Posts by B_Deserter

111

The Watchtower Didn't Make Me An Atheist

by B_Deserter in

ive posted on this before, but i figured i should lay my thoughts out again on the subject.

there are some in the ex-jw community who are saddened because the watchtower organization has turned me and others like me off to god.

the watchtower attacks and debunks other religions on a regular basis, often giving us the sense that if the watchtower is wrong, then there cant be a god.

B_Deserter

Key word being "some". The point being, creating some amino acids in a lab, is a very long way from forming DNA molecules, or creating life.

Yes, but I was referring to your statment that the experiment produced NONE of the molecules needed for life, to which I pointed out it produced 22. You're moving the goalpost.

If you have done any "actual research" you would know that there is plenty of dishonesty and misinformation to go around on both sides.

You provided false information regarding a scientific experiment, and I provided accurate information with sources. You have not addressed any of the sources I cited, merely stating that there is "plenty of dishonesty and misinformation" involved.

Actually you are the one "committing a false dichotomy". I asked for proof that abiogenesis explains the origin of life. So far, I haven't seen any. I never said a word about God to you. It does appear that you have much "faith" in your invisible horse, though. Abiogenesis hasn't proven to be scientifically possible yet. Let us know when he creates a living cell.

You claimed " The organic molecules he produced, were not the organic molecules necessary for life, nor were they produced in an environment simulating the primitive Earth's atmosphere" and I demonstrated both statements to be false. You also said " He spent his life looking for ways to produce organic molecules that could have produced the first living cell, but was unsuccessful." While given your track record for providing accurate facts on the subject so far (0 for 2), I'm not sure if I believe you in this one. But so what if he didn't? It's a given that the formation of a living cell was quite unlikely, but given enough tries and a large enough environment, even the most unlikely things are bound to happen. If you think about it, the fact that so many of the amino acids required for life appeared in such a small sample size is nothing short of amazing.

Here are some videos that address most of your concerns: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6QYDdgP9eg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8nYTJf62sE

Finally, as I explained as well as the second video, Abiogenesis is in its infancy. It really didn't get started until Miller-Urey, and much progress has been made since then. Still, I don't have "faith" in the theory in the sense that someone has faith that Jesus rose from the dead for our sins. Faith is a belief that is not based upon evidence. My "belief" in abiogenesis is based on a (as of yet incomplete) body of evidence, and I'm sure my belief will change when I encounter and absorb more of it. If I were to have faith in abiogenesis I would believe it as the only explanation that ever was and ever will be possible, that it will not change and will always be superior to other explanations. That is not the case. I go with the theory the evidence points the most strongly towards, and so far none of it says that a magic man done it. If you go that route, you're merely shifting the remote possibility of the universe and life forming to an even MORE unlikely scenario. Now instead of figuring out how RNA and lipids got together to form the first proto-cells, you have this big question of who created the creator? If the creator in all its complexity does not require a creator, then why does the cell--something far simpler--need one?

20

Did you find out the hard way the advice - NEVER leave your

by hamsterbait in

never ever leaveyour child alone with a jw?.

i have friends who left their daughter over a weekend with her cousins.

she came back with crying fits, nightmares and general nervousness about the world ending.

B_Deserter

After my fiance met my JW mother, she made me promise I'd never leave our future kids alone with her.

14

Did you think adults were more mature when you were a kid?

by Wordlygirl in

i am 25 years old now and work in a manufacturing and distribution facility.

when i was a kid, i always thought adults acted "old" and were usually wakled the straight and narrrow line.

but now that i have been in the workplace for a few years, i am shocked at how "high school" things still are.

B_Deserter

I think so. Remember, yesterdays hippies are today's senior citizens.

111

The Watchtower Didn't Make Me An Atheist

by B_Deserter in

ive posted on this before, but i figured i should lay my thoughts out again on the subject.

there are some in the ex-jw community who are saddened because the watchtower organization has turned me and others like me off to god.

the watchtower attacks and debunks other religions on a regular basis, often giving us the sense that if the watchtower is wrong, then there cant be a god.

B_Deserter

Right, but the experiment shows the need for intelligent design for if the lab represents the primordial soup and atmosphere who do the scientists who did the experiment represent? All this shows me is that it took someone with intelligence to bring a cell into existence as they were part of the experiment. I mean are you going to sit here and tell me that no one set up the lab? When you get a lab that set up itself and did the experiment on its own then come back and talk to me. As it is all you have done is reaffirm that someone was behind it. In fact every experiment that you bring here only reaffirms intelligent design as it took intelligence to set up the experiment in the first place. Congratulations.

Miller was not part of the experiment because his presence was not required for the equivalent real-life occurences in the experiment to happen, unless of course you think every lightning bolt has a divine purpose behind it, and even then the theory of electromagnetism provides a much more plausible answer. You're arguing for the idea that God is directly behind earthquakes and weather patterns, consciously guiding each one because someone can set up a weather or an earthquake simulation (who does the supercomputer programmed by software engineers represent?). You're arguing that every murderer is guided telepathically by God because crime scene detectives can set up recreations of events they did not witness (who do the detectives and crime scene investigators represent?)

Flipping the switch on the lightning bolt and compiling the molecules in a vessel don't count as being part of the experiment because there is no intelligence required in the equivalent events happening naturally. We know why lightning occurs, and why carbon hydrogen and oxygen would be on the earth, and we also know how the earth got here. None of those explanations require a deity. Stellar nuclear fusion accounts for the elements without the need of a deity, the electromagnetic force accounts for lightning, and the forces of gravity account for the earth. Merely mimicking these natural occurrences for the sake of experiment does not constitute a designer. Sorry.

111

The Watchtower Didn't Make Me An Atheist

by B_Deserter in

ive posted on this before, but i figured i should lay my thoughts out again on the subject.

there are some in the ex-jw community who are saddened because the watchtower organization has turned me and others like me off to god.

the watchtower attacks and debunks other religions on a regular basis, often giving us the sense that if the watchtower is wrong, then there cant be a god.

B_Deserter

I would like to thank all who have posted on this thread,and I hope it picks up again when Elemental can post some more.
I believe it shows that the atheists need more faith , to hold their position, than us theists !
Love
Wobble

So we need more faith because we answer when a creationist challenges us?

111

The Watchtower Didn't Make Me An Atheist

by B_Deserter in

ive posted on this before, but i figured i should lay my thoughts out again on the subject.

there are some in the ex-jw community who are saddened because the watchtower organization has turned me and others like me off to god.

the watchtower attacks and debunks other religions on a regular basis, often giving us the sense that if the watchtower is wrong, then there cant be a god.

B_Deserter

They scoff at the idea of Eve coming from Adam's rib, but have no issue of accepting cloning a sheep from far less.

Except the fact that the cloning required technology that wasn't accessible to bronze age man, and the cloned sheep didn't survive long.

They laugh at the "absurdity" of a sea monster in the Bible but have no issue with dinosaurs.

Because there is evidence for dinosaurs, we have fossil evidence scattered throughout the earth. And depending on how you define "sea monster" I don't really think most people really focus on THAT in the Bible. Usually we laugh at the references to unicorns and dragons, and we laugh at them because there is no evidence that they exist, unlike dinosaurs.

They wave their hand in dismissal at the idea of God making an ass speak or the devil making a serpent talk but have no problem of believing that monkeys learned to speak all by themselves.

Your complete misunderstanding of evolution is evident here. Hominids were not monkeys, they were not apes, they were hominids like we are hominids. And yes, a gradual evolution of the brain and vocal chords sound much more plausible to me than an invisible man using magic to make donkeys and snakes talk.

They roll their eyes at the idea of God giving a man life by bringing him back from the dead and yet can accept that nothing brought life into existence in the first place.

Again, you are willfully ignorant of the subject, here. Evolution is not chance, abiogenesis is not life coming from NOTHING. It is the process of trying to understand how the building blocks of life formed. In contrast, you believe nothing created a superintelligent being capable of creating a universe. Which one sounds less reasonable?

They mock when someone says that God breathed life into the dust of the ground and yet have no issue of accepting that nothing did the same thing.

Straw man argument. You really need to stop getting your information from creationist propaganda. That is NOT what abiogenesis claims.

The mock at the "absurd" story that says magicians changed a staff to a serpent despite the fact that science is now showing that this could be possible by alterations in the DNA structure of a cell. Granted it would take a lot but it is possible (after all we share 50% of our DNA with a banana.

You're going to have to be more specific than saying "science is not showing." Who is this "science" person? What are his credentials? Where is he published? Oh lemme guess, I bet he's published in "Creation rules evilution drools science magazine" right?

They reject the idea that God could part water but have no issue with this when a scientist in Japan did this a few years back.

Who is this scientist? How did he part water? Assuming he did this in a labratory, how does his experiment work when tried in scale?

111

The Watchtower Didn't Make Me An Atheist

by B_Deserter in

ive posted on this before, but i figured i should lay my thoughts out again on the subject.

there are some in the ex-jw community who are saddened because the watchtower organization has turned me and others like me off to god.

the watchtower attacks and debunks other religions on a regular basis, often giving us the sense that if the watchtower is wrong, then there cant be a god.

B_Deserter

Dr. Stanley Miller's famous 1953 experiment showed that organic molecules could be formed rather quickly and easily. The organic molecules he produced, were not the organic molecules necessary for life, nor were they produced in an environment simulating the primitive Earth's atmosphere, as was commonly reported. He spent his life looking for ways to produce organic molecules that could have produced the first living cell, but was unsuccessful.

This statement is not correct. The Miller-Urey experiment did, in fact, produce 22 amino acids, which are, in fact, some of the molecules necessary for life. Additionally, the experimentation did not end there.

As far as the atmosphere goes. Since his first experiment, Miller and others have experimented with other atmospheric compositions, too (sources 1-4). Complex organic molecules form under a wide range of prebiotic conditions. Additionally, the early atmosphere, even if it was oxidizing, was nowhere near as oxidizing as it is today. It was likely high in hydrogen, which facilitates the formation of organic molecules (source 5).

I highly suggest you do some actual research. You'll find that Creationists are often not being honest with you, and will repeat the same tired arguments no matter how many times they've been debunked. Here is a good place to start reading about the Miller-Urey experiment. You'll find it goes into far more detail than "it didn't create the organic molecules required for life": http://talkorigins.org/faqs/wells/iconob.html#Miller-Urey

Finally, your statement that abiogenesis is a "pipe dream" is not proof that a deity wished it all into existence by magic. You're committing a false dichotomy. If Abiogenesis is proven to be false, then the default answer is "we don't know," not "magic man done it!"

Chang, S., D. DesMarais, R. Mack, S. L. Miller, and G. E. Strathearn. 1983. Prebiotic organic syntheses and the origin of life. In: Schopf, J. W., ed., Earth's Earliest Biosphere: Its Origin and Evolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 53-92.
Miller, S. L. 1987. Which organic compounds could have occurred on the prebiotic earth? Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology 52: 17-27.
Schlesinger, G. and S. L. Miller. 1983. Prebiotic synthesis in atmospheres containing CH4, CO, and CO2. I. Amino acids. Journal of Molecular Evolution 19: 376-382.
Stribling, R. and S. L. Miller. 1987. Energy yields for hydrogen cyanide and formaldehyde syntheses: the HCN and amino acid concentrations in the primitive ocean. Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 17: 261-273.
Tian, F., O. B. Toon, A. A. Pavlov and H. De Sterck. 2005. A hydrogen-rich early Earth atmosphere. Science 308: 1014-1017. See also: Chyba, C. F. 2005. Rethinking Earth's early atmosphere. Science 308: 962-963.

9

sees hot sister .. walks up... "hi, i'm austin, do you pioneer?"

by mraimondi in

i actually knew someone who did this, this was his approach to people at conventions or assemblies to find women.. i found it insane then, i find it even moreso now..

B_Deserter

For the longest at the silverdome we sat in the same area. One year this sister comes up and we're talking, I just finished high school and had started pioneering. Well so had she her next words were how great it would be for 2 pioneers to marry and support each other.
Well needless to say I ran away, turns out like 10 yrs later this chick finally did get married...to this cat who had 5 kids.

Man too bad she didn't hit up my older brother at the time. He used to do the exact same kind of stuff so he probably would have went for it!

111

The Watchtower Didn't Make Me An Atheist

by B_Deserter in

ive posted on this before, but i figured i should lay my thoughts out again on the subject.

there are some in the ex-jw community who are saddened because the watchtower organization has turned me and others like me off to god.

the watchtower attacks and debunks other religions on a regular basis, often giving us the sense that if the watchtower is wrong, then there cant be a god.

B_Deserter

Can't religion change to fit existing evidence too? Mine does. LOL

I think the change religions go through is done in a "god of the gaps" kind of sense. For what we don't know, religion says "God did it" until something is proved otherwise. Of course these changes take a long time and often involved a lot of beheadings and stake burnings. Religion is often the slowest to accept change, and when it does it does so begrudgingly, and only when a fact becomes so undebatable that the people who still cling to it become the vast minority.

9

sees hot sister .. walks up... "hi, i'm austin, do you pioneer?"

by mraimondi in

i actually knew someone who did this, this was his approach to people at conventions or assemblies to find women.. i found it insane then, i find it even moreso now..

B_Deserter

Not JW related, but an old friend of mine used to go up to women and say, "Wanna get lucky? I've got 10 inches."
He got laid more than anyone I've ever known. He also got slapped more than anyone I've ever known. I guess it all balances out.
W

Babe Ruth may have hit 60 home runs in one season, but he also struck out a lot.