drawcad_1--- I think they already have you covered on that one . They claim that animals can diversify and can only mutate so far within the genetic make up . It's obvious in the fossil record that there were giant animals that resemble the much smaller animals of today , Saber tooth tiger , the whooly mammoth that all coexisted with man . Today we have the big cats and the elephant who are related to the previous giants . They are typically the same animal only changed in various ways. The WTBTS says that after the deluge the increased radiation from the sun may have caused plant and animal life to alter it's appearance . This is all hypothetical of course just like the evolution theory . All science can really prove is that there was a mass extinction caused by some traumatic event in the eco system much like what happened to the dinos but only this time there is clear evidence that man was on the scene .
Do jw's believe dinosaurs existed?
by farmer 38 Replies latest jw friends
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mineralogist
many millenniums in six creative eras
If the day is of 7000 years and creation lastet 6 days this surely would be "many milleniums" i.e. 42 (btw the answer to THE question). So where is the change in the doctrin? JWs are still creationists, only expressed in a vague way!
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reganashe
ok I have never understood this whole thing. So it okay to mutate but not evolve (isn't this the same thing) I remember trying to argue this to my mom and she never really could explain it. Like Cave men were do they come from or did they not really exists according to JW's I never made sense what they believed.
I'm still confused!
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drawcad_1
even though the watchtower claims that there can be mutation within a kind, as heathen pointed out. that still leaves a lot of mutations from Noah's time until our own.
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AlanF
Yep, JWs believe that dinosaurs existed, but they don't believe almost every detail that paleontologists have found out about them.
Until about 1980 JWs borrowed 90% of their beliefs from Young-Earth Creationists (people who believe the universe was created by fiat about 6,000 years ago and all of the events in Genesis 1 occurred within six literal 24-hour days. The only thing they didn't go along with was the time frame, since they allowed that the earth might have been created billions of years ago and they taught that animal life began to be created about 20,000 years ago. They went along hook, line and sinker with so-called Flood Geology, which teaches that virtually all of the earth's sedimentary rock was formed a few thousand years ago in Noah's Flood. Of course, Watchtower writers would never acknowledge their borrowing from the YECs, but anyone familiar with YEC literature knows the almost exact correspondence with pre-1980 WTS ideas. YEC literature includes the writings the SDA author George McCready Price, who published a boatload of books from about 1910 through the 1960s. It also includes the writings of folks like Henry Morris, whose 1961 book (written with theologian John Whitcomb) The Genesis Flood kicked off the modern "scientific creationist" movement (a misnomer if I ever heard one) led by Morris's Institute for Creation Research in San Diego.
As for evolution, nothing in the theory requires populations to evolve. Indeed, discoveries in the fossil record actually show that populations usually remain stable for one to twenty million years, depending on the type of life. Mammals tend to be stable for half a million to two million years, but marine life like claims and snails tend to be stable for 10-20 million years. So it's no particular surprise (from the modern vantage point) that a few species, like the famous Coelacanth, have existed virtually unchanged for more than a hundred million years.
While large, widely distributed populations tend to remain stable, small isolated populations don't. For example, in Lake Victoria in Africa, which is essentially isolated from the outside world, and which assumed a relatively modern form about 3/4 million years ago, contains some 170 distinct species of cichlid fish. Physical and genetic studies have shown that almost all of these descended from a common ancester that is still in the lake and surrounding streams today. Physically they're quite different from one another, and they don't interbreed. Plenty of other examples can be cited to show how isolated populations tend to spawn new species rapidly.
AlanF
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Englishman
I do know that straying JW's believe that dinosaurs still exist.
I used to say to the PO's daughter, "Dyathinkhesaurus?"
Englishman.
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XQsThaiPoes
Um ALAN F is correct. Also it is not 7000 years it is millions to thousands of years. I know it sounds strange for a creationist to start talking millions of years, but the WTS is not stupid and finds atheist and Catholics easy converts. In if you look at their blips on other subjects it is obvious they don?t believe in YEC. As long as you don?t say you believe in evolution you can believe it. It is stupid from the standpoint of "intellectual integrity" why hold two opposing views? Answer because you don't want to offend the corporate elite (college converts) and the laborers (uneducated pioneers). But all you 7000 year guys are going to old websites or left in the 70's. Ready the cop out the creator book. If you thought they dance around the stance on oral sex you?ll love to see them dace around evolution. I'll post it if anyone request but the chapter is long.
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heathen
XQsThaiPoes--- I agree it's riddiculous to assume that the heavens and earth were created in 24hr. days . The WTBTS now says that the word day in genesis actually means undetermined legnth of time . It could mean billions of years . I chuckle every time I hear the 6 -24 hr. days for creation . The fossil record clearly show dinos on earth for millenium at the least . I think some creationists now argue that since the bible does say to God a day is a thousand years that they can conclude a thousand years .
I do remember reading a WTBTS article that did use the word mutate to explain the changes in the animal world but they still hold to everything being subject the DNA limitations and animals cannot transform into completely different animals , such as ape into man.
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XQsThaiPoes
Creator book.
"As we noted, modern genetic research is moving toward the conclusion stated in the Bible long ago."
Anyone see the false slant of this sentance. It is pro evolution but claiming it is pro creation.
BTW the bible is false in genesis it is a simple myth.
(Genesis 1:30) 30
And to every wild beast of the earth and to every flying creature of the heavens and to everything moving upon the earth in which there is life as a soul I have given all green vegetation for food." And it came to be so.
THIS IS NOT EATING VEGETATION!