Half banana

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Posts by Half banana

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  16

  Lunar Eclipses and 607/587 BCE as the date of Jerusalem´s Fall

  by ILoveTTATT2 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am doing a very extensive document, it is a work in progress, that details how to know, just using a list of eclipses in the 6th and 7th century bce, excel, and knowing how to read lunar eclipse graphs and maps, that jerusalem fell in 587 b.c.e., and not 607 b.c.e.

  as the watchtower states.currently it is in spanish, but i intend to translate it to english later.for those who speak spanish, here it is:.

  https://sites.google.com/site/laverdadtj2/los-eclipses-lunares-y-la-watchtower.

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  Half banana

  First and foremost the JW org is not interested in truth it is only interested in perpetuating its own myths.
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  40

  Faced with the reality of mortality

  by stuckinarut2 in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  how have you all coped with facing the reality of our mortality?.

  most of us were raised to firmly believe we would never get old or die... so here we are now having to face the reality that are getting older... we are going to die.. sometimes it really pisses me off that we were never helped to comprehend this most basic of facts.

  we were given a utopian dream as a "fact", and hence never taught how to face our inevitable futures.... thoughts?.

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  Half banana

  Stuck it's a good question of how we cope with the prospect of death after being led to believe the highly improbable tale that we are not going to die. This religious con-trick has enormous traction because at some time early in life we all awake to the horror of being conscious that we die. (Like the Catholic Church knows; a good moment in life to get religion!)

  The Victorians coped with death by exposing even young children to the constant funeral rituals of their community, today we distance ourselves from death or make a joke of it at Halloween.

  For JWs it is like we were given a cheque for ten million pounds but now we find that it was issued by the bank of toy town. The prospect of everlasting life was an illusion in the first place in fact I heard on the radio this very morning that scientists have drawn the same and rather obvious conclusion from a biological perspective that there is little prospect of a scientific revolution to create immortality.

  I think the point is not to go hunting for an immortality substitute but to quickly come to terms with recognising that there never was a prospect of cheating death in the first place.

  To have awoken from this conceit puts us in the category of those who have intellectually grown up and recognised the value of making the most our short lives-- because this is all anyone can do.
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  7

  The prayer switch

  by Sour Grapes in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  something that i have often thought about is how does god know when our thoughts go from normal thoughts to when we say a silent prayer?

  does god listen to all of the thoughts of earth's 8,000,000,000 people 24/7 and when one person goes into prayer mode then god's ears perk up with an "incoming" alert?

  then he has to decide if he answers the prayers to help a brother with cancer or just let the poor guy die.

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  Half banana

  Prayers are human wishes, God is deaf to all pleading whether silent or spoken.

  What a crazy world it would be if God answered prayers!
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  6

  Have you seen Eraserhead (1977)? ... spoilers!

  by LoveUniHateExams in

  1. social
  2. entertainment

  i had heard a bit about it, most of it positive.

  i typed 'eraserhead review' into youtube and quite a few videos came up that presumably attempted to explain the film.. i couldn't be arsed watching a youtube vid with some artsy-fartsy person droning on about eraserhead and lynch so i thought i'd start an op about it instead.. i bought the dvd a few days ago.

  i gotta say, it's quite a strange film.

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  Half banana

  Original, claustrophobic, shocking and memorable but also entertaining.
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  47

  Outside JW World They Barely Exist

  by Farmer Jim1 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  is anyone else staggered by the fact that outside of the organization most of the general public seem to know very little or nothing about jw’s?

  when i was in i was led to believe that 99% of the worlds population had been giving sufficient warning, knew what it was all about and were stubbornly sticking to their immoral ways.

  the reality seems to be that the entire jw universe is barely noticeable to the masses.

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  Half banana

  You're right Farmer Jim, JWs live inside a big bubble which is silvered with a mirror coating so they can live in perpetual admiration of themselves.
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  26

  Darwin's lack of evidence

  by Half banana in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  while making bread this morning and between answering the door and phone calls, i listened on steam radio to the programme in our time with melvyn bragg.

  his panel of experts explained how the discovery of thousands of bird fossils has revolutionised our perception of avian evolution.

  i recall watchtower literature smugly presenting darwin’s admissions in his origin of the species that the geological evidence for bird evolution is “imperfect” in fact missing.

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  Half banana

  @ Fisherman, surely that's why a critical and sceptical examination of the evidence is what is needed. Beliefs and assertions are irrelevant.
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  26

  Darwin's lack of evidence

  by Half banana in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  while making bread this morning and between answering the door and phone calls, i listened on steam radio to the programme in our time with melvyn bragg.

  his panel of experts explained how the discovery of thousands of bird fossils has revolutionised our perception of avian evolution.

  i recall watchtower literature smugly presenting darwin’s admissions in his origin of the species that the geological evidence for bird evolution is “imperfect” in fact missing.

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  Half banana

  I agree with you Vidiot. The whole Watchtower delusion is based on a literal take on the Bible, this is the greatest folly for anyone. When you read material which contains magic and the supernatural even the dimmest reader can tell they are reading a story and not a factual account (he said hastily fudging the the fact that we all used to believe it was true!)

  I would be interested in the WT admission that belief in evolution would deny the BIble's truthfulness--or whatever it was they were claiming-- do you or anyone else have the quote?
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  26

  Darwin's lack of evidence

  by Half banana in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  while making bread this morning and between answering the door and phone calls, i listened on steam radio to the programme in our time with melvyn bragg.

  his panel of experts explained how the discovery of thousands of bird fossils has revolutionised our perception of avian evolution.

  i recall watchtower literature smugly presenting darwin’s admissions in his origin of the species that the geological evidence for bird evolution is “imperfect” in fact missing.

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  Half banana

  Fisherman;

  It is not a matter of interpretation! Darwin's theory gave science (ie human knowledge) the framework for explaining the origin of species by transmission and variation of inherited biological information. He predicted transitional fossils because he knew his explanation of descent within families and species was scientifically sound and would reveal the ancestral lineages as it has done.

  To demonstrate relatedness of all species is to demonstrate the truth of his theory. There is little prospect of any significant revision of these fundamental facts-- unless you have something in mind?
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  26

  Darwin's lack of evidence

  by Half banana in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  while making bread this morning and between answering the door and phone calls, i listened on steam radio to the programme in our time with melvyn bragg.

  his panel of experts explained how the discovery of thousands of bird fossils has revolutionised our perception of avian evolution.

  i recall watchtower literature smugly presenting darwin’s admissions in his origin of the species that the geological evidence for bird evolution is “imperfect” in fact missing.

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  Half banana

  Ruby said

  I think JWs seek to have beliefs that can be defended robustly and that can be proven to be evidence based

  That is not my experience at all!

  JWs are believers in their leader's claim to a special relationship with their creator.

  The governing body are viewed as oracles of divine wisdom in the minds of the flock, their word is truth and since the claims they assemble are from the Bible; for JWs that makes their assertions equivalent to "God's word".

  This attitude prevents the individual witness investigating an evidential basis for belief, for to attempt to substantiate JW beliefs by external sources is a virtual apostasy. The mentally blinkered JW is hide-bound to conform to the commonly held religious hype which is asserted without evidence but reinforces "group think".

  No Ruby, JWs are intellectually flawed, they do not seek evidence and truth at all.

  What is of overriding importance to a JW is to have their identity validated by membership and the social approbation of their fellow believers by demonstrating their unquestioning loyalty to HQ.
  
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  26

  Darwin's lack of evidence

  by Half banana in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  while making bread this morning and between answering the door and phone calls, i listened on steam radio to the programme in our time with melvyn bragg.

  his panel of experts explained how the discovery of thousands of bird fossils has revolutionised our perception of avian evolution.

  i recall watchtower literature smugly presenting darwin’s admissions in his origin of the species that the geological evidence for bird evolution is “imperfect” in fact missing.

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  Half banana

  While making bread this morning and between answering the door and phone calls, I listened on steam radio to the programme In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg. His panel of experts explained how the discovery of thousands of bird fossils has revolutionised our perception of avian evolution.

  I recall Watchtower literature smugly presenting Darwin’s admissions in his Origin of the Species that the geological evidence for bird evolution is “imperfect” in fact missing. I dimly recall reading the expression “it has all the evidence of absolute creation”. (My copy of Origins is not in my office at the moment to check the wording).

  Darwin finally published his first edition of Origin of the Species in 1859 and the very next year the first fossil feathers were discovered in Bavaria which were soon to be identified with the now famous Archaeopterex the first complete ‘bird’ fossil found a year later in 1861 . (Europe at the time of Archaeopteryx in the late Jurassic was an archipelago in sub-tropical waters) Although feathered, it had the body of a reptile but since it was the only obvious airworthy animal with wings and feathers it stood for a long time as the prime and original bird fossil. More bird fossils were discovered from the rocks of the Cretaceous period in the 1880s in USA.

  However the fuller scientific picture of bird evolution has now been brought into focus with marvellous discoveries within the last twenty years in North Eastern China. Vast sheets of stone slab like deposits spread over six hundred miles, have yielded the fossilised evidence for many species of Late Jurassic birds. Not just a handful but thousands of them! These show that Archaeopteryx was indeed part of the evolutionary story relating dinosaurs to birds, linked indeed by both parties possessing a wish bone, but no longer can it be seen as a "missing link" between them.

  Archaeopteryx was a poor flyer and now palaeontologists have discovered ‘proper’ birds from before the time of the iconic fossil and more particularly they have a detailed description of many genera of ancient avian species, enough to create a large schema or plan of bird families demonstrating their evolutionary relatedness to each other and how they are ancestral to modern birds.

  So now in the early twenty first century we have incontrovertible proof that birds are descended from small carnivorous dinosaurs called Theropods. Of course creationists will try to weasel their religious tongues around the bald evidence and attempt to deny the scientific evaluation.

  Darwin’s honest admission was that the geology of his day could not demonstrate his theory of the origin of species in respect of evidence for fossil forebears of modern birds. If you have read the Origin of the Species you will remember that he used by way of example the deliberate or artificial selection by pigeon fanciers to create distinct breeds or characteristics and then made a telling comparison with the natural selection seen in the various species of Galapagos finches.

  Variety in birds then was at the foundation of his argument yet he had no avian fossils to show. Wouldn’t he have loved to know how palaeontolgy has vindicated his expectations one and a half centuries later?

  But what a smack in the eye for those creationists who can no longer abuse Darwin’s modesty in admitting lack of information. Darwin was ignorant of avian evolution, science has now furnished us with the evidence.

  How long will it be before the JW organisation become honest with information and publicly admit that they have been wrong in so many things including evolution?