Posts by OneEyedJoe

90

Evolution Hole #1 - Origin of Life

by shadow in

disclaimer: my graduate degree is in business, not science so i'm writing as a layman in this field.

yes, i know that someone is going to say that evolution does not encompass this topic and should be sectioned off under abiogenesis.

i'm not trying to argue semantics here but it seems like a case of avoiding an uncomfortable subject.

OneEyedJoe

Evolution advocates have commented almost 100% as predicted so this thread is a complete success.

Thanks for confirming my suspicions. I figured the only reason someone would start a thread like this while fully acknowledging the mistake you made in the OP was so that you could avoid actually having a thoughtful discussion of the topic while being able to tell yourself "I tried."

I'm glad my instincts were right and I didn't put a lot of effort into helping you educate yourself on the topic as I normally might've.

52

$10 per pub. Money begging session last night

by StarTrekAngel in

last night, during our "christian life and ministry" meeting, we had a session on local needs.

elder opened the talk with a disclaimer saying that this was a reminder (cited psalms about how david loved jehovahs reminders).

he reminded us of how bless we are of having our own local assembly hall.

OneEyedJoe

The last assembly I went to we were quoted $11 per publisher as the rate the society had set.* So $10 per publisher on top of whatever was received at the assembly seems really high. It must vary from region to region - do you know what the supposed cost of the last assembly was and what the announced deficit was?

*I've posted about this on here before but it always cracks me up to think about. The man that gave the accounts report was from my former congregation and is well known for being a little "simple" to put it nicely. So he gets up to do the accounts report and announces that the society has seen fit to raise the per-publisher rate of our assembly that they use to determine the assembly's cost. Because they had raised the cost to $11 per publisher, and there where x publishers the cost we were expected to cover was y. The way he explained it, he made it clear as day that the "expenses" of the assembly had absolutely nothing to do with the actual cost of maintaining the building and turning on the lights, etc. I don't think this is typically common knowledge among JWs, and something tells me he won't be doing the accounts report again.

38

Honestly, Did Jehovah's Witnesses Do Anything POSITIVE For You?

by minimus in

jw
friends

i was raised as a witness and am very thankful that i am out.

having said that, i think my upbringing produced positive qualities in me.

do you believe that anything positive came from your being a witness?

OneEyedJoe

There were definitely some good aspects to being a JW, though they are few and far between. Was any of the good stuff something that I would be unlikely to have gotten had I not been raised in the cult? Absolutely not.

So yes, you could say there is some good to the JW cult, but that's buying a new car at full price and upon finding out that it doesn't run you say "well at least the heater works!"

54

"Even if it isn't the truth, it's still the best way to live"

by Simon in

have you heard that old chestnut?

i have.. typically it's the last resort when you have dismantled a jws beliefs and they have no way of defending them.

they know they are beat so they come out with that one.. its effectively an admission that you are right and they have no argument but they are still going to attend meetings because they like the social club.. what a lame way to defend your faith..

OneEyedJoe

I've definitely heard it, though I can't relate to what it takes for someone to get to that thought. Well before I knew TTATT, I'd already determined for myself that if it wasn't the truth, it was just about the worst way to live. It was only ever remotely justified (and even barely at that - I had my doubts about whether eternity in a bland paradise was worth not living now) because I thought the doctrine was correct.

42

Evolution is a Fact #10 - Non-Coding DNA

by cofty in

every cell in your body contains a big book of how to build another you.. although it's approximately 3 billion letters long only a small fraction of it contains instructions on making humans.. imagine trying to use a workshop manual but it reads like somebody messed up at the publishers.

there are a few paragraphs of meaningful text followed by pages of gibberish, another page or so of useful instructions then 9 more of random words.

some of it looks like copies of original text but full of typing errors.

OneEyedJoe

There is.

Please, do share.

42

Evolution is a Fact #10 - Non-Coding DNA

by cofty in

every cell in your body contains a big book of how to build another you.. although it's approximately 3 billion letters long only a small fraction of it contains instructions on making humans.. imagine trying to use a workshop manual but it reads like somebody messed up at the publishers.

there are a few paragraphs of meaningful text followed by pages of gibberish, another page or so of useful instructions then 9 more of random words.

some of it looks like copies of original text but full of typing errors.

OneEyedJoe

There is no basis whatsoever to dispute that the earth is round (oval) It is an indisputable fact.

There is no basis whatsoever to dispute that all species on earth evolved from a common ancestor. It is an indisputable fact.

How am i doing?

In case you're having trouble with it, my point is that there is a preponderance of evidence that evolution is factually accurate. If you want to come in and declare it not to be a fact, then you'll need to present some sort of evidence to support your claim. Otherwise your claim can be dismissed as easily (and appropriately) as you dismissed my claim that the earth is flat.

Edit: Arg! Cofty beat me by a millisecond!

42

Evolution is a Fact #10 - Non-Coding DNA

by cofty in

every cell in your body contains a big book of how to build another you.. although it's approximately 3 billion letters long only a small fraction of it contains instructions on making humans.. imagine trying to use a workshop manual but it reads like somebody messed up at the publishers.

there are a few paragraphs of meaningful text followed by pages of gibberish, another page or so of useful instructions then 9 more of random words.

some of it looks like copies of original text but full of typing errors.

OneEyedJoe

Facts cannot be disputed. Since there is basis to dispute evolution, it is not a fact.

Facts cannot be disputed. Since there is basis to dispute that the earth is round, it is not a fact.

I can do it too!

13

2015 WT CD ROM Trying to Hide the Past

by The Searcher in

when installing, it asks if you'd like to receive automatic updates via the internet.. in other words, "we will re-write our history without you knowing what was written previously.".

the corporation knows that many will never exchange their cd rom for the puerile online library, so doctoring their previous "truths" is the best solution.. a bit like the creed painted on the barn door in "animal farm.

" .

OneEyedJoe

Steve2 - I agree that there's nothing intrinsically wrong with it, but the way the WT does it is deceptive. If you read online news articles you'll often see a list at the bottom of what they changed since first posting the story. I've read articles 10 minutes after they were posted and they had already gotten a correction or two made and listed at the end - it would be easy in cases like that to fix it and hope no one saw it, but they don't because they have some journalistic integrity. The watchtower, on the other hand, prints hard copies of their magazines and leaves the version up for months only to change it later without acknowledgement of any kind. Look at the January 2015 awake that they changed - you'll find absolutely no acknowledgement anywhere of the change.

17

The Governing Body does just what they say Apostates do

by Watchtower-Free in

.

OneEyedJoe

I'm interested to know the back story of the photo.

13

2015 WT CD ROM Trying to Hide the Past

by The Searcher in

when installing, it asks if you'd like to receive automatic updates via the internet.. in other words, "we will re-write our history without you knowing what was written previously.".

the corporation knows that many will never exchange their cd rom for the puerile online library, so doctoring their previous "truths" is the best solution.. a bit like the creed painted on the barn door in "animal farm.

" .

OneEyedJoe

Or it could be just a way of updating the software that runs the library - but you carry on being overy suspicious and paranoid

Is it really overly suspicious when they have a well verified history of changing their past literature when what they previously printed becomes inconvenient? They changed many statements that referenced 1975 to remove the year for a more general phrase. They changed references to the preaching work being completed in the 19th century, to be more general after the year 2000 came and went. They've more recently removed a misquote from a biologist when it became too embarrassing (don't tell me they did this out of altruism, because if they had they would've printed a retraction in addition to removing the quote) for them.

They have a well established past of using whatever means possible to revise their history to make it more palatable. You assert that it's overly suspicious and paranoid to expect this of them, I assert that it would be incredibly naive not to.