BS: Darwin's Witnesses

Subject: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 21 Jan 14 - 09:53 AM

A funny idea. Don't care who you are.

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Jan 14 - 09:55 AM

LOL

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Jan 14 - 10:43 AM

There's a JW Kingdom Hall about 6 blocks from me. I suppose I should resist the urge to print that and tape it to their door.

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 21 Jan 14 - 11:00 AM

I would resist that urge. The JW's I know might take it as an invitation to give you their good news.

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Jan 14 - 11:09 AM

I don't mind them. On the odd occasion they come to the door I excuse myself and say I'm just on my way out to donate blood.

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: catspaw49
Date: 21 Jan 14 - 11:27 AM

Do you want to read about Jesus?
No thanks, I like "Batman"


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: gnu
Date: 21 Jan 14 - 11:49 AM

I say, "No thanks. Black Irish Cat'lic here. Have a good day." I doubt if many of them have heard the term so it doesn't scare them as much as telling them telling them I'm a Hard Shell Baptist.

GUEST & Spaw... hehehehee!

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 21 Jan 14 - 11:51 AM

I'm a Hard Shell Baptist.

You know that the soft shell ones are only soft just after the moult.

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: robomatic
Date: 21 Jan 14 - 04:46 PM

I just tell my anti-evolution associates about my devotion to the word of "St. Chuck"!

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 Jan 14 - 05:13 PM

I few months back I heard a radio interview with a writer named A. J. Jacobs, who wrote a book intitled A Year of Living Biblically, describing his year of attempting to live by each and every precept outlined in the Bible. Not easy!!

But during that year, one day he was called upon by a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses. Instead of blowing them off, he invited them in. They wanted to talk about the Bible? Sure, let's talk about the Bible!

About a half hour passed before they had hit the point where they were looking around furtively and edging toward the door. He kept talking until they were whimpering and clawing at the walls!

"You want to talk about the Bible? Yes! Let's talk about the Bible!!"

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 Jan 14 - 05:13 PM

I few months back I heard a radio interview with a writer named A. J. Jacobs, who wrote a book intitled A Year of Living Biblically, describing his year of attempting to live by each and every precept outlined in the Bible. Not easy!!

But during that year, one day he was called upon by a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses. Instead of blowing them off, he invited them in. They wanted to talk about the Bible? Sure, let's talk about the Bible!

About a half hour passed before they had hit the point where they were looking around furtively and edging toward the door. He kept talking until they were whimpering and clawing at the walls!

"You want to talk about the Bible? Yes! Let's talk about the Bible!!"

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 Jan 14 - 05:44 PM

(Sorry! Got the hiccups!)

DF

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: TheSnail
Date: 21 Jan 14 - 06:59 PM

Church mice

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Jan 14 - 08:09 PM

WHAT A FRIEND WE HAVE IN CHEESES

What a friend we have in cheeses,
Mozzarella, Cheddar, Swiss!
Bleu and Limberger's sweet breezes
Lingering like a lover's kiss.
Humble milk's apotheosis,
Muenster, Provolone, Brie
Damn cholesterol's thrombosis
Cheese is Gouda stuff by me!

Heed the U. S. Dairy Council,
Keep the Gruyere on the shelf.
Even just a tiny ounce'll
Give you vitamin B-12.
Gather, pilgrims at the deli
Buying Edam and Havarti,
Wedges moist and cold and smelly,
Bring home lots and have a party!

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: gnu
Date: 21 Jan 14 - 08:39 PM

Ah well, JWs wear their baseball caps the right way and they don't commit crime. I'm okay.

I dunno if they are allowed to wear baseball caps but I figure they would do it right. Overall, not a bad bunch in my books. I wonder who they favour in the Superbowl.

As for the Darwin Witnesses, I expect few watch Yankee football. Throwbacks!

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 22 Jan 14 - 05:09 AM

I reckon The Two Ronnies got it right.

"A plague of locusts collided today with a colony of frogs going in the other direction on the A38 near Bristol.

Police are appealing for Jehova's Witnesses."

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: gnu
Date: 22 Jan 14 - 06:23 AM

Hahahahahaaa!

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 22 Jan 14 - 02:18 PM

Very good Musket.

Somenone invited a young JW in asked him to sit down and explain things. He said Oh, dunno really, I have never got this far before

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Jan 14 - 04:24 AM

Conversation between me and a pair of JW's at the door.

JW: Has god ever spoken to you?

Me: Yes.

JW: And what did he say?

Me: He told me to form a religion. I have done. Will you be my first converts?

JW: Errrr?

Me: It's a really good one.

JW: But is it the real one?

Me: Yes.

JW: How do you know?

Me: God told me. Please, come in. The initiation really is quite simple.

JW (Backing away from the door): Well good luck. Sorry to have troubled you.

Me (Chasing them down the road): Awww, come back. I am sure we can have fun.

My wife: Come back in before the neighbours see you...

BTW - The cartoon in the OP is funny because it never happens. Does that mean anything to anyone? :-)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: Musket
Date: 23 Jan 14 - 04:35 AM

Depends on the logic of others Dave.

Just because I Dad danced at a recent wedding to Culture Club singing "Church of the Poisoned Mind" doesn't mean anything other than embarrassing my wife by my dancing. Ditto listening to Lennon's Imagine on the wireless.

Yet say you don't share someone's stance or delusion, and you get psycho analysed.... JWs are an excellent example of something being so wonderful, they can't see why others don't share it.

Dragging it back to the folk circuit, Les Barker' wonderful "Jehova's Witness at the Door" springs to mind when I see this thread.

Jehova's Witness on the step
Jesus wants you for a rep.

Classic.

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 23 Jan 14 - 01:32 PM

there be plenty Darwin witnesses on mudcat, even if they don't doorknock!.......and pray. what good news does Darwin have?

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: gnu
Date: 23 Jan 14 - 03:01 PM

pete... the next generation of humans will be stronger and smarter IF this generation doesn't kill them.

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 23 Jan 14 - 03:12 PM

No reason, at that, to imagine that homo sapiens is the ultimate in evolution. Who knows what will succeed as the dominant species. The good news is that there is no foreseeable end to something or other.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 23 Jan 14 - 03:27 PM

Human beings haven't evolved much at all since civilization. Technology and cooperation and yes liberal charity, take away the need for it.

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 23 Jan 14 - 04:06 PM

"there be plenty Darwin witnesses on mudcat, even if they don't doorknock!.......and pray."

Is this "taking the piss?"

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 23 Jan 14 - 05:27 PM

"Since civilisation" is scarcely the sort of time-scheme within one thinks of any major evolution. Civilisation is reckoned in a lowish # of thousands (maybe 12,000). Evolution is reckoned in millions.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 24 Jan 14 - 01:18 AM

"Is this taking the piss?"




Evolution in action

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Jan 14 - 01:23 AM

Ian, was your "Evolution in action" meant to be a clicky? If so, could we have a link, please?

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Jan 14 - 03:40 AM

Evolution will amplify characteristics that result in having many children.
Those that lead to having few children late in life will be suppressed.

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 24 Jan 14 - 06:15 AM

"what good news does Darwin have?"

He tells it like it is, pete - and not what a bunch of ignorant, fanatical, red-neck fundamentalists would like it to be!

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 24 Jan 14 - 06:17 AM

Oh yes, pete - have you read that book by Prof. Dawkins, that I recommended in another thread, yet?

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: Musket
Date: 24 Jan 14 - 06:27 AM

We should provide margin notes for Michael.....

My comment was that at long last, our esteemed colleague whom I quoted is beginning to recognise evolution in the modern sense, which also was a rib at pete as a by product.

Not so good when you have to explain it, which on reflection may have been Michael's subtle plan.....

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Jan 14 - 06:43 AM

Sorry Ian. Just not keeping up with all the cut'n'thrust of the q&a.
Blame old age...

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: Stu
Date: 24 Jan 14 - 06:50 AM

."what good news does Darwin have?

You are part of a wonderful, complex and precious thread of life that is transient, interconnected and ancient. Your are made of star stuff, literally borne of mighty suns and you, like every other life form on our planet is unique and beyond material value.

You are the universe made conscious, able to contemplate it's own existence and curious about it's own nature. There is no reason to value all life more profound and beautiful than that.


"Human beings haven't evolved much at all since civilization. Technology and cooperation and yes liberal charity, take away the need for it."

Humans continue to evolve regardless of technology, and co-operation is an evolved behavioural trait present in many animals and plants (and between animals and plants). There are some interesting ongoing studies about how natural selection is working within certain populations even within modern society, one study looked at a certain village in Scandinavia that showed a degree of adaption, but I can't recall which characters they were basing this study on.

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: Musket
Date: 24 Jan 14 - 06:53 AM

Yeah, but the problem is a few posts get in the way when you think yours is going to follow the one you are commenting on.

I find I try not to get old.

I'm a sucker for rejuvenation.

Mrs Musket is a keen skier and tonight we go down to The Alps for two weeks for me to prove I can ski and snowboard with all the other teenagers. Packed plenty of ibuprofen so should be able to pull it off again and convince people..... Ten sodding years now since I said "Ski? Oh! I love skiing!" Trying to impress this new girlfriend.......... I suffer every late January and sometimes later in the season on the other side of the pond. Me? Beach bar every time but hey ho.

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 24 Jan 14 - 09:04 AM

MtheGM

My point about civilization is that natural selection is not such a factor when afflictions that might make one less fit, poor eyesight, genetically weak teeth etc etc, are corrected or made up for by society. I guess that that resistance to certain plague germs was once a civilizational survival trait but technology has virtually removed those germs from the biosphere.

We may not be the pinnacle of evolution, but as long as we breed as we do now, we may have reached our pinnacle of our evolution.

Of course, biologists would say that there is no pinnacle of evolution. There is only adaptation to a specific environment.

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: gnu
Date: 24 Jan 14 - 09:50 AM

I ain't never gonna adapt to -32C windchill... even if I mutate meself a block heater.

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: Stu
Date: 24 Jan 14 - 10:20 AM

I think I've mutated a desire to eat more whelks than I can carry.

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 24 Jan 14 - 10:25 AM

hmmmm

Do you need a whelkbarrow?

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 24 Jan 14 - 10:35 AM

Having children is hereditary, if your parents had no children - niether will you

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 24 Jan 14 - 10:40 AM

I think that talking to children of parents who had no children must be a learned behavior.

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Jan 14 - 10:55 AM

"what good news does Darwin have?"

Good? I dunno.... but he sure had interesting news.

The problem is, evolution has not proceeded far enough to ensure all members of our strange species has an inborn gene for automatic recognition of their own evolutionary status..... or maybe the pinnacle OF evolution is to be able to use reason to evade reason.

Ah, conundrums! ☺

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Jan 14 - 11:44 AM

Ah, but, Les, even if they do, you might not.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 24 Jan 14 - 12:08 PM

The pinnacle of evolution.

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 24 Jan 14 - 01:56 PM

I use to ask cherubs, when I 'taught', anybody here with a brother or a sister who is an only child? Quite a few did

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Jan 14 - 02:15 PM

Say it ain't so, Jack...

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 24 Jan 14 - 02:50 PM

If you are looking at it from an evolutionary perspective, who breeds more on average, The Rhodes scholar, Olympic athletes, or people of Wal*Mart?

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 25 Jan 14 - 05:13 AM

bill- conundrums.....if we are accidents of chemical processes, that would include your brain. why should we trust anything anyone says?
stu- spoken like a true evangelist!
shimrod-   no I haven't. have you read safati's refutation of dawkins book?

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 25 Jan 14 - 06:10 AM

I presume this will be the next thread to be shut down without explanation, but as a guest I cant complain.

Subject: RE: BS: Darwin's Witnesses
From: DMcG
Date: 25 Jan 14 - 07:45 AM

Thread drift, I suppose, but I've just been listening to Jez Lowe's "We'll hunt him down". Worth hearing, and it's on YouTube. I'm in the car (as a passenger!) So making a link is tricky.