Hi everyone, I have been attending bible study with one of my jeohavah's witnesses for 4 weeks, and only recently I had attended a sunday meeting with brother michael at our local Kindom Hall. I have enjoyed both the time with the bible study (michael teaching quality) and the sunday meeting and have had serious thoughts to altering my life in accordance with jehovah. But I am rather sceptical about evolution, and whenever I try to read Genesis in the bible, darwins theory seems to get in the way. Can anybody help? Thankyou........
Darwins theory of evolution
by gisburnuk 21 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
-
-
StinkyPantz
Darwin's theories were only a foundation for the modern theory of evolution. In fact, he was 'made famous' because of his theory called 'natural selection', not 'evolution' per se.
If you are having issues with evolution contradicting the Bible.. well that's because it does imho. I would suggest you thoroughly research both (theories regarding evolution v. creationism) and come to your own conclusions. Some people have actually been able to accept parts of both and are comfortable with that.
Good luck!
-
City Fan
Hi gisburnuk, and welcome.
You'll find most people on this board are ex-JWs. Personally I view evolution as scientific fact. Here is a link to a great website http://www.talkorigins.org/
Here also is a link to show the Watchtower's half-truths and distortions in their book 'Life, How did it get here? By Evolution of by Creation.' http://www.geocities.com/osarsif/ce01.htm
CF.
-
Midget-Sasquatch
Gisburn,
Read up a little on pseudogenes and homologies in gene sequences. That stuff strongly points to common ancestries between different species.
Simply put: If both of us were to come up with a similar database of information that we intended to sell, and used the same sources, you'd expect it to be nearly identical. However if I sneakily put in some bogus info into mine and you then have the EXACT same bogus info, I have a strong case that you copied off of mine.
Same thing with organisms and their junk dna which has the same errors as other species. How did the one come to have it just like the other?
-
hooberus
gisburnuk, I have never been a JW. However, I am a Christian. The Watchtower does not teach the truth about the Bible. read John 2:19-22. What was to be raised?
The Watchtower teaches that Jesus' body was not raised (they believe that his body was "disposed of"- (see for example WT 1990, 1991).
Which do you believe - the Bible (which teaches that Jesus' body was to be raised) - or the WT (which teaches that his body was "disposed of" and that he was raised in a body of spirit instead)?
Re: Evolution
http://www.answersingenesis.org
Re: pseudogene shared mistake arguments:
http://www.trueorigin.org/camplist.asp#evidence (go to "Supposed Evidence of Common Descent")
-
Panda
gisburnuk, Hello and welcome to this forum. Let me say that it's wonderful to have such a curious mind. I hope you never ever forget to question where the authority of statements comes from. It's always more of a joy to learn when you really dig deep into information. Form your own ideas and then prove those thoughts.
Of course the Bible is faith based. Evolution is science. I don't see how the two are necessarily meant to correspond.
If you are enjoying your friends and your Bible study just remember that each religion has their own set of theories. Yes, even Jehovah's Witnesses. No human organization is perfect. And any organization on Earth today is run by humans. Many ideas change over time. Perhaps even incorrect statements will be made and must be changed in the future. This is a sign of human organization, not God. If you love the Bible try reading some of the multitude of Bible commentary available at your local library. Perhaps your local university has a Classics course which deals with the Bible. You might want to just audit the class and that way not worry about a grade.
I know this sounds quite pedantic. But if you are curious about the Bible there are many many good histories. Anything by Elaine Pagels. She's quite the historian. And her recent work "Beyond Belief" explains research being done on ancient scrolls found in Israel and Egypt.
For evolution, anything by Richard Dawkins. "The Blind Watchmaker" is an excellent book. Good Luck and let us know how things are going with you.
-
Midget-Sasquatch
hooberus,
Those were some interesting creationist links you posted. From the little I glanced through, I'd say Gibson was the most unbiased of the bunch. He still tried to argue from his creationist view but at least he conceded the reality on the overall picture on non-coding dna and how that does favour the current 'shared ancestry' model for now. (Hey, I'd love to see good evidence that would rock the current evolutionary paradigm to keep things interesting)
Gisburnuk,
Here's to looking at both sides of the issue and as Panda wrote making up your own mind!!!
-
Abaddon
gisburnuk
But I am rather sceptical about evolution, and whenever I try to read Genesis in the bible, darwins theory seems to get in the way. Can anybody help? Thankyou........
No.
Seriously, no one can help you try to fit a literal interpretation of the Creation account of the Bible into modern theories of evolution; as has been pointed out, Darwin's theories form a base to much of modern theory, but if you think of it as 'Darwin's theory', by your own description you reveal that you don't know that much about the subject beyond perhaps what you learnt in school.
Obviously this isn't a fault on your part; you can only know what you've learnt.
However, with this in mind be careful. Until you know more about modern theories of evolution you will only partially see the ludicrous claims made by those clinging to the literal interpretations.
Literal believers in the Flood and Creation ignore facts.
It is a fact that virtually ever historian or archaelogoist specialising in the Egyptian period will tell you that the Egyptian culture existed during before during and after any possible date for a Biblical Flood (according to Biblical chronology) without interuption. The Great Pyramid at Gaza pre-dates the Flood and shows no sign of damage.
It is a fact that if you count the yearly growth rings of bristlcones pines growing in California today, you will see that they were growing BEFORE the Flood as there are more rings than there are years since any possible date for the Flood (according to Biblical chronology).,
Literalists will have you believe that ALL the experts that disagree with them are wrong.
Now, if someone (usually someone without any formal training in the subject and with no evidence to show they understand or have studied the subject in the form of qualifications) tells you a certain diet will do something good for you, and all the experts say it will damage your health, you would proceed with caution. If the 'someone' mentioned above has to have his articles published in special magazines willing to accept their claims, or has qualifications that are not from a normal mainstream educational institution, again, you would proceed with caution.
It's no different with the evolution/creation debate. You will find the hard-line literal creationists typically DON'T have formal education or qualifications. You will find that if they have qualifications they are often NOT from mainstream institutions. You will find normal science magazines will ot publish their articles due to a process called 'peer-review' which is a form of error checking run by scientific publications to help prevent them publishing inaccurate information.
You would exercise extreme caution talking dietry advice from people like that if it went in the face of what most experts said.
Exercise the same caution in the clains of literalistic creationists.
Evolution is often made out (by literalists) to disporive god or be against god. They refuse to accept a simple explanation for the Biblical account, such as it being a metaphor or an account based upon the limited knowledge and scientific understandings of the bronze-age human being who wrote it.
They often insist upon literalism as once you accept that one part of the Bible is literal and infallable (as literalists will claim for Genesis), you can then insist on a narrow and specific interpretation of what other parts of the Bible says. They end up making themselves their own 'god', as it becomes more about what they think it means (based on assum,ptions they have made before 'examining' the evidence) than what an open-minded examinatiuon would lead one to conclude.
Evolution doesn't address the existence of god in anyway. It COULD be that God started the development of life on Earth so it followed a plan - we see evidence for the development of life all around us. It doesn't tell us HOW it started; all it tells us is that it took place over hundreds of millions of years and seems to have used a mechanism called 'natural selection'. It could be that in Genesis this is communicated to us with the understanding of the time it was written.
In a way it makes me laugh. Literalists limit the glory of god. They insist it HAD to of happened EXACTLY the way a bronze-age human being described it, rather than accepting the evidence in the rocks around us. God (if he exists) has to fit the limited and primative understanding of an author from thousands of years ago, rather than expanding to fit our far greater understanding of the world around us.
Anyway, take care, be careful; hooberus means well. But he promised me a refutation of the bristlecone pine evidence at least a year ago; this PROVES the Flood could not have happened when the Bible says it did, but he still carrys on pushing beliefs he can no longer adequately defend himself.
As I said earlier, it becomes about what they think, rather than about examining the evidence.
The talk-origins website is an excellent resource for learning. And PM me if you have any questions.
-
hooberus
It's no different with the evolution/creation debate. You will find the hard-line literal creationists typically DON'T have formal education or qualifications. You will find that if they have qualifications they are often NOT from mainstream institutions.
From your talk origins site:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/credentials.html
It would be wrong to infer from this list that all creationists have suspicious credentials. In fact, a good number of prominent creationists have legitimate -- even noteworthy -- doctoral degrees in scientific fields. For example, Duane Gish earned a doctorate in biochemistry from Berkeley, Steve Austin earned a doctorate in geology from Pennsylvania State University, and Kurt Wise earned his doctorate in paleontology from Harvard while studying under Stephen Jay Gould. So just because a few well-known creationists failed to earn their graduate degrees the traditional way does not mean that all or even most of them did.
http://www.creationresearch.org/membership.htm
Since the CRS is a scientific society governed by scientists, voting membership requires an earned postgraduate degree in a recognized area of science.
Memberships and subscriptions over the past few years have been steady with a total of over 1700 worldwide. About 650 are voting members. Foreign members/subscribers number about 250.
You will find normal science magazines will ot publish their articles due to a process called 'peer-review' which is a form of error checking run by scientific publications to help prevent them publishing inaccurate information.
Many of these "normal science magazines" are run by dogmatic evolutionists who reject creation apriori (based on philosophic grounds), thus creationist scientists have started their own peer reviewed journals such as:
The Creation Research Society Quarterly (CRSQ)
http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq.htmlThe Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal (CENTJ)
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/Magazines/Technical.asp -
hooberus
Anyway, take care, be careful; hooberus means well. But he promised me a refutation of the bristlecone pine evidence at least a year ago; this PROVES the Flood could not have happened when the Bible says it did, but he still carrys on pushing beliefs he can no longer adequately defend himself.
The reason why you did not recieve an answer (from me) on the bristlecone pine tree issues has been pointed out to you on other threads.
If you would like a creationst perspective on Bristlecone dating see the above Journals. Also Mark Matthews' research (recommended to me- though I have not yet seen personally) may be helpful. video: "Bristlecone Pines are they really that Old?" arcticle:http://www.csama.org/csanews/nws0104.pdf I may also be able to secure his paper.