Posts by Anders Andersen

9

When you were really "in", did you have a pet idea that would steer wt into divine favor?

by prologos in

wt writers ( klein) admitted at one time, that his majesty's doctrinal ship was zigzagging to find the right course, and many of us believed, that if we accepted the bible as true, cleaning up the teachings would establish the right bearing.

so: did you have a hobby-horse idea you were riding?

writing to brooklyn perhaps?

Anders Andersen

With regards for my lost child: I know about the mechanics. I now also know that up to 50% of all fertilized eggs are miscarried, most of them without the woman even knowing they were (about to be) pregnant. 'Fortunately' for us our miscarriage was very early in the pregnancy, however as it was our first we were very happy and in anticipation of the joy ahead. Regardless we would welcome a 're-implant' or ressurection or whatever. Again: as many opinions as people believing that 'extended talking snake tale' (lol @ that)

@elbib,
What they said about the blind man refusing operation can be understood as:

We (the JW leaders) are medical staff and know best. Your are (spiritually) blind. Obey us. Trust us. Don't ask questions. You have nothing to lose, because if we're wrong everyone is wrong, and you're blind anyway.

It's a false dichotomy, and I think it's more haughty and condescending than profound ;-)

5

Top Five Misconceptions about Evolution

by cofty in

very handy little article that might clear up some muddle...

Anders Andersen

I understand and accept all the facts that prove the evolution worthy of being called a scientific theory.
But I find the infogram somewhat confusing. If I weren't on board yet, it wouldn't help me at all I think.

Sorry :-p

9

When you were really "in", did you have a pet idea that would steer wt into divine favor?

by prologos in

wt writers ( klein) admitted at one time, that his majesty's doctrinal ship was zigzagging to find the right course, and many of us believed, that if we accepted the bible as true, cleaning up the teachings would establish the right bearing.

so: did you have a hobby-horse idea you were riding?

writing to brooklyn perhaps?

Anders Andersen

At two separete occasions single (divorced) sisters (one older, one younger) engaged me in a conversation about how they feared to end up all alone in Paradise.

Both were told by some nutcase JWs that 'in paradise nobody gets married anymore. So if you're single at Armageddon, you're single forever.' Thanks for making them feel better, @55hole!

Anyway, I told both of them that WT reasoning on this topic didn't make sense, and Jesus clearly referred to those with a heavenly calling only when he said they wouldn't get married but 'be like angels'.

Not long after we got some 'new light' saying we shouldn't be dogmatic on this point. Probably GB were getting tired of all the single sister writing letters to inquire about their paradise prospects to get lai....eh married.

Another topic was: will we see children that never made it because of a miscarriage in ressurection? WT said no, I said yes, no reason to think otherwise. WT also changed their position on that.

But so did I. That's the one thing I don't like about having discovered that the whole God/Bible thing doesn't make sense: I won't live forever with my wife and daughter. I will never get to see and hold my first child who unfotunately was never born. I won't see my father again.

But then again: if something "appears too good to betrue, it usually is. Don’t be quick to believe advertising claims and testimonials, thinking, “This is different.”"

150

Evolution: The Deal Breaker

by Hadriel in

first off i do believe there are some evidences of evolution or i should probably say adaptation.

i do believe this exists in various forms.. however the deal breaker for me with evolution is the chick or egg problem.

there are tons of theories that get passed around as proof of evolution however these are usually examples much further down the evolutionary chain.. what i mean is let's start at the beginning!

Anders Andersen

Hadriel,

I know you're sincere in wanting to know. We are sincere in trying to explain.

It's possible initial life was Created and it still evolved by undesigned biological evolution. However such a supernatural Designer isn't a solution to any of the questions you've asked at all.

And I still fail to see how our lack of understanding of how life began influences or even invalidates our knowledge of how existing life evolved.

And what if we apply your line of reasoning wrt biological evolution to the other side of the story as well:

We don't know where a Creator/Designer/First Cause came from, nor have we any evidence of its existence. Without Creator nothing can ever be created. Hence I can't accept the creation story.

This together with your reasoning means that lacking any good explanation of how it all started, we neither evolved nor were we created, ergo we can't exist. Yet we do exist, even without a clear explanation how life began.

I'd love to have a conversation about the science behind what or how evolution began

Then let's discuss abiogenesis and chemical evolution, without needlessly conflating the discussion with biological evolution or supposed supernatural entities ;-)

BTW 'life' is an artificial, invented label. Where do we put it? At what specific point lies the boundary between 'just' a chemical process, and at what stage can we call this process 'alive'?

Jehalapeno, I'd upvote your comment much more if I could...

150

Evolution: The Deal Breaker

by Hadriel in

first off i do believe there are some evidences of evolution or i should probably say adaptation.

i do believe this exists in various forms.. however the deal breaker for me with evolution is the chick or egg problem.

there are tons of theories that get passed around as proof of evolution however these are usually examples much further down the evolutionary chain.. what i mean is let's start at the beginning!

Anders Andersen

@Esse Quam,

Your 'I am waiting for cofty to explain' emotions and mental features seems like a veiled statement instead of a sincere question.

Your question seems to indicate that you think those questions can't be answered by biological evolution.

If so, do you have an idea of how emotions and such came into existence? Please share with me because I am eager to learn from anyone.

Mind you, invoking a supernatural Cause that bestowed these features upon humans doesn't answer any of your questions. It just makes a rephrase necessary: how did Supernatural Cause receive/develop/have these features?

150

Evolution: The Deal Breaker

by Hadriel in

first off i do believe there are some evidences of evolution or i should probably say adaptation.

i do believe this exists in various forms.. however the deal breaker for me with evolution is the chick or egg problem.

there are tons of theories that get passed around as proof of evolution however these are usually examples much further down the evolutionary chain.. what i mean is let's start at the beginning!

Anders Andersen

@Hadriel:

That's what evolutionists want. Common ancestry and genetic code means only one catalyst or origin. That is unwise.
Are you guys telling me that you know unequivocally that the common genetic code we see that it could have only started one possible way, that being happenstance?

Either someone forgot tot tell you, or you missed it: LUCA means Last Universal Common Ancestor.

Please note the Last, as opposed to First. LUCA was not the first life form. Nor was it all alone in itself time. Most likely it was a member a very interesting and crowded community of different primitive microbial life forms. It's also likely that at that time horizontal gene transfer took place (e.g. between different life forms, in addition to vertical gene transfer from generation to next generation), so different life forms influenced each other.

Formal testing has pointed to a single organism being the LUCA to all organisms currently alive (that we know about). This is much more likely than current life having multiple, non-related ancestors.

What does all of this mean for you?

No happenstance. Life probably started in different places, in different ways, with different life forms as a result.
Somewhere down the line all lifeforms died, except descendants of a specific lifeform we now call LUCA.
'Evolutionists' (is that similar to Gravitationists?) don't point to LUCA as a result of a single catalyst. LUCA points to a bottleneck sometime long ago.

Think of it this way: according to the Bible myth, Noah is mankind's Last Common Paternal Ancestor. That does not mean he was either the first man, or the only man in his time.

I hope this clears thing up a bit for you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_universal_ancestor?wprov=sfla1

22

When a crime is commited?

by Drifting Away in

jw
friends

i responded to someone on another thread, but would love to know this answer.. if a victim adult or child goes to elders and claims they were abused, don't they have to have clergy confidentiality?

so i was told that they encourage the victim to contact authorities , and they contact bethel, but arent there hands tied if the victim does not want to go to authorities?

an elder made the comment to me once.

Anders Andersen

As for the confessional confidentiality privilege:

Criminals confess child abuse and should be reported.
Victims don't confess child abuse, they report a crime.
A judicial committee is not setup for confession, but for investigation and judging.
In many cases the elders initiate an investigation of some kind, and whomever they speak to didn't come to freely confess their sins
Most important: even when a criminal freely confesses to a single elder, his JW confession will not be kept confidential. Confidential means 'between you and me only'. Every JW knows that a confession with 1 elder is shared with a 2nd one. Then 3 others are involved for the judicial committee. Then they call Bethel with specifics about your case. The CO may be involved, and 3 or 4 more elders in a appeal committee. And finally all notes are archived and a form about the offender is sent tot Bethel and archived there as well. In JW land no confessional confidentiality exists at all. But JW leadership claim it exists when they failed to comply with mandatory reporting laws.

I have always sort of thought the whole confessional secrets stuff to be strange for any churches. For lawyers I get it: you have to be able to prepare a defense properly. For medics, well at least they bring some real benefits to the table (as in people's health is improved).

For clergy... What do they offer? They make you feel better about yourself, help you handle your guilty conscience after a crime by offering an ear to confess to. Well guess what, you could always confess to the police to actually do something useful with your guilty conscience.

(End of rant)

Of course things are not so black and white...

21

Interesting statement regarding "this generation"

by InChristAlone in

jw
friends

i keep up with allexperts.com, and i noticed an interesting question to "brother rando".

his statement surprised me, and i am wondering if i missed some new light along the way.. question:.

"hello bro rando.

Anders Andersen

@wizzstick,

Nice one.

Probably some day in future, they will start this line of reasoning:

We know that the 'days' in Genesis creation account - although each clearly divided by a single night from the previous day - lasted many thousands of years each. Likewise the 'last days' can last many thousands of years each.
In the past some have jumped to the conclusion that Armageddon would come during their generation. However, when Jesus spoke about this generation he clearly referred to the generation that would be alive when Armageddon starts.
Don't blame Jehovah for tricking you again. Just be patient, happy with the increased understanding He gives us. Oh and fork over your money.

150

Evolution: The Deal Breaker

by Hadriel in

first off i do believe there are some evidences of evolution or i should probably say adaptation.

i do believe this exists in various forms.. however the deal breaker for me with evolution is the chick or egg problem.

there are tons of theories that get passed around as proof of evolution however these are usually examples much further down the evolutionary chain.. what i mean is let's start at the beginning!

Anders Andersen

Just my two cents without having read all posts in detail:

1) As others commented, the chicken-egg 'problem' isn't solved by pushing the origin of life back in time by assuming design/creator, whether that be a divine entity, or just extraterrestrial life forms (even in it's simplest form). Somehow life started when no life existed before, or life always existed (although that seems implausible to me).

2) The fact that we currently don't have a full understanding of how life began, doesn't invalidate what we do know further down the chain.

When we find a dead John Doe with bullet wounds, and a gun which ballistics characterics match it to to bullets in the victim, we're quite sure what killed the guy. Even when we don't know who pulled the trigger, or why the victim is in a closed vault.

Still, I'm very interested in abiogenesis. And I love the research that Craig Venter does re artificial DNA.

52

Any thought behind your " Avatar"

by The Rebel in

jw
friends

i think that's the correct phrase?

anyway when i first came here, that little picture that "the rebel" hides behind, was a self portrait of a very sad man, who simply had too much knowledge.

now i feel after 7 months here, i should repaint that " avetor" give some happiness to the eyes, and a contented smile to the lips.. in short my " avetor" was a self portrait of a man with too much knowledge.

Anders Andersen

Mine is an atheist logo, that incorporates the science 'logo'.

As a coincidence the A from Atheism could also be interpreted as A for my first name.

I love science. Always did. Very curious too. It was this curiosity that killed the cat :-p

Since I'm out there are no mental blocks that keep me from researching the more interesting topics in science :-D