Posts by rawe

89

Boeing 747s and Other Misunderstandings about Evolution

by cofty in

perhaps the most common misunderstanding that prevents people from grasping evolution is complexity.. we see it almost daily on the forum where people mention dna or the eye or any of a multititude of examples and ask how it could have arose "by blind chance"?.

whenever you see a reference to chance and complexity it is obvious the person hasn't yet grasped the basics of the theory.

chance is only one part of the process.

rawe

Hi Sam,

"Albert Einstein, stated that the orderly universe was complex and this order had to be divine."

Pinning down Einstein's views on the subject of God can be challenge. As a young child he apparently spent a year or two practicing Orthodox Judiasm. In his later life, when directly questioned on the subject he replied, "I believe in Spinoza's God[1], who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind..."

In the post-9/11 world of New Atheism, I do think there is a difference in how non-believers engage and identify themselves. In 1950s America being outspoken and bullish on Atheism would be more rare, even in academic circles. I'm not suggesting Einstein would be less than candid on the subject, but just that in general people today speak of their non-belief differently than they did 60 years ago.

In any regards, Einstein was a physicist not an evolutionary biologist. It is evolutionary biologists such as Richard Dawkins that are in effect told, their body of scientific knowledge should be excluded from the class room because it is in direct conflict with the creation story in Genesis. I think that makes a difference too. For Einstein his concern was the conclusions of quantum physics, which seemed to suggest chaos and lack of order. He worked right to the very end of his life on unified field theory, that he was sure could unite the micro and macro worlds without the need to invoke uncertainity of QP.

Cheers,

-Randy

[1] As per the Wikipedia on Baruch Spinoza (1632 - 1677): "Spinoza denies the immortality of the soul; strongly rejects the notion of a providential God—the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and claims that the Law was neither literally given by God nor any longer binding on Jews."

288

Is it just me or has this site become a Believer/Atheist warzone?

by BU2B in

jw
friends

i enjoy the odd thread about evoloution vs creation, etc but lately it seems that a large percentage of threads here devolve into fighting between atheists and theists and distract from what most of us here see eye to eye on, the wt and related things.

i wish things could be more civil here and fr people to realize that people will never see eye to eye on the topic.

it gets so tiring to see the contstant bickring and fighting on those threads.. they seem to go on page after page but very little of substance is discussed seeing as the existence or non existence of a god can be proven by anyone.

rawe

Hi Mrhhome,

"We are in agreement rawe. What is the difference between philosophy and religion?"

Philosophy is literally "love(philo) of wisdom(sophy)", whereas religion typically involves defined ritual connected to worship. In re-reading my post, I'm not sure if I should have used the word philosophy there. I was expanding on Cofty's "not even wrong" three-word post. A tentative hypothesis is a useful scientific tool, but only if it can be proved wrong. There must be some way to kill the hypothesis. Thus, you'll sometimes see the comment that an idea is "not even wrong" in the sense there is no way to kill the hypothesis. I'll let Cofty correct me here if he was thinking about something else.

Ideas about God often fall into the category of "not even wrong." For example, we can measure things like how many people believe in the God of the Bible. A simple well constructed survey could answer that question. But is there a way to answer the question of what sex is God? If we assume he is male, can we answer the question of does he have a penis and what is it used for? Attempts to answer such questions will wind up disconnected from anything measurable in the real world. If we hypothesize God has a penis and thus he is male, how exactly could we construct a test to show such is wrong -- i.e. kill the hypothesis?

In any regards, the study of the nature of knowledge, or philosophy, has many legitimate pursuits and I don't mean to say such is unscientific.

Cheers,

-Randy

89

Boeing 747s and Other Misunderstandings about Evolution

by cofty in

perhaps the most common misunderstanding that prevents people from grasping evolution is complexity.. we see it almost daily on the forum where people mention dna or the eye or any of a multititude of examples and ask how it could have arose "by blind chance"?.

whenever you see a reference to chance and complexity it is obvious the person hasn't yet grasped the basics of the theory.

chance is only one part of the process.

rawe

Hi Cofty,

"I remember reading bits of "The Blind Watchmaker" in the public library when I was a JW. I quickly realised that this very point demolished every argument I had ever used against evolution. I was shocked and quickly put the book back on the shelf."

Too funny! I did something similar, once pulling an encyclopedia volume out and reading about evolution as a JW -- it made me feel very uncomfortable. Here's to not being afraid anymore!

Cheers,

-Randy

288

Is it just me or has this site become a Believer/Atheist warzone?

by BU2B in

jw
friends

i enjoy the odd thread about evoloution vs creation, etc but lately it seems that a large percentage of threads here devolve into fighting between atheists and theists and distract from what most of us here see eye to eye on, the wt and related things.

i wish things could be more civil here and fr people to realize that people will never see eye to eye on the topic.

it gets so tiring to see the contstant bickring and fighting on those threads.. they seem to go on page after page but very little of substance is discussed seeing as the existence or non existence of a god can be proven by anyone.

rawe

Hi Mrhhome,

"There exist a great deal which will never be explained by science given its finite nature. What are we supposed to do with it? Ignore it? Deny its existence?"

Science is rooted in materialism, the "I believe what I can measure" sort. You are very right, this does put limits on what we can know and discover. What is routinely done with the unknown is putting forward a hypothesis, then seeking ways to easily kill the hypothesis. The Higgs Boson had to wait in the hypothesis state for years until a big enough instrument could be built to directly test for its existence.

If of course a hypothesis is so unbounded to anything in nature it is not even possible to define how it could be killed off as wrong, then such ideas will need to live in the realm of philosophy.

Cheers,

-Randy

35

Why I am upset with myself for my atheistic beliefs

by confusedandalone in

yesterday me and the wife were talking about how much better life has become.

she said something that got me thinking and made me a bit sad for a while.

we were discussing where we are at individually in our quest for understanding about the "super-natural" and i expressed i have no belief in it at all and how much i have changed she says, "i don't think you have changed much.

rawe

Hi confusedandalone,

I haven't read all the posts on this thread, so hopefully this isn't a repeat. In many ways, how we engaged the faith as Witnesses reflected who we are. Not all of course, not by a long shot, since so much of it is forced. Like you I'm an atheist, but I did learn to enjoy aspects of Bible reading. The history, the philosophy, view points of the authors from the awful to the wonderful. I enjoyed getting into this and analyzing. I also enjoyed the fellowship at the Kingdom Hall.

So... after leaving the faith in 2007, I actually continued our "family study", which by that point was reading two pages of the Bible about 3 times a week. The only adjustment I made was adding an additional book I knew my children would enjoy. Right now we're on the third book of the Harry Potter series. And recently, I have started to attend services at the Unitarian Universalist Church, since they accept atheists.

But... my wife really did not like any of this aspects of the religion. She doesn't feel the same needs as me and would just as happy to never read another page of the Bible or have anything to do with religion. However, she loves Christmas, the decorating, etc, which to me isn't as important.

Nonetheless, there is a big difference between how we act now compared to how we did in the faith. Now, we are open to explore how we truly feel about things and act accordingly. As I sometimes quip, as an atheist, I do whatever I want, it just so happens, I "want" to do things, that most folks agree are pretty good, like love my wife and children, be a good worker and citizen, etc.

Cheers,

-Randy

89

Boeing 747s and Other Misunderstandings about Evolution

by cofty in

perhaps the most common misunderstanding that prevents people from grasping evolution is complexity.. we see it almost daily on the forum where people mention dna or the eye or any of a multititude of examples and ask how it could have arose "by blind chance"?.

whenever you see a reference to chance and complexity it is obvious the person hasn't yet grasped the basics of the theory.

chance is only one part of the process.

rawe

Hi Cofty,

"Extremely complex biological things are built by cumulative selection of very small changes. Think of it as a ratchet."

It is the tug-a-war between environments where complexity can build up pitted against elements that dilute and breakdown complex things that is facinating. The universe over all has no respect for life. Thus, in our case, the wholesale extinction of dinosaurs seems to have set the stage for the rise of the mammals.

The idea of small change having big effect seems to be hard to grasp. The selective pressures of evolution also work on brains. Thus a brain that is better at selecting a more viable mate, will tend to be the one that survives more often. In concert with this the brain that is a bit better at advertising their viability wins more often in this too. See the Bowerbird as an example. As for humans, this quote from the movie Dead Poets Society captures the idea...

John Keating: Language was developed for one endeavor, and that is - Mr. Anderson? Come on, are you a man or an amoeba?

[ pause ]

John Keating: Mr. Perry?

Neil: To communicate.

John Keating: No! To woo women!

Cheers,

-Randy

89

Boeing 747s and Other Misunderstandings about Evolution

by cofty in

perhaps the most common misunderstanding that prevents people from grasping evolution is complexity.. we see it almost daily on the forum where people mention dna or the eye or any of a multititude of examples and ask how it could have arose "by blind chance"?.

whenever you see a reference to chance and complexity it is obvious the person hasn't yet grasped the basics of the theory.

chance is only one part of the process.

rawe

Hi Prologos,

"do you see the TARGET phrase as selected, like, in the sense pre-determined by (gasp), design or"

The process of evolution has no specific target of course. It can not plan or see into the future. Thus the designer of this simulation would have to be careful to avoid that in the model. Selection breaks down into who gets to survive and reproduce and who dies. We are all the end product of a long line of survivors. Human skin color is one of the examples of selection that really helped me appreciate how this process works. If an environment favors darker skin color, a male hunter who is light skinned may be disadvantaged compared to his darker skin peers. This disadvantage could easily translate into less food for his family and over-all less rates of reproduction and/or higher rates of death. All that is really going on is gene selection in relation to melanin.

Ironically the cycles of life, reproduction and death has resulted in life as we know it. This is ironic, because JWs believe the ideal state for humans is living forever -- which of course, if it ever happened, would halt evolution of the human species.

Cheers,

-Randy

111

" the universe made itself " but---

by prologos in

watching the fertilization of an ovum and subsequent cell division it appears that the new being is making itself.

parents were involved, unskilled labor, time, energy.

no thing has ever been observed to make itself, to my knowledge.

rawe

Hi Prologos,

"Did the universe follow instructions when it made itself, supply its own energy to climb out of the smaller than plank- size energy singularity?"

When one reads articles on cosmology you'll run across the idea of symmetry. To say it another way, that the laws of physics apply consistently across time and space. Although some have suggested things like the speed of light may have changed over time or some other laws of physics has varried, as far as I know symmetry has proved correct so far as we can observe. Indeed, it is extremely important to the idea as to why we can know anything at all. If the Universe were whimsical we would have to give up a pursuit of knowledge. This is one of my main philosophical objections to the idea of an interactive God that acts according to his purpose in violation of the laws of nature -- it negates our ability to gain knowledge.

But... is the Universe merely a computer program computing towards some end? At the level of Quantum Physics it appears exactly not that. There is a fundemental randomness intrinsic to matter at this level. Yet, even though all we can do at the QP level is speak in terms of probabilities, something interesting seems to happen as we scale upwards towards are larger macro world. Things get so predictable we can say things like E = mC^2, for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction, etc. The lack of complete predictability in QP bothered Einstein to the point that he called the theory incomplete and through a number of thought experiments attempted to show the application of QP reached absurd conclusions.

Yet, all Einstein accomplished in this is further establishing the formulas of QP were correct, no matter how odd some of the conclusions might be. Now we know directly some of those things such such as Quantum Entanglement are real because experiments have proved this is the case.

As to the phrase "supply its own energy" I'll need to call on other posters more knowledgable than me, but that strikes me as incorrect. As far as I know conservation of energy would dictate all the energy/matter in the Universe today was there at the beginning. In fact, the problem currently being pursued with gusto is attempts to detect all the various forms of energy and matter in existence, that would explain current rates of expansion.

Cheers,

-Randy

97

First post

by thedog1 in

jw
friends

this is a very strange thing for me to do.

i have been an active witness for over 25 years.

i currently serve as an elder and i conduct the watchtower study.

rawe

Hi Thedog1,

I recall a conversation I had with one brother[1] about attending his first JW wedding. He was afraid that he would be fearful to get up and dance because at wordly weddings he needed a drink or two to loosen up. But he was surprised how much he enjoyed a dry wedding. Because many of the normal holidays are not part of the faith, it seems weddings in particular are good social time for Witnesses. It is not just that many JWs are good, moral, honest and sincere folks, in some cases, such as my own, Witnesses really did many kind things for me. Growing up on welfare with DF'd parents (my father nonetheless directed me to the Witness faith) meant I had to rely on Witnesses for many basic things, like rides to the meetings. I also often was given meeting clothes, one time even taken to Sears and bought a new suit, top to bottom -- even new shoes, so I would not feel out of place at the covention that week-end. I was even taken in for several months by a Witness family when I had no other place to live.

Perhaps others have had a different experience upon leaving, but for me, it meant an instant shrinking of a circle of friends to almost no one. The first trip we made back to Canada brought this point home. We had to leave our van out in long term parking at the Phoenix airport, because our normal close JW friends that would pick us up, of course wouldn't be there. And... I'll even add, gaining friends on the outside hasn't been that easy. But we've got a few now and each one is a treasure. We of course, now have a easy and more authentic relationship with immediate neighbors, since we've stopped looking for opportunities to 'witness', but instead really listen to what interests them.

Unfortunately, one can reach a moral impasse. Ultimately, to be a faithful and loyal member, entails upholding doctrine and policy as set out by the Governing Body. It also means accepting and odd mix of doctrine, some of which one might completely agree with, such as "no hell fire", "no trinity", to others aspects such as "no beards" one senses is not really Biblical. Or even central ideas like we're living in the last days, Jehovah is blessing his people, yet, one of the "six signs", a reduction in the number of partakers, is silently discarded, when it conflicts with "new light."

Take care,

-Randy

[1] To use a JW terms, because they are familiar.

288

Is it just me or has this site become a Believer/Atheist warzone?

by BU2B in

jw
friends

i enjoy the odd thread about evoloution vs creation, etc but lately it seems that a large percentage of threads here devolve into fighting between atheists and theists and distract from what most of us here see eye to eye on, the wt and related things.

i wish things could be more civil here and fr people to realize that people will never see eye to eye on the topic.

it gets so tiring to see the contstant bickring and fighting on those threads.. they seem to go on page after page but very little of substance is discussed seeing as the existence or non existence of a god can be proven by anyone.

rawe

Hi BU2B,

I enjoy these sort of threads, both as a reader and responder. That likely relates to this being a main concern while I was in the faith and one of the major reasons why I left. For one reason or another, some of the more negative things about the faith that others experienced I did not. I was even greatful that in the 80s I refused a blood transfusion at the time blood in Canada was not being tested for HIV.

In terms of how a doubting Witness might feel, that's a tough one. On the one hand, I think most of us appreciate just how helpful it has been to meet with folks who blazed the trail ahead of us and faced the same problems, etc. Even though we may have made good friends outside the faith, it does seem an Ex-JW is in a particular good position to relate to us in ways others cannot.

But... the point in leaving is about embracing the freedom to explore who we really are, what we believe and the reasons for such. Because of that, inevitably differences of opinion will come up. That was there at the Kingdom Hall as well, but since the appearance of unity was held to be so important, we tended to bury any differences, especially if they touched on doubts about direction or doctrine received from the leadership. Out here, no such constraint is in place. An atheist, can speak freely about their beliefs. A Christian can share the true meaning of following Christ and how JWs miss the boat on that one.

Good reminder tho! It seems to me, there is always an opportunity to discuss views without getting too much into attack mode.

Cheers,

-Randy