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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To refuse to take the Watchtower and send Jehova's Witnesses away with parish magazine?

378 replies

Elasticwoman · 05/09/2007 22:34

They said: hey, you've got to take a Watchtower, it was a deal!

But I welshed on it.

Was I unreasonable, and what do other people do when the God Squad come to their door trying to sell God to them?

OP posts:
Howdydoody · 07/09/2007 21:44

So Darwin just "professesd" to believe? He scammed us all - apart from UQD (who still hasnt answered my earlier questions maybe he doesnt want an "evidence based debate"!!)

UnquietDad · 07/09/2007 21:47

"Professed" doesn't imply he didn't believe it. I just wanted to point out it would be very unusual for anyone in his position to be an out-and-out atheist - unlike today.

What are these questions I supposedly haven't answered? If it's the one about conscience I did my best.

Howdydoody · 07/09/2007 21:55

The Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin, 1902 edition, Part One, p. 250.

he wrote: ?To suppose that the eye . . . could have been formed by [evolution], seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.?

Caroline1852 · 07/09/2007 22:04

UQD - I believe in the power of good over evil. I do not consider myself to have a religion. However, I would not call myself an atheist as I do not believe I have conclusively proved to myself that there is no omnipotent being (God, Allah, Beefy or whatever we want to call him (I know it's a him because he has a beard!)). I think it is as arrogant to have the view that there is no God as it is to persist with the view that there is a God without scientific proof. Let everyone believe what they want. I am a good person and I don't feel like I need saving but I like going to church from time to time (I am not brand loyal I sometimes go to the Catholic church and sometimes I go to the Anglican church - I stay away from the happy clappy brigade as I do not find that attractive). It would be a shame if that was withdrawn.

UnquietDad · 07/09/2007 22:07

I don't get what you are trying to prove, howdydoody.

The full quote actually goes:

"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of Spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certain the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, should not be considered as subversive of the theory."

What he's actually saying is, "right, folks, listen up, I know this is gonna sound daft, but...it makes sense when you look at it." He sets up the whole "absurdity" thing to show how natural selection, as a theory, makes sense in even the most seemingly unlikely cases.

UnquietDad · 07/09/2007 22:15

Caroline - but you can't prove it and neither can I. We know that. It's a common rhetorical trick used by theists - "If God doesn't exist, prove it." It's like me saying "prove invisible pink unicorns don't exist." You can't prove the non-ness of anything. But you can provide evidence for claims.

This, to come back on topic, is why I get so annoyed with the JWs and give up trying to debate with them - they don't give answers to questions, just rehashed, pre-written homilies.

I am definitely more Scully than Mulder - just naturally sceptical!

Loch Ness Monster? Fine, show me photos. Show me digital film. UFOs? No problem, just show me one. You can bend spoons? Right, Mr Geller, here's a spoon straight out of my drawer. Bend it. God? Harder to say what constitutes "proof", but some evidence which is more than just "feeling" or faith or anecdote would be nice.

It's not arrogance to occupy the end of the spectrum at which there is the greater weight of evidence. Surely it's possible to say that you are as convinced as it is, philosophcally, possible to be that there is no such thing as a god?

Pruners · 07/09/2007 22:16

Message withdrawn

Howdydoody · 07/09/2007 22:17

My point was that the beginner of the theory of evolution admitted the absurdity of believing something as complex as the eye could have just evolved.

BTW my question was about when did instinct become conscience (sorry I think RL intruded and i missed your answer, will scroll down) and also why dont we see monkey's in mid state of becoming man? Why did it just stop and leave monkeys to be monkeys if they are meant to be men?

Sorry - it's late if that was a bit garbled

Pruners · 07/09/2007 22:22

Message withdrawn

Howdydoody · 07/09/2007 22:23

Where's the proof Pruners?

Howdydoody · 07/09/2007 22:25

Or is it this so-called missing link that no one has ever found?

A bit like my missing £1,000,000 - actually it was never there in the first place

UnquietDad · 07/09/2007 22:28

He admits the absurdity of the idea but demosnstrates in the end - that's more of a rhetorical flourish if you look at it in context.

It's like me saying to a primitive tribesman, "look, I know it seems like magic that these people get into metal birds and just fly into the sky. It's daft. I know. But trust me, this is how it works..."

And I didn't really answer the conscience question - I'm not propetly qualified to. My limited understanding is that morals and conscience are basically a social mystem for internalising rules - social groups would disintegrate without them, so the evolution of certain social rules of interaction is only to be expected.

People all over the world, of all faiths and none, have developed broadly similar norms of what constitutes socially cohesive and acdeptable behaviour (cultural differences aside). Why assume that this moral standard is not part of us as human beings? And human social norms have evolved - we can see that by comparing our own with what was acceptable 200 years ago, with 2000 years ago... if conscience came from a "God" it would surely be immutable.

It's not limited to humans either - I gather experiments have shown that chimpanzees exhibit shame and fear when performing actions which violate the social norms of a group. It's difficult to argue that the chimp fears God.

Pruners · 07/09/2007 22:30

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lisad123 · 07/09/2007 22:32

hmmm I always wondered if evolution is true why is there no half men/half monkey bones or proof ect? And as for the big bang, how is that anymore believeable than a creator? If you look at the way the earth,stars, space is designed its perfect in everyway. How could that be by chance? We are the right amount of distance from the sun, so not to burn or get too cold and freeze.

L

Howdydoody · 07/09/2007 22:33

Surely UqD that goes against the "survival of the fittest" theory then? Why should we bother to have consciences if it's a case of "tough mate I'm stronger than you".

Pruners · 07/09/2007 22:34

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Pruners · 07/09/2007 22:35

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Howdydoody · 07/09/2007 22:35

And as for the DNA thing Pruners, human blood is more similar to mice than monkeys.

Pruners · 07/09/2007 22:37

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Pruners · 07/09/2007 22:38

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Howdydoody · 07/09/2007 22:41

If we all (animals included)come from the earth/dust then of course DNA and the Tree of Life from your link(interesting they chose that term ) would show our DNA is similar.

It's called creation

Pruners · 07/09/2007 22:45

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Pruners · 07/09/2007 22:52

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Howdydoody · 07/09/2007 22:59

No no no Pruners!! Not good enough

I mean the evolutionary ones like going from ones species to another.Apes to men. They would be documented somewhere in history and they just arent. Our bodies are made to change - cells/antibodies etc- but that's not evolution thats the way we are created, to adjust to our surroundings.

Pruners · 07/09/2007 23:06

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