Posts by Half banana

75

Evolution and Atheism - please help

by Fernando in

not being familiar with either, my question is:.

what is the relationship between evolution and atheism?.

i'd love to hear from anyone and everyone, and also from any perspective.. without limiting the conversation in any way, i would of course also appreciate comments that are simple, clear, direct and correct (as i don't have the capacity to do a phd in evolution or atheism)..

Half banana

The relationship of evolution and atheism can best be seen in the historical context.

When Darwin launched his Origin of the Species in 1859, it caused a shock wave in British and American society because it contradicted the Biblical account of divine creation. The stability and governance of both cultures were predicated on the rightness to rule by divine mandate (superior authorities) as the good book said. The Bible was believed to be inerrant; Darwin gave very good reason to believe otherwise.

If the Bible was wrong then the right to power was not divine. Shock horror! The forces of delinquency would be unleashed and the world order destabilized. Those allying themselves with the scientific theorem of Darwin would be castigated as atheists, a perjorative term with political and anti-religious overtones rather than a simple description of a person who does not recognize a god.

As already mentioned the reality has been that many who acknowledge the scientific soundness of evolution are not necessarily atheists but the reverse; to believe in creation and not in a god is an impossibility.

15

A question on natural selection

by The Rebel in

jw
friends

last friday my boy of ten was very late back from school, so i called the school, they called the police, and to cut a long horrible exsperience short he had been helping a younger boy fly his kite.. but what has occurred to me is that when orlando was 5 years old he was totally dependent on mummy and daddy, whilst horses, cats, birds and other animals are born and are independent within days.. so my question on natural selection is, how are we humuns still here?.

the rebel..

Half banana

One of the penalties of walking on two feet as opposed to the usual mammalian four is the size of the pelvis.

With body weight and locomotion focused in the middle of the body the birth canal tended to be reduced. An alternative was that Homo sapiens developed a duck-like waddle as did earlier hominins such as Australopithecus. Humans want to be elegant. The gorillas took the Soviet tank approach and Homo sapiens in order to avoid being cat-food, reckoned that being fleet of foot was a good thing as well as standing upright to observe and avoid danger on the savannah.

By contrast Homo heidleburgensis, an immediate forerunner of H sapiens was tall and built very robustly both in jaw and muscle attachments hence a real tough guy.

But back to the point; with the small pelvis, giving birth was not easy for the more graceful human ape. Remembering that natural selection filters out the losers in evolutionary change the only successful breeding mothers were those favoured with giving birth to immature young. The consequence was that humans require infinitely more assistance to be nurtured from a state of complete helplessness and still require help to survive for the first ten or so years.

The upshot of these compromises including large brain and less brawn and the need to be born small was that H sapiens used intelligence to hunt for meat and kept out of danger whilst the mothers bonded emotionally with their helpless offspring for an extended period, allowing for a family and social sense to develop in the child.

Behold: the modern human! Being so recent however, around only two hundred thousand years, it seems to me we still have a long way to sort out the nature of the human animal and put aggression behind us.

Why are we still here? Because we have flexible thinking which employs imagination to project a future so we can make strategies. Our imagination makes us human but also subjects us to the weakness of assuming our imagination represents truth.

84

Why I'm not agnostic

by Coded Logic in

i think the time to be agnostic is when you have evidence on both sides of a claim.

for example, i'm agnostic about the existence of a historical jesus.

i think a reasonable case can be made that jesus was a man who was turned into a legend over a period of a couple of decades.

Half banana

Theology, whether apophatic or otherwise, has about the same value as unicornology.

Both ideas relate to a time in human development when flights of imagination ruled the day where no scientific assessment was possible.

Theology must be one of the most profligate distractions from reality that humans have ever contrived to date but in fairness our forebears did not practice belief based on evidence followed up with critical reasoning.

Theism historically had been mandatory as a pivotal concept and the entrenched habit was carried down the generations by thoughtless inculcation of offspring until our time. Were cultural ideas to begin now and on the basis of evidence and common sense; it can hardly be imagined that something beyond the senses such as an almighty spirit would arise as the answer to everything.

Nevertheless it seems that the human brain is wired to crave for the miraculous, a weakness which is readily exploited by religious organisations.

25

Is a piano inevitable?

by slimboyfat in

i was at a concert last night and the presence and stature of the piano struck me.

and i thought: if the piano wasn't invented when it was, would it have been invented by someone else instead?

or if there was a world the same as our, except with a different history, would it have pianos now too or would it be modern world, similar in many respects, only without pianos?

Half banana

Answer: clavier cembolo

45

Rejecting something due to unscriptural or pagan origins.....?

by stuckinarut2 in

so witnesses reject many practices or holidays due to their "unscriptural or pagan" origins.. for example, birthday celebrations, mothers or father's day, christmas etc..... most people in the world will say "but the origin doesn't matter anymore, we follow this custom now because it's a joyful occasion that creates happy times and brings the family together".

it is still firmly rejected.. so, if the wrong origin is so important, and should result in rejecting something, why isn't the same principle applied to the actual jehovah's witness faith itself!?.

after all, the very foundation of the organisation was based on wrong understandings of the bible, far fetched teachings and doctrines, links to false religious backgrounds, pyramidology, false predictions, inaccurate beliefs etc...... using their reasoning, it doesn't matter how good something is now, if the origin was faulty to begin with?

Half banana

Almost the entirety of Bible is pagan in origin.

It was the Roman church in the fifth century which methodically destroyed all the links to its origins to cover its pagan traces which had led up to the unification of all significant prevailing religious beliefs. This is after all what "catholic" means; "all embracing," they never concealed the fact of absorbing the older faiths. What they did however was to distance the newly sanctified Roman Catholic church from the rustic folk stories which had given rise to Christianity in the first place. the Romans maintained control over the plebs by display and status. Paganism of course being rural, equaled low status.

This synchretising or fusing of belief gave the Roman State the political control over all the former pagan temple following and various christ sects, and brought them under the wing of state sponsored religion. For the prestige of the newly fused Catholic church and its own selection of texts which formed the Bible, the state endowed it with wealth and grand architecture to identify it as divinely ordained. They continued using all the old pagan offices such as Pontiff (from Pontifex Maximus the great bridge maker. The pontiff was, and still is also called Papa from the Mithraic pope, Pater patris meaning Father's father.) Yet to suggest the state worship had anything to do with the peasants beliefs simply was not on. It was a state managed denial of paganism.

Just goes to show what money and propaganda can do...

26

How credible are NWT's critiques?: Allin and John 8:58. (2)

by Wonderment in

how credible are nwt's critiques?

: allin and john 8:58.a few weeks ago we had a discussion surrounding john 8.58. the posters in this forum offered various views in regards to jesus' divine role in scripture.

occasionally, some scholars publish articles where they voice their opinion against the nwt theological renderings.

Half banana

Wonderment, the length of your article demonstrates just how fruitless it is to attempt to find any coherent conclusive message in the Bible.

Many if not most of the characters mentioned in the Bible are not real but ancient folk-story or mythical characters put into Hebrew dress. How can one argue about the words of mythical people? There is no evidence for the existence of Moses. He is an elaboration and amalgam of an earlier Egyptian story line.

The Bible is not the work of an invisible deity... it is entirely the work of scribes or amanuenses working for the ruling elite of their time. Truth was never the purpose of writing...holding on to power is the force behind the selection of all of the Bible texts.

To find an incontrovertible and coherent pattern in the scriptures is as futile as catching the wind.

70

When is a theory 'just a theory'?

by HB in

the titles of cofty's excellent recent posts are all preceeded by the words "evolution is a fact...".

richard dawkins is encouraging people to use the term 'fact' in relation to evolution, especially when debating with creationists as the word 'theory' is confusing to many, and the latter often takes the discussion off on an often unproductive tangent.

the following may be of interest, it's from the bbc website - part of a regular series of articles called 'the vocabularist', discussing the origin and meaning of words: .

Half banana

Good point made Anders.

Fisherman, you are a paradigm; an example of what JW belief and faith in God does to the brain. You have got the cart before the horse.

The Bible is a book of propaganda; it is full of ridiculous mistakes and errors and was only made ‘sacred’ by the Roman Catholic Church. To base your life on this shows that you cannot think for yourself, you only follow other people.

People who are afraid to think for themselves often end up in high control cults like JWs.

There is no scientific or measurable evidence, for a sprit deity to whom we are all beholden. The Bible is a collection of fictional tales (which happens also to mention some real things).

What book of factual events ever recorded talking animals and people coming back from the dead?

The WTBTS is a money-collecting and dishonest cult which is not in the slightest degree concerned for the welfare of its flock. It trades in the gullibility of people who trust in God and blind faith. What a confidence trick!

The horse which drives the cart of human progress is verifiable knowledge.

(If you were you to cast off your comfort blanket of faith, you could then correct me and say that the real horse is actually “disprovable” knowledge... but such subtleties are not accessible to believer’s minds).

105

Does anyone think Jehovah is protecting the org. despite all the talk about THE ARC ?

by tor1500 in

jw
friends

i've been thinking this for a while.

even before the arc scandal.

it seems no matter what, the org.

Half banana

Beyond Freddo's point - I do not believe there would be the slightest difference if you substituted the name Mickey Mouse with the name Jehovah.

Tell me how you could possibly know the difference?

29

List of reasons why the witnesses are wrong.

by atomant in

l thought it might be a good idea to have a quick reference post to remind people of the faults within the jw org.what do others think.

?

Half banana

They make their members feel good for cultivating unjustified faith in the untrustworthy Catholic Bible.

They make their members feel good for cultivating faith in faith.

They make their members feel good for believing that God has chosen the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses as his exclusive channel...when they have no evidence to show that they are his channel.

In fact because of the repeated failure of their Bible-based predictions, it must be evident to all that God if he were to exist, is not interested in the WTBTS .

41

If all the world were JWs....

by Tornintwo in

jw
friends

in my former indoctrinated state, i used to yearn for a time when all the world would be jws.

but hang on minute, let's just think about what the world would be like if everyone was a jw,.

first of all, no higher education, so no medical advances, no scientific research, no modern day medicine, infectious disease rife, no doctors, no engineers, so no modern day comforts.

Half banana

Good thought Island man. If all the world were JWs, and thank goodness it can never happen, the leaders would become empowered to rule with unchecked tyranny in a stale and regressive dystopia.

The personal beliefs and whims of the GB would be the universal rule which would not countenance private thought and natural human activities and impulses. Suicide would become the main way of escaping this false paradise.

Fortunately the JW org will not withstand the scrutiny offered by modern internet technology and they will never succeed in the new scientifically connected world to promote their abusive and misguided "Bible-based" ignorance.

The Roman Church tried such a paradise back in the Dark Ages.... which is where this idea belongs.