I am deeply ashamed that I didn't accept evolution until a few years ago...

by ILoveTTATT2 113 Replies latest jw friends

  • sparrowdown
    sparrowdown

    Religion uses shame as a weapon.

    Don't believe religion they lie for profit. There is no such thing as having all the answers (thank god,lol)

    We are all learning, there will always, everyday be something new to learn that's what makes life so interesting.

    "When you know better......you can do better." It's as simple as that.

  • OnTheWayOut
  • longgone
    longgone

    Thank you Crofty. 😊

  • Vidiot
    Vidiot

    ILoveTTATT2 - "I am deeply ashamed that I didn't accept evolution until a few years ago..."

    Don't be.

    The belief system you were raised in would not allow you to.

  • jws
    jws

    I hear you. I'm embarrassed about it all too. I think one of my first things to go was evolution. But I still believed in the Bible. But when I gave up the Bible, I felt (and still feel) ashamed that this didn't happen years earlier. I feel envious of people who said they stopped believing as a kid.

  • cofty
    cofty
    Please tell me which books that present the scientific evidence FOR evolution you have studied in recent years? - Cofty

    I have asked that question of lots of people who reject evolution. So far not one answer. I think I see a pattern.

  • ILoveTTATT2
    ILoveTTATT2

    Thankfully, I stumbled one day onto jwfacts and the rest is history...

    Also thankfully, I want to lead an evidence-based life. As soon as I knew the WT was bullshit, I rejected it. As soon as I knew the Bible also was... I rejected it. As soon as I knew that evolution was true... I accepted it.

    I wish that I had stumbled upon this info earlier... =(

  • redpilltwice
    redpilltwice

    Please tell me which books that present the scientific evidence FOR evolution you have studied in recent years? - Cofty

    I have asked that question of lots of people who reject evolution. So far not one answer. I think I see a pattern.

    Cofty, with all respect, two months ago you recommended Richard Dawkins' "The Ancestor's Tale" to me and I'm still struggling to find the facts, not the assumptions, regarding the question how jellyfish evolved into fish. It's over 500 pages and I tried to find real answers using the book's index. I came across jawless fish, jelly fish, sponges etc. and it appears to me the described "evolution" is in fact (modern) biology and anatomy of complete species that existed or still exist. That isn't evolution!

    I mean, how, on a genetic level, do you turn a jellyfish...


    ...into these little fellows (early jawless fish)?



    Lampreys (see picture below) are still living today and are supposed to be the very first jawless fish of the group hyperoartians, but (according to wiki) there is still uncertainty about its exact evolutionary relationship.

    The lampreys are a very ancient lineage of vertebrates, though their exact relationship to hagfishes and jawed vertebrates is still a matter of dispute. [bold is mine]

    It amazes me how you constantly speak of facts as presented in your own line of evidence, while Richard Dawkins' own book dares to speak in terms of "hint" and "speculation" (p.404,405, bold below is mine):

    The 'sociable' behaviour of sponge cells as exhibited by such experiments perhaps sheds light on the normal embryonic development of individual sponges. Does it also give us some sort of hint of how the first multicellular animals (metazoans) evolved from single-celled ancestors (protozoans)? The metazoan body is often called a colony of cells. In keeping with this book's pattern of using some tales as modern re-enactments of evolutionary happenings, could the Sponge's Tale be telling us something about the remote evolutionary past? Could the behaviour of the crawling and agglomerating cells in Wilson's experiments represent some sort of re-enactment of how the first sponge arose — as a colony of protozoans? Almost certainly it was not the same in detail. But here is a hint. The most characteristic cells of sponges are the choanocytes, which they use for generating currents of water. The picture on the opposite page shows a portion of the wall of a sponge, with the inside of the cavity to the right. The choanocytes are the cells that Une the cavity of the sponge. 'Choano-' comes from the Greek for 'funnel', and you can see the little funnels or collars, made up of many fine hairs known as microvilli. Each choanocyte has a beating flagellum, which draws water through the sponge, while the collar catches nutrient particles in the stream. Take a good look at those choanocytes, for we shall meet something rather like them at the next rendezvous. And then, in the hght of that, the following tale will complete our speculation about the origin of multicellularity.

    The book goes on to show pictures like these...

    Afbeeldingsresultaat voor small colony of Choanoflagellates

    ...and asks this question on p.406:

    Is this how it was? A colony of choanoflagellates.

    Again, a question by Dawkins implies not a definite answer. It leaves room for doubt, even error and gives the right to disagree, not based on religion, but for me, based on the fact that man still isn't capable of building one single cell (let alone multi-cellular organisms) under perfect controlable conditions in an ultra modern lab while evolution "gave" jellyfish a nervous system and muscles, a flatworm a brain, bilateral symmetry and eyes, and early fish a backbone, skeleton, gills? All without fossilized transitional forms that show us "half" a brain, nerve, backbone, gill etc.along the path of trial and error? Then how do you know for a fact that this all evolved? If I've missed crucial parts of Dawkins book, please show me the pages.

    Don't get me wrong, I really can understand why someone may choose for evolution as the best available explanation yet, but let's keep a healthy dose of secpticism and keep in mind that it might not be the only or one true answer. The gaps might be real and too big for evolution to surpass.

    Also, I still haven't read prothero's book, but I might adress some of your "facts" (such as tiktaalik) later.

  • cofty
    cofty
    I'm still struggling to find the facts, not the assumptions, regarding the question how jellyfish evolved into fish.

    They didn't.

    It's over 500 pages and I tried to find real answers using the book's index.

    You should have asked. In fact if I remember rightly I already told you this weeks ago.

    I mean, how, on a genetic level, do you turn a jellyfish... ...into these little fellows (early jawless fish)?

    You don't. That's like trying to turn a duck into a crocodile.

    All without fossilized transitional forms that show us "half" a brain, nerve, backbone, gill etc.along the path of trial and error?

    You need to do some research on paleontology.

    Evolution.. might not be the only or one true answer.

    It is.

    The gaps might be real and too big for evolution to surpass

    What gaps?

    Google Images "Jellyfish Clade". The answer is 0.33 seconds away.

  • cofty
    cofty

    Here you go..

    Jellyfish are cnidarians. Humans and fish are chordata.

    Another interesting division is between protostomia which includes cnidarians and deuterostomia which includes almost everything you might see at the zoo. At a very early stage of embryology a hollow ball of cells known as a gastrula invaginates. The open end becomes the mouth in protostomia but in the case of deuterostomia it becomes the anus.

    All of life is ultimately divided into whether their mouth or anus forms first. At a basic level every anatomically complex living thing is a digestive tract with assorted appendages.


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