an atheist (never jw) friend of mine is an rv for a jw who he is trying to deprogram.
he started this totally on his own and just telling me about it.
it's quite amusing what he comes up with.. point 1: why the s & m stuff with foreskins?
the language of Scripture makes these practices sound like inspired instruction from heaven but critical examination of Hebrew history offers contrary evidence
Since there is not one word from god commanding them to stop that barbaric practice that hardly let's him off the moral hook.
the following article will address these questions, and attempt to answer them.. after helping jwfacts with his page on animal suffering, i decided to write this article.. it is mainly aimed at helping jehovahs witnesses and other believers in god to think about the issue, as well as the apparent contradictions in watchtower teaching.. thanks must go to jwfacts for the encouragement, and giving me permission to use an image from his page and to use some of the quotes.. also, thankyou to cofty for general moral support.. please let me know what you think everybody, and feel free to reproduce any part or all of the article on any other website, just post and let me know that you've used it on your site please.. (i'd appreciate it if anyone could post to tell me they found a point in here useful, it would encourage me to keep going).. okay, here it is:.
why does god allow animal suffering?.
does it trouble you to see animals in pain?.
Witnessing the obfuscation of Christian apologists is the strongest defense against the faith virus.
an atheist (never jw) friend of mine is an rv for a jw who he is trying to deprogram.
he started this totally on his own and just telling me about it.
it's quite amusing what he comes up with.. point 1: why the s & m stuff with foreskins?
when i was young everybody used to fantasise constantly about how brave we would all need to be "when the persecution comes".
we worried about what "they" would do to us and how we would never talk or betray other jws.
psychologically it was a damaging environment for children; but maybe that's another topic.. who would have thought that when it finally came it would take the form of being sued for protecting pedophiles.
When I was young everybody used to fantasise constantly about how brave we would all need to be "when the persecution comes".
We worried about what "they" would do to us and how we would never talk or betray other JWs. Psychologically it was a damaging environment for children; but maybe that's another topic.
Who would have thought that when it finally came it would take the form of being sued for protecting pedophiles.
How embarrassing it must be. I actually feel bad for the many innocent elderly long-term JWs who must be feeling betrayed and bewildered.
okay i was thinking about it.
and it is a transhumanist argument and nothing new, i do realise that before anyone points it out.
but it struck me afresh today that the resurrection must happen.. firstly, to state the obvious, a rational materialist conception of reality seems to exclude resurrection.
Too late for science fiction. Good night.
i will resume this series soon.. #1 protein functional redundancy comparing the sequences of amino acids in ubiquitous proteins confirms the relationship between all living things..
#2 dna functional redundancy comparison of the dna that codes for the amino acids of ubiquitous proteins predicts the tree of life with an astonishing degree of accuracy..
#3 ervs endogenous retroviruses that infected our ancestors are found in the same place of the genome of our closest primate cousins..
there doesn't seem to be and in between human model
There would have been a gradual transition along the lineage leading to modern humans. There would be a reward in terms of physical resources by not growing a skeleton and muscles that were larger than necessary to cope with changing environments and social circumstances.
One of the transitions in that respect that may have opened the possibility for our brains to expand was covered in this thread...
#9 Less Chewing More Thinking
A broken gene for a type of muscle fibre we no longer have tells a story about our evolutionary past.
okay i was thinking about it.
and it is a transhumanist argument and nothing new, i do realise that before anyone points it out.
but it struck me afresh today that the resurrection must happen.. firstly, to state the obvious, a rational materialist conception of reality seems to exclude resurrection.
Assumptions 4. A civilisation or intelligence which has been able to exhaustively map the material composition and configuration of the universe over all of time will also be in a position to recreate entities including people from the past by recreating their exact material condition.There is your mistake right there.
Identical twins or clones - identical twins born at different times - are still different people with unique experiences. A unique human being is an impossibly complex interaction between nature and nurture.
I also think you have a simplistic, caricature-like perspective of a deterministic universe.
i am wondering if anyone is aware of a book or series of videos designed to explain evolution to creationists, (specifically the jw strain of creationism if possible) without being patronizing or overly confrontational.
i would like to have something to recommend to people who challenge evolution, but i know that the sources which convinced me would turn most of them off because of the confrontational and at times condescending tone in which it's presented.. some examples of what i'm looking for would be someone who doesn't claim evolution is a fact until after they have presented all of the evidence that makes it a fact and also have addressed as many counter-arguments as possible..
"The Greatest Show on Earth" by Dawkins is not confrontational. He does more to lay out the basic principles of evolution than attack creationism.
i will resume this series soon.. #1 protein functional redundancy comparing the sequences of amino acids in ubiquitous proteins confirms the relationship between all living things..
#2 dna functional redundancy comparison of the dna that codes for the amino acids of ubiquitous proteins predicts the tree of life with an astonishing degree of accuracy..
#3 ervs endogenous retroviruses that infected our ancestors are found in the same place of the genome of our closest primate cousins..
i will resume this series soon.. #1 protein functional redundancy comparing the sequences of amino acids in ubiquitous proteins confirms the relationship between all living things..
#2 dna functional redundancy comparison of the dna that codes for the amino acids of ubiquitous proteins predicts the tree of life with an astonishing degree of accuracy..
#3 ervs endogenous retroviruses that infected our ancestors are found in the same place of the genome of our closest primate cousins..
I will resume this series soon.
#1 Protein Functional Redundancy
Comparing the sequences of amino acids in ubiquitous proteins confirms the relationship between all living things.
#2 DNA Functional Redundancy
Comparison of the DNA that codes for the amino acids of ubiquitous proteins predicts the tree of life with an astonishing degree of accuracy.
#3 ERVs
Endogenous retroviruses that infected our ancestors are found in the same place of the genome of our closest primate cousins.
#4 Smelly Genes
Hundreds of broken genes that used to code for olfactory receptors in our ancestors are still found in our genome.
#5 Vitamin C
Why humans can no longer make their own vitamin C and what that tells us about our species' history.
#6 Human Chromosome 2
Our second biggest chromosome is made up of two of our ancestors' chromosomes stuck end-to-end.
#7 Human Egg Yolk Gene
Humans and our primate cousins have the genes for making vitellogenin and they are all broken in the same way.
#8 Jumping Genes
Bits of parasitic code called ALU elements prove our common ancestry with primates.
#9 Less Chewing More Thinking
A broken gene for a type of muscle fibre we no longer have tells a story about our evolutionary past.
#10 Non-Coding DNA
In common with many other species huge amounts of our genome originated as copying errors.
#11 Tiktaalik
An amazing fossil discovery illustrates the transition of life from sea to land.
#12 Lenski's E.coli Experiment
An experiment with E.Coli, now in it's third decade, demonstrates the power of natural selection.
#13 Morris Minor Bonnets
Evolution has to make do with building on existing designs as illustrated by the recurrent laryngeal nerve.
#14 Joey Goes to Oz
Fossil evidence for the origins of marsupials found in Antarctica exactly as predicted.
#15 Robinson Crusoe
The biogeography of oceanic islands presents an impossible dilemma for creationism.
#16 Aquatic Mammals
An excellent sequence of fossils illustrates the evolutionary journey of whales from land to sea.
#17 Belyaev's Silver Foxes
A 50 year breeding programme demonstrates the amazing power of selection and the interconnected nature of genes.
#18 Fish Fingers
The evolution of limbs is mapped out in an amazing sequence of ancient fish fossils.
#19 Goosebumps
A vestigial reflex bequeathed by our hairier ancestors.
#20 Lucy in the Sky...
An exceptional fossil of a 3 million year old hominid.
#21 Footprints in the Sand...
Footprints at Laetoli show our Australopithecus afarensis ancestors were bipedal 3.6 million years ago.
#22 The Hillocks of Hiss...
A vestigial feature if the human ear shared by 10% of the population demonstrates our evolutionary history.
#23 Faunal Succession...
The consistent sequence of fossils found in the rocks can only be explained by evolution.
#24 The Origin of Your Inner Ear...
How the bones that reptiles eat with became the bones that we hear with.
#25 Deep Time...
Scottish geologist Andrew Hutton discovered the proof of earth's great antiquity.
#26 Colour Vision...
How gene duplication - new "information" -and mutation equipped us with trichromatic vision.
#27 Monkeys, Typewriters, Shakespeare, 747s etc...
Evolution is a combination of random mutations and non-random selection.
#28 Something Darwin Didn't Say...
A long term study of pigeons demonstrates how natural selection acts on a local population.
#29 Use it or Lose it...
Fossil genes reveal the history of modern species.
#30 Your Third Eyelid...
The remnants of a nictitating membrane reveals our evolutionary history.
#31 Ten Questions For Creationists ...
The basic facts about reality covered so far pose an impossible challenge to creationism.
#32 Sexual Selection
How female mating preferences led to some of the most remarkable features of living things.
#33 A Tale About Tails
Human embryology reveals our primate history.
#34 Hiccups and Tadpoles
How hiccups are a relic of our amphibian ancestors.
#35 Nature Red in Tooth and Claw
Nature's ability to inflict pain and suffering in the battle for survival.
#36 Mass Extinctions
96% of life was wiped out in The Great Dying 250 million years ago.
#37 Testicles
The plumbing of the vas deferens gives evidence of our fish ancestry
#38 The Origin of Complex Cells
How a merger of simple cells made complexity possible
