Creationism

[Arauna]

On 11/30/2019 at 6:21 AM, AlanF said:

buddy Arauna seems to think it's 6,000 years, being a young-earth creationist.

I am not a creationist...... I do not believe the creation of animals and people took only 24 hours. This is what creationists believe.

I do believe that jehovah created the earth and the physical universe and the age of the rocks on earth gives one an idea of the age of the earth. Genesis 1: 1 and 2   However, the earth is not as old as the estimates given by some evolutionists. There are many problems with carbon 14 dating as well as the other methods.  Uranium breaks down into  lead  reasonably fast.... and there is still uranium left on the earth..... so if the earth is as old as they say, there would be no uranium left.

I do believe that the earth after its creation was left to cool down and there was water on the earth from this process - as the bible indicates. 

After this God started to prepare the earth for human and animal habitation and only now calls each period a day. He used 6 periods, called a day, to work on this.  But he also calls all the creation of heaven and earth (including its preparation) a day - one total period  in genesis 2:4.  

When you promote the idea that the layers of the earth is not in line with bible chronology you are mistaken.  You see the geological record together with the biblical record confirms the biblical history. 

Many geologists try to hide the evidence of a earthwide flood but the violent evidences of a flood is everywhere on earth - especially the animal grave yards which were mostly in gullys.   The earth tore open and released waters deep under the earth and gave way to volcanic activity and tsunamis. It was an  extremely violent event which left the earth completely changed afterwards. The earth moved considerably as water is not only heavy but extremely powerful in its movement when tectonic plates move.  The weight of one bucket of water should give one an idea of the weight and pressing down of sediment involved.  This pushed out all oxygen.... perfect for the formation of coal, diamonds etc.  Water also drew back and this can be seen in some formations.

The layers of animals packed down in the different layers of sediment is proof of a violent flood. And the same sediment layers appear all over the earth with the lighter materials higher up such as sea shells etc.

Me thinks you dismiss too much evidence which honest scientists do not ignore!  

Yea- you will most probably call me a moron.... again....but because evolutionists do not take the flood into account and the change of the earth during the flood their carbon calculations and ice age calculations could be totally wrong..... 

No I do not punt..... I have a life.  My life does not consist of sitting on internet talking to trolls who really do not care to even consider an aspect different to their own opinion. 

 

[AlanF]

Arauna said:

Quote

 

    On 11/29/2019 at 7:21 PM, AlanF said:

I am not a creationist......

 

Of course you are. Perhaps not a six-literal-creative-day creationist, but still a creationist. And you clearly hold a number of young-earth creationist ideas, such as "flood geology" -- which as I have pointed out a number of times, the Society abandoned 40 years ago.

Quote

I do not believe the creation of animals and people took only 24 hours. This is what creationists believe.

Nope. Only the young-earth kind. Intelligent Design creationists range from young-earth to old-earth.

Quote

I do believe that jehovah created the earth and the physical universe and the age of the rocks on earth gives one an idea of the age of the earth. Genesis 1: 1 and 2   However, the earth is not as old as the estimates given by some evolutionists.

The Watchtower Society accepts those figures. You know better, do you?

Quote

There are many problems with carbon 14 dating as well as the other methods.  Uranium breaks down into  lead  reasonably fast.... and there is still uranium left on the earth.....

Carbon 14 dating is not used for the age of the earth. Uranium dating and other radiometric methods are on extremely firm footing. You're WAY behind the times, as even the Society accepts them.

Quote

so if the earth is as old as they say, there would be no uranium left.

Nonsense. You present no facts, no math. The half-life of the main isotope of uranium (U-238) is about 4.5 billion years. That of U-235 is 700 million years. U-235 is much less abundant that U-238. Now do the math.

Quote

I do believe that the earth after its creation was left to cool down and there was water on the earth from this process - as the bible indicates.

Ideas like these are left over from 1940s Watchtower teaching. You're WAY behind the times.

Quote

After this God started to prepare the earth for human and animal habitation and only now calls each period a day. He used 6 periods, called a day, to work on this.  But he also calls all the creation of heaven and earth (including its preparation) a day - one total period  in genesis 2:4.

I'm fully versed in these myths.

Quote

When you promote the idea that the layers of the earth is not in line with bible chronology you are mistaken.  You see the geological record together with the biblical record confirms the biblical history.

Wrong. You're harking back to the "flood geology" that the Society gave up on in the early 1980s. You won't find any such references after 1989, and hardly any after 1980.

Facts: "Flood geology" was abandoned by all proper geologists beginning in the 1820s. By 1860 or so, only a few religious holdouts held to it. About 1900 a Seventh-Day Adventist preacher name George McCready Price began a career of defending SDA young-earth creationism by publishing books defending his version of "flood geology" and so forth. In the late 1940s the Watchtower Society began using some of his ideas, as well as those of that arch-crackpoot Immanuel Velikovsky and others. In 1961 a baptist theologian named John Whitcomb and his buddy Henry Morris published the book The Genesis Flood, which under Morris's guidance kicked off the modern young-earth creationist movement, which is now daily fare for most American Christian Fundamentalists. In 1965 the Society published material using many of Morris's ideas, including "flood geology". After that, it used many of Morris's arguments -- which were largely plagiarized from Price -- to argue in favor of Noah's Flood. Around 1980 the Society gave up on all this, but failed to inform the JW community.

I learned about the Society's duplicity in 1986, when a 100-page essay defending the Society's arguments on "flood geology" came my way. I wrote to the author to dispute some of his claims. He wrote back and sheepishly told me that he had submitted his essay to the Writing Department for comments, which informed him that they had abandoned all that stuff years earlier.

So your beliefs are at least 40 years out of date.

Quote

Many geologists try to hide the evidence of a earthwide flood

Nope. There simply isn't any. Beginning in the 1820s, what religiously based scientists had been interpreting as "Flood diluvium" was realized to be sedimentary layers left by perfectly ordinary geological processes.

Truly huge floods leave unmistakeable evidence, such as happened in the State of Washington from about 12,000 to 16,000 years ago. Look online for "missoula floods". Today even Morris's Institute for Creation Research and other young-earth creationist outfits accept that these floods happened. And they are not unique. The thing is that the flooded regions all have definite boundaries, which the flood water never rose above.

Had a huge earthwide Flood occurred just 4,400 years ago, such massive scars on the land would be everywhere, but no such thing is to be found.

Quote

but the violent evidences of a flood is everywhere on earth - especially the animal grave yards which were mostly in gullys.

Pure "flood geology" the Society borrowed from Price and Morris -- and debunked decades ago by real scientists. Such "animal graveyards" are purely the imagination of crackpot armchair geologists.

Quote

The earth tore open and released waters deep under the earth

Yow! You must be reading Walter Brown's hydroplate nonsense. Even the ICR and Answers in Genesis reject that garbage.

Quote

and gave way to volcanic activity and tsunamis.

Walter Brown alright. Although the ICR and AIG have adopted some of his ideas. But you'll find no such nonsense in Watchtower literature after 1989.

Quote

It was an  extremely violent event which left the earth completely changed afterwards. The earth moved considerably as water is not only heavy but extremely powerful in its movement when tectonic plates move.  The weight of one bucket of water should give one an idea of the weight and pressing down of sediment involved.  This pushed out all oxygen.... perfect for the formation of coal, diamonds etc.  Water also drew back and this can be seen in some formations.

Again pure "flood geology" nonsense.

Quote

The layers of animals packed down in the different layers of sediment is proof of a violent flood.

Nope. There are generally no such "layers", but occasionally pockets of fossil animals are found. For example, in Nebraska there's a place called Ashfall Fossil Beds, where hundreds of fossil animals from about 12 million years ago were buried over a period of months in a massive ash fall from where the Yellowstone hotspot was. Read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashfall_Fossil_Beds . There is no evidence for a flood; all evidence shows ash was carried in the air from what is now southern Idaho to Nebraska.

Quote

And the same sediment layers appear all over the earth with the lighter materials higher up such as sea shells etc.

Complete nonsense. Not even the Society used to publish such nonsense. Where are you getting this from?

Quote

Me thinks you dismiss too much evidence which honest scientists do not ignore!

Wrong. I'm far more familiar than you are about creationism in its various forms.

And again, you have never read a proper scientific book on modern geology or the evidence for evolution. All you've read are creationist publications. Prove me wrong, if you dare, by listing whatever real scientific books you've read.

Quote

Yea- you will most probably call me a moron.... again....

Willfully ignorant is a better term.

Quote

but because evolutionists do not take the flood into account and the change of the earth during the flood their carbon calculations and ice age calculations could be totally wrong.....

Zero evidence for your claim. If you think not, then by all means give your evidence.

Quote

No I do not punt..... I have a life.  My life does not consist of sitting on internet talking to trolls who really do not care to even consider an aspect different to their own opinion.

Ah, but you do have time to take pot shots at those far more knowledgeable than you.

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

What I would like to know, Arauna, is how the two Penguins got from Antarctica, to the launch site of Noah's Ark.

If you figure out the routing, please let me know.

I try to keep my points simple, and to the point.

( ... make pointing gesture with trigger finger ...)

[AlanF]

38 minutes ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

What I would like to know, Arauna, is how the two Penguins got from Antarctica, to the launch site of Noah's Ark.

God temporarily gave them permission to fly.

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

YES!  That's it!   It's so clear to me now!

[BlahBlahWoofWoof!]

3 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

What I would like to know, Arauna, is how the two Penguins got from Antarctica, to the launch site of Noah's Ark.

I heard some penguins travel 5000 miles (8,046.72 km) to Brazil. I have read Fire ants also make rafts to travel the oceans and survive floods with their bodies.

Animals are interesting creatures with intelligent migration programming.

It is interesting how the penguin stopped flying at a certain point. Evolution does indicate penguins flew at one point. I believe the snake also had hind legs to walk upright according to evolution.

 Was it in prehistoric times, or the Garden of Eden? Was it after the animals scattered that the penguins stopped flying? The snake was cursed by God in the garden, so creation can attest to that.

There are so many wonders, the biggest one, how god got all the animals to migrate a long distance to the Ark. I wonder if he then encouraged the animals to migrate, or were some migrations helped by humans?

[Arauna]

7 hours ago, AlanF said:

Only the young-earth kind. Intelligent Design

I happen to have a brother who did research on toxins. He became a Jehovahs witness while doing research at the largest research centre in the southern hemisphere which made vaccinations etc for race horses. He is also a brilliant mathematician. He did his degrees in "Carbon" chemistry..... which is about everything that is "living" and carbon based.

I have always had a love for science because of my brothers and a natural aptitude.

When I still lived in Africa, I had a few interesting discussions with him... Yes, unfortunately many people were awestruck when Dawkins became a celebrity...but unfortunately very little substance there..... 

My brother gave me several reasons why the mathematics and chemistry about the age of the earth is incorrect.  But you did not answer me-  why uranium has not all turned to lead?  This  is one of the simplest  questions. 

There is ample proof of the flood - the sedimentation and the layers.  When one looks at the Geologists explanation for the so-called" millions of years "between" the layers when the layers themselves are so deep, one realises quickly there is a problem. They cannot explain it away. 

The Cambrian explosion and the lack of  transition bone specimens in the development of flight. Wings suddenly appear. If only the fittest survive - there should be millions of bones of transitional animals / birds which did not survive. The bone record does not substantiate the claims of evolutionists of slow development.

 

[AlanF]

Arauna said:

Quote

 

    11 hours ago, AlanF said:

    Only the young-earth kind. Intelligent Design

I happen to have a brother who did research on toxins. He became a Jehovahs witness while doing research at the largest research centre in the southern hemisphere which made vaccinations etc for race horses. He is also a brilliant mathematician. He did his degrees in "Carbon" chemistry..... which is about everything that is "living" and carbon based.

I have always had a love for science because of my brothers and a natural aptitude.

 

I see no such "aptitude" in your acceptance of a mishmosh creationist ideas from various sources. Nor in your refusal to name the sources you rely on. Nor in your refusal to read real science books.

Quote

When I still lived in Africa, I had a few interesting discussions with him... Yes, unfortunately many people were awestruck when Dawkins became a celebrity...but unfortunately very little substance there.....

LOL! Some people think Newton and Einstein were loons.

Quote

My brother gave me several reasons why the mathematics and chemistry about the age of the earth is incorrect.

How long ago? 1945? And what were his reasons? My guess is that you completely misunderstood much of what he said.

Quote

But you did not answer me-  why uranium has not all turned to lead?  This  is one of the simplest  questions.

I certainly did: the half-life of U-238 is 4.5 billion years. The fact that you don't recognize that as an answer proves that you don't understand even such simple things in science. So let me try to educate you.

"Half-life" refers to the fact that all radioactive materials decay at a fixed rate such that after a period of time called the "half-life", one half of the original material is left ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-life ). Thus uranium-238 decays ultimately into lead-206 (do you even know what those numbers mean?) through a long chain of other radioactive decays ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-238 ). Thus, if the age of the earth is 4.55 billion years, however much U-238 it had at its beginning has lost a bit more than half of its mass as it decayed into lead-206. "One half" is a good deal bigger than "none", wouldn't you say?

Now consider that all elements heavier than lithium (number 3 in the periodic table) are synthesized in supernova explosions. According to cosmologists the universe is about 13.7 billion years old. That's about 3 half-lives of U-238. Thus the original amount of U-238 in the universe would have decayed to about 1/8 as much. But elements are constantly being synthesized in the supernovas that occur in the universe all the time, and so U-238 is always being created.

Quote

There is ample proof of the flood - the sedimentation and the layers.

Nope. As I've told you several times, that's pure young-earth creationist claptrap -- "flood geology".

A careful examination of sediment layers does not show virtually instantaneous deposition, but usually a relatively slow accumulation of stuff followed by periods of no deposition, or even erosion. For example, in the Grand Canyon region there are hundreds of sediment layers now turned to stone. Many layers show evidence that, at some point, deposition stopped, the shallow sea level dropped and/or the land rose, and eroson occurred, sometimes of an unknown number of turned-to-stone lower layers, leaving erosional products such as cliffs, stream beds and cobbles in those beds.

For example, the Grand Canyon itself contains nearly 40 layers of sedimentary rock on top of the lowest Precambrian rocks ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_the_Grand_Canyon_area ), ranging in age from 200 million to 600 million for the sediments, and about 2 billion years old for the Precambrian basement rocks. There are some 14 unconformities (gaps) between these layers. During one ancient period of deposition, limestone accumulated in a layer that is now called the Muav Limestone, followed by deep burial for an unknown time period. Eventually this layer was exposed due to uplift of the land, and an unknown amount of the top layers were eroded away, leaving a surface cut by many erosion channels. Later, a different kind of limestone was deposited on top of all this, forming the Temple Butte layer. Roughly 65 million years of sedimentation were eroded away between these two layers. Eventually erosion stopped again for an unknown time, then another layer of limestone was desposited on top, called the Redwall Limestone. The process repeated many times.

All manner of fossil animals and plants are found in these layers, including burrows and trackways of footprints. This is impossible in a huge flood lasting a few weeks.

Near Denver, Colorado is an exposure of sedimentary rock that is tilted at a steep angle and was eroded partly away during the uplift of the Rocky Mountains. It is now a city park. Some of the individual layers in this exposure contain dinosaur footprints and trackways. There is no way dinosaurs left footprints there during Noah's Flood. The layers contain plenty of fossil animals, too.

The region north of the Grand Canyon is called The Grand Staircase ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Staircase ) because as one travels north from the Grand Canyon, one sees cliff after cliff in the sedimentary layers that are piled on top of one another. Various dating methods show that the higher the layer, the younger it is. The topmost sediments in Bryce Canyon are about 40 million years old. The whole assemblage is about 3,000 meters thick.

Quote

When one looks at the Geologists explanation for the so-called" millions of years "between" the layers when the layers themselves are so deep, one realises quickly there is a problem. They cannot explain it away.

It's thoroughly explained, not explained away.

Once again, your claims are purely those of young-earth creationist "flood geology" -- which even the Watchtower Society abandoned 40 years ago. Why do you cling to this nonsense?

Quote

The Cambrian explosion

I've explained this to you several times now: the "Cambrian explosion" lasted 20 million to 140 million years, depending on how it's defined. That is in no way an "explosion".

Quote

and the lack of  transition bone specimens in the development of flight. Wings suddenly appear.

I already explained all this to you. Certain early dinosaurs called theropods appeared at least 180 million years ago, which looked an awful lot like birds, and had feathers. Eventually primitive birds appeared about 150 million years ago. Archaeopteryx is the first known "true bird", but it was a true "intermediate" in the sense of having bird-like and dinosaur-like features. This critter was so much like the contemporary small dinosaurs like Compsognathus that two specimens were identified as such and spent a hundred years in museum drawers until the 1970s.

Don't you learn?

Quote

If only the fittest survive - there should be millions of bones of transitional animals / birds which did not survive.

There are plenty of such things. I've given you links to descriptions of them. You simply refuse to learn anything.

Quote

The bone record does not substantiate the claims of evolutionists of slow development.

Of course it does. Once again, read a good book on paleontology and evolution, like Donald Prothero's Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters.

Why do you continue to refuse to educate yourself?

[Arauna]

19 hours ago, AlanF said:

relatively

It is propaganda...... from scholars who have a vested interest to keep things going....... just like the high priests in Jesus' time...... they like the power and the influence this system gives them.

All these little side issues keep you focussed on them so you do not ask the BIG questions..  Where did all the energy for this vast universe come from in the first place.  What was there before the singularity?  They keep you busy with hypothesis of 23 universes.... lol.... where they play with mathematics so they can create the illusion of better " chances" to hit the jackpot of life and it  may look a bit better in their favour.

I am glad I have a real smart brother who can do math and a researcher in carbon chemistry..... so I have access to knowledge that gives real answers.  True evolutionists acknowledge that they do not have the answers.....

Why? Because there is too many things one needs to get explanations for which  accidental order and intricacy cannot  explain.  And the records are too scanty to support it..... even if you try your hardest you know you are lying to yourself.  Honest evolutionists acknowledge there is not enough evidence - usually after they have retired......

Science is the new God. Most people do not realize that some science disciplines do really search for the truth  because replication of the tests and solid evidence is required.  BUT evolution is a religion masquerading as a science...... similar to the new science of feminism and transgenderism- where a man can now have a monthly period.   This is where evolution and transgenderism is leading the world to....... NOT TRUE SCIENCE because it is all hypothesis with little proof......  

19 hours ago, AlanF said:

times now: the "Cambrian explosion" lasted 20 million to 140 million years,

Not true - 10 million ..... the newest info.

19 hours ago, AlanF said:

plenty of such things. I've given you links to descriptions of them. You simply refuse to learn anything.

If there were plenty..... I would be convinced by now.  

19 hours ago, AlanF said:

again, read a good book on paleontology

Explain the 13 proteins found in the bones..... which points to a younger earth..... This has not been explained in an acceptable way

[JW Insider]

 

2 hours ago, Arauna said:

It is propaganda...... from scholars who have a vested interest to keep things going....... just like the high priests in Jesus' time...... they like the power and the influence this system gives them.

On the overall subject of evolution, I don't pretend to know the answers. I think that a lot of the evidence on both sides has been misunderstood, but every time I try to look into it myself, it seems that the "wrong" evidence is winning. My mother believes that Satan, who keeps transforming himself into an angel of light, was given powers/permission to hide fossils in whatever places he wished to cause confusion and division. (Perhaps a hint of this in Satan's argument over Moses' body in Jude 9.) I don't like this theory at all. I've mostly heard it from young earth creationists, and was actually surprised to hear it from my mother. It brings up so many questions about the timing of such "miracles" that Satan was allowed to perform. Were these fossils moved at the time of the Garden of Eden? Is Satan still allowed to perform these miracles today?

I've heard my father (in fact I've been with him at museums) back in the years when he tried to explain the feathers on certain non-flying dinosaurs as feathery-looking ferns and/or other leaves and plants. I've now seen enough of these fossils up close so that I realize he is just grasping at straws.

I have always assumed that there is a bigger puzzle here and that none of us are ready to deal with all the facts and evidence yet. Although my own son (the math/physicist) tells me that the sum total of the evidence does currently fit the evolution theory, with some minor exceptions not yet understood, but which will probably still fit among the current theories, with minor adjustments.

To my son's credit, he does not believe the current theories are necessarily final, and they don't prove there is no God.

But here is the most surprising thing about my son's belief: The current theories are the ones that HONEST scientists are forced to accept based on rules of handling scientific evidence. It's not the same as scholars having a vested interest in keeping things going because of power and influence. In fact, if a scientist could come up with a new theory that fits the facts and evidence, he would become the new Darwin. It's probably the "holy grail" of scientists to be able to topple a current theory with a better explanation for all the evidence The problem is not the scholars, or the theory, it's that this theory is the RIGHT one from the perspective of science. It fits the old evidence and the new evidence, so far.

The best the Society can do is to look for inconsistencies and disagreements among certain scientists, and make the most of these issues to show us that there is still some room for disagreement over certain bits of evidence. I'm very disappointed when the WTS writers stoop to misquoting the evolutionary scientists, however, or quote a religious view from a different kind of scientist who clearly never dealt with evolutionary theory. I'd like to think that the WTS writers were only being careless when looking for ways to discredit evolutionary scientists, but the clever way in which words have been selected for quotes, with other words left out, tells me that the writers have sometimes understood the original intent and stooped to dishonesty. I'm not sure why a WTS writer would ever think this was a reasonable solution for us. But it tells me that the WTS is not ready to explain the overall evidence yet.

On 12/1/2019 at 2:26 PM, Arauna said:

Uranium breaks down into  lead  reasonably fast.... and there is still uranium left on the earth..... so if the earth is as old as they say, there would be no uranium left.

This reminds me of a problem I've had with uranium. What GOOD is it?

Radioactive substances were clearly on the earth when Jehovah declared each successive day "good." And after the sixth day he could look back and see that everything he had made was good.

Was it good because humans might find that some radioactive elements could be made to produce heat like coals? Obviously not! Were all radioactive elements and substances kept out of man's reach so that he would never come across them?

Perhaps it was so that man would someday harness these powers and create a safe source of energy? This implies that Jehovah wanted mankind to develop technologically, and as indicated by the Tower of Babel, perhaps controlled the pace of that progress until today or some time in the near future. But if we don't really need it until the new system, why not make it in the new system, in much the same way that he provided quail or manna. And why would we need it in the new system, anyway?

I can understand how Jehovah could have made all animals subject to man such as in a Garden of Eden. Even animals that are violent with one another can still be trained to be peaceful in their interaction with humans.

But perhaps this is the same argument that AlanF is making about thousands of years of animals being violent and unloving with one another. I have less problem with that, than with all the things that would seem to be poison to us, and which we would only learn about through dangerous, even lethal, experimentation. Does EVERY poison and danger have a good side? When did certain plants and elements become poisonous to us? Only after Adam's sin?

[TrueTomHarley]

1 hour ago, JW Insider said:

I'm very disappointed when the WTS writers stoop to misquoting the evolutionary scientists

Do they? It is in the eye of the beholder. Must one really point out when quoting a scientist that he believes his own theory.

I gave an example with Darwin’s quote about the eye:

Darwin wrote:

“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.”....

Q: If you quote this line, do you really have to add:  “of course, this is not to suggest that Darwin does not believe in his own theory of evolution by natural selection”?

I would never have thought so. I mean, what do you expect his next words to be? “Thus we can see that my entire theory is a load of horse manure. But I'm in this to win the praise of my peers, who for some reason, eat this stuff up. That, and maybe there's a buck to be made. So I'm putting lipstick on this pig. I'm sticking to my guns, even though you know, and I know, that it's all nonsense.”??

No! He's not going to say that! He's going to say something like: “Still, many now-established truths seemed equally absurd when first proposed. Evidence is scanty with relationship to the eye's development....no one's saying otherwise..... but we can expect future researchers to uncover corroborating material.”

That's my prediction (without peeking). In fact, he says almost exactly that:

“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 ["the voice of the people = the voice of God "], 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.”

Alright, then. Pretty much what I predicted he would say. Any donkey ought to realize Darwin's not throwing in the towel on his own theory by admitting evolution of the eye sounds ridiculous. If you use his quote to suggest he considers himself a charlatan, that's dishonest. But if you use his quote to show he acknowledges some pretty high hurdles exist in proving his theory.....well, what's wrong with that?

.........The above is from the post: 

Darwin wrote:

“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.”....

Q: If you quote this line, do you really have to add:  “of course, this is not to suggest that Darwin does not believe in his own theory of evolution by natural selection”?

I would never have thought so. I mean, what do you expect his next words to be? “Thus we can see that my entire theory is a load of horse manure. But I'm in this to win the praise of my peers, who for some reason, eat this stuff up. That, and maybe there's a buck to be made. So I'm putting lipstick on this pig. I'm sticking to my guns, even though you know, and I know, that it's all nonsense.”??

No! He's not going to say that! He's going to say something like: “Still, many now-established truths seemed equally absurd when first proposed. Evidence is scanty with relationship to the eye's development....no one's saying otherwise..... but we can expect future researchers to uncover corroborating material.”

That's my prediction (without peeking). In fact, he says almost exactly that:

“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 ["the voice of the people = the voice of God "], 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.”

Alright, then. Pretty much what I predicted he would say. Any donkey ought to realize Darwin's not throwing in the towel on his own theory by admitting evolution of the eye sounds ridiculous. If you use his quote to suggest he considers himself a charlatan, that's dishonest. But if you use his quote to show he acknowledges some pretty high hurdles exist in proving his theory.....well, what's wrong with that?

......The above is from the 2011 post: https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2011/01/darwins-eye.html

which goes on to consider numerous examples from the 2 most recent brochures on creation v evolution. Numerous footnotes appear to point out that this or that scientist obviously believes in his own theory.

I think that’s sufficiently honest.

[Arauna]

Thanks Tom, we are obviously dealing with secularized JWs who are sitting on the fence and maybe do not even really believe the bible when it says jehovah created everything with his dynamic energy..  For them, those descriptions of creation in psalms and job can be thrown into the dustbin. 

They have not really taken the time to see how irreduceably " connected " all creation is.  I have mentioned some interesting examples before.  The simplest is the eye and the brain..... without the eye the brain cannot interpret .... so which one came first? Both body parts, as they  were supposedly developing over millions of years ....... the one body part, the eye, understood that in "future" it will need a brain and without design developed a brain by pure chances of correct natural selection (hitting the jackpot of benevolent mutation billions of times) to have a brain to perfectly fulfill the purpose of the eye?  So natural selection "knows " what will be needed in future...... wow ! Without a brain it can think! 

These people are so in awe of  evolution scholars that they cannot think for themselves..... but use derogatory names on us. ..... a perfect example how university education can erode the ability to think for oneself.  Its indoctrination  of evolution - is like a religion....... and permeates everything and crowds out the really good solid logic thinking. 

I did not just trust my family members but went out to discover the truth about it for myself.  Family members did help me to develop a curiosity to understand.  When thinking is faulty one must be adjusted. This is why I do like to listen to debates to hear both sides.  I still have to be disappointed in the bible.