(April 17, 2015 at 1:07 am)nicanica123 Wrote: For me, the simple, "show me evidence of god" argument is lacking. I don't believe that a deity that by logic would be a being that transcends space and time as we know it would be easily defined in that space and time."Show me evidence of god" is not an argument, though it's a reasonable request to make of someone who is convinced that god exists. Any reply that explains that god cannot be detected by traditional means is unsatisfying. Especially for a believer in the abrahamic god, who makes frequent appearances and takes clear and overt action time and again in the Bible, in both the old and new testament.
Quote:Bashing JWs- I believe strongly that JW's are great people that do have many faults in the organization and the people but overall it is a group of people that try their best to be good hardworking fellow citizens. And I know all the history that you can find in 10 seconds on google. I don't believe its a cult and that they use brain washing as a tactic.They are like any other group of people, you have your good and bad. Since you share a bond over an important facet of your life, it is much easier to relate to them on a number of levels, and they probably make up a good number of your best and closest friends. As for the part about not being a cult or being brainwashed, do keep in mind how they will treat you if you ever decide to make a break from the organization (or even just from its belief system).
The history is a considerable problem for the Watchtower organization, and they present a sanitized version to the membership. There is a reason you cannot get copies of the oldest material, including the writings of Russell and Rutherford: they teach things that are different from what the organization tells the membership. Russell did not predict Christ's invisible return in 1914, for example. He was convinced that 1914 was the year that the war of Armageddon would be waged and that the kingdom of god would take over the Earth. It was the first of many predictions that were either directly stated (such as Rutherford's predictions regarding 1920 and 1925) or strongly implied (the 1975 expectations, which included a few disclaimers along the way so that they could insist that they did not make any predictions, though there is evidence that they expected the end before the year was out).
Depending on how old you are, you may be aware of how they used the interpretation of "this generation" from Matthew 24 to imply that the generation of 1914 would live to see the end, and how this explanation changed many times as that generation got older and older and finally started dying off. One person's 'progressive revelation' is another person's 'cover-up' or 'false prophecying.'
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
