hey all,.
i am currently studying the topic of intelligent design (id).
basically the id theory is the revival of the teleological argument for the existance of a deity.
Sure Golf,
I was speaking only for myself. I already knew the Christian/JW view so studying science was a look at things from another perspective for me. I am not claiming to present both sides in my post since anyone I wish to convince already knows the Christian viewpoint. Maybe I misunderstood your point. The fact that an invisible, silent, and inactive(in modern times) God can't be studied by science was learned by studying science.
hey all,.
i am currently studying the topic of intelligent design (id).
basically the id theory is the revival of the teleological argument for the existance of a deity.
Hi D Dog,
Even if God did appear as a physical form (Jesus) 2000 years ago he cannot be studied by science today. This is especially true if he were fully human since He would not be any different from any other human, so no proof of God there in any case. I guess I am unsure of what exactly Jesus would prove since he was a man and he looked and died like any man. He would then have to do something everyone could agree was a feat beyond any hoax such as making the Sun disappear for a full day while keeping the earth warm and gravity in balance with verification from all over the globe and from space. Turning water to wine doesn't cut it in a world where there is the "magic" of David Blain.
I am also unsure of what you mean about God's creation or lack thereof, I am not making any claims about God, the Intellegent Design folks are. The burdon of proof is upon them to clarify their position not me since I am not making the claim. If you say the Loch Ness Monster is real but invisible it is up to you to explain its origin, not me, since I didn't claim it was real in the first place. Either God is eternal or not, but if it is accepted that He has no beginning and therefore was not the result of "Intellegent Design" then the God position is no more logical than the "No Intellegent Design" Universe model I believe in.
hey all,.
i am currently studying the topic of intelligent design (id).
basically the id theory is the revival of the teleological argument for the existance of a deity.
Hi Delta20,
You've gotten some great responses. Ex-JWs are frequently very interested in this subject. I figure that part of this might have to do with knowing all the lies and nonsense the Watchtower Society fooled us with will eventually lead us to ask ouselves, what else is there that we strongly believe in which may be proven false?. The Bible and my concept of God was then freely open to skeptical review after having shed some of the Watchtower's brainwashing.
I am no expert but when I finally went to University I took lots of science so I could answer some of these questions using information from both sides. One of the first conclusions I came to was that our Western concept of God cannot be the subject of scientific discovery since He is, by definition, not part of the natural realm. Science is, by definition, only capable of revealing the natural universe, therefore, using science to prove God is impossible unless He manifests Himself in a physical form.
Another conclusion I came to was that if I believed God had no creator/creation (He always was and always will be) then the same idea might be applied to the natural Universe as well and God became a useless "middle man" or an unnecessary "extra step" since the concept that all the matter and energy in the Universe always was and always will be is no more far fetched than when applied to God. Obviously Creationist/Intellegent Design proponents are not true believers that everything must have an intellegent creator since they are willing to accept that God did not.
Another revelation which was allowed by opening my mind to new concepts was just how cruel and evil the Universe seems if it were intellegently designed to be that way. In a godless void type Universe there is no intent and therefore no cruelty or evil, just random events. If God created the Universe then He must be evil and cruel considering the brutal and murderous nature of His creations. I can do without that kind of "Intelegent Design". There is no evidence of a benign and compassionate God among the life and death struggles we see everyday and in the fossils of the distant past. The scientific models we would expect from a godless and random universe are clearly more evident than any indication of "Intellegent Design " by a well ordered and logical creator which one would hope to see reflected in His creation.
None of this even touches upon the immense evidence for evolution when the natural history of the Earth is studied objectively which could fill many posts by itself. This post was just intended as a brief introduction to some conclusions reached using a few facts we can easily observe without having a thorough scientific background.
" (acts 10:38,42).
"the conclusion of the system of things".
we are living in "the conclusion of the system of things.
It is amazing that this exact crap is almost word for word what I heard/read at the last Watchtower studies I attended over 25 years ago. Even back then I'd already heard it all over & over again. Instead of being unassociated with Watchtowerism for a quarter century, it feels like I just stepped out for a moment to use the toilet and popped back in again having missed virtually nothing. Do they just copy the same old stuff from an archive and rewrite it with the approriate "New Light" modifications? I swear Fred Franz could have written this stuff himself if he hadn't been dead for years now already.
If we followed this idiotic advice 25 years ago ( 50 or 75 years ago for that matter) wouldn't we still be at the same place any one who follows it today will be, with everyone of these promises unfullfilled? An empty Ministry that has accomplished nothing. Lives, hopes, dreams, families all sacrificed for absolutely nothing. What an enormous waste. The good news is that obviously many JWs are not taking this crap too seriously, otherwise these proddings wouldn't be repeated so often. Hopefully the big "A" which never comes and the "New Light" that "this generation" is now unlimited has taken its toll on even the most "spiritual" of this over beaten flock.
to those who have conscientiously walked away:.
what changes will at least make you consider coming back in?.
of course some will say nothing they do will lure them back?
No reforms or changing could get me to go back to Watchtowerism. After years of careful study it is clear to me that the entire Organization is structured on pure fantasy. The entire belief system and all that grows from it is such utter nonsense that to really reform it would mean that it would no longer exist at all. The contradictions, logic gaps, and mental gymnastics required to understand the things which make a Jehovah's Witness unique are beyond any reasonable scope. They will not take blood transfusions even unto death, yet eat unkoshered meat using the very scripture which demands that they eat koshered meat as the basis for the no transfusion policy when blood transfusion did not even exist at the time the scripture was written! They claim to be "spirit directed" by Ol' Jehover himself yet blunder and change important doctrines over & over again which must be belived as the direct word of God until they change their minds again. "Truth" which could mean a person's death at one time becomes "Old Light" which overtime is not even worth keeping in print. The most unique aspects of the whole JW system have been proven by time to be completely and utterly false without question. The WT Society claims and has claimed over and over again that they know directly from Jehovah's "spirit direction" that we are living in the End Times, yet for well over 100 years NOTHING they have predicted has ever come true. It is not even possible to defend such blatent falsness when time itself is the objective measure of the limits they put on their own predictions. The "spirit direction" of Bubbles the chimp could produce a better track record in End Times preperations.
All of this being said even without going after the Bible which makes up the tiny remainder of what would be left of the JW belief system. At best, the JWs would look like a mainstream Christian religion even if it were strictly "Bible based". Since the Bible itself is so full of absolute nonsense and logic defying contradiction that it belies the possibility of an intellegent Creator being responsible for its authorship and thus making JWism unappealing to me even as a mainstream religion. The reality of living my life for the psychopathic and sadistic murderering God of the Bible is also very unappealing to me. I prefer my Universe as a Godless & uncaring void rather than accept that the horrors I see are the results of "Intellegent Design".
take a look at this wt excerpt from another thread that i copied and pasted:.
*** g93 3/22 why so many false alarms?
jehovah?s witnesses, in their eagerness for jesus?
As Blondie has pointed out, even people in the general population are not masters of reasoning. Orwell's book 1984 is so powerful because it illustrates just how easily people are duped by double speak & history changing in authoritarian systems. The Age Of Reason is a tiny window of hope among a vast darkness of authoritarian domination by religion & governments for thousands of years. Skeptics and reasoning logical thinkers have been persecuted for centuries as "trouble makers" and "rabal rowsers". They are discouraged from reproducing by social pressure, economic deprivation, imprisonment, maiming, and execution by the dominant culture. This leads to creating a population of sheep-like submissive people who are not predisposed to being skeptical or deep thinkers but are encouraged to breed in large numbers by the powers that be.
It is interesting that huge numbers of people in Western cultures still deny proven scientific facts or hold on to their obviously dated traditional religious beliefs even though they live in an age of modern wonders in countries where reason & logic have been allowed to flourish.
As an ex-JW I too was often fooled by their double speak and history revisions. When ever I had a skeptical thought I had to remember the consequences of "independant thinking" and "arrogance", but at some point the pain of knowing that things didn't add up outweighed the punishments available to the WT Society. I am glad that they do not have the civil authorities' backing for torture or executions like the churches in Europe did. I remember that a Watchtower publication once complained that it was regretable that the Society could not put rebellious members to death like they did in ancient Israel. Maybe someone could post the actual quote since it is a shocking admission of how the WT leadership looks upon its underlings and their lack of tolerance for differing view points.
like i don't like that un involvment, record keeping.
i don't know what to think about the paedophile stuff, because you could accuse the catholic church of that too.
but apart from those things i still believe that god's name is jehovah, his son is jesus, no trinity, and he died on a torture stake... i love reading the new world translation, i believe it's the best one, but i love reading other translations too!
Hi Inquirer,
My love of real truth energized me to investigate the "Truth". I think you will find a wealth of information which will demolish the Watchtower & its teachings if you are willing to study the history of the WT Society. This is even true when using only the Watchtower's own original publications as research material. It is a plain and clear fact that the Organization has altered its history and heavily edited its own publication reprints in order to mislead JWs who might look through an index to research the numerous flip flops or ever changing "truths" of Watchtower doctrine. I would also recommend Ray Franz's Crisis of Concscience book as a starting point if you are willing to go beyond the Society's own publications. Good Hunting in your search for the truth.
my dad disaggress and backs it up by saying that god has always had an organization or his righteous people on earth.
it used to be isreal but when jesus came he changed that and established a new convenant/congregation.
he then goes on about matt.
Hi Jared,
Googlemagoogle is soooo right. Even when I bought most of the WT Society's nonsense I never understood nor got a straight answer as to how God could leave the human race in the lurch for all those years between the apostacy from early "true" Christianity evolving into the evil Roman Catholic Church until the arrival of Russel to reestablish "true" Christianity again well over 1500 years later in the 1870's. I remember some weak response like, "there were always a few 'real' Christians during this time who upheld Jehovah's truths" but certainly no Organization that can be pointed to as the "Faithful Slave". Further complicating this is the fact that the Society has taught for years that an individual is incapable of learning God's "truth" from Bible study alone without the Society's literature and an Organization to guide them. This huge gap in history where there was no Organization to guide people to the "truth" for well over a thousand years is proof alone that this JW Organization/Faithful Slave concept is deeply flawed.
Beyond these facts, is the glaring falsety of the "Old Light" taught by Russel. Why would God inspire false beliefs for the "true" Faithful Slave to teach only to have most of them reversed or proven false a few years later? Why would God bother to resetablish "true" Christianity again only to constantly have to correct these "true" doctrines over & over again? One such belief being that Russel himself as an individual was in fact the Faithful Slave which was later said to be a misunderstanding since the Faithful Slave is a class made up of many in an organization.
i was discussing the 1914 "this generation" doctrine with my jw mother the other day and she said something that made me laugh my head off.
i told her that the wts were wrong on this belief so why does she put so much faith in them.
she told me that jw's were not wrong on this believe but just back off being so dogmatic about it but that they still feel that the generation of 1914 will see the end come.
Hi booker-t,
The "1914 Generation", as taught by the Society in the 1960's & early 1970's, were thought of as those associated with the WT Society who were then already in their midteens or older when Christ took the throne invisibly in 1914 as only they could "understand" the importance of & witness these "signs" & "events" which signaled this "invisible presence". Note that this "Generation Doctrine" was already a highly modified and reworked belief by the time the Society started pushing the 1975 thing in the '60s. The fact that these Bible Students (pre-JW name) in 1914 had no clue that this invisible Christ's presence doctrine even existed is enough to show what nonsense this belief was in of itself. In any case, this was taught as it meshed well with the whole "Creative Day" of 7000 years of which the last 1000 years would be the sabboth in which Christ would reign over the New System. In order to get to this last 1000 years the first 6000 years since Ol' Jehover's last creative act (Eve) was calculated using traditional Jewish & Catholic chronologies as coming to an end in the mid 1970's. By the mid 1970's even the youngest of this "1914 Generation" would be around 75 years old giving the Society a very mature biblical generation who would be dying off. Since that Generation would not pass away before the big "A" this had to be right. Are you confused yet?
In any case, nothing happened in the mid 70's and now this "Generation"'s youngest members would be 105 years old by now. It is easy to see why the Society started bringing down the age of " understanding" to 10 year olds and then no "understanding" was needed so babies could be used to stretch out the troublesome time lag. Hence the playing down of the literal die off of that "Generation" in 1995 to include everyone born since effectively making a generation concept useless since it has no limits. Even if babies born in 1914 were used they are now 91 years old if still alive. The reality of how silly this all is becomes even more clear when true use of the word generation is applied to the people of any given time. For instance the WWII or the 1960's generations are not thought of as children & babies but rather of the movers and shakers of society in that time. These influential people generally range from their mid twenties to forty year olds and this is understood by everyone but JWs. In 1914 30 years old is a nice round number for an average generation age and using this age gives us people who would now be 121 years old. Let's get real, that generation is long gone. Most of them were gone before 1960. Only a true fanatic could still believe that any of this really means anything.
i lived thru the 1975 fiasco.
many here did too.. on another board there was discussion about the way the congregations were before 1975. some thought that they were like small country churches in some ways.
we did our own work on repairs at the kingdom hall, like a family.
Hi scootergirl,
In answer to your question the W.T. Society didn't know what to say after Fred Franz's blunder. He pushed the date the hardest disregarding the warnings of more cautious Watchtower big-wigs. Fred could get away with it because he was their best & really only resident "prophet" and was "co-annointed" by the Judge(Rutherford) himself along with Knorr to rule the Watchtower Kingdom after the Judge's death.. These guys were the top commanders in those days so no one could veto them. Knorr went along with Fred because the growth rate was so huge starting with Fred's ravings in the mid 1960's promising only "a few short years left" until the "end of the 6000 years" of whackey W.T. timetables. This, after years of post WWII stagnation in growth and unfullfilled promises, was like a breath of fresh air for the average Dub. It also helped that the 1960's were so turbulant and filled with changes that it looked to many (even the "worldly" experts at the time) that all Hell was breaking loose anyway. "How could this Old System even last another 10 years at this rate?", was a common JW expression in those days.
Fred clearly promised in numerous writings and speaches that the mid 1970's would mark the end of 6000 years since Ol' Jehover rested from his creations. Though not exact, he promised Eve was created within "only a matter of months" of Adam so we could be assured that the mid-1970's would bring huge changes as it marked the start of the last thousand years of God's seven thousand year "day" left for the millinial reign of Christ in the "New Order". In common Dub understanding this meant the big "A" was due some where around 1975 and Fred knew exactly what to say so we could decode it out that way. Any JW who says this wasn't so is either self-deluded, a liar, or doesn't know what they are talking about.
Also, don't forget how well this date (1975) fits into the whole 1914 Generation notion. People old enough to "understand" the importance of Christ's Second Coming were said to be at least in their mid-teens by 1914 and would be around 75 years or older by 1975, a mature biblical generation by Fred's calculations and the big "A" had to happen before they started dying off. Yeah...Right!
As had happened on numerous occasions with crazy Watchtower "spirit guided" predictions, Fred & the JW's were wrong, AGAIN!. The mid 1970's dissolved into a real non-event time. All the Doom & Gloom predictions by the 1960's wordly "experts" also sputtered into over-alarmist non-history. We survived and the world went on just as usual with crisis after crisis solving itself. Those hippie kids didn't kill everybody while high on drugs, race riots didn't turn into a civil war, no nukes fell, and Rock music and dirty movies didn't undermine the foundations of Western Civilization.
We rank & file Dubs were just stunned because nothing was really happening. And the Society was suddenly very quiet about nothing happening. We waited hopefully a little longer into''76, then''77. We got Star Wars, Mork & Mindy, and Disco but other than that no big "A" in sight. The Society started backing off the big "A" talk. Soon it was the unnamed "Over Zealous Brothers's" fault that so many were disappointed. Then it was the Rank & File JW's fault for being "time watchers" and "fair weather Christians". Then yet again unnamed Elders in distant congregations pushing dates for their own selfish needs had caused the 1975 thing. Let's get real folks, the Society would not tolerate any JWs or especially elders pushing a date unless Fred Franz & Knorr encouraged it. These mysterious Date Pushers would have been DF'ed if they were really making up the 1975 thing. Yet, this JW explaination myth still survives, especially for Dubs too young to know any better.
How could it be the Watch Tower Society's fault since they are "Spirit Directed"? They hoped that the average JW would be too stupid to remember where they got their ideas about 1975 and by and large they were right. Ask an active JW today about 1975 and they will swear that the W.T. Society never made such an error. Most of them won't even know who Fred Franz was even when nearly everything they believe was made up by this one man.
