Posts by slimboyfat

44

The 1914 doctrine: How long it will last?

by opusdei1972 in

one hundred years have passed and the society still supports this lie, which of course, is the basis of their other lies, like that of the unfaithful and not discreet slave appointed in 1919. however, i wonder, what will happen after 50 years, when the overlapped generation will pass?.

and if you want, what will happen with this religion in 2100?, could it survive with the same lie??

?.

slimboyfat

You'd think they would drop it pretty soon. But for all their changes over the last few years, the current GB don't seem thoughtful or creative enough to build an alternative or to justify dumping one of their central teachings, Their dismal performance with "this generation" shows they are not up to the task. So they may just stick with 1914 long after it's become patently repidiculous just because they can't think what else to do.

405

Origin of Life

by cofty in

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.

slimboyfat

Your opening post did not ask how creationists would respond to origins of life research.

It asked how "theists" would respond, and speculated about possible "excuses" they would attempt to make.

Theism is defined as the belief that God exists, no more and no less.

Merriam-Webster
Theism: the belief that God exists or that many gods exist

Are you backtracking from saying that those who "believe that God exists" would have questions to answer? Are you now saying only that creationists would have questions to answer?

As for all the insulting comments I am not going to answer that, so you should give up trying to drag discussion down to that level. I am interested in ideas and viewpoints, not calling names.

9

Suggestions for books to read

by Truthexplorer in

i am just about finished 'out of the cocoon' (great book) and am looking for ex jw books to read.. so far i have read:.

crisis of conscience (brilliant/amazing).

in search of christian freedom (interesting).

slimboyfat

Apocalypse Delayed by James Penton (best up to date-ish history)

A People For His Name by Antony Wills (best not up to date history)

The Gentile Times Reconsidered by Carl Olof Jonsson (more than just a refutation of 1914, an account of the GB's bloody mindedness)

The Orwellian World of Jehovah's Witnesses by Gary and Heather Botting (this book is over the top but good fun, it deserves more readers than it gets)

Thirty Years a Watchtower Slave by William Schnell (definitely over the top and a bit barmy, but it's a classic)

Visions of Glory by Barnara Harrison (an account of bethel in the early post-war years, plus a general history, feminist perspective)

Three Dissertations on the Teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses by Greg Stafford (asks what can and can't be said as a JW in good standing - which proved not to extend to the contents of this book)

Watch How We Walk by Jennifer Lovegrove (fictional account of life as a JW)

405

Origin of Life

by cofty in

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.

slimboyfat

I have NEVER said otherwise. Many times I have commended the position of theistic evolutionists like Francis Collins and Ken Miller.
I think their beliefs are provably wrong for other reasons but NOT for scientific ones.
Nowhere in this thread have I suggested what you are claiming and yet more than half the thread consists of your phony arguments and others refuting them.
Once again you are congratulating yourself for attacking a straw man. Troll

Cofty you say I misrepresent you. You say you don't in fact believe that scientific discoveries can answer questions about God. Yet at various times in the thread you made statements that suggest otherwise. Not least in the opening post.

How do you think theists will respond when it finally happens?

If you don't think origin of life research is a challenge to theism, then why expect theists to come up with a response?

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.

So science proves God didn't do it or it doesn't prove it, which is it?

Also the excuse doesn't work...

On the one hand you say that a scientific explanation for the origin of life would leave theists with questions to answer, that their various "excuses" wouldn't work, and that it would prove there is no "life force" from God.

On the other hand you say that any suggestion you are using science to settle the issue of God is a compete misrepresentation.

You are trying to have your cake and eat it.

405

Origin of Life

by cofty in

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.

slimboyfat

Excellent post John Mann. I was going to make a similar post but I doubted it was worth the effort. I've been reading books by Raymond Brown recently, and he is so reasonable it almost makes you want to become a Catholic - except for the teaching on sex which is abysmal.

It's important to keep in mind that former JWs, and Dawkins-type atheists often have a very particular kind of Christian believer in mind when building refutations. The Catholic Church and many other churches (representative the vast majority of Christians) accept evolution and do not see science and faith in competition.

It's interesting on this thread to see the various strategies Cofty has used to make my points seem extreme when actually they are mainstream. He claims I don't like science. It's actually his view that scientific discoveries can tell us about the likelihood of God which is a marginal philosophical position. He has used insults instead of arguments, introduced a flat earth (again) and postmodernism, when postmodernism has nothing to do with the subject of the thread, or the mainstream view I promoted that science, philosophy and theology deal with different areas of knowledge.

The idea, popular among reductionist materialists such as Dawkins, is that science is on the march, and is vanquishing religion. It disproved creation in the nineteenth century and soon it will disprove that God is the origin of life. What will believers do then, Cofty asks? What excuses will believers have left?

But this misunderstands what science is. Science can tell us how something probably happened. It cannot tell us why it happened or its meaning. Scientists may, or probably will, one day discover how life started. But this is not one inch closer to proving that God didn't do it.

Yes it does! Of course it does! If it happened all by itself, then this proves God had nothing to do with the origin of life! How can you be so thick! (Comes the retort)

But really it proves nothing of the sort. All it proves is that the universe is consistent in observing patterns and laws all the way back. Whether God instigated these laws, or used them for his purposes, science cannot tell us one way or another. Using scientific discoveries to try to figure out a God or not-God is wrong headed. It's using the wrong tool for the stated purpose. It's like expecting to be able to measure the temperature of water with a ruler.

I am not representing an extreme philosophical position here, and has nothing to do with postmodernism or a flat earth. These are rhetorical strategies along with the insults. It is a mainstream view that science and philosophy deal with different kinds of questions.

It is actually Cofty who holds an extreme and marginal philosophical position: scientific and materialist reductionism. In this view only matter exists and science is the only true source of knowledge. Other kinds of knowledge are collapsed into science by various means. In its most extreme forms this marginal world view even claims that branches of philosophy such as ethics can be collapsed and redefined as science. Yes Cofty actually believes that ethical problems have a definite scientific solution. (He stated this on the forum a couple of heads ago) You or I might think euthanasia or abortion, for example, are complex ethical dilemmas that admit a number of perspectives and solutions. Not for an adherent ofscientific reductionism. All such issues have definitive scientific answers which can be discovered. That's how extreme his claims for science are. So if we want to talk about flat earth type nonsense that's where we could start.

405

Origin of Life

by cofty in

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.

slimboyfat

You are joking, right?

38

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

by pale.emperor in

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.

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

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.

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.

43

How Will Armageddon Begin?

by Cold Steel in

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.

slimboyfat

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

405

Origin of Life

by cofty in

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.

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.