Newsgroups: talk.origins From: corey@sdf.lonestar.org (Corey Carroll) Subject: Confused ex-Jehovah's Witness. Message-ID: <1992Jun19.031508.16006@sdf.lonestar.org> Organization: sdf Public Access UNIX, Dallas--unrestricted free shell access Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1992 03:15:08 GMT Lines: 215 Dear talk.origins readers, I am a humble 20 year old student of electronics at a community college who reads Usenet and talk.origins. I have an account on a local public access Unix system. I do not consider myself a professional scientist in any way, but I do like to think of myself as an 'amateur' scientist, enjoying reading about all facets of scientific research. Being brought up as a Jehovah's Witness, I have naturally been told that evolution is untrue, and creation is true. Of course, evolution is a plot of Satan to keep people away from God. This organization has a book, "Life - How did it get here? By Evolution or Creation?", which I found very convincing in the argument for creation. After reading talk.origins for a while and remaining silent, however, I'm not so sure. :) Basically, at the beginning of the book, the Jehovah's Witnesses claim NOT to be 'scientific creationists', in the sense that they believe that the six-day period in Genesis was NOT a literal 24-hour 6 day period, but untold millenia, with a 'day' being symbolic of a long time period. Other than that, they believe in special creation, the creation of Adam and Eve, Noah's flood, and they discount biological evolution. After reading the last FAQ, I see this book tends to generalize and simplify terms. No distinction is made between the fact of evolution, and the theory of evolution, namely, that scientists are sure that evolution happened, but they aren't completely sure HOW it happened. Big difference. I get a feeling that evolutionists don't necessarily make a claim as to HOW life initially came into existence. Perhaps a creator DID create the first life forms. I find life coming from non-living matter very hard to accept, but this is only because I've been prejudiced to believe that life is 'complex' and shows evidence of a 'designer'. After further thinking on this subject, I see a big flaw with creationism. If a God was needed to create DNA to start with for natural selection to take place, surely God is as complicated or more complicated than DNA. But how did God get here? I think this is a dumb explanation to the origin of life. If you say something like "God has always been here", then I might as well say, "Life and the universe have always been here." First of all, after giving an account of Genesis 1-3, the book goes to show that the fossil record does not document intermediate life forms. One of the major charts in the book is this (p.55) : Orthodox evolutionary theory The creation pattern anticipated a fossil record anticipated a fossil that contains : record that contains : 1. Very simple life forms 1. Complex life forms gradually appearing suddenly appearing 2. Simple forms gradually 2. Complex life forms multiplying changing into complex 'after their kinds' ones (biological families), though allowing for variety 3. Many transitional 'links' 3. No transitional 'links' between different kinds between different biological families 4. Beginnings of new body 4. No partial body features; features, such as limbs, all parts complete bones, organs Anyway, this book seems to imply that there should be innumerable fossil links between different 'kinds'. But after reading t.o., it seems that there would only be a few due to the rarity of a fossil being preserved. But it seems to me that there should be SOME transitional links. Can anyone send me evidence of these through email or posting here? Next, the book claims that all 'ape-men' are frauds, and particularly harps on Piltdown man, Ramapithecus, Australopithecus, and Homo erectus. Of course, man is superior in every way to chimps and apes (sounds just a little biased, don't you think? Homo sapiens says 'I'M the superior species.' I wonder what the dinosaurs would have said?). Then, the book goes on to show that mutations could not have caused evolution. It claims that most all mutations are harmful. It says , quoting Peo Koller, "The greatest portion of mutations are deleterious to the individual who carries the mutated gene. It was found in experiments that, for every successful or useful mutation, there are many thousands which are harmful" (p.100-101). In particular, it mentions the experiments on fruit flies, and concludes "Experiments with fruit flies produced many malformed mutants, but they always remained fruit flies" (p.104). Nowhere in the book can I find a firm definiton of 'kind'. However, their other reference book , _Insight on the Scriptures,_ claims that a kind is "a division of life-forms wherein each division allows for cross-fertility within its limits . . . the boundary between 'kinds' is to be drawn at the point where fertilization ceases to occur." The book draws a distinction between species and kind, saying "In biologic terminology, however, it [species] applies to any group of interfertile animals or plants mutually possessing one or more distinctive characteristics. Thus, there could be many such species or varieties within a single division of the Genesis 'kinds'." Then, the book says that there is "no support for theories maintaining that new 'kinds' have been formed since the creation period. The unchangeable rule that 'kinds' cannot cross is a biologic principle that has ever been successfully challenged" (p.152, vol.2). Anyways, back to the Creation book. After discussing mutations, the book goes on to show how grand the universe is, and how it must have had a designer. The next chapter's titles are "Our Awesome Universe", "Evidence From a Unique Planet", "The Amazing Design of Living Things", "Instinct - Wisdom Programmed Before Birth", and "The Human Miracle". Then, the book goes on to show that people believe evolution because they are forced to by the weight of authority. "The student is rarely given opposing arguments" (p.179). It claims that scientists who believe in evolution are as dogmatic as people who believe in creation (so what's the point?). It says that since there is much disagreement as to how evolution happened, it cannot be a reliable theory. It mentions "Do debates still rage about the earth orbiting the sun, about hydrogen and oxygen making water, about gravity's existence?" (p.181) Anyways, the book is well laid out, with lots of pretty pictures, and it DOES contain references, numbering into the hundreds. However, the book is written on the equivalent of an 8th-grade reading level. Oh well. No arguments are made such as "evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics", however, and this book does not deal with the flood (I'll post that in future articles). But my main problem is the way this religion accepts EVERY verse in the Bible as LITERAL, with no room for flexibility. At the beginning of the book, it asserts that one cannot possibly believe in biological evolution or organic evolution and believe in God and religion. But, as someone once said and posted here, "When science and the bible appear to conflict, it is the _interpretation_ of the bible that is in error." As a side note. I wrote this file out about a month and a half ago. Since then, I have kept up with talk.origins, and I noticed a posting of a book _Evolution and the Myth of Creationism_. Since then, I have read the book (except for the appendixes on genes and Darwin), and I have come to the opinion that there is more evidence for evolution than there is for creationism. This book was a WONDERFUL book for me to read! In the same way some people have an experience of being 'born again', I was thrilled to learn an alternate explanation to how things got here! It was almost a religious experience for me! It was so simple and so obvious! The book pointed out MANY things that the Witnesses' Creation book didn't even MENTION. I see how they twist things now to LOOK like evolution is a science 'in serious trouble'. As of now, I am reading a book called _The Blind Watchmaker_. I recommend it for anyone who is still having trouble over the old argument that if there was a watch in the forest, there was a watchmaker, therefore the universe had a greater watchmaker. It gives possible explanations as to how things like wings or eyes or behaviors could have developed over the millenia. It also gives possible explanations to the origin of life and abiogenesis. I'm in Chapter 7 right now, and it is an EXCELLENT book. Any more suggestions for reading? Oh, and here's a funny sidepoint. I've been arguing with my parents now about evolution for a few months. Yesterday was the killer day when I announced my beliefs. They aren't throwing me out of the house (thank God..:) , but I AM moving out as soon as possible with my brother. I can't stand this insanity. When I tried to explain evolution to my father, all he could say basically was "That's STUPID!" A real sign of an intelligent , rational conversation. Plus, he even quoted scriptures from the Bible to me about how I was being fooled by the philosophies of man! One scripture said something like "they being fooled by every WHIM of man..." Well, evolution ain't no WHIM, it's a theory that's been around for over a century with good evidence, and I told him for sure that I wasn't being 'tricked' or 'brainwashed'. See, he expects me to read the Witnesses' Creation book and become a believer, and never talk about it again! The first time I started reading talk.origins and talking to my teachers about evolution, he gave me complete bullshit! He even called one of my teachers the DEVIL! He didn't know what I did on the computer, but I eventually told him I was reading posts from UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS about evolution, and boy, that really blew a fuse! He even threatened to unplug my computer! If this isn't close-mindedness and fear of the unknown, I don't know what is. He's given me complete HELL about the whole thing, and I'm mad as hell. Well, that's all I have to say for now. I'm going to later post some things the Creation book said that were completely wrong (in my opinion) and show some calculations that I have come up with about the flood.. Later -- corey@sdf.lonestar.org ..!uunet!convex!egsner!sdf!corey