by unshackled 14 Replies latest watchtower bible
This is from the latest April 15 Watchtower (page 7)...
How about being good just because it is the right thing to do? Morality based on fear of punishment and hope for reward is not morality at all. Doing so is simply self-serving. True morality is based on one giving of themselves for the benefit of others.
Kinda like charity. Some do it for recognition or status. But true charity is done without anyone knowing...stemming from a genuine desire to help, without need for recognition or reward.
In contrast, it's the fear of Hell (however conceived) that prevents many people from indulging their doubts about their cherished beliefs, as handed to them by their parents.
In answer to the OP - No. Love motivates people to do good to others. That can also be love by and for Christ and God.
Tammy
This is perhaps one of the worst lies that can be told, and one that very much distorts people's lives. Yes, I very much agree with you that good should be done because it's the right thing to do, not because there is a prize for you.
Morality based on fear of punishment and hope for reward is not morality at all. Doing so is simply self-serving.
Yeah!
I would like to remember one anecdote that my atheist grand-father used to tell. Someone stole something from a priest. The priest said, "I myself will do nothing against my brother. I will, however, tell the Police, and then the Lord Almighty will judge him in the Heavens". My grandfather pointed out the curious double jeopardy here: being judged on Earth, possibly imprisoned, and then the Good Lord demanding that you pay again for the same crime. This is a very curious example of "morals" indeed.
This being a site for Jehovah's witnesses, someone will probably claim that this happened because the person involved was a dirty rotten Catholic. But that's not the case. I bet many a former JW, or acting JW, will recognize that the priest's way of thinking would have fit their own.
Why would it have been wrong for the Lord Almighty to forgive the thief once he came out of jail?
This is perhaps a very common example, but, why is it that a God that created the Canaanites and sent Jesus to save them would not hesitate to have the Israelites kill them to make space, or "Lebensraum"?
My father used to ask me what I would do if I knew that killing someone would spare lots of people a lot of suffering. Would I care more about my own salvation than about my brothers and sisters?
Finally, I would like to point out that the very way the sentence was worded in the Watchtower says I (and Unshackled) are very right. The sentence goes like this:
"A healthy fear of Jehovah strengthens our resolve to be honest".
Which means it was NOT Jehovah that gave us the resolve to be honest, right? The "healthy fear" only "strengthens it", right?
Would anyone even think of claiming that "a healthy fear" of the electric chair "strengthens" the resolve to be honest?
Would anyone even think of claiming that "a healthy fear" of the electric chair "strengthens" the resolve to be honest?
Well put, dgp. What a messed up phrase 'healthy fear' is...an oxymoron when supposedly involving love.
Good ol' Albert Einstein put it this way:
"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
Doing good every day all by oursleves
More BS from same article, this is from page 6:
A true-life experience illustrates the positive effect of such healthy concern, or fear. Ricardo and his wife, Fernanda, withdrew the equivalent of seven hundred dollars (U.S.) from their bank account. Fernanda put the stack of bills into her purse without counting it. On arriving home after having paid some bills, they were surprised to find almost the same amount that they had withdrawn still in Fernanda’s purse.
“The bank cashier must have overpaid us,” they concluded. At first, they were tempted to keep the money, since they had many other unpaid bills.
Ricardo explains: “We prayed to Jehovah for strength to return the money. Our desire to please him in response to his appeal at Proverbs 27:11made us want to return the money.”
What a pathetic example of morality. These people had to "pray to Jehovah for the strength to return the money?" Seriously, they couldn't muster the decency themselves? Keep those kind of people far, far away from me.
Unshackled, you'd think that the idea that you'd be destroyed by great balls of fire (sorry, Jerry Lee) would be more than simple encouragement to return the money. So, if they had to pray... wow.
I don't remember if I read this in a book by Christopher Hitchens or where. Whoever the author is, I don't think he or she will mind my repeating the essence of the argument the person advanced.
Say, is killing bad because God says so, or is it bad on itself?
If you say "Killing is bad because God says so", then someone could rightfully object that He is some bad God you're talking about. So most people would say "Killing is bad in itself". And if it is so, if killing is bad in itself, how come you still think you need God to tell you what is right and what is wrong?
In his "Cain", Jose Saramago points out that the God of the Bible had no problem letting Satan bring all kind of miseries on Job, just for the sake of a stupid bet with the devil. A bet whose outcome a God that knows it all had to know in advance. The fact that Job was a God-fearing man is not a minor detail. God had no trouble bringing all kinds of miseries on one of the "Obedient Class". Is this a fine example of morals?
I have a devilish question. If Ricardo and Fernanda had prayed to Jehovah and He had told them that the cashier was going to die at Armageddon anyways, so the best use of the money could be to further the work of missionaries in, say, Thailand, would Jehovah hold it against them?
dgp...guess there are numerous moral paradoxes to be found in the bible. Lot offering his daughters to be raped, god testing abraham to kill his son, genocide, infanticide, etc.
I have a devilish question. If Ricardo and Fernanda had prayed to Jehovah and He had told them that the cashier was going to die at Armageddon anyways, so the best use of the money could be to further the work of missionaries in, say, Thailand, would Jehovah hold it against them?
When it comes to theocratic warfare anything goes.
