shepherdless

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Posts by shepherdless

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  34

  If God is the Creator, who created God or how did he evolve?

  by KateWild in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  if god is the creator, who created god or how did he evolve?.

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  shepherdless

  I see...but you still say "What caused him to come into existence" which implies a beginning though...no matter what we imply the term "cause" is...

  
  

  Good point. I rephrase:

  If God/FSM exists, who or what causes Him to exist?
  

  
  
  
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  34

  If God is the Creator, who created God or how did he evolve?

  by KateWild in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  if god is the creator, who created god or how did he evolve?.

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  shepherdless

  Cantleave - If god exist outside our universe and space and and time do not apply, then she can't exist - because existence requires time - you can't exist for zero seconds.

  Not a problem. How she exists or not is something we cannot grasp because we mere humans are limited by the concept of "existence".

  
  

  (I am being sarcastic, by the way.)
  
  
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  34

  If God is the Creator, who created God or how did he evolve?

  by KateWild in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  if god is the creator, who created god or how did he evolve?.

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  shepherdless

  Hi notsurewheretogo, I think we are stuck on semantics.

  By analogy, the leaves on the shrubs outside my window are green. Chlorophyll causes them to appear green. The word "cause" in that sense is not time-dependent. It is true, whether the plants have been there for a week, of for all of eternity. This is what I meant by "cause".

  By the way, for me this is just an intellectual debate. I am not out to wind anyone up.
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  34

  If God is the Creator, who created God or how did he evolve?

  by KateWild in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  if god is the creator, who created god or how did he evolve?.

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  shepherdless

  You haven't read my post.

  
  

  Actually I did read your post and understood your point. When I wrote "If God/FSM exists, who or what caused Him to come into existence?" I didn't mention "when", or a concept of time. In other words, I am highlighting the cause/effect issue, not the before/after issue.

  
  
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  34

  If God is the Creator, who created God or how did he evolve?

  by KateWild in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  if god is the creator, who created god or how did he evolve?.

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  shepherdless

  You can't understand a God in terms of human boundaries...

  
  

  Yes I was told something like that, long ago as well. It is a non-answer. Either God/FSM exists or doesn't exist. If God/FSM exists, who or what caused Him to come into existence?

  
  
  
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  34

  If God is the Creator, who created God or how did he evolve?

  by KateWild in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  if god is the creator, who created god or how did he evolve?.

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  shepherdless

  Damn good question. Yet to see a sensible answer to this one.
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  8

  I thought this was such a well written article I decided to cut and past it here

  by joe134cd in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i read this article on exjwreddit and thought it was so well written, that just summed everything up.

  i've cut and paste it.

  here is the link to it on reddit.. https://m.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/4spw99/where_have_all_the_jws_gone/.

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  shepherdless

  Just to add a point, the reddit author may well be correct about when he/she says, "There are just not as many "older ones" at the Kingdom Halls." It may be that those older ones that no longer attend still nominate themselves as being one of Jehovahs Victims Witnesses whenever questioned as part of a survey, such as Pew Research.

  
  

  
  
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  8

  I thought this was such a well written article I decided to cut and past it here

  by joe134cd in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i read this article on exjwreddit and thought it was so well written, that just summed everything up.

  i've cut and paste it.

  here is the link to it on reddit.. https://m.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/4spw99/where_have_all_the_jws_gone/.

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  shepherdless

  Here is the Pew Research source:

  http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/11/which-u-s-religious-groups-are-oldest-and-youngest/
  

  Someone else has posted it a few days ago and commented on it.

  
  

  Yes, the reddit article is well written. However, I think the author of the article misunderstood the statistics. The author appears to be comparing Jehovahs Witnesses to a bunch of "mainline" protestant religions, noted that those protestant religions had greater proportions of over 65s, and drew the conclusion that over 65s are leaving Jehovahs Witnesses in droves.

  
  

  Looking more closely at the data and the original 2014 Pew Report, what is actually happening is that protestant religions (particularly what Pew defines as "mainline") are dying rapidly. Because the chart contains lots of smaller protestant religions, and (for example) only one line for Catholic, it creates a skewed initial impression.

  
  

  The best way to look at the chart is to compare JW to the "All US adults" (shown two thirds the way down). Its the adults under 29 that are missing, not the over 65s.
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  532

  I conclude evolution is guided

  by KateWild in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  your qualifications are way above mine so i'd love to hear more about the specifics of what you have researched and how that supports the existence of a deity.

  k99, i am not really convinced that you're interested in my conclusions.

  in nature amino acids formed to then form dna.

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  shepherdless

  I studied chemistry (both organic and inorganic) decades ago at Uni, and I remember learning about isomerism, and that all DNA is left hand spiral. Back then, the lecturers didn't have a definite answer to that. So I probably know more than the average Joe, but am no expert.

  I started writing a lengthy explanation, and then thought, "what's the point".

  The link given by notsurewheretogo appears to deal with part of the abiogenesis issue. I would add that one possible (indeed obvious) explanation is that DNA molecules form so incredibly rarely that the first DNA molecule that formed would have had a massive head start on any subsequent one that formed. I could add numerous paragraphs to explain this in detail, but...
  

  More importantly, because DNA chains are so lengthy, it is impossible for the descendants of any DNA life form to have DNA spiral in the opposite direction.

  In simple terms, all DNA life forms have left hand DNA, because all DNA life forms had one common ancestor.

  Whatever way you look at it, this is actually (further) proof of evolution. Maybe a "creator" created the first DNA molecule, but certainly hasn't controlled the process since.
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  7

  Jehovah's Witnesses age demographics compared to US population and other beliefs- PEW study

  by Balaamsass2 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i found this pew data of passing interest.

  it flies in the face of what i have seen in english congregations, but when i think of all the spanish congregations, it made sense.

  jws show fewer senior members than mainline churches.

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  shepherdless

  The information in the report appears to be based upon data from the 2014 Pew Report, but further extracted and expanded.

  Both the 2014 report and this report states the median adult age of a JW in USA is 50. This is more important that I think people realise. The median age for JW increased dramatically between Pew's 2007 and 2014 reports. History shows that an excellent early indicator of a religion or population in decline is when its median age increases over a certain level. It appears the religion in USA has reached that level.

  To put it in context, the reports define adults as those over 18, so "50" is equivalent to a population median age of around 41. In the last few years, the median age in Japan has reached that level, and Japan's population is now in decline.

  
  

  Although JW appears in around the middle of the chart, you have to remember the 2014 Pew Report showed that most Christian religions were losing members and aging, with "mainline" Protestant religions faring worst. So being in the middle of that chart is not a sign of health.