Knowledge-Seeker, I find several misleading ideas in the article on that link. What is worse, however, is that the "new light" will supersede the "old light" and everyone will be happy with it. Just as they believed one thing the day before, they will believe otherwise now.
About the misleading ideas, I would like to start wit this: what the WTBTS is NOT what the Bible says. It's about time we don't confuse one with the other. The WTBTS is an organization whose primary objective is surviving, no matter how. The Bible is a set of books which many people read in many different ways, and ALL organizations claim that their own particular way of understanding the Bible is "what the Bible says". This is a very subtle point, but one that matters a lot, because we cannot start our understanding of this article if we assume what the WTBTS still needs to prove, namely, that what the WTBTS says is what the Bible says.
Now let's discuss what the WTBTS says in the article.
"The Genesis account opens with the simple, powerful statement: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) Bible scholars agree that this verse describes an action separate from the creative days recounted from verse 3 onward. The implication is profound. According to the Bible’s opening statement, the universe, including our planet Earth, was in existence for an indefinite time before the creative days began." I would like the writer of the magazine to please explain how something existed BEFORE it was created. Either we agree that God created the Earth, or we disagree. What we have here is something like an "in-between", a "yes-no". "God created everything in an indeterminate period of time, only everything existed BEFORE that time". The obvious question is, did God create anything at all?
According to the WTBTS,
"MANY people claim that science disproves the Bible’s account of creation. But the real contradiction is between science and, not the Bible, but the opinions of so-called Christian Fundamentalists. Some of these groups falsely assert that according to the Bible, all physical creation was produced in six 24-hour days some 10,000 years ago.
The Bible, however, does not support such a conclusion. If it did, then many scientific discoveries over the past hundred years would indeed discredit the Bible. A careful study of the Bible text reveals no conflict with established scientific facts"
Here, the "established scientific facts" are a hell of a big hole, the size of the Universe, and anything can pass through there. If you claim, for example, that science has not proved that God exists at all, the WTBTS will claim that science can't disprove his existence either. The misleading part is, science doesn't believe anything exists unless there is proof of it. It doesn't believe that something exists because no one has disproved it. Science only considers true what it can prove to be true. If we told the WTBTS that there is no proof God exists, the WTBTS would say that such a statement is NOT an "established scientific fact", and that would be the springboard from which the WTBTS would go on to say that "God exists". What we see here is a way to say "we are in agreement with science" when in fact they are not.
Now, let's see what the article says about evolution:
"Does this progressive appearance of plants and animals imply that God used evolution to produce the vast diversity of living things? No. The record clearly states that God created all the basic “kinds” of plant and animal life. (Genesis 1:11, 12, 20-25) Were these original “kinds” of plants and animals programmed with the ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions? What defines the boundary of a “kind”? The Bible does not say. However, it does state that living creatures “swarmed forth according to their kinds.” (Genesis 1:21) This statement implies that there is a limit to the amount of variation that can occur within a “kind.” Both the fossil record and modern research support the idea that the fundamental categories of plants and animals have changed little over vast periods of time."
Scientists believes in evolution, and they don't hold that there were many "kinds" of organisms to begin with, but "prokaryotes" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis). Do I detect a contradiction between what the organization says, and what science says? The idea is that the prokaryotes eventually came to be different, and then they were evolving into the many life forms we see today. Science doesn't hold life began with many "kinds" of animals and plants that came into being at once.
There is little of the scientific way of proving things in the following paragraph:
"Because of their philosophical beliefs, many scientists reject the Bible’s declaration that God created all things. Interestingly, however, in the ancient Bible book of Genesis, Moses wrote that the universe had a beginning and that life appeared in stages, progressively, over periods of time. How could Moses gain access to such scientifically accurate information some 3,500 years ago? There is one logical explanation. The One with the power and wisdom to create the heavens and the earth could certainly give Moses such advanced knowledge."
The problem here is that the "logical explanation" is not proved. Ergo, in scientific terms, it is invalid. We don't know whether it happened that way, so we don't hold it to have happened that way.
By the way, unless I am wrong, Moses is believed to have written not only the Genesis, but the entire Pentateuch. In the WTBTS's own New World Translation, the following text is found at Deuteronomy 34, verses 10 to 12:
"And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hand upon him; and the sons of Israel began to listen to him and they went doing just as Jehovah had commanded Moses. 10 But there has never yet risen up a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom Jehovah knew face to face, 11 as respects all the signs and the miracles that Jehovah sent him to do in the land of Egypt to Phar´aoh and all his servants and all his land, 12 and as regards all the strong hand and all the great awesomeness that Moses exercised before the eyes of all Israel."
"There has never yet risen up a prophet in Israel like Moses" reveals that, whoever it was who wrote Deuteronomy, and whenever it was written, some time HAD elapsed since the death of Moses, or it would be impossible to utter that very phrase. So, did Moses write the Deuteronomy? Here I see a contradiction between what the WTBTS says and what the Bible says. Their Bible, by the way. I invite anyone to check that out: http://www.watchtower.org/bible/index.htm?bk=de;chp=1
