Of course jws will say that the lion man statue isn't that old and carbon dating in inaccurate so I like to point out the cave art in Indonesia. These cave paintings have been dated using a dating method that way more accurate then carbon dating. There was a crystal type mineral deposited over the paintings over time and they the scientists can date the crystal with a known decay rate of another product in the cave I believe. Can't remember all the details but the dating process is extremely accurate and these paintings or cave art are between 35-40,000 years old. Blows the Adam and 6000 years bible story off the pages.
No updated Watctower's articles on Evolution
by opusdei1972 50 Replies latest watchtower bible
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neverendingjourney
Reading the Creation book in the mid 90s is what turned me from a completely disinterested, born-in teenager with "spiritually weak," inactive parents to a zealous 17 year old regular pioneer.
I was young, the internet wasn't widely available, but even still I had a hard time buying into the JW religion if belief in a literal Genesis was part of the deal. The Creation book changed that for me. It's an incredibly persuasive read for those who don't have the mental tools necessary to see through the deception. At 15 years of age and without the benefit of the internet, I was thoroughly duped.
I didn't fully realize the scope of the dishonesty until I was fully out of the religion. My exit occurred roughly ten years after first reading the book. What hurt me the most wasn't so much the blatant deception but the fact that the content was repackaged Creation Science nonsense. There really weren't many original thoughts in the book, if any.
All those years I had looked up to the men whom I thought were intelligent enough to create definitive arguments in defense of the Biblical creation narrative when in reality it was simply a work plagiarized from the body of pseudo-science that eventually gave rise to Intelligent Design.
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DATA-DOG
The WTBTS is in total defense/survival mode. They are doubling down on all their dogma, espescially loyalty to the "Faithful Slave" and "unity of doctrine." Yes, the current WT study edition actually says "unity of doctrine."
They aren't writing another book where they can misquote authors, they have other issues right now.
DD
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neverendingjourney
So, I suspect that the Society would have a hard task in writing a new "Creation" book, regarding the overwhelming updated evidences.
My high school chemistry teacher was a bit of a lunatic and a also a creationist. He and I would have long, rambling discussions about the Bible and how evolution was false. Sadly, this was a public school in the United States and it's not uncommon.
However, at one point I parroted the line in the Creation book about the lack of fossil evidence for so-called missing-links. That was a step too far for even him. He corrected me and said there were hundreds of specimens and that he'd seen them with his own eyes. It was out-of-date information by the time it made it into print and the Watchtower conveniently never bothered to correct the record.
The passage of time has not made Creation-book-style rebuttals any easier. But I don't think that's the reason for not having any updated literature along these lines. It simply doesn't fit with the new paradigm. The WT today is focused on dumbing down the literature as much as possible while stressing obedience at every opportunity.
Pseudo-intellectualism is a relic of the past that then new batch of GB members have no interest in continuing. For all intents and purposes, literature in that style ceased to be published shortly after Fred Franz was laid to rest.
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schnell
@neverendingjourney, here's a fun drinking game: Take a shot every time the book provides the definition of Evolution. Don't worry, you'll be fine. Another game though: Take a shot every time the book conflates natural selection with chance. Have fun!
@Crazyguy, radiometric dating deniers do so because they don't care, and because they implicitly want to believe no matter what and satisfy Pascal's Wager. (Insert problems with Pascal's Wager, such as polytheism and divine omniscience.) You say any kind of dating is better, and they can just listen to the oceanic sound of their fingers in their ears. But once the walls come down, they can go back to that evidence and realize, "OH SHIT!"
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neverendingjourney
@schnell I've forgotten exactly their analogy but I think it was something along the lines of a house not building itself. You could have all the construction materials on site but no matter how much time passes, you'll never find a fully assembled house. Setting aside quantum mechanics and the passage of eons, that's a true statement. But of course that's not how natural selection works. It's a strawman built by creationists.
I remember running across a page-by-page takedown of the book years ago that addressed both the logical fallacies and misquotes. I've had no success rediscovering it, though.
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schnell
The WTBTS is in total defense/survival mode. They are doubling down on all their dogma, espescially loyalty to the "Faithful Slave" and "unity of doctrine." Yes, the current WT study edition actually says "unity of doctrine."
They aren't writing another book where they can misquote authors, they have other issues right now.
My wife cited the Institute for Creation Research recently when defending the flood. She didn't know what the ICR is, or AIG for that matter. But there ya go, the creationist pseudoscience was available online for reference and she linked me to it. I am sure other witnesses have, too, and I saw at least one Kent Hovind video passed around Facebook.
What I'm saying is, if they don't get on that, young earth creationists will happily fill the void and most JWs would not know what they were getting into.
But, maybe the GB is fine with that. *shrug* They've already referenced Michael Behe and the E. Coli motor in a magazine.
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konceptual99
The WTS gave up years ago trying to do what the Creation book does especially when it comes to human evolution. There were the two brochures a while back but even these are rarely referred to now.
The two tracks the WTS follows now are highly simplistic. One is to extol the wonders of a feature of a particular plant or creature and then finish with open question "what do you think, did the amazing <insert feature here> happen by evolution or was it designed?".
The other track is to pull some Witness who is a professional from any branch of medicine or science and put them up as an example of someone educated that believes in creation.
Both tracks are weak but enough to bolster the confirmation bias of most dubs.
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schnell
@neverendingjourney, it's a far cry from "change in genetic frequency over time". I remember studying the Creation book in bookstudy, and I remember learning the definition of evolution in community college biology. It struck me so much, and what struck me more was that this definition... makes sense. Evolution happens. What is everyone so afraid of?
I think you want Chapter 4 of The God Delusion, where Dawkins rips the book to shreds.
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neverendingjourney
Evolution happens. What is everyone so afraid of?
The Watchtower admits as much. If all the variety of life arose from an ark full of animals only 4,000 years ago, how else could you possibly explain the millions of species on our planet without it? There had to have been some sort of super-evolutionary process that almost instantly resulted in the tremendous variety we see today. However, this process wasn't really evolution because it only occurred within certain undefined "kinds" that trace back to the ark. What the ever-loving f*ck?
I read the God Delusion but it's been 7 or 8 years. I seem to remember an online breakdown that I ran across by accident back when I was a Witness around the year 2000. I'd been warned not to search for anything JW related online and curiosity got the better of me. I thought I would discover a wealth of academic sources praising the book but the actual truth shocked me. I didn't stare at it for long. I quickly exited the website. I think it might have resided on a predecessor forum to this one, but I could be misremembering.