AlanF

For James Thomas Rook, Jr.: More on quote-mining: In 1978 evolutionary zoologist Richard Lewontin wrote a Scientific American article "Adaptation" ( https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwju752x5vHYAhVC-mMKHbJhBG0QFggpMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdynamics.org%2F~altenber%2FLIBRARY%2FREPRINTS%2FLewontin_Adaptation.1978.pdf&usg=AOvVaw2ZNdeinrKEjSk8hpWf9RcZ ). On the first page he wrote: << The manifest fit between organisms and their environment is a major outcome of evolution. . . The theory about the history of life that is now generally accepted, the Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection, is meant to explain two different aspects of the appearance of the living world: diversity and fitness. . . By the time Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859 it was widely (if not universally) held that species had evolved from one another, but no plausible mechanism for such evolution had been proposed. Darwin's solution to the problem was that small heritable variations among individuals within a species become the basis of large differences between species. . . Life forms are more than simply multiple and diverse, however. Organisms fit remarkably well into the external world in which they live. They have morphologies, physiologies and behaviors that appear to have been carefully and artfully designed to enable each organism to appropriate the world around it for its own life. It was the marvelous fit of organisms to the environment, much more than the great diversity of forms, that was the chief evidence of a Supreme Designer. Darwin realized that if a naturalistic theory of evolution was to be successful, it would have to explain the apparent perfection of organisms and not simply their variation. . . These "organs of extreme perfection" were only the most extreme case of a more general phenomenon: adaptation. Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection was meant to solve both the problem of the origin of diversity and the problem of the origin of adaptation at one stroke. Perfect organs were a difficulty of the theory not in that natural selection could not account for them but rather in that they were its most rigorous test, since on the face of it they seemed the best intuitive demonstration that a divine artificer was at work. >> A couple of years later the young-earth creationist author Gary Parker wrote an article in a creationist publication where he referenced Lewontin's Scientific American article: << As Harvard's Richard Lewontin recently summarized it, organisms ". . . appear to have been carefully and artfully designed." He calls the "perfection of organisms" both a challenge to Darwinism and, on a more positive note, "the chief evidence of a Supreme Designer." >> My question is: Did Parker fairly quote Lewontin, or did he quote-mine Lewontin? Please explain your answer. AlanF

James Thomas Rook Jr. said: Exactly. You got it. You'll note that nowhere in my original post did I state that JWs accept evolution. Rather, I asked leading questions that IMPLIED that something that is false is true. I also used the phrase "frank admissions" to describe the misquotes. Guess who I'm imitating here? I think it has real pedagogical value. At least, it does for honest people. Your above three points are very good, and your post shows proper righteous indignation at what appears to be blatant misrepresentation. Exactly. RationalWiki describes quote-mining ( https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Quote_mining ): << Quote mining (also contextomy) is the fallacious tactic of taking quotes out of context in order to make them seemingly agree with the quote miner's viewpoint or to make the comments of an opponent seem more extreme or hold positions they don't in order to make their positions easier to refute or demonize. It's a way of lying. This tactic is widely used among Young Earth Creationists in an attempt to discredit evolution. Quote mining is an informal fallacy and a fallacy of ambiguity, in that it removes context that is necessary to understand the mined quote. >> Now I'd like you to comment on this claim: << . . . as long as you quote or cite the source then if you find a comment that supports your argument even though the author of that reference may have an entirely different viewpoint then it is a legitimate academic practice to use that point accordingly. It is fair game as long as you cite or reference the source . . . >> I think you'll appreciate this: With the help of my wife I posted the same stuff on Simon Green's board: https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5959384749309952/do-jehovahs-witnesses-accept-evolution What do you think of the responses? AlanF

But the earth IS flat! The Bible says so, and here's one of thousands of YouTube videos that prove it: http://www.flatearthclues.com/video_listing/flat-earth-proof-by-jeranism/ As for these quotes, they simply repeat what the Watch Tower stated. So they are correct. AlanF

Do Jehovah's Witnesses Accept Evolution? Some people claim that JWs reject the Theory of Evolution in favor of the Bible's creation account in Genesis. But is that really true? Note these frank admissions in Watch Tower publications: "Scientists have proved evolution to be true." -- Answers to 10 Questions Young People Ask (2016) p. 27 "Evolution is a fact." -- Answers to 10 Questions Young People Ask Work, Volume 2 (2016) p. 27; W13 10/15 p. 11; “Bearing Thorough Witness” About God’s Kingdom (2009) p. 141; G 9/06 p. 22; W04 10/1 p. 10; g90 1/22 pp. 8-10; g87 7/22 p. 10; Life - How Did It Get Here? By Evolution or by Creation? (1985) pp. 26, 180, 181; G74 9/22 p. 26 "Evolution is as much a fact as the heat of the sun." -- G 9/06 p. 13; Was Life Created? (2010) p. 18 "Evolution is as much a fact as the existence of gravity." -- Life - How Did It Get Here? By Evolution or by Creation? (1985) p. 181 "Evolution is a fact; God is a myth." G90 1/22 p.11 "Evolution is a fact. It no longer needs to be proved. No competent scientist doubts it. All educated people believe it. Only the ignorant reject it." G87 1/22 p. 10 "There’s no question that evolution is a fact. We see examples of it every day. No responsible person questions it. It’s as much a fact as gravity and atoms!" -- G74 9/22 p. 17 "The Bible is a myth" and "evolution is true". -- W75 7/15 p. 443; W71 1/15 p. 48; G70 4/22 p. 3 "The theory of evolution is true". -- The Origin of Life—Five Questions Worth Asking (2010) p. 9 AlanF

Fair enough. I'm looking forward to a substantive discussion when you get the time. AlanF

scholar JW pretendus said: A gobble-de-goop summary, so I won't comment further. I'll just state for the record that Lewontin is CLEARLY an evolutionist and does not believe in a Supreme Creator. Any contrary claim is a lie. His whole thrust was that organisms merely SEEM to be designed but are not -- and seem to be only to those who are naive and know nothing of, or do not accept, evolution by natural selection -- those who do not understand that "the manifest fit between organisms and their environment is a major outcome of evolution." He further described that this was a mistake made by many 19th century scientists, who viewed that fit as evidence of a Supreme Designer. One of the goals of his article was to correct that mistake. Lewontin did not say anywhere that HE viewed that fit as evidence for a Supreme designer, and you have failed my challenge for you to provide one. As usual, you lie and dodge and weave, such as repeating the Watch Tower's lie about Lewontin's personal view: Again, Lewontin clearly explained that THIS WAS THE GENERAL VIEW OF 19TH-CENTURY SCIENTISTS, NOT HIS OWN VIEW. True, but irrelevant, because Lewontin's point was that that mere appearance was a false appearance. False. The book lyingly stated that it was Lewontin's view that such appearance of design was evidence of a Supreme Creator, whereas he clearly explained that this was NOT his view. It's simply amazing how low one can go in trying to rationalize lies. Yes, which means that the later revision said exactly the opposite of the original book: "He views them" was changed to "some scientists viewed them". False. Again, Lewontin never stated what the Creation book claimed, and you have not produced a quotation where he states what the book claimed, namely, that HE -- Richard Lewontin -- views the marvelous fit of animals to their environment as evidence of a Supreme Creator. The mere fact of printing certain words from a quotation correctly does not mean the quotation is correct. Any misrepresentation of the author's intent is called quote-mining. And that is exactly what the Creation book did, and you are now trying to rationalize. If I state that the Watch Tower Society has finally bowed to the scientific evidence and admits that evolution is true, I can 'prove' it by noting these frank admissions in Watch Tower publications: "The Bible is a myth" and "evolution is true". "Evolution is true". "Evolution is true . . . evolution is true . . . evolution is true". "Evolution is true" and "The Bible is myth". "The theory of evolution is true". You don't accept it? By your standard, the quotations are correct. You can easily prove this to yourself by searching in a WT CDROM. As I previously pointed out, Lewontin himself complained about the selective quoting done by creationists of his SA article: << Sometimes creationists plunge more deeply into dishonesty by taking statements of evolutionists out of context to make them say the opposite of what was intended. For example, when, in an article on adaptation, I described the outmoded nineteenth-century belief that the perfection of creation was the best evidence of a creator, this description was taken into creationist literature as evidence for my own rejection of evolution. Such deliberate misuse of the literature of evolutionary biology . . . >> Lewontin also complained about the practice of misquoting scientists, in the magazine Creation/Evolution, Fall 1981, on page 35: << Modern expressions of creationism and especially so-called "scientific" creationism are making extensive use of the tactic of selective quotation in order to make it appear that numerous biologists doubt the reality of evolution. The creationists take advantage of the fact that evolutionary biology is a living science containing disagreements about certain details of the evolutionary process by taking quotations about such details out of context in an attempt to support the creationists' antievolutionary stand. Sometimes they simply take biologists' descriptions of creationism and then ascribe these views to the biologists themselves! These patently dishonest practices of misquotation give us a right to question even the sincerity of creationists. >> It is one thing to cite and describe opposing viewpoints. It is something else again to repeatedly attribute those opposing views to an author or to a publication that merely describes them, especially when it is evident that the description is for the purpose of dismissing it. So, scholar JW pretendus, not only have you proved nearly incapable of understanding scientific and historical material, but even though your misunderstandings have been clearly pointed out to you, you merely double down on defending the Watch Tower's lies. Thus, you have no business trying to argue anything about Neo-Babylonian chronology. AlanF

Scholar JW pretendus wrote: Astonishing! You actually managed to get to get this part right. Except that you missed the fact that Lewontin made the important point in his SA article that the appearance of design was just that -- a mere appearance, not reality. The entire thrust of his SA article was that organisms are NOT designed, but merely seem or appear to be. The very first sentence in the article was this: << The manifest fit between organisms and their environment is a major outcome of evolution. >> In other words, Lewontin said that evolution by natural selection produces an appearance of design, but that does not mean that any conscious design took place. But that is NOT what the Creation book claimed that Lewontin said. Rather, it claimed this: << Zoologist Richard Lewontin said that organisms “appear to have been carefully and artfully designed.” He views them as “the chief evidence of a Supreme Designer. >> Did Lewontin ever say that HE views the seeming "artful design" of organisms as "the chief evidence of a Supreme Designer"? If you say yes, then produce a quotation where he said that. Actually, quite the opposite. AlanF

Sorry, Einstein, but you can't salvage truth from a pack of lies. You continue to repeat the Watch Tower's lies. This is easy to demonstrate with a handful of questions -- which you have refused to answer: First, what was Lewontin's "simple admission"? You will not be able to truthfully and simply answer this. AlanF

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! More Pigeon English. No, I "don unnastan nuttin!" The fact that the Creation book misrepresented Lewontin is proved by the revised edition having to it, and by Lewontin himself complaining about the exact same misrepresentation by young-earth creationist Gary Parker. Dispela nambawan pikinini setan na bagarap olgeta! AlanF

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!! Your response is barely even Pidgin English. Pigeon English, maybe. AlanF

As I said, you're in no way up to my challenges. AlanF

587 Or 586? A Challenge for "scholar JW" In an attempt to throw cold water on modern scholarship, "scholar JW" has often raised the question of why some scholars date Jerusalem's destruction to 586 BCE while others date it to 587 BCE. The standard answer has been, "because the Bible is our only direct source of information, and its statements are ambiguous." Following the arguments of Edwin Thiele in various editions of The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, many scholars cite 586 for Jerusalem's destruction. Following various other arguments, other scholars cite 587. In a 2004 paper in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Rodger Young resolved the question completely, and in so doing, he cleared up several other fine points of the history of the time around Jerusalem's destruction. Young's resolution turns out to be quite simple: a proper understanding of Ezekiel 40:1 comes down in favor of 587. Here is a challenge for "scholar JW": figure out exactly what it is about Young's resolution that pinpoints 587. I have no doubt that "scholar JW" will ignore this challenge. He simply does not have the mental horsepower to understand Young's analysis sufficiently, any more than he was able to understand the much simpler problem of exactly how the Watch Tower Society misrepresented the words of Richard Lewontin in its 1985 Creation book. AlanF

Nana Fofana said: You should have taken my advice and written your post in a simple text editor, and saved it to your hard drive. That's the only way to ensure you don't lose stuff in the face of unreliable forum software. I don't see that this has anything to do with the fact that the Creation book deliberately misrepresented Lewontin. Lewontin can be testy at times -- nothing to be concerned about. But he's right, that sometimes scientists go beyond what is justified. So, what was your point in quoting Lewontin's book review of Carl Sagan's book The Demon-Haunted World? AlanF

No, there is no secular support for the Watch Tower's view that Jerusalem was destroyed in 607 BCE. There exists some secular information against modern secular historical consensus, as compiled by Watch Tower supporters, but none of this supports the 607 view. And of course, JW critics have published extensive material, online and in books and articles, that shows why the WTS's criticisms of solid secular history are invalid. AlanF

Lots of good history here, JW Insider! AlanF

JWs do not in any reasonable sense "explain the dinosaurs". The Feb. 8, 1990 Awake! article is the only 'substantive' material the WTS has ever written about dinosaurs, but it was written nearly 30 years ago, and on a level for young middle-school children. Nothing substantive has been written since then. Furthermore, a huge number of discoveries in the last 30 years has revolutionized the understanding of most aspects of the dinosaurs' existence. Dinosaurs were not reptiles -- they were their own 'kind' of creature. They seem to have been partially or fully warm-blooded, many had feathers for insulation and display, they had breathing systems like those of modern birds rather than mammals or reptiles, some incubated their eggs like birds, and so forth. The small theropod dinosaur Coelophysis (~160 ma (million years ago)) was very like a modern road runner in its skeleton, except that it had teeth, a tail and shorter arms. The bird-like creature Archaeopteryx was much like Coelophysis but had longer arms and flight feathers. Eleven specimens have been found to date. Several specimens were misidentified as small dinosaurs and languished in museum drawers for a century before being brought to light. Today, biologists consider birds to be modern dinosaurs. Radiometric dating has put the origin of dinosaurs at about 240 ma. They seem to have developed from stem animals that were mostly wiped out in the great Permian Extinction about 250 million years ago. These stem animals also gave rise to mammals. Dinosaurs disappeared about 65.5 million years ago, apparently in connection with a massive asteroid strike in the Yucatan near the town of Chicxulub, which left a crater 100 miles across and seems to have started fires around the globe and created a 'nuclear winter'. It left a global layer of clay enriched 100 times in iridium, a global layer of microscopic glass particles, soot, etc. Paleontologists call this the KT boundary layer (Cretaceous-Tertiary). About the same time there occurred massive volcanic eruptions in what is now India, leaving huge basalt deposits called the Deccan Trapps, which covered tens of thousands of square miles. Quite possibly, the volcanic gases emitted, along with the effects of the Chicxulub asteroid strike, wiped out the dinosaurs, and at least 75% of the species on earth. Dinosaurs do not in any way fit in with the Genesis creation account. That account states that God created all flying creatures on the 5th day, before any land animals -- including dinosaurs -- were created on the 6th day. The Watch Tower Society traditionally assigned 7,000 years to each creative day, but geology proves that macroscopic life has existed for some 600 million years, dinosaurs for some 240 million years, and flying creatures from insects to pterosaurs to dinosaurs to birds have originated at various times during the past 400 million years. The simple fact is that paleontology and biology show that life has evolved over at least 3.5 billion years. Whether that evolution was due to Creation by some god, or by fully natural means, is arguable. If the God of the Bible was really the Creator of all this life, then he was very different from the God portrayed in the New Testament. AlanF

So Anna, will you get back to this thread? Remember that it was you who wanted to discuss this topic. AlanF

By now you've no doubt confirmed that the quotes I gave are correct, and prove that the Watch Tower Society, in its 1985 book Life - How Did It Get Here? By Evolution Or By Creation?, deliberately misrepresented the views of zoologist Richard Lewontin as he set them forth in the referenced 1978 Scientific American article. What do you make of this quote mining by "Jehovah's representatives"? Do you think you can trust them to tell you the truth about evolution and creation? Or about science in general when it conflicts with Watch Tower Tradition? Do keep in mind that this particular bit of quote mining is only the tip of the iceberg. I've documented more than 100 instances of misrepresentation, misunderstanding, invalid argumentation, and many other scholastic sins in the Creation book, with nearly 100 shown here: https://corior.blogspot.com/2006/02/part-1-disagreements-about-evolution.html Given its demonstrated proclivity to misrepresent science and scientists, can you trust the Watch Tower Society to properly and fairly quote and represent scholarly sources with reference to the 1914 chronology? Or to argue fairly and validly with regard to such? Especially given its demonstrated practice of lying about all manner of biblical and historical material in connection with its 1914 Tradition? We have an excellent example of both incompetence and scholarly dishonesty with "scholar JW" here. He claims great competence as a scholar, yet when challenged to detect a simple misquote in the Creation book, he failed -- even after being given stronger and stronger hints three times. He has failed to acknowledge similar misquotes in Watch Tower literature with respect to historical and biblical material regarding the 1914 chronology. He has demonstrably and deliberately lied about all manner of scholarly things. In these things he has emulated the Watch Tower Society quite well. So, Nana Fofana and all you other JW defenders, will you continue to put faith in an organization that does not hesitate to lie to you? AlanF

Always ready to help. That's been my method for a couple of decades. The quotations had better match the CDROMs, since I copied them from those. And I checked them against the hard copy books. I'd suggest looking on jw.org/ but it appears that the Creation book is out of print. AlanF Â

Anna wrote: Since no one has commented substantively on the video, I'll step up to the plate. To answer that, first we must state what Richard Dawkins means by "the God delusion". In the posted video and in his book, Dawkins says many things, but what I get out of it is simple: belief in God requires faith, which in turn is belief without evidence. Believing in something without evidence is delusional. Hence, "the God delusion". Are Jehovah's Witnesses an exception to Dawkins' rule? Far from it. They have two basic sources of belief about their God, both of which have no substantive evidence whatsoever: (1) the Bible; (2) Watch Tower leaders. There are many reasons. Any sort of belief without evidence can result in "rotten fruit", such as belief in evil Leprechauns. Belief in things that are demonstrably untrue is even worse. People who desire to control others often take advantage of the naivete of religious believers and make them do their bidding for evil ends. History is replete with political dictators using religion. Many religions don't go that far, but allow that others can be equally "true". No. As far as I am concerned, ALL of them are false, because all of them believe in false things, or reject true things because of their religious beliefs. While virtually all religions bear SOME "good fruit", there is enough "bad fruit" to allow thinking persons to observe, "Why should I bother with religion?" Dawkins makes the following claims, among many others: Faith is belief without evidence. Faith is a process of non-thinking. There is no well-demonstrated reason to believe in God. Isn't embracing truth better than false hope? Science is a discipline of investigation and constructive doubt, questing with logic, evidence, and reason to draw conclusions. Faith, by stark contrast, demands a positive suspension of critical faculties. Believing in God without evidence is like believing in Russell's Teapot. I assume you're leading up to the JW teaching of a "paradise earth" etc., with "eternal life" in view. That all sounds fine and dandy, but as Dawins wrote: << It is astonishing, moreover, how many people are unable to understand that 'X is comforting' does not imply 'X is true'. >> In the video Dawkins repeats his statement from his book: << The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. >> One can find multiple OT passages to support each point. Part of Dawkins' argument that belief in the Abrahamic God is delusional is that a believer must accept that, despite the above extremely unpleasant characteristics of God, this God is the epitome of love. JWs are no exception. AlanF

I see -- I think. In any case, Jackson's duplicity being exposed on camera for the first time, for public exposure, might be called "new light", but this basic duplicity has been around a long, long time. More than 40 years ago, I complained to a Circuit Overseer about such with respect to the WTS's constant refrain that "elders are appointed by holy spirit". He admitted that that teaching was basically a lie, and literally hung his head when he admitted it. AlanF

Nana Fofana wrote: It's easy, if you do it properly. First, get yourself a decent Text Editor like NotePad+ (it's free). Then get the WT CDROM on your screen. Copy-Paste (Ctrl-C Ctrl-V) your text from the WT CDROM into your Text Editor. Edit as needed. Finally, Copy from NotePad+ (Ctrl-C) and Paste it into the Reply Box for this forum. But you can read the CD ROMs, right? And I assume you have the hardcopy books, or can get them? If so, get hold of one published in 2003 or earlier, and compare it with one published in 2004 or later. I'd offer to send you a photocopy of each, but you'd most likely claim that I altered them. In the meantime, here are the texts taken from the 2003 and 2015 WT CDROMs: 2003: << Chapter 11 The Amazing Design of Living Things WHEN anthropologists dig in the earth and find a triangular piece of sharp flint, they conclude that it must have been designed by someone to be the tip of an arrow. Such things designed for a purpose, scientists agree, could not be products of chance. 2 When it comes to living things, however, the same logic is often abandoned. A designer is not considered necessary. But the simplest single-celled organism, or just the DNA of its genetic code, is far more complex than a shaped piece of flint. Yet evolutionists insist that these had no designer but were shaped by a series of chance events. 3 However, Darwin recognized the need for some designing force and gave natural selection the job. “Natural selection,” he said, “is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, the slightest variations; rejecting those that are bad, preserving and adding up all that are good.”1 That view, however, is now losing favor. 4 Stephen Gould reports that many contemporary evolutionists now say that substantial change “may not be subject to natural selection and may spread through populations at random.”2 Gordon Taylor agrees: “Natural selection explains a small part of what occurs: the bulk remains unexplained.”3 Geologist David Raup says: “A currently important alternative to natural selection has to do with the effects of pure chance.”4 But is “pure chance” a designer? Is it capable of producing the complexities that are the fabric of life? 5 Zoologist Richard Lewontin said that organisms “appear to have been carefully and artfully designed.” He views them as “the chief evidence of a Supreme Designer.”5 It will be useful to consider some of this evidence. >> 2015: << Chapter 11 The Amazing Design of Living Things WHEN anthropologists dig in the earth and find a triangular piece of sharp flint, they conclude that it must have been designed by someone to be the tip of an arrow. Such things designed for a purpose, scientists agree, could not be products of chance. 2 When it comes to living things, however, the same logic is often abandoned. A designer is not considered necessary. But the simplest single-celled organism, or just the DNA of its genetic code, is far more complex than a shaped piece of flint. Yet evolutionists insist that these had no designer but were shaped by a series of chance events. 3 However, Darwin recognized the need for some designing force and gave natural selection the job. “Natural selection,” he said, “is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, the slightest variations; rejecting those that are bad, preserving and adding up all that are good.”1 That view, however, is now losing favor. 4 Stephen Gould reports that many contemporary evolutionists now say that substantial change “may not be subject to natural selection and may spread through populations at random.”2 Gordon Taylor agrees: “Natural selection explains a small part of what occurs: the bulk remains unexplained.”3 Geologist David Raup says: “A currently important alternative to natural selection has to do with the effects of pure chance.”4 But is “pure chance” a designer? Is it capable of producing the complexities that are the fabric of life? 5 Evolutionist Richard Lewontin admitted that organisms “appear to have been carefully and artfully designed,” so that some scientists viewed them as “the chief evidence of a Supreme Designer.”5 It will be useful to consider some of this evidence. >> Prove it by citing the originals, and point out where anything I said is misleading. Do it word by word, and sentence by sentence. I posted the quotations in an above post to "scholar JW". No it doesn't. If you disagree, then by all means let's see you prove it. AlanF

Good observations! But not entirely accurate. Watch Tower leaders have been speaking out of both sides of their collective mouth for well over a century. Russell said that he never claimed inspiration, yet he claimed virtual infallibility when he said that anyone who contradicted his teachings would go off into spiritual darkness in short order. Rutherford claimed that angels magically put spiritual truths into his head. Knorr and Franz taught that they could make mistakes, but they never admitted to any in real time, and they also claimed that they were the virtually infallible heads of "God's earthly organization" which they enforced by disfellowshipping any JWs who disagreed. One can find all manner of statements in WTS literature from the past half century that claims virtual inspiration, and enforces that claim by disfellowshipping those who disagree as apostates -- as fighters against God. The WTS has actually defined "apostasy" as "disagreeing with the Governing Body" on spiritual matters. So Jackson's lie is in no sense "new light", but merely the same old lie they've been telling to non-JWs for decades. AlanF

You completely missed the point: the original Creation book MISQUOTED Lewontin by claiming that he said the opposite of what he did say. The revised Creation book fixed HALF of the misquote, and left the remaining HALF of the misquote intact. Lewontin did NOT say that he accepts or endorses the idea of a Supreme Designer -- he said that that was the view of most 19th century scientists. He clearly stated his own view: EVOLUTION produces effects that LOOK AS IF a Supreme Designer were at work. In line with that, Lewontin also explain that what has been called the APPEARANCE of Design is just that -- an appearance, but an appearance that is false, because it is produced by evolution by natural selection. The revised Creation book continues falsely to give the impression that Lewontin accepts that the mere appearance of Design IS Design. AlanF

Anna wrote: That IS a religious claim. Here is the exact quote: Well then, the Governing Body -- by Jackon's own words -- is quite presumptuous, because their claim IS that they are the ONLY spokespeople for God today. It's easy cite more than a dozen such claims in Watch Tower literature. Any JW who decides to act independently of the GB, and who acts "in harmony with God's spirit in giving comfort and help in the congregations", is considered an apostate and will be disfellowshipped. Watch Tower leaders even consider JWs who write independent articles defending the JWs to be virtually apostates, because they're acting INDEPENDENTLY of WTS direction. Jackson was completely disingenuous with the Australians. AlanF