i have heard rumors and anecdotes of j.f.
rutherford calling women "a hank of hair and a stack of bones" but i never thought it was documented.
well thanks to jwfacts i finally found the quote in print.. this j.f.
His attitude towards women was an overreaction to a time when women were customarily given an excessive amount of deference and respect by men. I'm sure if he had been born in OUR era he would have had a totally different policy towards the opposite sex and most likely towards jews as well.
That said, I in no way condone his attitude or the present status of women in our society. The whole idea of sexual equality is naive and misguided, but Rutherford was as misguided as they come.
1.there are times when a doctor decides that the only life saving medical treatment -short of a miracle- is a blood transfusion.
in such a case, what should be done when a person refuses treatment on religious grounds and why?.
2. should a person be allowed to "mutilate" his body and why?.
Yes, it would allow JWs to live while keeping them off the hook so they couldn't be disfellowshipped for wanting to see their children graduate from High School. Best of all, the GB could stop the hair-splitting bullshit about which blood components Jehovah approves of. Everyone wins.
there was a celtic fair every st. patty's day where i grew up and my mom would take me there on the flimsy premise that since it was a celtic fair (not an irish fair) and i was half-scot, it wouldn't be celebrating a holiday.. the first time we went i was 10 and i remember there were all these pretty teenaged girls there dressed in white, dancing around a very firm, very thick may pole.
so far so good... next i noticed that most of the merchants were women in long-flowing robes who wore pentagrams and celtic knots.
okay, should be creeped out at this point, but they seem like nice girls with normal sized noses and no warts.
There was a Celtic Fair every St. Patty's day where I grew up and my mom would take me there on the flimsy premise that since it was a CELTIC fair (not an Irish Fair) and I was half-Scot, it wouldn't be celebrating a holiday.
The first time we went I was 10 and I remember there were all these pretty teenaged girls there dressed in white, dancing around a very firm, very thick may pole. So far so good... Next I noticed that most of the merchants were women in long-flowing robes who wore pentagrams and Celtic knots. Okay, should be creeped out at this point, but they seem like nice girls with normal sized noses and no warts. I eventually buy a book of Irish fairy tales and my mom a Loreena McKennit tape and we play it on the way home.
Astonishingly, my mom did not notice the may pole, the witchy outfits the merchants were wearing, or the blatantly pagan themes Loreena is singing about as we drive home. But I notice and I'm enchanted. For three beautiful years I have a secret love affair with Celtic neo-paganism and, while I never formally converted to the old religion, it did open my mind to a world beyond the Watchtower.
a rather bizzare situation, this morning.
i was taking my daughter to the park, as i walk past a row of shops a car horn beeps and shouts me.
i turn round and see a car in a disabled parking space with a guy who used to go to my hall smiling and waving to me.
I once met a man on the bus who was DFed, but had nothing but good to say about the Watchtower. If I brought up anything negative, he would tell my friend (who was with me), that I was a liar and the JWs were the best people on earth and the only true religion. It was a unique and baffling experience. He never mentioned why he was DFed, but I'll assume it wasn't for apostasy.
i noticed a recent commenter mention an assembly that had only one baptism, a born in.
the last assembly i went to had three baptisms, of which two were born ins.
could part of the motivation for youth baptism be to avoid the embarrassment of an assembly with no baptisms at all?
Born-in baptisms were very common in the assemblies (or is that conventions? My memory is hazy over which is which) I attended in the nineties, though there were plenty of adult converts as well. Most born-ins seem to get baptized in their early to mid teens - just at the time when you would expect them to begin thinking for themselves about theological and philosophical subjects.
mathematically measuring evolution.. when judging relationships in terms of morphological characteristics we will always be bound by the subjective.
morphologically one cannot exactly measure the distance between two organisms strictly in mathematical terms.
using the standard method of taxonomy we cannot quantify the difference between a horse and a mouse, or know which is closer mouse to cat, or mouse to fish.
cytochrome c is a means of measuring the differences across the evolutionary tree. Any other means of measuring the difference is more subjective than anything.
Why? By your own admission, cytochrome c does not support the theory of evolution any more than the Bible. Why are other genes and fossils of no importance in testing the theory of evolution while cytochrome c is the deal breaker? Is it because it's the only criteria that slightly favors the creationists?
if cytochrome c did not mutate then there should be no difference. If mutate slowly over time we should see the pattern, but we don’t.
Cytochrome c is a protein with a finite number of nucleotide sequences available to it if it is to remain functioning. The evidence you cited in your original OP only proves that it was able to recombine in similar sequences even in creatures which are evolutionary very distant from each other. Wow, what are the odds huh? Eyes are much more complicated structures than single proteins and yet they appear independently in creatures as distinct as vertebrates and invertebrates.
As to arguing and troll I notice something rather funny. You and several others here call me a troll who likes to argue.
It wasn't meant as an insult. I'm actually giving you the benefit of a doubt; that you aren't actually serious and are just messing with people because you are bored or wish to sharpen your rhetorical skills.
mathematically measuring evolution.. when judging relationships in terms of morphological characteristics we will always be bound by the subjective.
morphologically one cannot exactly measure the distance between two organisms strictly in mathematical terms.
using the standard method of taxonomy we cannot quantify the difference between a horse and a mouse, or know which is closer mouse to cat, or mouse to fish.
How about addressing the main topic, the OP.
I thought I did, but okay. In your OP you claim that there is no correlation between differences in cytochrome c amino configurations and the evolutionary tree and then, ignoring all the other genetic and fossil evidence, you conclude that this disproves evolution. You really don't see the fallacy here?
That's kind of like the Holocaust revisionist who cites a few examples of jews who lied about their experiences during the Nazi regime while ignoring the massive amount of physical evidence and the testimony thousands of nonjews concerning the historicity of the death camps.
Just because there is no correlation between speciation and cytochrome c mutation, it does not follow that evolution is false. Some genes mutate while others stay the same over eons of time. Genes are distinct. It's not an all or nothing deal. Why is that so difficult for you to understand? Maybe because you're just a troll who likes to argue? If so, I can respect that; but at least put some work into it.
i'm hoping someone here can help, advise or councel me regarding my dilemma because i'm desperate and dying inside.
here is my story: i'm an out, non-witness lesbian in love with an active jw lesbian.
she's very much in love with me as well but her guilt as a result of her religion is emotionally devistating her.
If she chooses me, she is disowned. If she chooses her religion, she says she can't be an active JW and remain with me because the guilt is unbearable for her
You might wish to remind her that love thrives on obstacles like fire on kindling and that only forbidden fruit is sweet. If she would only renounce this false dichotomy of either being true to herself or her religion, the guilt that is crucifying her today would soon transform into an ecstasy that thrills at donning a mask in public that she despises and dishonors in private.
If I were you, I'd feign an interest in becoming a JW yourself and request a Bible study from her. This would give her tormented conscience an excuse to be around you and it would give you the time you need to complete your seduction.
mathematically measuring evolution.. when judging relationships in terms of morphological characteristics we will always be bound by the subjective.
morphologically one cannot exactly measure the distance between two organisms strictly in mathematical terms.
using the standard method of taxonomy we cannot quantify the difference between a horse and a mouse, or know which is closer mouse to cat, or mouse to fish.
If evolution is true then the existence of cytochrome C in ‘higher forms’ is the result from evolving from a common ancestor. We would expect to see a logical progression in distance, measurable in percentage of difference as we move up the hierarchy of evolution. As we progress along the presumed evolutionary path from single cell organisms, to multi cell, fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals to humans we should see the changes in cytochrome C accumulate.
So you think you have demolished the entire theory of evolution over a single protein? Your flaccid argument is typical of creationists: obsess over a single anomaly while totally ignoring the weight of fossil and genetic evidence.
If you really wanted to keep God in the picture then, instead of attacking a theory as well supported as evolution, you should target Materialism's weakest conjecture: that nonliving molecules can somehow spontaneously organize themselves into self-replicating nucleotides
i'll be starting a series "answer this:" with thought-provoking questions for debate.
your arguments for and against are most welcome.. i'll start with this: .
why would an omnibenevolent and omniscient god put us through tests of faith?.
if god is able to foretell the outcome, and can do no evil (notice that not stopping evil when you have the power to do so is in itself evil) then why god put humans through tests of faith - many of them consisting of unimaginable suffering?
I asked this very question as a young boy. The answer was both simple and frustrating: Jehovah has the choice to NOT consult his omniscience. He is not consciously aware of everything that has happened, is happening and ever will happen (that would be a total cognitive overload even for him); instead, Jehovah has the equivalent of a magic 8-ball in his brain which he can choose to consult at his leisure. Why doesn't he consult it all the time? For the same reason you don't begin a novel by reading the last paragraph.
