The principle of evolution is unchallenged. Abiogenesis is another subject as is the existence of God. I'm waiting to get my teeth into the supposed "big holes".
Half banana
JoinedPosts by Half banana
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What are the biggest holes in evolution?
by shadow inhow honest are the proponents of evolution?
idk but curious to see what type of response there is on a topic like this or does their study only seek to confirm their preconceptions and ignore uncomfortable facts?
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What are the biggest holes in the ransom sacrifice?
by Half banana inhow honest are the proponents of jesus as the ransom sacrifice?.
curious to see what type of response there is on a topic like this or does their study only seek to confirm their preconceptions and ignore uncomfortable facts?.
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Half banana
how honest are the proponents of Jesus as the ransom sacrifice?
curious to see what type of response there is on a topic like this or does their study only seek to confirm their preconceptions and ignore uncomfortable facts?
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The Evolution of Humans
by fulltimestudent intracing the evolutionary path of humans is complicated.
simply because human and proto-human remains (including bones) are perishable.
remains from the distant past are usually only preserved when some unique features exist that assist preservation.
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Half banana
FTS, the unilinear model i.e. a single evolving thread remains an idealistic notion which does not easily fit with the findings. Whereas 1992 is a long time ago in paleoanthropology, the phylogeny or positions in the family tree, are still constantly being reconsidered as new finds and new species are discovered. Since that date we have even had two completely new types of human species living simultaneously with our own namely the Denisovans in the Urals and the so called 'Hobbit', Homo floresiensis from Indonesia.
Imagine the consequences of living with other species of humans...
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Evolution is a Fact #9 - Less Chewing More Thinking
by cofty inif you put your fingers on the side of your head, just above your ears, and move your jaw you will be able to feel your temporalis muscles doing their thing.. compared to our primate cousins our temporalis muscles are puny - approximately one eighth the size.
the reason for the difference is a mutation of the myh16 gene in humans that produces a protein called myosin heavy chain 16. in primates like the gorilla this protein produces the powerful chewing pressure of the jaw.. our closest hominid relative, the chimpanzee have an intact myh16 gene.
since the rate of mutation can be determined, hansell stedman and his team at the university of pennsylvania have calculated that the mutation that disabled the gene in our line happened between 2.1 and 2.7 million years ago.. the large temporalis muscle has to anchor to very thick and strong skull bones.
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Half banana
Just a note on our relationship with Neanderthals.
Most of us posting here will have between 4% and 9% Neanderthal genes and the last known full blown member of that sub-species died out in Europe about thirty nine thousand years ago.
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Evolution is a Fact #9 - Less Chewing More Thinking
by cofty inif you put your fingers on the side of your head, just above your ears, and move your jaw you will be able to feel your temporalis muscles doing their thing.. compared to our primate cousins our temporalis muscles are puny - approximately one eighth the size.
the reason for the difference is a mutation of the myh16 gene in humans that produces a protein called myosin heavy chain 16. in primates like the gorilla this protein produces the powerful chewing pressure of the jaw.. our closest hominid relative, the chimpanzee have an intact myh16 gene.
since the rate of mutation can be determined, hansell stedman and his team at the university of pennsylvania have calculated that the mutation that disabled the gene in our line happened between 2.1 and 2.7 million years ago.. the large temporalis muscle has to anchor to very thick and strong skull bones.
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Half banana
@Love Uni, As far as I know there is strong actual evidence in China for domestic fire in a hominin occupied cave at 800,000 years before present. More recently reported in Southern Africa is fire use probable at around 1.2 million years.
Neanderthals living in the colder parts of Europe would most certainly have used fire to keep warm and to make the meat and veg more digestible. It has been discovered that Neanderthals ate a wide variety of root vegetables. In the Ukraine they built huts framed with mammoth bones and made them windproof with the skins. They lived mainly during cold dry climate episodes. They burnt bones for fuel out there on the treeless steppe. Hearths are almost universal for Mousterian (Neanderthal) culture but only go back say 350,000 years.
For Homo ergaster , H erectus and H heidlebergensis, as far as I know there is very little actual evidence except at the Wonderwerk Cave in S.A. (the name has just surfaced) mentioned above. Otherwise it is just absence of evidence at present, not evidence of absence for fire use in the earlier human species.
@BethSarim, absolutley right! It only needs investigation on the skeleton of one proto-human to destroy faith in the Bible. The fact is there are thousands of finds with diverse species giving a picture of the human pedigree going back to the remote past.
The JW org dare not look at the evidence: if Adam was a myth; Jesus' ransom is invalid... and bang goes Christianity!
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What's next?
by Grey Goose inhi everyone.. thanks for the welcome a few days ago, it was nice to hear your support.. this is a pure speculation thread, but what do you think the next changes are going to be?.
will we see tything come into play?.
more evangelical style meetings?.
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Half banana
I'm not actually in favour of giving JW org ideas but how about this for a future business structure?
No Kingdom Hells, (assembly hells for dunking) no d2d preaching (possibly incidental stuff) instead of printing their nasty propaganda, have everything accessible on line and pay for the privilege of watching your favourite holy clowns performing on your screen. This means you can sell the KH properties and earn a mint of money for the leaders and the JW true believers can all live happy deluded lives in their own homes without bothering anyone who is not interested. Way to go JW org.
There are bound to be scriptures which show that evidently it is now God's will to do this.
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What is the alternative to JW?
by Formerbrother ini mean this with all due respect, i would like to hear from genuine people who think jw have it wrong and then what is the truth?.
im not talking about silly little quibbles here and there.. is jehovah real?
the the bible is word?
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Half banana
What is the alternative to JWs if their religion is wrong? This is a good question... but only if you have had the misfortune to have had your brain specially wired by JW thinking in the first place.
JW thinking does not permit or admit any other kind of thinking and that is why ex JWs are left high and dry mentally and emotionally without their regular fix of Watchtower propaganda and JW company to perpetuate the illusion.
So it’s tough on the outside and a JW is not prepared for real life because his or her premise was that “the world” is Satan’s domain and a JW is always fretting over the boundaries between their black and white thinking as a matter of habit.
Relax friend... real life is not like this... you can learn to make your own decisions based on reason and usefulness not on religious imperative as you did before. Perhaps for the first time you can become yourself!
So in the spirit of what you meant by what alternatives are there to the JW belief; the intelligent answer has to be: become a sceptic (or skeptic if you are American). By looking behind any proposition consider why it was made, be doubtful rather than gullible, find physical evidence rather than belief and build your life on knowable things not emotional blackmail such as religions teach.
This is in agreement with what Finklestein said “get an education” which is the opposite of indoctrination... and also 007’s suggestion on how Jehovah began. Would you want to worship an ox headed idol? If Jehovah began as such, how did he also get to be the creator of the universe?
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Gems From the WT
by Slidin Fast injust noticed this gem of a definition in the current (no 1) wt.
"lying.
saying something false to someone who is entitled to know the truth.".
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Half banana
The GB mentality is that Bible morality is only for their followers, the small people. The leaders have a divinely appointed job to do so the rules don't apply to them. -
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What's next?
by Grey Goose inhi everyone.. thanks for the welcome a few days ago, it was nice to hear your support.. this is a pure speculation thread, but what do you think the next changes are going to be?.
will we see tything come into play?.
more evangelical style meetings?.
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Half banana
Re 1914
I used to think they would ditch 1914 because it has no Biblical support but it looks like they are sticking with it and promoting it as if it were a fact. As we have been reliably informed “There is more evidence for God’s Kingdom arriving in 1914 than there is for gravity”. But it has to be remembered that this truly wonderful faith-building statement comes from people whose feet do not reach down to the ground. (Gravity for goodness sake has VISIBLE evidence you deceiving bunch of dim-wits!) What they are saying is you must have faith in the GB’s doctrine on 1914.
The organisation's problem with 1914, even though patently false, is that it is promoted as their divine stamp of approval for insight into Bible prophecy. Forget that it was meant to take place in 1874 and was based on the writings of their discredited founder Russell who in turn had borrowed the ideas from yet earlier evangelists. Even though there is no tangible evidence that Jesus returned in 1914 and that the Bible texts purporting to foretell the event lead to a different date, yet the credit for Russell’s (erroneous) insight is their only prophetic ‘success’.
If you run a doomsday cult: you gotta hang onto any semblance of divine attention. What else can their authority be conjured from? There is none...
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Who can you trust to admit you have doubts?
by MrMonroe in(that is, doubts).
in margaret atwood's "the handmaid's tale", a futuristic story of life inside a repressive, abusive big brother-style society tightly controlled by religious fundamentalists, there's a passage in which the protagonist is alone with another woman at a state-controlled centre where prayers are generated -- then printed out and read out -- by a machine.
the other woman asks, in barely more than a whisper, "do you think god listens to these machines?
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Half banana
I read Atwood's Handmaiden's Tale and it's impossible not to make a parallel with the Watchtower.
Who to trust? I think you can only do what you did and sound fellow disbelievers out.
Imagine though how hard it is now for the governing body members who have begun to see the catastrophic error of their ways!
(Would any governing body members like to let us know how the penny dropped...we will be very sympathetic with you...)