Posts by LtCmd.Lore

16

If a crystal ball would tell you the truth about any ONE Thing you......

by new boy in

jw
friends

wished to know concerning yourself, life, the future, or anything else, what would you want to know?

LtCmd.Lore

I'd ask it to show me the research papers for a futuristic computer.

13

Purpose...What is it

by Crooked Lumpy Vessel in

jw
friends

after losing my father-in-law last week, who is not a jw, but was a loving, kind and generous man, i find myself pondering that age old question about the purpose of life.

leaving the jw organization after 15 years, i am completely turned off to religion itself.

i am not even sure about the bible anymore.

LtCmd.Lore

If god exists, then what's the purpose of life? To pump up his ego for all eternity?

If you really want a purpose, then make your own. It can be whatever you want.

You can make other peoples lives better. You can learn new things. You can contribute to science, art, philosophy. You could invent a better energy source or invent a better buffallo wings recipe.

Personally, just want to live. I want to watch movies, I want to have a fun job, I want to laugh, I want to be happy, I want to be smart, I want to have friends, I want to eat the buffallo wings ambitous people invent, I want to be respected. That's good enough for me.

Was your father-in-law a happy man? If so then his life was not a waste of time. If not, then I'm sure he welcomed death.

life has to have a purpose otherwise this is all a big waste of time.

I disagree, I think that the purpose of life is to live. But if you honestly believe that, then go get a purpose. If you don't want a purpose, then at at least have some fun 'wasting time'... it is YOUR time after all.

3

Cure for All Genetic Disease At Hand?

by metatron in

jw
friends

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_article_id=450072&in_page_id=1774.

.

if anything close to this came to pass, it would be huge.. sorry, fred franz, those "puny humans" are getting the job done.. metatron .

LtCmd.Lore

I have the utmost confidence in science. But I think 2009 is grossly exaggerated. I predict that it'll be available around 2020

I almost wish I had a genetic problem so that I had something to look forward too.

This will either impede evolution, or greatly assist it. Once they have mastered FIXING humans, they can start IMPROVING them.

2

An atheist at Virginia Tech - link

by PrimateDave in

i found this link through another forum.. .

an atheist at virginia tech.. .

i think the author does a good job of explaining how atheists cope with tragedies like what happened a week ago.. .

LtCmd.Lore

This is a great link, Thanks for posting it,

6

Auxiliary Pioneers

by dothemath in

a recent meeting stressed the usual pioneering for march and april.........in canada they want to reach a new peak of 20,000 auxiliary pioneers.. the article mentioned that would only require 20% of each congregations publishers.. we're not even close in our congregation........so far 4 out of 90 pubs.

how is the push going in other areas?.

i have my doubts they'll reach their goal..........will have to wait and see.

LtCmd.Lore

They want a total of 160,000 right?

So does anyone know what the purpose behind this is yet?

Surely they want something other than just a "Hey cool we got a bunch more pioneers in April" announcement out of this. I'd like to see them fail... although that's unlikely, all they need is 1 out every 38 to pioneer. Not a very daring goal.

27

"The Red Corvette" problem -- a disconnect in view points

by AlmostAtheist in

jw
friends

in another thread, a poster brought up what he called "the red corvette" problem.

the problem, he said, is that if you are a true atheist, you must believe that a red corvette could simply form out of nothing.

if you believe life originated from nothing, then you must believe that a less-complicated machine such as a sports car could also have originated from nothing.

LtCmd.Lore

I don't know of any simpler and more concise way to describe abiogenesis than this:

Where Did the First Living Cell Come From? In order for the principles of mutation and natural selection in the theory of evolution to work, there have to be living things for them to work on. Life must exist before it can to start diversifying. Life had to come from somewhere, and the theory of evolution proposes that it arose spontaneously out of the inert chemicals of planet Earth perhaps 4 billion years ago.
Could life arise spontaneously? If you read How Cells Work, you can see that even a primitive cell like an E. coli bacteria -- one of the simplest life forms in existence today -- is amazingly complex. Following the E. coli model, a cell would have to contain at an absolute minimum:
A cell wall of some sort to contain the cell
A genetic blueprint for the cell (in the form of DNA)
An enzyme capable of copying information out of the genetic blueprint to manufacture new proteins and enzymes
An enzyme capable of manufacturing new enzymes, along with all of the building blocks for those enzymes
An enzyme that can build cell walls
An enzyme able to copy the genetic material in preparation for cell splitting (reproduction)
An enzyme or enzymes able to take care of all of the other operations of splitting one cell into two to implement reproduction (For example, something has to get the second copy of the genetic material separated from the first, and then the cell wall has to split and seal over in the two new cells.)
Enzymes able to manufacture energy molecules to power all of the previously mentioned enzymes
Obviously, the E. coli cell itself is the product of billions of years of evolution, so it is complex and intricate -- much more complex than the first living cells. Even so, the first living cells had to possess:
A cell wall
The ability to maintain and expand the cell wall (grow)
The ability to process "food" (other molecules floating outside the cell) to create energy
The ability to split itself to reproduce
Otherwise, it is not really a cell and it is not really alive. To try to imagine a primordial cell with these capabilities spontaneously creating itself, it is helpful to consider some simplifying assumptions. For example:
Perhaps the original energy molecule was very different from the mechanism found in living cells today, and the energy molecules happened to be abundant and free-floating in the environment. Therefore, the original cell would not have had to manufacture them.
Perhaps the chemical composition of the Earth was conducive to the spontaneous production of protein chains, so the oceans were filled with unimaginable numbers of random chains and enzymes.
Perhaps the first cell walls were naturally forming lipid spheres, and these spheres randomly entrapped different combinations of chemicals.
Perhaps the first genetic blueprint was something other than DNA.
These examples do simplify the requirements for the "original cell," but it is still a long way to spontaneous generation of life. Perhaps the first living cells were completely different from what we see today, and no one has yet imagined what they might have been like. Speaking in general terms, life can only have come from one of two possible places:
Spontaneous creation - Random chemical processes created the first living cell.
Supernatural creation - God or some other supernatural power created the first living cell.
And it doesn't really matter if aliens or meteorites brought the first living cell to earth, because the aliens would have come into existence through either spontaneous creation or supernatural creation at some point -- something had to create the first alien cells.
Most likely, it will be many years before research can completely answer any of the three questions mentioned here. Given that DNA was not discovered until the 1950s, the research on this complicated molecule is still in its infancy, and we have much to learn.

45

2007 District Convention to hammer apostates?

by yaddayadda in

jw
friends

this years "follow the christ" dc looks like it is going to be focused on avoiding all those evil apostates and their falsehoods, judging by some of the dc talks listed on the back of the june 2007 awake!

do not follow false teachers .

do not follow false stories .

LtCmd.Lore

Gee, what do you think happened next? Flashes everywhere. I remember how I used to curse those friends under my breathe.

HAH HAH, that always bothered me too, while I was in and now that I'm out. It still bothers me.

How retarded are these people? Do they honestly think nobody's going to notice the huge burst of light emanating from their seat, directly after they were instructed to avoid such behavior?

+ =

Oh well, nobody said you had to be intelligent to serve Jehovah.

27

VA Tech Incident - Stupid Things People Say

by Seeker4 in

jw
friends

watching all the pundits on tv after the killings at va tech yesterday, there were a handful of things that kept getting repeated that are just stupid.

usually they also require an impossible level of hindsight (which a good number of the pundits have, it seems).

i've just got to rant about this for a few minutes.

LtCmd.Lore

I'm reminded of how, following Columbine, the local school board debated making it a mandatory expulsion for a kid to bring a gun to school. I was covering the meeting as a journalist, and I simply had to ask them, "Do you really think that the threat of being expelled from school will be any kind of a deterrant to a kid who has decided to take a gun to school, murder some people and then kill themselves?"

Absolutely brilliant question/statement.

Having rules like that simply meen: when a nutball comes to school, he'll be the only one armed, and all the honest students will be defenseless. If any of the innocent people on that campus would have had a gun, a whole lot of lives could have been saved. Laws don't stop criminals, they only stop good people.

What happened to the right to bear arms? That amendment was made for a reason. Why should the citizens be legally barred from having a fighting chance?

142

The Need To Question Atheism

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

the need to question atheism this need to question atheism stems from the fact there are some individuals.

on this board that subscribe to such.

the questions stated are not for some.

LtCmd.Lore

Hey vinny, I read the letter you linked too: http://p196.ezboard.com/Letter-of-disassociation/fexjehovahswitnessforumfrm14.showMessage?topicID=237.topic

(Wow, you've been making huge posts for quite some time huh?)

It was very good, you handled the blood issue wonderfully. But what happened to you over the course of a year? You were so polite and rational with the elders you wrote the letter too. Is it just because we've never met face to face that you feel free to insult me?

142

The Need To Question Atheism

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

the need to question atheism this need to question atheism stems from the fact there are some individuals.

on this board that subscribe to such.

the questions stated are not for some.

LtCmd.Lore

can I still insult cmd.lore on this thread?

Sure, I can take it.