They are extremely judgemental like the OT priesthood and society. There is vey little leeway on any issue. The israelites used to wipe out whole tribes, the JWs are waiting for all non-JWs to die.
Spectrum
JoinedPosts by Spectrum
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16
Jehovah's Witnesses are an Old Testament Religion
by truthseeker inthere's no doubt about it.. i did an experiment last year, at the conventions, assemblies and meetings to determine how often the symbol of christianity, jesus christ, is actually mentioned, talked about and discussed.
with the exception of the memorial, and even that was more on the wine and bread than on christ himself, there are no talks devoted soley to jesus christ and the work he did.
watchtower will make vague references to christ to back up there claims, such as matt 24:14, "this good news..." and "go therefore and make disciples...".
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Marriage - Why bother?
by Spectrum inyet another friend's marriage has broken down(5th), this one i did not predict at all.
it came as a shock to me.
they got married after 10 years of living together so it's not like they didn't know each other.
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Spectrum
I think most people get married in order to satisfy emotional needs. That sounds obvious but if you look into it deeper it can be an eye opener.
We all have emotional needs, most of them are not reasons to get married. I don't believe people should get married to fulfill an emotional void in one's life. You've got to be able to fulfill yourself, be happy and content within yourself before you take on a life partner. The alternative is to be in an eternally needy situation where anything that threatens the source of emotional stability is a recipe for problems.
For example, I don't believe that someone can make another person happy if that other person is not already happy within themselves. A lot of people are fooled into believing that they can make the other person happy but end up being the crotch of the other person who themselves are also deluded from the start. -
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Creatiolution. This could be the answer.
by Spectrum inthis is a continuation of a discussion i've had with abaddon.
we were at loggerheads in the beginning but i'm coming round to his way of thinking to a certain extent.
i still haven't given up my belief in an intelligent creator but at the same time there is evidence for evolution which cannot be discounted.
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Spectrum
This is a continuation of a discussion I've had with abaddon. We were at loggerheads in the beginning but I'm coming round to his way of thinking to a certain extent. I still haven't given up my belief in an intelligent Creator but at the same time there is evidence for evolution which cannot be discounted. I have attempted below to come closer to the truth by marrying the two ideas. See what you think. Please feel free to add to it or smash it on the rocks if you can. The Truth is all we seek.
This is my theory of Gods process of evolution:
Just at the outset I'd like to say that I don't know about any of the evolutionary mechanisms (and I mean factual ones) they have discovered that has convinced people like Richard Dawkins to accept it as a fact. It would be an interesting read for me but do I have the patience.
Is this a correct view (courtesy of abaddons previous lessons).
They formulate a theory and then look for practical evidence. If the evidence is there, then that section of the theory turns to fact. One question, is evidence proof? If not, then what constitutes proof?
For the last few evenings I've been watching a program on human autopsy, whilst watching I marvelled at the intricacy of the body, how it is put together, it's functions and synergies. During that time I was trying to contemplate unaided evolution (notice as promised no more blind or random adjectives but unaided) creating such a marvel. I couldn't. The theory, though can be used to explain a process, cannot explain how the pieces of the jigsaw came together under a fine mechanism with the odds stacked against it to create such fantastic systems.
Like I said in previous posts anything with a complex nature follows a set of predetermined laws to get to it's own zenith of complexity be it structure and/or function. I gave examples of stars and computers.
The reason I still have a problem with an unaided process and mechanisms is because the numbers don't stack up. When calculating probabilities for this and that to happen the numbers always indicate a requirement of nonsensical faith to continue belief in such an unaided process. Scientist consider the prob of 1 in 10 to the power of 50 as a non event. Evolutionary probabilities go astronomically beyond this number. I know you've asked me not to go down the road of is it faith or not but I can't help myself . I don't want to go down another faith based system.
Someone said one's personal incredulity should not be thrown into the mix of this argument. I totally disagree because common sense is a valid scientific/social you name it tool. What makes sense to us in this universe makes sense and works for us because we have fundamental knowledge/truths that just makes it so. We cannot therefore philosophise away our common sense with clever catch phrases like personal incredulity or any such other loaded language.
I believe that an intelligent creator has laid down laws of biological evolution just as he did the laws of physics. Stars in all their complexity and magnificence create themselves by simple molecules of hydrogen following the laws of physics wherever there is a primordial star soup. If the creator can make laws for one aspect of his creation then why not for another.
Evolutionary laws would be a subset of the laws of physics. Just as there is an element of "randomness" in the creation of a star ie it's size or whether with it, will form planets, so too the creation of life incorporates this aspect of randomness as to what will be created but without breaking any probability laws and thus common sense is maintained. Maybe I should be saying in this case variety rather than randomness since laws are being followed ... (I'm getting a bit muddled here)
as you said.
" The SELECTION of what features survive is so non random as to defy belief. "
The matrix you see below represents the laws of evolution as a framework. It's fixed it doesn't change. Anything that succums to these laws will follow them faithfully but it still allows for immense variety.
Each intersection you see in the lattice represents an event that if occurs must occur in a particular way so that there is a meaningful outcome for the evolutionary process. An intersection can represent the creation of neucleotides whilst another the creation of wings. To fit the fossil evidence if there is none say for the gradual evolution of the wing then the intersection for the creation of the wing happens in one spurt. This is allowed for because there is an evolutionary law that says it will happen. The miniscule probabilities of getting a wing from good mutation now becomes a moot point. The law of evolution says it will definitely happen. The probability is therefore 1 and not 10 to the power of minus 20,000. Problem solved.
(Don't know how to represent environmental pressures in the lattice though.)
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/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
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(can't get the formating right so you won't see a proper lattice. Just in your mind remove the empty lines between the lines containing forward/backslash.)
One question. Wings, poisonous fangs require environmental pressures, I imagine creation of nucleotides don't?
Abaddon this is my fisrt stab at this idea so it's pretty bear. Please feel free to add to it or reconfigure it if you think it has a future. To take it futher I need to read books on evolution - don't know if a can be bothered. -
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I photographed a ghost! See pics!
by Sirona inat least i think it might be a ghost .
here is the story: hub and i went to bowness on windermere for a holiday last week.
we had a great time.
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62
Marriage - Why bother?
by Spectrum inyet another friend's marriage has broken down(5th), this one i did not predict at all.
it came as a shock to me.
they got married after 10 years of living together so it's not like they didn't know each other.
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Spectrum
Yet another friend's marriage has broken down(5th), this one I did not predict at all. It came as a shock to me. They got married after 10 years of living together so it's not like they didn't know each other. Seven years of marriage later and they are serving divorce papers to each other over financial problems. Money is thicker than blood.
Maybe I'm cynical because I've not seen any good happy "fairy tale" marriages around me. I've seen enough of the bad ones to make me think that marriage is a dangerous gamble. It's hard to imagine living with another personality in such close proximity and not get in each other's hair.
I've been living in shared accommodation with women for many years and often their antics drive me mad. I'd be suicidal if I were married to any of them.
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I'm not having a go at women. -
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What weird things have you read in the bible?
by stillAwitness inthe fact that nimrod's name means: "he stirred up the whole earth to rebel"
and yet ezra's name means: "help"
what caused nimord's mother to name him something that had such a negative meaning and yet he turned out to be just that?
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Spectrum
It would have been fun to see your translation of them. The apple tree one seemed really rude.
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Why didn't Jesus Outdo Greek Scientist?
by Spectrum inif i wanted to prove to a bunch of tribal ignoramuses that i'm the big boss i'd show them a few scientific tricks that would have dazzled them.
like electricity, how the brain really works, higher mathematics, tell them how a star is formed since he created them, set up a fusion reactor for eternal energy source.
he walked on water, see that might impress the odd shepherd or two back then but it leaves nothing for us to go on today as we can just reject it out of hand as a myth.
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Spectrum
LittleToe,
"Just because you now assume they are myths, doesn't necessarily make them so"
True, but it leave us anything to go by, where as if he told us soemthing only the Creator could know at that time then a lot less is left to the colourful human imagination.
AuldSoul,
If he'd given us E=MCsquared back then, maybe the end would have come sooner, which is a good thing. -
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Why didn't Jesus Outdo Greek Scientist?
by Spectrum inif i wanted to prove to a bunch of tribal ignoramuses that i'm the big boss i'd show them a few scientific tricks that would have dazzled them.
like electricity, how the brain really works, higher mathematics, tell them how a star is formed since he created them, set up a fusion reactor for eternal energy source.
he walked on water, see that might impress the odd shepherd or two back then but it leaves nothing for us to go on today as we can just reject it out of hand as a myth.
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Spectrum
Clam
Glad you like this thread
but reqarding ...
"Then of course he couldn't be the Messiah because he wouldn't have fulfilled the Hebrew prophecies. (scratches head)."
...it might not be a problem because you can always re-interpret the prophecies to suit your needs eg when Christ evetually did go back to Heaven they could say that, "well it was immense suffering for him to leave this wonderful world of ours and return to heaven via three days in hades. -
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Why didn't Jesus Outdo Greek Scientist?
by Spectrum inif i wanted to prove to a bunch of tribal ignoramuses that i'm the big boss i'd show them a few scientific tricks that would have dazzled them.
like electricity, how the brain really works, higher mathematics, tell them how a star is formed since he created them, set up a fusion reactor for eternal energy source.
he walked on water, see that might impress the odd shepherd or two back then but it leaves nothing for us to go on today as we can just reject it out of hand as a myth.
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Spectrum
Tetra,
nice link thanks
"Verily, verily, I say unto thee that thine energy is as thine mass times the speed of light multiplied unto itself."
Let's say he really did say this how would it have been interpreted over the centuries. I think there is a bit of trinity in that statement!!
Certainly explaining DNA and say how the brain stores information would be a clincher for me. -
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Why didn't Jesus Outdo Greek Scientist?
by Spectrum inif i wanted to prove to a bunch of tribal ignoramuses that i'm the big boss i'd show them a few scientific tricks that would have dazzled them.
like electricity, how the brain really works, higher mathematics, tell them how a star is formed since he created them, set up a fusion reactor for eternal energy source.
he walked on water, see that might impress the odd shepherd or two back then but it leaves nothing for us to go on today as we can just reject it out of hand as a myth.
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Spectrum
If I wanted to prove to a bunch of tribal ignoramuses that I'm the Big Boss I'd show them a few scientific tricks that would have dazzled them. Like electricity, how the brain really works, higher mathematics, tell them how a star is formed since he created them, set up a fusion reactor for eternal energy source.
He did none of this. He walked on water, see that might impress the odd shepherd or two back then but it leaves nothing for us to go on today as we can just reject it out of hand as a myth. But telling us the inner workings of the brain or a star, now that's something that can grab your attention. Even the atheist would stop and think.