Posts by Disillusioned JW

28

Jesus as 'The mighty + almighty God'

by JW Answers in

jehovah's witnesses refuse to believe that jesus is the almighty god.

they would state that jesus is 'mighty', but not almighty.. below is a 30 minute video proving from the word of god that the lord jesus christ is both mighty and almighty, separate from the father but equal too.. the verses used from scripture show without a doubt that christ is mighty (isaiah 9:6) and almighty (rev 1:7-8)..

Disillusioned JW

Correction: I meant to say "propositions" instead of "prepositions".

28

Jesus as 'The mighty + almighty God'

by JW Answers in

jehovah's witnesses refuse to believe that jesus is the almighty god.

they would state that jesus is 'mighty', but not almighty.. below is a 30 minute video proving from the word of god that the lord jesus christ is both mighty and almighty, separate from the father but equal too.. the verses used from scripture show without a doubt that christ is mighty (isaiah 9:6) and almighty (rev 1:7-8)..

Disillusioned JW

slimboyfat, I realize that the following is the case. "Plantinga’s argument isn’t against the reliability of our senses. It is an argument against the reliability of our senses given that naturalism is true."

Regarding science relying on basic assumptions that cannot be proved by science, even mathematics (in regards to its axioms) and the branch of philosophy known as formal logic (in regards to to prepositions) rely upon assumptions. There is no way to avoid that. But the assumptions of mathematics are consistent with our experiences and when the assumptions of science and of logical arguments are continually consistent with our experiences we have no reason to discard them.

Regarding the hypersensitivity to threat, the inaccurate picture of reality it sometimes creates only lasts for a brief moment. Those of us who try to be very rational question more readily, than others, the picture of reality which the hypersensitivity to threat triggered.

28

Jesus as 'The mighty + almighty God'

by JW Answers in

jehovah's witnesses refuse to believe that jesus is the almighty god.

they would state that jesus is 'mighty', but not almighty.. below is a 30 minute video proving from the word of god that the lord jesus christ is both mighty and almighty, separate from the father but equal too.. the verses used from scripture show without a doubt that christ is mighty (isaiah 9:6) and almighty (rev 1:7-8)..

Disillusioned JW

Hello slimboyfat. Thanks for answering my question. To me the argument used by Plantinga’s (in regards to our mind) and Sea Breeze and some others against naturalism is problematic and/or a paradox, since we can't use logic to argue that we can't know for sure if any of our ideas about logic are correct. It wold be a contradiction to attempt to do such. [We could test one idea about logic with another idea of logic, such as by doing a science experiment, but how could test logically all ideas of logic by logic?] Instead we have to accept as a given that by some means we are able to discern correct rules of logic, regardless of whether a god/God exists and regardless of whether we believe/think a god/God exists. [Sea Breeze in a different topic thread said the following. "By the way, If you are a product of random mutations over billions or years, how could you be sure of what logic even is? Whey would it be the same in England as it is Hawaii? Why even ackknowledge known laws of logic if they are arbitrary."]

Your words of "If that is so, then we have no basis for trusting our senses and our mind to reflect reality truthfully" remind me something a philosopher (Locke?) during the Age of Enlightenment wrote about the unreliability of our senses. The idea is unsettling to me, but all we can do is make the best decisions we can with the biology and minds we have (and with the technology humankind has made) with which to work with.

Some evolutionist authors have addressed the claim that "if naturalism is true then we are the product of a natural process that favours survival over truth". Part of it involves that in order for us (and other animals) to survive (or at least improved odds of survival) they have to have some degree of accuracy in their senses and mental perceptions. Having certain kinds of incorrect perceptions would be detrimental to their survival, or at least greatly impair their chances of survival.

I am extremely skeptical of the idea that some kind of mind is directing biological evolution and cosmological evolution, unless the mind is that of the universe itself (if the universe as a whole has a mind). It is more acceptable to me to think of the universe (even the supposed early singularity) as being a quantum computer with a mind, than it is for me to accept that an intelligence outside of the universe is directing the universe. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_the_Universe and https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.4455 ("The universe as quantum computer"). Also the idea of some kind of panpsychism is more acceptable to me than the idea that an intelligence outside of the universe is directing the universe.

28

Jesus as 'The mighty + almighty God'

by JW Answers in

jehovah's witnesses refuse to believe that jesus is the almighty god.

they would state that jesus is 'mighty', but not almighty.. below is a 30 minute video proving from the word of god that the lord jesus christ is both mighty and almighty, separate from the father but equal too.. the verses used from scripture show without a doubt that christ is mighty (isaiah 9:6) and almighty (rev 1:7-8)..

Disillusioned JW

slimboyfat, that is an excellent comment you made about Hebrews 1:4. You nailed it. Great job. What you said about Phil 2:5-11 is also what those verses are convey. Great job on explaining the meaning of those scriptures!

The quote by Sea Breeze of a translation of words attributed to
Ignatius, was likely translated from corrupted manuscripts. From prior research, I read other translations of the early church father based upon other manuscripts which excluded claims of Jesus being God. Sea Breeze chooses instead to quote from those which say Jesus is God, instead of those which don't say Jesus is God.

49

Early Hominem. Neanderthals. Evolution.

by solameguy12 in

so i grew up as a witness but i’m no longer active, i have some family that still practices very seriously.

but i don’t want to ask them my question.

but what does the bible and teaching’s of jw’s say about early hominids?

Disillusioned JW

Vidiot I think Sea Breeze made an honest mistake in thinking you were referring to the Genesis chapter one account of creation (at least as part of what you meant) when you mentioned "Genesis-as-literal-history is too deeply baked into WT cosmology". After all, the Eden account is not cosmology (though it is a part of purported history), but the Genesis chapter one creation account is cosmology. Also to many creationists, the Genesis chapter one creation account is also history (that is, a history of the origin of the physical heavens [including sky, stars, sun, moon], Earth, and of biological life).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_cosmology says the following. "Religious cosmology is an explanation of the origin, evolution, and eventual fate of the universe from a religious perspective. This may include beliefs on origin in the form of a creation myth, subsequent evolution, current organizational form and nature, and eventual fate or destiny."

https://www.britannica.com/question/How-is-astronomy-different-from-cosmology says the following. "stronomy is the study of objects and phenomena beyond Earth, whereas cosmology is a branch of astronomy that studies the origin of the universe and how it has evolved. For example, the big bang, the origin of the chemical elements, and the cosmic microwave background are all subjects of cosmology. However, other subjects such as extrasolar planets and stars in the present Milky Way Galaxy are not."

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cosmology gives the following definitions.

"1

a : a branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of the universe b : a theory or doctrine describing the natural order of the universe 2 : a branch of astronomy that deals with the origin, structure, and space-time relationships of the universe also : a theory dealing with these matters"

49

Early Hominem. Neanderthals. Evolution.

by solameguy12 in

so i grew up as a witness but i’m no longer active, i have some family that still practices very seriously.

but i don’t want to ask them my question.

but what does the bible and teaching’s of jw’s say about early hominids?

Disillusioned JW

Correction/Update: In prior post I wrote "... the idea of the Gap Theory which Christian believers in biblical creation (before Russell began the WT) came up with in the 1800s ...." I said the 1800s because I thought the idea originated then. I knew it began heavy promotion back then. Later in my post I said it originated by a Christian theologian in the 17th century, because I later found information in Wikipedia which gives credit to such.

The Wikipedia article also says the following.

'In 1954, a few years before the re-emergence of young-Earth flood-geology eclipsed Gap creationism, influential evangelical theologian Bernard Ramm wrote in The Christian View of Science and Scripture:[4]

"The gap theory has become the standard interpretation throughout hyper-orthodoxy, appearing in an endless stream of books, booklets, Bible studies, and periodical articles. In fact, it has become so sacrosanct with some that to question it is equivalent to tampering with Sacred Scripture or to manifest modernistic leanings".

'

49

Early Hominem. Neanderthals. Evolution.

by solameguy12 in

so i grew up as a witness but i’m no longer active, i have some family that still practices very seriously.

but i don’t want to ask them my question.

but what does the bible and teaching’s of jw’s say about early hominids?

Disillusioned JW

The WT's web page which Sea Breeze provided a link to says the following. "However, according to the Bible, the earth and the universe existed before the six days of creation. (Genesis 1:1) For that reason, Jehovah’s Witnesses have no objection to credible scientific research that indicates the earth may be billions of years old." The first sentence in that quote is one literal interpretation of the Genesis chapter one account. It is part of the idea of the Gap Theory which Christian believers in biblical creation (before Russell began the WT) came up with in the 1800s, and it is mentioned in the Scofield Reference Bible (a study Bible) edition of the KJV, which was originally published in 1909. (I own a deluxe leather copy of the 1917 revised edition of that Bible.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scofield_Reference_Bible says the following. "It was in the pages of the Scofield Reference Bible that many Christians first encountered Archbishop James Ussher's calculation of the date of Creation as 4004 BC; and through discussion of Scofield's notes, which advocated the "gap theory," fundamentalists began a serious internal debate about the nature and chronology of creation.[3] " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gap_Creationism says the following.

"Gap creationism (also known as ruin-restoration creationism, restoration creationism, or "the Gap Theory") is a form of old Earth creationism that posits that the six-yom creation period, as described in the Book of Genesis, involved six literal 24-hour days (light being "day" and dark "night" as God specified), but that there was a gap of time between two distinct creations in the first and the second verses of Genesis, which the theory states explains many scientific observations, including the age of the Earth.[1][2][3] It differs from day-age creationism, which posits that the 'days' of creation were much longer periods (of thousands or millions of years), and from young Earth creationism, which although it agrees concerning the six literal 24-hour days of creation, does not posit any gap of time.

... From 1814,[4] Thomas Chalmers popularized gap creationism;[5] he attributed the concept to the 17th-century Dutch Arminian theologian Simon Episcopius. "

Notice the idea of a Gap in creation did not originate with atheists, but with a Christian theologian in the 17th century (or perhaps even earlier)!

Notice also that SeaBreeze in his quote of the WT left out the sentence in which the WT said the biblical reason (one of a literal interpretation) of why "... Jehovah’s Witnesses have no objection to credible scientific research that indicates the earth may be billions of years old."

Correction: In my prior post I had multiple typos when I wrote the following. "The idea of the Earth being far more than 10,000 years ago was the idea of scientists who were Christians believing in creation, which began before wrote his Origin of Species book. Christians believers in creation and the Bible who were geologist discover ancient extinct animals, even dinosaurs, and layers of rock, and evidence of weathering, and thus concluded the Earth was far more than 10,000 years old." I should have wrote the following instead. "The idea of the Earth being far more than 10,000 years ago was the idea of scientists who were Christians believing in creation, which began before Charles Darwin wrote his Origin of Species book. Christians believers in creation and the Bible who were geologists discovered ancient extinct animals, even dinosaurs, and layers of rock, and evidence of weathering, and thus concluded the Earth was far more than 10,000 years old."

The "me.It " in my prior post is an error created by this website (and by me leaving out a blank space), due it 'thinking' it was a URl. I meant it to simply say "me. " followed by the word "It".

49

Early Hominem. Neanderthals. Evolution.

by solameguy12 in

so i grew up as a witness but i’m no longer active, i have some family that still practices very seriously.

but i don’t want to ask them my question.

but what does the bible and teaching’s of jw’s say about early hominids?

Disillusioned JW

Sea Breeze, the WT has rarely said the Earth and/or universe is/are billions of years of old. They have thus not indoctrinated people to believe the Earth and/or universe i/are billions of years old. Instead the WT has said their is no conflict between the Genesis account (due the WT acceptance of the Gap theory created by creationists more than 170 years ago) and however old the scientists say the Earth and/or universe is old. The WT many times has said and continues to say the earth and universe may be as old as the scientists say, but the WT has very rarely (I'm only aware of them saying that a few times in the 1970s) taught it is as old as the scientists say. Even the quote you made of the WT (especially when none of the words are replaced with ellipses) agrees with completely that, for the quote does not say the JWs believe the Earth is billions of years old, but rather that JWs have no objection to scientific ideas of the Earth being that old. The WT website (without the omissions you made to the quote) says "For that reason, Jehovah’s Witnesses have no objection to credible scientific research that indicates the earth may be billions of years old." It was very dishonest of you to leave out the word "may" (and that your changed "be" into "be[ing]") from the quote while at the same time saying the WT indoctrinates people into believing "billions of years old". You mishandled (or misquoted) the quote of the WT, as a result of misrepresenting the meaning of the WT's word. What you did is the same kind of the thing the WT has often done of the words of others, whom the WT quoted from.

Other than the teaching of the length of the creative days, the WT's teaching of the Genesis chapter one creation account is almost entirely literal.

I leaned about the age of the Earth and the age of the universe not from the WT but from scientific sources. I learned of it in my childhood from science news reports on TV and in newspapers, from watching science shows on PBS television, from reading science articles in magazines (such as Newsweek and Science80), from reading science articles in World Book encyclopedia (my mom bought the Encyclopedia set when my sister and I were in high school, to help with our education), from reading science books from the public grade school library and the public polytechnic high school library, from a science book I bought (the 1980 World Book Science Year), and from reading it in certain textbooks (such as in the high school biology textbook and in the prehistory anthropology section of the world history high school textbook) I studied in school.

The idea of the universe and even the Earth being less than 100,000 years is not an idea of of more than a tiny percentage literature. The only literature which says the universe and even the Earth is less than 100,000 years old is some Christian literature (no secular literature). Furthermore, the vast majority of the churches even in the USA do not teach that the Earth is less than 100,000 years old. Outside of the USA, the percentage of Christians who accept young Earth creationism is very tiny. Likewise the percentage of Christians outside of the USA who are fundamentalists is very tiny.

The idea of the Earth being far more than 10,000 years ago was the idea of scientists who were Christians believing in creation, which began before wrote his Origin of Species book. Christians believers in creation and the Bible who were geologist discover ancient extinct animals, even dinosaurs, and layers of rock, and evidence of weathering, and thus concluded the Earth was far more than 10,000 years old. They came up with the idea of old Earth creationism (and some of the Christian geologists came up wit the idea that the world had been destroyed many times by God and that God created new species of life to replace the ones he had destroyed). They didn't get the idea from atheists. The vast majority of the western world scientists back then were Christians who never (at least before 1857) believed in biological evolution.

Regarding your comment of "The choice to not believe God", that does not apply to me (at least not from my perspective). God (a god) never spoke to me and never wrote to me, or in any other way communicated to me.It was thus never a matter of ceasing to believe what God told me, since God never communicated to me. Furthermore, i discovered there is no conclusive evidence that God even exists, except as the imagination of many humans. The Bible though claiming to be God's word, was written by entirely humans and consists entirely of the ideas of humans. To me there is no proof that the Bible contains the words of God, or of any god. I stopped believing the Bible (except in some claims which are reasonable and consistent with science, including what it claimed God said.

You say you chose to believe God, but you get your ideas of God's alleged message from the Bible. But there are other scripture books which teach a different message about God, yet you reject them as being inspired of God. You chose to not to believe them. As a result of analysis of the Bible I chose to cease believing the Bible, much as I never ended up believing the other scripture books. After I stopped virtually all JW meeting attendance i purchased the Apocrypha, the Koran, the Mormon 'Quad', books of the religion so-called "Christian Science", and scripture books of some other religions. I analyzed them and my analysis confirmed my idea that the religions of those books is also false. They are all books of entirely human ideas, even when the books claims to be stating the words of God.

Regarding those who 'are a "born-in" ' and regarding your comment of "had our ancestors believed God" devout Jehovah's Witnesses believe they believe in Jehovah God and the Bible. MY JW very strongly believes in Jehovah and in the Bible. She believes what the Genesis creation says, but that doesn't mean that the only way to believe it is believe in a 100% literal interpretation of it. She believes that God did not intend the days mentioned in the account to be understood as literal 24-hour solar days.

Sea Breeze when you put your trust in the words of the Bible, you are putting your trust in mortal men, for they are the ones who wrote the book you are trusting in. You say you are free from the influence of the WT, but you and many of your family began their reading of the Bible under the influence of the WT. The WT literature and JW meetings over and over and over told you and your parents that the Bible is the word of God and that the Bible is telling the truth when it quotes what claims to be the utterances of Jehovah/LORD God and the utterances of Jesus Christ. You also put your trust in the man named Paul (who claimed to be an apostle of Jesus) and in his words. You put your trust in the mortal men (and maybe women) who translated the Bible into English (such as in the KJV Bible and the NKJ Bible) and who decided which manuscripts to use for the basis of their translations. God didn't write a book and hand it to you. You obtained the book(s) directly from humans. God also didn't literally speak to you.

49

Early Hominem. Neanderthals. Evolution.

by solameguy12 in

so i grew up as a witness but i’m no longer active, i have some family that still practices very seriously.

but i don’t want to ask them my question.

but what does the bible and teaching’s of jw’s say about early hominids?

Disillusioned JW

The history of Christianity contains a multitude of pious frauds (including fraudulent gospel accounts). If people apply Sea Breeze's line of reasoning pertaining about frauds to Christianity does that mean every Christian religious source should be suspect of being a fraud?

Nebraska Man was no fraud, but rather a misinterpretation. Some pig teeth are very similar to human teeth.

Ramapithecus was also no fraud, but rather a misinterpretation. It was not a modern species of orangutan, but instead a Sivapithecus (or a close evolutionary relation of such) and a possible ancestor of modern orangutans. See https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ramapithecus .

Homo erectus is no fraud; it was real. Numerous fossil skulls of that species exist.

------

Sea Breeze's information source for the claim that "Two chimps from the same tribe are further apart genetically that we are from Neanderthals" was mentioned on page one of this topic thread. His source (like many of his claims pertaining to evolution) is a young Earth creationist site. The claim is true (see below) but the creationist site incorrectly claims it is a problem for evolution. [Evidence that the site is creationist is the following. Its About page (at https://kgov.com/about-bob-enyart-live-and-real-science-radio ) makes that very clear. There it says the following. "KGOV.com is the web home of the long-running conservative talk radio show Bob Enyart Live, and of Theology Thursday and the creation-evolution program Real Science Radio. .... By our estimation, the twelve most significant contributions to the world that this radio program and our Denver Bible Church have made include: ... Young Earth: Our teaching on the young earth, on dinosaur soft tissue, and on the evidence against the big bang ".] The site is not credible in regards to some of their statements about science (though many of their announcements of science news reports are accurate), of which the following is one example from https://kgov.com/most-informative-neanderthal-show-ever-with-jack-cuozzo . "The young age of the earth, and that life had to be specially created because it is information based, prove that Man was specially created and that there never was such a thing as an ape/human ancestor."

Even though the claim that "Two chimps from the same tribe are further apart genetically that we are from Neanderthals" is true, I don't have a problem with that claim. A big reason why I don't have a problem with it is because scientists say that humankind experienced a major genetic bottleneck tens of thousands of years ago due to most of humankind dying off at that time. Scientists say that bottleneck sharply reduced the genetic variation of humankind. This has been known for more than a decade and has been made known by scientists who are convinced of evolution. See https://www.science.org/content/article/how-we-lost-our-diversity (which has an article called "How We Lost Our Diversity: Human ancestors survived two genetic bottlenecks as they spread out of Africa') and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2842629/ (which has an article called "Evidence that two main bottleneck events shaped modern human genetic diversity'). Both articles were published in the year 2009. The first article says the following.

"Modern humans are a lot alike--at least at the genetic level--compared with other primates. If you compare any two people from far-flung corners of the globe, their genomes will be much more similar than those of any pair of chimpanzees, gorillas, or other apes from different populations. Now, evolutionary geneticists have shown that our ancestors lost much of their genetic diversity in two dramatic bottlenecks that sharply squeezed down the population of modern humans as they moved out of Africa between 60,000 and 50,000 years ago.

... One model proposes that genetic diversity was lost in two distinct bottlenecks, where groups of hundreds or thousands of migrating people were quickly decimated by disease, starvation, warfare, or some other cause, dramatically reducing the number of adults who bore children that survived. Another suggests that genetic diversity was reduced in a stepwise fashion as an initial group of about 100,000 or so people moved out around the globe, gradually leaving behind more and more people in settlements along the way."

Note that evolutionist scientists have not been hiding the information that modern humans are more alike genetically than any two chimps. Furthermore, the scientists say why this the case and the explanation is consistent with evolution!

28

Jesus as 'The mighty + almighty God'

by JW Answers in

jehovah's witnesses refuse to believe that jesus is the almighty god.

they would state that jesus is 'mighty', but not almighty.. below is a 30 minute video proving from the word of god that the lord jesus christ is both mighty and almighty, separate from the father but equal too.. the verses used from scripture show without a doubt that christ is mighty (isaiah 9:6) and almighty (rev 1:7-8)..

Disillusioned JW

slimboyfat, what pulled you away from atheism? What kind of atheism did you have? Did you believe/think (such as to a high degree of certainty) that no God/god exists? Or, did you simply not believe that a God/god exists?

When I hear of people who turn away from atheism, especially if they were a theist before they were an atheist, it saddens me. For me atheism (in the broadened sense of atheistic naturalism) is the greatest (in terms of scope) truth there is, for it denies a tremendous number of false beliefs.

What would it take, if anything, for you to become an atheist again?