well, i told my wife over the weekend i was going to go back school to finish my degree.
she is 100% supportive of it!
apparently she doesn't think higher education is so evil either.. since my former major was computer programming and that was in the late 1990's, i was told i'd have to retake a bunch of classes since times have changed.
Cappytan,
I too have found biology fascinating, specifically evolutionary biology. My purpose in part for going back is for learning more about the intersection of computer science and biology (plus statistics and mathematics): Bioinformatics.
You might find you are able to learn about biology and use your programming skills. It seems about half of those entering Bioinformatics are biologists, and the other half computer scientists.
[quote]some might assume that a scientifically-minded person would pick evolution and that a religious person would pick creation.
but not always.. rama singh, professor of biology at canadas mcmaster university, says: the opposition to evolution goes beyond religious fundamentalism and includes a great many people from educated sections of the population.[/quote].
end-of-quote in awake.
I have a signed copy of Rama Singh's open letter if anyone needs to dispel doubts over the authenticity of this newsletter. It's just a print out of his receipt of the letter from the evoldir mailing list from which he originally submitted it to. He signed it for me. I didn't doubt he wrote the letter, but I suspect some JWs may question it. If anyone needs it just send me a message.
the following quote is taken from the article is it wrong to change your religion?
in the july 2009 awake p29:
no one should be forced to worship in a way that he finds unacceptable or be made to choose between his beliefs and his family.
Bumping for those new to this site.
Also, anyone have success with pointing this out to family members? Any accusations about quoting out of context (a valid concern since if out of context that poses a problem, something often complained about when it comes to the evolution vs. creation articles JWs publish). One might argue the context is written about the general public changing religions (among false religion to false religion, or false to true, but never true to false [or no religion]). Still, any such argument about out of context would only be an implied context, an unwritten meme amongst JWs. So saying it's out of context is a bit of a stretch. Also consider the article is written for the general public primarily and as such gives the impression JWs are open minded and reasonable (then bait and switch when one wants to leave...).
"there have been repeated scientific challenges to the.
theory of evolution in the past, and the nonbelievers of evo-.
lution cite them as support for their case.
Atheist_R_stupid,
I believe you are the one being intellectually dishonest, as you are doing the same out of context quoting that JWs do. Here is the whole section you quote from. Please notice that the "challenges" to "darwinian evolution" are not challenges to the theory of evolutoion as a whole but rather just certain aspects, or the challenges were dropped as the evidence mounted. The Awake editors time and time again confuse any disagreement in science about evolution to look challenging scientists think evolution never happened, which as Singh said in his letter isn't even a minority of scientists that would think this.
Challenges to Darwinian evolution
There have been repeated scientific challenges to the theory of evolution in the past, and the nonbelievers of evolution cite them as support for their case. However, the scientific challenges to the theory of evolution were technical and of a very different kind.
The modern theory of evolution has enjoyed success by bringing together Mendelian genetics and Darwinian evolution; although the theory has faced many challenges from different corners, it has survived them all. These challenges have been of two kinds: those of scientific nature that question the adequacy of natural selection as sufficient explanation of change and those of general nature that question the truth of evolution on religious or other grounds.
Among the serious scientific challenges to the theory of evolution, the foremost has come from developmental biologists. Many developmental biologists felt Darwin’s natural selection theory was inadequate to explain the diversity of developmental complexity observed among organisms. Yet 150 years after Darwin, although our notions about the fine details of mutation, gene regulation, and selection mechanisms may have changed, no new forces of evolution have been added to the important forces of evolution, i.e., mutation and selection. Many developmental biologists rightly see the complexity of development less of a problem to the theory of evolution and more of a challenge to their field to explain it by natural selection (Bonner 1988).
Other similar but more technical challenges have come in the form of non-Darwinian evolution from molecular biologists (King and Jukes 1969), neutral evolution from molecular population geneticists (Kimura 1968), and from punctuated evolution or “evolution by burst” (Eldredge and Gould 1972; Gould 1977). As these challenges have broadened our horizons and have enriched Darwinian evolution, especially in terms of the ever-unfolding dynamics of mutational and genomic variation (Lynch 2007), these were not challenges to the theory itself but only to the details of the evolutionary mechanics, i.e., about role of selection and rate of change.
so the new awake is up.. first question..... "how did life begin?.
how would you complete the following sentance?.
life is the result of..... a. evolution.
Another match for Gerard from his Undergrad alma mater:
Gerard D. Hertel ’65 writes that he is “teaching the Bible as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, getting to know my wife of 33 years, Bobbie, a little better, enjoying my four granddaughters, and teaching and doing research as an adjunct professor in the Department of Biology at West Chester [Pa.] University.” Retired after 35 years with the USDA Forest Service, Gerard works on African violet habitat descriptions and forest health monitoring.
neurophilosopher, thomas metzinger says in his book:.
the ego tunnel: thescience of the mind and the myth of the self.
the ego evolved as an instrument in social cognition, and one of its greatest functional advantages was that it allowed us to read the minds of other animals or conspecifics and then to deceive them.
The emptiness Metzinger is referring to is this as he goes on to say in the next paragraph:
Yes, the self-model made us intelligent, but it certainly is not an example of intelligent design. It is the seed of subjective suffering. If the process that created the biological Ego Machine had been initiated by a person, that person would have to be described as cruel, maybe even diabolic. We were never asked if we wanted to exist, and we will never be asked whether we want to die or whether we are ready to do so. In particular, we were never asked if we wanted to live with this combination of genes and this type of body. Finally, we were certainly never asked if we wanted to live with this kind of a brain including this specific type of conscious experience. It should be high time for rebellion. But everything we know points to a conclusion that is simple but hard to come to terms with: Evolution simply happened — foresightless, by chance, without goal. There is nobody to despise or rebel against — not even ourselves. And this is not some bizarre form of neurophilosophical nihilism but rather a point of intellectual honesty and great spiritual depth.
To a religious believer, especially a JW, the idea that we are here by chance, without goal, is empty. Of course meaning in life can come from within even if there is no inherent meaning in the universe.
[quote]some might assume that a scientifically-minded person would pick evolution and that a religious person would pick creation.
but not always.. rama singh, professor of biology at canadas mcmaster university, says: the opposition to evolution goes beyond religious fundamentalism and includes a great many people from educated sections of the population.[/quote].
end-of-quote in awake.
neurophilosopher, thomas metzinger says in his book:.
the ego tunnel: thescience of the mind and the myth of the self.
the ego evolved as an instrument in social cognition, and one of its greatest functional advantages was that it allowed us to read the minds of other animals or conspecifics and then to deceive them.
Neurophilosopher, Thomas Metzinger says in his Book:
THE EGO TUNNEL: THESCIENCE OF THE MIND AND THE MYTH OF THE SELF
The Ego evolved as an instrument in social cognition, and one of its greatest functional advantages was that it allowed us to read the minds of other animals or conspecifics — and then to deceive them. Or deceive ourselves. Since our inbuilt existential need for full emotional and physical security can never be fulfilled, we have a strong drive toward delusion and bizarre belief systems. Psychological evolution endowed us with the irresistible urge to satisfy our emotional need for stability and emotional meaningfulness by creating metaphysical worlds and invisible persons. Whereas spirituality might be defined as seeing what is — as letting go of the search for emotional security — religious faith can be seen as an attempt to cling to that search by redesigning the Ego Tunnel. Religious belief is an attempt to endow your life with deeper meaning and embed it in a positive metacontext — it is the deeply human attempt to finally feel at home. It is a strategy to outsmart the hedonic treadmill. On an individual level, it seems to be one of the most successful ways to achieve a stable state — as good as or better than any drug so far discovered. Now science seems to be taking all this away from us. The emerging emptiness may be one reason for the current rise of religious fundamentalism, even in secular societies.
This quote helped me realize why JWs reject evolution so strongly. The stronger the evidence for it, the deeper they reject it. If religious belief in general is this strong, JW beliefs are on steroids.
all i want is this: for us to be a family, to spend time together enjoying life.
i don't wish to debate about their beliefs when together.
they can remain jws for all i care.
Ask him what family business really means not the WT interpretation. Isn't Health, education, marriage, divorce, grandchildren, financial issues family business? At least in the real world.
The only problem with that is I recall one of the last circuit assemblies I went to a bethel speaker said (paraphrased to the best of my memory): "The governing body gave us some consideration with regards talking to disfellowshipped family members realizing that we might need to attend to necessary family business at times. Many brothers and sisters take advantage of this categorizing normal conversation as 'necessarily family business.' The slave provided this provision as a courtesy but it isn't anywhere in the bible. Ultimately it's your relationship that is at stake with Jehovah and you should think hard about any contact you have with DF'd family." In more or less words he said it could be the GB was overstepping in providing that. He was trying to inspire fear.
I don't know if they heard that talk or not, or if this admonition is endemic in the org. I don't know how open he'd be to redefining that definition. Worth a try perhaps.
all i want is this: for us to be a family, to spend time together enjoying life.
i don't wish to debate about their beliefs when together.
they can remain jws for all i care.
