This pagan paranoia is a Protestant thing.
Protestants seem to forget Abraham was not a Jew but a Sumerian.
Certainly he kept the Sumerian rituals and philosophy that were compatible with his unique monotheistic view.
John_Mann
JoinedPosts by John_Mann
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30
The Pagan Origins of the Memorial Observed by Jehovah’s Witnesses
by David_Jay in“we don’t celebrate holidays because god doesn’t approve of any celebration that is rooted in pagan customs and manmade traditions.” (see here for a similar jw response.).
if you were once an ex-jw like me, you have probably said something like this out in field service to someone who asked the question: why don’t you people celebrate holidays?
as the witnesses' official website states in an faq about not celebrating easter:.
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98
Evolution Deniers - An Endangered Species
by cofty inevolution explains how everything descended from a common ancestor over millions of years.
creationists only seem to want to talk about what came before that common ancestor.
just for the sake of discussion let's pretend that the following is true.
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John_Mann
Please start your own thread if you want to promote Roman Catholic superstitions. You have already trashed at least two of my other threads with this nonsense.
Thought police?
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98
Evolution Deniers - An Endangered Species
by cofty inevolution explains how everything descended from a common ancestor over millions of years.
creationists only seem to want to talk about what came before that common ancestor.
just for the sake of discussion let's pretend that the following is true.
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John_Mann
How do you square that with the really strong evidence of self awareness in other animals?
What strong evidence?
Are you talking about the mirror test and/or the spot test? They're are very controversial.
There's sensory reaction by instinct in the same way robots can be programmed to be self-protective.
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Evolution Deniers - An Endangered Species
by cofty inevolution explains how everything descended from a common ancestor over millions of years.
creationists only seem to want to talk about what came before that common ancestor.
just for the sake of discussion let's pretend that the following is true.
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John_Mann
And consciousness decides if these random ideas will be nurtured. The bicameral men don't had this ability to choose among appearing thoughts inside their minds.
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98
Evolution Deniers - An Endangered Species
by cofty inevolution explains how everything descended from a common ancestor over millions of years.
creationists only seem to want to talk about what came before that common ancestor.
just for the sake of discussion let's pretend that the following is true.
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John_Mann
Yes, Dennett is an advocate of this theory. Dawkins tend to agree too.
Independently if consciousness is metaphysical or physical anyone agrees that there's a historical origin.
Some believe consciousness started with the human brain. But our physical brains were around way before civilizations. What these people were doing during all that time if they had our same mind power?
That's why I think history shows a sudden (and recent) appearance of consciousness.
Consciousness is a very small part of the human mind IMHO. Buddhism, Catholicism and memetics (Dawkins) say that complete ideas just appear in human minds. The creation of these ideas/memeplex it's not a product of human consciousness. Catholicism says evil ideas (concupiscence) are produced by Satan and good ideas (grace) come from directly God's nature.
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98
Evolution Deniers - An Endangered Species
by cofty inevolution explains how everything descended from a common ancestor over millions of years.
creationists only seem to want to talk about what came before that common ancestor.
just for the sake of discussion let's pretend that the following is true.
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John_Mann
john-mann
correct me if wrong - but I get the impression that you only go back 4,000 years for the 'qualia' that you think entered humans at that point?
as far as I know complex human settlements surely go back further than that?About 4.000 BC somewhere in Mesopotamia.
My view about the origin of consciousness is based on Catholic tradition and the Bicameralism theory from Julian Jaynes.
The modern human behavior starts about 50.000 to 40.000. This is the mark of the development of high level (mortal) sensitive soul in humans.
Technological innovation is a key to compare unconscious species. Some species of Homo have no technology innovation for ages and became extinct because this inability.
Human settlements goes back to 20.000 BC. Ohalo is the oldest settlement ever found AFAIK.
Jaynes argues that language and civilization are prerequisites to consciousness. There's no shortcuts to his theory and I suggest to read his books for a better understanding of how unconscious men were able to develop language and primitive civilizations.
His theory is centered in the origin of consciousness as being a natural phenomenon, but he tries to keep an open mind view and mention several possibilities including the metaphysical one (my view).
He says the Book of Amos in OT was written by a bicameral (unconscious) man. And points out the difference between Amos and Ecclesiastes for instance.
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9
Papal Bulla - Latest Metal Detecting Find
by cofty ini was out detecting this evening for an hour after work and found this amazing bit of history.. it is a lead seal that originated on a document from pope martin v at some time between 1417 and 1431. these official documents were called papal bulls and were dispatched to all the parishes in the medieval empire.
this example has later been made into a spindle whorl which is why it has a hole through the centre.
lead whorls were used before spinning wheels were invented to make yarn of sheep's wool.. the inscription "spaspe" stands for "sanctus paulus sanctus petrus" and the two busts are of paul and peter.. the reverse has "martinus pp.
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John_Mann
What's the size?
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98
Evolution Deniers - An Endangered Species
by cofty inevolution explains how everything descended from a common ancestor over millions of years.
creationists only seem to want to talk about what came before that common ancestor.
just for the sake of discussion let's pretend that the following is true.
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John_Mann
[2] Rohde DL, Olson S, Chang JT; Olson; Chang (September 2004). "Modelling the recent common ancestry of all living humans" (PDF). Nature. 431 (7008): 562–6.Bibcode:2004Natur.431..562R.doi:10.1038/nature02842.PMID 15457259. calculate an age of 2,000 to 4,000 years based on a non-genetic, mathematical model that assumes random mating although it has taken into account important aspects of human population substructure such as assortative mating and historical geographical constraints on interbreeding. This range is consistent with the age of 3,100 years calculated for the MRCA of the JC virus, an ubiquitous human polyomavirus usually transmitted from parents to children by L. A. Shackelton et al., "JC Virus Evolution and Its Association with Human Populations" Journal of Virology, Vol. 80, No. 20 (Oct. 2006),
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98
Evolution Deniers - An Endangered Species
by cofty inevolution explains how everything descended from a common ancestor over millions of years.
creationists only seem to want to talk about what came before that common ancestor.
just for the sake of discussion let's pretend that the following is true.
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John_Mann
If a common ancestor of all living humans is defined as an individual who is a genealogical ancestor of all present-day people, the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) for a randomly mating population would have lived in the very recent past.
However, the random mating model ignores essential aspects of population substructure, such as the tendency of individuals to choose mates from the same social group, and the relative isolation of geographically separated groups. Here we show that recent common ancestors also emerge from two models incorporating substantial population substructure. One model, designed for simplicity and theoretical insight, yields explicit mathematical results through a probabilistic analysis. A more elaborate second model, designed to capture historical population dynamics in a more realistic way, is analysed computationally through Monte Carlo simulations. These analyses suggest that the genealogies of all living humans overlap in remarkable ways in the recent past. In particular, the MRCA of all present-day humans lived just a few thousand years ago in these models. Moreover, among all individuals living more than just a few thousand years earlier than the MRCA, each present-day human has exactly the same set of genealogical ancestors.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v431/n7008/full/nature02842.html
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98
Evolution Deniers - An Endangered Species
by cofty inevolution explains how everything descended from a common ancestor over millions of years.
creationists only seem to want to talk about what came before that common ancestor.
just for the sake of discussion let's pretend that the following is true.
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John_Mann
Belief in a literal original human couple and a fall from perfection has been impacted by scientific discovery.
No way.
Adam and Eve being perfect is a JW concept. Cofty is a JW sola scriptura atheist.
The age of the human MRCA is unknown. It is necessarily younger than the age of both Y-MRCA and mt-MRCA, estimated at around 200,000 years, and it may be as recent as some 3,000 years ago.