Posts by konceptual99

15

Babylonians Discovered Calculus

by cofty in

it had been assumed that rudimentary calculus was developed in europe in the 14th century but now it turns out that the babylonians worked it out more than 2000 years ago.. researchers have deciphered a detail on a cuneiform tablet held at the british museum and revealed that it describes the movement of jupiter.. babylonians believed that jupiter's position was integral to predicting the weather, the price of goods, and the fluctuating river levels throughout the year.. "the now-decoded 'text a' describes a procedure for calculating jupiter’s displacement across the ecliptic plane.. by tracking jupiter’s speed as a function of time and determining the area under a time-velocity curve.".

konceptual99

And yes konceptual99 it was a joke. Seriously I am wasted on this crowd.

Phew! You had me worried for a minute!

15

Babylonians Discovered Calculus

by cofty in

it had been assumed that rudimentary calculus was developed in europe in the 14th century but now it turns out that the babylonians worked it out more than 2000 years ago.. researchers have deciphered a detail on a cuneiform tablet held at the british museum and revealed that it describes the movement of jupiter.. babylonians believed that jupiter's position was integral to predicting the weather, the price of goods, and the fluctuating river levels throughout the year.. "the now-decoded 'text a' describes a procedure for calculating jupiter’s displacement across the ecliptic plane.. by tracking jupiter’s speed as a function of time and determining the area under a time-velocity curve.".

konceptual99

So much for evolution!

Really SBF...? Has this got to be debunked as well? I can't tell if you are being ironic or not :-)

121

Hey ya'll! My first post. Please help. In need of advice/comfort.

by Stepford Wife in

jw
friends

hey ya'll!

i have been lurking for years on this site and others but never had the courage to post anything.

actually i was afraid of posting on an apostate site in the event i was wrong.

konceptual99

You cannot be d/f for being inactive, but if you answer the "loyalty" question wrong (Do you believe this is Jehovah's organization?) then you might be in line for some kind of sanctions, although I can't imagine a single response to a single question would trigger d/f-ing. Still, maybe it's happened to someone out there.

Answering the those questions in the negative with two elders present can lead directly to being DF'ed. The critical factor is how much the elders want to get you.

If you are not on the radar as an apostate, a first "offender" and not causing problems then you just might get away with it.

If you have been making noises or have rubbed any elders up the wrong way then they will use it to cook your goose. 100%.

121

Hey ya'll! My first post. Please help. In need of advice/comfort.

by Stepford Wife in

jw
friends

hey ya'll!

i have been lurking for years on this site and others but never had the courage to post anything.

actually i was afraid of posting on an apostate site in the event i was wrong.

konceptual99

Welcome SW. I am on a slow fade purposely to try and avoid raising the attention of the elders as things can escalate if you are not careful.

With this is mind if you are very careful never to express a view that the F&DS are wrong, never discuss your views with others and never go into detail then there is every chance you can stop going without attracting too much attention.

If the elders do come and see you then keep calm and simply say something along the lines of "I am finding some things difficult and I would rather not talk about it now". If they continue digging, repeat the mantra. If they ask you either directly or indirectly the F&DS loyalty question just deflect it with something like "why are you asking me that? I simply am finding things difficult at the moment and, rather than respecting what I have said about not wanting to discuss it, you are pushing me with such a question. I find that really upsetting." I am sure they will back right down.

Don't forget as well that the elders treatment of you will be affected by and have an effect on your husband. Any aggressive or harsh actions could backfire on the elders and they should show some caution and respect for the headship arrangement. As far as the WTS is concerned your husband is your spiritual head and you can use that to shackle the scope of any interest from the elders, e.g. "sorry brother but this is something that I think I should only discuss with my husband".

Nothing wrong with using theocratic warfare against them...

90

Evolution Hole #1 - Origin of Life

by shadow in

disclaimer: my graduate degree is in business, not science so i'm writing as a layman in this field.

yes, i know that someone is going to say that evolution does not encompass this topic and should be sectioned off under abiogenesis.

i'm not trying to argue semantics here but it seems like a case of avoiding an uncomfortable subject.

konceptual99

"----interaction of chemical, biological--" It could hardly be biological, because "bio" was still in the future, when all the fortuitous circumstances came together.

Fair point.

Words do matter. I am referring to the Einstein conversations about Wirklichkeit, The Reality that has it's root in Werken, work. I am not a theist, but the existence we live in calls for more than random fluctuations as their origin, IMO

I agree that words do matter. It's how much they matter. Much of the initial comment on this thread is about the semantics and contextual relevance of evolution, the origin of life and abiogenesis. I still stand by my point that the etymology of the word "laboratory" has no relevance as to whether or not the "spark" of life was initiated by a third party or through a combination of purely naturalistic events.

TBH I've not read up on Einstein and Wirklichkeit. A little bit of googling has thrown some context on this and it is interesting. Thanks - I will look at it a little more. My only comment on it right now is that it would appear to take the conversation into a potentially more philosophical direction. That is interesting however for me the most critical question to resolve is the fundamental reality that life is here now so was it always in existence and if not, did it require a third party to initiate it and, by extension, to manage it's progression in some way?

90

Evolution Hole #1 - Origin of Life

by shadow in

disclaimer: my graduate degree is in business, not science so i'm writing as a layman in this field.

yes, i know that someone is going to say that evolution does not encompass this topic and should be sectioned off under abiogenesis.

i'm not trying to argue semantics here but it seems like a case of avoiding an uncomfortable subject.

konceptual99

Yes, we eagerly await a replication of the start of the single life starting event. The re-creation of the starting conditions, the presence of the near magic catalysts. Trying ever since Louis Pasteur, Uri, not with inorganic materials either. and: yes , while applauding the success, the thought might just occur, hey, this was not a random event at all, it was work done well, in a laboratory, from the word "labor" = work. it works, because it is work.

Were science to be able to replicate this event and demonstrate that given the right conditions how it could happen I would have to respect the right to say that God still made it happen.

It is a fallacy, however, to suggest that simply because the conditions had to be manufactured in a lab that it means the same conditions in nature had to be manufactured by a third party. It's a replication of conditions that could occur through the complex interaction of chemical, biological and physical processes.

Using the etymology of the word for laboratory implies no significance whatsoever.

90

Evolution Hole #1 - Origin of Life

by shadow in

disclaimer: my graduate degree is in business, not science so i'm writing as a layman in this field.

yes, i know that someone is going to say that evolution does not encompass this topic and should be sectioned off under abiogenesis.

i'm not trying to argue semantics here but it seems like a case of avoiding an uncomfortable subject.

konceptual99

If you base you knowledge on WT/creationist explanations of evolution, you're being robbed of real knowledge.

Exactly.
The biggest red flag on all of this is that the WTS does not produce anything that provides decent rebuttals of basic arguments for evolution. They simply appeal to emotion - "what do you think? Could something as amazing as the navigation abilities of this bird come about by chance?"
The two most recent brochures that looked specifically at Creation did exactly the same thing, just wrapped it up with pseudo scientific language and pretty pictures to enhance the complexity of things like RNA and DNA.
What I wanted to see for years, and am still waiting for, is some kind of side by side deconstruction of things like the e-coli experiment showing why this must be wrong scientifically. It will never happen. The WTS likes to roll out Witness scientists who make statements like "I see complex things all the time and I can't accept it happened by chance" but never seem to be able to contribute an article that really blows some doubt into a particular line of evidence.
The other thing is of course that the WTS does actually accept evolution to a point as it's the only way of even beginning to give some credence to the idea that the diversity of life we see now all came about in the past 4000 years from the small subset of creatures and plants Noah was able to put on the Ark.

39

Evolution is a Fact #12 - Lenski's E. coli Experiment

by cofty in

evolution works by the non-random selection of random mutation.

natural selection accumulates favourable random chance events.. the experiment that was began on 24th february 1988 on e coli bacteria by dr richard e. lenski and his team is surely one of the clearest demonstrations of the power of this process.. e.coli is one of the commonest bacterium on earth, there is around 100 billion, billion of them in the world at any given time and around 1 billion of them in your gut right now.

most of the time they cause no problem, until a new strain wreaks havoc on its host's digestive system.. if we assume the probability of a particular gene mutating to be 1 in a billion, the size of the population is so high that just about every gene in the e.coli genome will have mutated somewhere in the world every day.

konceptual99

Clambake,

What Cofty is doing is providing some tasters to some of the major lines of evidence that support evolution.

Many, many of those Witnesses who visit here will be just like I was a few years ago. I thought evolution was a crock of shite. As a reasonably intelligent, thinking person I assumed I had researched it and found it wanting. Of course I had done nothing of the sort.

I personally took the step of reading some of the well known books on evolution like "The Greatest Show on Earth" and "Your Inner Fish". I read more from there and eventually became convinced that it was impossible to ignore the evidence.

For many that step is still a step too far - it's almost as bad as apostasy. A post like this gives a nugget of information to someone and hopefully inspires them to go and do a bit more reading themselves. It makes people aware of something that perhaps they were not aware of.

When I was waking up I would have liked nothing better than to have been able to access something that helped me keep my faith, resolve the theological and scientific inconsistencies. I never set out to wreck my faith. I just wanted answers. Posts like these should help people find the answers, or at least some reasonable debate. Rather than sneering at what Cofty is doing, come up with some credible alternative. Explain why this experiment means nothing, supports Creation or is otherwise wrong. That would be far more interesting.

39

Evolution is a Fact #12 - Lenski's E. coli Experiment

by cofty in

evolution works by the non-random selection of random mutation.

natural selection accumulates favourable random chance events.. the experiment that was began on 24th february 1988 on e coli bacteria by dr richard e. lenski and his team is surely one of the clearest demonstrations of the power of this process.. e.coli is one of the commonest bacterium on earth, there is around 100 billion, billion of them in the world at any given time and around 1 billion of them in your gut right now.

most of the time they cause no problem, until a new strain wreaks havoc on its host's digestive system.. if we assume the probability of a particular gene mutating to be 1 in a billion, the size of the population is so high that just about every gene in the e.coli genome will have mutated somewhere in the world every day.

konceptual99

Thanks for this post Cofty. I knew nothing of this experiment until I read The Greatest Show on Earth and it was a real eye opener for me.

38

2016-1-25-BOE on Applause or Clapping!

by Atlantis in

just in case someone wanted this letter for their records.

.. http://postimg.org/image/dn44a9m9h/.

.. petra!.

konceptual99

The link is not live yet but you get the PDF from here

https://download-a.akamaihd.net/files/media_magazines/f5/w_E_201605.pdf

Cut and paste the link if you don't want the this site appearing as the sending site.