i would like to apologize in advance if any of my information on the biology side of this discussion is incorrect, because unfortunately it is not my strongest scientific subject on account of my being subtly encouraged to view it with distrust.. i've recently debated the of subject of evolution with my father, i made the argument that when viewed over several million years random mutation provides a more than adequate explanation for humans having evolved from a common ancestor with chimpanzees.
then he got this derisive look on his face a waved his hand saying "evolution's explanation for everything is the amount of time involved.".
so i decided i would examine this mathematically.
Unfortunately, the math isn't that simple. Brief--and inadequate--summary: Substitution takes place in parallel, not serial, which drastically cuts down time calculations.
Give this a shot: https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/12/29/theres-plenty-of-time-for-evolution/
The paper it's based upon: http://www.pnas.org/content/107/52/22454.full
"traumatic as the initial transition may be, it can lead to the development of a truly personal relationship with these two greatest friends [the father and the son] .
.. "whatever sense of 'belonging' that membership in some religious system may create, it can never compare with the power and beauty and strengthening benefit of the intimate personal relationship the scripture presents .
from reading joseph campbell i've come to understand that there are functions to religion or mythology.
For instance say you're an adult and you get out of a cult. You're figuring out what to do next and evidence leads you to reason. Naturally, would you choose to follow reason compared to the the other options available?
I think it becomes an issue of semantics. I think a better way to phrase it would be, "I believe that following reason is the most effective course, so I choose to follow it." You can believe that reason is the best course yet choose not to follow it, or you can believe that some other option is better than reason, but you don't choose to believe that reason is the best course, you come to believe it because that's where the evidence led you.
If we drop the quibbling over the word "choose" I think most atheists have given similar answers to your question; that's where the evidence led.
"traumatic as the initial transition may be, it can lead to the development of a truly personal relationship with these two greatest friends [the father and the son] .
.. "whatever sense of 'belonging' that membership in some religious system may create, it can never compare with the power and beauty and strengthening benefit of the intimate personal relationship the scripture presents .
from reading joseph campbell i've come to understand that there are functions to religion or mythology.
Cassaruby - I think we choose our beliefs. It's the only real point I'm actually arguing instead of discussing.
So you were successful in believing you were an elephant for ten minutes?
yesterday i made a visit to the museum in my city.
the top floor is the planetarium, which has a connecting room with a huge dome ceiling where they project lessons and lectures and you have a 360 view of the night sky etc.. this particular lecture explained about our galaxy, and how it's only one of billions in the universe.
and then we learned about each planet, some of their moons and the sun.
SBF - All created things are contingent. God is said not to be contingent. That's the best argument for God in my view.
This seems too circular to be useful, as you're baking "created" into your argument. "Let's assume God, assume He created everything, then reason that, since everything else is created, it must prove an uncreated and non-contingent being, which we'll call... oh I don't know... how about 'God'."
For this argument to have any persuasive power, it would need to establish that the universe was created--or at least that it's contingent. Failing that, your second point fails because it presents only one option for non-contingency, when there are other--perhaps better--candidates for the job.
That doesn't mean it's not "among the best" arguments for God, it just shows how bad all the arguments are.
"traumatic as the initial transition may be, it can lead to the development of a truly personal relationship with these two greatest friends [the father and the son] .
.. "whatever sense of 'belonging' that membership in some religious system may create, it can never compare with the power and beauty and strengthening benefit of the intimate personal relationship the scripture presents .
from reading joseph campbell i've come to understand that there are functions to religion or mythology.
Cassaruby - I choose not to believe in fairies, except for metaphorical fairies. Like grimms fairy tales is a book I like.
I think this is probably not the case. Let's try an experiment: For the next 10 minutes, believe that you're an elephant. Not in a metaphorical or mystical sense; a literal elephant, weighing six tons, with tusks and a long trunk. I don't think you could honestly believe it. We don't choose our beliefs, though we can choose to ignore evidence that is contrary to what we already believe, which certainly influences or strengthens/weakens beliefs.
"traumatic as the initial transition may be, it can lead to the development of a truly personal relationship with these two greatest friends [the father and the son] .
.. "whatever sense of 'belonging' that membership in some religious system may create, it can never compare with the power and beauty and strengthening benefit of the intimate personal relationship the scripture presents .
from reading joseph campbell i've come to understand that there are functions to religion or mythology.
For me, it was quite shocking to realize that the JWs did not have The Truth. After I left, I set out to discover which religion did.
After a little while, I realized that "Which religion has The Truth?" was the wrong question. The more basic question that needed to be answered was, "Does God care which religion we belong to?" followed by "Does God even want us to be a part of a religion?"
After a little while, I realized that the more basic question was, "Does God want or need to be worshiped?"
After a little while, I realized that the more basic question was, "Does God exist?" Eventually I was able to answer, "No."
When you speak of a "path" I think my path was, paraphrasing Bertrand Russell, "to believe as many true things as possible, and as few false things as possible." I didn't become an atheist because I thought it was more fulfilling or rewarding than theism. When I looked at the evidence and proofs for God, they lacked weight and I had no choice in the matter. I can't choose to believe in God any more than I can choose to believe in unicorns and fairies.
jws are scattered across the globe.
a few million people left, pretty isolated from each other.. telephone lines and power goes down since the people who supported the infrastructure are dead.
communication across town, state, country, etc is cut off.
schnell - But seriously, their card to play is a Deus Ex Machina where God makes everything better and answers all their questions and tells them how to do everything.
Deus Ex Machina endings always suck.
This is pretty much it.
The day after Armageddon, humans will be perfect, so they'll instantly have knowledge of wilderness survival. Also, reading the Awake magazine for six months is equivalent to a college education, so most of the JWs will be the equivalent of PhDs (this ignores that most JWs don't actually read the magazines). And if reading the mags makes you college-smart, think of how smart the writers of the magazines are. They must be like walking supercomputers.
yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
Change the page view to 20 posts per page, then it's only 129 pages and you can read it in half the time!
there are many on this site that do not believe that jehovah truly exists; that he is not a real being.
but, he is as real as next breath you draw into your nostrils.. some of you say that there is no evidence that he exists.
yet, none of you can prove that he does not exits.. cofty, (you come to mind), i appreciate that you have stated, without reservation, that you do not believe that god exists.. yet, you cannot prove it.. hope in jehovah..
This really is the best that JWs have to offer, isn't it? We used to look down on Christendom, like they were such spiritual babes, but at least they could summon up some (bad) logical arguments. The best JWs can do is "you can't prove me wrong, so I'm right..." or "you weren't there!"
Sorry, maybe I'm ruining the civility of the thread, but when you leave the JWs and their "reading the Awake magazine is like a college education!" nonsense, and are exposed to other ideas, you realize that even the above-average JWs are like kindergartners as far as logical reasoning is concerned.
in the last couple of months, i have been practising my stand up.
so far these are my best jokes:.
not celebrating birthdays and christmas has saved me so much money.
usualusename1, those were all very good jokes.
A childhood of learning how to spew out absolute nonsense to strangers
has led to me to a highly successful political career
I think this should be the punchline, not the lead-in
