JanH

Joined

• started 67 topics
• posted 1,771 times   see topics posted on
• send a message

Posts by JanH

• 
  103

  The "Ransom Sacrifice" short version.

  by Norm in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  in the christian part of the world not many of us have escaped the much hyped and published sacrifice christ supposedly made when the romans executed him.. i myself was going around for years parroting this strange concept without giving it much thought.

  thinking and faith some times do not mix very well.. anyway, apparently god made a royal blunder when he created the first humans and they plunged mankind into death and despair first crack out of the box, while god stood by and watched helplessly.

  then we are told that god for this reason, in his infinite wisdom took mankind for ransom for thousands of years.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  JanH

  Mike.

  First impression: laughing.

  Second impression: sadness.

  Are you really serious about this numerology stunt, or are you pulling my leg?

  - Jan
  --
  "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen"
  -- Albert Einstein
• 
  103

  The "Ransom Sacrifice" short version.

  by Norm in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  in the christian part of the world not many of us have escaped the much hyped and published sacrifice christ supposedly made when the romans executed him.. i myself was going around for years parroting this strange concept without giving it much thought.

  thinking and faith some times do not mix very well.. anyway, apparently god made a royal blunder when he created the first humans and they plunged mankind into death and despair first crack out of the box, while god stood by and watched helplessly.

  then we are told that god for this reason, in his infinite wisdom took mankind for ransom for thousands of years.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  JanH

  Hi Mike,

  First, allow me to use the opportunity to say I greatly respect you. As many will know, I have argued with many totally dishonest xtian apoplogists on H2O and elsewhere, and am glad to have found you very different. Your form of Christianity is also a much more appealing and ethical one, and i'm sure none of this is a conincidence.

  Now, allow me to tell you why you are wrong
  

  Jan wrote: Finally, there is no reason to believe that such a deity, or any deity, exists.

  
  Allow me to clarify. Clearly people can have personal reasons for belief in anything. I used "reason" in a quite limited meaning here, one requiring a sound logical argument supporting theism. And I reiterate that no such thing exist.
  
  

  To this I respectfully say, "Bunk!" For the fact is, many world renowned scientists, Christian and non-Christian, theist and non-theist, disagree with Jan.

  
  That may be true. But it is an argument from authority. While one should always be willing to listen carefully to relevant experts, the say-so of even the foremost of experts do not make a solid argument. As Einstein eventually found out, God does play dice with the universe. Arguments stand and fall on their own merit, regardless of who states these arguments. And I will show why the arguments for theism that you refer to are faulty.

  The argument from the "Just Right" universe seems to catch on among some "design" creationists, and I find that puzzling. The faults of this argument is so apparent that I suspect that the emotional desires of these scholars who support them may have lead them to lower their intellectual guards to accept a story that, so to say, tickled their ears.

  The argument is usually called the "anthropic principle", and exists in several forms. This principle, hotly contested, states that the universe must be in such a state that it at least in some of its history can allow life to develop. It follows, some theoriets argued, from the seemingly remarkable coincidences in the makeup of the universe, withiut which life as we know it could not develop.

  Indeed, even if it was accepted as it stands, the anthropic principle can mean different things:

  1) Theists interpret it to mean that this is the only universe, and it was designed with the purpose of ultimately hosting the life we currently find on planet Earth.

  2) That the universe only exists because observers are here to see it. This is a common new age belief. It is a form of solipsism; new agers have misunderstood certain aspects of quantum mechanics they sometimes state to support this idea.

  3) That there is a multitude of universes, some of which allow life and others that do not. We happen to live in one that does. Many well-renowed modern cosmologists have come to speculate about this in all seriousness. It actually seems to follow from some of the equations describing quantum mechanics that every time a basic particle can go zing or zang, the universe actually splits in two, one for each possible state. Mind-boggling, indeed, but almost certainly impossible to ever disprove or prove.

  If we ditch version (2) above, we remain with one interpretation that seems to lend support to theism (1) and one which does not in any meaningful sense support the argument of theists (3).

  There are a number of more or less hidden premises in the anthropic argument from theism. One is that the different parameters are indeed random and are not in fact guided by a fundamental principle in the order of things. For example, Fred Hoyle's famous discovery of an excited state of carbon at 7.66 MeV sparked much interest in the 'anthropic principle' argument. It does not follow from the axioms of the theory. But is it really certain that it just as well could have been, say, 5.2 MeV, which would not allow Life As We Know It? Maybe. But maybe not. No cosmologist have actually demonstrated as fact that any value for all these "constants" would indeed be as likely as any other, or indeed that any universe could develop at all based on different values. The claim seems to be unfalsifiable, and that is a serious charge, because it pushes it outside the realm of science.

  Another premise, which is just as problematic, is that it deals merely with Life As We Know It. It asserts, without good evidence, that life cannot possibly exist in any (or many of) the many theoretical universes where the fine-tuning was different. What design creationists fear, with good reason, is to be dismissed because the mix up cause an effect.Of course life in this universe must exist in a form that is compatible with the physical laws we have. How could it not? We, life as we know it, is compatible with this universe precisely because this is where we originated. But who can guarantee that life forms we cannot even imagine could not possibly have existed in these alternative universes?

  These flaws in the argument from design are serious enough, but actually, they only scratch the surface of the massive problems this argument suffers from.

  One begins to suspect quite early that this "design" argument is merely a slighly modernized and repainted version of the old and famous "watchmaker analogy". I have earlier pointed out the serious flaws this argument suffers from, and it should not be a surprise that this modern version has retained some of the same weaknesses. The watchmaker argument has a built-in weakness of serious proportions, and this has always been the major problem with the design argument: if the fantastic properties of nature could only exist if it was created by a wise Designer, what then about the even more fantastic Designer himself? Would not the argument require a Super-Designer that was even more powerful, and so on, with an eternal regress of Designer-Designers? Indeed it would. So the only rational conclusion is that the one entity we know about, the universe, does not require a designer, even though it may appear (to some) to do so.

  The same is true about the 'anthropic principle' design argument. Theists have pointed out countless properties of this universe without which Life As We Know It could not exist. Fair enough. But what about the proposed Designer? Would not this designer need to have an even more impressive array of qualities, that 'coincidentally' corresponds to what a designer of our specific universe would need? Theists often talk about God's wisdom, ability to plan, immense power, timelessness, love, compassion, etc, etc, that are manifest and evident, they say, in this universe. Obviously, we can imagine countless different universe-designers, many of which have all sorts of odd combination of different qualities in this Designer, few of which would create the Universe we know. Thus, it follows that this Designer was himself designer by a Supreme Designer-Designer. And so on ad infinitum.

  The most serious flaw in the argument by design is actually mentioned in Hugh Ross' summary of counter-arguments on the page at http://www.reasons.org/resources/books/creatorandthecosmos/catc14.html Ross formulates it this way "We would not be here to observe the universe unless the extremely unlikely did take place." Indeed, this begs the question whether it was so unlikely after all, but let's leave this aside for now.

  It is a fundamental principle of science that a theory that describes a phenomenon must be falsifiable, that is, there must be (theoretical) observations that would disprove the theory if it is wrong. More generally, it is a principle that a theory that explains everything explains nothing. That means, that if there are no theoretical observations that cannot be accounted for by the theory, then it has no predictive power and is effectively useless.

  A theory that should try to prove that this universe is created by an intelligent Designer, must follow such rules. It must be possible to postulate a universe not created by a Designer, and then explain how this universe differs from the universe we have. It would then follow, if the arguments were sound, that ours was a universe created by an Intelligent Designer.

  But the problem is, that by definition such a universe would be one without life, since it could not possibly sustain life. The argument is thus demonstrated to be pitifully circular, since the conclusion (that life is designed) is already smuggled into the hidden premises of the argument.

  Thus, in any theoretical universe, even one that was the result of only natural processes, the inhabitants could think up the Design Argument and apply it. And they could just as well be wrong. Thus, the argument fails even the most basic test by not having any predictive power whatsoever.

  (I'll leave out answering carefully the totally ridiculous sharpshooter-'rebuttal' that Ross borrows from Craig. It is merely an analogy that has nothing to do with the subject at hand since 1) the participants are intelligent agents in the first place, and 2) the rules they follow are known, unlike the rules that creates universes.)

  I will also point out one serious flaw of the design argument based on the athropic principle. I will argue that the weak anthropic principle (set out in the beginning) in fact is more compatible with naturlism than supernaturalism. The argument goes like this: the universe is in a form that is friendly to the development of life as we know it. But why, if the cause of Life is indeed a supernatural agent we usually call God, should we expect the universe to be naturally hospitable to life? A superhuman agent, in particular an omnipotent one, does not need the universe to be hospitable to life. Indeed, design theorists have pointed out that life as we know it consists of matter in the form of e.g. carbon, which is naturally created by supernova explosions. We are indeed star matter. But if God created life, why should he go through this elaborate process requiring billions of years? There is no good reason for this. God could just as well used creation by fiat in the sense that young earth creationists believe in (and then, the facts would support this).

  Actually, the anthropic principle seems to be a better argument against theism than for it.

  - Jan
  --
  "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen"
  -- Albert Einstein
• 
  26

  Why are there more sisters than brothers?

  by expatbrit in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  it is generally acknowledged, and confirmed by experience, that there is a significant gender imbalance in the organisation.. there are considerably more sisters than there are brothers.

  that's great for the brothers, because a lot of the poor jw lasses get so desperate that even the most dorky of brothers can take his pick.. but why is there this imbalance?.

  it's true that birth rates show slightly more females being born than males (mother nature's way of safeguarding the future?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  JanH

  Wendy,

  You really just sound like a guy who couldn't convince someone to change their views. Now you need to convince yourself and others it is our gullibility that we continue with our thoughts. Actually what it is, is we have different opinions.

  
  I don't bother to convince anyone. I have posted my arguments, and particularly larc and rem has gone to great lengths explaning these issues, being much more patient than I am. Intelligent people have no problems seeing what arguments have merit. Further than that, I have little interest. I want information on critical thinking to be available to those who search for something to challenge their thinking skills and imagination.

  You expressed in one message how proud you are that you haven't read any of those horrible science books, haven't learned anything and remain in blissful ignorance about how the world works. Well, fine for you, I guess, but thankfully for all of us there are people around who are actually a bit more curious about the world than you are, and try to learn more than what you get through cable television and tabloids.

  You keep repeating that we have different "opinions" as if any opinion is as valid as any other. Well, that is truly dandy and tolerant and very post-modern, but it's also total hogwash. Those who use critical, rational methods of enquiry and carefully verifies their findings have an informed opinion. It stands up to test.
  Yours isn't, which anyone can easily see by reading what you write on that subject.

  Those who build airplanes based on scientific ideas are actually able to make them fly. Those who use new age ideas about shakras and vibrations or higher dimensions or whatever you call it this week, they don't fly, except in their own heads.

  As for those "reincarnation" threads, they are just a sad commentary on how militant ignorance works. I'm sure you're a nice and beautiful person and all that, and I have nothing against you, but I cannot but be personally saddened when people go through life allowing their thinking skills to remain in coma. But to each his own, I guess.

  - Jan
  --
  "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen"
  -- Albert Einstein
• 
  55

  Biblical Inerrancy

  by Francois in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  is there any denial that at 1 kings 7:23, the value of pi is ascertained as 3.000?.

  and where does this leave the idea that the bible is inspired in every word, jot, and tittle by god?

  just wondering.. any takers?.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  JanH

  Arniem,

  Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

  You must really have a fetish for making a fool of yourself. Why do you refuse to make yourself familiar with the subject at hand? Why not get a basic textbook of evolutionary biology and learn a bit before you sprout fundie slogans? Afraid the deeeminz will bite you if you educate yourself past 3rd grade?

  evolution teaches that nothing became something that became everything.

  
  Evolution does not even remotely concern itself with such things. Evolution deals with the propagation of self-replicating molecules, wherever those came from.

  You need a whole pile of faith to buy that story. I do not have rocks for brains , however I have one sitting on my desk for a paperweight. It has been there for a long time and is still a rock.

  
  You've just crossed the line between being a dimwit and a total moron, Arniem. Do you seriously think that is an argument that has any merit whatsoever? You obviously haven't half a clue what evolution is about, so how can you seriously think you can discuss it?

  You are telling me that if I add a bit of water and a lightning strike it will become human.

  No.

  Oh, not quite you say, I have to wait for b i l l i o n s of years and then it will have become human.

  No.

  You, on the other hand, claim that if you add an unknown, invisible super-ghost to this equation, the stone (after it has become dust) will become human, in a period of around 6 days.

  Evolution teaching has no basis in fact and the teachers alwys throw in the billion year argument to get out of the argument they cannot otherwise win.

  
  I have already demonstrated that evolution has solid merit, unlike your laughable non-arguments above.

  Instead of you sprouting off such absurd acrobatics in mind-bending, I will ask you a simple question, and you will either answer it, or you will shut up.

  Please explain, other by evolution, how come we share large number of psuedogenes with e.g. chimpanzees.

  See if you can put up with answering a serious issue.

  - Jan
  --
  "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen"
  -- Albert Einstein
• 
  55

  Biblical Inerrancy

  by Francois in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  is there any denial that at 1 kings 7:23, the value of pi is ascertained as 3.000?.

  and where does this leave the idea that the bible is inspired in every word, jot, and tittle by god?

  just wondering.. any takers?.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  JanH

  Arniem,

  Again you talk before you think. Bad habit, that.
  

  Do you want me to read Numbers 3:33-39 for you? It looks pretty straight forward to me! The numbers of all the males a month older or more was 6,200........vs39....the total number of Levites counted including every male a month old or more was 22,000.

  
  See the text for yourself, including the context: http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?passage=Numbers+3%3A16-39&version=NIV&showfn=yes&showxref=yes&language=english

  You don't seem to understand the problem.

  The Gershonites were 7,500; the Kohan clan 8,600 and the Merarite is given to be 6,200. This adds up to 22,300, not 22,000.

  Also Ezra 1:9-11.....if you start back at verse 5 you will see the inventory totaling 2279 were the articles from the temple of Nebuchadnezzar and the 5400 articles was the total from all the family gifts from Judah & Benjamin including the 2279 from the temple. your statements are totally incorrect!

  Imaginative. Nothing in the text indicates such an explanation. It starts the inventory list by saying "This was the inventory:" and ends with the words "In all, there were 5,400 articles of gold and of silver." This is not very hard to understand.

  See for yourself at http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?passage=Ezra+1%3A5-11+&version=NIV&showfn=yes&showxref=yes&language=english

  The verses list a number of articles, and then summarizes their count to be 5,400. In fact, the correct number is 2,499. Again, the Bible author knew nothing of math. In fact, there are a large number of such discrepancies in the Bible, especially books like Ezra, Joshua and the Chronicles. In the age before the arab-hindu numerical system we use, math was hard and few could do it.

  If you want more examples: Go through Joshua chapters 15 and 19. Count villages and cities, and you'll see the math skills are laughable. The author could not even count with his fingers. In 1. Chronicles 3:19-20; 3:22; 25:3 we find that lists of persons, even with small numbers, are off by one or two.

  - Jan
  --
  "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen"
  -- Albert Einstein
• 
  55

  Biblical Inerrancy

  by Francois in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  is there any denial that at 1 kings 7:23, the value of pi is ascertained as 3.000?.

  and where does this leave the idea that the bible is inspired in every word, jot, and tittle by god?

  just wondering.. any takers?.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  JanH

  Arniem,

  You really should make yourself a bit more familiar with science before you start posting these wild claims.

  You are probably right, many bible people, including myself will tend to bend science to fit our bible. Those on the other side of the fence do so also.

  
  I am glad you acknowledge that you have erred in this regard, even though an attempt to implicate others is much misquided. Science is, like all human activities, an errant activity. Science has built-in controls and checks to correct errors, which is why it works and has improved our knowledge of the world. Religion has few or no such checks, which is why it has been such a disaster.
  

  Evolution was, and still is, just a theory but is readily accepted as fact by much of the world.

  
  Anyone who can utter the word "just a theory" has demonstrated himself very ignorant of the methods of science. It is also "just a theory" that lumps of matter attracts each other with a force that diminishes proportionate to the inverse square of the diatance (or whatever that was). Yet, I can assure you that if you jump off a high building, gravity will get to you no matter how much you think it's "just a theory."

  Theories are the explanations that science formulates to cover known facts. Facts are the world's data. And it is a fact that things tend to fall down, and it's also a fact that species evolve and that all living things on this planet are genetically related. That isn't theories, it is fact.

  The attempts to explain these facts, like Einstein's general theory of relativity, and Fisher/Hamilton's synthetic theory of evolution which united genetics and Darwin's theory of evolution, are patterns of explanation. Some such theories may be in doubt, but the two theories I just mentioned are among the most rigurously tested and solidly confirmed theories in the whole body of science today. Anyone saying "only a theory" does not know what a scientific theory is. It is obviously based on confusing everyday use of the word "theory" -- where we assume a theory to be better than a guess but worse than a fact -- with how this word is used in scientific jargon. There is nothing implicit in the word "scientific theory" that indicates that there is reasonable room for doubt. In the case of some theories, it surely is. In the case of evolution, it is not.

  As science progresses at today's fast pace the theory of evolution is faltering here and there,

  You have to live in the la-la-land of religious fundamentalism to get this impression. The theory of evolution is solidly founded in fact, and it becomes better and better confirmed every year. Indeed, to express what you just did shortly after the completion of the human genome project is very ironic. The genome confirms the fact of evolution (as if it needed better confirmation) and is a direct written testimony to the evolution of our species over millions of years. It will require massive ignorance and/or dishonesty to avoid that conclusion in the year 2001.

  Even many conservative Christians have started abondoning the discredited creationism ship, and prefers the pro-evolution but anti-"materialism" "intelligent design" bandwagon. These, mostly, accept evolution, even though they look for gaps wherein they will squeeze their god.

  This is very hard for many to accept because it seems the only option is the theory of creation which is unnaceptable so they hang on tooth and nail to their ancestors , the monkey people.

  
  What you say is so stupid and ignorant that I suggest you take a few years off and start reading some science. It is difficult to comprehend that people can be so ignorant and still sprout off such cocksure statements about what they know nothing about.

  Creationism exists almost exclusively in the sub-society of American fundamentalist Christianity, thriving on the ignorant masses who don't know anything about science. I bet 90% of them would fail to know the value of PI to more than two significant digits. I bet 99% of them can't tell the differnce between DNA and RNA. Their only knowledge of biology is what they read on boxes of breakfast cereals. Yet, they sprout with great confidence that all the world's biologists are wrong, and they are right, and that some old semitic creation epos is a better guide to our biological history than the careful study of nature we call science.
  

  I sure hope my ancestors were not monkeys and that we were indeed created by God and the bible turns out to be true

  
  It does say a bit about your knowledge of science that you call our ancestors "monkeys". It is true that we are closely related -- in evolutionary terms -- with the great apes, and somewhat more distantly related to monkeys. I don't see why this should be a problem for anyone. There are many people that are much more troublesome to me as relatives than any ape I have ever heard of, and this includes creationists.

  As pointed out by others, one can believe in God and evolution. One of the first great American evolutionists, Asa Gray, was also a devout and serious Christian. Being a careful observer of nature, he corresponded with Darwin over many issues related to biological evolution. Darwin himself was originally a serious Christian (having considered studying for priesthood). Evolution caused him great personal struggles, and he died a self-declared agnostic.

  Yet, you wishfully wanting something to be true does not change the reality of things. If there is no god, then there is no god even if you want one to exist. And we are the result of biological evolution from older species whether you or other creationists want it or not.

  - Jan
  --
  "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen"
  -- Albert Einstein
• 
  55

  Biblical Inerrancy

  by Francois in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  is there any denial that at 1 kings 7:23, the value of pi is ascertained as 3.000?.

  and where does this leave the idea that the bible is inspired in every word, jot, and tittle by god?

  just wondering.. any takers?.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  JanH

  I think the PI argument is not the strongest argument against Bible inerrancy. Surely, it is not what you'd expect to find in a divine document, but as examples of Bible errors, it is a not the best one.

  Indeed, even the Alt.Atheism FAQ, that cannot be considered the most bible-friendly document in the world, dismisses this argument. See http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/arguments.html#pi

  Here's a small list of Bible errors that are much more serious:

  Numerical problems

  There are countless (no pun intended) examples showing that Bible authors could not count, and they could certainly not calculate. Check Numbers 3:33-39, Ezra 1:9-11, Joshua 15:21-32 or Joshua 15:33-36 if you don't believe me. Considering the number system and educational level, that should not surprise us. But I guess God can count.

  Example:

  II Samuel 23:8 These be the names of the mighty men whom David had: The Tachmonite that sat in the seat, chief among the captains; the same was Adino the Eznite: he lift up his spear against eight hundred, whom he slew at one time.

  vs

  I Chronicles 11:11 And this is the number of the mighty men whom David had; Jashobeam, an Hachmonite, the chief of the captains: he lifted up his spear against three hundred slain by him at one time.

  Errors of Science

  Insects have four feet (uh?):

  Leviticus 11:20-23 "All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you...Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind. But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you."

  Contradictions

  The two most obvious are the birth accounts we find in Luke and Matthew, and the trial, death and resurrection accounts we find in all the gospels.

  The birth accounts are so fantastically contradictory they agree on only a single basic fact: He was born in Bethlehem (he had to be, right?). Problem is, nothing else connects, and it's clearly impossible to harmonize the stories. If you don't believe me, try. One simple example:

  Luk 2:22, 39 "And when the time came for their
  purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord . . . And when they had performed everything according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city, Nazareth."

  vs

  Matt 2:14, 15, 22, 23 "And he rose and took the child and his mother by night, and departed to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. . . . But when he heard that Archelaus reigned over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee. And he went and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, "He shall be called a Nazarene."" (which of course no recorded prophet ever said!)

  The death accounts contain somewhat more common details, but also differ in many respects. Nobody can make any harmonization of all the claims made in all four gospels. One minor example:

  Mark 16:7,8 "But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you." And they went out and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and they said nothing to any one, for they were afraid."

  vs

  Luk 24:9 "and returning from the tomb they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest." (also Matt 28:10, 16)

  It's a logical impossibility that these women both "told nothing to no one" and "told all this to the eleven and to all the rest."

  So much for inerrancy.

  - Jan
  --
  "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen"
  -- Albert Einstein
• 
  26

  BS Vacuum

  by hippikon in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  why do so many substitute one type of bs for another.

  as if there is a bullshit vacuum in the universe or something.

  im referring to those that leave the jws and join or start something even more wacky.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  JanH

  It is quite amazing how many leave JWdom just to pick up another sham. If it is just intellectual laziness or simply an emotional need to believe "the truth is out there" I don't know. Likely a combination.

  It may or may not be true that exJWs tend to be atheists/agnostics in a higher proportion than people generally. I don't know any statistic that supports this.

  Knowing that hardly 5% of the US population are non-believers, this may appear to be true for American exJWs. But in Scandinavia around half the population tends to disbelieve the Christian God, and my vague experience is that exJWs here fall into the same pattern.

  I think participants of this board may not be very representative. People here tend to be those who have thought through their relationship with religion, unlike most exJWs who still retain many of their beliefs. And it's a fact that thsoe who participate in these discussions have seen Christian beliefs and defences shot down repeatedly. It is no surprise that those who are somewhat open-minded will tend to reject these superstitions when all the facts are available to them (mainstream media and schools keeps most people quite sheltered from these 'inconvenient facts').

  It is of course the case that once you have questioned the JW religion, many don't feel it's honest to exclude the rest of Christianity from the same scrutiny. Those who have seen how critical analysis can cut the JW beliefs about blood, 607/1914, etc to shreds, can hardly fail to note that Christianity and the Bible also falls through if exposed to the same critical light.

  When you've already been fooled once, you may be less likely to fall for the same fraud twice.

  The argument that exJWs "lose faith" because they are turned off religion by the JW experience may be true for some few, but practically all I know went through a post-JW phase of continued belief in the Bible and Christianity. So did I. We heard the "don't throw baby out with bathwater" argument and gave Christianity more than a casual look. But we found that it would be dishonest to use critical analysis of JWdom and then refuse to expose our new beliefs to the same scrutiny. We discovered that Christianity at large is just an older, bigger version of the sham we had left.

  - Jan
  --
  "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen"
  -- Albert Einstein
• 
  26

  Why are there more sisters than brothers?

  by expatbrit in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  it is generally acknowledged, and confirmed by experience, that there is a significant gender imbalance in the organisation.. there are considerably more sisters than there are brothers.

  that's great for the brothers, because a lot of the poor jw lasses get so desperate that even the most dorky of brothers can take his pick.. but why is there this imbalance?.

  it's true that birth rates show slightly more females being born than males (mother nature's way of safeguarding the future?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  JanH

  Women are more gullible.

  
  Hehe, don't say that without wearing a susp. [>:(] Some writers in a couple of reincarnation threads on this board could lead one towards such a conclusion, yes, but we also know many less gullible women.

  It is actually true that the vast majority of primary converts are women. Men usually come into sects through secondary conversion (that is, dragged in by their wives). I do not know the reason for this. Perhaps it has soemthing to do with the way women's social networks works. Conversions are almost never 'cold' (as in JW door-to-door work), but they use already existing social networks (family, friends, workmates). Sociologists Stark and Bainbridge has done work on the spread of the Moonies (and mention the JWs), which confirms that this is almost exclusively how sects spread. They also confirm that it's a clear over-representation of women as direct converts. I don't have the texts here, so I can't find the exact figures.

  Stark also wrote a fascinating book on the spread of early Christianity, called The Rise of Christianity. See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060677015/qid=986143343/sr=1-2/ref=sc_b_3/107-2763839-6945314 Highly recommended! (I used it a bit in my thesis)

  - Jan
  --
  "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen"
  -- Albert Einstein
• 
  55

  Biblical Inerrancy

  by Francois in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  is there any denial that at 1 kings 7:23, the value of pi is ascertained as 3.000?.

  and where does this leave the idea that the bible is inspired in every word, jot, and tittle by god?

  just wondering.. any takers?.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  JanH

  I first saw the debate on the value of pi in Kings defended by Keith Hovind.

  Right. And he had no good answer either, right?

  He uses science to prove the accuracy of the bible and defends creation vs evolution. I found a lot of his evidence very convincing.

  
  People who know nothing about science often do. They don't take the time to check out the basic claims, so they don't find out that creationists lie, misquote, distort, make up evidence where there is none, just as you can expect from con men.
  

  Some examples are: It is a scientific fact that the revolution of the earth slows down by a pre-determined amount
  every year. If the earth is millions of years old the earth would have been rotating so fast it would be impossible for life to exist.

  
  A claim totally void of any quantitative facts to back up the assertion, so typical for creationist claims. Presently, the earth's rotation is slowing down 0.005 seconds per year per year. The Earth is 4.6 billion years old. If the decay was constant, it should mean a 14 hour day. Why should it be impossible for life to exist under such circumstances? Of course, no life existed for the first billion years or so.

  In fact, some organisms grow in dayly and yearly cycles, making it possible to find out what the length of the day was millions of years ago. "A study of rugose corals from the Devonian (370 million years ago), initiated by John W. Wells of Cornell University in 1963, indicated that the year then had 400 days of about 22 hours each."

  So instead of being a problem for evolution and science, these facts keep confirming each other, and demonstrates that young earth creationism is just a dishonest fantasy.

  See http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/dave_matson/young-earth/specific_arguments/rotate.html for a debunking of this totally absurd claim.

  Also do you recall pictures of the lunar lander on the moon. It had long landing gear to allow for the 6-9 feet of dust on the lunar surface accumulated over 4.6 million years.

  This is just nonsense. The unmanned craft Surveyor I landed on the Moon in 1966, so NASA knew exactly how much dust there was on its surface.

  This is just another creationist distortion that has made the rounds in creationist literature, without basis in fact. It's amazing how it keeps being repeated despite having been disproved 25 years ago. Just shows you how little regard Christians and especially young earth creationists have for truth and facts.

  You can find some facts about the "moon dust argument" on this website: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/dave_matson/young-earth/specific_arguments/moon_dust.html

  As it turned out there was 6" of dust eqivalent to 6000 years..

  A bit more accurate and factual: "Dohnanyi's figure for the moon (2 x 10-9 grams/square centimeter per year) yields 2.3 tons/day. In 4.5 billion years a layer of about one and a half inches of cosmic dust would accumulate on the moon."

  Which was more or less what they found. Old age of the Moon was thus confirmed.

  The first words from the astronauts was "Where is all the dust"

  
  As I pointed out, they knew exactly how much dust there were. From where did you get this little story? Sounds like typical christian legends that are passed around.

  - Jan
  --
  "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen"
  -- Albert Einstein