by Sanchy 59 Replies latest jw friends
It did the opposite for me. When I started to look at references the WT used to prove points in District Assembly talks I was giving, I found that generally, they were proving the very opposite, and taking a sentence or two out of context.
The evidence became enough for me to question everything.
“Kingdom of Jesus Christ”? Where is that?
Kingdom of God, or kingdom of heaven, or just kingdom. I don’t recall “Kingdom of Jesus Christ”.
There’s “kingdom of the son of his love” Col 1:13 but “Kingdom of God” is the most common.
From Cofty: Again this is predicted on the error that individuals adapt to circumstances by evolving. There is no intention in evolution. Random changes are selected if they give an advantage to the individual that hosts it. If resources are scarce then individuals who are better equipped to survive AND reproduce will leave more copies of their genes in the gene pool. If resources are plentiful selection pressure is less or even non-existent.I had also wondered where the intention in evolution comes from. Thanks for the simple explanation Cofty.
'Predicted' should read predicated.
There are 2 misconceptions that turn up repeatedly.
1 - Evolution does not have any intention or forward planning. Sometimes this error is referred to as the teleological fallacy. We see it when creationists ask things like, 'how did a creature who couldn't see know to evolve eyes?'
2 - No individual creature ever adapted to their environment. Evolution happens to a population as favourable genetic changes accumulate through mechanisms such as natural selection.
If creationists would just read even one basic textbook they would be able to understand why these are errors and then they could stop attacking a straw man. My first ever book on evolution after leaving the cult was a short work called 'Evolution Made Simple'. I quickly realised the depth of my ignorance.
ttdtt - "When I started to look at references the WT used to prove points in District Assembly talks I was giving, I found that generally, they were proving the very opposite, and taking a sentence or two out of context."
Why else do you think they discontinued using the Creation book for study? Some folks - like you - started catching on.
Cherry-picking, semantic hopscotch, and bait-and-switch tactics...
...jeezus, if the only way for a creationist to defend creationism is by using dirty lawyer tactics, WTF does that say about the creationist? Or creationism in general?
I think there is a significant dispute among scientists whether evolution has a direction or not. I found this interesting discussion of the issue by philosopher of science a Michael Ruse.
https://www.bigquestionsonline.com/2017/01/26/does-evolution-have-direction/
I didn't say evolution has no direction. On the other hand it is misleading to say that it does without taking great care to define what is meant by that.
Michael Ruse's article looks at different ways in which is might be said that evolution has 'direction'.There is no intentionality or teleology in evolution.
Vidiot - Exactly.
This is a minor example, but there was the snippet in "Watching the world" (yea remember those) about how scientists found a part of Antartica that once had a mild climate.
Now they did not make any statement more about that, but it obviously was for JWs who would automatically put 2 and 2 together and say, see before the Flood, the world was all a paradise. All warm and perfect.
The snippet was taken from a science journal. I went to a local university library and found it.
Of course, it was true, but the climate they found was from millions of years ago when Antarctica was not in the spot it was in now, and the Earth was much much warmer.
Funny how they left that part out:)
If the universe is rigged so that material and then biological systems inevitably result in conscious human beings, then doesn’t that direction of history, wired into the fabric of reality, raise the question of intention?
