by themonster123 40 Replies latest jw friends
Valid point about illustrations being only illustrations not actual arguments in themselves. My mum told me this one a couple of years ago and it caught me out. I wasn't sure how to reply. However now I think that I would say something along the lines of,
"what happens when the government keeps recalling the money and issuing new bills. How do you keep it all straight. Is it ok to keep using the former 'real' bills or are they the same as counterfit bills?"
They love illustrations because they're a great way of dumbing down the big issues of life, for people too lazy to sort them out for themselves.
Jesus used illustrations all the time, along with viewpoint questions. Also, if a person didn't get one illustration, he'd use a second, even a third. Like he did in Luke 15: a lost sheep, a lost coin, a lost son.
To me, the point of the Real vs. Fake Currency illustration is straightforward enough. Nobody likes being defrauded. The Creator even moreso. It takes a mature sense to know the value of having the real thing. There are possibly serious consequences such as jail time for using Fake Currency. There are, likewise, serious consequences for trying to fool God in our worship to him. Our relationship with him will be a sham, as well.
A similar point is made with the Dirty Lollipop illustration. Nobody wanting a sweet candy likes the taste of dirt with it, or the thought of catching a possible disease from an unwashed treat. Maturity is needed to overcome the innate desire to pick up and taste the dirty candy. There are possibly serious consequences, such as indigestion, for ingesting a sweet from the gutter. There are, likewise, ill effects even in our health for engaging in illicit activities.
My comment is now 3 posts above.
— Fred/Q.
Fred/Q:
You are truly the most pathetic saddest poster here.
Do you ever pray to God for His Holy Spirit, or do you just regurgitate the vomit of the narcisssists in Bethel that call themselves the "FDS"?
Read the Bible for once in your life- after praying to God for His Holy Spirit, with an open mind, and no WTBTS publications around for "reference".
You will truly praise God if you do so.
Your Brother,
BA
Jesus used illustrations all the time, along with viewpoint questions. Also, if a person didn't get one illustration, he'd use a second, even a third. Like he did in Luke 15: a lost sheep, a lost coin, a lost son.
I agree, and illustrations are a great teaching tool. They are memorable. However, we do have to ask ourselves, do they apply? How do we apply them? Nowadays Christians don't pay their taxes from the mouths of fishes. But I think the principle has remained.
To me, the point of the Real vs. Fake Currency illustration is straightforward enough. Nobody likes being defrauded. The Creator even moreso. It takes a mature sense to know the value of having the real thing. There are possibly serious consequences such as jail time for using Fake Currency. There are, likewise, serious consequences for trying to fool God in our worship to him. Our relationship with him will be a sham, as well.
I also agree that it is cricital to learn if you are looking at the real thing. However, the suggestion that one does not need to study anything but THEIR currency is false. So the illustration, as used by the society, DETERS members from verifying their claims. Deceptive.
A similar point is made with the Dirty Lollipop illustration. Nobody wanting a sweet candy likes the taste of dirt with it, or the thought of catching a possible disease from an unwashed treat. Maturity is needed to overcome the innate desire to pick up and taste the dirty candy. There are possibly serious consequences, such as indigestion, for ingesting a sweet from the gutter. There are, likewise, ill effects even in our health for engaging in illicit activities.
Since this is one of my JW husband's favorite illustrations, I thought long and deep about the implications of this illustration. A dirty lollypop suggests that the (pure) early Church was corrupted on the outside. If one washed off the lollypop, presumably, one could enjoy it again. BUT, doesn't the society teach that by the second century, the Church was hopelessly corrupted? That suggests that the corruption was endemic. So, instead of saying, "Would you pick up that sucker?" a better illustration would be thinking too long about the origins of a hot-dog.
So, to take the illustration further, what is the pure lollypop? Like the Bereans, we can ask what teachings are to be embraced, and which discarded? Is the society as "pure" as they claim? Is there a core of purity existing in other churches?
There are definite signs that the society is getting ready to discard a couple doctrines. First, they are gradually getting rid of the blood doctrine. Also, they are changing the generational teaching and the makeup of the annointed class. This tells me that their original interpretation was flawed, or corrupted. Would you eat a hot-dog off the ground, if they washed off all the dirt? Especially if you had scrutinized their origins and found them lacking?
jgnat...WOW-I never even realized it till now- they may very well get rid of the blood doctrine-that would be the CRAZIEST thing I've ever seen-who's to say if it'll happen in my lifetime? (I'm 21)-not sure, but if they change it, then of course it would be "new light."
You're blowing my mind- to even think that they would EVER discard it entirely I've never thought about, but you made me think about it. thanks. Obviously, if they discarded it, then it should be obvious to anyone it's not the truth cuz a true God wouldn't let people just ho-hum die years ago due to the blood doctrine and then if things changed and you can accept blood or whatver now God would be okay with people accepting blood.
> You don't have to study all the counterfeit money to recognize the real
> thing. Just study the real dollar bill and you won't HAVE to study the others.
This illustration is disingenuous for several reasons, mostly already stated by others in this thread, but I like to restate stuff so I know I have it straight in my own mind.
First of all, it presupposes that the Witnesses are the "real dollar bill." It implies that the practice of checking out other religions and their teachings is studying "counterfeit money." See what they did there? By even responding to this analogy, you accept the proposition that the Witnesses have the truth and what you're doing by studying other religions is verifying that they're fake. In real life only the Federal Government can tell you for 100% sure that a bill is real. In this illustration I suppose the Federal Government (the issuer of the money) would be God. But he's not talkin'.
Which brings me to the second reason this illustration is retarded. Since the Feds (God) aren't telling us which bill is real, we need to figure it out for ourselves. We don't start from the standpoint of knowing which bill is real. Say we have 10 bills, 9 counterfeit and one real. We would need to carefully study all of them to recognize the fakes, and even then we wouldn't be 100% sure. So studying all the money isn't an exercise in studying counterfeits; it's an exercise in studying all the possible bills to determine which one is real.
And if they really want to go with the money illustration, what would happen if you happened to come into possession of a counterfeit bill, and in good faith believed it was real? If you tried to spend it, would the Federal government come and kill you? No, they wouldn't. It's the person that MADE the fake that is in the wrong here, not the person who accidentally accepted and then spent it. So do they really think God will slaughter everyone who accidentally picks the wrong bills? What kind of asshole would he be?
Does the treasury department have "flashes of light" that change the criteria of real money?
Yes, in fact. There are special security features that are increasingly being added around the world. As the counterfeiters become more clever in copying one bill, it is often replaced by another with different security features.
