Posts by rem

43

My flood questions

by Moxy in

jw
friends

i know these topics have been well-covered in many places.

this is just me wanting to compile a list of concise reasons why i am sure the wt interpretation of the deluge is untenable.

this is my first draft.

Along the same lines as one of your questions, here is an addition. Why is there no evidence of all animal life spreading from the Middle East to the rest of the world. We should expect to see fossils of animals radiating out from that area as they repopulated the earth if the flood theory is true.

Also, regarding the bristlecone pine, which lives on top of mountains: If the mountains were formed from the flood, how did the bristlecone pine trees survive the catastrophic geologic movements?

I have also heard that pine trees (which I suppose would include the bristlecone) cannot live with even their roots submerged in salt water, but I haven't verified that.

rem

28

New York Evolution Proof

by metatron in

jw
friends

if you ever get stuck going to brooklyn bethel and.

hearing about watchtower propaganda, you might want.

to look at an antidote.. the museum of natural history - in manhattan.. in the section on human origins, they have a skeleton.

rem

siegs,

This is a very common question and a common misconception. I have to admit that I had these very same questions before doing some research on this subject.

The main misconception is that evolution teaches that man came from apes. This is not true. What we see in the fossil record (and what evolutionary theory predicts) is that humans and apes share a common ancestor. From the fossil record and DNA analysis, we can see that this common ancestor (not an individual, but a population) lived around 5 to 10 million years ago. Modern apes have evolved and are not the same as their ancestor apes millions of years ago. The same way, modern humans are not the same as our ancient ancestors. So really, these animals have been evolving all this time and they continue to evolve just as humans continue to evolve.

Another thing to understand is that evolution is not linear (fish -> lizard -> ape -> human). Evolution is more like a bush with many branches and leaves. If a species evolves, it doesn't necessarily mean the death of the original species - both may live side by side, filling their own niche, or they may be separated geographically. Thus they branch off. This means that related species are more like cousins than father/son. Apes and humans are like cousins - apes did not come from humans and humans did not come from apes. Many related species can live at the same time.

Of course, it is also true that over 99% of all species that have ever lived on the earth have become extinct (over time - not in one event such as a Noah's flood or anything like that). So there are many different species in the human line that have gone extinct, such as Homo Erectus (the same is true in the chimpanzee line). Since extinction is not uncommon, it is not unusual for our immediate ancestors to have gone extinct. They simply couldn't cope with the new environment or competition by emerging species.

There are a couple of ways to easily tell if someone does not understand evolution: If they relate it with the Big Bang, Abiogenesis (how the first reproducing molecules appeared), or some atheistic philosophy. Also if they say that evolution teaches that man came from apes, you know they don't know what they are talking about. The difference is subtle, but important. Also, always think populations. Evolution does not work on individuals, but is a change in populations over generations.

By the way, there is a great FAQ on http://www.talkorigins.org that deals with many questions that newbies to evolutionary theory have. It's a great resource for laymen like us.

I hope that helped! :)

rem

28

New York Evolution Proof

by metatron in

jw
friends

if you ever get stuck going to brooklyn bethel and.

hearing about watchtower propaganda, you might want.

to look at an antidote.. the museum of natural history - in manhattan.. in the section on human origins, they have a skeleton.

rem

Siegs,

One thing that helps in understanding Evolution is to understand the true "purpose" of living things. Their only purpose is to survive long enough to reproduce. A tree's purpose is not to put oxygen in the air - that's just a waste product of the tree that other living things happen to use to survive. The purpose of the zebra is not to be eaten by the lion and visa versa. Their only purpose is to make more zebras and lions. Any trait that will help this purpose will be taken advantage of by the organism and over generations populations of the organism will be dominated with individuals with the advantageous trait(s).

This leads to "arms races" where the fastest zebras ultimately survive, thus over time populations of zebras run faster. Simultaneously the faster lions will reproduce more since they will be able to catch more zebras. Hence lion populations become faster over time. This works for other traits too such as coloration, teeth, claws, poisons, size, etc. Competition is the catalyst to variation. Natural selection picks out the best genes to pass on to the next generation. So really, there is no reason to believe that there would be "bare necessities". In reality, the animal is "just good enough" to survive to reproductive age, but over generations of natural selection amazing variation is possible.

Now there are also other forces at work that keep zebras and lions from reaching light speed - they only have limited resources to pull from, but the variety available in the genes is amazing. Life fills niches, that's why there is variety - wherever life can get an advantage, it will exploit it.

Think of a glass of water. The water is life and the glass is the environment. Life fits it's environment perfectly and adapts to new environments. It's as if the water fills the cup - even little crevices. The water is not pre-formed into the shape of a cup and then a cup built to the water's form so the water will fit into it.

One thing also is not to confuse Evolution with Abiogenesis (life from nonlife). They are two separate theories. Evolution only deals with life after it was started, so it is not incompatible with a deity. Unclepenn needs to face the facts that there is predation and survival of the fittest in real life, so he will have to deal with the reality of what that means about the personality of the deity he believes created this system.

rem

58

Do You Still Believe a God Cares for You?

by JosephAlward in

jw
friends

i've been a part of this forum for about one month, and during that time i've been struck by the willingness of many so former jehovah witnesses either to ridicule the bible, or to stand by while it's being ridiculed.

so, i'm wondering how many of them while witnesses suffered through experiences so searing that they no longer believe in the god of the old testament.. who among you still believe that underneath the layers of contradictions, inconsistencies, and errors in the bible there may be found the words of a god who created the universe, and who also cares about you, personally?.

joseph f. alward.

rem

Moxy,

You are correct - Paul does mention a physical Jesus - I didn't explain myself fully.

I probably should have said that it could be interpreted that Paul only saw Jesus as a mystic - a mythical one at that. In the ancient pagan mystery religions these mystics (even thought they were clearly mythical) were flesh and blood men who became gods. These were the outer mysteries - the outer interpretations. The inner mysteries showed the deeper spiritual meaning of these myths - and the initiated ones of the inner mysteries did not really believe that those god-men were real flesh and blood (even though that is what was taught to the outer mystery initiates).

The Gnostics claimed that Paul was referring this change of perspective through initiation into the inner mysteries in the passage you quoted in 2 Corinthians. This makes sense when we take into account that Paul never claimed to have known a historical Jesus "in the flesh" - he only knew Jesus through revelation.

So to summarize, Paul did speak about a physical Jesus, but from a Gnostic or mystery religion point of view, this was just the outer mysteries - not the real mystical inner mysteries.

As far as Acts is concerned, well, again, this may be a reference to the outer mysteries. There really was a mythical Jesus - and the outer mysteries portrayed him as a physical being, but Paul didn't necessarily believe in a physical Jesus any more than pagans believed in a physical Osiris or Dyonisis (the inner initiates, that is - the outer initiates most likely believed they were physical persons who said and did real things).

Of course all this only makes sense if you find the evidence that Paul was involved in spreading a Jewish mystery religion convincing. I have not come to a final conclusion on this yet, but I do think the evidence is interesting. Anyway, the real point of my post was that the historicity of Jesus is in question, and there is no real evidence of Jesus’ resurrection. Unclepenn steered this discussion toward evidence for Jesus when my original post did not even broach this subject. I was talking about evidence for God – as in Jehovah, big daddy in the sky – not the historicity of some man named Jesus.

rem

58

Do You Still Believe a God Cares for You?

by JosephAlward in

jw
friends

i've been a part of this forum for about one month, and during that time i've been struck by the willingness of many so former jehovah witnesses either to ridicule the bible, or to stand by while it's being ridiculed.

so, i'm wondering how many of them while witnesses suffered through experiences so searing that they no longer believe in the god of the old testament.. who among you still believe that underneath the layers of contradictions, inconsistencies, and errors in the bible there may be found the words of a god who created the universe, and who also cares about you, personally?.

joseph f. alward.

rem

Unclepenn,

Which logical fallacies have I committed in my post? If you remember, the first half of my post was your quote with just a couple of names changed. If you found a logical fallacy, it was probably in your own words - and that was the point of my post! :)

I've read all of the supposed evidence for Jesus' historicity and I'm not completely convinced. If you really look into the evidence you will see that there are no first-hand contemporary accounts of Jesus existence. Also, Paul never mentions a physical Jesus in any of his writings. To Paul, Jesus is a spiritual being like a pagan mystery god. There is some convincing evidence that the Gnostic Christians were actually the first Christians, and literalist Christians came later.

You are the one that committed the logical fallacy of an Appeal to Authority with this statement:

People with PhD's also give dissertations on the existence of UFO's and ESP. People - even intelligent people - believe in all kinds of crazy things because they want to believe. You need to educate yourself on logical reasoning.

And just because someone says that the evidence would stand up in court doesn't mean it will. All the evidence for a historical Jesus is hearsay and second, third, fourth, etc. hand. More importantly, even if there did happen to be a real Jesus, there is still no evidence of any resurrection or of any of the supposed miracles that he performed. I suggest you do more research because there is a lot you don't seem to know.

By the way, have you picked up any of those books on Evolution yet? I suggested a few for you in another post. You know, Proverbs 18:17 and all. I don't suppose you'd also want to read some of the many books that provide evidence *against* a historical Jesus to round out your research? Nah, fundy's never do.

rem

P.S. Why would someone become a Christian just because they find evidence of a historical Jesus? Should someone become a Muslim because they find evidence of a historical Muhammad? Sounds like pretty ridiculous reasoning to me.

57

divining rods work

by zerubberballz in

jw
friends

it's a funny ol' world.

a month ago i was mucking about with some thick fencing wire and i suddenly got the idea to bend a couple of pieces into a set of divining rods like i've seen old nutters doing on tv.

so i cut two sections of wire about 2' long and bent the ends 4" at 90 degrees to form old fashioned diving rods (twitching sticks are made of yew or hickory or something .. don't know what, if anything aboriginies used).

rem

Prisca,

Um, I think that's called gravity, not magnetism. ;)

It's easy to dismiss certain things as "hogwash" with a little knowlege of science. That doesn't mean, though, that there is an explanation for everything just yet... (I don't suspect there ever will be an explanation for *everything*) :)

rem

26

Is there a big conspiracy to keep you poor?

by Mindchild in

jw
friends

when i was a witness, i often heard that if you left the trooth that you would become rich fast, have gratuitous sex constantly, become a drug addict and end up worshipping satan.

man am i disappointed!!

it seemed for the longest time that there was a giant conspiracy to keep me a poor working stiff just above the poverty line, especially so when i was going to college full time.

rem

I've seriously considered marketing a pill called "Placebex" or "Placebanol" or something similar. The advertisements would have all kinds of anecdotal evidence and study data that it cures/prevents/relieves all of these ailments using the scientific "Placebo Effect". There are no side effects and scientists have been using this safe and effective remedy for years!

I've thought about marketting a cure all pill for the credulous for a while, but it just seems so unethical. The thing about this idea, though, is that you are not lying - you are basically telling them that the pill is a placebo! The order data could also give good information about who are the dumbest people in the world and we could sell the list to other unscrupulous marketing companies to make even more money. :)

People would have to be pretty dumb to buy it, but I think there are plenty in the world. There's a niche market for everything. I don't know if this idea has been tried before, but if anyone wants to do this - remember you saw it here first and I want dibs!!!!

rem

58

Do You Still Believe a God Cares for You?

by JosephAlward in

jw
friends

i've been a part of this forum for about one month, and during that time i've been struck by the willingness of many so former jehovah witnesses either to ridicule the bible, or to stand by while it's being ridiculed.

so, i'm wondering how many of them while witnesses suffered through experiences so searing that they no longer believe in the god of the old testament.. who among you still believe that underneath the layers of contradictions, inconsistencies, and errors in the bible there may be found the words of a god who created the universe, and who also cares about you, personally?.

joseph f. alward.

rem

Unclepenn,

"Let's just say for the sake of argument, that you, Unclepenn, have an amazing 1% of *all* knowledge there is in the universe. Is it possible in the remaining 99% that there is an Invisible Pink Unicorn and that It created the universe and revealed Himself in Thor? I think if you are honest with yourself you would agree that yes, in the remanining 99% there are probably alot of things that you have no idea about."

There is just as much evidence for the Invisible Pink Unicorn and Thor as there is for the Christian God (none). Somehow with all of that untapped knowledge out there you have settled on the Christian god out of all of the other infinite possibilites. May I ask on what evidence this decision was based?

rem

88

If evolution is true ?

by D wiltshire in

jw
friends

if evolution is true and god doesnt exist, and all matter always existed, and life keeps adapting and getting more and more advanced, conquering all problems set before its existence.. then life should have already filled the entire universe and advanced to the point of never dying.. am i being presumptuous?.

.

if someone lived a trillion x longer than you, and had a billion x more reasoning ability would he come to the same conclusions as you?.

rem

There are scientists who believe in UFO's too. I don't put too much stock in the beliefs of others, even though some might view those people as an authority. I choose to only believe in things for which there are compelling evidence.

rem

19

What happens when a dub faces the truth...

by biblexaminer in

jw
friends

i wanted to pass along this personal experience.. the other day, my wife called me on the phone while i was at work.

keep in mind that she's unfortunately a blind jwfollowwhatevertheysay type.

she was all worked up.

rem

Exactly, Rex. That's what looking at BOTH sides of an issue is all about. Unclepenn has already seen the Creationist side. Now it's time for him to give the Evolutionist side an honest look. Then, and only then, can he make an intellectually honest decision.

So which books have you read, Rex?

rem