slimboyfat

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Posts by slimboyfat

• 
  340

  Calling Cofty and others regarding evolution

  by dubstepped in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  so i have started down the path of trying to understand evolution, and to get the linear lies that the jws planted in my head out of it.

  i bought an audiobook called "evolution: what the fossils say and why it matters" by donald prothero.

  i heard it recommended on an atheist podcast that i listened to.

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  slimboyfat

  It doesn't seem as if Christadelphians believe all animals were vegetarian before the fall from what I gather.
• 
  110

  References to YHWH in ancient documents

  by Doug Mason in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  page 15 of awake!

  2017 provides an image that shows hebrew writing with the statement: “the personal name of god written in ancient hebrew characters appears abundantly in early manuscripts of the bible”.. alongside that image, the awake!

  provides a listing to show “the rendering of ‘god’s name’ in various languages”.. the facts do not support either assertion that the watchtower society makes:.

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  slimboyfat

  Emanuel Tov is indeed an excellent scholar to read. In particular I liked reading his introduction to the text/textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible. He came out supporting Iao as original in the LXX in an essay in this book:

  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bible-Book-Transmission-Greek-Text/dp/0712347275/

  I think Frank Shaw's thesis (less expansive than his later book) is available online somewhere, but I can't find it right now!
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  13

  Jolene Chu and James Pelechia?

  by Gorbatchov in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  20 years ago there was some change at the jw bastion.

  some windows were opened when the internet became availble.

  jolene chu and james pelechia did historical research for watchtower and published about it.

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  slimboyfat

  Carolyn Wah too.

  Yeah Wroebel wrote some really interesting stuff on his website and took it down again. I wish I had saved it!

  Did you know Pellechia wrote a history of JWs in Ohio? A google search will bring it up.

  And JWs have recently collaborated with outside scholars on a multi volume history of JWs in Europe edited by Gerhard Besier.
• 
  340

  Calling Cofty and others regarding evolution

  by dubstepped in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  so i have started down the path of trying to understand evolution, and to get the linear lies that the jws planted in my head out of it.

  i bought an audiobook called "evolution: what the fossils say and why it matters" by donald prothero.

  i heard it recommended on an atheist podcast that i listened to.

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  slimboyfat

  No it’s this one. It’s got good pictures too.

  http://www.thechristadelphian.com/cals_evolution_or_design.htm

  Still can’t find it. I need to organise my books.

  The critique doesn’t mention the black mamba, which actually I find morbidly fascinating.
• 
  340

  Calling Cofty and others regarding evolution

  by dubstepped in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  so i have started down the path of trying to understand evolution, and to get the linear lies that the jws planted in my head out of it.

  i bought an audiobook called "evolution: what the fossils say and why it matters" by donald prothero.

  i heard it recommended on an atheist podcast that i listened to.

  1. 
  2. 
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• 

  slimboyfat

  I think this page has the same or similar content to the booklet I can't find, although my booklet was specifically about evolution.

  http://www.thechristadelphian.com/is_there_a_god_online.htm
  

  Let’s take a different line of argument. Consider for a moment the Black Mamba. This is an African snake which obtains its food by injecting a deadly, paralysing poison through hollow, curved fangs into the bloodstream of its victim. Once it has ceased to struggle, the snake engulfs the whole body into its flexible throat. Setting aside how the snake came by its highly complex toxin, we need to consider how it developed the hollow fangs down which the poison flows from a gland high in its skull into the flesh of its prey. If evolution is true, we have to assume that originally the teeth were solid, but became hollow over a long period, say millions of years. How exactly does a solid tooth become hollow? I asked an atheist recently how he explained this. ‘Oh!’ he said, ‘at some point a snake was hatched that had a small depression in one side of its tooth. In later generations this became a groove, and eventually the groove closed over to make a tube.’ This might sound plausible, until you consider the basic tenet of evolutionary theory that changes that are of no immediate service to the individual are eliminated. A hollow somewhere on the tooth would add nothing to its usefulness. Only if in the same snake there were several hollows in a line would there be a slight added efficiency. And those hollows would need to be in a line pointing downhill. A line running round the circumference of the tooth would be useless. The probability of an individual snake experiencing a whole series of such drastic mutations to the structure of its tooth simultaneously would seem vanishingly small. And then it only ends up with a groove. How did the groove close over to make a tube? Until that time most of the venom would be wasted, since it would not penetrate the flesh. Even then, the snake would still only possess one fang with a tube. But it has two fangs, each of which needs to be hollow.
  What we are saying is that when you get down to the detail of what is needed for evolution to work, it becomes much simpler to assume that a God out there designed a working snake complete with poison and fangs, which He then set down as a predator in the great pyramid of life. We could multiply this example with a thousand others: the tear drain in the human eye — a minute tube that runs through the thickness of the eyelid; the migration of the New Zealand cuckoo across open ocean to the tiny islands of Vanuatu; the clotting of blood — essential for us to survive the smallest cut and yet remaining liquid while passing through the capillaries of our arteries — the whole of nature has mechanisms and structures that cry out ‘design’! Such brilliant inventions do not, in our experience, arise out of random events such as chance mutations in our reproductive cells.
• 
  340

  Calling Cofty and others regarding evolution

  by dubstepped in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  so i have started down the path of trying to understand evolution, and to get the linear lies that the jws planted in my head out of it.

  i bought an audiobook called "evolution: what the fossils say and why it matters" by donald prothero.

  i heard it recommended on an atheist podcast that i listened to.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  slimboyfat

  I'll need to find it, I don't know where I put it. But from memory it says that the black mamba has two sets of fangs because they break easily when used against struggling prey. So when the first set breaks the second set can be used. It argues that there would be no use for two sets of fangs that are incomplete, or some intermediary stage, therefore they must always have existed fully formed.
• 
  340

  Calling Cofty and others regarding evolution

  by dubstepped in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  so i have started down the path of trying to understand evolution, and to get the linear lies that the jws planted in my head out of it.

  i bought an audiobook called "evolution: what the fossils say and why it matters" by donald prothero.

  i heard it recommended on an atheist podcast that i listened to.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  slimboyfat

  I have got a Christadelphian booklet that disproves evolution. It's very interesting, including a section on the black mamba!
• 
  110

  References to YHWH in ancient documents

  by Doug Mason in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  page 15 of awake!

  2017 provides an image that shows hebrew writing with the statement: “the personal name of god written in ancient hebrew characters appears abundantly in early manuscripts of the bible”.. alongside that image, the awake!

  provides a listing to show “the rendering of ‘god’s name’ in various languages”.. the facts do not support either assertion that the watchtower society makes:.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  slimboyfat

  Have you read "The Earliest Non-Mystical Jewish Use of Iao", by Frank Shaw?

  https://www.amazon.com/Earliest-Non-Mystical-Contributions-Biblical-Exegesis/dp/9042929782
  

  In light of the evidence presented in the book, including the Leviticus fragment, onomastica, Roman and Jewish sources, for the widespread use of Iao, I think this statement is difficult to maintain:

  Toward the end of the Hellenistic period and during the Roman period, Jews, especially Jews of the Diaspora but probably also Jews living in Judea, avoided pronouncing the name “YHWH".
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  16

  Consolidation of Bethel Big-Wigs Now?

  by The Fall Guy in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  a reliable source has informed me that a bethel contact has informed them that paul gillies - a london branch committee heavyweight - is moving to warwick to join the legal department there.

  anyone else aware of this?.

  during the recent court case in russia, he posed for a photograph with the gb member and the rest of the wt a-team..

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  slimboyfat

  I don't think they have enough money to complete Chelmsford. They'll probably close the Britain branch or replace it with a small office and rapture a select few ancient worthies to upstate New York.
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  15

  Resource For All Congregations in the United Kingdom

  by truthseeker in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the complete resource to all congregations in the uk (inc northern ireland) is available.. all information is publicly available and is considered correct as of today.. as with any file this large, there may be mistakes.

  if you find any, please let me know.. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1rz0dqqh3p6rlkbylpppr6x5nx8lbslao.

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  slimboyfat

  On the JW website Ardrishaig is no longer listed as a congregation.

  I'm also pretty sure Inverness had two congregation at one time. But I don't know how long ago it would have closed. A bit vaguer than that I also think Perth had three congregations at one time and Ardrossan and Stevenston had their own congregations (distinct from Kilbirnie). But I have no idea how I would verify any of that.

  I have noticed that well over half of the congregations in Scotland collected less money in 2017 than 2016. I considered adding it all up but I don't know I can be bothered.