LV101 go ahead and fantasize all you want of the conspiracy claims you mentioned. But as for me, I don't believe those particular conspiracy theories at all.
Disillusioned JW
JoinedPosts by Disillusioned JW
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Top AI inventor Geoffrey Hinton reluctantly concluded that AI will probably humanity fairly soon
by slimboyfat ingeoffrey hinton, major inventor of artificial intelligence: .
“if you take the existential risk seriously, as i now do—i used to think it was way off, but now i think it’s serious, and fairly close—it might be quite sensible to just stop developing these things any further, but i think it’s completely naïve to think that would happen.
there’s no way to make that happen.
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Evolution is a Fact #27 - Monkeys, Typewriters, Shakespeare, 747s etc.
by cofty inmost creationist arguments can be summarised as "complexity, complexity, complexity - therefore god".
we have all heard the illustrations about the odds of (insert favourite example) evolving, being less than 10,000 monkeys typing macbeth by pure chance.
evolution is not like that.
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Disillusioned JW
Note also that https://ehs.lbl.gov/resource/documents/radiation-protection/non-ionizing-radiation/ultraviolet-radiation/ says the following.
"UV-A (315–400 nm)
...The most significant adverse health effects have been reported at wavelengths below 315 nm, known collectively as actinic ultraviolet."
Evolution thus protects our retinas from most of the dangers of UV ways while providing us humans the ability to see from a small portion of the UV spectrum of the sun's light. Now isn't evolution truly amazing! -
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Evolution is a Fact #27 - Monkeys, Typewriters, Shakespeare, 747s etc.
by cofty inmost creationist arguments can be summarised as "complexity, complexity, complexity - therefore god".
we have all heard the illustrations about the odds of (insert favourite example) evolving, being less than 10,000 monkeys typing macbeth by pure chance.
evolution is not like that.
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Disillusioned JW
cofty, there might be a benefit for humans also. Humans have created night vision cameras to help them detect heat signatures of humans, nonhuman animals, and heat from human-made sources, in order to see those entities at night. If a human could naturally see heat signatures of dangerous wild animals and of enemy soldiers at night, that could help the human to be safe. Seeing part of the UV spectrum might also help a human.For example help the human to find certain food sources and certain useful minerals which emit UV rays.
After writing the above an internet search and found the following fascinating articles.
https://wonderopolis.org/wonder/Why-Can%E2%80%99t-We-See-Ultraviolet-Light says the following.
"Is UV light invisible to everyone? Actually, no. People with a condition called aphakia can see UV light waves. Those with aphakia are missing an eye lens, often due to surgery or genetics. The lack of this lens enables them to see beyond the visible spectrum of light, but it also causes blurry vision and farsightedness.
Additionally, some animals can see UV light. Scientists have known for a long time that bees have this ability. Many birds and reptiles can, too. Until recently, experts believed that UV light was invisible to all mammals. However, a recent study found that most mammals probably can see these waves of light, including dogs, cats, and reindeer. It found that the lenses in their eyes allow UV light to pass through.
How about the other end of the spectrum of visible light? Red light has the longest wavelength commonly visible to humans. Light with longer wavelengths than red is called infrared. Scientists once believed no one could see infrared light. However, experts today think many humans can do so, especially if more than one infrared photon hits the eye at once.
How do you think the world might look different if you could see UV light? Would you see a deeper shade of violet? Maybe it would be a whole new color altogether!"
See also https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150727-what-are-the-limits-of-human-vision . Besides mentioning the ability of seeing UV when the lenses are removed it also says the following.
"A study in 2014 pointed out that, in a manner of speaking, we all can see infrared photons, too. If two infrared photons smack into a retinal cell nearly simultaneously, their energy can combine, converting them from an invisible wavelength of, say, 1000 nanometres to a visible 500 nanometres (a cool green to most eyes). "
It also says the following. "Jameson knows what she's talking about, given her work with "tetrachromats", people who possess apparent superhuman vision. These rare individuals, mostly women, have a genetic mutation granting them an extra, fourth cone cell. As a rough approximation based on the number of these extra cones, tetrachromats might see 100 million colours. (People who are colour-blind, or dichromats, have only two cones and see perhaps 10,000 colours.)
... In ideal lab conditions and in places on the retina where rod cells are largely absent, cone cells can be activated when struck by only a handful of photons. Rod cells, though, do even better at picking up whatever ambient light is available. As experiments first conducted in the 1940s show, just one quanta of light can be enough to trigger our awareness. "People can respond to a single photon," says Brian Wandell, professor of psychology and electrical engineering at Stanford. "There is no point in being any more sensitive." What are the limits of your vision? "
Regarding infrared vision see also https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141201161116.htm .
https://www.newscientist.com/lastword/mg24432591-000-super-seers-why-some-people-can-see-ultraviolet-light/ says the following.
"Richard Swifte Darmstadt, Germany
The human retina is sensitive to the ultraviolet (UV) spectrum down to about 300 nanometres, but the lens of the eye filters it out. This adaptation perhaps arose to protect the retina from the more damaging UV. It also avoids the increased blurry effect of having too wide a spectral range, since different wavelengths focus at different distances from the lens.
Artificial lenses are designed to block UV. But people born without a lens, or who have a lens removed and not replaced, sometimes report seeing ultraviolet as a whitish-violet light. One example is the Impressionist painter Claude Monet, who developed bad cataracts in later life and eventually had his left eye’s lens removed. His subsequent works heavily feature bluish colours, often thought to be the result of him seeing UV.
Brian Horton West Launceston, Tasmania, Australia
Normal colour vision ranges from wavelengths of around 380 nanometres (violet) to 750 nanometres (red). Most people can’t easily see light shorter than 380 nanometres because the lens of the eye absorbs it. If the lens is missing or removed, often due to cataracts, light below the violet range isn’t blocked and can be detected down to around 310 nanometres. Without the lens to focus light, these people are far-sighted and need corrective lenses to focus at short distances.
Insects can see ultraviolet light, and some other animals have vision in this range too.
Bob Butler Llangoed, Anglesey, UK
Some years ago, after being admitted to hospital with sepsis, I developed uveitis, an eye inflammation that could have caused permanent loss of vision. The lens of my right eye was removed and replaced with an artificial one. The new lens meant I could see better through this eye than I ever had before.
On leaving hospital, I decided I deserved a pint of bitter. Standing at the bar of my local pub, I noticed that their device for detecting counterfeit banknotes was emitting very bright bluish light. I mentioned this to the barman, who looked at me with a very quizzical expression but made no comment. I then realised that he couldn’t see the light: it was visible through my right eye alone.
It seems that the natural lens in the eye has a filtering effect as a protection against ultraviolet light. I owe the staff of the emergency eye clinic my thanks not only for saving my eyesight, but also for my ability to see UV light."
Since our bodies evolved to be what they are and since our lenses block UV why do human retinas have the ability to see UV (if the lenses get removed)? Perhaps the UV sensitivity came about as a by-product of having violet light sensitivity, and thus also didn't give removed from the gene pool as a result of non-use. [Natural selection can't directly select for something which is never used, though it can indirectly select for it if the feature is a by-product of something which natural selection selects for.] But after writing the above I found an article which claims we do see some UV after all (even with our lenses intact) [evolution is true], for note what https://publichealth.uga.edu/uga-study-finds-people-can-see-uv-light-opens-questions-about-consequences-for-eye-health/ says. It says the following.
'Yet, new research from the University of Georgia found that people can see ultraviolet light, and the health implications may be significant.'
In a study recently published in PLOS One, co-authors Billy R. Hammond and Lisa Renzi-Hammond show that 100 percent of the participants, all young adults, were able to detect an isolated UV peak at 315 nm.
“Every textbook that is written on vision, optometry, ophthalmology, introduction to psychology, sensation and perception all say the same thing, that humans cannot see ultraviolet light. We have now shown otherwise,” said Renzi-Hammond.
... Renzi-Hammond, who studies the intersection of vision and health at UGA’s College of Public Health, says that the team didn’t set out to rewrite the rules on visible light. However, she continued, knowing that the eye can detect UV presents previously unknown consequences.
“From a health perspective, there’s a risk to the retina,” she said. “If you can see the light, it’s getting back to your retina, and in a way that could potentially be damaging.”
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Evolution is a Fact #27 - Monkeys, Typewriters, Shakespeare, 747s etc.
by cofty inmost creationist arguments can be summarised as "complexity, complexity, complexity - therefore god".
we have all heard the illustrations about the odds of (insert favourite example) evolving, being less than 10,000 monkeys typing macbeth by pure chance.
evolution is not like that.
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Disillusioned JW
cofty I just recently read a few posts in this thread (starting from the most recent posts) and I noticed the statement of "... changing its sensitivity from violet light with wavelengths of 405 nm to ultraviolet at 360-370 nm." That is fascinating. I am curious though about the following. In that situation does the bird which inherited the UV sensitivity entirely lack the ability to see violet light? Or, does it instead only lack the ability to see a portion of the violet light spectrum, but have the ability to see other parts of it?
Many years ago I think I read that some humans can see part of the UV spectrum (the part of it which is closest to violet) and that some humans can see part of the infrared spectrum (the part of it which is closest to red). Is that true?
Is there a species on Earth which is known to see the light spectrum which includes a portion of the infrared spectrum and extends all the way to including a portion of the ultraviolet spectrum?
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Watchtower Says Their Writings Are Part of the Bible and Are Essential For Salvation
by Sea Breeze inhard to believe, but it's true:watchtower december 15, 2008, pg.
28 – “our coming to know "the truth‟ - the entire body of christian teachings that has become part of the bible - and adhering to it are essential for our salvation”.this is the same position of the roman catholic church.
one of the pope’s titles is the vicar of christ.
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Disillusioned JW
Sea Breeze, while the WT and many JWs do indeed call their JW religion "the truth", the WT in their words which you quoted explicitly defined their use of 'the truth" (as used in the paragraph you quoted form) as meaning exactly what I said it meant. I endeavor to avoid reading any additional meaning into their words than what the WT's words say, just as I endeavor to avoid reading any additional meaning into the words of the Bible than what the words of the Bible say. [Furthermore, the WT article you quoted from quotes from the 2nd and 3rd letters John (a part of the Christian Bible, in the NT), where those letters (at least in the NWT) use the phrase "the truth".]
If the WT meant to convey that all of the WT's literature (not just the their NWT) is part of the Bible, then they would have explicitly said so, to make that meaning very clearly understood.
You are thus the one who is wrong, again - not I.
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Watchtower Says Their Writings Are Part of the Bible and Are Essential For Salvation
by Sea Breeze inhard to believe, but it's true:watchtower december 15, 2008, pg.
28 – “our coming to know "the truth‟ - the entire body of christian teachings that has become part of the bible - and adhering to it are essential for our salvation”.this is the same position of the roman catholic church.
one of the pope’s titles is the vicar of christ.
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Disillusioned JW
Sea Breeze, I am saying that that which became part of the Bible as Christian teachings is the entire NT. Before there were any Christians the Bible (the Holy Scriptures) consisted solely of the OT (the Hebrew Scriptures and translations of it, such as the Greek Septuagint). Nothing in your quote of the WT indicates the WT was talking about writings composed after the last apostle died. Many modern day English speaking Jews literally call their holy scriptures book "the Bible", even though it does it contain the NT. They believe that the word "Bible" does not exclusively mean the Christian Bible (NT with the OT). I know that because I have personally meant some such non-Christian Jews who when talking to me call their Holy Scriptures book "the Bible" and one of them is a current friend of mine. I also have seen a Jewish translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (the OT) which on the title page (and/or cover) says the word "Bible"! See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_English_Bible_translations which says in part the following.
"Hebrew Bible English translations are English translations of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) according to the Masoretic Text,[1] in the traditional division and order of Torah, Nevi'im, and Ketuvim. Most Jewish translations appear in bilingual editions (Hebrew–English)."
Note that the page also says there is a Jewish non-Christian book called the "Jewish Family Bible" and that there is a also a translation of the Hebrew Bible, The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/biblical-literature/Old-Testament-canon-texts-and-versions uses the term "Hebrew Bible" in referring to only the OT when it says the following. "The Hebrew Bible is often known among Jews as TaNaKh, an acronym derived from the names of its three divisions: Torah (Instruction, or Law, also called the Pentateuch), Neviʾim (Prophets), and Ketuvim (Writings)."
An ecumenical study Bible (intended for use by Jews of Judaism, Protestant Christians, Catholic Christians, and Orthodox Christians) called The New Oxford Annotated Bible: Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha (at least in their Augmented Third Edition) on the bottom of its scriptures pages for the OT say "HEBREW BIBLE" and on the bottom of their NT pages say "NEW TESTAMENT". "The Editors' Preface" of that book says the following. "We have referred to the first portion of the text as "the Hebrew Bible," since it is the collection preserved by the Jewish community and that is how Jews regard it ...."
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Watchtower Says Their Writings Are Part of the Bible and Are Essential For Salvation
by Sea Breeze inhard to believe, but it's true:watchtower december 15, 2008, pg.
28 – “our coming to know "the truth‟ - the entire body of christian teachings that has become part of the bible - and adhering to it are essential for our salvation”.this is the same position of the roman catholic church.
one of the pope’s titles is the vicar of christ.
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Disillusioned JW
The WT's use of the phrase "The Truth" is also used with the meaning of the following: 'the correct understanding of the Bible' teachings of truth' (which they equate with their religion) and the Bible's teachings of truth (which they equate with their religion). I think the WT was very clearly using it in those senses when they said "Our coming to know "the truth‟ - the entire body of Christian teachings that has become part of the Bible ...".
Listener I sincerely meant exact what I said in my earlier post. I believed in the JW religion for most of my life (and I was a ministerial servant for many years and I even gave some Sunday public talks). What I wrote is the way I would have interpreted as a JW the WT's words and it is also how I now as an ex-JW interpret those words as. I never ever believed that the WT taught that their literature (other than their translations of the Bible) is a part of the Bible, but rather that they claim their literature correctly explains the Bible.
What do you mean by saying that I changed the wording? Do you mean by me saying "those teachings which are in the NT" instead of "Christian teachings that has become part of the Bible"? I think of the NT as being the exclusively Christian part of the Bible and I think of the OT as being the non-Christian Jewish part of the Bible (and that Christians also accept the OT as part of the Christian Bible). The WT's NWT calls the OT the "Hebrew Scriptures" and it calls the NT the "Christian Greek Scriptures". Before the 1st century CE (and thus before the Christian era began) the entire Bible was the OT - the NT hadn't been written yet! The Apostle Paul when saying in one of his letters "the holy scriptures" he meant the OT Bible, since most of the NT (including the four gospel accounts) had not even been written yet! As a result, by the wording of "Christian teachings that has become part of the Bible", that which is clearly meant by the WT (at least according to my understanding) are the books and letters written by Christians which comprise the NT!
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Scriptures That Don’t Fit WT Theology
by Sea Breeze inhere’s a couple good ones: a. jesus said, “come to me and i will give you rest”.. why did jesus command us to go to him and not jehovah?.
why does the bible say that the name of jesus is above every name?
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Disillusioned JW
Earlier today I was flipping through some of the pages of the Byington Bible to see if there were any outstandingly insightful wordings in it which would cause me to choose to keep that Bible instead of selling it. When I read John 16:28 in the Bible I found such wording and I was stunned, for such wording seem to me to support the idea of the gospel of John (that is, the gospel which is attributed to John) claiming Jesus literally "came out of the Father" and that thus Jesus is God in the sense of being a part of God the Father. Such a view gives us valuable context to interpreting John 1:1, John 20:28, and a number of other verses in the gospel which is attributed to John.
John 16:28 according to the Byington Bible (The Bible in Living English) seems to be saying that Jesus claimed he literally "came out of" God, and thus conveying that Jesus is a part of Yahweh God. Furthermore, verses 29- 30 say that Jesus' apostles said that Jesus was speaking then plainly instead of speaking figuratively, thus supporting such a literal interpretation of literally having come of the Father's very being. Around the 1st century (and of some Christians for at least a century or two later) there was the view that Jesus was an effluence from YHWH God and also the view that Jesus was begotten of the Father in the sense of literally coming out of the Father's being. Such views naturally lead to the idea of Jesus thus also being YHWH God and might be the view that Paul had in mind when wrote in Romans 10:9-13 about confessing Jesus as Kyrios/Lord [possibly meaning YHWH] and calling on name of Jesus in the sense of calling on "the name of Lord" [possibly meaning YHWH].
In John 16:28 the Byington Bible says Jesus said "I came out of the Father" and "have come into the world" and that Jesus was "leaving the world" and "going to the Father's presence. That translation gives much more of parallelism and symmetry of ideas that do most other Bible translations which don't use the phrasing of "came out of" or "came forth from" (and instead say "came from" which is less specific in meaning). The NKJV says "came forth from" and a dictionary I have says the archaic expression of "forth from" means "out of".
Even John 16:28 in the interlinear reading of the WT's 1985 Kingdom Interlinear says "I came out of the Father" (though despite such the 1984 NWT says "came out from" instead of "came out of".
John 16:28 in the 1901 ASV and the 1898 ARV (and the 1885 RV) say "I came out from the Father ...".
See also John 13:3 in the above mentioned Bible translations regarding the phrase "came out from".
However, note the following. In John 16:28 the Greek text in the Emphatic Diaglott does not have exactly the same wording as the Greek text complied by Westcott and Hort (the Greek text in the Kingdom Interlinear). The interlinear English translation in the Diaglott at John 16:28 says "out from" instead of "out of" and the Greek word there translated "out from" is different than the Greek word in the Kingdom Interlinear which has the interlinear translation of "out of". As a result, the translation differences in the various Bibles pertaining to the above could be due to those Bibles using different Greek texts.
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Scriptures That Don’t Fit WT Theology
by Sea Breeze inhere’s a couple good ones: a. jesus said, “come to me and i will give you rest”.. why did jesus command us to go to him and not jehovah?.
why does the bible say that the name of jesus is above every name?
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Disillusioned JW
TTWSYF I know you disagree and I understand why. When I read Acts 5:3-4 I see as a possible interpretation of it that which you state. I even think that your interpretation of it might have a higher probability of being the writer's intended interpretation. But, I decided to present an alternative view. Note that I did say the interpretation (the alternative view) which I presented in my earlier post is the correct one (though it is the one which WT literature taught me while I was a JW), for I used the word "might" as a qualifier expressing my uncertainty.
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Watchtower Says Their Writings Are Part of the Bible and Are Essential For Salvation
by Sea Breeze inhard to believe, but it's true:watchtower december 15, 2008, pg.
28 – “our coming to know "the truth‟ - the entire body of christian teachings that has become part of the bible - and adhering to it are essential for our salvation”.this is the same position of the roman catholic church.
one of the pope’s titles is the vicar of christ.
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Disillusioned JW
The quote from the WT is not at all saying what the title of your topic thread says. By the word "Bible" it simply means the books of the Protestant Bible; the WT is not including their writings (other than of course their translations of the Bible) as part of the Bible. By "the entire body of Christian teachings" the WT means those teachings which are in the NT. I strongly think you are reading into the WT quote that which you want to see in the Wt literature, out of a desire to find evidence against the WT.