slimboyfat

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Posts by slimboyfat

• 
  405

  Origin of Life

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  in recent years significant progress has been made in solving the question of how life originated on our planet.. how do you think theists will respond when it finally happens?

  as a former christian i know my reaction would have been something like "well that just goes to show that it takes intelligent life to make life", but for two reasons that defense doesn't work.. firstly it would prove that life is not an ethereal force that originates with god.

  there is no 'ghost in the machine', no elan vital.

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  slimboyfat

  You are joking, right?
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  38

  The Biggest Mistake The GB Have Made In The Last 10 Years

  by pale.emperor in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i think the single biggest mistake the governing body have made in the last 10 years has to be creating jw broadcasting and putting their gb members on there... on a weekly basis too.. when i was a kid, i had no idea who the governing body were, what their names were or what they looked like.

  there was one or two long term pioneers that knew the names of two of them but that was about it.. when i was about 10yo i imagined they looked something like this:.

  ahh.... those learned men with a lifetime of bible knowledge just oozing out of their very hearts.

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  slimboyfat

  Your Will Be Done was one of my favourite books, and Babylon the Great has Fallen.
• 
  38

  The Biggest Mistake The GB Have Made In The Last 10 Years

  by pale.emperor in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i think the single biggest mistake the governing body have made in the last 10 years has to be creating jw broadcasting and putting their gb members on there... on a weekly basis too.. when i was a kid, i had no idea who the governing body were, what their names were or what they looked like.

  there was one or two long term pioneers that knew the names of two of them but that was about it.. when i was about 10yo i imagined they looked something like this:.

  ahh.... those learned men with a lifetime of bible knowledge just oozing out of their very hearts.

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  slimboyfat

  I was a JW in the 1990s and I knew all the GB by name, because they were pictured in the Proclaimers book, 12 of them at the time, like apostles.

  Personally I think their biggest mistakes were dropping the Book Study groups and the ridiculous generation change.
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  43

  How Will Armageddon Begin?

  by Cold Steel in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  and how long will it last?

  and who will come after that, yahweh, as the old testament says or jesus, as the new testament says?

  the scriptures say he'll come to the mount of olives, but surely that's a spiritual mount of olives.

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  slimboyfat

  How will it begin? If Trump gets elected that's how it will begin.
• 
  405

  Origin of Life

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  in recent years significant progress has been made in solving the question of how life originated on our planet.. how do you think theists will respond when it finally happens?

  as a former christian i know my reaction would have been something like "well that just goes to show that it takes intelligent life to make life", but for two reasons that defense doesn't work.. firstly it would prove that life is not an ethereal force that originates with god.

  there is no 'ghost in the machine', no elan vital.

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  2. 
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  slimboyfat

  sigh*... I know logic is hard, but try.
  First, they don't say that scientist may succeed one day. They say "Similarly, if scientists ever did construct a cell, they would accomplish something truly amazing—but would they prove that the cell could be made by accident?"
  That does not in any way say "may", it says "if". It's similar to saying "Humans will never be able to shoot laser beams from their eyes, but if they could, that would be terrible." The latter hypothetical doesn't negate the former.
  How do we know that "if" and "may" are different? Try replacing them in a sentence. "If you go outside, then you will be cold" doesn't make sense as "May you go outside, then you will be cold". Similarly, "you can go to the movies if you finish your homework" doesn't make sense as "you can go to the movies may you finish your homework".
  The hypothetical "if" (not may) does not negate their teaching that God is the only source of life.
  Evidence is so inconvenient.
  LIFE COMES ONLY FROM LIFE. “With you [God] is the source of life.”—Psalm 36:9.
  https://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/g201501/origin-of-life/
  PROTIP: If you are going to link to a doc to prove your point, actually know what it says and what the words mean.

  Okay, well that's embarrassing.

  Until this exchange I had a vague impression of someone who was arrogant but intelligent. Now I realise only one of those.
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  7

  Posted 3 months ago "After 15-17 years daughter coming for a visit". No word since.

  by James Mixon in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the wife told me it was more like 20-22 years since i seen or talked to her.but since that visit we.

  we have not spoke to one another, not a word.

  my family members (not jw) ask me have i called.

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  slimboyfat

  Sorry for the situation. I think one of the cruelest aspects of JW shunning is that it's never clear cut. It's always a messy mixture of personal and WT policy, so that victims are left wondering where the WT policy stops and the personal dynamic begins. It messes with your head.
• 
  405

  Origin of Life

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  in recent years significant progress has been made in solving the question of how life originated on our planet.. how do you think theists will respond when it finally happens?

  as a former christian i know my reaction would have been something like "well that just goes to show that it takes intelligent life to make life", but for two reasons that defense doesn't work.. firstly it would prove that life is not an ethereal force that originates with god.

  there is no 'ghost in the machine', no elan vital.

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  slimboyfat

  The WT teaches that life comes from life.

  It also says that scientists may succeed in creating life at some point in the future.

  Their argument is that this would only go to prove that intelligent life is required to make life. Life can't arise spontaneously.

  The WT does not teach there is a "theological barrier" to scientists creating life as Cofty claimed. In fact it says the opposite, that scientists may succeed some day.

  See pages 6 and 7:

  https://download-a.akamaihd.net/files/media_books/d0/lf_E.pdf

  If you don't accept a statement in the WT as proof of what they believe, then what sort of evidence would you accept?
  
  
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  11

  Another changed WT publication from when it was first published to now

  by ILoveTTATT2 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this is as it was originally, or at least at the time that paul grundy saw it, because he has this picture on jwfacts:.

  this is what it says on jwfacts right now:.

  watchtower articles on evolution contain a consistent pattern of poor research, such as quotes from both the january and august awake!

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  slimboyfat

  Yeah the comments from readers section is what I used to read first. In fact it was probably the only part worth reading. Also the news section, sometimes.
• 
  405

  Origin of Life

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  in recent years significant progress has been made in solving the question of how life originated on our planet.. how do you think theists will respond when it finally happens?

  as a former christian i know my reaction would have been something like "well that just goes to show that it takes intelligent life to make life", but for two reasons that defense doesn't work.. firstly it would prove that life is not an ethereal force that originates with god.

  there is no 'ghost in the machine', no elan vital.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  slimboyfat

  Wrong in saying JWs have a "theological barrier" to scientists ever creating life. Because their own literature says scientists may succeed at some point in the future. If Cofty can't admit a factual mistake as simple as that, what hope is there for more complex or abstract ideas?
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  8

  Composition of members of the Watch Tower Society at the annual meeting in 1945

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  .

  just came across this info from 1946 yearbook.

  it would be fascinating to have the same information on members at this year's annual meeting.

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  slimboyfat

  Yeah and what's interesting is that some of the votes were proxy. So how did they know their race? Did they fill out a race questionnaire?

  The next page is interesting too. It shows that about a third or a quarter of the members in 1945 joined before Russell died. I found that surprising.

  By the way this post took over a day to apear. Is it because of the picture? I've not started any other threads for a while, so I don't think it's a backlog.