Cofty: Please post your interest to take part and we will set it up before the first actual post in the exchange.
I am certainly not a creationist, but I can think of an argument. Am I eligible to take up your challenge?
shepherdless
JoinedPosts by shepherdless
-
147
Challenge to Creationists
by cofty inin response to the 37 threads in my evolution is a fact series - see bottom of op for links - perry posted a link to an article "44 reasons why evolution isn't true".. i offered him a challenge on the thread and by pm.
predictably he is totally ignoring it, so i am offering the challenge to any evolution-denier who thinks they have evidence to support their position.. please present one specific piece of evidence for creationism.. my task will be to refute it with evidence within 24 hours.. then i will present one piece of evidence for evolution and your challenge will be the same.. all posts must be as succinct as reasonably possible.
entirely in your own words, without copy-paste, videos or links.. please post your interest to take part and we will set it up before the first actual post in the exchange.
-
-
shepherdless
-
71
Confusing Opinions with Facts
by cofty inin a discussion about the best flavour of ice cream everybody's opinion is equally valid.. in a discussion about the shape of the earth or the origin of species everybody's opinion is equally irrelevant.
only objective facts and evidence matter.. confusing these two categories is a common feature of conversations in this forum.
people deserve respect, errors do not..
-
-
shepherdless
Fisherman: small g( F sub g) is directly proportional to:
Yes, that makes it correct.
-
71
Confusing Opinions with Facts
by cofty inin a discussion about the best flavour of ice cream everybody's opinion is equally valid.. in a discussion about the shape of the earth or the origin of species everybody's opinion is equally irrelevant.
only objective facts and evidence matter.. confusing these two categories is a common feature of conversations in this forum.
people deserve respect, errors do not..
-
-
shepherdless
Fisherman: The way we learned it though was : G= m1*m2/d squared (d being the distance between the centers of each object and G in Newtons, if I recall ancient history)
Your memory is close to correct. Your formula has an error, but there is more than one way of expressing it correctly, and I don't know which you were taught. G is the universal gravitational constant, 6.674×10−11 N · (m/kg)2. "d" and "r" mean the same thing in both equations.
I otherwise, on this rare occasion, agree with you.
-
71
Confusing Opinions with Facts
by cofty inin a discussion about the best flavour of ice cream everybody's opinion is equally valid.. in a discussion about the shape of the earth or the origin of species everybody's opinion is equally irrelevant.
only objective facts and evidence matter.. confusing these two categories is a common feature of conversations in this forum.
people deserve respect, errors do not..
-
-
shepherdless
little Socrates: Calling evolution a fact is like calling the law/theory of gravity a fact.
In science, laws are essentially equations, and theories are explanations. There is both a law of gravity:
(Newton's law of universal gravitation),and a theory of gravity, published by Albert Einstein in 1915.
I wonder whether little Socrates confuses "theory" with "hypothesis".
Using the word "fact" in its ordinary everyday meaning, both the law of gravity and the theory of gravity are facts, as they have both been demonstrated to be true by numerous observations.
little Socrates: if you really get to questioning an honest physicist they will tell you they have no idea actually what gravity is or how it works
Not quite. Gravity is the only remaining one of the 4 fundamental forces that has yet to be explained by the principles of quantum mechanics. This is essentially because, in simple terms, it is an incredibly complicated mathematical problem to solve. But thanks to Einstein we have known for a century pretty much what gravity is, and how it works.
One can argue back and forth forever about whether God or Jehovah exists, but one can't realistically argue whether evolution occurs. The evidence is overwhelming. Evolution is a "fact" within the ordinary meaning of the word. It why a disease becomes resistant to an antibiotic. It is why a bug becomes resistant to a pesticide. I haven't read half of Cofty's posts, but some of the ones I have read are compelling, and I have yet to see a sensible response to any of them.
-
50
How long before The Watchtower goes bankrupt and vanishes?
by VM44 inhow long before the watchtower goes bankrupt and goes away?.
does anyone know how the watchtower is doing financially?.
.
-
-
shepherdless
We know neither the day nor the hour, but eventually this evil cult will die.
My 2c worth: Up until recently, there seemed to be a steady stream of reports of kingdom halls and other buildings being sold off. Then a couple of months ago, Watchtower sold its Columbia Heights headquarters, for a few hundred million (Was it $300 million? I can't remember exact amount, now). Since that sale, I haven't seen a report of a Kingdom Hall being sold.
Perhaps after a year or two, Watchtower will have burnt through that pile of cash, and will start selling other assets again and making further cutbacks. That will be sign of the last days.
-
10
JW's pressed the rain down in Ukraine
by oppostate injw brothersasamblea en ucrania 7.712 aguantando la lluvia que buen ejemplo para nosotros!
!que gran ejemplo y aguante!.
would you sit under torrential rain out in the open during a convention?.
-
-
shepherdless
2015 Service Report showed a decrease 6% for Ukraine. A sizable drop. Also, a 142 congs. less than 2014. What is going on there?
It is probably due to the annexation of Crimea by Russia. Ukraine has 8,423 less av publishers, and Russia has 7,675 more. Crimea's population (at 2.2 million) was about 5% of Ukraine's population before annexation.
Interestingly, apart from Belarus, countries in that region are all showing flat or negative growth.
-
25
Raising kids in a split faith household
by rathernotsay inhi guys, don't know if this is the right place to ask but id like to hear other peoples experiences with raising kids in a household with split faiths.
just for a bit of a back story, my wife and i have been married for comming up 6 years.
we have 3 kids, 2 boys aged 5 and 3 and a 8 week old girl.
-
-
shepherdless
Hi rathernotsay,
I am in a similar position, although I am further down the track. Sorry to be negative, but I think that you are up against more than you realize.
You sound like a principled person. (I consider myself the same.) The first thing to realize is that they don't play fair. I did not get that at first, because I did not know much about JWism and I didn't expect a Christian religion to be so dishonest. They think that your kids' lives depend on them being indoctrinated, and that entitles them to say one thing and do another behind your back.
They're so young and I imagine that they will make their own minds up eventually...
That is probably the norm in most Christian religions. However this religion makes it really tough to leave. They use psychological pressure such as cognitive dissonance. It is particularly tough on kids because they tend to believe anything told to them by adults. A lot of kids do eventually work it out, but at best it is painful.
As far as solutions go, I don't have any at the moment. I am still battling. Wife and kids go to meetings. I can't stop that. None are baptized, or express much enthusiasm, but will be very defensive if I mention anything negative about Watchtower. At this stage I don't know which way my kids will go. I have managed to get a bit of TTATT into my wife, and she doesn't seem to have the confidence in it that she used to.
It is probably a good idea to keep their minds enquiring, whether about space, dinosaurs, or whatever. One think I found is that the school teacher is your invisible ally. Your kids have probably already got the message that you can not be trusted on matters concerning religion, but I have noticed that they still trust anything the school teacher says about science, evolution, etc. I have tried to give them as much info on physics etc, and when they hear the same thing from the teacher, it is confirmed as fact.
This is Machiallelian, but another thing I have done is physically move the family to where contact with JW relatives and JW's generally is difficult. As a result, my kids don't have any JW friends, and generally only see other JW's at meetings. I think that might help, in the future.
There is a lot more I could say. Anyway, good luck with it all.
-
27
The two paths of exJWs
by Simon init's easy to think of exjws as being a single amorphous group but the more i think about it, the more i believe that there are two distinct sub-groups and wonder if you agree.. there are those who believe and those who don't.
i know that seems obvious but let's break it down a bit more.
there are those who don't and never believed and some who are looking for a religion to match their beliefs.. i used to think this split would be between born-ins and converts but of course it's possible for born-ins to be believers although i suspect that many, like with other faiths, do so simply because they have never experienced anything else or made a conscious choice.
-
-
shepherdless
Simon - There are those who believe and those who don't. I know that seems obvious but let's break it down a bit more. There are those who don't and never believed and some who are looking for a religion to match their beliefs.
I don't think this is unique to JWism. It seems to be in the DNA of many humans to seek out or imagine a god or gods. Virtually every society in the past invented gods of one sort or other, and that deity (or deities) significantly defined that society. Perhaps humans with the "god" gene had a genetic advantage because they were more easily aligned into large groups or tribes and had a survival advantage over those not so aligned.
To quote Voltaire in around 1770: "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."
-
91
My brother died last night
by LisaRose ini found out this morning that my brother died last night, he was also an ex jw, 73 years old and died of heart disease and kidney failure.
it was not totally unexpected, as he had been in poor health, but it's a blow, especially as i just lost another brother two years ago.
there were six of us, now only four.
-
-
shepherdless
Condolences, from me as well. -
150
I'm getting baptized
by BlackWolf ini know i've started similar topics before but this time i'm serious.
my parents have been constantly pressuring me and after yesterday's watchtower study they asked me if i was going to be baptized this summer... and i said yes.
i probably should have thought about it more before making a final decision, but they're pretty much forcing me to do it anyway.
-
-
shepherdless
Hi BlackWolf, plenty of good advice from others here. I can't add to that. The strategy of Lisa Rose a couple of posts above, is a good strategy.
I was once pressured into something major when I knew it wasn't right. I know how that feels. I can tell you it is a lot worse, long term, if you give into that pressure.
It sounds like you are not going to make the same mistake. That takes strength of character. Well done! Things may be tough now, but if you get through this, you will look back on this episode of your life, and be proud of yourself for being true to your principles.
Best wishes
(Newton's law of universal gravitation),