There is no "they" who wrote those unTruths, who filtered out what was unpleasant and passed on only what was acceptable when quoting others. It was an individual. A different individual at different times. But you won't know which individual because of the anonymous attribution culture in Watchtower writings. Had each author known his/her name would be published along with his/her writing, you can be sure there would have been much less duplicity in the writing. Without personal responsibility, the truth went right out the window in what the Society wrote and now writes.
Have you read "Signs of the last days?" by Carl O Jonsson?
by Awakened at Gilead 27 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Awakened07
Hello there, fellow awakened.
I understand your anger (and dissapointment), as I've had the same myself. I haven't read this book, but it doesn't surprise me much anymore that they'd lie and misrepresent to find support for their views.
However, growing up, I was told that the WBTS writers were at least "semi-inspired" (whatever that would mean or how that would work...), and never lied, because they were guided by holy spirit, which would weed out any un-truth. This was "The Truth", after all. I remember thinking (and being told, I suppose) that it was so great that we had these 'pure' magazines and books, because what they contained was the Truth, and so we didn't need to investigate other sources, 'cause it was all in there (everything we needed to care about anyway). In our household growing up, we were not allowed to take the literature with us to read in the bathroom. This would be considered... well, 'sacrilege', for lack of a better word.
-So imagine my shock (same shock you're now experiencing, I suppose) when I found that they were in fact lying; misrepresenting, quoting out of context, quoting people as experts in a field when they're not experts, stringing together such quotes in an effort to make the reader reach the WBTS conclusions without stating them outright etc. It's even more sinister because they know that most of their reader base trust them completely, are rather naive, unknowing when it comes to many fields of science, unknowing when it comes to deceitful ways of laying out an argument, common fallacies in arguments, etc.
For me, as has also been mentioned in posts above, it was their dishonesty in quoting scientists (and "scientists") in the Creation books that did it. The links in Hellrider's post above are good, although rather lengthy and elaborate, but this page shows the misquotations without extrapolating too much, which makes it easier to see the big picture.
So no, I'm not really that surprised anymore. But it does still leave a bad taste in my mouth, and a sinking feeling in my gut, knowing I trusted them 100% for so many years of my life.
I'll see if I can get a hold of Jonsson's book as well. There's a whole lot of reading one needs to catch up on once one has left the Witnesses!
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Switch
Hi Awakened. Wow - I thought I was spending a lot of time reading but you have me beat by a longshot! I read "Signs of the Last Days" right after COC. It was fascinating to see all the data that he collected. I always suspected that our generation wasn't special with all the signs that the WT likes to stress over and over. I mean, come on, 2 Tim. 3: 1-5...People have been violent, liars and worse since the first pages of Genesis. And thinking back to history classes in school, the world spent hundreds of years fighting over colonies and land. Famines and plagues were devastating and would kill over half the population. Carl's book is very fascinating. He's compiled lots of figures and analyses. I should reread it cuz I devoured it rather quickly the first time. I think he mentioned also how it's only been recently that the population has really doubled in size or something like that. Mainly due to serious diseases being alleviated but also because the child mortality rate was...insane...I'm not sure what word I'm looking for. I could never understand how common and accepted it was that half the siblings of my grandparents and great grandparents never survived past childhood and women died in childbirth quite frequently. I feel grateful for living in this time period after contemplating Carl's book and what life was like for people down through the ages. Pre-1914 doesn't sound like no picnic to me.
Love your posts, A@G
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jookbeard
Great book along with The Gentile Times reconsidered had possibly the biggest influence in my leaving the WTS also Penton's Apocolypse Delayed is a classic also
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mouthy
Yes I read it after CofC.... Dont you have to admire these guys that go through all this heart ache researching all the lies of the WT ?....I know how I felt! After I had wasted so much of my life with them...& How disheartend YOU feel. But thank God for those who get them published.
I am waiting for Jim Penton's new book he is writing . -
S3RAPH1M
Their "earthquakes" never fully convinced me that we were living in the "Last days". Regardless of when the end of the age is, all Christians should be faithful and wise unconditionally.
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Dagney
Really nice thread. I hope any lurkers take the time to look into what is being discussed here.
Pre-1914 doesn't sound like no picnic to me.
PBS contributed to my education on this. There were numerous programs about the advances made for human life in the 1900's right arount the year 2000. And life was NO picnic for vast majority of mankind before 1914, whether you didn't have to lock your door or not! Human rights were almost nil; child labor was alive and well, and big business fought to keep them in the mines!!!
The list is endless.
I really hope any luking JW's take the challenge to "prove" Jonsson wrong and read his book.
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Awakened at Gilead
YoMamma and HellRider, Thanks for the additional reading material... I'll start to look at it closer soon.
IKnowNothing- Interesting take on anonimity and the WT. I enjoyed R Franzs revelation about who wrote what back then, though.
BTW....Interesting take on this... Ray Franz's WT he wrote in 1977 about Sacred Service, as well as Commentary on James and Choosing the Best way of life were all badmouth by one of our Gilead instructors who claimed that apostate influences had seeped in. CoC reveals who wrote each...
Awakened07, yes the WTS plays such mind games that they are spirit direected but not inspired... I'm gonna puke...
Switchlink and Dagney, I agree, rather than this being the worst of times this is about the best of time in human history to live. On interesting thing I saw in college was Jacob Riis documentary photos (taken pre-1914) called "How the other half lives" about poverty in US ghettoes... you never see such poverty anymore here in the US... strange if we're in the last days, right?
Jookbeard... I got Penton's book from the library, but I couldn't read it cover to cover like I did with the others... I found it somewhat repetitive and boring. Didn't do much for me.. we're all different.
Mouthy - Yes I do admire Carl O J for his courage. And reviewing the society's pubs before and after, he has had a profound influence on their claims. Loks like the WTS is not spirit inspired, but rather seek to do damage control, lol.
Lurkers please check out these books by C O Jonnson. They are filled with scientific proof that will leave your doubts outside!
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Terry
I've long had a theory about the Society and it's "scholarship".
The library at Bethel is filled to the brim with a hundred years worth of reference material.
This reference material is by NON-JW's!
In other words; actual scholars!
Here is my theory.
All (that's right, ALL) of the ideas presented in the Society's publications are triggered by things read in actual, scholarly tomes. The rub is this. They are twisted just enough to make them Jehovah-worthy!
I'd compare it to copying a popular singer's hit record by doing a cover version with a different arrangement and new lyrics.
The Society, in other words, consists of SCAVENGER pseudo-scholars!
The first time I became aware of this possibility was in the late 60's and early 70's when the language of the Watchtower studies changed in vocabulary to include the phrase: "Spaceship Earth." This, if I recall correctly, was a Buckminster Fuller term coined by him in his writings. Suddenly, it was---along with the peculiar "happifying" popping up hither and thither.
It came into my mind that the Watchtower writer had been influenced.
Further along....
I noticed how many secular writers were being quoted as support for various pet theories of the Watchtower. I said to myself, "Self, why are these Watchtower scholars wasting their time reading secular writers? How much of this goes on?"
Then, much later...
I began going to the library and reading actual quotes (complete quotes, not snippets!) from authors, scholars, etc. whom the Society DISAGREED WITH....and found they were deliberately misquoting or mischaracterizing these people!
Now I think they have no scholarship and never have. They just do twisted riffs on other people's homework.
A specific example of this is in the work of Martin Luther. If you read long passages of his rants against the Catholic Church you clearly see where Fred Franz got whole chunks of his book BABYLON THE GREAT HAS FALLEN-GOD'S KINGDOM RULES!
The "great minds" at Bethel are just like the lazy students at your local High School who crib off the A student's homework!
Bah! Humbugs!!
It all started with the methodology of Charles Taze Russell.
Think about what he actually did.
He bought the best titillating ideas about End Times he could afford and brought them together and distilled them into his own STUDIES IN THE SCRIPTURES.
Pyramidology, Adventist charts, Aquila Brown musings, Maria Russell's "faithful and wise servant" doctrinal brainfart, etc...
all of which became the centerpiece of Jehovah's Witness theology under Rutherford.
The methodology has never really changed.
What began as a dustbin of sweepings from crackpot authors transitioned into the re-arranging of actual mainstream scholar's work into a crazy quilt religion with contraian overtones and a pig-headed stubborness that is downright antisocial.
What a crock!
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AnnOMaly
yourmomma - Thanks for the link on 'Idealistic JW History.' Although I've seen examples before (like the 'Passing The Test' WT article a couple of years ago), it's great to see many other examples set out so methodically. It's a keeper.
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Please don't forget that Rud Persson ('Wolfgang Herbst') was co-author with Carl O. Jonsson. It's a bit of an insult not to acknowledge all his hard work with the book too.
(Hi Dagney
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