Do Jehovah's Witnesses believe in Creationism?

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I would not speak up at all if there were not such a determined effort by well-meaning but badly misinformed people to dumb down our children in public school science classrooms. I see this as harmful not only to our country but to our species and our planet, besides being an affront to those who love truth and hate lies. The misinformation being spewed by some fundamentalist denominations including the Jehovah's Witnesses is so out of touch with reality that it boggles my mind that so many people are confused by it.

The next to last time the local leader of Jehovah's Witnesses was at my door, I asked since the JWs are so very wrong about something like evolution that has literally tons of evidence showing they are wrong, how can I (or anyone in their right mind) possibly trust their opinion on spiritual matters not so easily checked? He spouted the usual nonsense of no transitional fossils (wrong), of evolution only being a theory (wrong again), and the mistaken idea that there is a hierarchy of increasing confidence in science from hypothesis to theory to law (In some ways a scientific theory is stronger than a scientific law, not weaker. Also laws are not above or better than theories, and theories are not laws waiting to be proven.)

The younger of the two JWs (they come in pairs usually) then smugly asked me if scientists had ever found any fossils intermediate between apes and humans. Of course they have and I told him so. He looked shocked. Obviously the Jehovah's Witnesses tell LIES to their members about this subject. The older JW got the younger one away from me before I could expose any more of the lies that his church tells its members about this subject.

I do not get the point kxmode is trying to make when he claims JWs are not creationists when they quite plainly are. Perhaps they are not young earth creationists; perhaps they accept the possibility of the earth being older than six thousand years, but they still deny all the evidence for evolution which to me, is the same as calling God a liar by denying the evidence of His creation.

I do not know for sure if there is a God or not, or if it is the God of the Bible (or Jehovah as kxmode's church likes to call Him), but if there is, then either evolution is a fact OR Jehovah is a malicious prankster to plant so much evidence of so many different types that all clearly show evolution happens (and we find more and more evidence all the time) while there is NO evidence yet found that falsifies evolution. Why should I believe anything Jehovah's Witnesses or any other fundamentalist denomination say about spiritual matters when they are so very obviously wrong about something so easily checked that has so much evidence showing they are wrong?

I have yet to meet a JW who was a scientist, physician, mathematician or engineer. Lots of salespeople, though ...

Because you have never met a Jehovah's Witness who was a scientist, physician, mathematician or engineer does not mean there are no Jehovah's Witnesses who are scientists, physicians, mathematicians or engineers. Every issue of the Awake has an interview with a brother or a sister in the sciences explaining why they believe in a God.

A Biotechnologist Explains His Faith
A Microbiologist Explains Her Faith
A Biochemist Explains His Faith
A Kidney Specialist Explains Her Faith
An Orthopedic Surgeon Explains Her Faith
A Retired Environmental Ecologist is Convinced That Life Was Designed by God
A Designer of Robots Explains His Faith
A Biochemist Explains Her Faith
and the list goes on...

In one recent example Dr. Hans Kristian Kotlar, a Biotechnologist, was asked: Could we say, then, that your knowledge of science has strengthened your faith in God?

His response: "Absolutely! The power and sophistication of our immune system points to a wise and loving Creator. I might add that science has also strengthened my faith in the Bible. For example, Proverbs 17:22 tells us that “a joyful heart is good medicine.” Researchers have discovered that our state of mind can influence our immune system. Stress, for instance, can weaken our immune response."

Our faith compels us to share what we learn from the bible with others. Even the brothers and sisters above take time out of their schedules to share the goods news about God's Kingdom with neighbors in their communities; just like the first-century Christians did.

The first century Christians didn't have The Watchtower and Awake. Nor did they have the New Testament.

kxmode, please put yourself into my shoes for a moment to consider my position.

Imagine somebody is trying to convince you to join their church, and they claim they have the answers from Jehovah Himself on how to live one's life. But then you find out their church insists the earth is flat in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. What's more, that church spreads misinformation about the evidence for the shape of the earth trying to convince people that it is really flat.

That is the position you put me in when you try to say how nice your church is or how much your church's authority comes from the Bible or from Jehovah. It doesn't matter. Your church is out of touch with demonstrable reality on the subject of evolution, just as much as if it were to insist the earth is really flat. Because of that, anything you say on any subject loses credibility with people who know about the evidence for the shape of the earth (or evolution).

Or put it another way, in a historical perspective. When interpreted literally (the way people do who argue against evolution), the Bible makes it pretty clear that it is the sun that travels around the earth, not vice versa. Galileo got in trouble with the Christian authorities of his time for saying the earth travels around the sun. Yes I know, many don't consider Catholics to be "true" Christians, but they were the only game in town at that time. Eventually the weight of scientific evidence was enough for the Catholic church to admit it had made a mistake in the way they interpreted the Bible regarding this.

There is at least as much evidence for evolution as there is for the earth going around the sun. I have seen this comparison used many places, but of course to churches such as yours for now at least that makes no difference, making your church look like fools. Yeah I know you're supposed to be a fool for Christ, and the world is going to persecute you for your beliefs and you should rejoice if that happens, yada yada, but seriously COME ON!

I am reminded of a debate I attended back in the 1980s at a Christian Life Center in Vacaville, California. There were two or three scientists there defending evolution, and two or three so-called "scientific creationists" (an oxymoron if there ever was one) opposing evolution. After the debate they took some questions. One audience member asked both sides if sufficient evidence were presented to them that they were wrong, would they change their minds? The scientists all answered "Yes, of course!" The creationists all said "No, absolutely not!" In other words, no amount of evidence would ever be sufficient to convince them that the way they INTERPRET the Bible was wrong. How arrogant is that? Would Jehovah lie to us in the evidence of His creation, and if so, why? And if so, why should we worship a trickster like that?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrDpquig_3g[/youtube]

The majority of Evangelical creationism and creation science is young Earth, so the JWs can rightly say they are not that. That is what they mean when they deny being creationists. But there is also a category termed "old Earth creationists", which means the ones who reject literality of the Genesis days. That's what JWs are. A JW I knew in another site was happy to accept this description.

Yes he did. It's exactly the obvious type of theory of faith, explaining reality always on the premise of God's power, that any religious thinker figures out for themself.
The elements are merely names for different numbers of protons in an atom. What is designed about that? If protons are bondable together in big clumps by their properties to do with forces and energy, and by the conditions inside stars ansd supernovas, every time it happens it is bound to be some whole number of protons that bonds together. That defines which element they are. Nothing has to be designed each time it happens, it is bound to result in them being clumped in all different numbers, it's number chaos. It would look more designed if they always clumped in the same number.
The round earth idea already existed for the academics in ancient Egypt. They had observed how angles of shadows change with latitude as you go down the Nile.
Isaiah was exposed to both ideas, in that culture. He deserves credit for going with the right one. The Jewish prophets were often a good thinking and struggling type of religious writer, they don't just write simplistic comfort.

Revelation 7:1 says "I saw 4 angels standing on the 4 corners of the Earth", which makes the Earth rectangular and either flat or saddle shaped. Matthew 4:8 says Satan took Jesus up a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, this is actually one of JW's favourite quotes because it references your idea that satan must rule the world so that he could offer Jesus these kingdoms in exchange for worship - but to have all the kingdoms visible from up 1 mountain is flat earth, it can't happen in the actual world.

So the New Testament is flat Earth after the Old Testament was round Earth.
...6038 years of failing human government to run its course? ..." he is called a God of order." etc

So JW's may not be young earth creationists, but they still deny the reality of evolution. So they most definitely are creationists even if kxmode says otherwise. I have pointed out their church's position on this subject makes Jehovah a liar or a prankster. I notice kxmode has not answered my plea for him to hypothetically consider the position his church puts him in: to choose between reality or what his church says.

And the Old Testament is flat earth too. Read The Flat-Earth Bible website. It shows quite plainly that from Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is full of scriptures indicating the earth is flat.

Nope. Isaiah 40:22 is still a reference to a flat earth! The Hebrew word used here for "circle" means a circle or a flat disk. It does NOT also mean "sphere." The Hebrews have other words for that they could have used but didn't.

"By extension, it can mean roundness, as in a rounded dome or vault." So it's not clarifiying anything about Isaiah's meaning. The whole page seems to assume the Bible must necessarily have a consistent view, and interpret according to that - which ironically is the same as what bible believers do. It's certainly a circular argument.

If circle can refer rhetorically to 3 dimensional circularity in English, why can't it in Hebrew?