I applaud them for finally coming up with a really good question for their QFR. Then they ruined it by trying to answer. Unfortunately, most dubs will simply accept it and that will be the end of it. This question was actually the first one that made me seriously question the bible, and deserves far more thought and insight than what the WT provides.
Great QFR, really stupid answer from WT
by erynw 45 Replies latest watchtower bible
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erynw
Guess this is their new light, but it's still dim (pun intended) (WT 2005 5/15 pg 31):
David and Bath-sheba were not to escape all consequences of their sin. "Because you have unquestionably treated Jehovah with disrespect by this thing," Nathan told David, "also the son himself, just born to you, will positively die." Their child grew sick and died despite the fasting and mourning that David carried on for seven days.—2 Samuel 12:14-18.
Some find it difficult to understand why the son had to die, since Deuteronomy 24:16 states: "Children should not be put to death on account of fathers." But we must remember that if the case had been handled by human judges, the parents as well as the unborn child in the womb would have lost their lives. The loss of the son might also have helped David to realize more keenly how displeased Jehovah was with his sin with Bath-sheba. We can be confident that Jehovah dealt with the matter justly, for "perfect is his way."—2 Samuel 22:31
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Leolaia
The Sotah ritual in Numbers 5:11-21 is often thought to describe induced abortion as a means of proving adultery via the ingestion of a poison (my h-mrym) that produces uterine distress (cf. npl in v. 22 which is a term for miscarriage in Job 3:16, Psalm 58:8, Isaiah 33:3 and yrk as a euphemism for the genitals), although this is not the only possible exegesis of the difficult (and possibly composite?) passage which was variously interpreted even in antiquity.
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cultswatter
That quote did not come out of Franz's mouth(piece) it came out of his anal(piece)
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nvrgnbk
I think that Jehovah's Witnesses treat all humans as aborted fetuses anyway.
Dont' know if I should laugh or cry but that is the truth of the matter, Mr. Flipper.
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ringo5
I can see perhaps some improvement in their new light , if it can be seen from the perspective of the less said the better .
But they still make a very weak case . They say that if human judges have been using the law as it was written, both adulterers would have been put to death, as opposed to just one child. Therefore they say, god's decision was more merciful as more lives were spared.
However, it's pretty safe to say no modern judicial systems would come to this conclusion, let alone any harm come to that child. Following their logic, today's modern judicial system would be more merciful yet, therefore superior to god's decision in this case.
and they still manage to put their other foot in their mouths with this statement
The loss of the son might also have helped David to realize more keenly how displeased Jehovah was with his sin with Bath-sheba.
So if I am displeased with something, say my employee does, terminating one of his kids is fair game in order to impress on him how displeased I am. Sounds sane to me.
It must get very hard writing this crap as it's hard enough reading it.
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LtCmd.Lore
Holy crap!
I'm adding this one to my WTLIB favorites folder...
The law, as stated at Deuteronomy 24:16, shows that fathers were not to be put to death for their sons nor were sons to be put to death for their fathers. In man’s administration of justice each was to die for his own sin, and not drag innocent relatives down with him.
Makes sense. Unfortunately Yahweh ignores this one pretty often. (IE: Exodus 20:5). Which is probably the purpose of the "In mans administration" comment.
They are trying to say that if a man does something horrible, it's unjust, but if god does the exact same thing, it's perfect.
Plus, in 'Man's administration' adultery would NOT be a capital crime. So Bathsheba wouldn't have been executed and neither would any other rape victim. (David may have been though, since he was a murderer.)
In this particular case of David and Bath-sheba neither of them had a right to the child and so there was no injustice in their being deprived of it.
Huh?
So if a JW has a child out of wedlock does that meen it's not really her child and that she doesn't have a right to it?
Did Joseph have the right to raise Baby Jesus?
Is adoption a totally foreign concept to Yahweh/The WTS?
It's an orphan so therefore it doesn't matter if you kill it. (This is also a violation of: Deuteronomy 10:17, 18)
Besides, as an uncircumcised, unnamed infant it had not as yet developed any personality pattern or consciousness so as to appreciate life.
...... I don't think I can parody this.
Then again, Bath-sheba could have been stoned to death for her adultery, in which case the unborn child would also have perished.
Yes, but it would have been UNBORN! That's different! Yes, the child WOULD have died, but it didn't.
Plus, that was an unjust law to begin with!
"I'm sorry George, but we just found out that your mother was an adulterer when she gave birth to you... I know you're 29 years old now, but hey, your parents should have been stoned to death for their adultery, in which case you would also have perished... Just be glad you got to live this long..."
*BOOM*
(George hed esplode.)
! JUSTICE !
However, as previously noted in The Watchtower, David was shown mercy because of the Kingdom covenant, which Jehovah had made with him.
This is something I had thought about before... Until he had a child, David was immortal.
God COULD NOT kill him, or allow him to die, until he had a child.
Yahweh was an idiot for making that promise, and David was an idiot for not realizing the potential.
Obviously this is flawed right? I dunno. But I'm sure a JW would be able to rationalize god going back on his word if David had realized this. So why didn't he go back on his word in this case?
And if he CAN'T go back on his word, then why can he disobey his own law by showing David mercy? Why couldn't he have done this for Adam and Eve? Or their children? Or EVERYONE.
Nevertheless, to drive home the fact of Jehovah’s displeasure he let the child die, which was a very severe blow to King David.
"Just so you know how unhappy I am, I'm going to kill your son."
Why didn't he have him removed as King? Or chop off a few limbs... Punish THE GUILTY PARTY, not an innocent baby.
Two similar instances are recorded in David’s life: One was in connection with the death of Uzzah, who tried to steady the ark of the covenant; the other was the destruction of tens of thousands of Israelites because King David presumptuously and proudly determined to number the hosts of Israel. (1 Chron. 15:13; 21:1-27)
Don't even get me started on those...
Such records as these magnify the supremacy of Jehovah God and underscore the words: “He [God] doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?”—Dan. 4:35, AS.
Supremacy : Power to dominate or defeat.
Bully : A person who deliberately intimidates or is cruel to weaker people.
For more on this see The Euthyphro dilemma.
Lore
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4digitcode
not only pro choice but pro infanticide. nice. why don't they just say it in pure english-the kid was a bastard, so that's why we think it's ok that god killed him............They remind me of NAZIS.(how i came to that perception was in a rant that i chose to delete as i wouldn't want it to be miscontrued as what I think, and wouldn' want to hurt anyone's sensibility)
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erynw
From "Insight", Vol 2, page 471.
In time a second son, named Solomon, was born to David by Bath-sheba. This child Jehovah loved...
If it was wrong the first time, why was it ok this time? Same people, same husband still killed in war, same God who punished the innocent first child.
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WTWizard
Neither one had the right to the child? This has to be the most specious argument to kill an innocent child! It is not the child's fault that David did adultery! It was David's fault, and his alone. It was also his fault alone that he tried to bury the evidence by having Bath-Sheba's husband killed in battle to usurp his wife. A classic example of use of initiatory force against another person to appropriate something that belonged to him. Robbery!
Since when is "neither parent had the right to the child" an excuse for murdering that child? Jehovah had no right to murder that child, who did absolutely nothing wrong. Just because the baby was not circumcised (yet) was no excuse, either. Suppose I were to recommend an abortion to a sister who got pregnant because of fornication, using the excuse that neither parent had the right to the baby and that the baby is uncircumcised. Imagine how quickly I could get disfellowshipped for such an offense. And yet the Watchtower Society is condoning the exact same thing here! They are claiming that the child had no right to exist just because of the way it got born.
If anything, David should have died. It wasn't bad enough that he did adultery. Why he should have died is that he later initiated force to get the husband killed, so that he could have taken credit for the child. To me, that was worse than the adultery itself. Suppose he would have come right out and admitted to committing adultery to the husband and sought forgiveness. If that would have been the case, it would have shown humility and human fallibility. It would have also shown that fully integrated honesty is the way to go, even if we make a stupid mistake and do something wrong. Instead, David compounded the wrong, and was now even more guilty because of having initiated force to hide the original adultery.
Of course, the Tower doesn't want people to think like that. That is because they are just as guilty of initiating coercion and sometimes force to disfellowship people that are threatening status quo. Raymond Franz should not have been disfellowshipped, but he was threatening the corruption of the whole organization. Numerous other incidents happen on a local level, including one where a hounder that was trying to run things right (according to the Bible, not the Tower) was removed with initiatory fraud and coercion. I do believe that examples of stupid answers from the Tower like this serve the same purpose that David's killing the husband did: to protect the organization from suffering from its corruption.