seattleniceguy

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Posts by seattleniceguy

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  43

  Attention all you wacky evolutionists!

  by AlmostAtheist in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  evolution versus creation has been beat to death lately, this isn't another debate thread.

  i wanted to showcase a hugely funny site i found when researching creationists' views.

  note that i don't believe this site in any way depicts the beliefs of most creationists.

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  seattleniceguy

  Hey Dave,

  It's not often that LOL really and truly means that I laughed out loud, but this sentence did it for me:

  I think the "eye jelly" one is the most damning to the evolutionary concept, but I'm sure different facts appeal to different people.

  Yeah, I was looking at that site earlier, per your post on my evolution thread, and I saw the link to the page featuring views of "those wacky evolutionists," but didn't work up the enthusiasm to go check it out. Thanks for the review.

  The four questions totally reminded me of how Witnesses would construct an entire argument based on an illustration in the Watchtower. I was always struck by a sense of incredible absurdity when people did that. In this case, they are actually constructing an argument based on their own (indescribably) flawed understanding of evolution....amazing.

  Hey - totally random - have you heard the band Cake? They're pretty cool.

  SNG
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  25

  Disassociation = Disfellowshipment = The Final Insult (A Proposal)

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i try to keep up with discussion on this forum, but i missed the threads about the new policy on the announcement of disfellowshipping and disassociation.

  so excuse me if i am covering old ground.

  the new "organized to do jehovah's will" book stated that in future announcements of disfellowshipping and disassociation would follow the same formulation: "****** ****** is no longer one of jehovah's witnesses".

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  seattleniceguy

  LOL @ Quotes and his goat
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  109

  Evidence for evolution, Installment 5: Lake Tanganyika, etc

  by seattleniceguy in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hey gang!

  i apologize for my absence of a few weeks.

  i have been very busy with work lately, and i hate to write something that i haven't been able to research properly, so i haven't posted anything in this series for three weeks now.

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  seattleniceguy

  Dave,

  Funny site. Oh my gawd! Check out this quote on their About Us page:

  The Internet was created by the United States of America - a Christian nation [ref. 1, 2, 3] - and should not be used to spread anti-Christian, secular, or non-Christian propaganda and hatespeech. This is our Internet, and we should exercise our position as its owners and as the guardians of civilization to stop its misuse.

  Ay yai yai! They're trying to shut down the Landover Baptist site! :-) What's next, The Onion? Lord save us!

  hooberus,

  I realize that some creationists accept so-called "microevolution," although I find the distinction to be absurd. I don't think the creationist explanations are convincing in any normal definition of the word.

  SNG
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  16

  Have a blessed day

  by Elsewhere in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i have noticed that every time i go to a local store, the checkout girl always says, "have a blessed day" as i walk away after the transaction.

  has anyone else come across this, and am i the only one who finds it annoying?

  it seems to me that people who do this are "show boating" their religion... basically blowing a horn and saying: "look at me!

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  seattleniceguy

  Agree with Billygoat that it's just a gosh durn greeting...but on the other hand I don't think I would be able to resist responding with something like, "I'll try to evolve a little, thanks!"

  SNG
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  25

  Disassociation = Disfellowshipment = The Final Insult (A Proposal)

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i try to keep up with discussion on this forum, but i missed the threads about the new policy on the announcement of disfellowshipping and disassociation.

  so excuse me if i am covering old ground.

  the new "organized to do jehovah's will" book stated that in future announcements of disfellowshipping and disassociation would follow the same formulation: "****** ****** is no longer one of jehovah's witnesses".

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  seattleniceguy

  Hello there, slimboyfat,

  I agree with you, although I hadn't considered that the policy might force people to more desperate means to make the distinction known. For my own part, I did DA expressly so that my former friends and associates would know that it was a consciencious decision, and hearing the new policy made me glad that I had done so when I did.

  Then again, I have never been one for spectacular displays, so I don't think I would have tried the approach you suggest. Another reason is that your explanation window would be about 15 seconds before your listeners totally and completely shut down their minds. I think I still would have gone the letter route and simply made it clear in my letter that the choice was mine.

  Interesting thread.

  Brian
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  83

  Should Intelligent Design be taught in schools?

  by AlmostAtheist in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  kansas is holding a debate to decide.

  http://www.cnn.com/2005/education/05/02/life.evolution.reut/index.html.

  topeka, kansas (reuters) -- evolution is going on trial in kansas.. eighty years after a famed courtroom battle in tennessee pitted religious beliefs about the origins of life against the theories of british scientist charles darwin, kansas is holding its own hearings on what school children should be taught about how life on earth began.. the kansas board of education has scheduled six days of courtroom-style hearings to begin thursday in topeka.

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  seattleniceguy

  No. ID does not make any positive predictions about the natural world and therefore has no scientific value.

  SNG
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  109

  Evidence for evolution, Installment 5: Lake Tanganyika, etc

  by seattleniceguy in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hey gang!

  i apologize for my absence of a few weeks.

  i have been very busy with work lately, and i hate to write something that i haven't been able to research properly, so i haven't posted anything in this series for three weeks now.

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  seattleniceguy

  tijkmo,

  just one wee point though...do all evolutionists accept that there is no explanation for a beginning because im sure i have heard some theories regarding it...from evolutionists

  Certainly, everybody has a favorite opinion about the topic. Also, some evolutionary scientists, such as Freeman Dyson, are pursuing research into abiogenesis, which is the field that tries to address how life arose. So such a scientist will have sometimes make statements about how life may have come about. Still, however, evolutionary theory does not work on that question, only on the question of how biological organisms change once they are in existence.

  SNG
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  109

  Evidence for evolution, Installment 5: Lake Tanganyika, etc

  by seattleniceguy in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hey gang!

  i apologize for my absence of a few weeks.

  i have been very busy with work lately, and i hate to write something that i haven't been able to research properly, so i haven't posted anything in this series for three weeks now.

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  seattleniceguy

  LT,

  Thanks for your kind words and pointing out that theism and evolution are not mutually exclusive.

  tijkmo,

  Dave has already answered your question quite well, but I wanted to add a few things regarding what evolution addresses. People coming from a fundamentalist religious background sometimes find it strange that evolution does not address the question of origins. The reason for this, I believe, is that fundamentalist religions try to answer everything. There is no question that such a religion does not answer. Think about the JWs - they had something to say about almost everything in your life, from your spiritual relationship to God to your intimate relationship with your wife.

  Evolution is not like that. It does not try to answer every question in the universe. Think of evolution more like you think of electrical engineering. Electrical engineering theory has a great deal to say about how electricity behaves, and it makes extremely useful predictions that help us to build watches, computers, and TVs. However, EE has absolutely nothing to say about how the universe came to be. But that's fine; the question is simply not relevant to the field.

  Likewise, evolution addresses the question of how living organisms change over time. We know that they change - evolution takes up the questions of how and why. It is a specific field, and as such does not address all possible questions in the universe. So the fact that it does not address the question of how life got here in the first place really doesn't have any bearing on whether or not it is a useful theory. Evolution also has nothing to say about electrical engineering. But that's fine, because we have another field that does that quite well.

  Hope that makes sense. Keep up with the reading and discussion! Cheers!

  SNG
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  121

  Who Was Shocked By the Watchtower UN NGO Scandal?

  by AlanF in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  .

  i'd like to get comments from people about whether and how much they were shocked, surprised, or otherwise bothered by the watchtower society's becoming an associated non-governmental organization (ngo).. note that i'd like to see these comments because they might lead to some interesting publicity, so please comment accordingly.. alanf

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  seattleniceguy

  Alan,

  I had already left the organization but had not yet formally disassociated when I learned of the UN scandal. I was shocked by the brazen hypocrisy of it. Whereas before I thought that they were sincere but misguided, I now knew that they were totally cynical.

  SNG
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  109

  Evidence for evolution, Installment 5: Lake Tanganyika, etc

  by seattleniceguy in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hey gang!

  i apologize for my absence of a few weeks.

  i have been very busy with work lately, and i hate to write something that i haven't been able to research properly, so i haven't posted anything in this series for three weeks now.

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  seattleniceguy

  Abaddon, thanks for your related points regarding isolated species.

  Dave, I really liked your concluding paragraph:

  If this sounds like faith, then it is a faith in the process of accumulating evidence and making conclusions from it. It isn't faith in "evolution", it is faith in the process that when followed points to evolution. As it happens, the process has a good track record of coming up with answers that seem to be correct, so it seems to be a reasonable thing to place faith in.

  I suppose in the end that science is the belief in cause and effect, that things that happen leave evidence, and that if we rationally consider the evidence, we can determine how things happen.

  When I was just waking up from my Witness daze, I was astounded by the propensity of Witnesses to throw the entire notion of cause and effect out the window when it did not suit them. Normally logical people would simply declare that 1 + 1 did not equal 2 in some cases. I wondered how it was possible for anything to be accomplished in a world in which you could not count on fundamental laws working.

  SNG