Posts by DrJohnStMark

8

Creation speculation

by JimmyPage in

jw
friends

i still see evidence of intelligent design around me, but i don't believe everything a book tells me just because it claims to be inspired.

so i ask, as i look around at creations, both animal and human, that are all flawed: is it possible that our creator was imperfect?.

is it possible there was more than one creator?

DrJohnStMark

Unintelligent or bad or evil design? An imperfect god using evolution leading to dead ends where there's no way back for better construction?

One of my favorite examples is the human eye. Compare it with a camera and imagine some engineer designed the camera in such a way that the wires taking the information to the memory card were drawn on the front side of the image recording element (ccd) thus creating a blind spot in the image... What would be an acceptable excuse for such design? Designed by a comittee, perhaps?

"Creationists often cite the human eye as a model of perfection... And the human eye is far from a model of perfection. In all vertebrate eyes the wire from each of three million light-sensitive retinal cells passes in front of the retina, and the collection is bundled into the optic nerve, creating a blind spot. This set-up is just the reverse of what any designer would construct: wires leading away from the backside, not light side, of the light-sensitive cells."

This and more: http://www.csicop.org/si/show/neither_intelligent_nor_designed/

22

just a thought on watchtower,Dec.1

by pat1060 in

jw
friends

i was looking over the december 1 watchtower,the one for the public.on page 8 there is an article called the appointed time is near.is is a small article on all the events of the last days.all the scriptures.but not a word about 1914.i heard a while back that 1914 may just start to fade from the literature.did any one else see this article?.

DrJohnStMark

Perhaps they are waiting for 2034 that would be 120 yrs, like Noah's time, from 1914. Then the WT society also could say that, according to some biblical rule, the time had been doubled by Jehovah's mercy, namely it is almost exactly 60 yrs from 1914 to 1975 and from 1975 to 2034.

Time flies...

35

Satan is not that smart, is he?

by dgp in

i was just reading brenda lee's "out of the cocoon" and found an idea that i share just to let some steam off.. according to the fable, satan (this guy .

DrJohnStMark

PSacramento: Sure, I understand your point, but is Satan mentioned...

I think we understand each other. Satan is mentioned in many ancient jewish writings, not just in the Bible. That kind of characters, opposing the good and their god(s), appear in holy texts of other cultures too. Yahweh, however, seems to be more paranoid than most other gods.

Wonder if someone (at least the WT has sometimes referred to the apparent honesty of authors...) would use this as an argument for the divine inspiration of the Bible? An autobiography by a dictator does look different from his/her biography written by somebody else.

35

Satan is not that smart, is he?

by dgp in

i was just reading brenda lee's "out of the cocoon" and found an idea that i share just to let some steam off.. according to the fable, satan (this guy .

DrJohnStMark

PSacramento: I mean he certainly isn't a nice guy in Job is he?

I cite my first statement in this thread: The Bible is written by Jehovah, so you can't trust the Bible in this issue. Also, we know for sure that Jehovah has mispresented things elsewhere in the Bible, for example exaggerating his role on things described on the very first page...

35

Satan is not that smart, is he?

by dgp in

i was just reading brenda lee's "out of the cocoon" and found an idea that i share just to let some steam off.. according to the fable, satan (this guy .

DrJohnStMark

PSacramento: Satan is our opposer, our adversary

How do you know? I might read the story in such a way that Satan was somewhat idealistic and believed in humans and expected them to see the light... whereas God knew his only chance was an extensive propaganda war (c.f. some communist countries), preventing people from fully enjoying their lives while making them believe the others have it even worse. God almost won but during the last few hundred years he's been loosing his credibility since he no more has control over all information... as predicted in Eden by Satan. God (his henchmen) needed all the tens of thousands of mostly unnecessary words in the Bible to blur the simple truth and to mispresent his opponent's ideas and motivation. Why would this interpretation be less appropriate than the WT one? Maybe Jehovah (and the org) will soon admit his mistake... fat chance.

35

Satan is not that smart, is he?

by dgp in

i was just reading brenda lee's "out of the cocoon" and found an idea that i share just to let some steam off.. according to the fable, satan (this guy .

DrJohnStMark

dgb: Do you mean that the explanation for Satan the Devil's psychology is not Biblical? ...would find that explanation in the Watchtower?

What is in the Bible is Biblical (what is in the Watchtower is...) and therefore supposed by some to be/come true. But then, after analysis, it turns out to be wrong: Satan seems to know better. So what does the Watchtower society understand about psyhchology... apart from the psychology related to giving up you life and fortnute for the benefit of the everlasting preaching of the seemingly good news?

35

Satan is not that smart, is he?

by dgp in

i was just reading brenda lee's "out of the cocoon" and found an idea that i share just to let some steam off.. according to the fable, satan (this guy .

DrJohnStMark

In the Bible, Satan is not so smart... that's true. But the Bible is written by Jehovah, so you can't trust the Bible in this issue.

9

Cool new graphic art shows "the circle of the earth"

by drew sagan in

this has been discussed ad nauseum on this board (you know, that 'circle of the earth' thing...), but i found this updated artwork of the ancient hebrew's view of the world wonderful.. you can get a huge hi-res version of it here.

.

DrJohnStMark

drew sagan: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/168289/1/What-is-the-Firmament

About the firmament: In some WT material (like the book Is the Bible really...) it is claimed that the flood waters were originally in the atmosphere (the water canopy theory). Now if you take up just one mile of water from the surface of the oceans, it would make the atmosphere hundred times heavier than it is now and increase the atmospheric pressure at ground level accordingly (also the temperature would need to rise for the vapour not to condense into liquid). Poor creatures: It must have been hard life under such pressure and even harder after the water came down and the pressure was released. Noah himself would have blown up like deep-sea fish taken on the surface...

41

Demonic Possesion of Inaminate Objects

by cantleave in

this is a phenonoma often discussed by jw's.

how unique is this idea to jw's?.

anyone got any good stories on this subject?.

DrJohnStMark

sir82:You are superhuman, supernatural... and you're going to possess a pencil?

Wonder also why the demons, if they really are superintelligent beings, use such a lousy and old-fashioned user interface. Namely to contact the demons, according to their 'phonebooks' at least, you need to draw circles and stars in the sand, drink blood etc...

Compare that with modern human technology: I just need to press one button of my gsm phone to talk to my mother on the other side of the globe.

46

An atheist and a creationist are walking along a riverbank . . . .

by nicolaou in

the course of this river has obviously been designed, it's avoiding every single tree on the riverbank!.

creationist: are you trying to tell me that all those plants know where the riverbank is?.

atheist: no one designed the river!

DrJohnStMark

PSacramento: Yes, I am an equal opportunity teaser !

Nice. I remember I've seen cartoons like that on the pages of very old Watchtower and Golden Age magazines... nowadays not so funny any more.