Posts by Grunt

114

15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense

by JanH in

jw
friends

scientific american runs an article rebutting some of the most common creationist arguments.

short and to the point.. this is the first page.

click for the following ones.. see http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleid=000d4fec-7d5b-1d07-8e49809ec588eedf&catid=2.

Grunt

Jan, you post a thread with an insulting title leading to a link where a guy claims comets MAY have happened along with just what was needed at just the right time, a man who offers as evidence the fact that a computer program set JUST SO could find the phrase to a play and in fact find a whole play given time, a person that points out happily that an already complicated system could easily be adapted to another complicated system, by luck I guess and then when I question all of that by saying in my life I have never seen complicated systems easily adapted or even simple problems like keeping a non standardized round pole barn square and plumb you offer this:

Extrapolating experiences from our world to ther world of molecules will quickly lead you astray. Molecules constantly form complex chains and patterns. That is their nature. To one who is used to watching wood and stones, which stay put where they are, it sounds very strange indeed, but this is the way the universe works on the molecular level.

..stupidly assume that nothing in the universe can behave in ways different from the materials in your back yard. I don't think your redneck approach to biochemistry really merits any serious response.

Then you tell me I have been thoroughly rebutted in great detail??? I don't know if you are sitting there drunk looking for an argument or what. Telling me it is a "different world" isn't a rebuttal. Try building something with them sometime and you will find stone and wood don't just "stay put where they are" a proper foundation and supports or braces have to be put in at the right depth, width and angles. Maybe to you that does sound"very strange indeed, but this is the way the universe works" in reality. Also, when you insult people they tend to respond in kind, so that is always a mistake. Why don't you try just sticking to the argument? I know my point was simple. But you never answered it. So is yours really. I say an intelligent being designed all of this. You say it was a chain of events that just happened, some of which may have involved help from outer space, comets, or random selection defeating great odds. I don't even say it HAS to be god, you can have it be aliens if it suits you better and you want that outer space connection, just so they are intelligent enough to do the job, cause luck won't get it done. Your buddy chimes in with this, "Your barn analogy is not even wrong, it's totally silly. Not only that, it's pretty damn obvious. Even a child can make the argument that complicate dthings all have makers. Problem is it's not true." I am not trying to be anything but obvious. Name any complicated thing you have ever seen that didn't have a maker? Right. Now, prove it isn't true. Without insults if you can manage it. By the way G-man, the reason I mentioned it was a pole barn was because natural curves are much harder to work with than standard cut lumber. Understand that if you can without using cheese and shrimp.

Grunt

114

15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense

by JanH in

jw
friends

scientific american runs an article rebutting some of the most common creationist arguments.

short and to the point.. this is the first page.

click for the following ones.. see http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleid=000d4fec-7d5b-1d07-8e49809ec588eedf&catid=2.

Grunt

Jan,
Get your head out of your ass and think a little bit. Do you ever think about how much you insult people? You call me a redneck, you say others rant, you claim you are trying to educate them, you ask if they even know what the periodic table is, in short you run your mouth and say insulting things to people. Things must be tough in Norway, maybe you got some bad fish, I don't know. I do know that you can disagree without resorting to namecalling. You remind me of a husband who is always trying to tell his wife he is the boss, when constantly saying it just proves the opposite. Assuring everyone of your education and intelligence only shows you have no class and a poor education at least in part.
When you post a provocative title as you did you are fishing for a response which I guess you got. This gives you a chance to "rant" as you accuse others of doing and to make generalizations while refusing to really consider the other view. Like the people you condemn, the fundies, you are not really listening, only waiting for your turn to say the same old thing. Grow up.

Grunt

114

15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense

by JanH in

jw
friends

scientific american runs an article rebutting some of the most common creationist arguments.

short and to the point.. this is the first page.

click for the following ones.. see http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleid=000d4fec-7d5b-1d07-8e49809ec588eedf&catid=2.

Grunt

Gedanken,
You failed to grasp MY point. My point was that we live in a comples world that was much harder to build than my barn. I had to intelligently overcome and allow for all kinds of problems from the inequality of the surface I was building on to the different sizes of the cedar trees I could find to cut and use. It took intelligence to solve that problem. No random events in a million years would have made my barn without an intelligence directing them. That is why for me, my barn was a great analogy. As for stright lines occuring in nature, doesn't light usually travel in straight lines? If you drop something it will fall straight down, that is how a plumb bob works.

In regards to your statement, "it isn't so much a rationale for evolution - that relies on actual hard evidence - as debunking a particular nonsensical argument against evolution by creationists." You think his answer was adequate and a good reply???

What it comes down to is that WE DON'T KNOW. You can throw verbal circles all around it but that is your answer. We can only guess. I guess GOD did it. You guess what you want, but don't act like it is anything other than a guess.

Grunt

114

15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense

by JanH in

jw
friends

scientific american runs an article rebutting some of the most common creationist arguments.

short and to the point.. this is the first page.

click for the following ones.. see http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleid=000d4fec-7d5b-1d07-8e49809ec588eedf&catid=2.

Grunt

Jan,
I don't know squat about astrophysics, but I do know that when you are say things HINT, that unknown quantities MIGHT have come here from space and in comets, and that provides a scenario that MAY SOLVE the problem, then I'd have to say you don't know SQUAT and are just guessing. You said, "If you believe these ideas, including looking into the possibility of some materials coming from meteorites, are taken out of thin air, you don't know squat..." I know enough to know he didn't say meteorites, he said comets. Read it again:

Astrochemical analyses hint that quantities of these compounds might have originated in space and fallen to earth in comets, a scenario that may solve the problem of how those constituents arose under the conditions that prevailed when our planet was young.

"Extrapolating experiences from our world to ther world of molecules will quickly lead you astray" well maybe you are comfortable in some other world, this one is all I know, it is full of molecules, I have used them to make a lot of stuff. None ever just made a complex chain of anything that I was trying to build, like a house. I had to build it and nothing just lucked into place.

In our world, every house has its builder (sound familiar?), in some fantasy world maybe you throw boards in the air long enough it will come down as a house. In that same fantasy world maybe random chance will write a Shakespeare play, not in my world, or yours for that matter.

"To one who is used to watching wood and stones, which stay put where they are, it sounds very strange indeed, but this is the way the universe works on the molecular level."

Jan, I imagine if you took the wood and stones out of your world you'd be sitting on your ass in mud and sardines. What I was trying to point out to you was that even getting a simple problem like keeping a barn made of non-uniform, round poles plumb and square is difficult. If you haven't done something of the sort, then maybe you didn't get my drift. Ask anyone who builds anything from barns to boats how hard it is to get it all right and what the results would be if they relied on chance or trial and error and they will tell you it won't happen. Ever try putting spark plug wires on a car when you didn't know the order? You won't guess it.

Jan, I did manage to make it through high school biology. You tend to want to get personal Jan, and to judge others as being ignorant or uninformed just because they disagree. The point I am making is that those encyclopedic amounts of knowledge of biochemistry you mentioned are summarised from nature. The rules are there, we work to understand the rules, very complicated rules, that we discover. I don't believe and my life experiences don't support a belief that complicated events occur in the right order at the right time in the right place. Murphy's Law has been my experience. Maybe you know of some enormous cache of materials from comets, enough to influence the evolution of life all over the planet, maybe comets were hitting everywhere at just the right speed and of the right size to make it all work out. In my experience, the damned comet would have destroyed the earth, not helped build it. Try to avoid being condescending, you have had to apologise to me before for errors you stated as facts.

Grunt

114

15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense

by JanH in

jw
friends

scientific american runs an article rebutting some of the most common creationist arguments.

short and to the point.. this is the first page.

click for the following ones.. see http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleid=000d4fec-7d5b-1d07-8e49809ec588eedf&catid=2.

Grunt

The origin of life remains very much a mystery, but biochemists have learned about how primitive nucleic acids, amino acids and other building blocks of life could have formed and organized themselves into self-replicating, self-sustaining units, laying the foundation for cellular biochemistry. Astrochemical analyses hint that quantities of these compounds might have originated in space and fallen to earth in comets, a scenario that may solve the problem of how those constituents arose under the conditions that prevailed when our planet was young.

But in the 1980s Richard Hardison of Glendale College wrote a computer program that generated phrases randomly while preserving the positions of individual letters that happened to be correctly placed (in effect, selecting for phrases more like Hamlet's). On average, the program re-created the phrase in just 336 iterations, less than 90 seconds. Even more amazing, it could reconstruct Shakespeare's entire play in just four and a half days.

In contrast, intelligent-design theorists invoke shadowy entities that conveniently have whatever unconstrained abilities are needed to solve the mystery at hand. Rather than expanding scientific inquiry, such answers shut it down. (How does one disprove the existence of omnipotent intelligences?)

The final evolution of the flagellum might then have involved only the novel recombination of sophisticated parts that initially evolved for other purposes. Similarly, the blood-clotting system seems to involve the modification and elaboration of proteins that were originally used in digestion, according to studies by Russell F. Doolittle of the University of California at San Diego. So some of the complexity that Behe calls proof of intelligent design is not irreducible at all.

July 2002 issue
15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense
Opponents of evolution want to make a place for creationism by tearing down real science, but their arguments don't hold up
By John Rennie

Jan, I hope you can read the above dispassionately and see just how unscientific each seems to be. How did the needed components get here during the formation of the earth, allow me to paraphrase and extrapolate his answers, "Uh, maybe the right ones just fell out of space at just the right time. Maybe, a comet??? Yeah, yeah, that's it a COMET!"

How about his answer to how long it would take for the right things to happen in sequence? "Hey, a guy created a computer program that wrote to be or not to be in 90 seconds, heck it could do a whole Shakespeare play in four and a half days!" Yeah, well have it write some new ones then.

And in contrast to the idiot creationists who invoke shadowy gods that have just what is needed at the proper time, " Uh, we evolutionists have comets deliver the ingredients in the right amount at the proper time, and that would be easy to disprove now wouldn't it?

As for the combinations of complicated systems, here is the simple answer, all they had to do was combine them. Nothing to that. "Why that involved only the novel recombination of sophisticated parts that initially evolved for other purposes. See nothing to it." Don't know why anyone would doubt that.

Jan, I don't know if you have ever built anything. I don't know if you have ever tried to modify anything, never mind anything complex. I built a barn using round cedar poles I cut out of the woods and then put a tin roof on it. Plumb, square and compatible don't come easy! Neither do comets with just what you need on them. Read what that guy said with an open mind and tell me he is more believable than someone saying an intelligent being made all this complicated stuff. Everything from the magnetic poles of the earth to the mitrovalve in your heart didn't just happen. At least I don't think so, but I won't call you an idiot if you disagree.

Grunt

13

Sept. Magazines Ridiculous Quotes

by Sirona in

jw
friends

on reading the september issues of watchtower and awake, i had a good laugh at the hypocrisy that leaped out at me.awake sept 8th 2002 :"to believe that numerological interpretations are accurate, when they are based upon such widely variable factors as calendar and language, is to stretch the limits of credibility to an absurd degree.".

considering the amount of ridiculous number crunching done by the society, how amazing that they print that statement!

if i remember rightly 607 date is based on an interpretation of calendar dates and the 'language' of the bible (which they always manage to skew to their doctrine).

Grunt

I think the names these humble brothers give themselves and the Other Sheep, are pretty indicative of their attitudes:

1. Other Sheep
2. Famine Stricken Egyptians who sold themselves to Joseph
3. Hobab (brother-in-law of Moses)
4. Strangers within the gates of the organization
5. Rechabites
6. Sons of non-Israelite servants of Solomon
7. Nethinim
8. Foreigners who prayed toward Jehovah's temple
9. Naaman, cleansed of leprorsy
10. Jehonadab
11. Repentant Ninevites
12. Ebed-melech the Ethiopian
13. Queen of Sheba
14. Lot and his daughters
15. Mixed company that left Egypt with Israel
16. Alien residents in Israel
17. Gibeonites who sought peace with Israel (cursed people, and a slaves position)
18. Foreigners who fought along with David
19. Rahab of Jericho
20. Strangers that shepherd Israels flocks,
21. Foreigners that are its farmers and vinedressers
22. "Sheep" who do good to Kings brothers
23. Ten men who take hold of skirt of a Jew
24. Nations that come out of darkness
25. Persons who exercise faith in Christ and "never die at all"

Terms for the Anointed
1. Big Trees of Rightousness
2. Davids Israelite warriors
3. light of the nations
4. the host of heaven
5. Jehovahs people in the new covenant
6. Jeremiah
7. the host of heaven
8. they that are wise
9. Jonah
10. apple of Jehovahs eye
11. Joshua the high priest
12. sons of the kingdom
13. chosen ones
14. eagles
15. brothers of the king
16. older brother of the prodigal
17. royal palace of David
18. heirs with Christ
19. the remnant
20. holy ones
21. saints (holy ones of saints)
22. temple
23. new creation
24. ambassadors for Christ
25. congregation of God
26. Israel of God
27. body of Christ
28. soldiers of Christ Jesus
29. house built by Christ
30. holy priesthood
31. holy nation
32. association of brothers
33. spiritual Israel
34. trees of life
35. the bride of Christ
36. angels sent to Lot
37. Jehovahs witnesses

The last one kind of puzzles me, as it would seem to say the Other Sheep are not REALLY "Jehovah's Witnesses." I pulled this from the WT CD a long time ago, maybe things have changed, they often do.

Grunt

13

JW firefighter killed

by Grunt in

jw
friends

in central florida,(orlando area) two firefighters died in a training exercise a couple of days ago.

it was a terrible way to die and a tragic loss.

i was surprised to hear today that one is a witness and that his funeral is being held at a convention center (tupperware?

Grunt

I was surprised to hear in Erica's trial that a Witness in the congregation was a cop. I would think being a policeman, a paramedic or a fireman would be difficult to do as a Witness. I didn't think carrying a gun and being willing to use it, would work for a Witness. Chief, how did you get around the blood issue as a paramedic??? I would think fireman would have been the easiest to reconcile, at least up until 911 when the firemen seemed to symbolize the country or at least to have become national heroes due to the sacrifice of so many at the twin towers. My heart goes out to all the poor dubs, kids and adults, twisting their emotions into balls trying to live normal lives, have friends, fulfill obligations and yet not violate the rules of the legalistic cult they belong to.

Grunt

13

JW firefighter killed

by Grunt in

jw
friends

in central florida,(orlando area) two firefighters died in a training exercise a couple of days ago.

it was a terrible way to die and a tragic loss.

i was surprised to hear today that one is a witness and that his funeral is being held at a convention center (tupperware?

Grunt

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/state/orl-locfuneral04080402aug04.story?coll=orl%2Dhome%2Dheadlines

That is the first link I have ever tried to post. I hope it does the trick. You can go to the Orlando Sentinel and get there though. The article I went to first was on a fire crew that came to the funeral and wound up putting out a house fire, but there was a link there that led to the one on the two funerals. The older guy was a Lt. and had been a fireman for over ten years, the Witness was a boy named Beggs, and had just gotten the job. The older man, still in his thirties though, was a Catholic and his funeral was held today. The young boy's will be in the Tupperware Convention center. I think about 11,000 firemen and others are in town for the funerals. A large captive audience might be hard to resist, on the other hand, a great chance to avoid looking like a cult. Sad deal, two lives lost in great pain, for a practice fire.

Grunt

13

JW firefighter killed

by Grunt in

jw
friends

in central florida,(orlando area) two firefighters died in a training exercise a couple of days ago.

it was a terrible way to die and a tragic loss.

i was surprised to hear today that one is a witness and that his funeral is being held at a convention center (tupperware?

Grunt

In central Florida,(Orlando area) two firefighters died in a training exercise a couple of days ago. It was a terrible way to die and a tragic loss. I was surprised to hear today that one is a Witness and that his funeral is being held at a convention center (Tupperware?) and that thousands of firemen and others have convened for the two funerals. The one that was held today had bagpipers, Amazing Grace, and had a flag draped over the coffin. I am wondering how the Society will handle this, or the family. I remember how they kidnapped my grandfathers funeral and made it a recruiting drive. I hope that doesn't happen with this boy.

Grunt

22

Do You Like This Place?

by ISP in

jw
friends

there are criticisms from time to time......like er....fluff!

not enough wt/jw attacking stuff.

(yawn) i don't quite see it that way.

Grunt

I like it. It takes the place of a church to me. A lot of posts here cause me to do research, to think and I can identify with and understand so much of what I read. I am still angry and a little bitter, this place puts a little salve on the spot that burns. There a lot of people here, of all viewpoints, that I deeply respect. There is also a genuine concern for others from most on this board. I like being a part of it.

Grunt