Great reply to "Apostates only tear down, they never build up!"

SweetBabyCheezits

I'm sure many of you are familiar with that line. It continues to be a card played frequently by the WT Society.

Is there any truth to it? "Apostates" do tend to tear down. But I think Robert G. Ingersoll (per wiki... a Civil War veteran, American political leader, and orator during the Golden Age of Freethought) gave the charge some perspective and answered it beautifully. But bear in mind, he had no relationship to the WTS at all - he was replying to rants against his agnostic views. Still, this is the best response I've ever heard to that charge:

Interviewer: The great objection to your teaching urged by your enemies is that you constantly tear down, and never build up.

Ingersoll: ...."A destroyer of weeds, thistles, and thorns is a benefactor, whether he soweth grain or not." I cannot for my life see why one should be charged with tearing down and not rebuilding simply because he exposes a sham, or detects a lie. I do not feel under any obligation to build something in the place of a detected falsehood. All I think I am under obligation to put in the place of a detected lie is the detection.

Most religionists talk as if mistakes were valuable things and they did not wish to part with them without a consideration. Just how much they regard lies worth a dozen I do not know. If the price is reasonable I am perfectly willing to give it, rather than to see them live and give their lives to the defense of delusions.

[edit: removed latter half of answer as it pertains more to his agnostic views]

(BTW, I'd like to thank LeavingWT - who is currently taking a post break from JWN - for first tipping me off to Ingersoll's writings. All of his texts can be found online and also on iBooks for free download.)

mrsjones5

Very interesting. I like the response. Thanks for the link.

wobble

Great reasonings, can't fault him. I really must remember this, it kind of sorts out their "But where would we go " question too.

Go wherever you like, but don't get fooled again, is all I woiuld say, it is not down to me to tell you.

SweetBabyCheezits

Quite welcome, Mrs. Jones.

Wobble: I really must remember this, it kind of sorts out their "But where would we go " question too.

Yeah, it always frustrated me talking to my mom because countering arguments was no problem but we would inevitably reach this point: "Well you don't have any answers. All you have is more questions!"

The 'destroyer of weeds' aphorism would've been a nice succinct reply.

mrsjones5

This is great. I followed the link and found the works of Robert Ingersoll on this site and I'm reading one of his lectures called "What Must We Do to be Saved?"

This is a quote from the lecture:

Do not imagine for a moment that I think people who disagree with me are bad people. I admit, and I cheerfully admit, that a very large proportion of mankind, and a very large majority, a vast number are reasonably honest. I believe that most Christians believe what they teach; that most ministers are endeavoring to make this world better. I do not pretend to be better than they are. It is an intellectual question. It is a question, first, of intellectual liberty, and after that, a question to be settled at the bar of human reason. I do not pretend to be better than they are. Probably I am a good deal worse than many of them, but that is not the question. The question is: Bad as I am, have I the right to think? And I think I have for two reasons:

First, I cannot help it. And secondly, I like it.

The whole question is right at a point. If I have not a right to express my thoughts, who has?

"Oh," they say, "we will allow you to think, we will not burn you."

"All right; why won't you burn me?"

"Because we think a decent man will allow others to think and to express his thought."

"Then the reason you do not persecute me for my thought is that you believe it would be infamous in you?"

"Yes."

"And yet you worship a God who will, as you declare, punish me forever?"

Surely an infinite God ought to be as just as man. Surely no God can have the right to punish his children for being honest. He should not reward hypocrisy with heaven, and punish candor with eternal pain.

The next question then is: Can I commit a sin against God by thinking? If God did not intend I should think, why did he give me a thinker? For one, I am convinced, not only that I have the right to think, but that it is my duty to express my honest thoughts. Whatever the gods may say we must be true to ourselves.

tec

The 'destroyer of weeds' aphorism would've been a nice succinct reply.

Yes. Straight to the point.

SweetBabyCheezits

Wow, Mrs. Jones, I haven't made it to that lecture yet but what an awesome argument for the freedom of thought discouraged by the WT...

Can I commit a sin against God by thinking? If God did not intend I should think, why did he give me a thinker?

sd-7

As a great documentary once said,

"Impossible! Nothing can get through our shield!" [Off camera] "BANG!!" [Pyrotechnics go off]

--sd-7

SweetBabyCheezits

And thank you, SD-7, for the Star Wars reference! BTW, I just introduced my daughter to that "documentary" and now she's obsessed with it. :-D

I quit!

Years ago when I would go in the AOL JW chatrooms this came up all the time "where are we to go" or "what do you have to offer that is better". I'd try to get it through their heads that it didn't matter if I had something that was better than the Watchtower to offer them or nothing at all. The point was is the Watchtower teaching the truth. I wasn't trying to sell them anything or get them to believe like me. The point wasn't whether I had a better package to offer them but they seemed think it was.

As for the "where are we to go". Dubs have that drilled into them. The only place they need to go once they realize it is a crock is out the door. The rest will work itself out once the get back on the road.

Great reply to "Apostates only tear down, they never build up!"

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