Around a month ago there was a "1919" thread (with possible changes to this doctrine) in a 2008 watchtower arcticle. I would reaaly appreciate it if someone has a link.
thanks,
hooberus
hooberus
JoinedPosts by hooberus
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Looking for recent "1919" subject thread (2008 watchtower arcticle)
by hooberus inaround a month ago there was a "1919" thread (with possible changes to this doctrine) in a 2008 watchtower arcticle.
i would reaaly appreciate it if someone has a link.. .
hooberus.
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Evolutionists Creator "Deity" Under Scrutiny
by hooberus inbecause of the complexity of the creaton, everyone believes in a "creator".
creationists believe that this creator is the god of the bible.
like so many in this book, this argument is new.
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hooberus
Because of the complexity of the creaton, everyone believes in a "creator".
Creationists believe that this creator is the God of the Bible. (which evolutiuonists criticize as an unscientific "God did it" explanation).
Evolutionists believe that the creator is a process called "natural selection." Darwin himself at least once even referred to it as “my deity ‘Natural Selection,'” "Natural selection" has even in effect became a "God did it" type phrase for evolutionists [i.e. "Natural selection did it !"], as it is invoked as "the explanation" for every complex thing found in nature, and as any perceived inadequacy, or scientific argument against in it is attributed to a failure of our imaginatiion and not a failure of natural selctions "powerful" abilities.
The following are some resources (both available from www.creationresearch.org ) that examine in debth this evolutionary "deity" and probe whether it is an adequate scientific explanantion for every thing that we see.
The book "The Biotic Message" has excellent teatments on evolutionists arguments.
http://saintpaulscience.com/contents.htm
1. Evolution vs. the Biotic Message
- Introduces the issues and major themes of the book
- Evolutionists do not fully understand their own theory and its incredible flexibility.
- Evolutionary theory is a structureless smorgasbord.
- Many evolutionary illusions are created by evolutionists remaining silent on key issues.
- Introduces a new creationist theory — Message Theory — to replace evolution.
- Introduces the argument from imperfection — Stephen Gould's "Panda Principle" — and gives the first of several key reasons to overturn it. Unordinary designs (so called "imperfect" designs) are the expected result of a designer who is sending a message. They also form a unique style, which, like handwriting, allows us to identify that life had only one author.
2. Naturalism vs. Science
- Covers issues in the philosophy of science.
- Explains the difference between scientific and non-scientific theories, particularly the key role of testability.
- Documents that evolutionists themselves have thoroughly endorsed testability as the criterion of science in all the key creation/evolution court cases.
The book later argues that evolution is not science — using the evolutionist's own criterion of testability. Some evolutionary leaders are quoted essentially admitting that. The book argues that the new creation theory is testable science, and evolution is not. This role reversal is noteworthy since it engages the debate on the evolutionists' terms using their own criterion of science. It is also a departure from previous creationist positions.
- Debunks the evolutionists' attempts to define creation out of science:
- Identifies cases where evolutionists use a double standard — one standard for creation theory, and a lesser one for evolution.
- Shows that theories involving an intelligent designer are already accepted by evolutionists as testable science. Therefore, evolutionists cannot claim such theories are inherently unscientific.
- Debunks the evolutionist's assault on the argument from design. Shows that the argument from design can be thoroughly convincing. For example, we often show that someone's death was not accidental, that it was designed — and we show it so compellingly that we execute the 'designer'.
- Shows that some statements about the supernatural can be testable science. The key is that science must remain self-consistent, it cannot be allowed to contradict itself, and this sometimes forces us to accept some element of the supernatural. Gödel's Theorem (from the logic of mathematics) is discussed as a precedent setting example. This is a contribution to the wider philosophy of science as well as the origins debate.
- Shows the anthropic principle is not testable, and so not science by evolutionists' own criterion. It reveals an illusion involving a three-shell game ruse, much like is later revealed for natural selection.
3. The Origin of Life
- Traces the downfall of naturalistic origin-of-life theories, including the recent setbacks on the Earth's "primitive atmosphere" and "primordial soup".
- Debunks the evolutionist's misuses of probability.
- "Biologic universals" at the biochemical level have often been claimed as major evidence for evolution. That notion is debunked by showing that evolutionists have been forced (by the data) to reject all known biologic universals from the first conceivable life forms — biologic universals are not even remotely predicted by evolution, and make better evidence against it than for it.
T he next three chapters examine natural selection, each one exploring successively deeper layers of evolutionary illusion.
4. Survival of the Fittest
- Evolutionists create the illusion that natural selection is a testable theory, and the illusion begins at the most fundamental level — at survival of the fittest. This chapter reveals the ruse behind the theory. Like a three-shell game at the carnival, evolutionists shift their theory back-and-forth, to evade whichever single line of criticism you naively point to. The classic tautology (shown to popular audiences by Norman Macbeth and Tom Bethell many years ago) is merely one 'shell' of several. This chapter documents all the shells and moves, and shows how evolutionists use the ruse to maximal effect.
5. Inventive Natural Selection
- The 'survival of the fittest' three-shell game is only the most basic illusion. This chapter reveals additional levels of intrigue (and untestability) in the evolutionist's central theory. The three-shell game applies at many levels, and even between levels, and even requires the active participation of harmful processes. This chapter dismantles inventive natural selection, to show it is without structure, and is not a testable theory.
6. Darwinian Scenarios
Since natural selection theory is structureless, its proponents tell all manner of stories, called "Darwinian scenarios". Many examples of contradictory stories are examined here.
For example, no multicellular animals make the enzymes necessary to digest cellulose, yet it is perhaps the world's most abundant food source. Evolutionists claim this is "bad" design and use it as evidence against a designer. This chapter shows they have it backwards. In reality, the cellulose situation is strong evidence against evolution, and fits well with the claim that a key goal of life's design is to thwart evolutionary explanation. Moreover, the situation is good system design, because it brings ecological stability to the system of life. Natural selection can only benefit the individual or perhaps small groups, but cannot look ahead to benefit the entire system of life. Like so many in this book, this argument is new.The book "Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Human Genome" reviewed here:
http://creationontheweb.com/images/pdfs/tj/j21_1/j21_1_43-47.pdf
- Introduces the issues and major themes of the book
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Creationism is...evolving?
by nvrgnbk inoh, the beautiful irony.. .
opponents of evolution are adopting new strategyby laura beilpublished: june 4, 2008dallas opponents of teaching evolution, in a natural selection of sorts, have gradually shed those strategies that have not survived the courts.
over the last decade, creationism has given rise to creation science, which became intelligent design, which in 2005 was banned from the public school curriculum in pennsylvania by a federal judge.
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hooberus
And the evolutionists even claim that universities (and students, and the states, etc. etc.) will suffer permanent damage if evolution [positive evidence only] onlyism is not strictly adhered to.
Booberus,
The damage is that a university that gives way to magical thinking is as much use as a chocolate teapot. Who would you want working on a new vaccine? Someone with a good knowledge of evolutionary theory and the effects that has on viruses or someone whose university decided to cut back on the science in deference to magical thinking. Of course kowtowing to people who do not understand science is damaging to universities and it's students.So presenting weakness of evolution (in addition to the positive evidence presented) is "magical thinking", that will diminish "knowledge of evolutionary theory" ?
Of course all you need is some empirical evidence that contradicts evolutionary theory, if you can afford to build a "museum" I'm sure you could fund some research into dis-proving evolution. The advantage you have is that evolutionary theory makes predictions about the world around us, it is a positive testable theory. After all if you are correct there must be a wealth of data out there that proves all those scientists wrong?
For a detailed response to this claim see the book "The Biotic Message" http://saintpaulscience.com/contents.htm
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Creationism is...evolving?
by nvrgnbk inoh, the beautiful irony.. .
opponents of evolution are adopting new strategyby laura beilpublished: june 4, 2008dallas opponents of teaching evolution, in a natural selection of sorts, have gradually shed those strategies that have not survived the courts.
over the last decade, creationism has given rise to creation science, which became intelligent design, which in 2005 was banned from the public school curriculum in pennsylvania by a federal judge.
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hooberus
(despite the fact that such objections can even be found documented in even the "mainstream" science literature)
Let's see what you got.For many detailed references documenting such issues (from evolutionist sources) see publications such as The Biotic Messagehttp://saintpaulscience.com/contents.htm , the appendix to Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Human Genome (both available from www.creationresearch.org), as well as other evolutionist references in the technical creationist literature.
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Creationism is...evolving?
by nvrgnbk inoh, the beautiful irony.. .
opponents of evolution are adopting new strategyby laura beilpublished: june 4, 2008dallas opponents of teaching evolution, in a natural selection of sorts, have gradually shed those strategies that have not survived the courts.
over the last decade, creationism has given rise to creation science, which became intelligent design, which in 2005 was banned from the public school curriculum in pennsylvania by a federal judge.
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hooberus
Starting this summer, the state education board will determine the curriculum for the next decade and decide whether the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution should be taught. The benign-sounding phrase, some argue, is a reasonable effort at balance. But critics say it is a new strategy taking shape across the nation to undermine the teaching of evolution, . . .
Evolutionists want to limit even the teaching of "evolution onlyism" to the even more restrictive "evolution [positive evidence only] onlyism".
But critics say it is a new strategy taking shape across the nation to undermine the teaching of evolution, a way for students to hear religious objections under the heading of scientific discourse.
And of course they label any criticism as "religious objections" (despite the fact that such objections can even be found documented in even the "mainstream" science literature).
Views like these not only make biology teachers nervous, they also alarm those who have a stake in the state’s reputation for scientific exploration. “Serious students will not come to study in our universities if Texas is labeled scientifically backward,” said Dr. Dan Foster, former chairman of the department of medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.
And the evolutionists even claim that universities (and students, and the states, etc. etc.) will suffer permanent damage if evolution [positive evidence only] onlyism is not strictly adhered to.
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Can genesis be reconciled with science?
by inkling inok, so a recent thread about the latest wt antiscience content (found here: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/159423/1.ashx).
has got me thinking.... it does seem really hard to hold active trust in the bible as the word of.
god without being leery of science.
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hooberus
First, the order is hopelessly shuffled- In the fossil record:
Birds appear late on the world stage, well after land animals and "creeping things"
Seed plants appear well AFTER both sea and land life
Fruit plants and grasses don't appear until after birdsThe problem with this is that that fossil record is not a record of the creation week of life, but instead a record of the later destruction of life (Genesis 6-9). Hense, there is no need for it to allign with the creation week sequence.
Further answers to other anti-Genesis claims (similar to the ones on the first post) can be found in resources available from: http://www.creationresearch.org
For some of the difficulties in reconciling evolution to science see http://saintpaulscience.com/contents.htm (available from http://www.creationresearch.org)
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ISRAEL FINKELSTEIN INTERVIEW IN NEW SCIENTIST
by badboy inprofessor of archaelogy at tel aviv university, he believes that many ot stories likeexodus and jericho didn't happen are fiction.
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Noah's ark - Can't believe I once actually thought it was true
by sam_sane_now inwhen i was a jw i didn't even question that the noah's ark story might not be true.
i didn't realise that it wasn't achievable for a handful of people to gather literally millions of animals - two of each kind - and fit them into a boat where they would all survive for many days.
i didn't think about the fact that if the highest mountain was covered with water then how could plant life like trees and flowers come to exist again, especially so soon after, with the raven grabbing an olive leaf was it?
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hooberus
If you want science disputing the flood, here's science. Every possible argument for the flood is thoroughly demolished by our good friend Alan Feuerbacher:
Scroll down to the flood articles.
Farkel
On the arcticle: http://corior.blogspot.com/2006/02/part-3-where-did-water-come-from.html Alan F. spends most of his time arguing against things that virtually no informed creationist believes. If you remove these then isn't much left.
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CREATIONIST TEACHERS
by badboy in1 in 8 high school teachers in usa teach creationism and id as valid science.. 16% of teachers beliece humans were created less than 10,000 years ago.
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hooberus
But - if evolution was falsified by DNA sequencing not showing evidence of common descent, if the fossil record didn't show evidence of gradually progressive complexity in species through time (that's a simplified statement, but accurate enough here), if animal species were scattered 'helter skelter' in the geologic column like rabbits found with dinosaurs, birds found before reptiles etc., if all dating methods didn't show evidence of a really old earth and universe, if there were no atavisms ("throwbacks"), no vestigial features, no signs of retroviral insertion points in DNA that must have occurred in a shared ancestor... To put it short, if the theory of evolution did not describe what we see in nature, then it would be falsified, and we'd have to look elsewhere for an explanation.
The problem is that evolutionary theory is so flexible that evolutionists simply change it to prevent it from being falsified by any certain line of data. Often this results in evolution being retreated into unfalsifiability in the particular specific area. ReMine (who is not specifically a Bibilical creationist) documents several instances of this and concludes that evolution is now either falsified or unfalsifiable depending on how its defined. His book The Biotic Message should be read by anyone who really wishes to fully understand evolution: contents: http://saintpaulscience.com/contents.htm (available from www.creationresearch.org)
That in and of itself would not mean everyone would have jumped on a literal reading of the Bible, but it would perhaps have become a story that was easier to swallow scientifically.
For more on the Bible and science (see www.creationresearch.org)
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CREATIONIST TEACHERS
by badboy in1 in 8 high school teachers in usa teach creationism and id as valid science.. 16% of teachers beliece humans were created less than 10,000 years ago.
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hooberus
My point is that if (as an evolutionist here stated) evolution (common descent) "throws a massive wrench into a literal interpretation of the Bible because it means that Adam was not created 6000 years ago as the first man, there was no original sin, no fall from grace, no global flood, and no point in Jesus' sacrifice", then perhaps many of the "creationist teachers" are merely uncomfortable parroting a one-sided indoctrination of it to their students, (many of whom hold to the above beliefs).