. 205.
"This means 1 / 10 89190 DNA molecules, on the average, must form to provide the one chance of forming the specific DNA sequence necessary to code the 124 proteins. 10 89190 DNA's would weigh 10 89147 times more than the earth, and would certainly be sufficient to fill the universe many times over.
A lot of materialists have moved on to aliens Lisa. Scientific discoveries have eliminated the possibility of life occuring by chance here on earth. This of course just kicks the can down the road a bit.
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cofty
There is no "information" in DNA - it's just a meataphor.
It's interesting that you ignore the fact of evolution that has been established beyond all sensible doubt and focus on origin-of-life questions.
Have you lost your nerve regarding common ancestry?
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Perry
Question:What do you think is the possibility that Intelligent Design might turn out to be the answer to some issues in genetics or in evolution?
DAWKINS: Well, it could come about in the following way. It could be that at some earlier time, somewhere in the universe, a civilization evolved, probably by some kind of Darwinian means, probably to a very high level of technology, and designed a form of life that they seeded onto perhaps this planet. Now, um, now that is a possibility, and an intriguing possibility. And I suppose it's possible that you might find evidence for that if you look at the details of biochemistry, molecular biology, you might find a signature of some sort of designer.Richard Dawkins knows as do most scientists that Materialism is dead from a probability standpoint. Notice his prolific use of "just so" language.
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designs
The thing with Jesus and Paul and their new religion was it became a ideology by abrogation and deadly force.
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Apognophos
I have no idea what JWs teach about the age of the universe, but when I was a JW (I left 14 years ago) , they taught that the life began six thousand years ago, that each creative day was a thousand years long.
LisaRose, it's good that you are forgetting all the nonsense you were taught as a Witness, but you got your nonsense wrong :-) The creative days were considered to be 7000 years each. That was the basis for the 1975 hullabaloo: Adam's creation in 4026BCE + 6000 = 1975CE (6000 being the length of the current day, God's day of rest, minus the 1000 years of Jesus' reign that they believed were going to occur at the end of this current day of creation). It was only mankind which the JWs held to be 6000 years old; possibly Russell thought differently, but that would have been a long time ago in a religion far, far away.
Captain Obvious' answer is the correct one as far as modern Witness beliefs go.
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cofty
Perry - I heard that interview with Dawkins. He actually does not favour astrobiology as an answer to abiogenesis. He was simply conceding the remote possibility that life could have originated elsewhere.
As he points out, if that did prove to be the case it doesn't really answer the big question, it only moves it to another place and time.
There is nothing about life on earth that requires ID as an explanation.
Why are you ignoring the fact of evolution? Every living thing on planet earth - including humans - evolved from a common ancestor through evolution. This is a fact that can only be denied by the willfully ignorant.
The origin of life is a field of science that is showing amazing promise but as a fundie you need to focus on the fact that there was no Adam and Eve and no fall from perfection.