To active or questioning JWs: Are you rational?

by Confession 13 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Justitia Themis

  Roman SunGod (name escaps me!) who is so similar to Jesus , even down to coming down from heaven to cleanse us from sin, and having twelve disciples, now thats a little too close for comfort - surely when you study these, you are left with no doubt ????

  ...Dyonisius

  And yes, I still believe the Bible. The general account/s of creation in Genesis coincide with the "eras" of evolution. No, one has ever explained to me how that accidentally happened. While I am still an active JW, I do not buy 1914, everyone else is going to die, and many other beliefs. In fact, when I took the religion questionnaire on Belief-o-Matic, I came up Universalist/Unitarian. But, I just do not want to go someplace where politics is mixed with religion.

  Justitia
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  SirNose586

  There was a time when I wouldn't even look in the same direction as an apostate; they'd be marching around the stadium at our convention. Apostates were evil. I knew it and believed it wholeheartedly.

  What brought me to here, eventually, was not lack of love, or someone getting df'd. It was just a simple glance on a biography website about Nebuchadrezzar II. "Wait, what do you mean he did everything a full 20 years later than what the WT told me?"

  Now, an irrational person would've simply concluded that the WT was correct, but thankfully I did not take that irrational belief and run with it. I made one rule to deal with my cognitive dissonance: one party was right, and one party was wrong. With this rule tucked firmly in mind, I decided to do a search for all the other history websites, making sure to check out the most acclaimed sources (Encyclopaedia Brittanica, et al). I noticed one thing in common with the "not WT" camp of information: they placed the destruction of Jerusalem either at 587 or 586 BC. Not 597, and certainly not 607 BC.

  Now I began to run into a problem. With all these sources telling me one thing, now my long-held belief was under attack. In desperation, I created an escape clause: If I find one source that confirms 607, I'll accept it and stop my research.

  Thankfully, no other source had a ridiculous interpretation of prophecy and 6 million members on the line. And here we are. So I can put myself in the rational camp.
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  Confession

  1.How do we know IF there is any book, document, writing on earth that actually contains superior wisdom, knowlege and divine messeges for mankind?

  2.How do we know there is an intelligence "out there" that we could understand, comprehend or contact who would want that contact?

  See what I mean?

  Yes, thank you. There's a reason why nearly every JW, when presented with evidence that the WTS isn't The Truth, asks, "Well if we don't have The Truth, WHO DOES?"

  It's because the Society does not merely teach that their organization is The Truth. They also teach that 'God has always worked through an organization of humans,' and it's presuppositions such as this that lead to the belief that we should find and cling to an organization. One might call this thinking "rational," but it's only rational thinking based on artificial "knowledge." Even working within their own universe (namely that the Bible is unqualifiedly the inspired Word of God,) this turns out not to be the case at all. (See Tom Cabeen's "Does God Work Through an Organization?")

  Being RATIONAL is only a starting point.

  Your processor may work just dandy, but; what are you using as data?

  Indeed. And the problem with so many indoctrinated JWs (and others) is that they have not yet reached this starting point. My hope is that first they can admit the obvious value of considering ALL the available data in reaching good conclusions. My confidence is that, in so doing, they are now in a position to come to their own conclusions--instead of being directed to conclusions by others who would threaten them from considering all the data.
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  M.J.

  But, I just do not want to go someplace where politics is mixed with religion.

  JWs aren't IT when it comes to this viewpoint. There's Christadelphians opt out to a degree as extreme as the JWs, while the Church of Christ simply remains silent on political issues and leaves any involvement on the part of an individual as a matter of conscience. I know many other individual Christian churches follow this line of thinking as well.

  In fact a book by Gregory Boyd seems to sum up the sentiments of a lot of Christians out there:

  The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church.