Posts by kepler

170

Simple answer, please! Scientifically explain the origin of life coming from nothing!

by Silent_Scream in

scientific method asserts nothing living can come from something non-living.

science is observable, science is reproducible.

a living thing coming from non-living matter has never been observed nor reproduced.. therefore, it takes faith in an unknown process to believe that that's exactly what happened in the beginning, with no evidence!.

kepler

"Scientifically explain the origin of life coming from nothing!"

Based on the topic title, have to wonder if all the discussion about things coming from nothing really fits under the tent. Life is one thing, but God is another, save that one can invoke God as the source or creator of life. But I would say that discussing the origin or existence of God is an idea being handled down the street under another topic or two.

I don't have any idea what fraction of people on this website are aware of this idea already, but it might be appropriate to mention it in this context: If you read Genesis 1 to 2:3 or 2:4 and then continue from there through the rest of Genesis 2, you obtain two different accounts of the creation of life. The details differ enough that a lawyer could cross examine a witness (capital W?) with justification. Try it. Moreover, terminology in chapter one is "create" as in out of nothing, and chapter 2 the creation going on "was formed" from existing materials. Two different accounts written at two different times with different terminologies, edited and merged. There is a lot of support for the first chapter being the later version. As one evening lecturer I heard once remarked, "The best explanation that Neo-Babylonian science could provide." The second or earlier (?) version starts with the first mention in the book of Jehovah or Yahweh. He is working in the garden.

Paradise, I had come to discover recently, was a word of Persian origin for the same notion: a garden.

But save for Genesis 1, there is nothing in the last two paragraphs that addresses the problem of creating life out of nothing. In Genesis 2, as the sequence proceeds, God plants a garden, makes man from the soil, breathes life into him and then fashions wild animals and birds to accompany man, after instructing him on which trees from which he could eat. Eve comes later. Compare this with account 1.

It could be argued that the author or authors of the second chapter were less concerned with the issue of creation than establishing a relation between God and man - or human kind. But the first chapter does seem very pre-occupied with identifying a logical sequence starting with light, separation of formless fluids, creating a vault called heaven over another region known as earth separated into land and seas. Performing these things over a period of a couple days, the narration then turns to the creation of life: living creatures in the waters, birds, vegetation, creatures of the land... created out of nothing, but each of its own kind. Human kind comes last on the sixth day, male and female. God was happy with the result.

If nothing else, the sequence of events in Genesis 1 is intriguing and closer in some ways to what present day investigations suggest than what is recounted in the second chapter. Yet the second chapter's attention is to material ingredients, animating process, river beds and park rules.

On the issue of breath being animation or spirit - that does not seem to be simply inherent to Hebrew texts. Many of the same issues arise in interpretation of the Greek of Homer's Iliad. When the word psyche comes up in its verse, does it mean breath or more than that? All the freight that we assume an ancient word like psyche might carry, we have to wonder if the early users saw the same connotations.

Now, trying to be as scientific as I can...

In our notion of biological life, it would seem reasonable to stop somewhere far short of atoms and subatomic particles more clearly associated with Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. I mention that here because it was already. It is understood that matter and energy are or could be transformng back and forth at a very low level. In fact, I believe there are some laboratory effects such as the Casimir effect that have been used to give evidence of that effect by creating slight imbalances and pressures... But that addresses matter and energy rather than life itself. Or another way of looking at it: we would still have a universe, but would we have anyone living to observe it?

In the restricted sense of life on Earth, we speak of organic chemistry and the myriads of compounds that can be found in organic matter - but we also know that a sugar, alcohol or carbohydrate is not living. Hydrocarbons like petroleum and natural gas might have originated from organic matter or living things - or maybe not. Methane is certainly "optional". For some time viruses were said to be at the border between living and non-living matter. They attack living cells and multiply, but do they have a complex enough structure to rate as being alive? Evidently DNA and RNA reside in viruses, but are dependent on other living things to multiply. Did they come first or later? Or is it that there were hosts of potential viruses and only the ones with the pertinent chemical machinery survived? Rather than atomic or subatomic physics, I am inclined to think that origin of life boundaries can be better studied in search of a transition between bacteria and viruses - if there is such a thing.

1

Sociological Parallels Exhibited among Primitive Tribesmen: String Theorists?

by kepler in

physicist lee smolins 2006 book the trouble with physics is ostensibly about physics; in particular, the quagmire that string theory has turned into: a leviathan that has the majority of the worlds advanced theoretical physicists engaged in pursuit of a theory or system of theories that is yet to be validated by experiment.

it also encounters difficulties predicting much of anything, including the very basic features of the universe we live in.. .

i had heard of the book and had seen reviews before i picked it up at discount bookstore.

kepler

Physicist Lee Smolin’s 2006 book “The Trouble with Physics” is ostensibly about physics; in particular, the quagmire that string theory has turned into: a leviathan that has the majority of the world’s advanced theoretical physicists engaged in pursuit of a theory or system of theories that is yet to be validated by experiment. It also encounters difficulties predicting much of anything, including the very basic features of the universe we live in.

I had heard of the book and had seen reviews before I picked it up at discount bookstore. And one of the reasons I became interested in the book was not so much its discussion of string theory, but its survey of physics in general, e.g., the quest to unite or reconcile general relativity and quantum mechanics, an explanation of the standard model and its fundamental particles or anything else that the author might be able to explain.

But aside from identifying and elaborating on the five basic problems of physics early on, the going got very tough in the middle portion of the book. When arguments were based on terms such as “background dependence”, “emergence” or “the Maldacena conjecture”, it was very difficult even to take sides.

Nonetheless, near the end of the book, in three chapters (“How Do You Fight Sociology?”, “What is Science?” and “Seers and Craftspeople”), I started marking down Smolin’s remarks for what he was saying about belief systems.

We need not relate all of Smolin’s concerns about string theory vs. other physical theories such as quantum gravity with which Dr. Smolin is concerned. But it is interesting to see how he addresses the problem of a pervasive and compelling social environment.

Noting that physical theories should have a tendency to have formulations that avoid generating expressions which are described as “infinities” ( roughly, numerators divided by zero denominators), Smolin discovers that many or most of the practitioners of research in the string theory field assume that earlier pioneers had taken care of this matter in papers - published sometime or somewhere. Smolin says this is not the case and has informed many of his colleagues.

“When I described this situation in my review paper, it was greeted with disbelief (page 280)…. I had a similar experience talking to string theorists; some were shocked that the proof of finiteness had never been completed. But their shock was as nothing to compared to that of those physicists and mathematicians I talked to who were not string theorists, and who believed that string theory was finite because they had been told it was. For all of us, the impression of string theory as finite had had a great deal to do with our acknowledgment of its importance. None of us could recall ever having heard a string theorist point to it as an unsolved problem…

“None of the string theorists I’ve discussed these issues with have decided, on learning that the theory has not been proved finite, to stop working on string theory.

“But when and if the issue of finiteness is settled, we will have to ask how it happened that so many members of a research program were unaware of the status of one of the key research results in their field."

-----------------

This was not the only example of cracks in the façade. In a review article that Smolin quotes, two researchers write:

“In summary, we see convincing reason to place [Maldacena’s duality conjecture] in the category of true but not proven. Indeed, we regard it on much the same footing…”

Smolin notes, that he had never heard of a mathematician referring to a result as true, but unproven. He believes that the above authors reason that string theory is a well-defined mathematical structure – despite wide agreement that even if it is true, we have no idea what that structure is. Then, when it comes to defending these unproved conjectures, string theorists often note that something is “generally believed”.

Suddenly I begin to see things that I have seen in other people’s pamphlets. But they are coming from physicists.

“No sensible person doubts that this is true...”

“Anyone who hasn’t been asleep for the past six years knows that…

“I doubt that there are many hold-outs left who doubt that the above statement holds...”

In response to the last quote, Smolin says:

“It doesn’t feel good to have to admit to being one of the holdouts, but that is what a detailed examination of the evidence forces me to be.

“This cavalier attitude toward precise support for key conjectures is counterproductive for several reasons. First, …it means that no one works on these important open problems – making it more likely that they will remain unsolved. It also leads to a corrosion of the ethics and methods of science, because a large community of smart people are willing to believe key conjectures without demanding to see them proved…

“The discussion has brought out seven unusual aspects of the string theory community.

1. Tremendous self confidence, leading to a sense of entitlement and of belonging to an elite community of experts.

2. An unusually monolithic community, with a strong sense of consensus , whether driven by the evidence or not, and an unusual uniformity of views on open questions. These views seem related to the existence of a hierarchical structure in which the ideas of a few leaders dictate the viewpoint, strategy and direction of the field.

3. In some cases, a sense of identification with the group, akin to identification with a religious faith or political platform.

4. A strong sense of the boundary between the group and other experts.

5. A disregard for and disinterest in the ideas, opinions and work of experts who are not part of the group, and a preference for talking only with other members of the community.

6. A tendency to interpret the evidence optimistically, to believe exaggerated or incorrect statements of results, and to disregard the possibility that the theory might be wrong. This is coupled with a tendency to believe results are true because they are “widely believed”, even if one has not checked or even seen the proof oneself.

7. A lack of appreciation for the extent to which a research program out to involve risk.

…

“How could a community act in a way so at odds with the goodwill and good sense of its individual members?

“It turns out that sociologists have no problem recognizing this phenomenon. It afflicts communities of highly credentialed experts, who by choice or circumstance communicate only among themselves. It has been studied in the context of intelligence agencies and governmental policy-making bodies and major corporations. …There is a literature describing the phenomenon, which is called groupthink.

‘ a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members’ striving for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative course of action.’

…It requires that members share a strong “we-feeling” of solidarity and a desire to maintain relationships at all costs. When colleagues operate in a groupthink mode, they automatically apply the ‘preserve group harmony’ test to every decision they face.”

Another characterization of groupthink from an Oregon State University website:

“Groupthink members see themselves as part of an in-group working against an out-group opposed to their goals. You can if a group suffers from groupthink if it:

1. Overestimates its invulnerability or high moral stance,

2. Collectively rationalizes the decisions it makes,

3. Demonizes or stereotypes outgroups and their leaders,

4. Has a culture of uniformit where individuals censor themselves and others so that the façade of group unanimity is maintained, and

5. Contains members who take it upon themselves to protect the group leader by keeping information, theirs or other group members, from the leader.

170

Simple answer, please! Scientifically explain the origin of life coming from nothing!

by Silent_Scream in

scientific method asserts nothing living can come from something non-living.

science is observable, science is reproducible.

a living thing coming from non-living matter has never been observed nor reproduced.. therefore, it takes faith in an unknown process to believe that that's exactly what happened in the beginning, with no evidence!.

kepler

I suppose this thread is flickering out at the"first principle" level, but it sounds like there are still a few involved in discussing some of the details or scenarios derived thus far by scientific inquiry. And I'd like to reflect a little on one of those particulars. For a number of reasons I think it interesting to examine.

Back about 1980 I had opted out of a dissatisfactory job in industry and took some part time work at the nearby state university atmospheric science department. Auditing or taking the courses in the department was another lateral move in my graduate studies - and I was fortunate enough to join a class on planetary atmospheres, taught by a distinguished meteorologist who was studying Mars weather in real time in those days. We were not concerned directly with biology and life, but it was understood that life had an influence on the evolution of atmospheres: certainly here on Earth, based on sampling of sediments and ice cores, minerals and fossils. Life would also play a role theoretically, if we were to get a good observation of a planet revolving around another star where we could discern atmospheric properties. To make the explanation simple: 21% free oxygen (O2) is just not that natural an expectation when you throw rocks and ice together.

Somewhere in the midst of the course, a lecture was devoted to the famous Stanley Miller - Harold Urey experiment conducted at the University of Chicago in 1953. Miller, under his instructor's direction, the Nobel chemistry laureate Harold Urey, generated several amino acids in a heated flask with repeated electrical discharges. The idea was to simulate then understood conditions on the primitive earth, presuming an atmospheric mix of hydrogen, ammonia and methane....

It was a small lecture group of maybe a dozen and a half. So it was not too surprising that I got heard when I raised my hand.

Here we were getting data back from Mars and Venus which both had atmospheres 95% CO2 and ~5% N2. Titan, at 95 degrees Kelvin had some methane, but mostly nitrogen. CO2 would have all been dry ice... How come we were assuming that the Earth was different way back when? Wouldn't our atmosphere be largely CO2 judging from all we were learning in the last decade (1970s)?

I wish I could remember exactly what our instructor's answer was, but he certainly grasped the issue. I think he was willing to concede more CO2 atmosphere early on, but he had reservations. At the very least, white cliffs of Dover and other carbonate formations hadn't been there forever...The textbook, "Evolution of the Atmosphere", scanning now or reading ahead back then, seemed to have said very indirectly (e.g., volcanic emissions) that Earth without life would have an atmosphere much like Mars or Venus save that the atmospheric pressure would have likely been in between the extremes.

In effect, it looked like Miller and Urey had a way to explain glycine and other amino acids, some sugars - if there were big refineries back then similar to their lab experiments, with access to large quantities of methane, ammonia and hydrogen. But as far we knew, the atmosphere was mostly CO2 and N2. If there were ammonia and methane, it was produced in smaller quantities and broke down quickly over geologic time.

So was the experiment a failure?

Not exactly. Because it was an experiment that demonstrated a hypothesis: that building blocks of life could be derived from inorganic compounds mixed, heated or electrically charged (lightning) in a non biological environment. That part related to the so-called coming from nothing. And with many variations, including atmospheres and pressures more consistent with what we can discern from geology, the experiment has been repeated thousands of times over the decades. Some experiments were repeats to verify; others to change the environment. There have been experimenst with chemically riched early seas ( conducive), N2 and CO2 atmospheres (not very good incubators), environments to simulate undersea volcanic vents (good as well).

So the debate didn't end with people noticing the same discrepancy. There is a school of thought derived from Urey and Miller, but its critics are as likely to use similar methods to suggest different types of enclaves for early life: tidal pools, undersea volcanic vents, soil compounds...

But there were other problems that had to be addressed. What about exposure to UV radiation that would break down the compounds? What about all the processessing that has to go on to get to RNA and DNA? And then if you had another planet such as the ones which are being identified orbiting other stars (some young, some old), what are the odds?

Of course, this is a glass half empty or half full proposition. Going from the assumption that rodents spontaneous generated in trash piles to these type of deliberations is certainly headway, but not a demonstration of the solution.

Yet at the same time, looking at this problem from another angle, rather than atmospheric science, but something we might call the formation of planets, we can say that we actually can observe this part of the process: formation of planets.

That part of Genesis is on-going in the sky.

If you look in the right part of the sky such as the gaseous nebula close to Orion in the winter sky, one finds very young stars in which the formation of planets can be observed. Young in the sense that they might be only ten million years old, vs. the age of the sun, more like 4.5 billion years old. Other stars within or surrounding the galaxy might date all the way back to 13 billion years ago - but that is a discussion certainly off topic. Many of these very young stars still have the rings of gas and dust surrounding them that were thought to have formed early in the solar system's history. These were surmised before astronomical observatories had the capability to detect them. In 1980 that part of the story was hypothesis too. But they are there, and in some cases now, the planets embedded in them can be seen in the process of formation.

At that stage, where gas, dust and rocks are falling on a planet, I suspect that discussions about atmospheric gas are largely a moot point. This is a state of perpetual explosion and intense heat. The rubble has got to clear away and things have to cool down. But then when the dust all clears and the internal heat dies down, it will eventually be possible to observe or catalog planets around other stars that might be very young, as old as the earth or older. If a planet were to have absorption lines in the infra red for water vapor, ozone, methane ( since they are easier to observe than say an identifier for free oxygen), we might have some very intriguing questions to entertain after that.

This website would not be named for JWs if it did not deal some with prophecy. So let us engage to a limited extent. Identification of atmospheric conditions in extra-solar planets has already begun with the easy pickings - the planets very close to their suns. I believe it will continue to the planets with placement in thermal conditions similar to earth's and that we will have identifications of their atmospheres within a decade or so. Whether they show H2O, O3 and CH4? Well, that's where I bow out on prophecy. That's what I want to find out the conventional way.

170

Simple answer, please! Scientifically explain the origin of life coming from nothing!

by Silent_Scream in

scientific method asserts nothing living can come from something non-living.

science is observable, science is reproducible.

a living thing coming from non-living matter has never been observed nor reproduced.. therefore, it takes faith in an unknown process to believe that that's exactly what happened in the beginning, with no evidence!.

kepler

GeneM,

Good summary post. A lot of these discussions seem to get bogged down in first principle discussions ( like Cogito, ergo sum. Yeah, but how do you know?) and the problem never gets any better defined. I think you pushed it beyond that point.

Several pages back and a good night's sleep, I had left something hanging as well. SS had said that we could not prove that the sun was 93 million miles away without a yardstick, and I left the solution up in the air. I fiddled with it for a while and then looked it up. Before radar and the space age, estimates of the sun's distance or the Astronomical Unit started to roll in with measurements of parallax.

The basic idea is to observe the sun or a solar related event like the transit of Venus at opposite sides of the earth and see if the observers had a difference in measurement angle. They do, but it is very small. About 8.8 arc seconds, with an arc second equal to 1/3600th of a degree. The sun itself, like the moon, is about a half a degree wide in the celestial sphere. So aiming at a smaller object like Venus or Mercury makes the observations more precise. Venus is about a hundredth the width of the sun, but when viewed a third of the way there, it is about three times wider. Its basically the same process as measuring the distance to (nearby) stars, except with stars, the opposite ends of the Earth's orbit around the sun is used as the triangulation base.

I don't think anyone bounces radar beams off the sun, but we have received radar returns from Venus, Mercury and Mars for decades. Then we have sent spacecraft all over the solar system via navigation... Er, I won't mention what his name's laws...

So the point is, there are geometric methods and proofs for establishing the distance to the sun. And there are methods and proofs for examining other things.

SS, I believe, you started this thread asking about the origin of life. My interpretation of that, perhaps wrong, was that you were asking how it can arrive on the scene when before there was none. If you meant literally nothing, as in no elements or compounds, well, I don't know what can be done on that one. But for the former there is a body of evidence for steps, circumstances and mechanisms. Incomplete but a career path for many now alive and maybe still to come.

170

Simple answer, please! Scientifically explain the origin of life coming from nothing!

by Silent_Scream in

scientific method asserts nothing living can come from something non-living.

science is observable, science is reproducible.

a living thing coming from non-living matter has never been observed nor reproduced.. therefore, it takes faith in an unknown process to believe that that's exactly what happened in the beginning, with no evidence!.

kepler

RE:

Icannot prove the sun is 93,000,000 miles away.

No human can absolutely prove it in a sense because no human ever took a tape measure and measured it. Either, no human has ever been to the sun.

A lot went into figuring out the distance (time/temperature/etc formulas), but I do have faith their calculations are correct.

The answer is based on current accesible data and conclusions. So there is a fair amount of evidence to make the conclusion.

----------------

Then maybe we can't help you. Proof of the sun's position is not based on tape measures but geometry. A a full eclipse of the sun occured last Sunday and Venus will do an observable solar transit next month. That's were the ancients and the 17th century observers got their start.

170

Simple answer, please! Scientifically explain the origin of life coming from nothing!

by Silent_Scream in

scientific method asserts nothing living can come from something non-living.

science is observable, science is reproducible.

a living thing coming from non-living matter has never been observed nor reproduced.. therefore, it takes faith in an unknown process to believe that that's exactly what happened in the beginning, with no evidence!.

kepler

Is abiogenesis the same as spontaneous generation?

I had been listening to some contemporary lectures on Origins of Life, but that is not necessarily a full explanation. The lecturer Dr. Robert Hazen, a geophysicist or geologist simply gives a run down of what we know, historical developments and controversies. If the chemical process of life's origin is a multi-step process, then at least some easy and hard steps have been identified. Component chemicals for RNA and DNA can be synthesized under a number of conditions, etc. But obviously that's not all there is to it. Still, we've come a ways since Mary Shelley sat down to write "Frankenstein" nearly 200 years ago.

While I notice in the study guidebook a number of other contributors to the subject, I could not find the name of Italian Francesco Redi. According to the Wikipedia account he lived in the 17th century and did experiments to refute spontaneous generation. Until then it was assumed that rats, mice, flies and other pests spontaeously generated out of garbage. So until Darwin and his heirs came along, it would appear that life coming from inanimate matter wasn't causing that much of a stir. I guess everyone examined their assumptions after that.

Hazen had written an article several years ago in Scientific American remarking on the mineral contribution that life has given to the earth. That is previous forms of life had reworked the planet aeons ago into thousands of different minerals. With a body like the Moon or elsewhere in the Solar System where there is no evidence of life, you could count the number of minerals on the fingers of two hands. Other bodies like Mars, you get intermediate answers, which might mean there are more clues to what has to go on.

But you wanted an explanation of life coming from nothing...

Sorry.

19

The Makeweight Scenario - my way of explaining the increasing light doctrine

by cedars in

many of you will remember when i first joined this forum i shared some reasoning with you related to "increasing light" and the logic that led to my personally abandoning it as an explanation for why the society repeatedly makes errors and failed predictions in its publications.

i call it the "makeweight" scenario, and one or two have asked if i can launch a new thread for the benefit of new ones who may not have heard of it before.. i explain things on my latest blog article on the link below, but for those who would like to read just the part about the makeweight scenario, here is the part of my blog article that discusses the concept of increased light (slightly edited to separate it from the article).. is the light getting brighter?.

we are constantly informed in the society's publications that any errors in books or magazines from years gone by are due to the light getting brighter.

kepler

Cedars,

No, I do not think that Ray Franz's work was a waste of paper. Nor do I think that is the case with what you are doing either. In fact, I already owe you a debt from instructive posts since I have signed on.

Perhaps what it is is an impatience on my part with a line of reasoning or not being familiar with a prevailing psychology. My psychology is that of someone who felt compelled to sit through and study many weeks the home visit arguments; studying as a means of treading water until I could figure out how to avert the impending disaster. I never found the solution.

But then again, coming in from off the wall, maybe a perspective or two might be of use. Saying that, I can provide another analogy for what I think appears to be a problem

Let's say we were not talking about acceptance of the role of ministry within the society or accepting the GBs guidance. Instead, let's say we were drawing up a legal contract such as a lease on a house and we were renting it from the Society's governing board for a period of ten years.

Based on the precedent discussed, should the Society landlord exercise all sorts of modifications to the original agreement based on "increased light"? If in a primary clause an improvement ( e.g., electrification) on the house were promised within a year after the rental agreement began, would it be acceptable to agree, based on "increased light", that the improvement should be deferred for five years or perhaps delayed until "times indefinite?" If a construction team is contracted by the Society to dig a well for water to a certain depth (500 feet), should they be sued in court due to "increased light" because they desisted when they reached 1000 feet and the well was still found to be dry?

By saying that the 500-foot agreement was based on one scriptural reading and then 1000 plus is based on another later one, would that not undermine the reputation of the governing board as diviners or field geologists?

I presume the Society has to deal with secular institutions on terms where "increased light" is not an acceptable way to amend a contract. Why should a prophetic claim of 1925 or 1975 based on sole authority on Scripture millenia old be allowed to be modified for each new generation based on "increased light"?

Or are we talking about the same thing?

And then what if "increased light" brings one around full circle to where one started? Does that happen? I suppose that might be like having a student pilot yanking on the control stick unaware of the natural frequencies of the craft...

19

The Makeweight Scenario - my way of explaining the increasing light doctrine

by cedars in

many of you will remember when i first joined this forum i shared some reasoning with you related to "increasing light" and the logic that led to my personally abandoning it as an explanation for why the society repeatedly makes errors and failed predictions in its publications.

i call it the "makeweight" scenario, and one or two have asked if i can launch a new thread for the benefit of new ones who may not have heard of it before.. i explain things on my latest blog article on the link below, but for those who would like to read just the part about the makeweight scenario, here is the part of my blog article that discusses the concept of increased light (slightly edited to separate it from the article).. is the light getting brighter?.

we are constantly informed in the society's publications that any errors in books or magazines from years gone by are due to the light getting brighter.

kepler

Cedars,

I was sure that you were aware of the Walsh case, as probably many other correspondents here. However, when I found this material it was in very inconvenient form - a 100 megabyte PDF file, photocopies of the stenographer's typed notes. If it is not already available in a more compact form, I hope it will be someday - and I would gladly contribute what transcribed notes I already have.

However, I do have some reservations about rationalizing the increasing light doctrine.

In one way or another we are both making considerable concession to Society ball court rules. Using the Walsh transcripts is based on one form of concession. If anyone with knowledge of doctrine who has any criticism of it comes from inside the Society, the Society expels that individual, declares them "apostate" and directs everyone to cover their ears and close their eyes. The value of disseminated the Walsh case here and now is that the GB was public and cross examined. To a large degree they were allowed to proselytize from the witness chair, but every once in a while they slipped up - or left us all with a point to ponder. I am not sure how their more awkward testimonies can be suppressed in argument currently; maybe a future WT article or two could dispose of the problem. For now, the indoctrined might listen with one uncovered ear.

But discussing increased light and present truth is also a concession to Society rules. It's a system of semantics which allows everyone to accept a "heads I win - tails you lose" coin flip. Sure, higher councils are wringing their hands about how seamlessly to connect their present pronouncements to a series of past ones which had painted them into corners or the clock simply ran out on them, but that is for the flock's consumption. Mr. Covington in the court records lifts the veil on this as far as I'm concerned. He was not concerned with truth or light or anything else but giving orders to his army. And if individuals did not execute the orders, in which their whole lives were considered marches, he would execute them. If for nothing else, to serve as examples. He would address the issues of revealed truth later. And ironically for a lawyer, whose career rests on successful appeal, no indication of such.

19

The Makeweight Scenario - my way of explaining the increasing light doctrine

by cedars in

many of you will remember when i first joined this forum i shared some reasoning with you related to "increasing light" and the logic that led to my personally abandoning it as an explanation for why the society repeatedly makes errors and failed predictions in its publications.

i call it the "makeweight" scenario, and one or two have asked if i can launch a new thread for the benefit of new ones who may not have heard of it before.. i explain things on my latest blog article on the link below, but for those who would like to read just the part about the makeweight scenario, here is the part of my blog article that discusses the concept of increased light (slightly edited to separate it from the article).. is the light getting brighter?.

we are constantly informed in the society's publications that any errors in books or magazines from years gone by are due to the light getting brighter.

kepler

Cedars,

I went back to some correspondence from about a year ago with people not part of this website. I had located the transcript to the Walsh trial in Scotland in which the chief officers of the Society gave testimony. Covington overall was skilled at avoiding snares such as "belief in worldly armies?", but there is also something said about the "increasing light" doctrine...

I had gone back to read the trial transcripts largely due to quotes on cross examination that had remained on my mind. Some were not attributable to Frederick Franz, as it turned out, but to the society’s counsel Hayward Covington. Covington had never assumed for himself the title of anointed as did other board members, but was very effective in argument before the Supreme Court. There were ironies in the current context though. In petitioning the government of Britain for religious exemptions, it was noted by the counsel for the state that the society regarded all religion as satanic, agencies of the devil – and, moreover, that the government of Britain was the two-headed beast of Revelation. Covington conceded these things to be true, but also asserted that the Society maintained that there should not be “anarchy in the world” – an interesting compromise with evil to be sure.

P. 345 H. C. Covington cross examined: [ The crown = Q., Covington = A.]

Q. Is it not vital to speak the truth on religious matters?

A. It certainly is.

Q. Is there in your view room in a religion for a change of interpretation of Holy Writ from time to time?

A. There is every reason for a change in interpretation as we view it, of the Bible. Our view becomes more clear as we see the prophecy fulfilled by time.

Q. You have promulgated, forgive the word, false prophecy?

A. We have – I do not think we have promulgated false prophecy, there have been statements that were erroneous, that is the way to put it, and mistaken.

Q. Is it a most vital consideration in the present situation of the world to know if the prophecy can be interpreted into terms of fact, when Christ’s Second Coming was?

A. That is true. And we have always striven to see that we have the truth before we utter it. We go on the very best information we have, but we cannot wait until we get perfect, because if we wait until we get perfect, we would never be able to speak.

Q. Let us follow that up just a little. It was promulgated as a matter which must be believed by all members of Jehovah’s Witnesses that the Lord’s Second Coming took place in 1874?

A. I am not familiar with that. You are speaking to a matter that I know nothing of.

Q. You heard Mr. Franz’s evidence?

A. I heard Mr. Franz testify, but I am not familiar with what he said on that, I mean the subject matter of what he was talking about, so I cannot answer any more than you can, having heard what he said.

Q. Leave me out of it.

A. That is the source of my information, what I have heard in court.

Q. You have studied the literature of your movement?

A. Yes, but not all of it. I have not studied the 7 volumes of “Studies in the Scriptures”, and I have not studied this matter that you are mentioning now of 1874. I am not at all familiar with that.

Q. Assume from me that it was promulgated as authoritative by the Society that Christ’s 2 nd Coming was in 1874?

A. Taking that assumption as a fact, it is a hypothetical statement.

Q. That was the publication of a false prophecy?

A. That was the publication of a false prophecy, it was a false or an erroneous statement in fulfillment of a prophecy that was false or erroneous.

Q. And that had to be believed by the whole of Jehovah’s Witnesses?

A. Yes, because you must understand we must have unity. We cannot have disunity with a lot of people going every way. An army is supposed to march in step.

Q. You do not believe in worldly armies, do you?

A. We believe in the Christian Army of God.

Q. Do you believe in worldly armies?

A. We have nothing to say about that, we do not preach against them, We merely say that worldly armies like the nations of the world today are a part of Satan’s Organization, and we do not take part in them. But we do not say the nations cannot have their armies. We do not preach against warfare. We are simply claiming our exemption from it, that is all.

Q. Back to the point now. A false prophecy was promulgated?

A. I agree that.

Q. It had to be accepted by Jehovah’s Witnesses?

A. That is correct.

Q. If a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses took the view himself that that prophecy was wrong and said so, he would be disfellowshipped?

A. Yes, if he said so and kept persisting in creating trouble, because if the whole organization believes one thing, even though it is erroneous, and somebody else starts on his own trying to put his ideas across, then there is disunity and trouble. There cannot be harmony. There cannot be marching. When a change comes it should come from the proper source, not from the bottom upwards, because everybody would have ideas, and the organization would disintegrate and go in a thousand different directions. Our purpose is to have unity.

Q. Unity at all costs?

A. Unity at all costs, because we believe and are sure that Jehovah God is using our organization , the governing body of our organization, to direct it, even though mistakes are made from time to time.

Q. And unity based upon an enforced acceptance of a false prophecy?

A. That is conceded to be true.

Q. And the person who expressed his view, as you say, that it was wrong, and was disfellowshipped, would be in breach of the Covenant, if he was baptized?

A. That is correct.

Q. And as you said yesterday expressly, would be worthy of death?

A. I think –

Q. Would you say yes or no?

A. I will answer yes, unhesitatingly.

Q. Do you call that religion?

A. It certainly is.

Q. Do you call it Christianity?

A. I certainly do.

15

If you are dating or married to a JW: A few questions

by Lady Lee in

if you are dating or married to a jw: a few questions.

i am going to be addressing the international cultic studies association (icsa) in july at the conference in montreal.

my focus is on 3 groups.

kepler

Number 5: Yes. But not on line.