by brotherdan 284 Replies latest watchtower bible
BTW, I noticed you picked the example you could add words to to make it fit and ignored the Judas example. You can always go for the WT explanation and say he hanged himself over a cliff and evidently the branch broke and that's why he burst open after falling. You can make anything fit with the word "evidently". Evidently, the census means reserves even though they never said that, and evidently meant "experienced in battle" even thought they never said that.
Evidently it's bullshit.
Brother Dan
In your very first post on this thread you quote a Bible verse that says those who don't believe in God are fools. Then you say you believe in the bible. That is the same as saying you believe those who don't believe in the Bible are fools. Then you/the Bible speculate about their beliefs being due to immorality and an excuse to sin. So after starting your thread with this insult to atheists, you make a disclaimer saying you didn't mean to be insulting. Then you say you are sick and tired of being made to feel foolish and being insulted by atheists.
I, for one, am sick of this kind of hypocrisy on the part of many believers, whose very holy book insults and condemns to death EVERYONE who doesn't believe in it, milleniums before evolution or atheism were even words. Do many believers think atheists are amoral fools? Yes! Do many atheists think believers are delusional fools? Yes! Don't try to sugarcoat it with some superficial layer of fake niceness and "love". Call the fruitage of your beliefs whatever you like, but it still smells and tastes like insult and intolerance to me.
Cog
What cog said.
After reading Ray Franz's books I felt a need to become a real Christian, and not the WT version of one. After examining the Bible without WT blinders, though, I found I agreed more with songwriter George Gershwin:
It ain't necessarily so
It ain't necessarily so
The things that you're liable
To read in the Bible,
It ain't necessarily so.
Little David was small, but oh my!
Little David was small, but oh my!
He fought Big Goliath
Who lay down and dieth!
Little David was small, but oh my!
Oh Jonah, he lived in the whale,
Oh Jonah, he lived in the whale,
For he made his home in
That fish's abdomen.
Oh Jonah, he lived in the whale.
Little Moses was found in a stream.
Little Moses was found in a stream.
He floated on water
Till old Pharaoh's daughter,
She fished him, she said, from that stream.
Well, it ain't necessarily so
Well, it ain't necessarily so
They tell all you children
The Devil's a villain,
But it ain't necessarily so!
To get into Heaven
Don't snap for a seven!
Live clean! Don't have no fault!
Oh, I take that gospel
Whenever it's possible,
But with a grain of salt.
Methuselah lived nine hundred years,
Methuselah lived nine hundred years,
But who calls that living
When no gal will give in
To a man that's nine hundred years ?
I'm preaching this sermon to show,
It ain't nece- ain't nece-
Ain't nece- ain't nece-
Ain't necessarily ... so!
BD, I had faith in the Bible even after leaving the WT.... until recently when I decided I must analyze my own cherished beliefs and scrutinize everything equally to make sure my judgment isn't clouded by bias.
In a search for truth, presuppositions adopted as a child have to be set aside. True critical thinking requires it. For example, I had to ask WHY I believed so strongly that the Bible was the inerrant word of God and work my way back to the time when I adopted that view.... as a child. And, as difficult as it was, that's exactly what I did (and am doing). I'm not saying that's your case, but it seems to be a common thread among many Christians I know.
If raised as one of JWs you should sincerely question if you ever really learned how to use critical thinking. I had not. Certain beliefs had been cordoned off in my mind from the hard questions and they were still in hiding even after my mind was opened to the fact that the Society is just a publishing corp.
I've got a lot to learn still and I suspect I won't ever have verifiable answers to all my questions, but I'm content with the direction I'm headed. And I feel like I'm much better equipped to analyze information without bias contaminating it.
You suggest atheists need a cop-out so they don't have to feel guilty. Please tell me you recognize both the generalization and the red herring here. For example, my parents will believe I'm leaving the organization for any reason BUT the real reason. They can't accept that I am searching for TRUTH instead of a foregone conclusion so they use a red herring to rationalize it away. "Oh, you just WANT to live your life without God." "You want to lead an easy life." "You must've had an affair and don't want to own up to it." (Seriously, my mom suggested the latter this past weekend. Of all the things to accuse, that is the only one the really angered me. It also proves to me how grossly deluded she is.)
An atheist could easily turn your argument around and say that Christians only believe there's a God because emotionally/mentally they can't handle the thought that this life is all there is. They're scared of the alternative. But that's a fallacy. Atheists can't paint with such a broad brush and neither can you.
Also, Bible or no Bible, to say that an athiest can't find REAL contentment in life is the fallacious "No True Scotsman" argument. See the video below. If you can dispute the logic here, please let me know.
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheraminTrees#p/u/16/_HJrAaGJudw
(If anyone can embed the above vid, please feel free. I'm a retarded agnostic.)
Marcus, that was well stated.
You can always go for the WT explanation and say he hanged himself over a cliff and evidently the branch broke and that's why he burst open after falling. You can make anything fit with the word "evidently".
This is a good example of a technical harmonization that breaks down when examined closely. First of all, there is no "cliff" in either Matthew or Acts. There is no hanging mentioned in Acts, nor even any falling. Yes, English translations often render the Greek prénés genomenos as "falling headlong" but this is a harmonistic rendering; it actually means "becoming headlong", i.e. assuming an upside down posture. As I have argued in prior posts, the presence of prénés in Acts 1:18 is itself harmonistic. If the author meant "falling headlong," why didn't he write prénés pesón instead (as Josephus does in Bellum Judaicum 1.32.1, Vita 28.138)? The way the text reads presently is very odd: Judas bought a field, he became upside down, he burst in the middle, and his guts poured out. As even the NWT recognizes in a footnote, there is an alternate reading in the versions meaning "becoming swollen" and this would have been préstheis genomenos. This makes much more sense: Judas bought a field, he became swollen, he burst in the middle, and his guts spilled out into the field. The oldest extrabiblical version of the story of Judas' death (c. AD 100-140) found in Papias in fact describes Judas as préstheis "swollen", and Papias is exegetically dependent on the same OT intertext that Acts 1 uses (i.e. Psalm 69), it thus is an elaboration the same story. And Acts 1:18-20 uses not only Psalm 69 but also Psalm 109 (Psalm 109:8 quoted in Acts 1:20), and it is in that text that there is an exegetical basis for the swelling motif: "He dressed himself up in curses like a cloak, and it entered him like water into his insides and like oil into his bones" (109:17-18; cf. John 13:27 about Satan entering into Judas). Neither does Papias also mention anything about a hanging or suicide. What is more, the story in Acts has Judas himself purchase the field, with him dying in it; it is because of his bloody demise that the field is called Bloody Acre. The story in Matthew is incompatible with this because Judas never spent the money, he returned it to the Temple priests and they were the ones who purchased the field. The bloody name of the field ("Field of Blood") in Matthew rather is due to the use that the field was to be put, as a cemetary for foreigners. And neither does Matthew conceive of Judas committing suicide in this field. Some have tried to harmonize Matthew with Acts again by claiming in some arcane way that because it was Judas' money that the priests used, it could technically be said that Judas bought the field. But this ignores Acts 1:20 which applies Psalm 69:25 to Bloody Acre being uninhabitable (a feature also found in Papias' version of the story), and that intertext makes reference to "his habitation" being brought to ruin and made uninhabitable, so this reinforces the idea in Acts that the field was indeed Judas' own where he made his habitation.
So it is far more felicitous to treat these two stories as simply independent accounts of Judas' death, sharing a few similarities (e.g. associating the money to a field called Bloody Acre or Field of Blood) but rather different in the details. Shoehorning them into a single harmonistic narrative creates a new story not found in the original biblical sources. And indeed, if you look at the writings of the church fathers (as I did here), you can find an amazing variety of harmonized stories positing a bewildering array of scenarios of how Judas died.
This is a good example of a technical harmonization that breaks down when examined closely.
You are so turning me on right now with your brain.
I am also slightly drunk. And yes, that was totall the WT explanation.
I read the first post and skimmed the rest, so I apologize if someone said what I am trying to say already...
First: I really like, and agree, with what Leolaia says here:
People obey laws and give themselves to their communities and give their lives to help others regardless of what theistic beliefs they do or do not have. Psychopaths, sexual predators, cheats like Bernie Madoff, etc. are the kind of people that today say in their hearts "there is no God" in the same sense intended by the psalmist.
In the Bible Jesus gives us two commandments: 1) to love God with all your heart, soul, might and 2) to love your neighbor as yourself. For me: I believe God exists and he is there whether a person believes in God or not. God is inside all of His creation. And to think of that really the first commandment (which is really hard to do even for a theist) is the same/explained or clarified by the second commandment. Further to love your neighbor as yourself presupposes that we love ourselves. So, in my way of thinking: if people are loving others then they are in good terms with God. If people are acting unkind or hateful then they are not. Basically: it is more important how we act. What we believe can form how we act (every deed was first conceived as a thought)... however in the end it is what we do that defines us. (I think I'm quoting a batman movie now...)
I also feel: if people do not come to church what is it about church they do not like? If people don't want to be Christian, what is it about Christians that they do not like? Instead of seeing the atheist in the wrong, what are the theists doing wrong that make Christianity so unappealing? If we represent God, how are we misrepresenting him that people don't want anything to do with Him?
Reading your post, brotherdan, I can see that it was well intentioned, however, from another Christian's perspective: it DOES have a condescending tone. If I were an atheist I would not want to talk to you. You escape saying "hey, it's not me who says this, it is the Bible..." but you are putting it into context. It is good to remember the story of The Good Samaritan. A man needed help on the day that happened to be the Sabbath. Holy Men passed the man who needed help and did not help him because they too escaped the loving responsibility by hiding behind the law: can't work on the Sabbath. It was a man who wasn't holy, who didn't follow the religious practices at all, a Samaritan (which was highly controversial person in the story) who didn't have the Jewish Laws who stopped to help.
I saw Terry and VoidEater act in what I consider a Christian matter saying you are entitled to believe what you want, let's have peace.
Anyway, thats how I see it. I don't think you were intentionally condescending, but we have to stop and think of your audience. You know who will read it. Are you acting how Jesus would? Is it really welcoming conversation? Or is it telling them who is wrong? I'm sure I am condescending often, it is easy to do when we feel we know what is right. I think it is wonderful that you bring a Christian perspective... I'm here with you on that - we just have to remember that when we say we are Christians who we are representing and how we can bring people closer to Him or drive them further away from Him.
God Bless you.
