a tale of two cherry trees

inkling

Note: this a copy of an e-mail I sent to my Dad, (a non-doubting elder) on the subject of the Nov. 2007 Awake: "Can you Trust the Bible". I think The fact that this email was actually quite well received says much about my Dad's maturity, and the sort of relationship I have with him. :+:+:+: a tale of two cherry trees :+:+:+: First off, I agree that the style of the November AWAKE! is somewhat "fresh" and updated. This fits with the overall direction AWAKE! has been going, in style of both prose and picture. The actually content of the evidence is not particularly
new however, and is mostly gleaned from past articles
on the subject. The points are also not particularly
original, seeing as they strongly resemble many other
modern conservative Christian apologetic writings. (You have to understand that Jehovah's Witnesses are
far from alone in their fight to defend the literal
truth of the bible in the face of a persistent and
daunting secular presence. They are joined by many
Conservative and Evangelical Christians, and there is
a significant (though niche) market for books defending
the Bible. I would guess the writing committee is
drawing from this well.) Moving on... The following statement appears in that Awake: "But not once... does the bible endorse ANY
unscientific views or harmful practices." At the moment, I find it difficult to either belive or respect that statement as long as the following issues continue to reside in my mind: At Liv 14, it is clear that a mold-like substance
was occasionally found growing in the plaster of the
walls on a house. The bible says this is "leprosy",
despite the fact the science now knows that mold has
absolutely no connection with the disease of leprosy.
Also, lev 14:49 says that the mold is a incarnation
of "sin" and in order to make the mold go away he must
kill a bird inside a clay jar while standing over
a stream, and dip a piece of wood and reed and red
cloth into the blood of the bird and spatter it in
the direction of the house. A second bird is then
set free to fly away. Or something like that. To me, this is a reaction that resembles superstition,
not science. All of the practical truth in the account
(that mold is bad. That plastering over the mold will
make it go away, but only sometimes) can easily be
explained by common sense and trial and error. (i.e.
people living in a moldy house get sick. Cleaning the
house and replastering helps. Fire kills everything.) My point here is that although there might be valuable
spiritual truth in this ritual, it is clearly not a
scientifically sound practice. I seems that if Jehovah was truly intending to inform
his people of helpful scientific and medical truth,
he would have made it clear that mold was not the same
as leprosy, that it had nothing to do with sin, and
that maybe, I dunno, boiling water might help? Also modern science is increasing of the opinion that
circumcision is a painful, harmful, and unnecessary
procedure. Today, the only real reasons people are
still circumcised are either aesthetic or religious.
Why would Jehovah create a part of the perfect human
body and then ask his people to destroy it in a bloody
ritual? Also, why wouldn't Jehovah enlighten them with some really
beneficial rules that are NOT accessible via common sense
and trial and error, like "do not drink any wine or any
intoxicating liquor while you are expecting a child".
Along with all these other laws he supposedly gave
them for their physical health, why not add a simple
and easy one like that which would effectively prevent a serious birth defect? Why does the Bible, at Deut 22:13 endorse the belief
that a woman who does not bleed and stain the "mantle"
on her wedding night must not be a virgin? If a girl
got married, and on here wedding night did not bleed,
(now medically known be quite common) she would be
STONED to death if the husband pressed the issue.
Why would Jehovah endorse a such a massively flawed
test based on a medical misconception? Even if it were TRUE that she was not a virgin, the death penalty hardly seems fitting. What about repentance? Where is the compassion of forgiveness? This type of barbaric overreaction was exactly the sort of thing Jesus spoke against. It hardly seems fair to imply that Jehovah was truly and directly responsible for writing such a unjust law that his own son would later decry. Speaking of overreaction, the death sentence was also proscribed for a rebellious teenager who eats to much and gets drunk all the time. Granted, this theoretical son is clearly not the best example of living a Godly life, but how is the death penalty a fitting punishment? And the point of this was so that the rest of the nation would hear of it and be AFRAID. No kidding. I would imagine a stern "Stop drinking all of my wine, get off your lazy bum and do something with your life" would be very effective if the teenager knew that DEATH was the other option. Still, this is conformity through fear, not the sort of sincere obedience from love I hear so much about. (Deut 21:18) What about 2 kings 2:23 where the God's punishment for little children who make fun of his prophet is to send a bear from the woods to tear them to pieces? In duet 25:11, If a woman sees her husband in a fight with a man, and goes to break up the fight, and in the process grabs his privates, her hand is to be chopped off. Seriously??? How can you feel good about giving Jehovah direct credit as the writer of that law? Later in Duet 22:22, the following laws regarding fornication and rape are given: If a man lies with a betrothed virgin "in the city" and she does not protest by screaming (meaning it appears to be consensual immorality, not rape) then they are both killed. Once you buy into the value system that fornication is deserving of the death penalty, this seems to make sense. (As long as you don't allow any room for the fact that the poor girl might have been too terrified to scream) Next, if the same thing happens to an engaged virgin in the FIELD, not in the city, only the man is killed, because clearly it would be impossible say for sure that the girl was a consenting party. By default, the situation is treated as rape: The rapist dies, the girl is considered innocent. Still makes relative sense. Next, a very similar situation is described, with one important difference: This time, the virgin girl is SINGLE. Not engaged. Not already promised to, or "owned" by a man. This time if the man "finds", "seizes", and rapes her, not only is the man not killed, he is made by law to BUY the property he "ruined" and the girl is stuck married to her rapist for the rest of her life! The woman is clearly being treated as a piece of property here, and the death penalty seems only summoned when the woman has been "stolen" from her rightful owner. As long as she doesn't have an owner, premarital sex, even rape, does not appear to be much of a moral outrage, simply a social inconvenience. ---- Moving on to the Bible's relationship with science: I understand that verses such as "the circle of the earth"
and "hanging the earth upon nothing" seem to agree with modern scientific thought. However, to point to those Scriptures as honestly representing the Biblical model of the universe is to ignore almost every other cosmological image painted by bible writers... In conflict with the "hanging on nothing" model (which, incidentally, was JOB telling Jehovah how he did things) are the many other scriptures that talk about the earth: 1 Sam 2:8 has Jehovah placing the earth on pillars. The earth of the Bible has a foundation (prov 8:29) and socket pedestals (Job 38:4-6) and pillars (job 9:6) and has corners (Rev 7:2) and edges (job 38:13) that Jehovah "grabs" in order the shake the wicked off the earth. The earth flatted like clay under a seal (job 38:14) and is spread out over top of the water (ps 136:6) and indeed the ocean goes all the way "under" the earth (Ex 20:4) The bible also says that the earth is immovable. (Ps 104:5)(Ps 93:1)(ps 119:90)(1 Cron 16:30) Unless, of course, Jehovah wants to move it: "He is making the earth go quaking from its place, So that its very pillars shudder." (Job 9:6) while the earth remains fixed and stationary, the sun clearly moves: (Ecc 1:5)(Ps 50:1) except of course, when Jehovah chooses to stop it from moving (Josh 10:13) The stars are actually quite small, and close enough that if the sky is shaken hard enough, they fall to the earth (rev 6:13)(mark 13:25) The Bible also says that if a tree grew tall enough (Dan 4:10) it could be seen by the entire world (the picture only makes sense if the writer thought of the earth as flat) This is an interesting scripture: Ezekiel 32:7 "And when you get extinguished I will cover the heavens and darken their stars. As for the sun, with clouds I shall cover it, and the moon itself will not let its light shine. All the luminaries of light in the heavens I shall darken them on your account, and I will put darkness upon your land " In order to darken the sky, Jehovah must take care of both the sun AND the moon. The moon possess it's own light, Although this makes perfect sense from the perspective of a writer living in bible times, it is simply wrong according to science. I know, I know, all of these verses are explained away by the simple statement: "But this is all POETRY! It's not meant to be taken literally. It's just a pretty and artistic way of talking about the universe" Maybe, but the problem with taking that stance is that the favorite two "scientifically sound" scriptures mentioned at the start are drawn from the very same "poems". They are (sometimes literally) right next to poetic language that flatly contradicts science. How can you cherrypick one fragment of poetry and say "well HERE, the writer stopped using symbolic language for a split second, and stated one scientific fact. He then resumed his unscientific poetry in the next verse." Drawing that line after the fact is simply not very impressive. The fact is that for many hundreds of years a vocal minority of Christians used the Bible to PROVE a flat earth at the center of the universe! The argument for a round earth was thrown out because it was a GREEK idea, and therefore must be pagan. For agreeing with this Grecian world view, Galileo was threatened with death- His findings were in conflict with the current understanding of the bible. All the way up till fairly modern times, conservative Christians felt that denying a flat geocentric earth was a compromise of their faith. No matter what scientific credit we try and give the Bible today, the fact remains that the effect of the Bible on science has historically been dangerous and stifling. Besides all of this, the elephant in the room of the idea that the Bible is in total harmony with science is the long list of miracles including, most impressively, virgin birth, regrowth of malformed limbs, raising the dead, making an iron axe head float, a staff turning into a snake... Yes, I know the faithful belive in such things because God can obviously do whatever it wants, but saying that these things actually happened puts the Bible clearly in conflict with the entire system of physics and biology that all of current scientific thought hinges on. You might say that Jehovah was manipulating some physical laws that we are not yet aware of, but that is simply saying the bible agrees with the science of TOMORROW. That is going to gain exactly no respect from scientists who live in today. It would seem to me that Science and a realistic reading of the Bible can only be in harmony if you are picking cherries from one of them. If you say that the Bible never once endorses an unscientific view, as the November Awake clearly stated, what exactly do you mean by "scientific"? A nebulous "ad hoc" notion called "True Science", which is defined as selected scientific ideas that fit with your preformed beliefs about the universe as acquired from study of the Bible? By that definition, early christens were defending "True Science" when they rejected a spinning, round, old earth. They were saying "We like science, but if it conflicts with what the Bible says, it must be wrong." Christians today have moved the battle line, but are saying the exact same thing. [inkling]

purplesofa

im interested in your letter, but need to wait to read it in the morning....

kinda tired.

purps

edited to add:

Welcome to the board

franzy

very nice presentation

good info

thanks

oompa

Inkling, I only wish I had written it. But i will take the credit when i cut and paste it and share it! With your permission of course...oompa

Shawn10538

A wonderful email. Thank you so much for posting it! Don't forget that
the circle of the earth" scripture was also used to "prove" that the earth was FLAT. It was supposedly a FLAT circle, not a sphere. Then when we discovered that the earth was a sphere they said, this proves that it is a sphere!

Open mind

Hey inkling,

I know this thread's getting a little stale by JWD standards, but I just wanted to say "GREAT JOB"!

I'm gonna save this for the "Can We Trust the Bible?" talk I'm sure I'll someday have with my 98% JW-loyal wife.

Thanks for a great post.

Open Mind