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ObiWan:Mathmatically, that is impossible to occur.
ObiWan: Nope. Mormons believe the Jesus was the spirit-brother of Lucifer (Satan). Oneness Pentacostals teach that Jesus is both God the Father and God the Holy Spirit (often referred to as modalism). Jehovah's Witnesses teach that Jesus is the first of God's creation, and not God incarnate. They teach that Jesus is the Archangel, Michael (not evidenced in the Hebrew or Christian Testaments). The historic Christian faith has taught that there is one God, one in essence, and eternally existing in three Persons - God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit (i.e. Triune God).
AyaHu: 2012 came from the Mayan calendars, not the bible. The JWs I spoke to told me the 'events' that led up to it and tried to relate them to what is happening now, saying, it's coming soon, but the events were very vague and have been around since humans existed, like wars, the tsunami from a while back, 9-11, so on. We've always had these disasters, half the time the world just didn't know about it because communication has never been so good.
That Guy in Duluth:AyaHu: 2012 came from the Mayan calendars, not the bible. The JWs I spoke to told me the 'events' that led up to it and tried to relate them to what is happening now, saying, it's coming soon, but the events were very vague and have been around since humans existed, like wars, the tsunami from a while back, 9-11, so on. We've always had these disasters, half the time the world just didn't know about it because communication has never been so good.
Not as much as you would think. In the past, people really didn't need to lock their doors to go to sleep (ask an oldtimer if you want), there were no wars after wars after wars worldwide, and according to geologists, we have more earthquakes now than we did 100 years ago. Just because communication wasn't as good doesn't mean it was never recorded in older newspapers, radio shows, etc.
AyaHu:That Guy in Duluth:AyaHu: 2012 came from the Mayan calendars, not the bible. The JWs I spoke to told me the 'events' that led up to it and tried to relate them to what is happening now, saying, it's coming soon, but the events were very vague and have been around since humans existed, like wars, the tsunami from a while back, 9-11, so on. We've always had these disasters, half the time the world just didn't know about it because communication has never been so good.
Not as much as you would think. In the past, people really didn't need to lock their doors to go to sleep (ask an oldtimer if you want), there were no wars after wars after wars worldwide, and according to geologists, we have more earthquakes now than we did 100 years ago. Just because communication wasn't as good doesn't mean it was never recorded in older newspapers, radio shows, etc.
Ok, so you know, Rome conquering the whole of the earth was not at all a war. And pompeii, a very famous natural disaster, that doesnt exist at all, and you know, all those years China fought everyone else, and the egyptians, and iran and the middle east I guess havent been at war for hundreds of years. Yeah... right.
There has always been widespread war. There has always been natural disaster. There have always been earthquakes. The fact they stronger means very little, considering at one point water ran through the grand canyon. There used to be a volcano in Flagstaff that erupted all the time. Why dont we hear about that? Our people hadnt spread to Flagstaff yet, by the time we got there it was dormant. Communication is better than ever and we populate the crap out of places we never did before. Hence when you cover more area the likelihood of finding gold goes up.
And I guess the nazis didnt exist, either. Im pretty sure many people slept with their doors locked then.
And all the famine and disease that hit our first settlers. The 1600s was one giant gory bloody faminous mess, so was The Plague. We slept with our doors locked then. In the 1890s in tombstone, you always locked your door. Where has ever not locked their doors? Where I live the crime rate is .00001% and I could not leave my door locked, but I'm not stupid enough to. Even in the 1890s a stranger could wander in.
ObiWan: Several thoughts:
1. "Religion in general has been at the root of most of the suffering in the world today". As a friend of mine blogs, that's a cop-out to find an excuse for evil behavior. As he notes, "what causes us to become unjustly violent is more likely to be political, psychological or economic rather than genuinely religious. Political ideology has become the religion of our age. We can not afford the destructive stupidity of "More people are killed in wars over religion than for any other reason.""
2. Please be careful on taking verses out of context. As the late Dr. Walter Martin would have said, " text taken out of its context is a pretext for proof text". That is, ignoring the surrounding verses, and related verses is poor Biblical hermeneutics.
3. Although the word "Trinity" does not appear withing the Old (Hebrew) or New (Christian) Testaments, the concept is put forth in the OT, and clarified in the NT. See John 1:1 and John 20:28 for evidence of Jesus' claim to be God incarnate. I would also caution against citing from the New World Translation as it has been shown to be an inaccurate translation, with numerous additions and deletions, all designed support JW theology. FYI, the same can be said of Joseph Smith's "version" of the King James Bible, as he made a number of edits to try and conform it to Mormon theology.
ObiWan: The reality is that evolution remains one explanation of origins, as does the creationist view. Neither can be reproduced in the laboratory. Both are based on observable facts, and both require faith to believe in them.
ObiWan: If you Google "problems with the New World Translation", you'll finde a host of sites that address this. To address just two issues:
1. John 1:1 - To quote directly from Mantey: John 1:1, which reads "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God," is shockingly mistranslated, "Originally the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god," in a New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, published under the auspices of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Since my name is used and our Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament is quoted on page 744 to seek to justify their translation I am making this statement.
The translation suggested in our Grammar for the disputed passage is, "the Word was deity." Moffatt's rendering is "the Word was divine." William's translation is, "the Word was God Himself." Each translation reflects the dominant idea in the Greek. For, whenever an article does not precede a noun in Greek, that noun can either be considered as emphasizing the character, nature, essence or quality of a person or thing, as theos (God) does in John 1:1, or it can be translated in certain contexts as indefinite, as they have done. But of all the scholars in the world, as far as we know, none have translated this verse as Jehovah's Witnesses have.
If the Greek article occurred with both Word and God in John 1:1 the implication would be that they are one and the same person, absolutely identical. But John affirmed that "the Word was with (the) God" (the definite article preceding each noun), and in so writing he indicated his belief that they are distinct and separate personalities. Then John next stated that the Word was God, i.e., of the same family or essence that characterizes the Creator. Or, in other words, that both are of the same nature, and the nature is the highest in existence, namely divine.
Examples where the noun in the predicate does not have an article, as in the above verse, are: John 4:24, "God is spirit," (not a spirit); I John 4:16, "God is love," (not a love); I John 1:5, "God is light," (not a light); and Matthew 13:39, "the reapers are angels," i.e. they are the type of beings known as angels. In each instance the noun in the predicate was used to describe some quality or characteristics of the subject, whether as to nature or type.
The apostle John in the context of the introduction to his gospel is pulling all the stops out of language to portray not only the deity of Christ but also His equality with the Father. He states that the Word was in the beginning, that He was with God, that He was God and that all creation came into existence through Him and that not even one thing exists which was not created by Christ. What else could be said that John did not say? In John 1:18 he explained that Christ had been so intimate with the Father that He was in His bosom and that He came to earth to exhibit or portray God. But if we had no other statement from John except that which is found in John 14:9, "He that has seen me has seen the Father," that would be enough to satisfy the seeking soul that Christ and God are the same in essence and that both are divine and equal in nature.
Besides, the whole tenor of New Testament revelation points in this direction. Compare Paul's declaration in Colossians 1:19, for instance: "that all the divine fullness should dwell in Him," or the statement in Hebrews 1:3, "He is the reflection of God's glory and the perfect representation of His being, and continues to uphold the universe by His mighty word." (Williams translation). And note the sweeping, cosmic claim recorded in Matthew 28:19, "All authority has been given to me in heaven and earth."
And, if we contrast with that the belittling implication that Christ was only a god, do we not at once detect the discord? Does not such a conception conflict with the New Testament message both in whole and in part? Why, if John, in the midst of the idolatry of his day, had made such a statement would not the first century hearers and readers have gotten a totally inadequate picture of Christ, who we believe, is the Creator of the universe and the only Redeemer of humanity?
2. New World Translation - The New World Translation differs from other translations in some rather startling ways. For example, in over 200 times in our New Testament — what they call the Christian Greek Scriptures — the New World Translation has substituted the word “Jehovah” in place of the word “Lord” which, of course, appears in the Greek text. In several passages in which Jesus is called “God” the text has been mistranslated, notably John 1:1, which is made to say that “the Word was a god.” In Colossians 1:16-17, which says that “all things” were created through Christ, the New World Translation adds the word “other,” making it say that “all other things” were created through Christ. These are just a few examples of their mistranslations.
FWIW, I'd prefer to avoid "wrangling about words". Please do your own independent research.
Suzukiman: that article is the exact article I was using as a foundation to my argument bacteria able to eat new stuff, that being citrate. The fact that there was something introduced, which caused the mutation around generation 20k, is evolution. If you have nothing change in an environment, then once something becomes top of that environment you will see little if any change for the better. If evolution didn't happen then you could have many different things happen to any of the petri dishes, and none of the bacteria would ever change. The simple fact that it did change means evolution exists. Why it changed is a different matter, and I mean the mechanics of what caused the change not the "ooh new food" reason for change.
Also that author brings solid facts that say how "life" can be had from "non-life".
ObiWan: Three thoughts:
1. I've had this debate before too, and it produced little results. The issue is...is Jesus who he claimed to be - God incarnate. If He is (and I believe He is), then I need to worship him as such. If He isn't, then I am most to be pitied (to reference Paul).
2. To nake the statement "large majority of those websites are extremely biased", and I'll include books by notable Christian theolgians and Greek scholars is a big stretch. You're coming at this with a biased view towards JW theology. I'm coming at this with a biased view towards traditional Christian teaching
3. The amount of information you provided in your response is overwhelming - overwhelming to the point it loses its point, and interest, at least for me.
Suzukiman: yep the planets aligned and revealed the comma and period buttons
Suzukiman: well what happens when too many things are different then you have a new species when it no longer can produce a living offspring as i say below many things can produce offspring even though they are different. People who are lactose intolerant are the ones that havn't changed yet. The frequency of decreased lactase activity ranges from as little as 5% in northern Europe, up to 71% for Southern Europe, to more than 90% in some African and Asian countries. Lactase is an enzyme needed to break down lactose as you can see different regions have different reactions to lactose. So in short yes lactose tolerance is an evolution. When humans didnt have the need for lactase after being weaned the body would save resources by not producing lactase but the invention of domestication happened and suddenly you have an abundance of milk products so humans that could now metabolize the sugar after growing up now win.
speaking of different chromosomes if they were completely different species then why are their all the crossbreeds of big cats, ligre, tigron, léopon, pumapard, tigard, servical, caraval, jaglion, Ocelot-Puma
heck even odder is a Wholphin now the false killer whale and a dolphin are definitely different species.
and there are mules, zonies, zetlands, zebrets, and hebras but the pony zebra donkey horse and shetland pony are different species.
or are all these species just simple mutations? and if they didn't evolve into these different species then why are they similar enough to produce an offspring? The differences above are much greater then squinted asian eyes or black skin or even blond hair. So basing a new species on chromosomes alone is not very good because I would hazard a bet that you could make a monkey human hybrid as well with nothing more than a really drunk person and a horny monkey.
If they were made as different species then why do all these have the ability to cross breed and it doesnt stop their many more have this ability to.
Sasquatch: Five bucks says you're thinking about quesadillas.
ObiWan:Suzukiman: Evolution is a fact simply because it has been observed and it happens.
That's actually incorrect. Last time I checked, no one has directly observed a fish turning into a bird, amphibian or reptile. Evolution, on it's best day, is still a theory, and on any other day, is a hypothesis. Those that promote evolution as "fact" deny or ignore its inherent flaws and inconsistencies. Believing in evolution requires faith, just as Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Christians believe requires faith - faith in something that you have not directly seen.
[sidebar: Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses are not "Christian" as they deny the essentials of the historic Christian faith]