Mephis

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Posts by Mephis

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  133

  What are the biggest holes in evolution?

  by shadow in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  how honest are the proponents of evolution?

  idk but curious to see what type of response there is on a topic like this or does their study only seek to confirm their preconceptions and ignore uncomfortable facts?

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  Mephis

  Obviously you weren't arguing for any particular god, because your argument vanishes into an infinity of successively more powerful gods. This has nothing to do with evolution though? I did notice your movement through time suggestion, I'm just not sure what relevance cosmology 101 has to a debate on evolution. But if you want an explanation, try something on 'imaginary time' for one model which works to explain things. eg Hawking lecture here: http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-beginning-of-time.html
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  46

  Books I read when I deprogrammed

  by OrphanCrow in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  blondie suggested someone start a thread with a list of books that are valuable to read when exiting the jws.. i will start.. i left the jws way back in the early 70s and didn't actually deprogram until into the 80s.. one of the first books i read was "the orwellian world of jehovah's witnesses" by gary and heather botting.

  canadian exjws from calagary.

  an excellent book and one that still resonates with young people today.

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  Mephis

  Don Cameron's Captives of a Concept is very good.

  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Captives-Concept-Anatomy-Illusion-Cameron/dp/1411622103
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  17

  Wear were you in the "Pecking order" in the congro??

  by karter in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  we were right down with the very lowest.. father never a jw we had a po with little mans syndrome and love to pick on sisters that had no husband to stand up for them,he picked on my mother only to find out he picked on the wrong person,she came from a hard up bringing and didn't take any s###t from anyone particularly this little bully and we were very poor...how low can you get!.

  karter..

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  Mephis

  I didn't know there was a pecking order until a couple of years back when someone pointed it out to me. Elder's kid plus male. Lots of leeway I didn't even realise was leeway at the time.
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  143

  Fidel Castro and the WT

  by Hecce in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i am going to engage on a trip to the past and share with you some of the matters that marked the beginning of the jws persecution in cuba.

  you will be surprised that the pattern that was followed is very similar to what happened in other dictatorial countries.. in the cuban case, i am going to surprise you and tell you that like what happened with hitler; the wt was partially responsible for their clash and confrontation with the cuban government.

  during the early 60s the revolution was fighting for survival and they were willing and ready to demolish any perceived enemy to their cause.. a prime example was their war against the catholic church that was the most influential religious entity in the country; it took the supreme leader only a few public discourses to send the vast majority of clergy packing and back to their country, in this case spain.. the jehovah’s witnesses were an insignificant minority but they over estimated their importance and displayed a belligerent attitude, it was known that this was a us based religion and an easy target to connect them with the cia.

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  Mephis

  They've recently tried a similar corporate shell game here in the UK with Charity Commission. They tried to argue that as COs get controlled by "Christian Congregation of JWs" (which isn't registered as a charity) then anything they did (eg certain judicial committees) couldn't be investigated by the Charity Commission. Judge didn't buy it in the slightest.

  Thanks for your posts Hecce. All kind of a pattern, but with horrific consequences for the individual JW when the Brooklyn stupidity clashes with authoritarian regimes.
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  133

  What are the biggest holes in evolution?

  by shadow in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  how honest are the proponents of evolution?

  idk but curious to see what type of response there is on a topic like this or does their study only seek to confirm their preconceptions and ignore uncomfortable facts?

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  Mephis

  even a greater ingenuity would be required to create such a process in the first place

  That's not an argument for a God though prologos. That's an argument for God being made by an even bigger God who was made, in turn, by a yet bigger God ad infinitum. Turtles all the way down argument.
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  30

  Original Sin / Salvation without a literal Adam and Eve?

  by Coded Logic in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  something i've never understood is if adam and eve are just metaphorical where did "original sin" come from.

  and, if there was no original sin, what is the value of jesus sacrifice?.

  i know a lot of christians believe in evolution but i've never understood how such a belief is structured.

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  Mephis

  Interesting idea. I've a lot of time for theories of things being handed down which may have a truth (of some sort) contained in them. Problem with that idea is that there's evidence of ritual (and worship?) in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A remains which have been found, which takes you to around 8000 BC and places us in Palestine as well as Mesopotamia and parts inbetween too. One of the main sites for them was the biblical Jericho, which was a town of a few thousand people even back then. If Gobekli Tepe is a religious site, and is also related to this culture/set of closely related cultures, then you could push that further back again by 1000 years or so. It's hard to reconcile the biblical narrative with that. Perhaps there was a theme being picked up on with roots in history and pre-history, but Genesis was likely written as far away in time from the start of recorded history as we currently are from when Genesis was written. (ie c.2600 years), so figuring it out from the bible is likely going to be very difficult. Possibly easier to start from the archaeology and work from that?

  (Paper on ritual within Pre-Pottery Neolithic written by one of the world's experts on the subject: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Adrian_Goring-Morris/publication/227138426_Foraging_Farming_and_Social_Complexity_in_the_Pre-Pottery_Neolithic_of_the_Southern_Levant_A_Review_and_Synthesis/links/53d888e40cf2631430c32337.pdf )
  
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  3

  Article: USA TODAY - Doomsday Clock: 'Three minutes' left until the apocalypse

  by AndersonsInfo in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/01/26/doomsday-clock-countdown-humanitys-end-moves-today/79347584/.

  doomsday clock: 'three minutes' left until the apocalypse .

  the doomsday clock, a symbolic countdown to the world’s end, stands still at three minutes until midnight, scientists announced tuesday.. it remains at the position it moved to one year ago.. that the clock moves no closer to midnight, the indicated end of humanity, remains "grave" news, its makers stressed.. "unless we change the way we think, humanity remains in serious danger," said lawrence krauss of the bulletin of the atomic scientists, the nonprofit that sets the clock.

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  Mephis

  I remember very well the early 80s cold war paranoia, especially with the Reagan ramp-up. Agree with you Zappa-esque, they loved that clock. Was quite the thing generally though - you see it in things like The Watchmen which also tap into that 99 Luftballoons angst. Wouldn't surprise me whatsoever if the WBTS starts ramping up environmental concerns as their new 'things can't go on much longer' idea.

  The clock moved forward by 2 minutes to 11:53 after 9/11. But not solely because of 9/11. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1844935.stm
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  14

  Book Review: The Watchtower Society, Organizational Misbehavior

  by johnny depp in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this is the way crisis of conscience should have been written.

  finally, a book written on the watchtower society by someone who actually knows how to write!

  after reading the subheading, “the psychology of jehovah’s witnesses,” (pages 160–182), i have abandoned the belief that we have an “unconscious,” and will never again consult any psychologist, psychiatrist, or counselor.

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  Mephis

  Hawking those books again? Quick question for you Johnny - any idea what happened to Ibarra's first book (which was on Lulu but no more) called Hystory of the Gregorian Calendar? Was that any good?
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  30

  Original Sin / Salvation without a literal Adam and Eve?

  by Coded Logic in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  something i've never understood is if adam and eve are just metaphorical where did "original sin" come from.

  and, if there was no original sin, what is the value of jesus sacrifice?.

  i know a lot of christians believe in evolution but i've never understood how such a belief is structured.

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  Mephis

  Origen's views seem to place him as seeing Adam as being both historical fact (eg in the preface of De Principiis Adam is listed alongside Moses and Abraham etc as a historical figure) as well as something of an allegory. Origen also pushes something which seems close to the idea of inherited sin requiring a ransom sacrifice, but it's not the whole Adventist interpretation Russell was plugged into. (Commentary on Romans is where Origen ends up trying to square circles of Pauline doctrine on sin.)
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  35

  Evolution is a Fact #11 - Tiktaalik

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  one of the biggest gulfs that life has had to cross was the transition from sea to dry land.. fish have conical shaped heads, reptiles have flat heads.

  fish have no necks; their heads are attached to their shoulders by a series of bony plates.

  land-dwelling animals all have necks; their heads can move independently of their shoulders.

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  Mephis

  "There's no transitional fossils"

  "We found some!"

  "Those don't count because you were looking for them and predicted beforehand where they'd be found."

  "We're off to play chess with pigeons"