How clergy explain tragic deaths - how WTS mocks them, and reality check

by Inquisitor 8 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  Inquisitor

  In this week's Sunday study, the WTS again relish insulting the clergy with the following statement:

  Paragraph 5) Another reason why people think that God does not care about us is that religious leaders have made them feel that way. What do clergymen often say when tragedy strikes? When one woman lost her two small children in an automobile accident, her minister said: "It was God's will. God needed two more angels." When clergymen make such comments, they are actually blaming God for the bad things that happen.

  I have heard this anecdote and its variants since god-knows how long ago.

  Surely the clergy have found more profound reasonings to help people in grief over tragic loss. Does anyone here know of such instances? I'm sure not all pastors use such shallow reasonings as "God wanted your dead child as his angel". Prove the WTS wrong.

  INQ
• 

  Stephanus

  This is kind of a sore point with me. A month after our daughter's death, we had an old JW biddy snearing at our belief that our daughter was in Heaven. At about the same time, there was a tragedy just near the local Kingdom Hall where some old lady stepped on the accelerator instead of the brake at the traffic lights, and collected two little girls with her car. The JW girl survived, while the Baptist one died. A Dub bloke referred to it with "Well, I suppose her parents are happy because she's in Heaven now!" (rolling of eyes, sarcastic tone). Arsehole!
• 

  truthsetsonefree

  As with most things WT it would not surprise me if this so called typical clergy response is more myth than reality and is taken way out of context. I doubt that most priests would be so calloused. And WHICH clergyman was this? Name? Where was he quoted? There is no way to check. So we have to take their word. And we all know how much that's worth. Something similar happens when they say that psychiatrists recommend marital affairs. Again with no way to verify the comment. Further, even if their quote is accurate it is a logical fallacy to say that because one clergyman says this, that they ALL say this. It is a case of making a general conclusion from a specific comment, a general effect from a specific cause. More fallacious reasoning.

  tsof
• 

  fifi40

  I wish in my time as a JW I had had the balls to stick my hand up to answer and totally ignored the content of the paragraph and said something like this

  "Dear Brother, if we are to believe all we are taught then the blame does in fact lay at the door of God for all the bad that happens. We are taught that for the last 6000 years he has entered into a game of chess with Satan in which human beings are the pieces played with on the board and as such terrible, horrendous, wicked and evil events befall them. If we are to believe this we also have to believe that this perfect God of Love who is all knowing and all powerful, could find no other way to deal with a little upstart called Satan, than to submit humankind to thousands of years of pain and suffering. And that in fact for mankind to be absolved of their horrendous crimes against him, that he had to be bought off, by sacrificing his son. I suggest before we criticise others for their misguided explanations of why all this crap happens we take a long hard look at our own explanation."

  And I apologise in advance if this offends those board members who continue to have a faith and belief in God of some description.
• 

  greendawn

  I have never heard that being said by people in religious office but I heard people taht lost children say things to that effect eg I shared some of my children with God. I suppose it is a kind of comfort for them to rationalise their loss and make it more bearable.
• 

  restrangled

  If you are a compassionate person, concerned about comforting another person in their greatest hour of need, then why would you care if that comfort came in the form of anothers thoughts and words?

  The WTS is a bunch of self-righteous, self-serving frauds

  r's hubby
• 

  Gill

  Isn't it evern worse to imagine that your child has gone to a cold, dark, lonely grave, and ever seeing them again depends on how many times you turn up for sales meetings at a Kingdom Hall, and how many Wagtowers you place?
• 

  GentlyFeral

  When I was a Unitarian, I was taught that all divinity students (clergy-in-training) had to spend time as hospital or prison chaplains for the specific purpose of learning to help people who were being chewed up and spit out by life. Rev. Katie Kandarian, reminiscing about her training, once told me that when a parishioner has bad news, "we are permitted to say, 'That sucks.'"

  Some random quotes from real preachers about the meaning of tragedy:

  • Toward the end of a rather Bible-literalist sermon: "First of all let me tell you what this does not mean. When God said this promise, it does not mean that all things are good. That's idiocy. That's foolish, that's naivete, that's blind. Cancer is an evil thing. Famine is an awful thing. Crime and violence and divorce and death, they are horrible. They are obscene. They are bad, evil things. But God says, 'I can work them together for good.' It doesn't mean only good things happen to believers. " – BPnews.net

  • "We know at least some of the reasons why awful things often happen in our world. But that still doesn’t do much to explain why it seems to take so long for God to do God-like things in our world. Our scriptures and our own life experiences tell us over and over again that God works in human history – but still, we look at our world and ask where is God?

    "Now as trite and totally insufficient as it may sound, the answer is that God is always with us, and all of creation. God neither abandons us, nor leaves us to our own devices.

    "...When we are open to hearing the voice of God – when we refuse to run away scared – we open the doors necessary for the possibility of world—transforming divine—human partnerships. I think of the disarmament of the Irish Republican Army last month.(this sermon was posted in August 2005)..." – Rev. Katie Goetz

  • "...no life, and no hope in the direction of life, is in vain." – Be Not Afraid: Overcoming the Fear of Death, Jonathan Kozol (free ebook! Looks substantial.)

  • "the greatest sin is the denial of hope. While it is true that where there is life, there is hope, it is truer still that where there is hope there is life...

    "...We notice that Paul minces no words as he acknowledges our death. We perish. That perishing, as Madame Bovary discovered, can be difficult, even ignoble. We lose a physical body, or are planted as physical bodies. We are dust, and to dust we return. Says Paul: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.

    "For Paul, as for the earliest church in general, this great hope was expressed in the religious garb of his day, the language and imagery of apocalyptic.

    "...All the promises of God concludes in this Promise Before Dark. Love outlasts death. Earthly struggle bears a lasting heavenly meaning. Patent tragedy and injustice are part of a larger, longer, latent, loving story." – "A Promise Before Dark," Rev. Robert A. Hill

  In short, throughout the religious world, serious thinking is being done about death and how the living are to recover from it.

  And this is a little off-topic, but it made me smile:

  Disowning Conservative Politics, Evangelical Pastor Rattles Flock (signing up at NY Times is free)

  gently feral
• 

  Lumptard

  Definitely shady how the WT tries to discredit another religion's way of offering comfort. Too bad that no matter what you beleive, when you die you decompose and turn into worm food. So both beleifs and consolations are equally false. Just another way for people to avoid thinking about the reality of the situation.