# *Q for JW

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Posted by Al; [Aldurant] on November 06, 1999 at 17:06:43 {p8g/8h8r5QF1SfI4E1Nwt74NX2uzuA}:

In Reply to: Q for JW posted by B on November 06, 1999 at 05:17:35:

B-
Your questions.
1. The answer to 607 - 1914 is in many of their publications. They got it from Nelson Barbour, who got it from John A. Brown's 1823 book "Eventide". Pyramidologists also calculated "the end" as 1910. They settled on the idea that the "seven times" in Daniel was 360 years per time, coming to 2,520 years from 607 with no zero year brings us to 1914. Brown came to 1917 because he believed the destruction of Jerusalem to be in 604. The Watchtower Society leaves out the fact that they derived their chronology from others who they do no consider "God's Channel", that their were many other dates that they were predicting also, that 1874 was regarded as more significant until the 1920's. Only later, with the European war of 1914-1918 being called "World War I", do they try to act as if they always believed that the other dates had little significance. There are probably a good dozen websites that discuss the "1914" concept at length and in much greater detail.

2. Different races- A witnesses best comment on this would be the differentiation of the races after the flood (2370 BCE) coming from Noah's three sons and people scattering after the tower of Babel (~2270 BCE) dispersion. They would have to contend that genetic differentiation took place faster because mankind was degenerating due to what would effectively be inbreeding and higher levels of solar radiation, maybe. Neither genetics nor paleontology bear this out, though.

3. There is an absolute avalanche of finds which contradict the idea of man being only 6000 years old. The Witnesses, and other fundamentalists mostly ignore these, and misrepresent it by ignorant and dishonest summaries of the effectiveness of the over-all view that Archaeology has through over a dozen methods of dating methods. These methods have been calibrated, and cross checked through double-blind tests. They include tree -ring dating which is quite easy to understand. The preponderance of finds are found to be accurate within at least 15%. The fundamentalists, including the Witnesses, would have us dismiss all the evidence as a wild guess or a great conspiracy or both. Strangely, they have no evidence whatever backing up their claims of prophecy. They further try to put people off from simple truth by portraying those who do not accept their particular beliefs as "faithless". In my view, I think that they trust God so little that they have to make up or accept made up stories regarding God to make themselves feel more secure. To me, THIS is a lack of trust, and faith.

Carbon dating is hardly the only method but it is more accurate than the Witness interpretation of the first eleven or so chapters of Genesis.

There is no evidence of any water layer. If ice circles a planet it can only be in the form of a thin ring, or it could never maintain it's "orbit". There can be other reasons for flucuation of radition though, such as solar flares, but there is not reason to assume that there was uniformly less radiation.

People of previous times had more diseases, not less, and they generally died of them. Different diseases occur to those who live longer, such as cancer. If there were larger numbers of younger people with diseases now it would be because of malmutrition of a larger population. The population is larger because they don't die of other causes first. much detail can be added to this but this will have to do for now.

From what I understand, and from the little I have seen, there is not much real conceptual content at Witnesses.net.

Try the link below. It is very informative. I hope it works. I'll test it and repost if it doesn't.

Al

- Dating Exhibit

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