This is a real conversation I had with a JW friend last night. Several times previously he claimed to be a certified genius, having supposedly passed the MENSA test…
ME: So what do you think about JWs condoning the idea that Dinosaurs could have lived with humans?
FRIEND: JWs never said that.
ME: Yes they did, you can look it up on your WT CD.
FRIEND: No
ME: Well, whatever, you should look it up. What about life in general then… how do you square the fact that it’s more then 3.5 billion years old with JW teachings?
FRIEND: Life has only been around for like 20,000 years. So you believe in carbon dating?
ME: So, you don’t know what carbon dating is? It has nothing to do with determining the age of fossil-bearing rocks.
FRIEND: Don’t just sh*t on me, dude.
ME: Ok ok. I’m just interested how you square reality with your beliefs. To me, if something doesn’t match reality, it’s probably not “The Truth”.
Like the science of Genetics… What do you think about the JW idea that Noah and his wife were white and they gave birth to the first black man?
FRIEND: Pfffft! What are you talking about?
ME: Yeah, it’s an idea that’s been around a long time. Just watch the new(ish) Noah video on JW.org - Ham is a black man, Noah is white.
FRIEND: No way that’s true.
ME: Right, we’re watching the video (got iPad and watched video).
FRIEND: Well, I think a lot of JWs don’t give adaptation within kind enough credit.
ME: I don’t know what that means.
FRIEND: Well, it’s just variation. So-and-so is black and short, I’m white and tall. Obviously it can happen.
ME: No, what JWs show in the video is genetically impossible. If it were possible, we would have to re-write the entire science of Genetics.
FRIEND: Whatever. You’re just sh*ting on me.
ME: Sorry, I’m just surprised that you don’t seem to have ever addressed any of these issues. For me, they’re important.
Like, the polar ice caps. Are you familiar with ice layers?
FRIEND: What?
ME: Really? Ice layers. The glacial ice in Antarctica is made of annual layers. At lake Vostok there are like 600,000 annual layers, complete with ash deposits from volcanoes that erupted at known historical times. But guess what, there’s no Flood layer.
FRIEND: What?
ME: No Flood layer. Would’t you expect Noah’s Flood to have left some kind of trace? Volcanoes did.
Actually, it’s worse than that, ice floats. If the Flood was only 4000 years ago, the ice shouldn’t be any more than 4000 years old. But it’s hundreds of thousand of years old!
FRIEND: Well, you’ve got me there. I guess you just believe or you don’t.
ME: So, you just don’t really care?
FRIEND: No. I believe. Stop sh*ting on me.
ME: Ok ok…. I’ll stop with science then. How about morality? How do you justify the immoral things that your God does in the Bible?
FRIEND: Like what?
ME: Like when He struck David’s baby with sickness so that it took seven days to die… all because David “disrespected” God. How do you justify that?
FRIEND: If it's in the Bible, obviously it's OK. I have no problem with it.
ME: OOOoooK