What MUST Jw's believe that they don't KNOW they believe?

by AlmostAtheist 59 Replies latest jw friends

  • AlmostAtheist
    AlmostAtheist

    I'm looking for beliefs of JW's that have the consequence of also requiring some other belief that they may not like or be able to explain.

    For instance, you probably believe that there are an infinite number of numbers, since you can always add 1 to any number and make a new one.

    What you may not think about as a consequence of that belief is that you can also start with 2, add 2, and create an infinite series of even numbers. The set of even numbers is infinite, and the set of whole numbers (which would fully encompass the even numbers) is also infinite. So which set is bigger? Neither, they are both infinite.

    Hmmmm... So you believe that one set of numbers is infinite, and another set which only includes half of the numbers in the fist set is also infinite? OK...

    This is the sort of "Hmmmm..." I'd like to be able to generate in a JW. This wouldn't question their beliefs, it would only point out a consequence of their belief.

    Can you think of any like this? It would have to be something pretty shocking, that they really would rather not believe. It would be good if it could contradict something else they already believe to a degree that they would see it on their own.

    One example, but it's probably weak:
    1) You believe that at death, the person is dead. Other than in God's memory, this person no longer exists.
    2) You believe that God will recreate this person's body and put their memories back, thus they live again.
    3) The consequence is, if God could do that after you died, he could do it BEFORE you died. If he did, there would be two of you. Which one would really be YOU? If God then killed the original you, would the new you consider himself to be the still alive you, or the newly created him?

    This one's weak, since it asks them to consider an impossible situation: God would "resurrect" you before you died. But I would bet there are others that don't require them to consider an impossible hypothetical.

    Know any?

    Dave

  • AuldSoul
    AuldSoul

    (1) They believe righteous ones live on in God's memory, he is the God not of the dead but of the living.

    (2) They believe anyone who died before Christ could not have been anointed with spirit because they were dead.

    (Consequence) If the righteous ones live on in God's memory he can anoint them anytime he chooses.

    (1) They believe that Adam and Eve were designed to live forever.

    (2) They believe that they had to eat of the tree of life to do so.

    (3) They believe that the tree of life is in heaven and can only be reached after death (see Revelation Climax discussion of Revelation 2:7)

    (Consequence) The original purpose couldn't have been eternal life on earth.

    Not sure if this is what you are looking for, but I decided to take a stab at it.

    AuldSoul

  • garybuss
    garybuss

    http://www.freeminds.org/buss/truth.htm

    The Truth (as I seen it)

    According to Jehovah's Witnesses

    by Gary Busselman

    GOD is the creator, but since he only created Michael,
    and Michael created everything else, ("all other things")
    that would seem to make Michael the real creator,
    but only in a sense, since Michael is Jesus and Michael said to Satan,
    "the Lord rebuke you" makes the Lord powerful over Satan,
    however when Michael had to throw Satan out of heaven in 1914
    he had to do battle with his own creations, Satan and His Angels,
    and in 1918 when he selected Joe Rutherford to be his earthly channel
    and had to put the truth in the mind of Joe
    so Joe could write the truth in the Watch Tower
    and build Beth Sarim.

    All this would be hard to understand if it were not for the "salvation" doctrine,
    which is easy to understand since the living evildoers
    will all be made dead at Armageddon
    and the dead evildoers will be made alive at Armageddon,
    thus the living sinners will die and the dead sinners will live,
    except the dead who are made alive will not really be made alive again
    but when they die God kinda makes a sort of computer chip, in a sense,
    of all the information in their brains,
    like their memories, thoughts, and personality
    and keeps this stored in heaven
    and the Angels that don't join up with Satan help
    and then after Armageddon, God makes a perfect replica body,
    and somehow inserts this memory chip in the perfect replica body
    and then he will judge that new creation of the old person
    who was dead but is now alive, sort of,
    by how he treats the anointed who are mostly dead
    but are represented by the Governing Body, who are not inspired
    but only receive Divine direction,
    and by how well he follows the directions of the Organization
    and if he sins he dies.

    To survive Armageddon, the only way is to be serving God
    in the only Organization that has the truth, Jehovah's Witnesses.
    The truth is defined as the current teachings of the Governing Body
    which largely consist of denying their own past teachings
    and condemning views that are held by other groups
    that the Governing Body will someday adopt as their "new light"
    and "the truth". Serving God is defined as attending the five weekly meetings
    of Jehovah's Witnesses, reading all of the weeks lessons before the meetings,
    including underlining the answer to the questions at the bottom of the pages
    in the paragraphs with a red marker, (yellow highlighter is optional
    as long as it is used in moderation) answering any questions you may come up
    with by yourself, while you keep those questions secret and to yourself,
    by looking up the proper subject headings in the Index published by the Society
    and referencing to the proper Watchtower article
    while attending meetings for field service
    and going out in cars to try to recruit new members into the group
    and to solicit contributions to be turned into the group leaders
    in exchange for Watchtower publications that members paid for
    at the Kingdom Hall using the voluntary donation arrangement
    that was adopted after the Society failed in their attempt to defend Jimmy Swaggert
    in the Supreme Court of California
    after the Superior Authorities fell out of love with him
    and charged him with avoiding sales tax on literature sales
    and all Witnesses must do this or they die.

    Loyalty to "Jehovah's Organization" is important
    since surviving Armageddon is contingent on how well
    we vindicate Jehovah's name which is really YHWH
    and pronounced Yahweh by most Biblical scholars
    only since that was changed to sanctify
    and it now is to exalt Jehovah's Name, not to vindicate anymore,
    and to announce the kingdom that was set up in heaven in 1914 after Jesus
    returned invisibly in 1874
    and again in 1914 for the separating of the sheep and the goats
    by selling Watchtower publications door to door
    and then in 1995 this was changed to
    not separating the sheep from the goats
    but to require all Jehovah's Witnesses to believe
    that the separating of the sheep and the goats will be a future event
    to begin after the start of the Great Tribulation
    except that Jesus had to actually start his judging of the sheep and the goats in 33 AD
    and that he only picked 144,000 Jehovah's Witnesses
    and the number was filled in 1935
    and then the earth was going to be used for the testing ground
    for all the re-created dead sinners and Jehovah's Witnesses for 1000 years
    because this all ties into the date of 1914
    which was arrived at by Nelson Barbour by adding 30 years to William Miller's
    failed Apocalypse expectation date of 1844 which was arrived at by adding a
    year to the previously failed date of 1843, to arrive at 1874, which when
    the end didn't come, he added 40 more years to come up with 1914 which
    Charles Taze Russell adopted and changed to 1915 when the Apocalypse didn't
    come in 1914 then to 1918 when it didn't come in 1915, then he died.

    This is all so simple that a child could understand
    especially in view of the fact that the seven trumpets of Revelation
    were the seven Jehovah's Witness District assemblies from 1922 to 1928,
    starting with Cedar Point, Ohio and ending with Detroit, Michigan,
    only they weren't called Jehovah's Witnesses then
    but since Jehovah picked them in 1918 he waited until 1931
    to give them his name while the generation living in 1914
    and of the age of understanding, about 12 or 15, when World War One broke out,
    except it had been breaking out for a number of years before 1914,
    meaning that the generation that saw 1914 would by no means pass away
    before Armageddon started and "by no means"
    indicates that the majority would be living and never die
    since Jesus told Joe Rutherford that "Millions Now Living Will Never Die"
    by an angel and Joe wrote a book about the dead Princes,
    Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and others would be resurrected to the earth in 1925
    and live in a house he built for them in 1929 in San Diego, California
    except he lived in it himself
    because he thought the start of World War Two would be the beginning of Armageddon
    and then he died.

    Usually this is best understood by believing the truth as Nathan Knorr and Fred Franz
    wrote about it in the Watchtower since they knew that service was the answer
    and that six thousand years since Adam and Eve ended in 1975
    and that maybe, might, could, should be the start of Armageddon
    but they don't remember writing anything about 1975
    and they couldn't say for sure when Eve was created
    and besides so many were going to prison because they were loyal to God
    by refusing alternative service to active military duty
    and no one was taking organ transplants or buying Girl Scout Cookies
    and then they died.

    Sometimes the truth comes as flashes of light and the vaccinations,
    and organ transplants are now all okay and the drafted boys don't go to prison
    but stay at home to be elders and pioneers instead of going to jail
    and the sheep are waiting and the goats are waiting too
    and the generation of 1914 waited too,
    then they died.

  • LittleToe
    LittleToe

    If you exist in God's memory do you still exist?

    LT, of the "keep 'em simple" class

  • lonelysheep
    lonelysheep

    Auldsoul...good one about Adam & Eve!!

  • daystar
    daystar

    Just being picky since I can't address the real topic of your post.

    So you believe that one set of numbers is infinite, and another set which only includes half of the numbers in the fist set is also infinite? OK...

    The second set only includes half of the numbers in the first set? If the first set is infinite, what would be half of it? Infinite is infinite.

    Also, ten whole numbers and ten even numbers are still each ten numbers. Your premise assumes that the ten whole numbers are somehow superior to the ten even numbers? And in the two infinite sets, in your example, somehow the infinite set of whole numbers is superior to the infinite set of even numbers?

  • LittleToe
    LittleToe

    Ah, but he's talking specifically about the fist set, that includes all whole numbers (odd and even).

    That's quite a fist!

  • daystar
    daystar
    3) The consequence is, if God could do that after you died, he could do it BEFORE you died. If he did, there would be two of you. Which one would really be YOU? If God then killed the original you, would the new you consider himself to be the still alive you, or the newly created him?

    Silly. You're not in "God's memory" until after you die.

  • metatron
    metatron

    The number one belief Jehovah's Witnesses have that they don't openly acknowledge:

    The "faithful slave" is infallible, period.

    Even if they are confronted with evidence of false prophesy, scandal and lies, they still think the organization is infallible

    because they will rationalize that these things were somehow part of God's purpose, to weed out the unfaithful. "Yup, in 1975

    a lot of people left who didn't live up to their dedication vows, blah, blah, blah"

    metatron

  • funkyderek
    funkyderek

    daystar:

    The second set only includes half of the numbers in the first set? If the first set is infinite, what would be half of it? Infinite is infinite.

    There are different kinds of infinity. The set of natural numbers (1, 2, 3,...) is infinite and has the same number of elements as the set of even natural numbers (2, 4, 6,...) as there is a one-to-one correspondence between the elements (1:2, 2:4, 3:6...). But consider the set of whole numbers: (...-3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3,...). This is also an infinite set, but clearly it has twice as many numbers as the first set we considered (plus "0").

    But back to the topic:

    JWs believe that Jesus is only the mediator for the 144,000 though most of them don't know it.

    JWs believe that many people are going to be resurrected from the dead by their god, grow towards perfection for 1000 years and then deliberately follow the losing team.

    JWs believe that there is one true god Jehovah, but also believe that Jesus is a god, and that Jesus is not Jehovah.

    JWs believe that imperfection is hereditary, and therefore either that God changed Adam and Eve's genomes after they sinned or that heredity is partly the result of something other than DNA.

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