by WT Comments 28 Replies latest watchtower bible
I was not shown mercy although I practiced mercy towards others.
It is shattering.
Anewme -- I feel the same way. The Watchtower puts out this stuff that sounds good and righteous. However, in practice, it's the APPEARANCE of goodness that gets you ahead in JW-land. Those who actually practice lowliness, humility and mercy are soon trampled. Like someone once told me, "no good deed goes unpunished".
Brilliant! WTC...
I had not picked up the cognitive dissonance angle - but it is so true.
16) We can be confident that when Jehovah executes his judgment upon the present wicked system of things, the "great crowd" of true worshippers, who "have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb," will be spared. Thus, they will "come out of the great tribulation."-Revelation 7: 9-14.
Of course if he did not spare them then mankind would disappear, his purpose thwarted , so he has to spare them...by their own reasoning
It took me many decades to see finally that my occasional disquiet about the morality of Armageddon , was in fact the real truth - and that they are the deluded ones.
Comments on paragragh 5 previously stated:
Jehovah conductedthe first infanticide of Bible history (Exodus 12:29-30), arbitrarily killing every firstborn Egyptian and animal!. Was this action necessary, dare I say merciful?
This is incorrect; the Egyptians are first on record in the Bible to do this.
Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying: "Every newborn son you are to throw into the river Nile, but every daughter you are to preserve alive." -Exodus 1:22
The corrected comment reads:
Here Jehovah arbitrarily killed every firstborn Egyptian and animal! Was this action necessary, dare I say merciful? (Exodus 12:29-30)
My apologies and thanks for all your comments.
This just occurred to me --
The chances are 10 out of 10 that they'll use the sickly-sweet song "Happy Are the Merciful" for this meeting. The one that has that extra line after verse 3 that only a few bother to sing: "How happy are the merciful... In God's eyes truly beautiful."
Good guess Gopher. The song is # 62 Happy, the Merciful!
Actually they assigned that song to next week's study, "Practice Mercy--How?"
Thanks V ! To think that I used to be the Watchtower conductor. I closed my eyes and mind to many cognitive dissonance study issues and fell into # 1 and # 2.
I wish I could conduct this one, I could just see the PO.'s jaw dropping getting out of his seat and rushing to remove me right after the introductory comments you provided and taking over the study himself. Later in the back room: Brother Blueblades, what was that all about? Blueblades, Here is my copy from WT.Comments by V. PO.,Who's this Wt comments V guy? Whats all this cognitive dissonance stuff your talking about? Blueblades, Go ahead and read the article the way it should be understood, goodbye.
V, your comments on this one are spot on.
Blueblades
I was aghast over this nonsense of Jehovah being merciful, when taking in the supposed history of how he had the israelites kill all those of other city nations. I can't think of a Biblical character that i despise more than David. a murder, a fornicator, steals another mans wife gets thousands of people killed, oh yeah he was a real good example to follow i.e. Hannibal lecter wise.
v brought out that the Egyptians had children of the israelites killed., but then again we weren't having a study of how merciful the Egyptians were, its supposed to be about Jehovah being merciful. Just another week of BS my young children see through this easily, they were confused about how God could be merciful and yet at the same time the only one to be physically punished over the David and Bathsheba thing was a innocent child.
My children also realize that all the Society wants from them is a dumbing down and to hawk their mags donate to them, ask those you place them with to donate and of course give that donated money to the society all the time remembering that the literature is "free." What a bunch of bs. my spouse wants to donate $$ monthly to cover costs of hall/mags and I told el spouso to get a job and pay for it out of your funds i would rather throw my funds in the trash before giving it to them.
It strikes me that the concept of mercy- specifically the need for God to show mercy to us "miserable sinners"- is yet another control mechanism that religion has used for centuries. If you feel a sense of indebtedness and need for mercy that you can only get by satisfying the demands of the heirarchy then you are very easy to control.
That said- I think the practice of mercy by and between humans is one of the things that makes us human. It is a principle that should be taught, learned and practiced.
But- a merciful person will never let the person he has shown mercy to feel a sense of guilt and indebtedness.
This study was SOO frustrating to sit though. Everyone was talking about David's "consequences"
and "discipline" and all these other euphemisms, and no one even acknowledged what this "just
punishment to the right degree" was.
I was one hair of sanity away from getting the mic and going: "He slowly killed a f~~king BABY!!!
what the hell is WRONG with you people????"
sigh... sorry for that, I just had to rant.
I feel a bit better now.
[ink]
