Gosh I wish I was better at having religious discussions with JWs. This evening, as I am at home trying to relax, I get a phone call from the local JWs who are evidently sitting in their KH dialing out.
I got this man who starts off by asking me if he can ask me a question. "Okaaaaay..." I say slowly...
"Do you think..." he starts... and then stops... obviously losing his place in his pre-prepared sermon...
"Yes." I reply. "Was that the question?"
"Well, err... no..." he stammers. "Do you think that there will ever be a paradise earth like there was in the Garden of Eden?"
"No." I reply.
"Can I read you a scripture?"
"Shoot." I reply.
He then fumbles a bit, and reads something from... I dunno... Psalms? I don't remember.
He then asks me if I believe what he read from the bible.
"Nope." I reply.
Anyway... I stump the chump, and he says, "Hang on a minute..." and hands the phone to a lady who obviously knows more about this sort of thing than he does.
She gets on the phone and we have a discussion about her believing in the bible.
"That's all fine and good, but who decided that these 66 books would be part of this bible?"
"Jehovah god." she replies. (She also informed me that their bible was derived from the King James Version... I didn't know that... I thought that it was derived elsewhere... but I never paid that close attention I guess.)
I tried to inform her that the books were decided by a group of men around 300 or 400 AD. They decided to put these 66 books together and create the bible. (Okay - that was where I wished that I had paid closer attention)
"Oh, no sir!" she goes into how the 40 prophets wrote the bible, and ... blah blah blah...
She was also getting very snippy when I told her it was part of history. Her basic comment was like "Well, men can change history..." to which I replied "Exactly! and that's what your leaders have done with your religion, too!"
Well... I asked her how her religion got started. She went something like "huh?" I asked her who founded their religion.
She again tried to convince me that it was started back around Jesus' day, etc. I interrupted her and reminded her that they have a corporation. Who started the business?
I give her points for saying "Taze Russel". I then told her that her founder believed in Pyramidology, and that was where he came up with some of the numbers that they believe in today.
"Oh, no sir!" and more blah blah blah...
Again, I wish I were better at confronting JWs (or anyone, for that matter). I basically told her that their religion was started by a man just like the Mormons was started by a man. She took offense to this.
I also asked her if she knew what other religions like the Mormons taught. No, was her reply. I told her that maybe she should investigate other religions to know what they taught before she went out and tried to convince them that hers was the 'truth'. She didn't like that too much.
When we were getting ready to say our 'goodbyes', I asked her, "So. How much time are you counting for this? 30 minutes?"
"No, sir... I don't count time..." she said haltingly.
"Oh come on, I know that you have to turn in a time slip."
She kinda faded off ... perhaps realizing that she was talking to someone who knew a bit more about them... OMG... could it be an apostate???
I hung up the phone... hoping that they don't ever call here again (as did she).
Regards,
Jim TX