it is not uncommon for theists to accuse rational people on this forum of "scientism".. in my opinion it is nothing but a cheap shot from those who know they lack evidence for their beliefs.
if something like "scientism" actually does exist then i have never encountered it.. here is part of an exchange from another thread - i have brought it here as it was off-topic.... scientism = claim of scientific method being universal and the only valid method of knowledge.
followers of scientism always demand scientific evidence to anything.
I don't think is possible to have scientific evidence about God.Which is convenient.
But there are physical evidence, testimonial evidence, logical evidence and metaphysical evidence (like visions, prayers, intuition, etc).You mean evidence which is baseless interpretation, highly subjective, carries a high risk of confirmation bias, difficult to independently verify, not subject to peer review and so on. In other words, everything that scientific method has been developed to avoid.
I think there can be a lot of love amongst Witnesses. The problem is that it is conditional.
If you watch The Path on Amazon there is a character who is removed from the cult and goes to see another person who has been out of the cult for help. The guy can't help him and as he is leaving the character says...
"I wish I hadn't believed you lost your worth when you lost your faith"
This is exactly what happens with Witnesses. You lose faith and you lose your worth, your human capital, with those still in.
mathematically measuring evolution.. when judging relationships in terms of morphological characteristics we will always be bound by the subjective.
morphologically one cannot exactly measure the distance between two organisms strictly in mathematical terms.
using the standard method of taxonomy we cannot quantify the difference between a horse and a mouse, or know which is closer mouse to cat, or mouse to fish.
Interestingly enough data analysis is exactly what has resulted in a new paper being presented that questions the classic two groups of dinosaurs - bird hipped and lizard hipped.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/t-rex-gets-new-home-shakeup-dino-family-tree
The work is causing some waves and the hypothesis may yet be proven false however the interesting thing is how the conclusions have been reached.
It is not possible to examine dinosaur DNA to work out the genetic relationships but it is possible to examine different traits in the skeletons and process this massive dataset to look for similarities and patterns.
The author of the paper was interviewed in a recent BBC Radio 4 Science programme and he is expecting his findings to be rigorously challenged because this is how science works but is nevertheless a great example of how mathematics can be scientifically used to understand the evolutionary process.
mathematically measuring evolution.. when judging relationships in terms of morphological characteristics we will always be bound by the subjective.
morphologically one cannot exactly measure the distance between two organisms strictly in mathematical terms.
using the standard method of taxonomy we cannot quantify the difference between a horse and a mouse, or know which is closer mouse to cat, or mouse to fish.
Absolutely. Brilliant.
just for information really.. the bbc is reporting the jw ban.
they have a news article and have been running a video report amongst headline items on the bbc world news channel.
the article is below, i cannot find the video report online yet.
Just for information really.
The BBC is reporting the JW ban. They have a news article and have been running a video report amongst headline items on the BBC World News channel. The article is below, I cannot find the video report online yet. The video report highlights the wider impact of the law on extremism on free speech including an atheist and political activists.
it's been brought to my attention that there are xjw that say they support the witnesses and don't think russia should ban them.
i would just like to remind all of you that jws are guilty of murder, causing higher rates of suicide, covering up child molestation, and keeping members in prisoned because if they leave they loose family, financial support, possible employment etc.. sure their not strapping bombs to their chests but they easily get members to kill themselves with their blood policies.
they are an extremist group!
Criminalising 150,000+ people does not protect Russia.
The undermining of human rights and the abuse of the legal system to do so by the government is far more dangerous to the Russian people. Extremism is growing in Russia but it's actually government sponsored thuggery and a growing sense of freedom for right wing and nationalistic groups that is the real concern.
it's been brought to my attention that there are xjw that say they support the witnesses and don't think russia should ban them.
i would just like to remind all of you that jws are guilty of murder, causing higher rates of suicide, covering up child molestation, and keeping members in prisoned because if they leave they loose family, financial support, possible employment etc.. sure their not strapping bombs to their chests but they easily get members to kill themselves with their blood policies.
they are an extremist group!
The WTS as an organisation is guilty of many things and I welcome any legal pressure put on this structure and representatives. Banning the Witnesses in Russia will do nothing to weaken the organisation and criminalise individual Witnesses, many of whom are essentially harmless on a day to day basis.
This law is not being used solely against the Witnesses either. It's being used against many other organisations and is a reflection of an insidious culture of legalised oppression and suppression of some basic freedoms that seems to be increasingly endemic inside the Russian political machine.
Nobody is apologising for the WTS as far as I can tell, it's just there is a bigger picture around this ban that is far more worrying for the human rights of many, many people in Russia that have nothing to do with the Witnesses.
bible gives a very beneficial principle when it states “too much talk” is problematic whereas “anyone who holds his tongue is prudent.” (proverb 10:19) in harmony with this if bible had given us just enough verses like this: “remember god always and do everything as an offering to him” (ecclesiastes 12:1; colossians 3:17), it could have kept itself invincible.. instead, it started to speak “too much” which often backfired.
1) too much information on a too less important subject (such as woman’s menstruation) and yet too less information on too important subject such as creation which comes in just one sentence: god created “the mankind in his image.” (genesis 1:27).
2) jesus was taken to a mountain top so that he and satan could see “all the kingdoms of the earth” [which is in support of flat-earth belief], and satan tried to tempt jesus by offering them all in exchange of an act of worship to him.
Thanks for the info DJ. I am happy to accept that if the events are not historically accurate then God's permission for it is equally bogus. It remains an issue for Christians who accept the accounts to be accurate (eg. JWs) but if you don't believe it happened in that way then what you are saying makes sense.
I am slightly confused however since my original comment which sparked this too-ing and fro-ing was in response to a post you made which appears to be attempting to contextualise the accounts of slavery in the OT/Torah (and I apologise for the simplistic crossover but time is limited) and mitigate them by reference to laws that provide a measure of protection from very harsh treatment.
If I have understood the overall point of your original post then why attempt to defend or explain OT slavery rather than simply say that Jews don't believe any of it happened in that way and all these accounts are false?
jerome over on discuss the truth has picked up on something interesting.. in the july watchtower on page 28 of the article entitled “winning the battle for your mind” the following statement is made “keep in mind that satan does not want you to think clearly or reason things out well.
because propaganda is likely to be most effective, says one source, if people… are discouraged from thinking critically.”.
the quote comes from a book entitled: “media and society in the twentieth century: a historical introduction by lyn gorman, david mclean" the watchtower however, chose to leave out a portion of the quote.. the full quote is "therefore, it is likely to be most effective if people do not have access to multiple sources of information and if they are discouraged from thinking critically.. the following sentence which the watchtower also decided was best not to include states,.
No - by quoting an outside source it gives the pretence of suggesting that the article is an open and transparent document, supported by secular sources. It provides a faux aura of being serious journalism.
They rely on the lack of research done by the vast majority to allow the potentially embarrassing editing of the original quote and it's context to slip by unnoticed.
bible gives a very beneficial principle when it states “too much talk” is problematic whereas “anyone who holds his tongue is prudent.” (proverb 10:19) in harmony with this if bible had given us just enough verses like this: “remember god always and do everything as an offering to him” (ecclesiastes 12:1; colossians 3:17), it could have kept itself invincible.. instead, it started to speak “too much” which often backfired.
1) too much information on a too less important subject (such as woman’s menstruation) and yet too less information on too important subject such as creation which comes in just one sentence: god created “the mankind in his image.” (genesis 1:27).
2) jesus was taken to a mountain top so that he and satan could see “all the kingdoms of the earth” [which is in support of flat-earth belief], and satan tried to tempt jesus by offering them all in exchange of an act of worship to him.
You are right DJ - I don't have any real knowledge of how Jewish scholars and theologians interpret the Torah and I bow to your superior knowledge on this however would you agree that the ancient Israelites had God's authority to subjugate other nations or not? Either they took captives or not.
It's not about the so called rights under the law of the time. It's not about retrospective interpretation of so called holy books. It's certainly not about some kind of relativism where this sort of stuff happened all the time in those days and those people enslaved by the Israelites were bloody lucky they'd not been captured by one of the other nations around them.
I am no Hebrew scholar but I don't need to be to know that type of slavery attested to in the Bible cannot be justified as some kind of pretend or pseudo slavery. People were forceably removed from their homes and made to work for others without any freedom of movement. It's wrong when it happens to women from Eastern Europe when they are forced into being sex slaves. It was wrong when it happened to Africans for 200 years. It was wrong when it happened to the Israelites and it was wrong when it happened to people captured by the Israelites.
