Posts by Anders Andersen

133

What are the biggest holes in evolution?

by shadow in

how honest are the proponents of evolution?

idk but curious to see what type of response there is on a topic like this or does their study only seek to confirm their preconceptions and ignore uncomfortable facts?

@Cold Steel

The next reply is not to mock you or make you an atheist. I just want to make you think about your reasoning. So don't feel obliged to respond, but please answer those questions for yourself.

1) It seems predicated on the assumption that there is no God, or intelligent designer.

This is completely not true. Evolution does not rule out God. Most Christian churches accept evolution, so it must be compatible?

In fact, almost all of the early work done that lead to our current understanding of evolution was done by religious persons. And that continues today.

Anyway, the theory of evolution explains how all life evolved, but science can never prove (nor will they try) that God did or did not start or guide this process. It should be noted however that everything we understand so far does not need divine action to be explained.

2) The idea that simple organisms can mutate into increasingly complex ones. I'd like to see some evidence this is possible. To think 1-cell organisms can mutate, without a great deal of outside help, into modern humans over a long period of time, is difficult for me to accept.

Is it much easier to accept that an omniscient, omnipotent invisible being always existed or came to existence without cause?

Is the level of evidence you require to accept evolution equal to the level of evidence you require before accepting the existence of God? (Note: Bible contains claims about God, not evidence)

3) That life and intelligence can evolve from a spontaneous action.

You mean life and intelligence...as in...a living and intelligent God?

If evolution can be shown to be consistent with theism, I might be willing to accept it.

Are you saying that you are willing to reject evidence if it doesn't fit in with your current ideas?

Or are you saying you do see (know) much evidence for evolution.

Regardless, as stated before, evolution says nothing about the (non)existence of God. Evolution and God are totally compatible if you so wish.

However, evolution and a literal explanation of the Biblical creation story are not compatible.

And for that subject one could wonder:

Do I accept the creation claims of a Bronze Age tribe chief, for which no evidence exists (but evidence against it does)?
Or do I accept the evolution claims by thousands of people who studied that subject for years, and for which mountains of evidence exists, that can be researched by everyone who wishes to do so?

34

JW's Funerals, Forget About The Person! Let's Preach.

by new boy in

jw
friends

god forbid you would talk about the dead person at his funeral.

so what do most people get after living 70-80 years?.

a 5-10 minutes eulogy.

Anders Andersen

Outlaw made me lol 2x again!

Must be the beer :-p

17

Do you ever contact those who shun you?

by Xanthippe in

do you ever test the water and see if your relatives or friends still feel the same way?

i don't have mobile phone numbers or email addresses for my family because we left a long time ago.

long before facebook.

Anders Andersen

Outlaw you made me lol.

Or maybe it was the imported American beer I just had (10%): Doubting Thomas (in my language his name really is Unbelieving Thomas).

Posted a pic of it on my FB and said it's better than KoolAid. Hope my still-in friends can appreciate the joke :-p

Or next week I'll post something about a JC invitation :-p

38

Your Jehovah’s Witness Is Showing

by David_Jay in

since i just signed up and posted a few times without doing this yet, here is my story..

i think that i became a jehovahs witness because of my immaturity.

i had some quirky personality traits, and i joined finding that i fit in because, as i said to myself: these people get me.

Anders Andersen

DJ,

I enjoyed your post.

Two weeks after reading it, a dear still-in friend started a conversation about my current viewpoint.

Couple of days later he sent me an email to get some things of his chest (in a nice way) about our conversation.

Amongst other things he wrote "it bothers me that you present your new views as the truth"

My reaction: "My whole life I have been trained to think my beliefs are *the* truth, and to spread them accordingly. So I guess in our conversation 'my Jehovah's Witness was showing'."

Thanks for making me aware of a potential post-JW pitfall.

29

What's next?

by Grey Goose in

jw
friends

hi everyone.. thanks for the welcome a few days ago, it was nice to hear your support.. this is a pure speculation thread, but what do you think the next changes are going to be?.

will we see tything come into play?.

more evangelical style meetings?.

Anders Andersen

I don't remember the exact quote, but many years ago (while still in) I read a statement about cults in general being applied to JW by a sociologist:

Whenever a cult reaches a certain mass/point, it will either go mainstream or it will become even more extreme loose most of it's members.

I do remember that I mentally saved those words for future reference, just to make future me be aware of possible cult behaviour in JW land.

If the WT do not handle their current cash flow issues well, it will be the latter option.

If they manage to survive for some time, it will be the former option. In that case I could see:

no more 'we are God's only true people, everyone else follows Satan' rhetoric
1914 will fade into oblivion by not referring to it anymore
shunning becomes a matter of conscience
refusing blood becomes a matter of conscience
service hours will not be a goal anymore, or a standard by which spiritual health is measured
144.000 not literal anymore

@Finkelstein,

Afaik the 2 monitor setup is more or less mandatory now (at least in my W-Europe country.

31

The GB know it's all lies and wants to dismantle the WTS ... then what?

by Simon in

so imagine the gb have a sudden attack of honesty and realize "crap, this whole thing is lies - we're not god's spokespeople at all !".

how do you dismantle a religion that has +8 million members in a responsible way?

you can't just publish a watchtower saying "we were wrong" because that would be irresponsible - you need to let people down gently, put people off gradually.

Anders Andersen

IslandMan and Simon,

Thanks for mentioning the Worldwide Church of God / Grace Communion International.

Never heard of them before.

Two things I find very interesting about this group are:

Their official apology for previously held beliefs now deemed wrong. A still in dear friend of mine claimed the FDS did apology for 1975 and 1914 expectations, and quoted me some examples. I asked him where the sincere apology from the FDS is, where they take full responsibility instead of blaming others. The WCG/GCI example shows how it could/should be done.

Some of their new beliefs are the direct opposite of what they previously believed. They taught only they had the truth, all other churches were evil Satan stuff. Now they embrace other churches as being true. Yes, these changes cost them 50% members, but they're still there. And so will the Watchtower for many years. WCG/GCI doctrinal changes prove that no sudden change in doctrine, no scandal can be big enough to open everyone's eyes. Let's just hope we can get the ones we love to wake up...

27

Constant out-of-context quoting; how do Writing dept. cope with that?

by Anders Andersen in

i am just wondering here: almost every single quote in jw literature for which a source can be found, is taken out of context..

personally, i have checked almost every quote in the 5-questions brochure, some on dating and the cross in reasoning book, and some in magazine articles i found interesting..

just checked the "they envisioned a universe subject to whims of gods" quote in the feb 2016 awake..

Anders Andersen

@SBF,

Indeed, the Borg is normally very careful to not misquote.

That's why I consistently speak about quoting out of context instead of misquoting.

The example in the OP may not be the most clear example of quoting out of context, but to me it looks like they intended to have us understand:

"Encyclopedia says [Ancient peoples (except Bible people) had this idea about how Gods influence the universe.]. They were wrong and superstitious.
Opposed to their wrong ideas the Bible is scientifically correct and does not lead to superstition"

But the actual quoted source intends to convey:

Ancient peoples (including Bible people) had this idea about how Gods influence the universe.

But maybe some fine details of the meaning of what was written were lost on me, a non-native English speaker.

@Diogenesister,

Well I don't know if they buy it themselves. And I don't know what's worse: being a smart but very unethical writer who doesn't believe what he's writing, or being a supposedly smart writer who is too blind to actually understand what he is writing about...

27

Constant out-of-context quoting; how do Writing dept. cope with that?

by Anders Andersen in

i am just wondering here: almost every single quote in jw literature for which a source can be found, is taken out of context..

personally, i have checked almost every quote in the 5-questions brochure, some on dating and the cross in reasoning book, and some in magazine articles i found interesting..

just checked the "they envisioned a universe subject to whims of gods" quote in the feb 2016 awake..

Anders Andersen

@SBF,

They wouldn't (though you never know with JW).

Problem is, the Awake is making a case that Bible religion is better than other ancient religions, and to support that view they quote a source that more or less states that all ancient religions are the same.

Also, WTBS admitting that Bible religion is similar to Aristotle's evil satanic philosophy? *gasp*

GB (and most RF) will not survive that :-p

27

Constant out-of-context quoting; how do Writing dept. cope with that?

by Anders Andersen in

i am just wondering here: almost every single quote in jw literature for which a source can be found, is taken out of context..

personally, i have checked almost every quote in the 5-questions brochure, some on dating and the cross in reasoning book, and some in magazine articles i found interesting..

just checked the "they envisioned a universe subject to whims of gods" quote in the feb 2016 awake..

Anders Andersen

@Blondie,

Good job. Same here...I was flabbergasted when I really researched the 5-questions brochure and found misquote after misquote.

Going through all the sources mentioned in the brochure, there is no way a honest person still refuses to accept the evidence for evolution.

Whoever wrote that brochure is either really blind, or evil, or now disfellowshipped...

And still I'm surprised I find evolution a dirty word.

And still I'm disappointed when I find more misquotes.

27

Constant out-of-context quoting; how do Writing dept. cope with that?

by Anders Andersen in

i am just wondering here: almost every single quote in jw literature for which a source can be found, is taken out of context..

personally, i have checked almost every quote in the 5-questions brochure, some on dating and the cross in reasoning book, and some in magazine articles i found interesting..

just checked the "they envisioned a universe subject to whims of gods" quote in the feb 2016 awake..

Anders Andersen

@DarkKnight

You may not realise this, but accepting the fact of evolution is compatible with believing in a God or gods.

Official policy in Catholic church is that evolution is a scientific fact*, and the biblical creation story is to be understood as an explanation how humans are spiritually dependant of God.

Many people who understand and accept evolution (including scientists) believe is a God that kickstarted and/or guided evolution.

Accepting evolution is not compatible with a literal understanding of Genesis, as is the case with JW.

There is no way just 2 humans were created 4026BCE and everyone came from those two. There is way too much evidence directly contradicting that.

So the only people who can never accept evolution are the fundies with a literal explanation of Genesis, and a theology built on that explanation.

*) In fact, the earlier mentioned scientist Francis Collins is main science advisor for the Vatican