the-illuminator81

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Posts by the-illuminator81

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  246

  Why Won't They Carbon Date This?

  by Perry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  "for the first time in human history a dinosaur fossil is presenting us with the opportunity to see what a living dinosaur looked like.

  in 2001 a field research team unearthed the worlds most complete dinosaur fossil, a brachylophosaurus nicknamed leonardo.

  this incredible dinosaur has all of its skin covering its body, missing only a bit on the head and tail.

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  the-illuminator81

  Leolaia, you forgot to add that forensics are only reliable when they agree with the watchtower society.
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  22

  How to win a religious argument

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  one of the greatest chess players who ever lived was jose raul capablanca.. .

  his was a natural talent from age 4. he became world chess champion and had an undefeated record for 9 years before high blood pressure began affecting his game.. capablanca's great technique in the end game was his greatest asset.

  he only needed the smallest advantage to win by force.. consequently, the great cuban chessmaster would play simple temporizing moves provoking his opponent into over-reaching himself.. eventually, his opponent made an error.

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  the-illuminator81

  The argument is not won. The argument has only been pushed off the table.

  I've been in arguments with JWs where there are no ad hominem attacks, even though it's their favorite tool in discussion. So what do they do? They stick to their own thoughtstoppers. They red-herring you until you become dizzy. They never answer the question.

  For example, when you ask them if it was righteous to punish children with death by bear for name-calling, they will say "God judges the heart." They will not answer that death is a just punishment for name-calling.

  When you ask them if it is righteous to punish somebody for something you made him do, like God made Farao keep the Israelites instead of releasing them by hardening his heart, they will say "Yes but God uses heathens to further his own cause. He was an evil satan-worshipper, so he had no right to live. It's OK because he will be resurrected in paradise." They will not answer that you can punish people when you have pushed them to sin yourself.

  When you ask them if it God was being righteous when he made up the rule that says Jesus has to die because Eve made a mistake, they will not answer. They will not say it is righteous for someone to die for the mistakes of someone else.

  When you ask them why God is taking humanity hostage, by demanding a ransom sacrifice, they do not answer. They won't say that it is righteous to take people hostage.

  If you want to believe in the bible, you need to stick to these lame excuses, hold fast and never let them go because the moment you stop believing in these miserable thought-stoppers you will lose your faith.
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  79

  A brother at my wife's congregation wants to study the Bible Teach book...

  by garyneal in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  ... he apparently has wanted to do so for a while now.

  i agreed to meet with him this tuesday night at 6:00 p.m. edt.

  he asked me to pick the chapter where i wanted to start.. hmmmmm... where shall i start?

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  the-illuminator81

  Be sure to mention Luke 14:5 when you discuss the blood doctrine. It shows that life is so precious that it is more important than law, even more important than upholding the sabbath.
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  79

  JW's week after week trying to convert me

  by HBJ in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this is my first post.

  i have been a protestant christian my entire life, but over the past few months ive been conversing with two jehovahs witnesses on a weekly basis.

  as they quickly learned that i was biblically versed, they replaced what i would call a trainee, with someone i believe to be an elder.

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  the-illuminator81

  HBJ: It's fantastic that you got this far with them. Most JWs would never have allowed a householder to attack the translation. Most would have turned and run, saying "Well he is not interested in the truth, he only wants to have a discussion." And you made some fantastic points that will linger in their minds for years.
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  246

  Why Won't They Carbon Date This?

  by Perry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  "for the first time in human history a dinosaur fossil is presenting us with the opportunity to see what a living dinosaur looked like.

  in 2001 a field research team unearthed the worlds most complete dinosaur fossil, a brachylophosaurus nicknamed leonardo.

  this incredible dinosaur has all of its skin covering its body, missing only a bit on the head and tail.

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  the-illuminator81

  http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB121.html

  http://www.gate.net/~rwms/haldane1.html

  1. Haldane's "cost of natural selection" stemmed from an invalid simplifying assumption in his calculations. He divided by a fitness constant in a way that invalidated his assumption of constant population size, and his cost of selection is an artifact of the changed population size. He also assumed that two mutations would take twice as long to reach fixation as one, but because of sexual recombination, the two can be selected simultaneously and both reach fixation sooner. With corrected calculations, the cost disappears (Wallace 1991; Williams n.d.).
     
     Haldane's paper was published in 1957, and Haldane himself said, "I am quite aware that my conclusions will probably need drastic revision" (Haldane 1957, 523). It is irresponsible not to consider the revision that has occurred in the forty years since his paper was published.
  2. ReMine (1993), who promotes the claim, makes several invalid assumptions. His model is contradicted by the following:
     • The vast majority of differences would probably be due to genetic drift, not selection.
     • Many genes would have been linked with genes that are selected and thus would have hitchhiked with them to fixation.
     • Many mutations, such as those due to unequal crossing over, affect more than one codon.
     • Human and ape genes both would be diverging from the common ancestor, doubling the difference.
     • ReMine's computer simulation supposedly showing the negative influence of Haldane's dilemma assumed a population size of only six (Musgrave 1999).
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  246

  Why Won't They Carbon Date This?

  by Perry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  "for the first time in human history a dinosaur fossil is presenting us with the opportunity to see what a living dinosaur looked like.

  in 2001 a field research team unearthed the worlds most complete dinosaur fossil, a brachylophosaurus nicknamed leonardo.

  this incredible dinosaur has all of its skin covering its body, missing only a bit on the head and tail.

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  the-illuminator81

  Two ways to find out how the world around us works:

  1. Research natural phenomena, collect evidence, conduct experiments, write papers, exchange theories with others, etc. etc.

  2. An invisible superbeing made everything

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHex9GDQ2S0
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  44

  i think i might return to the WTS

  by dm6 in

  1. forum
  2. suggestions

  man im so drained right now and tired i cant say a whole lot.. but you know, i was thinking about going back to them and just to see a bit more about it all.. i dont know to be very honest with you if its thr right thing to do or not on a personal level.. .

  i guess i need to mull things over.. .

  any suggestions from previous jw's would be awesome for me.

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  the-illuminator81

  Going back to the society might be comfortable. You no longer have to think for yourself, if you have to make a hard decision you can ask an elder or study the literature to see what you must do. But do you really want to live like that?

  You are not someone who likes being told what to do, but this is what 99% of organized religion is about, being told what to do. You might even end up thinking you are still doing exactly what you want, but in reality doing exactly what the governing body wants. And the watchtower society is not like most religion, it's a lot worse in this aspect. So going back might be like playing with fire, a bad idea and dangerous for your health.
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  47

  Wife is on that yellow brick road to the WT.

  by trailerfitter in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  hi, this is my first post on this forum although i have been reading many posts on here.

  i feel safe enough to ask your advice and become involved now......from what i have learned about this forum it is occupied by sensible people who have left the watchtower influences for one reason or another.

  i am, for want of a better word, a none believer.

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  the-illuminator81

  TrailerFitter..

  One of the things that can help a JW to get out is to get them to research other destructive mind control cults. That way you can train them to identify these cults based on their behaviour. Once they've trained that ability, you only need to nudge them to use this ability on the watchtower society and with a little bit of luck the blindfold will fall off and they will realize that they are in a cult.

  I think most of the time discussing doctrine or the bible hasn't worked with the people on this forum and for example the stories listed on freeminds.org. But if you do find yourself in a discussion, you can use valuable resources such as jwfacts.com to discuss their doctrine and the skeptic's annotated bible to discuss biblical contradictions. Be warned though, the JW's are trained to win discussions using logical fallacies and discussion techniques such as the red herring, generalizations, false cause, appeal to emotion, ad hominem attacks and straw men attacks. If you want to go into a discussion, be aware of these techniques. Don't let them divert the subject. Read more about logical fallacies here.

  Most of the time though, discussing doctrine only reinforces their beliefs, and makes them stop thinking about the issues you bring up, because you brought them up and you can't be trusted because you are a worldly person so anything you say is probably a lie and false.
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  6

  coi

  by JunkYardDog in

  1. jw
  2. friends
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  the-illuminator81

  I hate the organisation

  I pity the believers
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  21

  Pregnant Jehovah Witness in bikini protest

  by sizemik in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  i know this is a bit old .

  but wtf?

  how nuts is this?.

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  the-illuminator81

  In every kingdom hall, there is a crazy one present, a brother or sister so insane even the elders daren't approach..