Posts by Frogleg

72

IS THE WORLD REALLY GETTING WORSE?

by ruari in

hi guys,.

my name is ruari phillips, i'm 21 years old and if possible...i'd like to ask a question.. jehovahs witnesses believe the world is getting worse and that as time passes we are approaching armageddon.. but, haven't we always lived in a cruel world?.

since the begginning of time we've been killing each other, there's been diseases, death and destruction.

Frogleg

I don't mean to beg the question, but please define "worse". I was watching the History channel this weekend and saw the astoundingly interesting program about the "little" ice age that started in the 1400's or so and went on into the 19th century. Supposedly, the black-death, the Irish famine, the immigration patterns of the US and so on were all fallout from this occurance. But what struck me as unusually cruel was the massive famine that Europe suffered during this time. There were tales of weak, gaunt, boney Irish mothers holding their dead children and begging for money to by caskets for them. Tales of whole families laying in a single bed and slowly dying of starvation together. Now, could a famine like that, of that magnitude, be possible today? The black death is starting to be recognized as some form of ebola, not the Bubonic Plague it has been historically thought of, while, today, the world is gearing up for a chicken flu that has killed a grand total of something like 165 people in two years, but we are trying to be prepared and reduce the affects as much as possible. The last century had mechanized warfare and gases and ovens and bombs that killed bunches and bunches of people in the cruelist ways, but has anybody ever read about what the Romans did to the Gauls, or the Christians did while in Jerusalem during the crusades? Today, our world agonizes and debates and shouts over a single dyckhead in Iraq who ran a "rein of terror" and murder on, what, 200K people? We are human beings, we carry ourselves along in history, and as such, the more we progress, the worse we can be, but, also, the better we can be. The world is what it is, as it always was. The only thing getting worse is the JWs view of it, and, inspite of their BS, their views are for selfish reasons.

11

Creation Ex-Nihilo - Did God Create Everything Out of Nothing?

by Ianone in

or did god create everything out of pre-existent and eternal matter?

Frogleg

Leolaia,

So, you are voting for the eternal matter?

107

Why God Cannot Have Used Evolution....

by Shining One in

here is an article from the 'stand to reason' ministry.

this is why i evolution and creation are incompatible.

designed by chance .

Frogleg

AlmostAtheist,

Good point; however, entropy figures into the evolution discussion because it is all part of the same system. Disregarding it is kind of like screaming down I95 at a 100mph and thinking, "I don't need any brakes!" because nothing is currently in your way.

What most evolutionists tend to do is look at evolution in an extremely, extremely, extremely narrow scope of reality, that is, the past, oh, pick a number, 100 million years? That's not even a popcorn fart in comparison to rest of whatever. To go from aeons of relatively low entropy states of rocks and dirt and water and gases, all pretty much in isolated, singular, form, and then suddenly, by pure randomness, we get this (relatively speaking) extremely high entropic state of matter that is termed "alive", and that not only stays "alive" but actually goes into higher and higher entropic states as time goes by (great song, by the way) sorta, kinda, seems out of place.

Remeber that line out of KPAX? "Why is a soap bubble round? Because it is the most energy efficient shape." Why don't we have triangular soap bubles? I mean, that would be cool.

107

Why God Cannot Have Used Evolution....

by Shining One in

here is an article from the 'stand to reason' ministry.

this is why i evolution and creation are incompatible.

designed by chance .

Frogleg

Hamsterbait, you are correct, the universe is a big joke. I call it the Cosmic Joke. Now, slap your knee and get back to dying.

Some missteps along the way: entropy is not that energy "tends" to disspate. Dissipate into what? Entropy is a measure of order based upon a reference point. That's it. Low entropy systems are random, higher entropy systems are highly ordered. The famous example is a deck of cards all in suit, all in numerical order, extreme entropy. Of all the possible arrangements of those cards, there is only one arrangement like the one it is in. Throw the deck into the air, regather them, and the odds are extremely emmense that they won't be in order. Although, (and this problem has pissed off more than one particle physicist) the current "mixed" state of the deck has no less entropy than it had when it was "pristine". My point about entropy is that universe tends to low entropy, i.e. everyhting turns to shite. Even black holes eventually die. Therefore, although the stars grow and die, the cosmos is slowly, inexorably, moving to lowest entropy: even the protons of all matter will have fallen apart and no longer exist as protons, because the energy that held those systems together has lessened in concentration within that particular system. Evolution decrees that systems get better over time (I suppose survivability is a facet of "better", I don't know. There are some pukes I know who would make the universe a shite load better if they stopped living, but that may be beside the point.) which is not IMpossible by any means, but it does dictate that something external of that system must be infusing energy into it. The ordered state of the COHN atoms within our DNA turns to shite over time and we end up worm food. The concept that the atoms will become better arranged over time ignores entropy. Guess the jokes on us, huh!

107

Why God Cannot Have Used Evolution....

by Shining One in

here is an article from the 'stand to reason' ministry.

this is why i evolution and creation are incompatible.

designed by chance .

Frogleg

But I'm curious as to why everything else in the universe is subject to entropy, except evolution.

107

Why God Cannot Have Used Evolution....

by Shining One in

here is an article from the 'stand to reason' ministry.

this is why i evolution and creation are incompatible.

designed by chance .

Frogleg

Interesting. Along this line, I have a question that I asked various JWs in the past and the absolute best response I ever got was a blank stare. Here's the question:

Assuming there is a god, how does he create things? What I mean is, does he sit there at some celestial drafting table going over storyboards and design scetches and methods of formulation? Does he use some cosmic computer with a multi-multi-layering CAD program to fit it all together, or does he just THINK and it happens?

I once mentioned to a JW sister (supposedly annointed) that I could just see how god had gone thru nature developing and revising his creations as he worked toward an "ultimate" model, and I think she soiled her pantyhose. "All god's activities are perfect!" she almost shouted back. So I asked her that question and, in what I beleieve was complete self-defense, huffily turned and walked away.

35

Emotional Baggage.............

by AK - Jeff in

wifey and i left the dubland fantasy two years back, after a lifetime of that religion.

we know we have made the right choice.. i thought i was over all the 'stages' of this exit.

this past week i have been feeling great anger over the loss of my 'friends', and the great injustice of the 'shunning' policies.

Frogleg

FWIW, I too agree with Gary, and I'm sorry, but "prick" is not (excuse the pun) stiff enough. The reason those pricks do the shunning in the first place is supposedly (oh, of course) for the good of the one who is being shunned. It is in hopes that they will "come to their senses", although comming to their senses is usually what started the whole thing anyway. If Jeff's cousin is told that he is being a prick, as opposed to the "Chrisitian" that he thinks he is being, and he actually looks at himself in honesty, the reality of the situation may shake something loose.

15

Do you think that JW's will "reverse" their 1914 generation doctrine back?

by booker-t in

i was looking at the news the other day and they had a 100 yr old man that went water-skiing for his 100th birthday.

now i was just thinking like a jw and somehow they might say "that 100 year old man would be of the 1914 generation so there are probably millions like him still alive" so if there is lets say a million 100 year old now living do you think that the wt leaders might think that they abandoned ship to quick when they disregarded the 1914 generation doctrine in 1995?

how many 100 years olds are around today?

Frogleg

Probably. As a matter of fact, these guys may catch on real quick and start having kind of a "Whonderful Whacko Watchtower Powerball Lottery", where each week a vote is taken among the GB as to what "new" date is now the one. See, then they can sell lottery tickets to the R&F and if you chose the right date, you win 10 extra hours on your monthly service report and a fabulous, all expenses paid trip to work door to door in beautiful Northern Manitoba!!!! The numbers racket is the magician's left hand, I agree with Luna2, it's just BS to add to the total distraction and keep up the level of "Godly fear". What was it Caligula said? Oh yeah: "I don't care if they love me, as long as they fear me."

9

Search for historical Hercules

by startingover in

note how herculean myth resembles jesus in many areas.

hercules was born from a god (zeus) and a mortal virgin mother (alcmene).

similar to herod who wanted to kill jesus, hera wanted to kill hercules.

Frogleg

I think that any similarity is anectdotal at best. However, I do believe that there is an historical connection between the Nephelim and the pantheon of gods throughout history, most notably, the Zeusian group. Hercules is the common carrot/hope story that gives us an example of what we can be if we're born with the right physical appearance and we work real hard and do just what we're told, i.e. we get to live forever with the gods! A more modern application of this is George Washington, who proved that if you are pure of heart, don't lie, throw money across rivers, you too can grow up to be president.

Now, did Hercules actually exist as a single individual? Possibly, but you should watch "From Noon Till Three" with Charles Bronson and Jill Ireland, to get a perspective on what the original Hercules was like.

20

05 CIRCUIT ASSEMBLY: WHAT'S YOUR THOUGHT?

by stillAwitness in

theme: keep your eye simple.

okay, duh.

when jesus spoke of keeping a simple eye he obviously was speaking about something more mental than literal right?

Frogleg

In all fairness, the message is quite applicable today. Unfortunately, the messenger is the problem. I would be a bit more sympathetic to the Borg's Simplistic message if it wasn't clothed in the spectre of industrial strength stupidity. To simplify our lives today is becomming harder and harder. It is subtle and inexorable social pressure that works away on us; for example, it is most interesting to note the looks on peoples faces when I tell them that I don't own a cell phone. One of the primary causes of depression in our society is the TV set, because it's very purpose, albeit the purpose of all advertising, is to make us dissatisfied with ourselves. 24/7 the tube flashes image after image of a distorted view of life by displaying people in situations where they appear truely happy, a life that, over and over, you are told you do not have. However, with just a modicum of thought on the part of you, the viewer, the scam would be revealed as being unrealistic, wholly unattainable, even dangerous, because, in reality, the basis of the displayed happiness is a total and complete disregard of a person's real responsibilities to their family, their community, their world, and even themselves.

WAIT A MINUTE!!! Didn't I just describe the Borg?