Saename

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Posts by Saename

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  51

  Orangeburg Assembly Hall - designed to be sold as a future supermarket?

  by cedars in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i've just been watching a youtube video that reveals the new assembly hall in orangeburg, sc.. two things struck me when watching it.... firstly, everything is attributed to jehovah, right down to deciding the location where the hall is to be built.

  "we examined over 300 properties," said one interviewee, "we were reminded that jehovah knew where the site was, we just had to keep looking and show him that we were persistent.

  " other workers interviewed throughout the video attribute everything to god, as though it is impossible to build anything without divine direction.. here is the video.... .

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  Saename

  I haven't watched the videos, but is there actual evidence in them pointing towards this building being purposely designed like a supermarket?
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  85

  Are you a Christian Who Accepts Evolution?

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  if you identify as a christian but you have accepted that the diversity of life - including humans - resulted from a process of biological evolution could you add your name please?.

  just to be clear i am referring to the fact that our physical lineage could literally be traced back all the way to non-human species.. if you like maybe you could comment on why you see not conflict between evolution and your christian faith.. there is a tendency to conflate evolution with atheism.

  it would be good to show that this is not the case..

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  Saename

  truthseeker - I believe man was already on this planet but as a Neanderthal

  I don't have time nor any particular interest to clear out other misunderstandings you have about evolution (because there's just sooo much to talk about...), but I still wanted to clarify this one issue.

  Neanderthals are not our ancestors.

  Repeat: Neanderthals are not our ancestors.

  They're our cousins. We evolved from Homo heidelbergensis, and Homo neanderthalensis evolved from Homo heidelbergensis as well, which makes us cousins.
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  85

  Are you a Christian Who Accepts Evolution?

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  if you identify as a christian but you have accepted that the diversity of life - including humans - resulted from a process of biological evolution could you add your name please?.

  just to be clear i am referring to the fact that our physical lineage could literally be traced back all the way to non-human species.. if you like maybe you could comment on why you see not conflict between evolution and your christian faith.. there is a tendency to conflate evolution with atheism.

  it would be good to show that this is not the case..

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  Saename

  cofty - Ex-JWs have difficulty grasping how evolution and faith can be resolved because they have a peculiar view of the ransom that depends on a literal Adam. This is not an issue for most christians who believe Jesus' death was a vicarious punishment for their own sins not those of Adam.
  

  Yeah, that's a misunderstanding I had until last week. It was quite an interesting revelation because I was utterly convinced that the original sin was a central doctrine in most forms of Christianity.
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  33

  Study with an Elder - propose a question.

  by CitizenofEarth in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  hello there.. as some of you might remember i am keeping my facade up by "studying" with an elder.

  this study however is more of a session where i put hard questions about the org, doctrine and so on, on the table.

  the time has come for the next session in a couple of days, and i have quite frankly lost the will to keep digging up things that just shouldn't be happening.

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  Saename

  QUESTION #1 - Why does our chromosome 2 seem like a result of end-to-end fusion of two ancestral chromosomes found in the chimpanzees?

  "I am not convinced that evolution is true, but recently I've been talking to a friend who knows a lot about it, and he asked me a question that I find difficult to answer. If evolution is false, how do we explain chromosome 2 in the human genome which quite evidently seems to be a result of end-to-end fusion of two ancestral chromosomes. Here are the facts I can't explain:

  1) Our chromosome 2 has almost identical DNA sequence to two separate chromosomes found in the chimpanzees, which indicates the aforementioned fusion.

  2) Normally a chromosome has one centromere, but our chromosome 2 has one additional vestigial centromere, which, again, indicates that our chromosome 2 was a fusion of 2 other ancestral chromosomes.

  3) Normally a chromosome has telomeres at each end, but our chromosome 2, in addition to that, has extra telomere sequences that are located far from the ends of the chromosome, and that also indicates a fusion.

  How does the creationist model explain those three observed facts?"

  QUESTION #2 - Why does Deut. 22.28–29 force rape victims to marry their rapists?

  "I understand that Christians are not under the law of the Old Testament. Hence, I would never uphold that rule. But what I find really uncomfortable is, not the fact whether we have to follow it since quite clearly I would never do so, but the fact that this law is in the Bible. I wholeheartedly believe that the Bible was inspired by God because this is the only way to explain how unique it is. However, if God inspired the Bible, including the Old Testament, why does this law force rape victims to marry their rapists? Why did God inspire Moses to write this down?"

  The usual apologetics is that the law says "if they are discovered," which supposedly indicates that the woman and the man were both giving consent to sex. Question his logic. Say that, to you, it seems as if it were merely indicating that the rapist was found raping the victim, and that's all. Ask him why he thinks it indicates consent. (This is something I really cannot understand. How the hell do you conclude that the woman was consenting based on such an ambiguous phrase?) Another fact is that it is not even certain whether the original Hebrew said "they." In the LXX, the phrase is translated as, "and he is discovered." (Focus also on the fact that Jehovah's Witnesses often make appeals to the LXX because they believe it's accurate [whenever it suits them]. Why ignore the LXX here but not in other parts?) Additionally, the passage uses the Hebrew word taphas when it says "seize." The word taphas meant literally to seize someone by force. The passage is not talking about seduction because in Hebrew, there was a different word for "seduce," and it was pathah. (This is why this law is not a repetition of Exod. 22.16–17. The claim that Deut. 22.28–29 is a repetition (or that sex was consensual) was debunked by Professor Bernard Jackson, who has actual expertise in the Jewish law.)

  QUESTION #3 - Why does Exod. 21 support slavery?

  Before you ask the question, get familiar with Matt Dillahunty's videos on slavery in the Bible. He explains the issue quite well, far better than I ever could. Also, learn about the usual apologetics, such as the letter to Philemon, and why it does not mean that the Bible condemns slavery. Most importantly, keep in mind that something to ask is this: "I understand that the letter to Philemon quite clearly condemns slavery, but I have a different issue. When we look through Exod. 21, it's also evident that this chapter supports slavery. If God inspired the Bible, why didn't he make his opinion on slavery very clear? Because it's not clear at all. In Exod. 21, it is extremely obvious that God supports it, while in the letter to Philemon, his opinion is quite different." (And, again, see how Matt Dillahunty debunks the apologetics Christians use to explain away Exod. 21.)
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  405

  Origin of Life

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  in recent years significant progress has been made in solving the question of how life originated on our planet.. how do you think theists will respond when it finally happens?

  as a former christian i know my reaction would have been something like "well that just goes to show that it takes intelligent life to make life", but for two reasons that defense doesn't work.. firstly it would prove that life is not an ethereal force that originates with god.

  there is no 'ghost in the machine', no elan vital.

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  Saename

  John_Mann - The other problem is life is only found on Earth and we can see a huge share of the universe and nothing... This fact threatens panspermia.
  

  I don't think it's in any way a problem. The fact is that even on earth there are plenty of different life forms. Some of them are impossible to detect without a good microscope. Imagine how difficult it would be to discover a microbacterium on a planet that is light years away.

  So why isn't it a problem? Because the only thing it proves is that... we don't know. The fact that we don't know is not a problem. Theists make it a problem for themselves. To those who are driven by science, it's only a problem in the sense that it's a mystery—and we want to solve mysteries. Other than that, it's not a problem at all.

  When it comes to panspermia, as far as I know, it's mostly an abandoned hypothesis anyway.
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  191

  Evolution is a Fact - Index of Parts 1 - 40

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  #1 protein functional redundancy comparing the sequences of amino acids in ubiquitous proteins confirms the relationship between all living things..

  #2 dna functional redundancy comparison of the dna that codes for the amino acids of ubiquitous proteins predicts the tree of life with an astonishing degree of accuracy..

  #3 ervs endogenous retroviruses that infected our ancestors are found in the same place of the genome of our closest primate cousins..

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  Saename

  Perry, you just convinced me that God exists. Good job.

  You see, cofty, let me explain how this goes so that your little brain can understand...

  Once, there was nothing. Nothing happened to nothing, and an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God appeared. Oh, wait, that's wrong...

  Once, there was nothing, except an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God that had no beginning. It has always existed. This God did magic to the nothing, and out of nothing, everything appeared. There was a singularity, which he created through magic out of nothing, then there was a Big Bang, and boom! The universe appeared. After 9.2 billion years, God created the sun (because he was too lazy to do it before... Oh, wait... That's also wrong...

  At the same time as God created the universe, he also created the sun with all its planets (and all other stars, of course.) That was 6 thousands years ago. Before he created humans, he created plaaaants. But some plants he created older than others—for example, God actually created Old Tijikko 10,000 years ago before the universe. Hell... I got that wrong, too...

  After God created plants, he made animals (all sorts of them), and of course humans. But Satan hated little humans, so he convinced Eve to eat a fruit (BUT IT WAS GOD'S FRUIT!!!!), and she then made Adam do the same. They sinned, and so God, because the fruit was supposed to be his for lunch (he had a date with his wife Asherah—shit, she was a false god, I forgot...), made them imperfect, causing them to die. Now, Satan did a little magic, too (because he's a wizard like GOOOD), and he caused some trees to be 10,000 years old. He also screwed with the age of the earth—you know, just to make humans think that everything is soooo ooooold (you know, because they're styuuuupid.) He, then, did nothing to some nothing, and fossils appeared under ground, which little humans found later on. He also did nothing to some DNA, and to some geological distribution of species, and to some morphological features, and he also did nothing to certain organs to make them more poor designed (such as the human eye—I mean, he had to create this forest of nerves in front of the retina just to make humans think God screwed up the design.)

  Then, God created a nation for himself—ISRAAAEEEEL. But they sinned. But he forgave them. But they sinned. And eventually he got his son JEEESUUUUS on earth to be born to a virgin MAAARYYYY. He told him, "Son, you gonna die for little humans or i kill ya." Jesus had nothing to say, so he said, "Yes, father! I gonna be tortured for yar creation because ya can't just forgive 'em." But God got mad and responded, "Yes, I can!!! It's just that I created this justice system, and I have to obey it, too. According to this justice system that I created out of nothing... LIFE FOR LIFE, son. So ya gonna die." (Satan did nothing to the nothing in front of God, and then he appeared in this nothing, and then there was no longer nothing, but there was Satan. It was magic. He learned that from Son Goku.) And Satan said, "Oh, Jeeesuuuus... But this system is screwed up! How can you force rape victims to marry their rapists, and if they don't, they are to be killed for no longer being virgins??"

  So long story short (I hope), Jesus's spirit DNA got on a bus to earth was transported to virgin Mary's vajayjay, and he was born. Then he grew. Then he had debates with wicked Jews. Then he got on the bad side of the Roman empire. Then he was crucified. And then God did nothing to nothing, and Jesus appeared again out of nothing. And now there were Christians.

  Jesus then appeared in Constantine's dream, and Constantine became Christian (without baptism, of course—he was baptized before his death.) And after Constantine, Theodosius I made Christianity the state religion of the empire in 381. Then Christians fought. And fought. And killed. In God's name. And this is how we get to the 21st century.

  Now Satan did nothing to some humans, and he made them mentally insane, and these little humans became AAAATHEEEIIISTSSSS. Atheists started debating the stupidity of free will, but Christians said, "Er... nope. Yar styupid." You see, these wicked atheists who gonna die in armagggedzon yar gonna burn in hyell. And they said, "Man, that free will is stupid. Humans don't need the ability to rape, do they? I'm pretty sure God could've created us with limited will, that is without the ability to do some bad actions, such as rape. I mean... can anyone really and honestly say that if we were created without the free will to rape, we would have lost something valuable?"

  But Christians said, "Shyut up!!! Free will imporrrrrrtant." Now we wait for armagggedzon, cofty, so be a good little human, and delete all these wicked threads about evolution. It's Satan's trick.

  Shit... After telling this story, I became an atheist again. I realized it's just way too unrealistic.
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  191

  Evolution is a Fact - Index of Parts 1 - 40

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  #1 protein functional redundancy comparing the sequences of amino acids in ubiquitous proteins confirms the relationship between all living things..

  #2 dna functional redundancy comparison of the dna that codes for the amino acids of ubiquitous proteins predicts the tree of life with an astonishing degree of accuracy..

  #3 ervs endogenous retroviruses that infected our ancestors are found in the same place of the genome of our closest primate cousins..

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  Saename

  There are two interesting things I noticed, Perry.

  Firstly, you criticize cofty for ignoring your criticism. But the fact is that you ignored my criticism. I showed you why your argumentation is logically fallacious.

  Secondly, you say that cofty doesn't have science education to talk about evolution. What education do you have that would make you a qualified god detector? Because, I presume, you believe in intelligent design?
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  33

  My parents found out

  by BlackWolf in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  so in my last post i talked about how i had told my younger siblings how i didn't plan to get baptized or ever be a witness.

  i thought i could trust them but i guess i was wrong, they're just kids after all.

  my oldest brother (who's 11) told on me today.

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  Saename

  Associates degree online? Does this actually mean anything in the real world...?
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  191

  Evolution is a Fact - Index of Parts 1 - 40

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  #1 protein functional redundancy comparing the sequences of amino acids in ubiquitous proteins confirms the relationship between all living things..

  #2 dna functional redundancy comparison of the dna that codes for the amino acids of ubiquitous proteins predicts the tree of life with an astonishing degree of accuracy..

  #3 ervs endogenous retroviruses that infected our ancestors are found in the same place of the genome of our closest primate cousins..

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  Saename

  Thanks, cofty.

  By the way, I asked you a question in your other thread about the evolution of the eye. I would greatly appreciate it if you could, in your free time, take a look at it. Here's the link to the thread: https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5429397198733312/evolution-fact-40-what-use-half-eye (sorry about the series of 3 posts!!!)
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  191

  Evolution is a Fact - Index of Parts 1 - 40

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  #1 protein functional redundancy comparing the sequences of amino acids in ubiquitous proteins confirms the relationship between all living things..

  #2 dna functional redundancy comparison of the dna that codes for the amino acids of ubiquitous proteins predicts the tree of life with an astonishing degree of accuracy..

  #3 ervs endogenous retroviruses that infected our ancestors are found in the same place of the genome of our closest primate cousins..

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  Saename

  Another thing I forgot to mention is that even if cofty were to demonstrate that p is true, you, Perry, would then most likely commit the fallacy of moving the goalposts. You would just move on to another argument from personal incredulity. This is what evolution-deniers have been doing for a century and a half.