Posts by A Ha

52

how can navigate if our desire is for absolute truth...

by Ruby456 in

jw
friends

or do we give in to social constructivism?

to relativity?

or is there a way to be real and then to say whats real that everyone agrees to?.

A Ha

Ruby-- not just religious groups - any boundary making exercise has the potential towards absolutism imo

Yes, I agree.

Dawkins is a biologist committed to studying how life originates from simple cells while in chemistry cells are an emergent property of modularity. so I guess in a sense chemistry questions some of the assumptions that biologists make because saying that cells are an emergent property questions the absoluteness of the boundaries that biologists adopt

But here I don't. For one thing, cells are things, they not properties. I have never read any biologist--or anybody--say cells (things) are emergent properties of modularity (a property of a larger system).

And biologists are scientists who acknowledge there are no absolutes. Even if cells are emergent (if they are, they're emergent of something more basic, like atoms), this is not even a tiny problem for biologists, who have absolutely no problem with the concept of emergence.

8

Looking at this video with Dr. Angel Fierro and I'm cringing.

by Island Man in

i'm cringing because the video is very empty in the way of presenting any credible evidence or logical reasoning for rejecting evolution in preference for creationism.

but it's not the only reason.the video wreaks of propagandistic manipulation.

first, angel gives very stereotypic reasons for why he accepted evolution in the past.

A Ha

Gotta love the "I didn't want to believe in God so I could do whatever I wanted," line. You never hear that from actual atheists, but apparently every "ex-atheist" in the world had that as their main motivation.

52

how can navigate if our desire is for absolute truth...

by Ruby456 in

jw
friends

or do we give in to social constructivism?

to relativity?

or is there a way to be real and then to say whats real that everyone agrees to?.

A Ha

Hiemere, I appreciate your overall theme--that believing we've found absolute truth, or that it's even possible to find it--likely isn't possible, but I do have a couple points of contention.

Why do Witnesses and some ex-Witnesses have this obsession with finding "the truth"? Nobody else has it.

I think there are many groups that have this obsession with finding absolute truth and think they've found it. You're describing pretty much every fundamentalist group in history. Groups like Westboro are outliers in how vocal and shamelessly offensive they are in proclaiming "the truth," not in thinking they've found it.

And to speak up for team atheist a bit... I know you weren't saying this, but I want to clarify that, while atheists can be vocal and strident, they don't claim to have found any absolute truth. In fact, I don't see any other group who are nearly as vocal in saying that knowledge is provisional.

I mean, if you were one who thought the religion of JWs was the truth, you don't have the best track record proving you can find and tell if you have "the truth" or not. "I was in a cult for several years and believed it was the truth, but now that I'm out, I'm a good judge of knowing what is true and not." I'm sorry, but how did you suddenly gain the capacity to judge such things objectively when you once failed at it so miserably?

This seems a pretty unfair ad hominem. Many (most) JWs were raised in their religion, and were never taught to think logically--in fact, were taught the opposite. This kind of mis-education from infancy can be extremely difficult to overcome. I think a case could be made that those who were able to overcome their brainwashing (and immense social pressures) actually show exceptional logical thinking abilities, since they had such a deep hole to climb out of.

52

how can navigate if our desire is for absolute truth...

by Ruby456 in

jw
friends

or do we give in to social constructivism?

to relativity?

or is there a way to be real and then to say whats real that everyone agrees to?.

A Ha

This for many is what it means for something to be alive. on the other hand a self organizing universe may not be considered to be viable proposition for engendering the start of life because this seems to suggest a sort of lifeless systems view without any method of passing on information.

Ugh. Who says a lifeless system can't pass on information? Varves in a mountain, tree rings, the light from distant stars... all carry information. If we get technical, black holes preserve information, and can even spit it back out (though I doubt we'd ever be able to interpret that information).

if we put both together - then can we say with absolute certainty that everything is mechanistic and deterministic - this doesn't seem very inviting either

We can't say this with "absolute certainty," but is has nothing to do with natural systems generating "information." There is almost nothing we can say with absolute certainty. It would be nice if we could, but I accept I could be living in The Matrix, then I do what any sane person would do--I chuckle and say i wish I'd thought of that movie--I'd be rich!--then I get on with life

54

where have the demons gone?

by aboveusonlysky in

jw
friends

does anybody remember some of the sensational demon stories jw's would tell back in the day?

i was a kid in the early 80's and i remember a few times hearing of people having real life encounters with demons.

for example, one sister claimed that before she became a jdub she would regularly talk to demons and they would even fix stuff like her washing machine!

A Ha

I have a demon story that I personally experienced. True story.

I was about 18 and I bought an electric typewriter. It was super fancy because it had a slot for a floppy disks, so it was almost like a computer! This was at the beginning of the PC revolution and they were still wildly expensive.

Anyway, I used it to type talks and stuff on it (and my original idea for a Star Trek book that I still think would have been awesome!) One night, when I was sound asleep, I was awakened by a loud clacking racket, like demons were throwing my TV around the room. I was too afraid even to open my eyes, because if I saw some red humanoid outline hovering over me, I don't know what I would have done. I don't even remember if I had the presence of mind to utter a coherent prayer. "Please, Jehovah, I'll stop making out with Sister Loose if you make this demon go away. Uh, in Jesus name. Amen." More likely I was just saying "Oh Jehovah, Oh Jehovah" over and over again.

So the demons left me alone pretty much by the time I was fully awake. The next morning I was surprisingly calm, I guess since the demons hadn't probed my nether regions or anything. I turned on my electric typewriter to work on my masterpiece, but when I flipped the switch, it turned it off. So I flipped it again to turn it on and it started this loud clacking racket as it centered the print head and all that stuff that modern printers do, except this was much louder.

The clock on my VCR (you kids don't know what those are... kind of like Blue Ray where you have to be very quick with the pause button if you want to catch the nip slip) was blinking. The power had gone out the night before, and when it came back on the typewriter started up.

54

where have the demons gone?

by aboveusonlysky in

jw
friends

does anybody remember some of the sensational demon stories jw's would tell back in the day?

i was a kid in the early 80's and i remember a few times hearing of people having real life encounters with demons.

for example, one sister claimed that before she became a jdub she would regularly talk to demons and they would even fix stuff like her washing machine!

A Ha

Yes, we were warned all the time against getting things at garage sales and thrift shops. I was told of someone who bought a piece of furniture at a garage sale which was home to some demons.* There were increasing supernatural events culminating in the dresser being in the basement raising a huge ruckus, going full Jumanji, when the faithful witness had the brilliant idea of writing "Jehovah" on paper plates and sailing them down the steps. That quieted those demons.

* Man, that would suck being a spirit creature; you're not tethered to a physical body, you should be able to go anywhere you want... down to the earth's core for a quick tan, soaring through the skies, zipping over to watch a star go supernova, then watch other stars being born.. but instead you're limited to living in a dresser.

32

Evolution Gap - Where's the Fur? Redux

by shadow in

i am posting a second topic on this subject since the first one became overrun by snakes.. cofty posted a link to a published paper discussing this topic and referred to the information in it as "facts".

here is my summary of that paper along with comments on it.. one of the opening statements says that:.

two frequently debated aspects of hominin evolution are the development of upright bipedal stance and reduction in body hair.. so for those who believe this is a stupid topic, it is a subject of interest to many stupid people including the authors of the paper referred to by cofty.

A Ha

cofty: Any naturalistic answer that works proves that supernatural answers are unnecessary.

shadow: The arch example does not prove that God did not do it.

Shadow, there is a big difference between saying "this shows God is unnecessary as an explanation" vs saying "this proves God could not be the explanation."

We have millions/billions of confirmed (repeatable) examples of natural explanations for phenomena, and precisely zero supernatural explanations for any phenomena. This alone is enough to say that a plausible naturalistic explanation for any one phenomenon is sufficient to render a supernatural explanation extraneous and unnecessary. (That's a long-winded way of saying "Ockham's Razor FTW!")

As Viviane said, the article you posted lists problems with a number of ideas about the evolutionary reason for our loss of fur, but even if those problems are insurmountable by proponents of those various ideas, it still leaves the 12th idea, from the article you quote approvingly, as a valid explanation. So, rather than undermining evolution, you've only undermined the thermoregulatory theory of fur-loss and helped establish the some-other-theory theory of fur-loss.

What you need to do is show that there is no possible evolutionary explanation for humans losing their fur--that the only possible explanation is a supernatural one. If you can't do that, then you've only changed the status of the question from "Probably because X" to "unknown (for now)."

Edit: In other words, what 2+2=5 said.

59

Can you prove that our entire universe and existence is not a computer simulation?

by EndofMysteries in

if you were a computer programmer and you were to create a simulated automated world, that would constantly evolve and self run after initial designs.

first you would have to code the rules, laws, and core elements of this world.

while this is being coded, the program is not run yet, so none of it exists.

A Ha

we could actually be a computer simulation speculating if we are a computer simulation. While that is not true as far as I can see, we could well have a computer program running in our brains that is like RAM in a computer and that this is our soul. Atheist hate this idea because computer souls would need programmer to set the code. And if this is true then we are forming new souls as we compute, and perhaps one day our computers will say hello to us, and ask where did I come from. Somebody tell Tyson that he is proving God, in his own image.

No, atheists hate this idea because there is no reason we should think it's true, yet once one person utters any silly old idea, other theists jump on it because it's a life raft for their vacuous beliefs, then they perform the typical theistic miracle of transmutation where possible magically becomes probable, as you've done here

29

[Generic evolution vs. creation thread]

by sir82 in

jw
friends

to save us all a lot of time and effort..... [some complex structure in living organisms described].

[i can't imagine how this could be the product of evolution].

[therefore god created it].

A Ha

Even if it can be explained by science, I won't be listening,

Well, I guess thanks for the honesty.

Edit: my pony is not as evolutionarily fit as cofty's pony

51

Can’t cope with being disfellowshipped…..Need some advice

by xxBettyBoopxx in

this site is great, i have been lurking for a while now.

but i can’t get reinstated and have used some of the advice already given.. i was df’d many months ago and go to all the meetings and do all the preparation for the meetings, but the jc committee keep refusing me.

tomorrow at the clam meeting i am puting yet another letter in and will be called for another dreadful jc meeting.. 1. what can i say to the elders to show that i am truly repentant?.

A Ha

Does he talk to you often? What does his voice sound like?