Posts by Qcmbr

165

Do Animals Have Souls?

by Cold Steel in

i know most jehovah's witnesses believe in the soul sleeping doctrine.

by this, given that neither man nor beast has a spirit, but that they do possess souls (or "intelligences" unique to themselves).

where this intelligence resides between death and resurrection is more than a passing interest, but again, assuming that yehweh can recreate one's distict soul, does the society believe that animals have souls?

Qcmbr

What are we defining as life? The whole idea of a spirit as somehow a necessary distinct item that carries someone's essence and is eternal utterly falls apart when we examine life through a microscope. Individual cells live and die and, like bacteria, can survive beyond the host. Are we pretending that they also have spirits? Will this invisible heavenly realm be populated largely from the very blood cell spirits that (Mormon ) heaven will have determined have no further functional place in the resurrected body ( no blood). If bacteria are somehow to small to have a spirit then at which evolutionary level do spirits turn up, jellyfish, lichen, oak trees, snakes....?

Considering the issue of evolution and Mormon theology that all spirits precede the physical body are you suggesting that spirits in heaven are evolving and that god allocates just enough spirits for each species ( so the dodos were doomed whether the sailors ate them or not) ? The problem doesn't get any better if we start suggesting that god allows certain types of spirits to inhabit multiple species ( a cat spirit in heaven could be in a lion, tiger or domesticated cat for example) because that still struggles with the evolutionary cut off points, where do birdlike dinosaur spirits get the boot and the bird spirits start getting inserted?

Do we let plants have spirits? Do we go as far as Mormon theology does and start ascribing spirits to non living ( according to scientific standards) things like rocks and planets? If you wish Cold Steel we can get a bit further in and discuss what JS really taught about spirit and we can see how incompatible it is with any practical attempt to follow these things through to their logical conclusion.

427

If man evolved?

by tornapart in

i know anyone who believes in evolution is going to say that there is no 'if' about it.

however.... if man evolved over hundreds of thousands of years ago, why were there only about 200-300 million people alive 2,000 years ago?

surely there'd have been many billions by then?.

Qcmbr

..I think you've described being designed by a committee.

103

Do some x witnesses shock you despite being one?

by Seraphim23 in

jw
friends

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Qcmbr

I hope to shock. Sometimes its the only way to get past the filters.

35

At what age can a JW be baptised in the UK?

by jwfacts in

i just received an email from an unbaptised publisher that made the following comment;.

in the uk the age of consent by law for a child is 16 and only then can they be baptized of their own free will.

is anyone aware of jws that have been baptised younger than 16 in the uk?.

Qcmbr

I was baptised lds at 8. If you want really crazy though have a google sometime on what I covenanted to do, age 18, in the mormon temple. Shudders.

427

If man evolved?

by tornapart in

i know anyone who believes in evolution is going to say that there is no 'if' about it.

however.... if man evolved over hundreds of thousands of years ago, why were there only about 200-300 million people alive 2,000 years ago?

surely there'd have been many billions by then?.

Qcmbr

Lost you implied much when you mentioned conmen.

In my limited experience of seven odd years on this board it is almost exclusively people committed to an evidenceless faith position who argue against scientific knowledge. Their desire to be correct trumps their desire for knowledge so we find a good sprinkling of muslims, christian gnostics, jws, messiahs, mormons, sundry other deists,liberal christins and illiberal christians posting against simple basic scientific knowledge. Not because they have evidence against evolution, an ancient earth or some such discovery but simply because they see the threat it poses to an ancient myth they have , normally innocently, been taught to believe.

427

If man evolved?

by tornapart in

i know anyone who believes in evolution is going to say that there is no 'if' about it.

however.... if man evolved over hundreds of thousands of years ago, why were there only about 200-300 million people alive 2,000 years ago?

surely there'd have been many billions by then?.

Qcmbr

Asking genuine questions is the root of knowledge. Deciding that you have the answer before hand and willfully ignoring the time and effort of those who put in the effort you haven't bothered with and then starting to rudely question people's credentials is the root of idiocy. You wont get kumbya and cake from people when you cr*p on their carpet.

Early days though, keep thinky thunking. I wish you the best. Knowledge is an exciting adventure if you take off the shackles of myth based belief.

427

If man evolved?

by tornapart in

i know anyone who believes in evolution is going to say that there is no 'if' about it.

however.... if man evolved over hundreds of thousands of years ago, why were there only about 200-300 million people alive 2,000 years ago?

surely there'd have been many billions by then?.

Qcmbr

What sends me into butt clenching apoplectic, incandescent , grunty, panty bunching levels of mild English eyebrow raising is that doubting the evidence from a position of uneducated buffoonery is fine, but then leaping like a gadly on crack to the conclusion that 'I can't understand it therefore God' is absolutely , most definitely not. If Star Trek has taught us anything, and it hasn't, it's that intelligent aliens should rank several bazillion times more likely as the cause of anything unexplained than an invisible megadude with a penchant for torture and finding rich westerners' keys.

Lack of comprehension , however indignantly preserved, is not evidence for a god conclusion.

427

If man evolved?

by tornapart in

i know anyone who believes in evolution is going to say that there is no 'if' about it.

however.... if man evolved over hundreds of thousands of years ago, why were there only about 200-300 million people alive 2,000 years ago?

surely there'd have been many billions by then?.

Qcmbr

The average life expectancy has risen rapidly with the onset of modern neonatal care and petro-economy farming. If Lost really wanted to see why that makes a difference (and I'm not convinced Lost actually cares judging by the level of research ) a quick google will supply the needed info. Even in medieval times average life expectancy was low but if you survived childhood , wars and major plagues your life expectancy wasn't too bad (plenty of people made it into their 70s and 80s.) There have been times of population explosion (animals experience the same thing) but these are driven by multiple factors from the land's carrying capacity (how much food it can produce), social conditions (war, economic security, cultural expectations etc.) through to environmental pressures (plagues, intermittent rainfall, how much land has been cleared for farming.) Population explosion always moderates when another factor comes into play (simplistically exceed the carrying capacity of the land = famine, live too closely = communicable disease, surplus people and insufficient resources = war, women's education and rights = family planning etc.)

In short, lots of factors conspire to modify the birth and death rates in local places. Populations grow when conditions are right and decline when they aren't. There is no formula you can blithely apply to all mankind and come out with an expected global population.

Case study: Britain. This planet, and Britain in particular was only exiting an ice age that rendered much of the land's surface unfarmable some 10000 years ago.Britain was covered with thick forest which man started to clear about 5500 BP (before present = 3500 BC) and by 2500BP they had managed to clear half of the land. All that effort produced relatively small amounts of farming land that could support small communities who relied largely on hunter gatherer lifestyles until the Romans introduced larger urban centres and better farming. Farming still remained important but not spectacular and up until the 17th centuary , under 3 field crop rotation, land lay fallow 1 year in 3 across the whole country. In 1730 onwards the British agricultural revolution gradually increased crop yields by 30% and this coincided with the industrial revolution, better medicine, more jobs and much closer living conditions. What drove population growth though? Social change. People married earlier, had more affairs (movement to cities and towns often broke concepts of rural community morality), earned money earlier, didn't serve as many 7 year agricultural apprenticeships and so produced more children (they married 3 years earlier on average and had 6% children out of wedlock up from historical 2% rates). The food, jobs, Poor Law (reducing starvation for the poorest), Benthamite public services, amenities and homes merely provided means to avoid Malthusian predictions of population collapse. During this time (1700 - 1800s) life expectancy rose from 33 to 38 and by 1860 was at 40. Also a very young population became critical to the industrial revolution and so the larger a family the more wage earners there were. This all together caused a doubling of the British population.

85

Mormons getting hollowed out: The tipping point has occurred.

by Qcmbr in

ever since mitt romney turned the spotlight on the lds church a growing tsunami of disaffection has been accelerated and brought to a head.. the lds core faithful members are leaving in increasing numbers such that growth has not simply stagnated in the west but it has actively reversed.

to their credit the church is responding aggressively but not only is it too late, it is an impossible task.

you can only paint sh*t so many ways.

Qcmbr

These are the firesides being given. This sort of thing would have been unthinkable a few years ago:

http://terrylgivens.com/events/

joe - there may well be a small uptick in actual numbers but the church is losing core members unlike before when it was the new, flaky converts. I think the stats for the next few years will be very revealing.

85

Mormons getting hollowed out: The tipping point has occurred.

by Qcmbr in

ever since mitt romney turned the spotlight on the lds church a growing tsunami of disaffection has been accelerated and brought to a head.. the lds core faithful members are leaving in increasing numbers such that growth has not simply stagnated in the west but it has actively reversed.

to their credit the church is responding aggressively but not only is it too late, it is an impossible task.

you can only paint sh*t so many ways.

Qcmbr

Some more info. I'm itching to get the 2012 Uk charity report to see if it reveals the big loss of the year that I've seen. In the meantime:

http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/2011/05/the-church-is-losing-us-how-can-they-keep-us/

Glossary: RM (Returned missionary)

"... Other trends include:

(Most info taken from Ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com and Cumorah.com ):
-The drop-out rate/retention rate among RMs is disturbingly high.
– This year, the church experienced it’s first Stake Shutdown, or First Stake Consolidation In Australia
-The number of actual convert baptisms has decreased almost steadily since the 80′s. This is based on the annual statistical report delivered in Gen. Conference.
-Most of the growth of “The Church” continues to be natural growth, through births rather than conversions. However, baptisms of children-of-record are declining too.
-Growth of Mormonism in the North America and Europe is virtually flat and is actually declining in some countries (prompting the shift from European missions to South American ones.)
- With the exception of new “minority” wards being created in some inner cities, Mormonism is dying off in urban centers, even in SLC.
- Most conversions to Mormonism are in the Third World, and the drop-out rate in those countries is very high. Surveys done in Mexico, Chile, and Brazil indicate that less than 20% of the “members” claimed by “The Church” self-identify as Mormons."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints_membership_history