Posts by Nemesis

Englishman:
I wrote to bethel a while back about their use of American English, and how they are forcing British English out of the picture. Needless to say they didn’t reply. It’s not just the spellings; it’s the grammar and punctuation also. How they boast that they can translate their magazines in to 144 languages, and yet they cannot set their spelling, grammar, and punctuation to British English for the magazines and literature that are printed here in England is astounding. It’s pretty obvious they are doing it deliberately; even on my humble Microsoft Word I have 13 basic settings for different country’s English spellings and grammar. How they can refuse to click a few buttons on their multimillion pound printing industry and give us our language in our own country I will never know.

We have a large wealth of language, inherited and created words, spelling, and grammar to our history, and culture—especially with English history, and our rich 1,600-year-old Anglo-Saxon heritage. Why then are we getting the Watchtower, of all organisations, trying to erode our very language; and force yet more Americanisation on our country, history, and mother tongue? Surely part of being Christian is to respect other people’s history, culture, language, character, and inheritance? They seem to forget we invented the language!

Nemesis.

67

Spirits/Entities - A question for all.

by Nemesis in

i would like to ask a question if i might: how do ones here view spirits?

(not the alcoholic kind) i have left the org.

now for at least 5 years, although i did go to the memorial last year, but not where i used to go to the hall; i was not df or da.. .

Nemesis

Hi MegaDude

I don't need a Bible or Koran or any other book to tell me what is good and what is evil, but it seems these standards for either are universally easy to distinguish.

I fully agree with you, but why are they intrinsic within humans? The scriptures tell us because we were made in God’s image, and so reflect to a degree those qualities of morals, and the discernment of right and wrong. Of course there are always exceptions to that rule.

Another interesting point is if we are created, no matter what we may personally believe about our origins—this will have no effect on the programmed aspect of morality within us; it will still be there and operate regardless of our personal belief systems. Although it can, and is overridden with the squelching of the human conscience.

67

Spirits/Entities - A question for all.

by Nemesis in

i would like to ask a question if i might: how do ones here view spirits?

(not the alcoholic kind) i have left the org.

now for at least 5 years, although i did go to the memorial last year, but not where i used to go to the hall; i was not df or da.. .

Nemesis

I wouldn’t say it has anything to do with a reward or punishment, but just that if there is no God then how can anyone say their “morals” are the right ones? There cannot be a right way if the whole system is completely meaningless and without design or purpose, that was the point. What one person calls good another calls bad. If there is no purpose or design to life all are equally right and equally wrong.

67

Spirits/Entities - A question for all.

by Nemesis in

i would like to ask a question if i might: how do ones here view spirits?

(not the alcoholic kind) i have left the org.

now for at least 5 years, although i did go to the memorial last year, but not where i used to go to the hall; i was not df or da.. .

Nemesis

Rem and Mindchild:
I can see this is going to go on forever, and as you have said, and I said, this was not the original purpose of this thread, so this will be my last post, unless it's to do with the original subject matter.

I will cheekily leave you with a few “creationist” web links just to annoy you both.
http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-031.htm
http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-313.htm
http://answersingenesis.org/docs/3507.asp
http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-317.htm
http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-089.htm

I do feel because you have left the WT org. that you are maybe guided to all things that are the opposite of a God because they represent the antipathy of all that you have left. And no measure of evidence would ever be enough for your to go back to believe there is any intelligence out there besides us as humans.

If God were to appear [assume for minute that he does exist] and you saw him, along with a legion of angels. I’m sure within weeks you would have rationalized that it was all a hallucination, or some others non-entity explanation. The same goes for spirits, psychic phenomenon, foreseeing the future and the like. No amount of evidence would open your eyes as you are set to the agenda “there is not God”, as to you God = The Watch Tower Org. or similar, and therefore must be rejected at all costs, I may be wrong, but feel there are many who are on that agenda here.

One last point is if there were no God, then how can any of us ever judge anyone else regardless of what they do in life? All life would be a meaningless fabrication from meaningless entities that have no function or purpose. The serial killer is just as valid as the saint, neither are “good or bad” as they are just made up terminologies from pointless entities. Even to criticize the Watch Tower for it’s false doctrines, and power crazed hypocrites would be invalid as “all is vanity”. An atheist who tries to find “meaning” and “logic” is just as deluded as the one who faithfully worships and organization of men like the Watch Tower society. We are in effect all gods in our own right, and non are superior to the other, as we would all be pointless accidents in a cold futile universe. Even the humble microbe is just as much a god as self-righteous humans. If there is no God or gods, then there cannot even be “good or bad”; even to destroy the whole world would not be bad, as its all an inane accident anyway. If there is no God then all opinions and lifestyle are equally valid and equally worthless, none can ever be superior to the other.

Leaving you on that happy thought, I bid you well. Catch you later on another subject.

67

Spirits/Entities - A question for all.

by Nemesis in

i would like to ask a question if i might: how do ones here view spirits?

(not the alcoholic kind) i have left the org.

now for at least 5 years, although i did go to the memorial last year, but not where i used to go to the hall; i was not df or da.. .

Nemesis

Rem:

Do you understand that even if you could somehow prove Abiogenesis was completely wrong, you still have not provided any positive evidence for your pet theory of a spirit world?

You would also have to say the exact same thing in regard to ancient artefacts being made by “intelligent beings” (humans)

there is absolutely NO evidence supporting a spirit realm

I think you will find there are many thousands of people who have some evidence.

The first steps to life most probably were not based on modern DNA, but acted as a scaffold to finally develop the DNA system that won out and replaced the inferior species…If an intelligent designer created all of the species, then you would expect much less, if not zero extinction. Or maybe the intelligent designer is not so intelligent after all?

Except there is absolutely no proof, or evidence that a pre-DNA form exited or is even a possibility, you are now going in to the realms of fantasy. As for species—who said God made them all as separate species? Species are a man made categorization, and as for many being extinct—yes they are—but who are we to presume to know the mind of God? Are we static with our creations, or do we also move to higher and differing levels as it suits us?

Like I said before, the first life forms were likely just self-replicating molecules that we probably would not consider life

There is absolutely no evidence that these can possibly even exist let alone have evidence for them, see the quote below out of interest.

In Darwin's day, many people swallowed the theory of spontaneous generation—that life arose from non-living matter. It was somewhat easier to believe because the cell's structure was almost unknown. Ernst Haeckel, Darwin's popularizer in Germany, claimed that a cell was a 'simple lump of albuminous combination of carbon. (Haeckel was also a notorious fraud—he forged embryonic diagrams to bolster the erroneous idea that the embryo's development recapitulated (re-traced) its alleged evolutionary ancestry)
But modern science has discovered vast quantities of complex, specific information in even the simplest self-reproducing organism. Mycoplasma genitalium has the smallest known genome of any free-living organism, containing 482 genes comprising 580,000 bases.3 Of course, these genes are only functional with pre-existing translational and replicating machinery, a cell membrane, etc. But Mycoplasma can only survive by parasitizing more complex organisms, which provide many of the nutrients it cannot manufacture for itself. So evolutionists must posit a more complex first living organism with even more genes.
More recently, Eugene Koonin and others tried to calculate the bare minimum required for a living cell, and came up with a result of 256 genes. But they were doubtful whether such a hypothetical bug could survive, because such an organism could barely repair DNA damage, could no longer fine-tune the ability of its remaining genes, would lack the ability to digest complex compounds, and would need a comprehensive supply of organic nutrients in its environment.
Yet even this 'simple' organism has far too much information to be expected from time and chance, without natural selection. The information theorist Hubert Yockey calculated that given a pool of pure, activated biological amino acids, the total amount of information which could be produced, even allowing 10^9 years as evolutionists posit, would be only a single small polypeptide 49 amino acid residues long. This is about 1/8 the size (therefore information content) of a typical protein, yet the hypothetical simple cell above needs at least 256 proteins. And Yockey's estimate generously presupposes that the many chemical hurdles can be overcome, which is a huge assumption, as shown by many creationist writers.
NB: natural selection cannot help, as this requires self-replicating entities—therefore it cannot explain their origin.

You can’t tell the difference between human-made artifacts and objects made by natural processes? Most people can

Come on Rem, that is a rather meaningless statement, and purely subjective, not scientific. I see the hand of a God when look at life, you see something else. We are supposed to be speaking of rational probabilities not mere opinions.

Is every living thing meticulously designed before it is born? No, it grows from natural processes.

Hummm... Yes life is “meticulously designed before it is born”; it’s in its DNA all set out. It can only “grow from a natural process” because it’s all “meticulously designed” in its DNA beforehand.

Where you say the original member of the species was specifically designed

I have never said this.

We do know of natural processes that are very powerful and that they are capable of creating extremely complex things

I see you have intentionally not given any examples of these “extremely complex things”, are they in the league of the 482 genes needed for the simplest known life form? Or even in the league of a few dozen proteins?

1. Proteins exist and are very complex
2. Natural processes exist and have been shown to create very complex things
3. Therefore Natural processes created proteins << Not necessarily true, but not logically invalid

1. Agreed
2. Not seen any yet
3. You would have to say first “Therefore Natural processes created artefacts” long before you could say they made proteins.

No one suggests that proteins appeared out of nowhere. They did not come about by chance, but by natural selection, which works on slight modifications to make complex changes over time

So exactly how does “natural selection” make proteins from basic chemicals where there is absolutely no observations, or evidence that this is remotely possible? Even amino acids are unstable and degrade within hours, how long are you thinking of—billions of years, or minutes?

...but proteins like we have today did not exist with the first replicating molecules.

Now who is jumping the gun with massive unfounded assumptions? There is absolutely zero evidence of what you have just said as a fact, let alone remotely possible.

There is a distinct difference between man-made artifacts and natural objects. The sole purpose for any living organism is to reproduce and natural living things show this type of purpose in their “design” while man-made objects do not.

You are running ahead again, a protein is not a living organism, and is no different to any other object, except in its high level of complexity. Proteins cannot just “reproduce” themselves any more than a vase or space shuttle can. If you cannot give scientific answers as to how all the proteins, DNA/RNA, and organelles came into existence for life to then come into existence then your whole foundation for further theory is flawed as it rest on a non-existent foundation.

Since there are natural processes that are observed in laboratories that do modify living things over time, it is not against the laws of physics for natural, living objects to be molded by their environment into peculiar designs.

I think you will find with all the mutations in the world—a bacterium is always going to be a bacterium, nothing new has ever been observed by mutations. After over one million fruit fly mutation experiments all that resulted were more fruit flies. How you—or anyone proposes that all life on earth came from microbes is astounding seeing as not one single new life form has ever been observed to come into existence from microbes, all you will ever see are more microbes.
As for the psychological realities, they are purely subjective and far more meaningless without a God than with one.

31

'OUR KINGDOM MINISTRY' . . . . . . . . . . [scans]

by nicolaou in

well he's always asking for them so, kent, here they are.

i'll add the new ones each month as i receive them.. i've got most of the km's going back a few years but please don't ask me to scan the lot!

if there are specific issues you need however, just let me know.. posting them here so everyone can grab 'em as opposed to emailing out dozens of copies.. nic'.

Nemesis

Here is a link to the US KM scans.

Can I just make a small comment on scans, if you scan it at 85dpi, and then save your image as a four colour GIF you will get a better result and much smaller file size, hope this is of some use. Or if you prefer JPEGS you can scan a little lager at 85dpi and then compress so your file size isn’t too large. But GIFS are generally better if you are swapping files a lot as they stay the same no matter how many times they are saved and re-saved, but JPEGS tend to deteriorate on each re-save.
http://watchtower.observer.org/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20020123&Category=SECRETBOOKS&ArtNo=201230001&Ref=AR

67

Spirits/Entities - A question for all.

by Nemesis in

i would like to ask a question if i might: how do ones here view spirits?

(not the alcoholic kind) i have left the org.

now for at least 5 years, although i did go to the memorial last year, but not where i used to go to the hall; i was not df or da.. .

Nemesis

Rem:

Here is where your logic falls down. Complexity does not automatically imply design. In fact natural processes (such as random mutation and selection) have been known to create things that are so complex that humans don’t even know how they work! It almost seems that intelligent design cannot create things as complex as nature. It is a fact that we do not differentiate between human artifacts and natural objects through complexity, though. There are qualitative differences between the two. There is no comparison. Do you think that every snowflake has to be hand crafted and designed because it is so complex? Blind, natural processes create complex forms every second of every day.

You use the example of mutations, but they are already based on the creature in hand, you have jumped from non-life to life and then altering that life. If we don’t fully comprehend all the genetic processes in the first place and cannot produce even simple proteins then how are we to understand how a mutation has altered a subject—the lack of understanding means nothing.

As for snowflakes—they are not complex at all compared to the magnitude involved in even the most relatively simple life forms. Snowflakes are simple structures that follow very basic simple laws for crystallization of water. A snowflake, crystal, or other comparable natural objects are merely orderly, but not complex. Having order is not the same as complexity. Rows of bricks, or crystals are orderly, but a city is complex. I’m not sure how you say a vase has the mark of ‘intelligent design’, and yet a group of proteins magnitudes more complex, do not have the mark of intelligent design. Humans can make vases, therefore we assume vases did not self create over millions of years, there is no know natural process forming vases. No one has ever observed a protein forming naturally outside of life either, and they are still too complex for us to make with all our advanced technology [which would obviously not have existed in the distant past to make them either], how are proteins not a sign of intelligent design if a vase is? Which is the most likely to arrive by chance, a vase or a protein? It’s almost like saying well this Coca-cola can must have been designed by an intelligent being, but this Ferrari must have somehow made itself over many millions of years by some mysterious natural process that defied all known laws of physics and chemistry—is that really logical?

To end with—if we did evolve then there is no such thing as logic, rational reasoning, good, bad, right, wrong, moral, immoral etc. They are all delusional construct of the mind and non have any validity at all as the entire universe would be a meaningless purposeless accident. No one human, animal, or creature could claim superiority of philosophy, because all are accidents and without any purpose, meaning or design. Just like Solomon said: “All is vanity.”
Have a nice day!

67

Spirits/Entities - A question for all.

by Nemesis in

i would like to ask a question if i might: how do ones here view spirits?

(not the alcoholic kind) i have left the org.

now for at least 5 years, although i did go to the memorial last year, but not where i used to go to the hall; i was not df or da.. .

Nemesis

Rem:
I appreciate your responses they are interesting. I find one large gaping hole in your logic, which is apparent under a little analysis.

Yes I agree were are here, the physical is what we are and experience. And from this you deduce that all things with life must have somehow come about by a natural method not invoking any intelligence or design at all. The problem with that is you, and many who reason like you, do a complete u-turn when it comes to anything involving human intellect or design. For example: I could take you to the British museum, and show you an ancient Assyrian vase. By your reasoning we would have to assume the vast majority of artefacts in the British museum were all purely natural formations that somehow occurred over hundreds of million of years. The vase is actually just a natural form that has defied physical, and chemical degradation—and formed itself to look uncannily like and intelligent human design. You would posit that this is the only rational explanation to the existence of the vase, and to “assume” intelligent design were involved would be to assume the pink rainbow elephants made it, or the space monkeys from Pluto fashioned it. I have no way of proving the intelligent hand of man made this vase, no witnesses and zero written records for this object, so according to your logic it must have just self-created over many millions of years, right?

The same should also be assumed if we were to find a space shuttle buried deep an in ancient coal stratum. To assume an intelligent being[s] made it would be to revert back to the likes of pink elephants and dancing space munchkins would it not? You can argue that we as intelligent humans can make similar things, so why not in the past? But you also forget that the simplest known life forms are many hundreds of thousands of times more complex than our greatest creations like space shuttles and mainframe super-computers. By your own logic the more complex the more intellect needed, and in the same breath you can do a U-turn and ague that a dumb lifeless piece of clay is indisputable “the mark of intelligent human design”. Can’t you see the massive and illogical contradiction you are proposing?

Life started somehow, and we know of physical processes...Secondly, we have been able to synthesize proteins

You are right in that we must be here by some process. But as to making proteins scientists have still not yet made any from basic chemicals. We can cheat and use the organelles of a cell to do it for us, or bacteria, but no one has yet being able to make proteins from basic chemicals without the help of an organism that already has all the complex machinery to do it. Plus the fact that in the future we may be able to make a handful of relatively simple proteins, but that will just be testament to the extreme level of intellectual technology needed to get there, how much more intelligence is needed for life itself!

Anyhow if we were to get into that, maybe a new thread on a different area would be better. I stated this thread to introduce myself and to see what people’s opinions were as to a spirit world and entities there in. It’s interesting seeing all the varied and differing points of view. I hope to have many more conversations on may subjects in the future, always wanting them to be on a civil respectful level.

67

Spirits/Entities - A question for all.

by Nemesis in

i would like to ask a question if i might: how do ones here view spirits?

(not the alcoholic kind) i have left the org.

now for at least 5 years, although i did go to the memorial last year, but not where i used to go to the hall; i was not df or da.. .

Nemesis

Rem:

As for Nemesis, you need to learn some critical thinking skills and understand why it is not necessary for a person to disprove a negative assertion

Well that is not a logical stating point to take. If I saw an ornament in my house flying across the room with no obvious cause, I can neither claim a cause one way or the other. To assume it must be physical and perfectly normal with no evidence is just as baseless as to claim it was done by a spirit. Both assumptions require evidence. The negative has no more weigh in that case than the positive.

Why should anyone believe in it if you can't provide evidence of their existence? Would you require me to believe that Invisible Pink Unicorns live inside your head until I could disprove it? I think not.

Well I say the same about life self-creating, there is no evidence, or observation that it ever has, and yet if you are an atheist you believe with no foundation. All the advanced technology of man cannot even make a few proteins, how are they supposed to come into existence and hang about uncorrupted for a few billon years for the rest of the thousands needed for even the simplest known life forms? And yet you somehow believe in the unbelievable and in the unproven.

My experiences do not relate to pink elephants, but psychic experiences of vision, direct knowledge, time, and space. I have done all the tests, medical etc. and there is no tangible rational explanation, surely to be undecided is more rational than to take a dogmatic unfounded approach and say: “It can’t be so because I don’t want it to be.” Think about what you believe in for a moment—you believe that life somehow self-created even though with all the advanced technology we cannot even make a few proteins. How is this rational? You have no proof, observations, or evidence and yet you base your entire life on the fact that you feel it must have “somehow” happened. If you find it so easy to believe in the unbelievable when why is life on another level so totally abhorrent to you? Even just considering it seems to make you squirm. Surely being open in mind is not that much of a leap? Or have we learned nothing since getting away from the grasp of the “Borg”? All I ask is realize many of your own beliefs are based on mere hope and imagination like life self-creating. Why is another realm so hard to consider? Do you believe in sub-atomic particles? Do you know right now minute neutrinos are zooming straight through your body? There is far more to life than meets the eye Rem. All I am saying is keep an open mind on life, the universe, and everything.