Blatantly deceitful use of secular sources

by AuldSoul 27 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  seattleniceguy

  AuldSoul,

  Awesome! My friend drwtsn32 tells me that looking up source material in the 1985 Creation book yielded (much to his dismay, at the time) bountiful misquotes, some staggering in their deception. You might want to check that out.

  Your web site will definitely fill an awesome need. I can't wait to see your results!

  SNG
• 

  jst2laws

  
  Hello AuldSoul,

  Good idea, hope this project turns out to be a comprehensive collection.

  Carl Olof Johnsson has some interesting examples in The Sign of the Last Days. (available at commentarypress.com)

  One example is the Watchtower (May 15,1983) quote of Professor Keiiti Aki as speaking of 'the apparent surge in intensity and frequency of major earthquakes during the last one hundred years'. However, the Watchtower quote stops at that point failing to include the rest of Professor Aki's sentence which goes on to say: "in all probablility, due to improved recording of earthquakes".

  Carl Johnsson wrote Mr Aki and asked for his response to the Watchtower's misleading use of his statement. He responded by saying "they quoted the part they wanted, eliminating my main message".

  This account can be found on page 67 of Carl's above sited book.

  Jst2
• 

  AlmostAtheist

  WTG, AuldSoul! This will be a very useful reference.

  Dave
• 

  AuldSoul

  
  I found out today someone else had a similar idea, we will be collaborating on the project.

  Feel free to use this thread to dump 'em into or PM me if you like. Alternately you can email me at watchtowerwhy~at~hotmail.com ( <—— Keeps crawlers from collecting email addresses, just replace ~at~ with @ in your email)

  AuldSoul
• 

  blondie

  
  *** w62 11/15 p. 701 Patriotism and Religious Freedom ***

  But, someone may protest, how can you say that flags come under that Scriptural prohibition when the Bible itself shows that even the Israelites had ensigns or standards around which their three-tribe divisions gathered while in the wilderness? (Num. 2:2) In this connection the comment made in McClintock and Strong’s Cyclopædia is of interest. After discussing the Hebrew words used, it says: "Neither of them, however, expresses the idea which ‘standard’ conveys to our minds, viz. a flag." Furthermore, they were not viewed as sacred, nor were any ceremonies associated with their use. They simply served the practical purpose of signs, showing the people where to gather.

  Now to find the complete quote in McClintock

  or http://db.bible.org/smith.asp?id=1397

  Smith's Bible Dictionary

  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

  ENSIGN

  (nes ; in the Authorized Version generally "ensign," sometimes "standard;" degel , "standard," with the exception of (Solomon 2:4) "banner;" oth , "ensign"). This distinction between these three Hebrew terms is sufficiently marked by their respective uses. Nes is a signal , and not a military standard. It is an occasional signal, which was exhibited on the top of a pole from a bare mountain-top, (Isaiah 13:2; 18:3) degel a military standard for a large division of an army; and oth the same for a small one. Neither of them, however, expresses the idea which "standard" conveys to our minds, viz. a flag. The standards in use among the Hebrews probably resembled those of the Egyptians and Assyrians --a figure or device of some kind elevated on a pole; usually a sacred emblem, such as an animal, a boat, or the king’s name.
• 

  Scully

  Comments You Will Not Hear at the 3-27-05 WT Study (complete article)

  START OF ARTICLE
  
  
  "APATHEISM." A commentator on religious affairs recently used that word to describe the stance many people maintain toward their faith. He explained: "The greatest development in modern religion is not a religion at all, it's an attitude best described as 'apatheism.'" Elaborating, he defined apatheism as "a disinclination to care all that much about one's own religion." Many people, he observed, "believe in God ...; they just don't care much about him."

  Re: Comments You Will Not Hear at the 3-27-05 WT Study (complete article)

  Scully	Re: Comments You Will Not Hear at the 3-27-05 WT Study (complete article)
  Post 6992 of 8368 since 02-Nov-01	I read the article on "apatheism" in its entirety that Blondie located as the source for the article's quote about that definition. http://www.mlc-wels.edu/schone/Rauch%20Apatheism.doc. Once again, we see the WTS's incredible aptitude for twisting the author's words into an out-of-context support for their agenda. Look at the snippets they quote, highlighted in red, then notice the tone that the article creates about the term apatheist, with yellow highlight. It's really not a bad thing, the way the WTS would have its readers believe. Rather, it is a choice to respect, celebrate and exercise tolerance toward others' religious beliefs and practices. Let it be Jonathan Rauch. The Atlantic Monthly. Boston: May 2003.Vol. 291, Iss. 4; pg. 34, 1 pgs Full Text (983 words) Copyright Atlantic Monthly Company May 2003 [Headnote] The greatest development in modern religion is not a religion at all-- it's an attitude best described as "apatheism" It came to me recently in a blinding vision that I am an apatheist. Well, "blinding vision" may be an overstatement. "Wine-induced haze" might be more strictly accurate. This was after a couple of glasses of Merlot, when someone asked me about my religion. "Atheist" I was about to say, but I stopped myself. "I used to call myself an atheist" I said, "and I still don't believe in God, but the larger truth is that it has been years since I really cared one way or another. I'm"-that was when it hit me-- "an ... apatheist!" That got a chuckle, but the point was serious. Apatheism-a disinclination to care all that much about one's own religion, and an even stronger disinclination to care about other people's-- may or may not be something new in the world, but its modern flowering, particularly in ostensibly pious America, is worth getting excited about. Apatheism concerns not what you believe but how. In that respect it differs from the standard concepts used to describe religious views and people. Atheism, for instance, is not at all like apatheism; the hot-blooded atheist cares as much about religion as does the evangelical Christian, but in the opposite direction. "Secularism" can refer to a simple absence of devoutness, but it more accurately refers to an ACLU-- style disapproval of any profession of religion in public life-a disapproval that seems puritanical and quaint to apatheists. Tolerance is a magnificent concept, John Locke's inestimable gift to all mankind; but it assumes, as Locke did that everyone brims with religious passions that everyone else must work hard to put up with. And agnostics? True, most of them are apatheists, but most apatheists are not agnostics. Because-and this is an essential point-many apatheists are believers. In America, as Thomas Byrne Edsall reported in these pages recently, the proportion of people who say they never go to church or synagogue has tripled since 1972, to 33 percent in 2000. Most of these people believe in God (professed atheists are very rare in the United States); they just don't care much about him. They do care a bit; but apatheism is an attitude, not a belief system and the overriding fact is that these people are relaxed about religion. Even regular churchgoers can, and often do, rank quite high on the apatheism scale. There are a lot of reasons to attend religious services: to connect with a culture or a community, to socialize, to expose children to religion, to find the warming comfort of familiar ritual. The softer denominations in America are packed with apatheists. The apatheism of Reform Jews is so well known as to be a staple of synagogue humor. (Orthodox rabbi to Reform rabbi: "One of my congregants says his son wants a Harley for his bar mitzvah. What's a Harley?" Reform rabbi to Orthodox rabbi: "A Harley is a motorcycle. What's a bar mitzvah?") Finally, and this may seem strangest of all, even true-believing godliness today often has an apatheistic flavor. I have Christian friends who organize their lives around an intense and personal relationship with God, but who betray no sign of caring that I am an unrepentantly atheistic Jewish homosexual. They are exponents, at least, of the second, more important part of apatheism: the part that doesn't mind what other people think about God. I believe that the rise of apatheism is to be celebrated as nothing less than a major civilizational advance. Religion, as the events of September 11 and after have so brutally underscored, remains the most divisive and volatile of social forces. To be in the grip of religious zeal is the natural state of human beings, or at least of a great many human beings; that is how much of the species seems to be wired. Apatheism, therefore, should not be assumed to represent a lazy recumbency, like my collapse into a soft chair after a long day. Just the opposite: it is the product of a determined cultural effort to discipline the religious mindset, and often of an equally determined personal effort to master the spiritual passions. It is not a lapse. It is an achievement. "A world of pragmatic atheists," the philosopher Richard Rorty once wrote, "would be a better, happier world than our present one." Perhaps. But best of all would be a world generously leavened with apatheists: people who feel at ease with religion even if they are irreligious; people who may themselves be members of religious communities, but who are neither controlled by godly passions nor concerned about the (nonviolent, noncoercive) religious beliefs of others. In my lifetime America has taken great strides in this direction, and its example will be a source of strength, not weakness, in a world still beset by fanatical religiosity (al Qaeda) and tyrannical secularism (China). Ronald Reagan used to insist that he was religious even though, as President, he hardly ever entered a church. It turns out he was in good company. Those Americans who tell pollsters they worship faithfully? Many of them are lying. John G. Stackhouse Jr., a professor of theology and culture, wrote recently in American Outlook magazine, "Beginning in the 1990s, a series of sociological studies has shown that many more Americans tell pollsters that they attend church regularly than can be found in church when teams actually count" In fact, he says, actual churchgoing may be at little more than half the professed rate. A great many Americans, like their fortieth President, apparently care about religion enough to say they are religious, but not enough to go to church. You can snicker at Reagan and the millions of others like him; you can call them hypocrites if you like. I say, God bless them, every one. [Author Affiliation] Jonathan Rauch is an Atlantic correspndent. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission. Subjects: Religion, Atheism, Social conditions & trends Locations: United States, US Article types: Commentary ISSN/ISBN: 10727825 Text Word Count 983
• 

  VM44

  I wonder if the writers actually read the articles from which they quote.

  The writing department has people who read magazines and clip and file articles that might be useful for the writers.

  I am sure the articles are indexed according to the topics that they would provide a useful quotation for use by a writer. The secular article might even be indexed according to some "key phrases" it contains.

  So there is a possibility that the writer would make use of the quoted "key phrases" in the index for the article without actually reading the original article.

  This is a possiblity of what might happen when articles are written.

  --VM44
• 

  metatron

  The flag article was only a few years ago. I gotta look it up.

  metatron
• 

  Leolaia

  From http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/92381/1.ashx:

  Another writer who was explicit on the shape of the Roman cross was the satirist Lucian of Samosata who was a contemporary of Artemidorus. Strangely, the Society thinks that he supports their belief that stauros only meant "stake." The 1950 New World Translation states:

  "To such a stake or pale the person to be punished was fastened, just as when the popular Greek hero Prometheus was represented as tied to a stake or stauros. The Greek word which the dramatist Aeschylus used to describe this means to fasten or fix on a pole or stake, to impale, and the Greek author Lucian used anastauroo as a synonym for that word" (p. 769).

  The 1984 revision even gave a specific citation:

  "It was to such a stake, or pale, that the person to be punished was fastened, just as the popular Greek hero Prometheus was represented as tied to rocks. Whereas the Greek word that the dramatist Aeschylus used to describe this simply means to tie or to fasten, the Greek author Lucian (Prometheus, I) used anastauroo as a synonym for that word" (p. 1577).

  Lucian did use anastauroó to refer to the fastening of Prometheus to the rocks of the Caucasus: "Let him be crucified (anestaurosthai) half way up this precipice" (Prometheus, 1.12). But the next phrase indicates what type of cross Lucian had in mind: "...with his hands outstretched (ekpetastheis tó kheire) from crag to crag". This implies a horizontal stretching of the arms from one rock to another, a posture which "will make a very handy cross (ho stauros genoito)" (1.19). Lest there be any doubt about the matter, Lucian next describes the hands as being nailed separately with separate nails: "Come, your right hand! Clamp it down, Hephaestus, and in with the nails; bring down the hammer with a will. Now the left; make sure work of that too" (2.3-8). Clearly, then, Lucian pictured the mythological Prometheus as stretching out his hands horizontally, as if on a patibulum, with each hand nailed individually, and he uses the word stauros to refer to this configuration. One wonders how the Society could cite this text without knowing it actually disproves their claim that stauros meant only "stake".

  Moreover, Lucian elsewhere explicitly described the stauros as shaped like the letter T. In his humorous essay "Trial in the Court of Vowels," the Greek letter Tau (who otherwise had an awful reputation) was found guilty of murder:

  "Men weep and bewail their lot, and curse Cadmus with many curses for putting Tau into the alphabet; for they say that their tyrants, taking his body as a model (somati phasi akolouthésantas) and imitating his shape (mimésamenous autou to plasma), have fashioned similar-looking timbers (skhémati toioutói xula) to crucify (anaskolopizein) men upon them, and the vile device is even named (eponumian) after him (i.e. sTAUros ). Now, with all these crimes upon him, does not Tau deserve to die many times over? As for me, I think the only just thing to do would be to punish Tau on what has been made in his own shape (tó skhemati tó hautou), for the cross (ho stauros) owes its existence to Tau, but its name to man (hupo de anthrópón onomazetai)" (Lis Consonantium, 12).

  Note the use of anaskolopizoó to refer to crucifixion on a crux compacta. Some scholars, such as Sommerbrodt, excise the last sentence referring to the stauros explicitly as an explanatory gloss. But even without it, the obvious pun between "Tau" and stauros and the several references to the T-like shape of the cross prove beyond doubt that Lucian regarded the stauros as double-beamed. The Society's attempt to cite Lucian in support of their "torture stake" theory is thus exceedingly uninformed at best, or intellectually dishonest at worst.
• 

  Nate Merit

  I recall an illustration in the endnotes of the Kingdom Interlinear (I think. Its been well over thirty years) which is of a man being crucified on a pole. The WTBTS use a quotation from the author of the book in a misleading manner. The author does not support the idea that 'stauros" ( pronounced stav-ROS in modern Greek) means "torture stake" or that Christ was executed on a pole.
  
  Ciao 4 Niao
  Nate