Posts by Disillusioned JW

25

Professors and Students Defend Evolution

by Sea Breeze in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc_w9vtzj0a&ab_channel=livingwaters.

Disillusioned JW

That is a great point Rafe. Furthermore, where do the young earth creationists who are scientists (or at least have degrees in science) attempt to show the supernatural (or natural) processes that the alleged supernatural god used (or might have used) to create any of the kinds of life? The answer is nowhere do they do so - since they say the alleged supernatural processes no longer exist. In contrast evolutionist scientists demonstrate currently exiting processes that produce biological change over generations and in some cases they have shown such processes produce a type of speciation.

In addition, scientists performing experiments pertaining to abiogenesis have demonstrated processes which produce chemical evolution of organic chemicals from other organic chemicals and even from inorganic chemicals. They are making progress towards demonstrating abiogenesis.

What scientific experiments or scientific observations do the so called creation scientists have to show for how alleged special creation took place? Nothing (or virtually nothing) at all!

For more evidence that land animals evolved from certain kinds of fish see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusthenopteron , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choana , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_tetrapods , and https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/assets/Image/2020/saw0620Long31_d.png .

25

Professors and Students Defend Evolution

by Sea Breeze in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc_w9vtzj0a&ab_channel=livingwaters.

Disillusioned JW

As my above posts show, being convinced that biological evolution is true does not require faith. The conviction of evolution being true can come from knowledge of observable scientific evidence in conjunction with rational analysis based upon such evidence. Such is the case with me.

The information I presented in my prior posts in this topic thread are a minuscule percentage of the vast information I have found which convinces me that biological evolution is a scientific fact.

The PBS web page I mention referenced the TV episode called 'From Evolution: "Great Transformations" '. I first saw that episode (on broadcast TV) about 20 years ago, along with the other episodes of the TV miniseries (called "Evolution") of which it is a part of - see https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/about/overview_series.html . Many years later I rented a DVD of the miniseries from the library. It is an excellent miniseries!

25

Professors and Students Defend Evolution

by Sea Breeze in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc_w9vtzj0a&ab_channel=livingwaters.

Disillusioned JW

In my earlier post where I said "lobe finned fish, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals have a nasal passage to the throat" I should also have said that birds also contain a nasal passage to the throat.

Please see https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/03/4/l_034_03.html . It says the following.

'Paleontologist Jenny Clack thought the textbook story of tetrapod evolution was implausible: How could fishlike creatures, stranded on land, somehow evolve limbs and survive to become the first tetrapods? The search for an answer took her to Greenland, where she found one of the earliest known tetrapods, called Acanthostega. With its fishlike tail and gills, it was certainly adapted to an aquatic environment, but its paddle-shaped fins end in tiny fingers. Vertebrates, it turns out, grew fingers before they left the sea. From Evolution: "Great Transformations" '

Please note that the last paragraph of the above mentioned PBS web page says the following about Acanthostega and Ichthyostega.

"From these finds, it now appears that the four legs common to land animals today really evolved for another purpose: navigating swampy wetlands, not as a means of moving to land. But once on land, the animals found their limbs a survival advantage there, too. Evolution frequently produces adaptations that come to be useful in the future for a different purpose."

I wish to quote a lot more from the above mentioned web page, but if I did so it would amount to quoting nearly the entire page, thus I urge people to visit the web page.

Please also read the science news article located at https://www.livescience.com/42525-early-fish-evolved-rear-legs.html . It is called "Strange Ancient Fish Had Front And Back Legs". It is about a fossil of a "375-million-year-old fish known as Tiktaalik roseae, discovered in 2004". It says the following regarding the fossil.

"These findings reveal that a key step in the evolution of hind limbs happened in fish, challenging previous theories that such appendages evolved only after the move to land.

...

This ancient creature was undoubtedly a fish, possessing gills, scales and fins. However, it also had features seen in modern tetrapods — four-limbed creatures like amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals — such as a mobile neck and robust ribcage.

This extinct fish had large forefins and shoulders, elbows and partial wrists, enabling it to support itself on ground. This makes it the best-known example of an intermediate between finned animals and limbed animals marking the evolutionary leap from water to land for vertebrates, or creatures with backbones."

25

Professors and Students Defend Evolution

by Sea Breeze in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc_w9vtzj0a&ab_channel=livingwaters.

Disillusioned JW

Hi Jan. I don't see any dislikes for my two most recent posts; maybe your error was corrected. Maybe the website will now let you post a "like" for the post you intended to say "like" to.

25

Professors and Students Defend Evolution

by Sea Breeze in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc_w9vtzj0a&ab_channel=livingwaters.

Disillusioned JW

Minor correction to my prior post: I had some typos when I said "Have you ever seen a 'giraffant' or an "eleraff'? How abut 'pigdeer' or a 'catdog'?" Instead I should have said the following. 'Have you ever seen a "giraffant" or an "eleraff'? How about a "pigdeer" or a "catdog"?'

The young earth creationist illustration I referred to also misleadingly shows a flying fish with feathered wings (the wings of a bird). In contrast, evolutionist scientists (more than 95% of scientists are evolutionists) say that birds evolved from biped non-avian dinosaurs, and that none of the bird's fish ancestors had bird wings, and that all of the bird's fish ancestors are from hundreds of millions of years ago. Numerous fossils have been found of biped non-avian dinosaurs with feathers on their forelimbs (arms) and some of those fossils look more like fossils of birds than do the other fossils of feathered non-avian dinosaurs.

25

Professors and Students Defend Evolution

by Sea Breeze in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc_w9vtzj0a&ab_channel=livingwaters.

Disillusioned JW

Giraffes don't turn into elephants and dogs don't turn into cats. Claims that if evolution is true then giraffes should turn into elephants and that dogs should turn into cats are straw man arguments of young earth creationists. They are the very arguments used in some creationist literature. For example, the evolutionist (though not a scientist and though not believing that natural selection is the cause of macroevolution) Francis Hitching's Neck of the Giraffe book contains of an illustration from such creationist literature which show the following misrepresentations of evolution: an animal with the main body of an elephant and the head of a giraffe; an animal with the main body of a giraffe and the head of elephant; an animal with the main body of a dog and the head of cat; an animal with the main body of a cat with the head of a dog. I know that because I have Hitching's book, checked out from the library. The creationist illustration shown in the book (In "chapter five: Creation v. evolution") is accompanied by the following words.

"People who believe in evolution say that one animal can change into another. The Bible says they can't. Have you ever seen any of these animals? Have you ever seen a 'giraffant' or an "eleraff'? How abut 'pigdeer' or a 'catdog'?"

Giraffes evolved (by descent with modification) from some animals which were not elephants, elephants evolved from some animals which were not giraffes, cats evolved from some animals which were not dogs, and dogs evolved from some animals which were not cats (recent scientific evidence indicates that dogs evolved from grey wolves). But, the known fossil record clearly shows the following:

anatomically modern humans evolved from humans who were less human looking than modern day humans;

the earliest ape-like hominid beings existed before the first humans (the ones which are less anatomically modern looking humans than modern humans) [in this example I am defining human as those who are assigned to the genus Homo];

the earliest apes existed before the earliest ape-like hominids;

an ape species (Aegyptopithecus zeuxis) existed with some monkey-like features (including a tail as an adult) before the first full apes existed;

the first primates (ones who were not monkeys) existed before the first monkeys (monkeys, apes, and humans are some types of primates);

the first mammals existed before the first primates existed;

the first mammal-like animals (synapsids, which used to be commonly called mammal-like reptiles since in a number of ways they resembled reptiles) existed before the first mammals;

the first four legged terrestrial egg laying animals existed before the first mammal-like animals;

the first amphibious four legged animals with webbed feet existed before the first four legged terrestrial animals;

the first fish with leg-like limbs and webbed feet existed before the first fully amphibious four legged animals with webbed feet;

the first fish with lobe fins as limbs and paddle-like digits existed before the first fish with leg-like limbs and webbed feet;

the first fish with a nasal passage to the throat existed before the first lobe finned fish existed (lobe finned fish, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals have a nasal passage to the throat);

the first fish with jaws existed before the first fish with both jaws and the the nasal passage to the throat;

the first fish without jaws existed before the first fish with jaws;

the first vertebrate existed before the first fish;

etc.

I know the above about the fossil record because in science books I have seen illustrations of discovered fossils of that which I stated above.

17

Does anyone have a copy of the Jan 1st 1989 Watchtower I can buy

by mickbobcat in

i want to buy a copy not a copy of one but the actual copy of a 1989 jan 1st watchtower.

let me know i would like to have one to show someone i am talking to about it.

.

Disillusioned JW

menrov, you might be right regarding the meaning for the change, or they changed it because they didn't want to limit how long they would still train people to become missionaries and still send out missionaries.

I think it is possible (at least slightly possible) that the phrase "20th century" was the wording of a PIMO at Bethel (done to cause problems for the WT) and that thus they changed it when the bound volumes came out.

17

Does anyone have a copy of the Jan 1st 1989 Watchtower I can buy

by mickbobcat in

i want to buy a copy not a copy of one but the actual copy of a 1989 jan 1st watchtower.

let me know i would like to have one to show someone i am talking to about it.

.

Disillusioned JW

BluesBrother and others, my understanding is the the "work" that is spoken of ending (whether in "20th century" or in "our day"), was not the entire ministry work but rather only the missionary work. Such was always my thought, since I didn't read more into the sentence and its paragraph than what they specifically said. Note that the prior sentence ends in the phrase "missionary activity" and thus the word "work" in the last sentence of paragraph 12 is specifically referring to the missionary work. The subheading (that paragraph 12 falls under) is even called "Missionaries to the Nations". Likewise paragraph 13 is specifically about missionary work.

25

Do JWs buy old JW books to destroy?

by mickbobcat in

i have never heard of this but i doubt its never been done.

i sell some older jw books on etsy and have always been a bit afraid that some jws are buying them to destroy.

if you have heard of this let me know.

Disillusioned JW

After the elder left my door, my mom told me that the elder told her I am very nearly an apostate, but what the elder did not know is that I was already an apostate (from the WT) though not an outspoken one. I was shocked that the elder was angry of me learning the truth of what the WT literature written by Rutherford says. I didn't even say anything negative about Rutherford's book (such as mentioning crazy teachings or failed predictions, though I was saying something critical about biblical prophecy). Instead I said (and I paraphrase since I don't remember the exact wording) that "even Rutherford in one his books taught that the prophecy about Tyre becoming completely destroyed, by the king of Babylon, for forever, did not come true literally." It was right after I mentioned that, that the elder got angry regarding me reading Rutherford's books.

15

Al Gore speech or JW convention?

by neat blue dog in

it literally could be either.

the clip starts at 1:15. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ljymc--cpoy&feature=youtu.be.

Disillusioned JW

When CO2 was way, way higher tens of millions of years ago, much of what is currently dry coastal land (land which includes very large cities throughout the world) was under oceans. Keep that in mind. Furthermore, the rate of CO2 increase, according to scientists, is currently much higher than more than 1000 years ago. The scientists say that while the current level of CO2 might not in itself bring large numbers of extinctions (and other devastation), the rapid rate of increase makes it hard for the ecosystem to adapt quickly enough to avoid disaster. Bill Nye (The Science Guy), in his book called Everything All At Once says the following.

"Sometimes the self-proclaimed skeptics point out that climate has always changed. They are right--but only up to a point. It has always changed, but the rate of change that humans are introducing now is unprecedented." He then provides the example of driving a car at 70 miles per hours and the effect of gradually reducing the speed to 0 miles hours, verses the effect of suddenly reducing the speed to 0 miles per hours by crashing the car into a brick wall. He then says the following.

"It ain't the change that's the problem, my educated colleagues--it's the rate of change that gets you. It's very much the same thing with the climate. ...

These days, it seems as though for every genuine nerd expert, there is someone else peddling false doubt. That's why we have to work together, do some thoughtful information-filtering, and make the informed voices heard. We need to make sure everyone understands the real situation; the welfare of the planet (and those of us who happen to live on it) hangs in the balance."

By the way, Al Gore's book from 1992 about the environment is called Earth In The Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit and as we know Al is a nerd (at least somewhat). My copy of that book is signed by him (though not to me). The Introduction of that book shows a chart of CO2 concentration from April 1958 (at about 315 PPM) through June 1991 (at about 360 PPM).