Outright Misrepresentations of Quotes and Citations in Watchtower Literature (page 2)

Cadellin

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The newish Origin of Life brochure is rife with logical fallacies and out-of-context quotes.

I was really floored by the account of Harry Peloyan. This in particular is daming: "Peloyan's overall attitude about using quotes in a way the original author would disagree with was that it did not matter. As long as the words were quoted properly, the author's intent was irrelevant." This is shoddy research at best, and at worse, outright deceict. Perhaps this explains the motivations.

A friend of mine had many issues with the Blue Creation book. In fact, he, the most conscientious Witness I know, said plainly, 'I hate it'. And he should know, for biology was his major in college. He was very conscious on how the Society's publications would look to professors and academics that he knew and thus believed they needed to be top-notch in terms of accuracy. He never told me exactly what the problems were and I never imagined the problems ran that deep. And he often told me that the Insight books has contradictions because they were produced by committee.

Londo111

sd-7: Yes you should...and yes you did. Good show! :)

cptkirk

if you look at their own book, think it's called "all scripture inspired" it's blue. it quotes caesar in regard to "crucifying" people....as a means to add veracity to their writings? why the hell would you quote a first century caesar talking about crucifixion, if your whole stance is that it was a stake? it should be under "acts" in that inspired book. it goes on to say something about some egregious sect called christians were irritating everyone, so caesar blamed some of the fires in rome on them, and then had them all crucified. was a fun place to live i heard.

Retrovirus

My jw ladies gave me the earlier "Creation" book, that relied heavily on Francis Hitching, even referring to him as an "expert" - wtf??

He has a basic science degree and has never been employed as a scientist or teacher.

I found this quite shocking as I couldn't find any such reference on the net - it looked as if they'd simply made it up.

dontplaceliterature

Interestingly, the Jehovah's Witnesses doctrine on The Cross is the first thing I can ever remember questioning. I was 17 or 18 years old. I remember thinking that it was silly that we made such a big deal out of it, and that in my World History classes in school we never heard about The Roman Empire hanging anyone on a stake - they crucified people. Why would Jesus be an exception to that rule?

Without even researching the doctrine thoroughly, it has always been my position that The Watchtower was making a big deal out of it for no reason. This week, I have spent some time researching this (jwfacts; WT Articles (AND THE SOURCES THEY QUOTE!)) and have discovered that the idea is completely fabricated. It's a real shame that they would take the time to lie about something that is so insignificant. For what? To be different? Even if they didn't agree with scholarly research, wouldn't the humble course have been to say, "We aren't sure, and it's not important to salvation, so draw your own conclusion"?

leavingwt

This week, I have spent some time researching this (jwfacts; WT Articles (AND THE SOURCES THEY QUOTE!)) and have discovered that the idea is completely fabricated.

Please give the Service Department a call and ask them about this. Please give them your real name and the name of one of your elders. I'm confident that you'll be rewarded for your honest search for truth. It's the most wonderful organization on the planet. They alone represent God and they alone have 'the truth', and they alone dispense true wisdom from above. Unlike the churches of Babylon, they do not lie to their members.

On second thought, you should keep this research to yourself, or they'll attempt to separate you from every friend and family member that you have.

Funny how that works.

dontplaceliterature

I think I'll write a letter to them about it. I'll show it to my dad first, so he can see how crooked they are. Then when they don't respond, or they go into damage control mode, he can witness the abuse. The response will be, "That's nice, but the understanding is...", while completely ignoring the contradicting evidence, followed by a letter/call to my BOE advising them to yank me into "the bad room" so they can interrogate me as to why I'm giving into "foolish and ignorant questionings." (2 Timothy 2:23)

leavingwt

donotplaceliterature: PLEASE listen to what I'm about to tell you. This is very important.

I just wanted you to know this before proceeding. Make no mistake, they do not want to receive letters from anyone.

If you write a letter, you have joined a special group of people. Once this box has been opened, it can never be shut.

I well recall the many times at Brooklyn Bethel that the older men would mock those at Bethel that had the nerve to write letters to the leadership at Bethel, to ask a question or express a concern. They view themselves as God, and writing a letter will officially be the end of your theocratic career.

You will be marked (unofficially) as a trouble-maker and the local elders and others in the circuit will know about it. Your spouse will then be the person married to the trouble-maker. Your parents will be the parents of the trouble-maker.

I just wanted to give you a fair warning.

BluesBrother

These might be covered in the links above, but they are worth repeating in the thread.. I am no evolutionist but if you want to defend creation, one must at least be honest, and these sickened me.

The Quote:*** ce 18 2 Disagreements About Evolution -- Why? ***

12 Darwin acknowledged this as a problem. For example, he wrote: "To suppose that the eye . . . could have been formed by [evolution], seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."

The Source:Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, 1859, p. 133:

"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certainly the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered as subversive of the theory."

The Quote:*** ce 39 4 Could Life Originate by Chance? ***

5 At this point a reader may begin to understand Dawkins' comment in the preface to his book: "This book should be read almost as though it were science fiction."

The Source:Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, 1976, p. ix:

"This book should be read almost as though it were science fiction. It is designed to appeal to the imagination. But it is not science fiction: it is science. Cliché or not, "stranger than fiction" expresses exactly how I feel about the truth."

Outright Misrepresentations of Quotes and Citations in Watchtower Literature

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