Isn't it sad the one of the 'best' defences the pro-Gitmos can come up is justification by someone else also doing bad things at some other point.
They can't provide a rational defence of the policy, as there isn't one.
Abaddon
JoinedPosts by Abaddon
-
131
Guantanamo Bay Suicides - a PR Move
by eyeslice inquote from bbc website .
a top us official has described the suicides of three detainees at the us base at guantanamo bay, cuba, as a "good pr move to draw attention".
colleen graffy told the bbc the deaths were part of a strategy and "a tactic to further the jihadi cause", but taking their own lives was unnecessary.
-
-
-
145
Cannabis vs Alchohol and Other Man Made Pharmacuticals
by OpenFireGlass inwell for starters i do have a prescription for cannabis (insomnia / depression).... why would i want to take pharmacuticals for insomnia/depression?
i mean, what if i get prescribed/addicted to a pill, that one day i might not be able to afford?
(if you/i grow cannabis it's more/less free)... now the moral issue... who is more likely to beat the shit out of their kids?
-
-
Abaddon
Myself, I'm the, "man lets get to the top of that hill before we smoke that joint"
Yeah, me too.
My final paper was a project; "Drug use amongst adolescents", studying a local group of 15-19 year-olds.
Although limited and probably requiring a little better science in places there were several really interesting things that came up.
First of all, in a British (or I would imagine the US for that matter) school system, you can plausably test non-invasively for drug use by a simple questionaire. Drug users know WAY more about drugs than non-users as drug education doesn't equip young people with the knowledge to stay as safe as possible if they use drugs - which they to one extent or the other will. Non-users are fantastically more likey to suffer from a potentially lethal misconception about drug use than drug users. And comprehensive drug education doesn't increase use, as the fact more English teenagers smoke pot regulary than Dutch teenagers shows.
Second, almost all drug using respondents agreed strongly with statement that "After I found out more about drugs, I realised Government representation of drug use and users was misleading".
Third, drug dealers offer people drugs other than what they came for.
Only the idea about testing for drug use with a questionnaire is anything new.
Pile loads of research together and you see there is no stepping-stone or gateway effect. There is what I call a domino effect. If the manner of obtaining drug supplies means people are offered other drugs, then some will accept those drugs when they otherwise would not have.
How many smokers start smoking 'cause everyone they go out and drink with smokes? Or vice-versa? How many cannabis users offered speed by their dealer turn it down?
A controlled system of supply, like in Holland, means that if you go to a coffeeshop and buy cannabis, that's what you'll get. You can also get 'Smart Drugs', Mushrooms, drinks (some coffeshops don't serve alcohol), food... but no speed smack or coke.
It stops people being tempted to experiment with far more dangerous drugs. A domino falls, but there's nothing next to it to be hit.
If people want a recreational chemical they WILL get it. This has been proven; prohibition breeds crime by creating a massive potential for profit. The trick is setting the rules up so the inevitable causes as little problems socially as possible.
-
131
Guantanamo Bay Suicides - a PR Move
by eyeslice inquote from bbc website .
a top us official has described the suicides of three detainees at the us base at guantanamo bay, cuba, as a "good pr move to draw attention".
colleen graffy told the bbc the deaths were part of a strategy and "a tactic to further the jihadi cause", but taking their own lives was unnecessary.
-
-
Abaddon
I heard another US Army spokesperson describe their suicides as 'acts of war'.
It's like Monty Python's Life of Brian where the Samaritan Suicide Squad storms in...
Act of war? Well... maybe.
Desperate people do desperate things, especially if they feel powerless. That applies to all of us.
Add in a profoundly twisted version of Islam that can even condemn fellow Muslims if they disagree over Qu'ranic interpretation or are in cohoots with the Infidel (which we're not, incidentally, which shows how twisted that form of Islam is) and its not surprising they do ghastly things.
Do you really think they would use suicide bombers if they had viable alternatives? Just as the Japanese created a cult-like atmosphere for its Kamikazi's, so too do the fermentors of this ill prime the guns of their jihad with the blood of their own followers. Belief in martyrdom or otherwise, if they had M1A Abrams, they'd not need suicide bombers. Or suicidice suiciders.
What those that ARE gulity do is wrong; this is not an argument.
But the point is not all ARE guilty, and the fact many are released without charge shows that many are not held on sound evidentary grounds. Which is why the US government is shitting over the very principles of its nation by not allowing them access to due civilian process.
If they are guilty, why are the US government so scared to prove it in court? This would ensure the search for bad guys didn't drag in innocent parties and hold them as long as they liked.
If we break our own principles, it just feeds the propoganda picture painted by the formentors of this ill.
-
25
Evolution and Self-Sacrifice
by IW indoes the theory of evolution supply the genetic answer to the self-sacrificing nature of many animal parents as well as that of many men and women in general?
when a man or woman risks their life to help someone in danger is their response simply a response to the natural processes at work due to evolution's effect on their dna?
if so, can this self-sacrificing gene be isolated?
-
-
Abaddon
IW
nontheless doesn't the theory of evolution teach that for the most part more complex organisms came after simpler ones
Remember that evolution is a theory AND a fact.
The fossil record shows that there WAS evolution. This is a fact, there is evidence for it. The evidence is that simple forms are replaced by complex forms. We can see genetic change of a nature we would expect neccesary to drive this process.
Evolution is also a theory, a set of scientific explanations of how the process works, an interpretation of the evidnece of evoltuion as a fact.
Thus evolution as a fact shows us simple forms are replaced by complex forms; it's in the stones. That doesn't neccesarily have anything to do with the theory, although of course the theory explains it.
and that the best adapted species were more successful than those who were not as well adapted?
'Most Fit' (for survival in a given environment) as compared to 'Less Fit' is a better way of putting it. An organism is adapted for an environment wherein its progenitors proved to be most fit. Doesn't neccesarily mean it is adapted for the environment it is born into, as environments may change faster than genomes.
What or who will be the top species on earth 100 or 200 million years from now?
Define 'top'. E coli will probably still be around. 'We' may not.
Will mankind look any different?
Maybe, it depends on whether those who look different have more babies than those who look the same.
Will there be new species in the oceans? Perhaps new kinds of mammals and birds? Well....my questions I suppose are endless.
You don't have to wait that long for that. Speciation is uncommon on human time-scales, but doesn't take that long under the right circumstances - of of course 'long' varies according to how many generations in a year there are.
And ask away.
-
65
Why God refuses to interfere
by greendawn inmany people ask why doesn't god interefere to help suffering mankind?
biblically the answer is very simple: mankind exercise their freedom of choice and in so doing chose to be slaves to sin or the demons if you like.
god respects that choice however foolish it may be.
-
-
Abaddon
Once we believe in a creature called Satan, we have to accept that the god of the Bible created him and is therefore capable of creating creatures with the potential to practice evil.
Mmmm... but the Bible might just be another book telling us that culture's history, and the mythologies arising from that culture's experience with and rationalisation of postive and negative non-material entities. And other culture's will have different stories telling their experience and rationalisation of postive and negative non-material entities. And they are all equally right, and equally wrong, more or less, but document there is something out there.So 'Satan' is just our name for a concept or cultural memory, and if the basis of the concept or cultural memory is tangibly real, even if non-material, it no more means the Bible's rverese story is true than that of other cultures who would also have their concepts or cultural memories validated.
And Sinter Klas is coming on his white horse, and his Zwatre Pieten will grab the false ones, Father Christmas and Snata CLaus and Kris Kringle and the rest of them, and put them in scaks and beat them with sticks, and all their followers too, and be taken to Sinter Klas's castle in Spain and sold as slaves.
-
65
Why God refuses to interfere
by greendawn inmany people ask why doesn't god interefere to help suffering mankind?
biblically the answer is very simple: mankind exercise their freedom of choice and in so doing chose to be slaves to sin or the demons if you like.
god respects that choice however foolish it may be.
-
-
Abaddon
PERFECT humans supposedly broke rules given them by god.
Supposedly this was a bid for independence from god.
So god tells them, "fine, do things your way". He then removed their perfection.
This is god cheating; if humans considered themselves capable of running their own lives as perfect creatures, well, that's one thing. They'd have a good chance and infinate life-spans to do it in.
Apparently god didn't want a fair game so changed the rules.
Then, later on he does it again. If you read the account of Babel it sounds like humans, even without perfection, were doing a good job of running their own lives. It was only because they were rivalling god that he sabotaged the process.
So god is a cheat.
I can not believe people find this rubbish credible as a literal story of god, or if they DO finbd it a credible literal story of god, they would worship such a cheating bastard.
-
25
Evolution and Self-Sacrifice
by IW indoes the theory of evolution supply the genetic answer to the self-sacrificing nature of many animal parents as well as that of many men and women in general?
when a man or woman risks their life to help someone in danger is their response simply a response to the natural processes at work due to evolution's effect on their dna?
if so, can this self-sacrificing gene be isolated?
-
-
Abaddon
under_believer
While the phenotype analogy is seductive, it is also misleading or perhaps incomplete.
Technology as a phenotype has the power to completely remove evolution from the equation, if we desire it to.
Which would be step IN evolution, even if it was the last step, and one bought about BY evolution.
If a status quo is arrived at by a prosess and signals the end of the process, one can't claim it is out of the equation. It's like claiming melting metal and casting is removed from the equation of making a cast statue once the statue is made.
It's NOT; the history and nature of the of the object (or organism) is still part of the equation, and even IF one reaches a solid durable form (or a evolutionary plateau), under the right circumstances the object or organism can go back to a changable state.
You get organsims who have been on an evolutionary plateau for ten thousand years and add selction pressure and there WILL be change, just as that statue will become liquid again if you melt it down.
Putting on my science fiction hat for a moment, imagine that the human race eventually reproduces entirely via cloning--a true pure clone is genetically identical to its parent. Genetic drift, mutation, and selectional heritability are completely removed from the picture.
Well, to make this work you'd have to sterilise people at birth or en-gene-neer a neuter state. And the variable factors and selction pressures we currently feel would simply be REPLACED by the ability to vary factors at a whim and seelct according to whatever characteristic you desired, so evolution in a clone-reproducing society would STILL take place, albeit in a controlled and artifical manner.
As much animal husbandry and horticulture has taken place in a controlled and artificial manner for Centuries, this isn't THAT big a change. It's just us developing technology that will mean our extended phenotype can reach in and change our genotype, just as we have changed other organisms genotypes for Centuries.
So, evolution would still take place.
Or if humanity moves towards a technologal singularity including post-human existance, as some theorize, it's possible that both cloning and man/machine hybrids will be common.
Humans incoporating mechanical or electronic elements into their organisms is already taking place; pacemakers and prosthetics, for example. Us evolving to the point where this is an experience for all (say added storage searchable capacity and a wireless link) is no more remarkable (given the differences between us and caddis flies in complexity) is no more remarkable than a caddis fly larve using parts of their environment to survive (they stick stuff - pebbles, vegetation, etc., to their boidies to protect and disguise them).
Just as the caddis fly has developed THROUGH evolution an extended phenotype that is totally artificial, so too have humans, and they'll continue to. In fact, caddis flies sticking on pebbles (silicon oxide mostly) to their carapace to improve their survivability is remarkably similar to humans sticking silicon chips in their bodies in response to a artificial selection pressure.
Basically, evolution is so 'clever' you can't stop it, as stopping it and controlling it is PART of evolution and does not nor cannot actually definatively stop the process, even if it brings the rules and outcomes under human control.
-
160
Laughing laughing laughing
by darcy inwow.. so, you know i'm an active witness, very active.
hah.
and i'm not laughing at y'all, but wow, i can't believe how extensive this is.
-
-
Abaddon
Hi Darcey,
Good to see you here. The fact this thread hasn't gone 'off' is a testament to the fact you're intelligent and articulate, and have far less of an agenda than many Dubbies who wash in here.
I've been reading through Darwin's Origin of the Species, as well as other secular works that do and do not support evolution
Errrr... "Origins" is a foundation text, but much has been discovered since then.
What you are doing is like using a seminal 19th Century book on Mayan Archaeology to disprove a hypothesis that aliens are the only way they could have done various stuff.
Why not, in addition to "Origins", read some modern books on Evolution? It will give you a better understanding of things, important if you're genuinely interested in being objective.
It will also make you wonder why so many of the anti-Evolution books you're reading still frequently quote from Darwin when there is so much great science and supporting evidence since. Have you got to the one where they quote Darwin as saying some evidence was lacking as though nothing has been discovered in the 150 or so years since?
Ok, so I'm confused by all this rhetoric that Witnesses are backwards and academically dumb. I know many very very educated witnesses, and love hanging out with them.
I've known JW's who were ergonomicist for GM, stunt men, IT Officers for nuclear power stations, and COO for local authority housing departments. But many JW's either live in countries where Higher Education is rare, and as Higher Education is discouraged (as you know). We're not talking about exceptions, we are talking about the rule. And of course you don't like hanging with the dumb ones; you're intelligent and see like company, just like any intelligent person. Why sit on the porch with Bubba when you can sit in the Jacuzzi with Brad?
As for it being rhetoric; wrong, it is fact;
The following figures from an article in NEWSWEEK represent the number of college graduates within each religious group in America. Can this be used to relate the intelligence of the membership of each religion? Damn right it can! And hey, I bet everyone reading this had a pretty good idea who would place last: Unitarian 49.5
Hindu 47.0
Jewish 46.7
New Age 40.6
Episcopal 39.2
Agnostic 36.3
Presbyterian 33.8
Congregationalist 33.7
Buddhist 33.4
Eastern Orthodox 31.6
Muslim 30.4
National Average 24%
Evangelical 21.5
Methodist 21.1
Catholic 20.0
Mormon 19.2
Churches of Christ 14.6
Assemblies of God 13.7
Nazarene 12.5
Baptist 10.4
Pentecostal 6.9
Holiness 5.0
Jehovah's Witness 4.7http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/18627/1.ashx
(Nice link Scully)
So, the point is proven; JW's ARE backward and academically dumb. You don't have to like it but that doesn't stop it being true.
Take the blood doctrine. Now so many concessions to personal conscience have been made that you can have donated blood fractionated and transfused into your body separately, and NOT be DA'd, but the same blood transfused whole WOULD get you DA'd.
How backward and academically dumb does a LEADERSHIP have to be to think god wants that? Pharisaical elaboration and burden on the congregation is what it is.
And WHY would a religion WANT to have backward and academically dumb members? And WHY would a religion not want members to talk to ex-members?
You go to buy a car, and the salesmen tells you 'hey, some people who bought this car got rid of it, but don't talk to them or I won't let you drive the car'.
'Truth' need not hide. A religion that encourages its members to avoid Higher Education can have no reason OTHER than wishing to avoid the criticisms someone with a good education can make of JW doctrine and history.
I feel most comfortable here
Since when was truth comfortable? A nice little niche where you don't ever take the risk of REALLY finding out if we're all mad and deranged apostates, or whether the religion you are in, that most of us were in, is, at the very least NOT god's only channel of communication, and certainly reprehensible in terms of organisation ethics.
You know the Matrix? Red pill, blue pill; you choose.
I'm in good standing with every congregation I've been in, I'm steadily increasing my hours, and I adore the ministry. After being in close association with other college students, it's a relief to be around folks who aren't focused on smoking drinking and fornicating. In whose company one can enjoy a pleasant evening of humor, good food (cause I always eat good with the Witnesses), and yes that word 'uplifting' speech.
It's very warm and comforting isn't it? You can find the same in many families of Baptists, Roman Catholics, Muslims and Atheists. If found my first exposure to worldly people, when taken out of a strict work or school context (I worked in a night club, and invariably you socialise after the night's finished, and socialise with patrons), made me see that people who didn't even know me, casual acquaintances, were capable of more tolerant and accepting relationships, and did good things because they liked doing good things, not because they were following rules. And they were good people. by and large, even if a book written by a bronze-age goatherd would call them bad for some parts of their life.
And now here I am posting on what is technically a very apostate website. So. What do you make of it?
Underneath the surface you may already have integrated enough information to know if one half of what is said here is true, but having it there under the surface and bringing it out so you have to go and do something about it are two different things.
When you read through Genesis, it must be clear that Jehovah (I don't care it's incorrect pronounciation) doesn't like the wimps.
Jehovah isn't the correct pronunciation either. You have a brain; use it. Doesn't it annoy you when you realise you've given a 'stock' response without actually thinking about it?
Oh, hell, let's go further into the Bible than Genesis and see how much you know. How does Jehovah not liking wimps come into the occasion he ordered (during the ethnic cleansing of the 'Promised Land' - and think about me using that discriptor as it's what we'd call genocide today) a city to be attacked, and all the people killed unless they were virgin girls. If you know your Mosaic Law and what was considered 'marriageable age' back then, then you can see that these virgin girls became concubines at an early age. Does the rape of 12 year-olds by the soldiers who had killed their family get explained away so glibly as wiping out all life on Earth in Genesis does?
Or do I have to tell you the scriptures that recount the story I tell you above? If you interpret the Bible literally, then do that to the nasty bits as well as the nice ones and see if your opinions still make sense. You're meant to have accurate knowledge.
I'm not avoiding it. It seems I'm just not up to par with the answering standards here.
Evasion; don't sell yourself so short. Like AuldSoul says, you might like to characterise it differently, but you evaded anything too difficult or troubling to answer. There is no blue and red stripy pill Darcey. You either have to take this seriously and investigate what we say and the validity of your beliefs (red pill), or kid yourself for the rest of your time as a JW that we are wrong without ever bothering to 'make sure of all thinbgs'.
Y'all ought to know I'm not able to defend every dumb thing WTS has done. In fact, I'm not going to. I'll rehash that I didn't register on the site to be the avenging angel of the Governing Body. Ok.
Then the question arises; why do you endorse the JW's claims of being the only god-inspired religion by not only your membership but your preaching work? If you don't back their claims why are you representing them? Isn't it a tad hypocritical or deceptive to present one message on the doors and hold another opinion in your heart? Would you find a Republican supporter canvassing door-to-door in the next US Election at all credible (as a Republican) if they disagreed with fundamental and important parts of Republican policy? Of course not. Why do you get to exercise what seems to be a double standard? Is it because if you DON'T go on the doors, you'll get hassled? So you HAVE to go on the doors and represent things you DON'T believe in? I can understand you doing this... WE MOSTLY ALL DID AT ONE POINT... but the hypocracy gets too much in the end. And note, this dichotomy may exist in other religious people of other groups; they might not believe everything their religion teaches. BUT they do not generally preach what they don't believe in, and they will generally not be thrown out of the religion they practise for not believing all official doctrine. If you were honest about your doubts in the Congregation and spoke to others, you'd end up being disfellowshipped. You may at this point automatically be responding internally with something like 'to keep the congregation clean' - but from what? The JW's have no valid claim to being god spokespeople on Earth; if they have, prove it. Despite this lack of valid claim, they will throw people out who disagree with what they say - and they base this right to dis-fellowship ON THE SAME CLAIM of being god's spokespeople on Earth!
They can't prove that claim but will use that claim to throw out people who disagree with them. Can you see the circular (and thus invalid) logic?
In addition, what sort of response would make you happy?
A comprehensive one that doesn't sell yourself short.
Would you like me to just give it all up right now?
No, I'd like you to do some proper research on the subject and come to your own opinion rather than doing what you've been trained to do as a Dubbie, or what we tell you to. No one here (apart from one or two fundie Christians who are selling their brand of Christianity to anyone foolish enough to listen) is telling what to end up believing; they're telling what NOT to believe, as from personal experience they know it is rubbish.
To denounce?
You don't have enough information to be able to denounce us or the JW's yet; thus the requirement for you to either ignore the entire thing and run back to the safety of the congregation (until you do get your wings clipped for being a free spirit as surely will happen eventually), or to take this seriously and investigate what you believe and what we say and reach a conclusion. Take the example of the Boreans; they investigated the claims made by the Disciples of Jesus seriously using the material that was available to them. You should do the same.To curse God and die?
Why do you assume the JW's have anything more or less to do with god than the next religion?
To curse WTS?
Was 'god' and 'WTS' in order of importance? And please show me in the Bible the words 'god's earthy organisation', or anything that resemble it.
Please don't take this as me being annoyed or angry; I'm just direct and think you'd despise me talking down to you or sugar-coating it. I'm genuinely interested in your reaction. And remember, many of us have been in exactly your position; my parents and Congos I grew up in were liberal as far as it went. I COULD have lived life there and not been challenged to the extent I questioned my beliefs. JW's are very insular socially and don't get their views seriously challenged very often (someone disagreeing with you on the doors isn't a serious challenge) as internal dissent is forbidden. I moved out of that safe environment and found I increasingly doubted, and the more I learnt the more I doubted. As we have been where you have been, give us the same credit for intelligence that you are being given. If we are wrong, then you will firmly establish your faith; like I say, 'truth' need not hide.
-
35
Add your own oxymoron
by Kenneson inaccording to webster's an oxymoron is a combination of contradictory or incongruous words.
here's an opportunity to add some of your favorite ones.
i'll start it off.. why are a "wise man" and a "wise guy" opposites?.
-
-
Abaddon
Military justice
Friendly fire
Acceptable collateral damage
Democratically elected President
New Labour
Weapons of mass destruction
Sexual Equality
Intelligent Design
Fiscal Policy
Tax cut
Information Technology
Help-desk (and I help run all call centre!)
Customer Support
Limited Warranty
Consumer Rights
CO2 is not a pollutant
Animal Liberationists
Truth
Neo-Nazi
Liberationist
Altruistic behaviour
Governmental accountability
Company accounts
Quite loud
Casual Fridays
Working from home
Australian Culture
Dutch Treat
Dutch courage
Niggardly
... that scraping sound is me hitting the bottom of the barrel
-
25
Evolution and Self-Sacrifice
by IW indoes the theory of evolution supply the genetic answer to the self-sacrificing nature of many animal parents as well as that of many men and women in general?
when a man or woman risks their life to help someone in danger is their response simply a response to the natural processes at work due to evolution's effect on their dna?
if so, can this self-sacrificing gene be isolated?
-
-
Abaddon
Does the theory of evolution supply the genetic answer to the self-sacrificing nature of many animal parents as well as that of many men and women in general?
Yes; a behaviour exhibited in a parent that increases the chance of its young surviving over and above that of an otherwise identical organism NOT exhibiting that behaviour will eventually come to dominate a population; in less than 200 generations even a 5% increased chance of the young surviving will spread to an entire population.
In some areas of life we are told to follow the money to find out what's going on; in evolution we follow the genes. It doesn't matter what nasty consequences the bahaviour has on the parent; it only matters if that behaviour increases its chance of young surviving.
Take the suicidal male spider; it does that as the male spiders that did that were more likely to fertilise females and have young bearing those genes, as that's what drives evolution along; selection. The fact that is dies is irrelevent in this context as it is the very action which kills it which leads to it having a greater genetic contribution to the next generation.
Of course, such actions are not neccesarily life threatening.
Take the lapwing (ground nesting bird that does a fake broken wing display to attract predators getting close to its eggs or chicks); it's behaviour surely increases it's young survival chance, but also rarely gives real risk to the parent
When a man or woman risks their life to help someone in danger is their response simply a response to the natural processes at work due to evolution's effect on their DNA? If so, can this self-sacrificing gene be isolated?
For a start that no such gene as a 'self sacrificing gene'. That would require a genetic complex to reason. There are behaviours caused by genetic make-up which lead to greater reproductive success, but it's not knowlingly. It's not like the lapwing 'thinks', "ah, this'll fool the fox, this technique works really well and has done for years". It has a behaviour that makes it act like that under certain stimulus, because those exhibiting the same behaviour before it had more chicks survive to breed than those who didn't, so today's lapwing is very likely to carry those same genes as a descendent of those previous lapwings.
Humans are different. We are knowing, and sometimes people do commit altruistic acts.
For example; a guy walking through a foreign town (no relatives), who without real concious thought runs in front of a car and throws a toddler to safety whilst losing his own life.
However, often seeming "altruism" has internal rewards; like feeling good about doing something altruistic, or doing it because it conforms to some internal belief set. Other times it occurs because it is a social expectation with adverse concequences if it's not carried out; not done for benefit but done to avoid criticism or disadvantagement.
Of course, parents will often risk their live or suffer for their kids as they have a drive to do so as - like I said at the outset - we have to follow the genes to figure out what it going on, and this is one example where obviously instinct might overcome intellect.
But normally risk is a calculated with a cost/beenfit equation for the one carrying it out even if this is abstract intangible and internalised.
We are our genes, we are told.
Or is it our genes who are us?
What I was trying to convey is that technology, intelligence, and civilization affect evolution in ways that are unprecedented in observable history or in any existing theory of natural selection. I don't think that's a controversial statement.
If we define evolution as;
A process whereby those members of a species displaying behaviour or characteristics (due to their genetic make-up) that increases the chance of producing offspring that survive to breed will thus pass those very genes on to their offspring and thus increase the penetration of those genes into the organism's genome, resulting in greater numbers of that species carrying that gene and leading to either a change in the species over time to one where that trait is universal, or the differentiation of one species into two or more species with varying traits if barriers to movement allow the original gene-pool of the species to be divided into several non-interbreeding gene-pools
... then all humans have done recently is come-up with a very extended phenotype... beavers have dams, that's their 'extended phenotype'. We have all the shit humans have made. Our extended phenotype has introduced some selection factors whilst reducing others;
You don't need as robust a constitution to survive childhood and adulthood due to modern medicine and hygene; selection for a strong constitution is reduced.
You can survive even if you are very short-sighted due to eye-sight correction; selection against myopia reduced.
Thousands of new chemicals are now in the environment than historically; some will have problems surviving or breeding with this pollution, others will be fine and their genes will be selected for.
We can now re-write or edit our own geneotype and can essentailly play with evolution.
So, in some ways evolutionary pressure is reduced, in other sometimes new ways it is increased. But it is still there.