To even have an opinion on something so stupid shows how delusional that cult really is.
Snakes walked on legs till the Eden curse Watchtower belief till 1974!!
by Witness 007 24 Replies latest watchtower bible
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slimboyfat
Not to mention belly buttons
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Disillusioned JW
The story in Genesis about the snake becoming cursed and the WT's early interpretation of it could be interpreted as indicating that the early Semite storytellers had an insight that snakes of their day must have had distant ancestors which had legs - like most reptiles and most other land animals! Such an idea thus can be interpreted as part of the account in Genesis as teaching theistic evolution (or evolutionary creationism). I started thinking that when I began reading science books (including biology textbooks and paleontology books) which teach evolution and which say that the earliest snakes (or at least some of their pre-snake reptilian ancestors) had legs!
Likewise the story about Eve (and her female descendants) becoming cursed with painful childbirth can also be interpreted as teaching theistic evolution (or evolutionary creationism). How so? Well consider the following. Some anthropology books and articles teach that the reason why human child birth is so painful is because human baby brains (and hence human baby skulls) are so big (at least relative to the size of the rest of their body, in comparison to non-human animal babies). Our high intelligence (relative to non-human animals) is largely due to our relatively large brains (and the way they are structured). In the Genesis story Eve (whom the story says is the mother of all humans living - the Good News Bible (GNB) even says "mother of all human beings") gained immense knowledge as a result of eating fruit of the tree of knowledge (according to some interpretations of the story). [Notice that the main text of Genesis 3:22 in the GNB says "Then the Lord God said, “Now these human beings have become like one of us and have knowledge of what is good and what is bad.[m]" According to the translation of the GNB, Eve and all other humans (or at least Eve and Adam) came to know everything, since according to that Bible, at Genesis 3:22, the translators' note "m" says, "knowledge of what is good and what is bad; or knowledge of everything").]
As a result, the story about Eve can be interpreted as some of the ancient Semites knowing childbirth is painful because human babies have large brains (which enable humans to be highly intelligent, relative to non-human animals). Therefore, the story can also be interpreted as teaching (or at least being somewhat consistent with) rapid evolution of hominids, due to a beneficial mutation (in this case caused by ingestion of a substance in the environment) in a very small isolated population (punctuated equilibrium theory of evolution, including an element of allopatric speciation theory of evolution), resulting in the hominid brain becoming much larger and much more intelligent in the human lineage, and with the mutation being passed on to all of the descendants! Wow!
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stan livedeath
i read somewhere that slow worms are legless lizards.
Pissed again i suppose.
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dropoffyourkeylee
I think it fair to say that the JWs got the snakes-with-legs belief from the general religious beliefs in the 1800's, which Creationists still believe.
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vienne
Believing something common among ultra conservative Christians does not seem to be a huge scandal. There's a Watchtower illustration from the 1950s of the serpent as a sort of lizard. Don't ask me which issue. I didn't note it. Not what I'm working on.
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Acluetofindtheuser
There's a Watchtower illustration from the 1950s of the serpent as a sort of lizard.
The 1953 book titled, "New Heavens and a new earth" shows a lizard talking to Eve on page 81 in the chapter named, Corrupting of the righteous world. The creature is in the tree and is about 2 ft tall when sitting on its hind legs. The tail extends about 3 ft from its pelvis and wraps around the trunk of the tree. The lizard sits a little higher than eye level with Eve, I know all would rather see a scan of the picture but I don't want to ruin the book by forcing it open face for my scanner. I just bought it a few months ago on ebay.
In that same picture the image of Eve is rather risque showing her bare butt and side breast. I guess since it's a cartoon they had no problem with it. Another thing to note about this book is the Stegosaurus hanging out with a woolly mammoth and a couple of saber tooth tigers on page 60.
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JoenB75
So they turned more dualist in the 70s. I remember my parents talked about the tiny hind legs as evidence for the serpents once having legs. We also today have skinks with long bodies and ridiculously small legs that look a bit like that (supercute and hardy pets btw)
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Acluetofindtheuser
Here is the photo from the 1953 "New heavens and a new earth" that is on page 81.
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joey jojo
Some whales have vestigial legs.