Posts by inkling

19

Diary of Anne Frank a Fraud?

by sammielee24 in

i believed the diary of anne frank was absolutely real - until i read this.

geesh...sammieswife.. meyer levin died in 1981. levin rewrote the various post-war treatments of the anne frank diary with an eye toward a broadway production, but otto decided to cut him out, refusing to honor his contract or pay him for his work.

meyer levin sued otto frank for his writings, and the new york supreme court awarded meyer levin $50,000, for his 'intellectual work'.. in 1980, otto sued two germans, ernst romer and edgar geiss, for distributing literature denouncing the diary as a forgery.

inkling

And why should I take anything from batshit Holocaust deniers seriously?

[inkling]

33

Darwin in Context

by hamilcarr in

why non-atheists needn't be afraid about the upcoming darwin anniversaries.. the fear is that the anniversary will be hijacked by the new atheism as the perfect battleground for another round of jousting over the absurdity of belief (a position that darwin pointedly never took up).

many of the prominent voices in the new atheism are lined up to reassert that it is simply impossible to believe in god and accept darwin's theory of evolution; richard dawkins and the us philosopher daniel dennett are among those due to appear in darwin200 events.

it's a position that infuriates many scientists, not to mention philosophers and theologians.. "a defence of evolution doesn't have to get entangled in atheism," says mark pallen, professor of microbial genomics at birmingham and author of the rough guide to evolution.

inkling

The problem is that a person can have a religious view that is compatible with dawinian evolution only if the religious view (as to biological history) is indistinguishable from atheism's naturalist viewpoint. Any, and all others, (such as straight forward history as recorded Bible, any ID theory, etc, etc.) are directly challenged by neo-darwinism.

Wow. Stop the presses, call the cops, batten down the
hatches, because Hooberus just wrote two consecutive
sentences that I agree with!!!

Seriously though, If indeed a true understand and acceptance of Darwin's
theory does NOT challenge the idea of a interested creator, then why was
Charles Darwin's faith slowly eroded away to nearly nothing?

[inkling]

16

Watchtower 1973 says Dinosuars may have been on Noah's Ark???

by Witness 007 in

watch 73 july 15 p.7 "questions from readers - when did the dinosuars become extinct?

they may have disappeared off the face of the earth in the time of the flood of noah's day.

even if they survived until the flood this would not require taking pairs of mammoth varieties into the ark.

inkling

I hadn't thought about the salt/fresh water fish thing. This is a first. Great point. Perhaps the WT has an explanation about this (rolling eyes)

ding ding ding ding!

Ahem:

Of course, although we just do not know enough from our present perspective to explain all of the objections you raise to the concept of a global food, there are possible explanations. For example, you inquire about how fish would have survived if the flood waters in Noah's day had changed the salinity of the seawater. We cannot know just what the salinity of the seawater was at the time of the Flood, or how much The Flood waters changed it, and thus how sensitive the existing fish would have been to any changes in salinity. However, as you may know, some kinds of fish such as salmon even today normally travel between freshwater and saltwater for spawning. Some of these have migrated two or three times in successive years, and some have even become freshwater natives. Therefore, even now there is flexibility in this regard in fish, and conditions thousands of years ago could have different enough that salinity might not have been as large a factor as it is today. And, of course, Jehovah as Creator certainly could have maneuvered things so that fish were able to survive and adapt for continued existance.

Your arguments also do not take into account the possibility that Jehovah may have had a role in the way things developed or how much the tremendous weight of global floodwaters could have affected geological and chronological data.

From a letter from the WTS, here: http://www.watchtowerletters.com/Response_to_third.html

So basically:

We don't know. Here are some unrelated scientific "facts". And God did it.

[inkling]

43

JW tells me, "1981 Watchtower article predicted today's economic problems."

by WingCommander in

so, i was at the local mall today and ran into a jw friend that i had grown up with and attended school with.

hadn't seen him in 6 months or so.

he didn't see me, so i had to approach him.

inkling

he also may be refering to this article: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/166349/1.ashx

12

Anyone here from Denmark? (or speak Danish?)

by inkling in

jw
friends

i just watched "to verdener", (the danish movie about a jw girl), and.

i have some questions about some dialog and local customs that .

really can only be answered by someone who speaks danish, and .

inkling

Ok, here are my questions about the film...

---------------------

The main Elder character is shown giving talks (even at the district convention)
with rather long hair and a clipped beard, and is shown speaking from the
Kingdom Hall platform while not wearing a suit jacket. Is this common in Denmark?

Along the same line, Sara is shown going door to door wearing jeans. Even
jean SKIRTS are frowned upon here, with pants of any sort completely out
of the question, even dress pants, so seeing her out in service in jeans
seemed really weird.

The songs they sang in the hall seemed really familiar, but not exact... were
they changed to avoid copyright issues? Are the words the same as any Kingdom
Songs in Danish? Same thing with the pictures in the book they were studying...
really close in feel, but not identical.

During Dinner with her boyfriend's atheist parents, they call her religion a
"sect" and she seems to take some offence at the term, almost as if they were
saying that she was in a "cult". To me, "sect" is basically just a "branch"
and is not very descriptive or judgmental, like it seemed in the context of
the conversation. What is the word translated here, and is "sect" really
the best English word to describe it's connotations?

Whenever the subject of disfellowshipping is in dialog, the subtitles use
"expelled" for "disfellowshiped" and "expulsion" for "disfellowshipping"
What is the Danish word used here, and is it the same word used by local
WT literature?

In the funeral/memorial scene everyone is wearing black, and there is a
coffin displayed in the KH. This is unheard of here, as having everyone
wearing all black and having a coffin present is considered to be too
much like the "hopeless" funerals of "the world".

When Sara is talking to her dad about dropping out of "school", it's unclear
wether she means the Danish equivalent of high school (basic education) or
university ("higher" education). How does the education system work in Denmark,
and what is the Witness feeling towards the various levels? Here, dropping out
of college/university would often elicit the same happy "yah?" as in the movie,
but dropping out of high school would be considered irresponsible. Most kids
graduate High School at age 18. Sara is 17 in the film.

The scene of the district convention spread out over the grassy hill was a
great scene cinematically, especially when they all stand up to sing, but it
stuck me as odd that there were just sitting on the grassy ground. I've never
seen that, and was wondering if that is a common setup for conventions there.

When they get home from service, he says they "handed out" 21 magazines that
morning. The English term is usually "placed". What is the Danish word?

In the scene in the rain, Sara says "Wake up Teis, I'm a Jehovah, and you're not!"
Here, only "worldly" people refer to Witnesses as "Jehovahs". Would Sara have said that?

Everyone kept their eyes open during the prayer. It that accurate?

-----------

[inkling]

23

Noah and the flood

by Iwonder17 in

ok, so i have been watching a show on the discovery channel about noah and it got me thinking....let's say that the whole world was covered in a floor about 6000 years ago.

is it even possible to have the earth populate itself in just 6000 years?

also, and more interesting, how can all of the different breads of animals get to all of the contenants and repopulate themselves in that short amount of time as well???

inkling

Nor would you.
'Tis obvious.
BA- That boyz about az sharp az a bowlin' ball, I say.
PS- Ain't it past yer bedtime boy? Now move along.

Nice.

I am going to ignore that sad little descent into playground politics, and attempt to have an adult conversation, if that is ok with you.

Let's assume (as you admit) that at least some of Kent Hovind's claims are indeed crackpot.
I agree however, it would be a logically fallacy to assume that they therefore all are.

So let's try this... Of all the claims made in all those videos you posted, could you
point to several specific claims and arguments that you find compelling?

Just one or two to start, so we don't get bogged down with rhetoric, and can actually
argue over a few "scientific facts"

[inkling]

23

Noah and the flood

by Iwonder17 in

ok, so i have been watching a show on the discovery channel about noah and it got me thinking....let's say that the whole world was covered in a floor about 6000 years ago.

is it even possible to have the earth populate itself in just 6000 years?

also, and more interesting, how can all of the different breads of animals get to all of the contenants and repopulate themselves in that short amount of time as well???

inkling

Lol.
So the fact that Kent has a crackpot theory or two negates the rest of his presentation?

A crackpot theory or two???

That video rebuttal series is like 20 videos long, and barely scratches the surface absurdity of the nonsense that spews from Kent Hovind's mouth.

The man wouldn't know a valid scientific fact if it smacked him in the arse.

[inkling]

23

Noah and the flood

by Iwonder17 in

ok, so i have been watching a show on the discovery channel about noah and it got me thinking....let's say that the whole world was covered in a floor about 6000 years ago.

is it even possible to have the earth populate itself in just 6000 years?

also, and more interesting, how can all of the different breads of animals get to all of the contenants and repopulate themselves in that short amount of time as well???

inkling

And thank you hoobrus, and BA, for your drive by posting.
And, thank you for yours.

Touche.

Seriously though, when you post links to videos or webpages of the Kent Hovind sort, and then
watch the rebuttal videos showing just how massively (and demonstratively) wrong many of his
specific claims are, what is your reaction?

[inkling]

23

Noah and the flood

by Iwonder17 in

ok, so i have been watching a show on the discovery channel about noah and it got me thinking....let's say that the whole world was covered in a floor about 6000 years ago.

is it even possible to have the earth populate itself in just 6000 years?

also, and more interesting, how can all of the different breads of animals get to all of the contenants and repopulate themselves in that short amount of time as well???

inkling

http://www.creationresearch.org

And thank you hoobrus, and BA, for your drive by posting.

26

"To Verdener" (World's Apart) with English subtitles ---- download

by inkling in

as far as i know, the excellent danish film "to verdener" .

("worlds apart") is still not available for purchase on.

dvd in the us.. (anyone know otherwise?).

inkling

but I'd like to actually pay for it to support the people who made it.

Yeah, me too.

I would buy this movie tomorrow is If could.

I heard of a Danish site that sold it, but will they ship to the US?

[inkling]