Yeah, I think it would be a blessing in disguise. The trick for me, though, would be to manage to get DF'd unjustly. I think that'd go a long way towards helping my wife (and maybe a friend or two) to see the cult for what it is.
OneEyedJoe
JoinedPosts by OneEyedJoe
-
-
-
-
8
List of false cause/effect relationships the WTS has asserted
by OneEyedJoe inthe recent thread on the expirimental physicist, where they strongly imply that evolution is taught only as a part of some grand atheist agenda, got me thinking.
once you really step back and look at it, there are a lot of cause/effect relationships that are presented by the wts that are completely false, or at least very misleading.
atheism caused the theory of evolution to gain prominence.. "the corruption of christendom is the leading cause of atheism" (heard at the recent convention at least twice).
-
-
OneEyedJoe
BBB:
The full quote:
Watchtower 1973 Sep 15 p.568
"If one understands the cause, it is easier to implement the prevention and cure of a bad habit. Did you know, for example, that mothers and fathers who stroke the genitals of their fretful babies to keep them quiet are unwittingly encouraging them to become masturbators later on?"Lots of other gems in this JWfacts page too:
-
3
A biochemist explains his faith
by OneEyedJoe inafter venting's recent thread on the article on jw.org about the expirimental physicist who became a jw, i figured i'd post up my analysis/rebuttal of another similar article.
when i was going through the process of cleaning out the last bits of doubt from myself, i read a few of these and wrote down my thoughts just because it felt good to actually express it all somehow.
maybe some here (maybe even a lurker or two going through early doubts) will find some value in it.. link to origonal article: http://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/g201310/davey-loos-science-researcher-explains-faith .
-
-
OneEyedJoe
After Venting's recent thread on the article on JW.org about the expirimental physicist who became a JW, I figured I'd post up my analysis/rebuttal of another similar article. When I was going through the process of cleaning out the last bits of doubt from myself, I read a few of these and wrote down my thoughts just because it felt good to actually express it all somehow. Maybe some here (maybe even a lurker or two going through early doubts) will find some value in it.
Link to origonal article: http://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/g201310/davey-loos-science-researcher-explains-faith
First off, his answer when questioned if he believed in God (the context was discussing his starting out in college):
I did when I was a little boy. But later, while I was studying at the Catholic University of Leuven, I was taught that living things owe their designs to natural processes. The professors made some of these processes sound quite complicated. They were experienced scientists, so I believed what they said. Eventually, I found it difficult to accept the existence of God.
As many have pointed out here, the WTS never misses an oppurtunity to bash the Catholic church, despite the many similarities between the two. The thrust of this paragraph is to imply that these professors spoke with an authority they did not posess (which is probably false, since they were teaching the accepted scientific understanding). There's also a gentle attempt to cast these professors (and, indeed, the entire university) in a negative light, making it easier to ascribe evil intentions to them. The assumption of evil intent is the last assumption that people make when someone disagrees with you (the first is ignorance, the second is idiocy. When shown that the person with an opposing view has all the same information that you do, and that they're intelligent, the tendency is to assume their evil, i.e. question their motives.) The WTS writer knows that these professors are obviously intelligent and well-informed, so he's giving a gentle push to the reader to get them to question the professors' motives. Lastly, this poor soul is finding it difficult to accept the existence of god. What a way to cast the triumph of critical thinking as a negative thing.
Continuing on, after a shameless plug for one of the publishing company's books he says this:
I began to wonder if evolution really did explain the designs seen in nature.
Here, they're using loaded language. The use of the word "designs" will imediately call to the reader's mind the idea of a designer. The "design requires a designer" argument is a favorite of creationists, and has been refuted time and again, so I won't go any further on that topic.
My work as a biochemist involved studying the design of certain molecules found in ocean-dwelling cyanobacteria, which are microorganisms that don’t depend on other living things for food. Some researchers think that these organisms were the first living things on our planet.
Again, the design requires a designer argument is implied. Skipping over that, the statement at the end is patently false. No one thinks that cyanobacteria "were the first living things on our planet." Some think that today's cyanobacteria are the most similar organisms to the first living things on the planet. EVERY living thing on the planet, however, is the product of 4 Billion years of evolution. As such, even the simplest organisms that are most similar to the first life will have been changed by the competition for resources. Even if, by some crazy coincidence, a population of that first living cell had been able to continue reproducing without mutation for 4 Billion years, they would be so tremendously disadvantaged in comparison to those organisms that had evolved, that the population would be comparitivly miniscule and the odds of us ever finding it would be essentially zero. It is important to understand the distinction that he's glossing over, because the idea that today's cyanobacteria look exactly like what you'd find 4 Billion years ago is the foundation for a later assertion.
Continuing on, he presents us with the beginnings of an argument from incredulity:
Using energy from sunlight, the microbes use an extremely complex chemical process, which is still not fully understood, to convert water and carbon dioxide into food. I was also amazed at how cyanobacteria can harvest light with incredible efficiency.
It shouldn't be that amazing that incremental improvements over 4 Billion years would result in some pretty complex and efficient processes. Now for good part:
The deeper you go in the sea, the less light you find. So the cyanobacteria that live there must capture every scrap of light energy that comes their way, and they do this by means of highly sophisticated antennae. The collected energy is transmitted to food-producing centers with nearly 100 percent efficiency. The design of this light-harvesting machinery has even attracted the interest of solar-panel manufacturers. Of course, manufactured solar cells are nowhere near as efficient as the systems found in bacteria.
Here's why I stressed the distinction earlier about cyanobacteria being the most like the origonal life, instead of actually being the origonal life form. Obviously, it's inconcievable that this organism, as we see it today, sprung into existence out of nothing (which is what they're implying evolution/abiogenesis asserts). However, it does make sense that something using some rudamentary process that's slightly similar to today's cyanobacteria could have gradually formed (indeed, examples of metabolism have been found outside the confines of a cell, which is one of the 'missing links' often cited by creationists as an impossible leap). After the actual first organism formed, it mutated gradually, and the offspring posessing incremental improvements in their ability to harvest energy were the ones that had greater reproductive success, and eventually the offspring that didn't have these improvements couldn't compete any longer. Clearly the environment he describes is a hostile one, so it's not far-fetched that small improvements would lead to a huge advantage. Now, after 4 Billion years of the best equiped critters starving off the lesser equiped ones, the only ones that can survive are the ones that have reached near 100% efficiency. It is little wonder, then, that the product of this extremely lengthy process would be of interest to people that'd like to have efficient solar panels a little before 4 Billion years from now.
I thought about engineers trying to imitate the marvelous mechanisms found in living things, and I came to the conclusion that life must have been designed by God.
Now that's a leap! As I hope that I've demonstrated, engineers are trying to imitate the mechanisms that were developed by 4 Billion years of competition and mutation. Just because something is of interest to an inteligent life form, doesn't mean that it was created by some other inteligence. This is nothing more than an argument from incredulity (i.e. "I can't imagine how that could be true, so it must be false")
But my faith was not based solely on what I studied in science. It was also based on a careful study of the Bible.
I'd assert that his faith was not based AT ALL on what he studied in science. I guess the WTS writer felt that they'd worked in enough misleading information and falacious reasoning on scientific topics, so now they're going to move to something a little more open to interpretation: the Bible.
One of the many things that convinced me was the detailed fulfillment of Bible prophecies. For example, centuries in advance Isaiah described in abundant detail the death and burial of Jesus. We know this prophecy was written before Jesus’ death because the Isaiah Scroll, found at Qumran, was copied about a hundred years before Jesus was born.
Ahh, bible prophecy. Now this is convincing! You're telling me that there's an ancient book that made predictions about one of it's charecters, then later on in the book the predictions came true?!? It must be the inerrant word of god then! It couldn't possibly be that the gospel was 'adjusted' slightly to fit prophecy. It also would be pretty crazy to think that Jesus (who, according to the bible was VERY familiar with the writings of the prophets) might adjust his behavior in an attempt to fulfill prophecy. (this was all sarcasm, btw) Luckily he obliges us with a further look at the prophecy he's refering to:
That prophecy says: “He will make his burial place even with the wicked ones, and with the rich class in his death.” ( Isaiah 53:9, 12 ) Remarkably, Jesus was executed with criminals but was buried in the tomb of a wealthy family.
It's interesting that he chose this prophecy. If I were to make a prediction of what would have to happen to fulfill this prophecy, without knowing any details of Jesus' life and death, I would say that the fulfillment would come from someone who was burried either alongside both criminals and wealthy people alike, or he would be burried along side wealthy people who were criminals. This was clearly not what happened. If you want to interpret this prophecy as talking seperately about the circumstances of Jesus' death and burial, it's pretty clear, then that Jesus would have been killed along side wealthy people, but burried along side criminals - which is the EXACT OPPOSITE of what actually happened. This is a terrific example of how prophecy is often re-interpreted after an event with the purpose of stating that the prophecy has been fulfilled.
This is just one example of the many fulfilled prophecies that convinced me that the Bible is inspired of God.
If there were so many fulfilled prophecies that convinced him, it's hillarious to me that he chose one that clearly was not fulfilled.
In time, I became one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
What he doesn't mention is that he probably underwent some emotionally charged event that made him susceptible to the pull of an organization that promised to provide imediate fellowship in a new "family." This is the most typical story that you'll find when examinging why an otherwise intelligent person joins a cult.
After all this he apparently felt pretty confident in the case he made:
Our faith is not blind faith that ignores the facts of science.
-
8
List of false cause/effect relationships the WTS has asserted
by OneEyedJoe inthe recent thread on the expirimental physicist, where they strongly imply that evolution is taught only as a part of some grand atheist agenda, got me thinking.
once you really step back and look at it, there are a lot of cause/effect relationships that are presented by the wts that are completely false, or at least very misleading.
atheism caused the theory of evolution to gain prominence.. "the corruption of christendom is the leading cause of atheism" (heard at the recent convention at least twice).
-
-
OneEyedJoe
The recent thread on the expirimental physicist, where they strongly imply that evolution is taught only as a part of some grand atheist agenda, got me thinking. Once you really step back and look at it, there are a lot of cause/effect relationships that are presented by the WTS that are completely false, or at least very misleading. Here are the ones I've come up with so far:
Atheism caused the theory of evolution to gain prominence.
"The corruption of christendom is the leading cause of atheism" (heard at the recent convention at least twice)
Greed/Pride/Self-importance causes people to seek higher education (I know many people who've gone to college, and it is readily apparent that this is not the case for a single one of them)
Masturbation causes homosexuality (I guess this is slightly more plausible than "you'll go blind" but really?)
Stroking your child's genitals to calm them causes them to masturbate later in life (neither part of this one makes any sense)
Leaving the WTS will cause you to become a drug addict.
Leaving the WTS will cause you to become promiscuous and get STDs.
Leaving the WTS will cause you to be permanently unhappy.
Watching "spritistic" movies/TV shows will cause your home to become haunted/possessed by demons.
Possessing any object related to anything occult will cause your home to become haunted/possessed by demons
Blood transfusions or organ transplants will cause you to exhibit the personality traits of the donor.
Spending time in the ministry will cause you to be happy
And the biggest lie of all: Baptism into the WTS will cause you to be happy.
Please add to the list. It's funny how absurd it all is once you look at it objectively and in black and white.
-
13
DF=death
by doneandout inour last midweek meeting was going along as planed, then after the last talk, an elder was called up to say: member x is no longer a jw, please sing.... after the song it was silent (compared to todays were people started talk right away) and the father had his head down with someones hand on his back.
i didn't catch what they were saying, but the pose said: i'm sorry for your loss.. it was a weird night thinking how leaving a religion could couse such sadnness.. jw.org.
-
-
OneEyedJoe
Yep, I'll never forget the way a father acted when I asked about his Son (who'd recently had some severe medical problems). He first acted surprised that I asked about him, then realized the reason was due to his recent illness. He said "Oh, he's fine now...but he's not doing anything about the Truth!"
His son wasn't even DF'd, but it was as if he was dead to him. It was shocking to me at the time, and was one of the many small pushes that led me to finally find TTATT.
-
17
an experimental physicist explains his faith
by venting inwhat do you think of this story?
all i can do is quote from someone much smarter than me.
"men offten mistake strength of their feelings with strength of their argument" venting..
-
-
OneEyedJoe
I suspect that some/all of the article was fabricated. But, it's certainly not impossible for smart people to pulled into a cult. If the interviewee is a real person, he's leaving out his personal/emotional condition at the time of his recruitment. I suspect that (similar to what opusdei stated about himself) he was recovering from a tramatic event, likely the loss of a parent or child, when he was recruited. When smart people join cults (actually, this probably applies to most people from slightly below average intelligence on up) it's usually right after a big emotional event. Etiher they've just relocated far from home (fish out of water), or they've experienced some sort of loss (breakup/divorce, death, house burned down, whatever) that they're having trouble handling. Then in walks a put-together (based on first-impression only) cult memeber offering answers to all their questions bundled with a strong sense of community and a new 'family.' That would seem like a great offer to anyone in emotional turmoil, and they may indeed see it as a calling from god because it happened just at the right time. Of course we know that it's just coincidence due to the sheer volume of recruiting effort, but by the time they know enough to realize that, they're already deeply indoctrinated.
I myself had pretty good critical thinking skills from a young age. My older brother was baptized before he was a teenager, and despite having a superior grasp on doctrine by the time I reached that age, I resisted. The more my parents pushed me to get baptized (which, in comparison to many stories I've read here, luckily was less than it could've been) the more I pushed back. I didn't want to get baptized for someone else, I wanted to get baptized because I felt that it was the right thing to do. When I was a Junior in college I finally got baptized. Why? I'd just gone through a break-up with my first love, and my father used some pretty well placed words of emotional manipulation to get me to take the plunge. It was never because I really knew it was the truth (in fact, by that time I'd long been disturbed by the little cult-like things I'd noticed, but pushed them out of my mind) it was because I was heartbroken and I didn't have the strength to resist anymore.
-
10
Crazy things JW inlaws said
by Bye bye birdie inhere is one... my mil told me according to a co talk that she heard jehovah could strike you dead when he is executing judgement based on the clothing you are wearing.
she was mad at the moment of skirts that were above the knee on me and her friend.. i said to her two things:.
1) i hope i am not in the tub during this predicament.. 2) i thought jehovah read hearts?.
-
-
OneEyedJoe
My mother in law just told me that going to "congregation picnics" was something that god requires of us as a part of our service. I told her not to go beyond the things written.
The back story is that some kid in our congregation graduated and some other family is moving, so there was a combination graduation and going away party. I've never spoken to anyone involved and don't feel any obligation to buy this kid a gift just because he happens to be a member of the same cult, and live in the general vicinity.
The greed of these people that invite everyone in the congregation to their wedding/graduation/housewarming/etc just to get more gifts is sickening. Why should I feel obligated to buy you something when you've never talked to me, except to invite me to an event just to get an extra gift?
Sorry for the hijack/rant. That really pissed me off, though (and seemed semi-related)
-
17
an experimental physicist explains his faith
by venting inwhat do you think of this story?
all i can do is quote from someone much smarter than me.
"men offten mistake strength of their feelings with strength of their argument" venting..
-
-
OneEyedJoe
For a more in depth explanation of the origin of multiple universes, I recommend the books by Stephen Hawking. I think The Grand Design is the one that goes into the details of M-theory. While I have some understanding of the concepts, I'm certainly not as adept at explaining it as hawking is, so I'm not going to try.
I may well have gotten ahead of myself by delving into it, but its a topic I'm interested in so it came to mind. You're correct that the multiverse stuff isn't necessary to explain abiogenesis in our universe, but creationists often like to point out things like the ratio of the strengths of the electromagnetic force to the strength of the strong nuclear force as being within a very narrow range that allows complex chemical compounds to form. Its the fundamental properties of our universe like this that may require a multiverse theory to explain why we find ourselves in a universe perfectly suited to bring about life. It also may not be needed, because we're obviously biased to look at ourselves as the model of what life is. There may be some other form (or, perhaps, infinitely many other forms) of intelligent life out there that could not have formed in a universe like ours, but would readily form under different physical laws. It may be that if our universe had formed in such a way that nothing but pure energy existed some unimaginable form of intelligence made of pure energy would be pondering the question of how their universe happened to be so perfectly suited to their existence.
-
17
an experimental physicist explains his faith
by venting inwhat do you think of this story?
all i can do is quote from someone much smarter than me.
"men offten mistake strength of their feelings with strength of their argument" venting..
-
-
OneEyedJoe
While I was in the early part of my journey towards being mentally out, I read the article and wrote down my critique of it for myself. Here's what my thoughts were:
1st paragraph on his background contains this gem:
Atheism is predominant in China, so at school I was taught about evolution.
This is a complete non-sequitur. The implication is that evolution was developed so that atheists could feel better about themselves, when the reality is that evolution came about in an attempt to explain the variation that we see in nature. If anything, evolution leads to atheism, not the other way around.
In the "How did you become interested in the bible" subheading, the last sentence in the paragraph was quite encouraging:
So I decided to give the facts some careful thought.
Lets see how these facts play out:
First, I knew that a closed system cannot become more organized or remain organized unless acted upon by an external agent. That is the second law of thermodynamics. Since the universe and life on earth are highly ordered, I concluded that they must be products of an external agent, a Creator. The second fact was that the universe and the earth seem to be specifically designed to support life.
First off, his understanding of the second law of thermodynamics is a bit discouraging if he's really an expirimental physicist. Hopefully this isn't typical of those in the physics community (it isn't). For a system to be closed, it cannot be acted upon by an external agent. That's the very definition of a closed system. Or, maybe he doesn't have a terrible understanding of the 2nd law thermodynamics, but he's just purposely introducing the idea of an 'external agent' to make it sound like the idea of god seem somehow scientific.
Next up - the universe in no way violates the laws of thermodynamics (if it did, they'd probably not be considered laws). Even better, life itself does not violate the 2nd law. His mistake is assuming that the earth is a closed system. Where this the case, it would be a barren, frozen, lifeless landscape. While not completely closed, our solar system is much closer to a closed system, and once you include the sun in the system, life no longer violates the laws of thermodynamics. The way life works is by "borrowing" entropy from the sun to create local order even while the total entropy of the system increases. For the layman, entropy is the measure of how chaotic a system is. A great example is when you put a cold turkey in a hot oven. It starts out with low entropy (because the air and oven walls are hot, while the turkey is cold - this is a form of order in this context) and progresses to a higher entropy state as the heat in the system evens out. The turkey gets hotter and the air gets colder (assuming the oven is off). The concept in our solar system is similar, the sun creates energy and that energy dissapates and the entropy of the system is always increasing. When the sun's energy hits the earth, plants use some of the entropy from the sun's dissapation of energy to decrease their internal entropy (by storing off the energy temporarily). This 'borrowing' of entropy is also how life would've gotten it's first start (either borrowing from the sun's entropy or by borrowing from the earth's entropy as it releases geothermal energy)
Ok, moving on...The second "fact" that he gives is that the universe seems to be perfectly suited to host life. This demonstrates that he definitely wasn't paying attention when evolution was taught in school. Life clearly has some pretty specific needs in order to exist. First, let's look just at the local environment - the earth. Clearly the earth seems 'perfect' for life. But would it be reasonable to assume that, where there no creator, life would be equally likely to form and evolve on a planet that is completely unsuitable for life? To anyone with an understanding of the theories of abiogenesis and evolution that life would always appear to be very specifically suited to its environment. As creationists like to point out, life requires many variables to be 'just right' in order to form. If life only forms in certain specific circumstances, wouldn't it make sense that life only exists in an environment that seems perfectly suited to host life? Furthermore, if life evolves in order to better fit the environment (it does) it would make sense that life would evolve into forms that are extremely dependant on certain aspects of the environment. When there are untapped resources, life will evolve to take advantage of them. This does not reflect an intelligent designer that created life with the intent to take advantage of some specific aspect of the environment, it reflects life's ability to incrementally become more efficient at exploiting available resources.
Next, looking at the universe as a whole. There was just the right mix of matter and antimatter after the big bang to leave us with enough matter left over to form stars and later planets. The balance between the 4 fundamental forces is also just right to allow life (as we know it) to form. Is this evidence for a creator? No. Current cosmology currently theorizes that new universes are being born all the time. There are likely an infinite number of other universes out there, each possibly with their own unique laws of physics. This being so, it is only in the universe where the settings are 'just right' for life to form, that intelligent life is able to form and contemplate why the universe seems so perfectly suited to them. This is essentially the same concept I talked about above, just on a grander scale. Just as there are trillions of planets in the universe (making the chances of one being quite hospitible to life rather high) there are likely infinite other universes, making the chances of one being perfect for life quite high (actually, if there's an infinite number of universes, you can be assured that there is also an inifinite number of universes that host life)
Moving on:
Practically all life on earth depends on energy from the sun.
Shocking! Life has evolved to depend on what is, by far, the most abundant energy source available. Who would've guessed! He goes on to describe how the sun imparts energy to the earth and the earth, again, seems perfectly suited to life. He is describing a process that likely takes place on any number of planets in the universe with an atmosphere containing oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon (elements which are readily generated by stars, and distributed throughout the universe when they go supernova). Really this next paragraph is just an extension of the same tired argument.
Next up:
Only a very narrow band of the vast spectrum of solar radiation is visible light, but light is vital for life. Plants need it to produce food, and we need light to see. The atmosphere’s special transparency to light cannot be a coincidence.
Why can't this be a coincidence? If the earth didn't get the right amount of the right type of light, he wouldn't be a live to make such rash assumptions (or, more likely, he'd be making the assumptions on another planet that was better suited). Or, perhaps we would've developed eyes that detect other wavelengths of light, and plants would photosynthesize with other types of light. Again, sticking with the same argument that just boils down to forcing things to fit a framework that you've already decided on.
When asked why the way light is filtered is significant:
Some ultraviolet radiation is critical. We need a small amount of it on our skin to produce vitamin D, which is vital for bone health and evidently for protection from cancer and other diseases. However, too much of this particular radiation causes skin cancer and eye cataracts
So, we evolved a dependency on ultraviolet radiation due to it’s abundance. There could’ve been an early mutation that resulted in the production of Vitamin D in response to ultraviolet radiation. If Vitamin D helps prevent cancer, then this mutation would increase reproductive success of the population that had it since they would be able to tolerate more sunlight. Is the fact that people actually DO get cancer from too much sunlight - an amount of sunlight that would be difficult to avoid if we didn’t have clothes and housing - evidence that god wants us all to die of cancer?
The last bit sums it up:
In its natural state, the atmosphere allows only a tiny amount of this ultraviolet radiation to reach the earth’s surface—and it is just the right amount. For me, that is evidence that someone designed the earth to sustain life.
This is his entire argument! the earth seems perfect for life, therefore everything was created for life. The converse argument makes much more sense and requires no mystical designer - the earth was here first and happened to be suited for our particular flavor of life, so life formed and adapted to take advantage.
-
40
Athiests: Do you ever wonder... what if?
by toweragent ini'll start by saying, i'm a ministerial servant who is trapped in the religion.
my wife is hardcore...but i've slowly been getting her to lighten up, so i'll take it!
all my friends and family are jw's, and i am employed by a jw (who is actually a great boss).
-
-
OneEyedJoe
I've personally come to the conclusion that there's absolutely no conclusive evidence for the existance of any god or gods. There's plenty of evidence that the universe, matter, and life itself could (and very likely did) come about independently as emergent properties of a system ruled by fairly simple physical laws. In short, if god created everything, he must've intentionally created the universe in such a way as to completely hide his involvement. If such a god exists, he'd certainly be kinda a dick if he was going to start punishing people for not believing in him based on a book written thousands of years ago by a backwards tribal nomadic nation.
Yes, the realization that you're not going to have a perfect life in the future is kinda a bummer. But wouldn't you rather realize it and act accordingly, than live your life just waiting for the next life, only to find that there's nothing there? If I'm lucky, I'll have 70-80 years (maybe well beyond that given the rate at which medicine is advancing) to live, love, have fun, and see good for my hard work. That's not a bad deal, considering I did nothing to earn it.
If the god of the bible does somehow happen to exist, then I fully expect to be rewarded exactly the same as the most faithful christian. If an omniscient, omni-benevolent god that practices perfect justice, and can read the hearts of men exists, then he knows full well that I arrived at my conclusions though pure intentions. I sought only truth, and was ready to believe whatever I found, and act accordingly. It's not by some selfish desire to sleep in on sundays that I found myself to be athiest. If I, using all my supposedly god-given powers of reason, couldn't come to the conclusion that god exists, then I can't imagine how he could hold me accountable for his failing to give me whatever I needed to believe in him. Any god that wants to punish me for being an athiest is a dick that I wouldn't want to serve anyway.