by Tuesday 18 Replies latest jw friends
David's book Jehovah's Witnesses Answered Verse by Verse fills that void by citing Bible passages, giving the WT spin, and then explaining specifically why he believes the WT spin is wrong and what he believes the correct interpretation is.
This sounds like a great book. This was somewhat my idea but with an obvious different spin given I'm an atheist.
I have read a lot of books about Jehovah's Witnesses by former Witnesses and by Evangelicals who oppose Witnesses. I would not say David Reed is the best in this genre. I prefer Robert M Bowman Jr. from the Evangelical side, and Don Cameron from the former Witness camp.
It would be interesting to read a discussion of Witness use of the Bible from a skeptical rather than an Evangelical viewpoint. I can't think of any books along those lines.
I've read David's book, 'Blood on the Altar' and I enjoyed it.
Based upon your response above, I'd also suggest that you read Randy Watters' "Refuting Jehovah's Witnesses", which is a topical rebuttal to JW beliefs.
http://www.freeminds-store.com/books/refuting-jehovah-s-witnesses.html
Randy is the only writer I know of, who supports this forum- so buy his books first, please.
It would be interesting to read a discussion of Witness use of the Bible from a skeptical rather than an Evangelical viewpoint. I can't think of any books along those lines.
There-in lies the question of whether writing a skeptic's annotations to the Jehovah's Witnesses religion even has an audience that will read it. It seems the only people who want to talk to Jehovah's Witnesses about faith are Evangelicals. I'm looking at it from the viewpoint of having that Aunt you love that's a Jehovah's Witness that everyone is afraid to discuss religion with because they don't know anything about her religion and are afraid to offend her. That's what I'm hoping to shed light on for people, ways to open a dialogue and ways to make sure they don't derail the conversation.
It does seem like this has been a subject that has been addressed MANY times before though, I don't know if it's something I should be going down the path of doing. I'd hate to just re-hash the same old information, I'm sort of an outside-the-box thinker guy. I'm pretty sure with my writing style and the things that I focus on it would be a VERY different type of book than the others. On the other hand I love Randy so much, he was the only former JW that send mail correspondance to my father during the divorce case for custody of me. I wouldn't want to step on any toes.
A book written from a skeptical viewpoint doesn't necessarily need to be atheistic in viewpoint. It could simply refute WT/JW doctrine and avoid the path of substituting WT/JW doctrine with an alternative Christian doctrine. Or maybe it could refute the Borg doctrines logically and hold up a secular humanist alternative.
David started out a bold brave maverick way back in the early 1980's much like Randy Watters and was an 'apostate' pioneer for the rest of us I have met him and was a big help for me when I left in 92.
I confessed to trashing him when I was in.
Ironically the same lead elder bastard (Bill D.) that dfed him also sat on my JC
A book written from a skeptical viewpoint doesn't necessarily need to be atheistic in viewpoint. It could simply refute WT/JW doctrine and avoid the path of substituting WT/JW doctrine with an alternative Christian doctrine. Or maybe it could refute the Borg doctrines logically and hold up a secular humanist alternative.
Very true, I was thinking of doing that. My biggest pet peeve with Jehovah's Witnesses is the arguments they use to refute things. That's actually what my book was going to focus on, I was going to use the trinity in there because the arguments against the trinity are all straw men arguments that aren't actually about the trinity belief itself. So I wanted to outline the ACTUAL trinity belief and why their arguments aren't honest arguments.
Since biology was my minor in college I wanted to delve into evolution as well and destroy their Evolution book along with all their stupid arguments against evolution.
Tuesday, you have a PM.
