cofty

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Posts by cofty

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  12

  Sunday Tv - Jehovah's Witnesses Paedophilia in Australia

  by berrygerry in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  if only someone had listened back then!.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy8b22hs9me.

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  cofty

  Thanks berrygerry. Do you know when this was made?

  I'm listening to it now, really uncompromising stuff so far...
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  60

  The problem of sex (or why I'm not an atheist)

  by EdenOne in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  as i write this under the shadow of the walls of saint jorge's castle in lisbon, two very bored jws are standing just five metres away from me with a literature cart .... in my journey away from jwism i accepted evolution as a fact.

  i also became anti-religion, agnostic and apatheist.

  and, while i lean towards the persuasion of the atheist arguments, there are a few reasons that make it difficult for me to completely discard the notion of an intelligent origin of life.

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  cofty

  how certain is science regarding this process you describe? - Sanchy

  Its a great question. I think the most honest answer would assign a slightly different certainty value to different parts of the process. The age of life on earth is really certain as is the appearance of complex cells 2 billion years later.

  The event that made complex cells - eukaryotic - possible was called endosymbiosis. This was when a bacteria became engulfed by an archaea. Lynn Margulis argued for this explanation for a long time before sufficient evidence proved it was true. It was a good example of how science works. It has now moved from hypothesis to "theory" in the scientific sense of the word. Unfortunately she continued to press her ideas to argue for "serial endosymbiosis" but the field of phylogenetics has proven her to be wrong on that.

  The three steps to sexual reproduction is not really controversial. Each of them are very well known features of bacterial life. The genius was explaining the advent of meiosis from mitosis as described by Tom Cavalier-Smith.

  All of these ideas are subjects of many scientific papers that you could access online. Thankfully writers like Nick Lane make the technical details more accessible to the rest of us via popular science books.

  What I have described is the beginning of sex without sexes. It was a relatively simple operation that involved cells swapping genomes and mixing up their genes. In a world of high mutation rates and strong selection pressures this made it possible for useful combinations to "find each other" and others to be discarded from the gene pool.

  One of the challenges to sexual reproduction resulted from the presence of mitochondria. These eventually gave up more than 99% of their genome to the nucleus of the cell but retained a few critical genes to do with controlling the rate of respiration. In this way they can respond quickly to changing demands of the cell on a local level. The problem is that the two genomes must work together very precisely. Mitochondrial DNA is not recombined, it is passed on through cell division in the same way as their bacterial ancestors.

  It is for this reason that two sexes are the norm in sexually reproducing species. One larger gamete also includes the mitochondria while the other smaller more motile gamete contains just nuclear DNA. The former is by definition female and the latter male.

  All the features of sex in multicellular organisms such as genitalia are much later inventions of evolution by gradual Darwinian evolution. Many of these stages of development can be observed in extant species. Consider the difference between mammalian sex and external fertilisation as practised by fish for example.

  In modern complex multicellular beings like us most female gametes fail the test of the ability of the mitochondria to sync with nuclear genes for respiration. Female embryos have about 7 million oocytes by the fifth month of development. This number has reduced to around 2 million by birth. By the age of 40 there are only around 25,000 left. Only a few hundred of that original 7 million will ever mature and have a chance of reproduction. The majority of fertilised eggs spontaneously abort at a very early stage before the woman is even aware of being pregnant. It is thought that these are due to failures of cellular respiration.

  Sex certainly makes successful reproduction much more difficult but far more advantageous for the cells that manage it. There are even a number of species that reproduce quickly via non-sexually but resort to sexual reproduction occasionally in response to availability of resources.
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  57

  How do we know JWs are wrong and how do we convince others JWs are wrong: logic versus persuasion

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  we like to think we are logical and have good reasons for for our beliefs.

  no more so than when it comes to our reasons for rejecting the truth claims of jws.

  we reject their version of history, such as the date of the fall of jerusalem, because it doesn't agree with the historical evidence.

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  cofty

  First I decided entirely of my own volition and 100% for reasons of facts and doctrine that the Watchtower was wrong. THEN I went looking for a local group who respected the authority of the bible. There was one available locally. If there were no local bible-believing churches it would have made no difference.

  none of us seem to understand what motivates us very well or why we make the decisions we do

  I understand very clearly why I left the cult.

  As someone who respects expert opinion and academic consensus you could maybe look into it if you are interested

  I am the expert on why I left the cult.
  
  
  
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  57

  How do we know JWs are wrong and how do we convince others JWs are wrong: logic versus persuasion

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  we like to think we are logical and have good reasons for for our beliefs.

  no more so than when it comes to our reasons for rejecting the truth claims of jws.

  we reject their version of history, such as the date of the fall of jerusalem, because it doesn't agree with the historical evidence.

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  cofty

  Was there no friend, no workmate, no family member, no person on the bus, in the gym, or at the local shop, who said anything to you to indicate that leaving JWs might be a good idea and that there was a better alternative that others have chosen? - SBF

  No not one.

  They changed their doctrine. I was uncomfortable with their explanation. I did all my own research in the bible. I decided they were wrong. Therefore it was not the truth, therefore I left. Simple.

  I think none of us know ourselves very well

  I am absolutely certain I know me a hell of a lot better than you know me.

  Your previous comment was staggeringly arrogant.
  
  
  
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  60

  The problem of sex (or why I'm not an atheist)

  by EdenOne in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  as i write this under the shadow of the walls of saint jorge's castle in lisbon, two very bored jws are standing just five metres away from me with a literature cart .... in my journey away from jwism i accepted evolution as a fact.

  i also became anti-religion, agnostic and apatheist.

  and, while i lean towards the persuasion of the atheist arguments, there are a few reasons that make it difficult for me to completely discard the notion of an intelligent origin of life.

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  cofty

  Cofty how tiring is it to have to go over this stuff like every day - ttdtt

  Very.

  I am starting to think there is a balance to be struck between being helpful and encouraging laziness.
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  60

  The problem of sex (or why I'm not an atheist)

  by EdenOne in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  as i write this under the shadow of the walls of saint jorge's castle in lisbon, two very bored jws are standing just five metres away from me with a literature cart .... in my journey away from jwism i accepted evolution as a fact.

  i also became anti-religion, agnostic and apatheist.

  and, while i lean towards the persuasion of the atheist arguments, there are a few reasons that make it difficult for me to completely discard the notion of an intelligent origin of life.

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  cofty

  I'm yet to read evidence of HOW organisms went from asexual reproduction to sexual

  Eden I don't have time right now - and you should be doing your own research anyway - but sex as we know it today did not happen all at once. (potential for double-entendre is exceptional in this thread).

  I think you are asking about how rather than why. Here is a brief summary.

  For 2 billion years life was prokaryotic - bacteria and archaea. They don't have sex but they do swap genes around very promiscuously.

  Eukaryotic cells - the stuff oak trees, yeast, rabbits and humans are made of - arose as a result of a single event around 2 billion years ago when a bacteria that could produce energy using oxygen found itself prospering inside an archaea that couldn't. As a consequence of this event complexity became possible for reasons I'm not going to describe right now. The bacteria became the ancestor of the mitochondria that we have hundreds of in every cell producing energy through aerobic respiration. Sex began in these early eukaryotic cells.

  The early stages of sexual reproduction did not involve internal fertilisation or external genitalia or porn videos. All of that took a long time to evolve. The road to proper sex - as opposed to lateral gene transfer - has to do with the relationship between mitochondria - who still retain some of their own ancient genome - and their hosts who hold most of the DNA in a nucleus.

  There are three basic elements to sex. Not the ones you are probably thinking about right now.

  1. Cell fusion
  Mitochondria benefited from cell fusion which gave them new hosts in which to multiply. With the loss of the prokaryotic cell wall fusion was simple. Jumping genes that originated in the bacterial symbionts would likely be the driving force to induce cell fusion just as they are in some simple eukaryotes today.

  2. Segregation
  Meiosis begins with the doubling up of chromosomes before dividing into four daughter cells. Mitosis, simple cell division, also begins with doubling up of chromosomes. Only one key change is necessary to convert mitosis into meiosis - a failure to digest all the cohesion proteins or "glue" holding the chromosomes together. This confuses the cell into thinking it is primed for the next round of chromosome segregation before it has completed the first round. Voila - gametes!

  3. Recombination
  All the machinery required to recombination was already present in bacteria. The precise method of recombination is identical in bacteria and eukaryotes. Bacteria take up packets of genes all the time from their environment and incorporate them into their genome. In this way they can maintain small genomes and acquire other genes when needed.

  Once endosymbiosis had occurred sex was not only mechanistically simple it was inevitable.

  There is a lot more I could tell you - like why and how two sexes - but that will hopefully give you a hint that the authors of your article are dullards who have no interest in discovering answers to questions that seem to support their superstitions.

  For more detail see "The Vital Question" by Nick Lane chapter 6 and "Life Ascending" chapter 5 by the same author.

  
  
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  60

  The problem of sex (or why I'm not an atheist)

  by EdenOne in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  as i write this under the shadow of the walls of saint jorge's castle in lisbon, two very bored jws are standing just five metres away from me with a literature cart .... in my journey away from jwism i accepted evolution as a fact.

  i also became anti-religion, agnostic and apatheist.

  and, while i lean towards the persuasion of the atheist arguments, there are a few reasons that make it difficult for me to completely discard the notion of an intelligent origin of life.

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  cofty

  when faced with something that science can't explain... - Eden

  Why would you start there when there are volumes of information about the evolution of sex that you have not even began to explore?

  Your article is full of out-of-date and biased misinformation.
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  57

  How do we know JWs are wrong and how do we convince others JWs are wrong: logic versus persuasion

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  we like to think we are logical and have good reasons for for our beliefs.

  no more so than when it comes to our reasons for rejecting the truth claims of jws.

  we reject their version of history, such as the date of the fall of jerusalem, because it doesn't agree with the historical evidence.

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  cofty

  Not to be rude but my impression of people who believe they have left JWs for purely doctrinal reasons is that they are a bit unreflective, not to say enamoured by an idealised version of themselves and motivations. - SBF

  Yeah right, not to be rude or anything. Arrogance of the highest order.

  Why do you imagine you know me better than I know me?
  
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  60

  The problem of sex (or why I'm not an atheist)

  by EdenOne in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  as i write this under the shadow of the walls of saint jorge's castle in lisbon, two very bored jws are standing just five metres away from me with a literature cart .... in my journey away from jwism i accepted evolution as a fact.

  i also became anti-religion, agnostic and apatheist.

  and, while i lean towards the persuasion of the atheist arguments, there are a few reasons that make it difficult for me to completely discard the notion of an intelligent origin of life.

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  2. 
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  cofty

  Many here must remember those days

  Oh yes!

  I think I offered you some constructive criticism of your website.
  
  
• 
  60

  The problem of sex (or why I'm not an atheist)

  by EdenOne in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  as i write this under the shadow of the walls of saint jorge's castle in lisbon, two very bored jws are standing just five metres away from me with a literature cart .... in my journey away from jwism i accepted evolution as a fact.

  i also became anti-religion, agnostic and apatheist.

  and, while i lean towards the persuasion of the atheist arguments, there are a few reasons that make it difficult for me to completely discard the notion of an intelligent origin of life.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
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  cofty

  they still must surmount the enormous hurdle of explaining the origin of the first fully functional female and the first fully functional male necessary to begin the process

  In more ways than one this is bollocks.

  The article was obviously written by somebody who is obsessed with genitalia.

  Think about mitochondria - that's your only clue for now.