I could argue about this, but this is not the place to do so. I got the joke, and I get that this is a joke thread. Have at it. I actually laughed aloud at lgcviking's one.
Awakened07
JoinedPosts by Awakened07
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for the ladies- What's the Problem, Eve?
by carla inwhat's the problem, eve?.
"what's the problem, eve?
"lord, i know you've created me and have provided this beautiful garden and all of these wonderful animals, and that hilarious comedic snake, but i'm just not happy.
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for the ladies- What's the Problem, Eve?
by carla inwhat's the problem, eve?.
"what's the problem, eve?
"lord, i know you've created me and have provided this beautiful garden and all of these wonderful animals, and that hilarious comedic snake, but i'm just not happy.
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Awakened07
Sorry for being the grumpy Gus, but as funny as it may be, it's not very helpful, and is also very sexist (yes, it goes both ways, actually).
But it's healthy to be able to laugh at oneself, so I guess I'll choose to do that.
But hey - about man satisfying her physical needs? I thought you were doing better on your own in that area as well, from everything I've read and seen on TV? Not much left for us men to be good at.
Socrates, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Newton, Nietzsche, Darwin, Wright brothers, Einstein, Ghandi, Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins... they were/are all actually women? You learn something new every day.
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The significance of this image...
by Awakened07 inthey say a picture is worth a thousand words.. .
to me, the picture posted below is one of the - if not the - most significant images i've seen so far in my life.
as i was growing up (a jw), i was taught that the universe was in perfect harmony.
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Awakened07
I will just briefly comment on Deuteronomy 32:4 as it seems to be a key reference in your argument
I actually thought about it yesterday, and found that the verse could very well be understood the way you describe it, so I'm not going to argue about that. I would not say that it's a key reference in my argument, to the point that my argument stands or falls on that scripture, though; I included it because it is often used to show that God is perfect by those who profess that view, but if you yank that scripture and my explanation of it out of my posts, there's still an argument there in the rest of them.
But look: What I was trying to do here (in this thread), was to argue a point with those who believe God and His creation is perfect. Catholics certainly says so, as do JWs and LDS. And I would guess many others, like many episcopalians. And so does Islam (search all those pages for references of 'perfect'). Only when I got here did I find Christians who actually don't believe this.
It's hard to make a goal when the goal posts keep moving, though. I can't possibly argue every single one of the many millions of personal convictions and interpretations of 'independent' believers. But I think I tried to adapt to the new arguments as they emerged in this thread, and have argued the point from all sides now. Both what the case is if God is perfect and so His creation, and if He isn't perfect and/or neither His creation. I don't feel like repeating myself here. That said, here are some:
"Cliff notes" of my points in this thread:
- Many, many Bible based (and some non-Bible based) religions and denominations teach that God is perfect.
- If God is perfect, His creation doesn't show it on many levels, and He must have willfully allowed potentially harmful things to happen (like asteroids, etc.).
- If that is said to be because His creation was initially perfect but was affected by the fall of mankind, then the fact that galaxies were colliding millions of years before the fall of man would discredit that explanation, in my opinion, because:
- Galaxies are not "perfectly colliding". If they were, we would not have any asteroids or comets or meteorites here on earth. God would 'guide' it all, including those potentially harmful objects in our vicinity. He has created a protective barrier in the form of our atmosphere, but that barrier isn't perfect, as it doesn't work on the largest objects, which after all are the most deadly.
- If God is not, and has never been perfect as was put forward by posters in this thread (perfect in the sense of "can't do anything wrong or faulty or lacking and is the complete being"), and neither His creation, then we must question His "almightiness" and omnipotence: - If His creation is not perfect, is it because He is not perfect, and if He is not perfect, is it because He's not able to be? And if He's not able to be perfect and/or create perfection, is He then still almighty and omnipotent?
- Natural phenomenons have been taken out of God's hands one-by-one over the centuries. He once directly controlled the weather - now He only directly controls the galaxies? Does He really? If so, why are there asteroids etc. hitting earth? Why are the galaxies colliding? Why are stars blowing up?
- If stars, galaxies, explosions, collisions etc. in the universe is for our benefit and visual pleasure, then how come we've only been able to actually see it at any detail in the last 100 years or so? Why did God create 'fireworks' so far away that even today, we can't see it? Was it created for the angels? Why create physical objects for the visual pleasure of angels? Is their realm empty? Could He not have created something beautiful for them in their realm instead? Did He do it for Himself? Again, why not create something beautiful in His own realm instead, that both He and His angels could find joy from?
- When (if) we say "God's word is true, period", we say that it's beyond reproach, that we can't ask questions about it. 'The Bible says it's the word of God, and since God's word is true, the Bible is the word of God'. If people several hundred or thousands of years ago had been content with this, we would have precious little of the knowledge we currently have of the nature around us. We wouldn't have been able to enjoy God's "fireworks" at all, because we wouldn't question God's creation or find out how it works (why find out how it works when we know that God is doing it all?).
Thanks for your input (all of you who have contributed).
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Do Not Be a Victim of Propaganda! vs Sept 07 OKM
by Black Sheep inthis is an adaptation of my commentary for my wife on one of the propaganda articles still published on the official wt website.. i think they are a good set of articles to refer to when discussing the sept 2007 okm qfr and jws cultish behaviour in general.. .
cheers.
chris.
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Awakened07
Thanks, Black Sheep; I have saved this thread to my "JWD Favorites".
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JWs all excited Big A just around Corner- Earthquakes-Indonesia
by stillajwexelder inhttp://news.uk.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=6111896.
a big earthquake predicted.
just to let you know all jws in our area are all wide eyed and almost orgasmic over all the earthquakes in the pacific ocean/indian ocean area - the end - armagedon is just around the corner.
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Awakened07
-Think of how close it was in the fall of 1945; huge world war was over, millions dead, the two first (and so far only) nuclear weapons deployed on live targets. Wow - that's what I call close to Armageddon! Since then, it's been a little so-so close in comparison.
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The significance of this image...
by Awakened07 inthey say a picture is worth a thousand words.. .
to me, the picture posted below is one of the - if not the - most significant images i've seen so far in my life.
as i was growing up (a jw), i was taught that the universe was in perfect harmony.
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Awakened07
This in turn means that if we're to believe the Bible's story - no matter if you believe in an old or a young earth; in literal or figurative creation days - these galaxies started colliding several million years before the original sin.
This statement is not necessarily true. It's a reasonable presumption but not absolute. That being, that God understanding how long it would take for light to travel, he may have created the light when he created the universe not too long ago. [....] God is smart enough to do that. So scientists don't really know anything conclusive based upon light. It certainly doesn't disprove the Bible. [....] But God may have hidden, buried or destroyed any critical evidence of the global Flood just to trip modern-day scientists up.
Ah - the argument of the deceitful and plotting God... 'He was only pulling our leg all that time after all'. I think I'll leave that one alone. Study cosmology.
Think of it in terms of Adam. Here's a brand new human. But God didn't create it as an embryo grown in a test tube, then nutured into a fetus and then gradually matured. He simply made man at a certain advanced level, physically and mentally. Emotional and chronological maturity would catch up with his physical age eventually, maybe in about 30 years.
Well - He couldn't very well have created a fetus lying on the ground. Whether we believe in a 'Big Bang' or not, the universe is not static, the stars are moving away from us, and there is background radiation indicating something along the lines of a Big Bang occurred. If you have to twist and bend a puzzle piece and cram it in in order to make it fit, you haven't really solved the puzzle (even if the piece finally fits). There's an awful amount of twisting and bending of observable and testable phenomenon implied in your argument in order to make it fit that 'God did it'.
As far as the stars colliding and creating such a light show, that is EXACTLY what it is. It's incredibly beautiful, is it not? But it's like fireworks. To make bright lights like this, you need to have stars colliding. It's just something God is doing in that neck of the universe for our amusement and fascination. If the galaxy implodes onto itself, in ten trillion lightyears, so what? Who knows, it may have already completely imploded but we're seeing the light of what it was before.
You were correct at the end there. The light we see is old, so how it looks out there if we were able to move there in an instant, would be quite different from what we see now. Fireworks? We haven't been able to see this firework until the last maybe 100 years or so (in any detail anyway). There's still a lot of 'fireworks' out there that we still don't see, because it's so far away. He could have created only a billion or so stars, and most of the 'fireworks' we can see would still be intact. Why create something for our benefit that is too far away to be seen? You could argue that He made it for the angels then, but they live in another dimension (or whatever it is), and He could create beautiful things there for them to see instead.
God's word is true, period.
And that's where we end up. Anything and everything we can possibly use our brain to find out is for naught, because the answer is that 'God did it'. "Tornado? God did it. Lightening? God did it. Rain? God did it. -Now go read your Bible, and don't ask silly questions as to how the world around us works".
JCanon, theextreme fundamentalist
Thanks for the post!!!
Thanks for having a sense of humor about it, at least.
(edited: )
-To round things off here(?), I would like to say that no; I don't think I have all the answers, and I don't think science has all the answers. I do however think we shouldn't be afraid of asking the questions and get more answers.
I didn't fully explain it above, but let's say we went back in time to the first few humans (either if we believe the Bible or not). They were about to travel around, and learn things about their surroundings. If they had been content with the answer of 'God did it' to every natural phenomenon, think of all the things we wouldn't have known today or throughout history. We would be stuck with not much science at all.
-I posted in order to put forward an argument, and get feedback. To learn from it, or refute it if possible. I feel I have said what I needed to say in this thread (if people can muster the thought of reading it all) and heard the replies I needed to hear. By all means, I'm not "closing the thread", I just thought I'd clarify the above. I think I've touched on most of what has been put forward against my point. So it's up to each and every one to make their own conclusions.
I don't like the notion though, that because a person thinks that science actually can learn something about the universe, that person automatically is very closed minded, and thinks he/she's got all the answers. I don't, and I'm even open to believing in a God. As Terry too, I guess, I put my thoughts forward to see if believers can refute them in a rational manner and explain it all to me.
Some times we have to agree to disagree I guess. I think I've reached that point with this. At least I got my point across to some. And possibly learned something from some. Thanks for the replies (but keep them coming if you want, of course).
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The significance of this image...
by Awakened07 inthey say a picture is worth a thousand words.. .
to me, the picture posted below is one of the - if not the - most significant images i've seen so far in my life.
as i was growing up (a jw), i was taught that the universe was in perfect harmony.
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Awakened07
The best I think we can say about it: it is. And even that doesn't mean much.
I already explained that we can calculate the direction, speed and mass of the individual objects, and project an animation using supercomputers. We can know something about this, if we dare to try.
"Perfect" carries the ideas of "complete" or "finished". From this perspective the very concept of "initial perfection" is self-contradictory,
Most Christians (that I have heard of, read about, met) agree that God the Creator is perfect. JWs certainly believe this. And also that His creation was initially perfect.
Deu. 32:4 "His work is perfect, all His ways are just" (or: "his work [is] perfect: for all his ways [are] judgment" (KJV))
As always with the Bible though, there's the possibility of misinterpreting it. We can't just read it as-is apparently, we need to know the original languages to a T as well, otherwise we might misunderstand the meaning.
How would you describe the word 'perfect' as it's used above, Narksissos (I know about your credentials, so I'm not challenging you here, just asking)? When I search KJV online, I find that his work here can mean: work, deed, doing or work, thing made or wages of work (these are the things that make sense in this context, IMO).
And as for perfect: complete, whole, entire or whole, sound, healthful or complete, entire (of time) or sound, wholesome, unimpaired, innocent, having integrity or what is complete or entirely in accord with truth and fact.
So - "what He has made or worked on or done is either complete, whole, or completely true " .
Or - if I read this scripture in KJV (which apparently is a very trustworthy translation according to most Christians) as-is, it simply states: "his work [is] perfect".
Again: one could argue that 'perfect' in the context of this verse simply means that His work is complete; that His creative action is complete. That wouldn't necessarily mean that it would be 'perfect' in the sense that nothing should be harmful or flying arbitrarily around in space, right? It could simply mean that He's done creating.
-But if so - what's the point in pointing that out, in a verse (and context of verses) that emphasizes how great God is in every way? That would make the passage mean: "What He has made is done [completed],
for [because] all His ways are just". Would that sentence make sense?
But if He is perfect as this verse may imply, then we have to ask; by what standard is He perfect? Something that is 'perfect' has to be completely fulfilling it's purpose. A wrist watch is 'perfect' at telling time, but very 'imperfect' at washing dishes, if you know what I mean.
So what's God's purpose? The only thing we know about that, is that He's supposed to be a Creator. So He'd have to fulfill that purpose completely in order to be a perfect Creator (to do perfect work). As God, He may have a lot of other purposes, but that's beside the point of this thread.
If (again) you are an architect, your purpose (in your work) is to make (or at least design) buildings. If you follow what you've learned about designs, materials, and forces that will work on the building, and it is built exactly according to your design and calculations, it will fill it's function 'perfectly' (within the budget and the location and usage). However - this wouldn't mean that you yourself would be perfect in every way. But you would be a perfect designer, a perfect architect. You have fulfilled your purpose as an architect.
Is He or isn't He perfect, and is or isn't His creation perfect? When I combine what each of you believe, I now suddenly find that God is not perfect, and neither is His creation. On the other hand, this would certainly fly in the face of many other believers.
- If He is a perfect Creator, but His creation was never perfect in the first place, then He must have "scaled down" His creation from perfection (because as a perfect Creator, He should be able to create a perfect universe), and has willfully put in potentially harmful things in the universe (as explained in my former large post above).
- If He isn't even a perfect Creator, then I would say the Bible doesn't agree, as per the scripture and explanation of it above ("His work is perfect [completely fulfilling it's purpose]"). In addition, if this is the case, He would then not be able to fulfill His purpose as a Creator to completion.
But God is almighty though, right? Or is that another misinterpretation? He's omnipotent (Rev. 19:6, KJV), right? All powerful?
If God is those things, but His creation is not perfect, is it then because He is not able to create perfection? If He cannot create things perfectly because He is not able to since He is not perfect, is He then still almighty and omnipotent?
-I find that if we start chipping away at God's 'powers', we end up with: An imperfect being that is simply stronger than us, has the ability to create matter and life, and exists in another dimension.
We have been chipping away at Him for the last few thousands of years already, though. You know that storm outside? The rain, the wind, the clouds, the bolts of lightening? -All directly caused by God. Don't believe me? Go back a couple of thousand years and ask the people you find. They'll tell you it's a fact that God is controlling and causing these things directly. Actually, if you don't believe them, there's a good chance you'll be killed.
If they had been able to see the galaxies back then, they would also tell you it's a fact that God is swirling them around up there and controlling them with His invisible hands.
If we keep on chipping away at Him, what will be left of God a few hundred years from now?
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The significance of this image...
by Awakened07 inthey say a picture is worth a thousand words.. .
to me, the picture posted below is one of the - if not the - most significant images i've seen so far in my life.
as i was growing up (a jw), i was taught that the universe was in perfect harmony.
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Awakened07
That's not what I meant. These things have a tendency to snowball and completely ruin the threads. I got the irony of your post; your post wasn't the problem.
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The significance of this image...
by Awakened07 inthey say a picture is worth a thousand words.. .
to me, the picture posted below is one of the - if not the - most significant images i've seen so far in my life.
as i was growing up (a jw), i was taught that the universe was in perfect harmony.
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Awakened07
Please don't make this into a joke thread. I hope at least some people reading it feel they got something out of it. It would also be nice if people actually read my entire posts, and put together the entire argument as it concludes at the end of each post.
Anyway.
Can God create a galaxy he can not destroy?
Can God create a collision he can not control?
Can God create an ocean he can not swim across?
The obvious answer to at least the first two, is of course that He could destroy His galaxies if He wants, and He can control the collisions if He wants. As for the third... I guess He'd have to materialize in a physical body first, but sure. Still, if He made it stretch into eternity? There would be no 'across'. But let's skip that one (it could rather be a new thread, including the "could God make a stone too big/heavy for Him to lift?" argument).
As for the first two again: There is a common thought among many believers in various religions that God can do whatever He darn please, even if it includes killing or hurting the beings He has created. I can't go into a discussion with people who think like that. If you want to believe that and have no problems with it; go ahead.
As for the 'control' bit; He doesn't control it! He could, but apparently doesn't. If he did, we'd have no potentially harmful asteroids or meteorites crashing into earth at all.
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The significance of this image...
by Awakened07 inthey say a picture is worth a thousand words.. .
to me, the picture posted below is one of the - if not the - most significant images i've seen so far in my life.
as i was growing up (a jw), i was taught that the universe was in perfect harmony.
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Awakened07
-The problem of managing not to put up a straw man argument (an easily refuted, but false argument on behalf of the "opponent") when talking to believers, is that pretty much every one person you talk to has a differing view to the other. And so it will "always" be a straw man argument to some. My argument here though was not a straw man, because the context was that I was brought up a JW, and they believe the creation was initially perfect. This website is after all mostly for those still in, or who have left the JWs.
However, I must say I thought all other Bible based faiths also taught that both God's creation was initially perfect. I don't think I've heard/read any Christian argue that God's creation was never perfect to begin with, until I came here. In other threads here, Christians would ask "Who says Adam and Eve were initially perfect?". First time I heard that too. But you learn something new every day.
We seem to agree that God is perfect and almighty (as there are several Bible passages describing this), but at the same time, His creation was not perfect?
Genesis doesn't actually say everything was created perfect - it was just 'very good' ie 'how God planned/wanted it to be' (so 'perfect' in that sense without the necessity of the scientific definition). True this is a common misinterpretation by some mainstream Christians as well - they can't seem to accept that God would create anything 'less than perfect' (in human terms!)
I agree with emo concerning assumptions with definitions. Creation was called "good", which is a moral evaluation
(I quote this not to argue with or 'attack' the posters, but to illustrate what the argument is)
I have to ask myself: "How could a perfect (and almighty) being create something imperfect?" The only way I can understand that, is if He decided willfully to create it less than perfect. But how does that work?
-Let's say you are going to build a bird house. Not only are you a certified architect of people's houses, you have also studied ornithology and the 'art' of building bird houses. You live next door to a well stocked warehouse, so you have all the necessary equipment and materials you need. You make drawings and calculations and plan it all out before you start.
What would be the result? Would the bird house have a doorway that would sometimes hurt the birds going in and out (nail sticking out for instance)? Would the roof or walls be slightly askew? Would the mounting mechanism be poor, so that after a few days, weeks or months the bird house would fall to the ground due to weather etc.? No, it would - for all intents and purposes - be a "perfect" bird house.
Now - this analogy isn't perfect(!),simply because as a human being you wouldn't be perfect, and could make mistakes you weren't even aware of, even with all your knowledge. Or the materials weren't of as high a quality as you were told.
God however is perfect, and created the materials Himself from scratch.
Now - what you could do, was to scale down the bird house. Not necessarily in size, but in the cost of the materials, the intricacy of the architecture, etc. It would still functionally be a 'perfect' bird house (it would do it's job perfectly), but we could argue not as perfect as it could have been.
So is that what God did? It could make some sense. He perhaps wouldn't want to make beings (or their home) as perfect as Himself, simply to make a distinction between the divine and the material.
However - this "scaling down" of the universe (scaled down from perfection) wouldn't - or at least shouldn't - lead to imperfections that would be potentially harmful to the beings created to live there, or for that matter visible imperfection, just as the bird house wouldn't have a door with a nail sticking half way through it, or the walls askew. Not when the Creator is perfect. If it was imperfect in that way, it would have to be because he willfully put these potentially harmful imperfections in there.
-As for "good" being a moral evaluation in the creation story, I have to ask how for instance the stars could have been morally 'bad' ? If they couldn't, then what's the point in pointing out that they were created 'morally good' ? If it was the creation process itself that was morally 'good', it would have to have been said in order to distinguish it from something morally 'bad'. At this point in time, Satan hadn't even made his move. God is perfect, so there would be no need to distinguish His creation from a hypothetical 'morally bad' creation. That would be like me (or you) saying "I'm not lying now" as the start of every sentence we uttered in a conversation, to distinguish it from a potential lie. We wouldn't do that, because it's self evident that we don't lie in every sentence we say. We don't have to point that out all the time. Why would God have to say "Hey everybody - the planet and star I'm currently creating are not made with any morally wrong intent in mind".
Thanks for the beautiful image. I don't get the same thoughts from this as you do because our puny little science and our puny little brains can't possibly contemplate much less understand and interpret seemingly cataclysmic cosmic occurrences. But the picture is beautiful nonetheless
To some degree I would agree with this. I for instance do not propose that we know everything there is to know about the universe at this point in time, and the nature of science is that it must adapt to new findings. So what we know now may have to be adjusted in the future. However - to say that this is all so complicated that we might as well stop trying to investigate it or contemplate it, is erroneous in my opinion. To me, advanced calculus is "incomprehensible" - my puny little brain couldn't wrap itself around it. But I know that if I were to really understand it, I couldn't just throw up my arms and say "That's it - no one can possibly understand this, it makes no sense!" And that if everyone before me had done that, there would be no advanced calculus in the first place.
We know how physical objects move in this universe. True, there are hypothesis and attempts at theories that could elaborate and more deeply explain what we now know, but they wouldn't completely replace what we now know, just like Einstein didn't completely replace what Newton found about gravity, but came up with a better, more precise and elaborate theory. Newton explained what happens, Einstein better explained how it happens.
The contents of the galaxies we see 'colliding', or merging, can be measured as to speed, direction, mass etc. If you go to the more elaborate page I linked to in my third post from the top, you'll find projections calculated by supercomputers. With less resolution than the actual galaxies of course, but still with the trajectory etc. of the objects plotted in, which results in an animation of how the galaxies looked before, during and after the 'collision'.
-Even if we look away fromall this, I don't think anyone would describe these galaxies (or this heavenly body if you wish) as being perfect either, simply by looking at them. They are visibly distorted.
when galaxies "collide", nothing in them actually collides but the gravitational forces are what cause the interactions because the stars and matter in them are so far apart. Kinda like the fact that the particles in the atoms of my keyboard don't actually touch but the electrical and magnetic forces between define the substance.
This is also true to some extent. As I also pointed out in my first post - these galaxies are interacting, or merging. However, the result is that matter is flung into space, and I think it would be naive to think that planets and stars don't come too close to each other during this whole merging process. When shown as an animation, the 'merger' is quite "violent". Either way - this is a bit beside my point. As I also pointed out, it would be very strange if this is the way God creates our universe. If God forcefully keeps everything in place, or have created self-acting laws that keep everything in place, it should reflect His perfection as a Creator. You shouldn't see two fully formed galaxies crashing or 'interacting' with each other.
I don't think you can directly compare the simplest elements of atoms with the solar systems and galaxies in the universe, although there are at least apparent similarities in how they look and how the parts interact. If earth was violently hit by a huge asteroid, and slowly started on a journey closer to our sun, it would eventually be pulled in and crash into the sun, just like a satellite will crash into earth if it comes too close. It wouldn't "bounce off" the sun due to a repelling or otherwise interacting force.
Breathtaking ! Are the colors real ?
photoshopped
As W-A-C pointed out, the NASA and ESA images are 'photoshopped', or altered to add or enhance colors, "twinkles" and other 'niceties'. They may also have been taken in a range of light not visible to us. This doesn't take away from their scientific significance, but is done simply to make the images more accessible and compelling to us. The shape of these objects has not been manipulated.
As was pointed out by 'bebu', the fact that the universe can't be said to be perfect has been evident for some time already, for instance by the moon causing tides (I'm sure it has caused some deaths over the thousands of years), and we also have meteorites and asteroids that can potentially be very harmful to us and our planet. Not to mention storms, earthquakes and volcanoes here on earth. But all these things I once thought could kinda fit into the whole "mankind sinned, so even their home planet was affected" (after all, they were told they had to "till the land" from now on, indicating they didn't have to before, and one scriptures says the whole creation is "groaning together".(Rom. 8:22)). And as for meteorites and asteroids, our atmosphere serves as protection from those. So when I was a JW, I could argue that if mankind and therefore also earth had still been perfect, then that protection would also have been perfect. That is was created perfectly.
But why would God create a protective 'barrier' against asteroids and meteorites, but make it imperfect so that it will not protect us if the asteroid or meteorite happens to be too large? Why would He create potentially harmful "rocks" hurling around out there in the first place?
Those rocks and other 'interacting' bodies in the cosmos are our"nail sticking half way through the doorway".