Posts by Mephis

3

The "Wound" may soon be healed? (The split between Orthodox and Catholic)

by Terry in

the proper term is "schism.".

defined: the formal separation of a church into two churches or the secession of a group owing to doctrinal and other differences.. ___________________think: gb vs apostates___________.

in 1054, the only true universal christian church (in their opinion, of course) began a serious dispute with hard feelings on both sides which eventually resulted in a split because of geographic location, disputes on doctrine, and authority issues.. to put it in jw terms, they disfellowshipped each other's leaders and representatives, back and forth over many years.

Mephis

Unless or until they can agree on the meaning of primacy, it's not healing any time soon. The Bishop of Rome has a very clear view of what he thinks primacy is (Bishop of Rome is in charge). The Orthodox Patriarchs have their's (Bishop of Rome just chairs the committee). The Patriarch of the Russian church isn't even the most senior patriarch in the Orthodox communion - that's the Patriarch of Constantinople, and he's already met Francis as Pope too. It's a fundamental difference in opinion over how the church should be organised. One man in charge or a group of men who each have a little fiefdom? A President or a 'Governing Body'?

The WBTS' view of religious freedoms and understanding (heh) of the bible will constantly put them on a collision course with government authority even of the most benign kind. That's very true. The extent and nature of control over adherents the WBTS demands almost guarantees it.

17

Two Jehovah's Witnesses congregations abolished by courts - Russia

by OrphanCrow in

two jehovah's witnesses congregations abolished by courts.

today, 11 february 2016, an administrative lawsuit by the prosecutor of belgorod province for finding the local religious organization of jehovah's witnesses in the city of belgorod to be extremist and liquidated was granted by decision of the belgorod provincial court.

yesterday the provincial court issued a decision on the administrative lawsuit of the provincial prosecutor for liquidation of the local religious organizations of jehovah's witnesses in the city of stary oskol.. the above quote is from one of 5 articles at link.. the fourth article, doctors in court: "jehovah's witnesses died after refusing blood transfusions", gives a synopsis of the hearing in the belgorod provincial court on feb 8.. two doctors were summoned into court as witnesses in order to learn whether religious convictions have affected the state of health of jehovist patients and whether they could be the cause of the death of patients.

Mephis

Sadly not possible for a repressive state and a repressive religion to both lose the same court case. I do hope that the court cases don't lead to more mob violence and heavy handed police raids for JWs in Russia caused by one group of Biblebashing zealots not wanting competition.

75

Evolution and Atheism - please help

by Fernando in

not being familiar with either, my question is:.

what is the relationship between evolution and atheism?.

i'd love to hear from anyone and everyone, and also from any perspective.. without limiting the conversation in any way, i would of course also appreciate comments that are simple, clear, direct and correct (as i don't have the capacity to do a phd in evolution or atheism)..

Mephis

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84

Why I'm not agnostic

by Coded Logic in

i think the time to be agnostic is when you have evidence on both sides of a claim.

for example, i'm agnostic about the existence of a historical jesus.

i think a reasonable case can be made that jesus was a man who was turned into a legend over a period of a couple of decades.

Mephis

My agnosticism is around knowledge of whether a being I'd call 'God' exists. I don't know. To all intents and purposes, I don't care. It's irrelevant to my life. If one did exist, up til now my life is irrelevant to it. For me, that's an intellectual honesty check on my beliefs, well, my lack of them. Until some pretty major questions about the origin and nature of the universe are answered then I see little point in being overly dug into a position. Should those questions be answered, then I'll reassess. This is as of equal priority in my thinking, actually less, to 'what is at the bottom of a black hole?'.

I could also happily recite lists of gods I don't believe in. It's probably as long as the number of gods imagined up by humans. Agnosticism to me certainly isn't a 'sitting on the fence' position because of a lack of thought. It's a word which pretty perfectly describes where I'm at with things. If I were convinced either way, then I'd use a different word.

25

Is a piano inevitable?

by slimboyfat in

i was at a concert last night and the presence and stature of the piano struck me.

and i thought: if the piano wasn't invented when it was, would it have been invented by someone else instead?

or if there was a world the same as our, except with a different history, would it have pianos now too or would it be modern world, similar in many respects, only without pianos?

Mephis

Writing is said to have developed independently at least twice, in Mesopotamia and in Mesoamerica. It seems inevitable. The Wasteland was only written once, and it seems to have been... not inevitable

The Wasteland was also heavily edited into shape, to the extent Pound joked he should be called the midwife. Would another word salad pruned to suitably sized slabs have sufficed? Modernism actually arose at least twice within European literature, and from very different roots each time. Was writing not inevitable because cuneiform doesn't look like glyphs?

3

Article: Free Exercise, Penance, and Delaware Court by John M. Grondelski

by AndersonsInfo in

http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2016/02/free-exercise-penance-and-delaware-court.

free exercise, penance, and delaware court.

by john m. grondelski february 9, 2016. regular first things readers know that the late father richard john neuhaus never tired of arguing that the first amendment contains not two religion clauses but one: “no establishment” and “free exercise” are not two free-floating provisions at occasional loggerheads with each other but one.

Mephis

SykesFive schooling a Catholic theologian attempting to write a scare piece on 'why it's our Catholic right not to have to report child abuse'. Amusingly true and accurate from her/him.

21

Evolution is a Fact #20 - Lucy in the Sky ....

by cofty in

when donald johanson and his colleagues returned to the afar region of ethiopia in 1974 they were full of optimism.

it was their second season searching for human fossils around hadar.

the previous november johanson had found a fossilised knee joint that was dated to more than 3 million years ago.

Mephis

One of the things which always strikes me about the Lucy skeleton is just how tiny it is. Hip height to me when I've stood next to reconstructions. So incredibly small.

16

Good NYT article on gravitational waves discovery

by done4good in

jw
friends

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/science/ligo-gravitational-waves-black-holes-einstein.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=homepage&clicksource=story-heading&module=photo-spot-region®ion=top-news&wt.nav=top-news&_r=0.

probably the biggest find since the higgs.. d4g.

Mephis

A huge feather in the cap for American science. 40 years to get the right instruments to measure them. Incredible foresight and scientific good stuff. The impossible takes just a little longer.

70

When is a theory 'just a theory'?

by HB in

the titles of cofty's excellent recent posts are all preceeded by the words "evolution is a fact...".

richard dawkins is encouraging people to use the term 'fact' in relation to evolution, especially when debating with creationists as the word 'theory' is confusing to many, and the latter often takes the discussion off on an often unproductive tangent.

the following may be of interest, it's from the bbc website - part of a regular series of articles called 'the vocabularist', discussing the origin and meaning of words: .

Mephis

That may be the case -or maybe not if evolution comes up with something new.
It's creationism which uses magic to explain how genes get where they are. Evolutionary theory is quite happy to explain it by things having sex. This stuff is on the level of a paternity test at court, or the evidence for how closely related to other primates modern humans are. It's that solid. The hard part was getting the DNA to examine. And now figuring out when the sex was taking place, and whether it was directly between modern humans and Neanderthals, and where it was taking place, and... lots of interesting questions still left. But it happened. :)

70

When is a theory 'just a theory'?

by HB in

the titles of cofty's excellent recent posts are all preceeded by the words "evolution is a fact...".

richard dawkins is encouraging people to use the term 'fact' in relation to evolution, especially when debating with creationists as the word 'theory' is confusing to many, and the latter often takes the discussion off on an often unproductive tangent.

the following may be of interest, it's from the bbc website - part of a regular series of articles called 'the vocabularist', discussing the origin and meaning of words: .

Mephis

Bolony. I remember an article in National Geographic(I think it was) about 10 years ago that stated that DNA confirmed that "Neanderthal man" did not breed with homo sapiens. A couple of years later I read another article somewhere that said that they did. In fact anyone taking a dna test now can see some Neanderthal in their lineage. You figure it out. Where neanderthal humans?

Was that the first attempts to pull Neanderthal DNA out? Sounds familiar. One group thought they'd found evidence of human and Neanderthal's having offspring, the other group found no evidence. Most confusing but also a reflection of just how darned hard it is to pull DNA out of remains 40,000 years old.

The fun part of that confusion was a huge collaborative project to map the entire Neanderthal genome. That's based at the Max Planck Institute. Anyways, long story short, we did interbreed with Neanderthals. No confusion now. Problem solved by more science. Since then, the techniques have improved further and more and more evidence is building up. To the point where we can identify where the Denisovan genes entered our gene pool (best example - Tibet and the gene which allows Tibetans to live more easily at high altitude) and even identify other species who contributed to the Denisovan gene pool.