Jehovah's Witnesses

[blinkybaby]

I don't get it - every religion in the world thinks their religion is the right one and everyone else is being idolatrous - if you question this they ALL say they have faith that their religion is the correct one. How does anyone know what is right? x

Thats why you have to stick by the bible, gods laws, not mans.

But surely Muslims will say the same thing about the Qu'ran and Jewish people about the Torah and so on? They all contain one mans version of "Gods law"? It just confuses me very much - surely the most agreeable, inclusive religion would be one where we all recognise that we are all following different paths to the same God?

 

[Serene123]

If I believed in God it would be a different God, I think. I'd like to think he wouldn't want children to suffer for their parents sins, as children are sin free. I think some things are just unexplainable and I wouldn't like to know where we really came from if it's from someone who preaches kind hearts but lets his children suffer.

In my opinion he did in the bible, what we are doing today. He was not perfect and he made mistakes. We start wars to end wickedness too, but that is unacceptable.

Maybe I am naive, but to me God would be something perfect.

 

[TattiesMum]

I have to say ladies, one of the more interesting debates I have read.

My only problem is, how can any religion argue with evolution?

The creator of the evolution theory Charles darwin, actually rennounced it before his death. Evolution defies logic, and science actually agrees with the order of creation as stated in Genesis.

Evolution defies logic, but the entire population of the world being created from two people and a whole lot of incest doesn't?

Apart from anything else mitochondrial DNA disproves that all people are descended from one common ancestor

In regards to how the population continued....

Gen. 5:3, 4: “Adam lived on for a hundred and thirty years. Then he became father to a son in his likeness, in his image, and called his name Seth. And the days of Adam after his fathering Seth came to be eight hundred years. Meanwhile he became father to sons and daughters.” (One of Adam’s sons was Cain, and one of Adam’s daughters must have become Cain’s wife. At that time in human history when humans still had outstanding physical health and vitality, as indicated by the length of their lives, the likelihood of passing on defects as a result of marrying a close relative was not great. After some 2,500 years of human history, however, when mankind’s physical condition had greatly deteriorated, Jehovah gave to Israel laws forbidding incest.)

Ok so then according to your point of view we had to all of decended from two original apes then?

Mitochondrial DNA (science) proves that the entire human race did not evolve from one female ... human or otherwise.

 

[flubdub]

Ok so then according to your point of view we had to all of decended from two original apes then?

There would have been more than the two original apes. A population of 'apes' would have evolved from another species.

Ok so why dont we still evolve from the apes? No animals now evovle into any kind that is not their own do they??

All animals are still evolving. The time-scale means that most differences and changes are not noticeable though. Animals are dying out, other animals are more successful, and so are surviving. If we waited long enough, animals would evolve into a different kind of animal.

Yes, animals do still evolve, but only if needed;
A remarkable example is the London Underground mosquito. It is believed to have evolved from an above-ground species which moved into tunnels being excavated to construct the London underground rail system in the 1850s. Today the underground mosquito's aggressive bite gives commuters hell, while the above-ground species only feeds off birds. The two species can no longer interbreed and have become separate in just 150 years.


"A small handful of European mice deposited on the island of Madeira some 600 years ago have now evolved into at least six different species. The island is very rocky and the mice became isolated into different niches. The original species had 40 chromosomes, but the new populations have anywhere between 22-30 chromosomes. They haven't lost DNA, but rather, some chromosomes have fused together over time and so the mice can now only breed with others with the same number of chromosomes, making each group a separate species."

Apparently, humans are evolving, and faster than ever;
"One of the best examples of recent selection involves milk, which adults in most parts of the world cannot drink. After weaning, the lactase gene, which produces the enzyme that breaks down the lactose sugar in milk, is usually switched off. Yet more than 70 per cent of European adults are quite happy drinking milk, as they carry a variation in the gene's control region that allows lactase production to continue. The genetic change appears to have happened between 5000 and 10 000 years ago, around the time that dairy farming was developed.

"We can speculate that in western Europe the ability to survive and reproduce must have depended on the ability to use milk as adults," says Dr Chris Tyler-Smith at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. "This applied strong selection pressure in favour of the mutant form of the gene. It has become so common that Western medicine now sees the inability to digest lactose by adults as an illness – lactose intolerance. Presumably a few thousand years from now, if selection pressure remains the same, everyone will have the selected mutation."

A different type of genetic variation that appears to be under positive selection – a piece of chromosome 17 that in 20 per cent of Europeans is inverted – seems to affect family size. In Iceland, females with one copy of the inverted form were found to have about 3.5 per cent more children than those without, suggesting that the inversion it is in some way enhancing fertility. This variant seems to be becoming more common across Europe. "As long as there's variation in the number of offspring people have, we won't all be making equal contributions to the next generation, so we will continue to evolve," says Dr Tyler-Smith. "

 

[lauren-kate]

Ok so then according to your point of view we had to all of decended from two original apes then?

There would have been more than the two original apes. A population of 'apes' would have evolved from another species.

Ok so why dont we still evolve from the apes? No animals now evovle into any kind that is not their own do they??

All animals are still evolving. The time-scale means that most differences and changes are not noticeable though. Animals are dying out, other animals are more successful, and so are surviving. If we waited long enough, animals would evolve into a different kind of animal.

Yes, animals do still evolve, but only if needed;
A remarkable example is the London Underground mosquito. It is believed to have evolved from an above-ground species which moved into tunnels being excavated to construct the London underground rail system in the 1850s. Today the underground mosquito's aggressive bite gives commuters hell, while the above-ground species only feeds off birds. The two species can no longer interbreed and have become separate in just 150 years.

...

Just adding another example of the Peppered Moth - the typical example from textbooks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth

 

[Aidan's Mummy]

They say they think life began from a single molecule. But have yet to prove it according to the reading I have been doing in the last few weeks
xx

 

[Serene123]

They say they think life began from a single molecule. But have yet to prove it according to the reading I have been doing in the last few weeks
xx

They weren't there, it's going to be extremely difficult to prove, if they ever do..

 

[madasa]

God is an invisible spirit being and lives obviously in heaven

In regards to how the population continued....

Gen. 5:3, 4: “Adam lived on for a hundred and thirty years. Then he became father to a son in his likeness, in his image, and called his name Seth. And the days of Adam after his fathering Seth came to be eight hundred years. Meanwhile he became father to sons and daughters.” (One of Adam’s sons was Cain, and one of Adam’s daughters must have become Cain’s wife. At that time in human history when humans still had outstanding physical health and vitality, as indicated by the length of their lives, the likelihood of passing on defects as a result of marrying a close relative was not great. After some 2,500 years of human history, however, when mankind’s physical condition had greatly deteriorated, Jehovah gave to Israel laws forbidding incest.)

so there has been a some sort of evolution, or really de-evolution of the human nature? a progression... easily equated to actual evolution?

I was taught that every generation is less perfect than the one before. Which would make everybodys granddad right; kids really weren't like that back in his day

 

[lauren-kate]

They say they think life began from a single molecule. But have yet to prove it according to the reading I have been doing in the last few weeks
xx

The oldest fossils found are of single-celled organisms, which are thought to have adapted and evolved to become the creatures we know of today. There are a number of chemical changes which occurred in order to make it possible for the single-celled organisms to evolve and move onto land from the water. There are a number of theories for how life actually started on Earth though, as in how those single-celled organisms came to be.

 

[flubdub]

Also, I think humans may not be evolving visually so much anymore, because there is no need. We used to be quite hairy because we were naked and it was cold - but now we are clothed so not as much need for all the hair
We used to have longer, broader noses to warm the air up that we breathed in - but that is no longer needed.
We used to have bigger, stronger legs to catch prey and to run for safety - but that is also no longer needed.

I think most of our evolution goes on inside us, which I think is slightly worrying. If evolution took any notice of the numbers of women who dont breastfeed, in a few hundred/thousand years, will women even be able to breastfeed any more? Will they even have breasts if they are no longer used?
Off topic I know,

 

[lauren-kate]

Also, I think humans may not be evolving visually so much anymore, because there is no need. We used to be quite hairy because we were naked and it was cold - but now we are clothed so not as much need for all the hair
We used to have longer, broader noses to warm the air up that we breathed in - but that is no longer needed.
We used to have bigger, stronger legs to catch prey and to run for safety - but that is also no longer needed.

I think most of our evolution goes on inside us, which I think is slightly worrying. If evolution took any notice of the numbers of women who dont breastfeed, in a few hundred/thousand years, will women even be able to breastfeed any more? Will they even have breasts if they are no longer used?
Off topic I know,

It is interesting though.. I wonder how the increase in obesity will effect everything.

 

[ShanandBoc]

The scientific magazine 'discover' said about Evolution "evolution is not only under attack by christains but is also being questioned by reputable scientists.

Exactly how evolution happened is anow a great contoversy among biologists

A London time writer Christopher Booker said that Darwin himself was aware, that his theory was full of colossal holes....regarding Darwins Origin of species "we have here the supreme irony that a book which has become famous for explaining the origin of species in fact does nothing of the kind

Regarding the clear cut question of how of how life originated Astronomer Robert Jastrow said "Scientits have no real answer, because chemistshave never succeeded in reproducing natures experiments on the creation of life from non living matter, scientists do not know how that happened. Scientists have no proof that life was not the result of an act of creation".

Even consider such human organs as the brain, ear and the eye... A problem for evolutionists has been the fact that such organs have to work together for sight, hearing and thinking to take place. Could the undirected element of chance which is the driving force of evolution have brought all these parts together, completed at the right time to produce such amazing mechanisims?

Darwin acknowledged this, he wrote " To suppose that the eye, could have formed by evolution seems i freely confess, absurd in the highest degree"

Think with all our technology even the best cameras are no match for the human eye, just as computers are no match for the human brain

Science writer Morgan Hunt wrote" our active memories hold several billion times more information than any computer"

Our brains also have the capability of learning endlessly, forever.

Why would they have been designed to take in information forever if we were not designed to live forever?

Neurosurgeon Dr Robert J White stated" to say that the human brain evolved from that of any animal, defies reason and the facts. Far more logical is this conclusion,: i am left with no other choice but to acknowledge the existence of a superior intellect, responsible for the design and development of the incredible brain - mind relationship Its something far beyond mans capacity to understand.
I have to believe that all this had an intelliegent beginning, that someone made it happen"

 

[lauren-kate]

I don't disregard religion completely.. I definitely think that it may well have it's place within all of this. BUT I don't think that the science can be disregarded at all. There is a lot of logical evidence within radioactive dating (carbon dating), etc, etc that I could not just put to one side and say that it isn't right/doesn't exist etc. There are many things that are amazing (like the human brain) that have not yet been completely understood, but our understanding is growing all of the time. At one point not so long ago, cells would have been regarded in the same way, but now we are developing ways in which to 'create' our own cells.

 

[madasa]

Some people seem to be giving ShanandBoc a bit of a hard time; She has been asked dozens of questions, all of which she has answered fully, and politely. I for one am finding it very interesting, despite not being religious.

Can I ask, regarding Adam and Eve; does their existance mean that JW's dont believe we evolved from ape's, but only Adam and Eve? And if so, was there a world before humans were around? Dinosoars etc? Why was there such a long time before humans were on the planet?

Sorry if Im being stupid

Since Christian and JW's believe the same about creation I believe I can answer is, but I apologize if it's not right with JW's teachings. Man was created in God's image, we were never Apes and JW's do not believe in the theory of evolution, in fact by the end of Darwin's life he renounced the theory as well
Genesis 1:27 "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created him."
There was a world before humans were created:
Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty..."
Humans were created on the last day so there was a 7 day gap between the creation of the earth and all of it's entirety and when humans were created.

Thanks for that. So what about dinosoars/cavemen, things like that. Is it believed that they existed? I have a feeling I am being stupid lol

Jws don't believe dinosaurs existed. (ds would ne gutted, lol!). They also font believe the earth ismilliond of years old. I don't know why they don't believe in dinosaurs... The bible doesn't state what kinds of animal god created (giraffe, dog, lion, lizard, fish). Why cdnt modern beasts have evolved from the ones he created?

Thanks. What are the dinosoar bones then if they didnt exist? x

Reading other posts since mine it looks like I got that wrong . It's what I was taught try googling "watchtower" and "dinosaurs" ???

 

[flubdub]

Our brains also have the capability of learning endlessly, forever.

Why would they have been designed to take in information forever if we were not designed to live forever?

Thats what I would like to know. I had no idea we could learn forever. Could it possibly be for a time in thousands of years, when we know much more than we do now? There will be better technology to help us learn? Maybe the brain is made of the assumption that the human species will be around forever, and gave us a brain to cope with all the information we will know by then? With a better understanding of how the brain works? It may even have capabilities of which we have no idea, and if someone put forward these ideas to us now, we would think them absurd, for (random) example; telepathy etc, and that is what all the extra brain "space" is for?
I dont know if that makes sense or not!

 

[ShanandBoc]

Ok so then according to your point of view we had to all of decended from two original apes then?

There would have been more than the two original apes. A population of 'apes' would have evolved from another species.

Ok so why dont we still evolve from the apes? No animals now evovle into any kind that is not their own do they??

All animals are still evolving. The time-scale means that most differences and changes are not noticeable though. Animals are dying out, other animals are more successful, and so are surviving. If we waited long enough, animals would evolve into a different kind of animal.

Animals are dying out due to extinction, from men hunting destrying their habitats etc.

There can be great variety among humans, cats , dogs for example but no so much that one living thing could chnage into another. Every experiment ever conducted with mutations proves this.

Also proved is the law of biogenesis, that life only comes from pre- existing life, and the parent organism and its offspring are of the same kind.

Breeding experiments also confirm this. Scientists have tried to keep changing various animals and plant life indefinately by crossbreeding. They wanted to see that if in time they could develop new forms of life.

On call reports " Breeders find that after a few generations, an optimum is reached beyond which further impreovement is impossible, and there has been no new species formed, this then seems to refute, rather than support evolution.

Pigs reman pigs, oak tress remain oak trees, generation after generation.

eveolution cannot account for why there are fish, reptiles, birds and mammals

No accidental genetic change can cause one kind of life to turn into another.

Fossils show a a sudden complex appreaence of life in great variety, each new kind sperate from previous kinds, no linking forms

 

[madasa]

Nope, sorry - Darwin did not renounce his theories. I studied Darwin for many years and feel I can speak on this with some authority. However - I don't have my textbooks to hand to 'prove' it, so will have to revert to the trusty (lol) Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Hope#The_Lady_Hope_story

Science CAN prove carbon dating and the like. CAN prove how old the Earth is. Evolution HAS continued and WILL continue to happen - species' are changing and adapting all the time.

This is where I struggle with 'organised' religion - fingers in ears and 'lalalala I can't hear you' doesn't quite wash with me (I'm not referring to the ladies posting in here btw, I mean religion in general). All religions/holy books are open to interpretation - science is not. It is what it is.

The bible doesnt say how old the earth actually is tho does it? It says that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth suggesting that both had been around for
some time. God hadnt just created the heavens ashe created adam and eve had he? The genesis account is the creation of the plant, animal life that we see now and of course humans, all made perfectly fit for our existence.....but its says there was there was water and no doubt some form of vegetation already of the earth.

Sciense does actually agree with the Genesis account of creation itself. To think that the amazing complexity of nature, the universe, our bodies, the amazing human brain came about by pure chance is illogical imo.

If i was to tell you that the simple computer you are sitting on (which doesnt even compare to the human brain) had no designer and no creator you would think i was mad

Sorry Mr Dawkin but I'm going to nick from you now... What is harder to believe though: that the counter itself cane into being spontaneously, with no creator or designer... Or that it was made by a being even more complex and THEY came into being spontaneously, with no creator or designer?

I gave a lot of thought to your earlier post about violence cleansing wickedness and still cannot reconcile thus with the living god who loved us so much he gave his only son.... I cannot agree that the end justifies the means, which is essentially what the bible teaches.

 

[lauren-kate]

Ok so then according to your point of view we had to all of decended from two original apes then?

There would have been more than the two original apes. A population of 'apes' would have evolved from another species.

Ok so why dont we still evolve from the apes? No animals now evovle into any kind that is not their own do they??

All animals are still evolving. The time-scale means that most differences and changes are not noticeable though. Animals are dying out, other animals are more successful, and so are surviving. If we waited long enough, animals would evolve into a different kind of animal.

Animals are dying out due to extinction, from men hunting destrying their habitats etc.

There can be great variety among humans, cats , dogs for example but no so much that one living thing could chnage into another. Every experiment ever conducted with mutations proves this.

Also proved is the law of biogenesis, that life only comes from pre- existing life, and the parent organism and its offspring are of the same kind.

Breeding experiments also confirm this. Scientists have tried to keep changing various animals and plant life indefinately by crossbreeding. They wanted to see that if in time they could develop new forms of life.

On call reports " Breeders find that after a few generations, an optimum is reached beyond which further impreovement is impossible, and there has been no new species formed, this then seems to refute, rather than support evolution.

Pigs reman pigs, oak tress remain oak trees, generation after generation.

eveolution cannot account for why there are fish, reptiles, birds and mammals

No accidental genetic change can cause one kind of life to turn into another.

Fossils show a a sudden complex appreaence of life in great variety, each new kind sperate from previous kinds, no linking forms

I didn't literally mean one kind of animal into another as in, a dog into a cat or anything like that (just explaining myself).

Fossils do show a gradual change from one species to another. It is thought that all life started as single-celled organisms, and that these organisms diversified into the different kinds of animals you speak of - fish, reptiles, birds, mammals, etc.

I doubt that any experiment into evolution involving breeding experiments, could successfully prove or disprove it, as I don't think that the time-scale and number of 'breedings' would be sufficient enough to create a new animal.

 

[ShanandBoc]

Some people seem to be giving ShanandBoc a bit of a hard time; She has been asked dozens of questions, all of which she has answered fully, and politely. I for one am finding it very interesting, despite not being religious.

Can I ask, regarding Adam and Eve; does their existance mean that JW's dont believe we evolved from ape's, but only Adam and Eve? And if so, was there a world before humans were around? Dinosoars etc? Why was there such a long time before humans were on the planet?

Sorry if Im being stupid

Since Christian and JW's believe the same about creation I believe I can answer is, but I apologize if it's not right with JW's teachings. Man was created in God's image, we were never Apes and JW's do not believe in the theory of evolution, in fact by the end of Darwin's life he renounced the theory as well
Genesis 1:27 "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created him."
There was a world before humans were created:
Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty..."
Humans were created on the last day so there was a 7 day gap between the creation of the earth and all of it's entirety and when humans were created.

Thanks for that. So what about dinosoars/cavemen, things like that. Is it believed that they existed? I have a feeling I am being stupid lol

Jws don't believe dinosaurs existed. (ds would ne gutted, lol!). They also font believe the earth ismilliond of years old. I don't know why they don't believe in dinosaurs... The bible doesn't state what kinds of animal god created (giraffe, dog, lion, lizard, fish). Why cdnt modern beasts have evolved from the ones he created?

Thanks. What are the dinosoar bones then if they didnt exist? x

Reading other posts since mine it looks like I got that wrong . It's what I was taught try googling "watchtower" and "dinosaurs" ???

Well there is certainly no JW publication that says that dinosaurs didnt exist, and has never been said otherwise.

I googled and the sites are not witness sites, just random forums etc with all sorts of opinions.

Look to witness publications themselves, they certainly believe in dinosaurs x

 

[madasa]

Ok so then according to your point of view we had to all of decended from two original apes then?

There would have been more than the two original apes. A population of 'apes' would have evolved from another species.

Ok so why dont we still evolve from the apes? No animals now evovle into any kind that is not their own do they??

There's no scientific evidence to prove man evolved from apes either, is there? That humans evolved from earlier humans, maybe, but there is no chronological link to apes.