How can one be a witness of events unseen and unheard?

by kepler 14 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  kepler

  YY, Terry,

  Thanks. I think we are getting somewhere with what you are saying.

  Starting with what YY said, there is an element of hearsay in Christian beliefs that stretches back to nearly 2000 years ago. And what Terry points out is that there there is transition from what is perceived to how it is interpreted in any individual. And for the majority of the forum there is a sense that in the case of the WTBTS and its congregants, the process has broken down somewhere resulting in a cognitive dissonance. I hope that recapping that much is not introducing distortions into what you are saying, but at any rate, your statements are right above to behold.

  But since accounts of things in the NT and earlier are brought up in this context, let us examine them further. Whether one believes everything recounted or whether one does not ( and there could be reasons for the latter in terms of testimony, because some of the particulars of the accounts conflict), there are witnesses cited that give accounts of physical events, various Apostles and disciples, the writers of the documents themselves. These events were not passed off as "invisible". Historical events were not interpreted as proof of events happening in heaven. The Gospel accounts reported visible, physical miracles and they indicated which of the followers were present when they happened. We could argue further about whether there are holes in these accounts (authorship, plausibility, consistency across accounts), yes; and that would be another topic. But all the same the NT also provides a standard or figure of merit for the scenario supposedly unfolding supposedly 2520 years after Jerusalem's fall.

  The purported accounts of the return of Christ and Satan (?) in 1914 and the subsequent selection of Rutherford's organization as theocratic authourity do not provide similar citations. From Russell and Rutherford pointing at the WWI trenches, I only get a hand waving argument that a dreamy version of Milton's Paradise Lost is being re-enacted or revised. Neither Russell or Rutherford's associates, after the 2 Rs passed on, have provided us with documents similar to the Gospels or the Acts. There are no voices from heaven explaining that Satan has just fallen back to Earth (again?). Beth Sarim as a welcome center for the reanimated prophets is a total failure, if it were ever intended for that purpose.

  I have seen many a manager go into an empty room and return shaking his head that my requests have been turned down by his associates, but I was never fooled. Why should I be so now? How did Rutherford know that the Covenant had been handed over to him when neither he nor any of his associates can describe how? No one was in the room. As far as I can tell, it must have been some sort of corporate proxy issue voted on rather than an observed event. How did Rutherford get it exactly - as the result of some sort of foreclosure?

  I know. Most people are giving short shrift to the questions because it now seems like water uner the bridge. But when one considers the dynamics of people taking instruction or deciding to commit or recommit themselves to this belief, I feel forced to ask:

  If these things were as important as supposed, why is there not given an account like that surrounding Jesus being baptised by John?

  Who was a genuine WITNESS to these events?

  How could they be witnessed if they were entirely invisible?
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  Terry

  Even if we accept the exact (translated) language of the Bible (such as it is) as an accurate communication from writer(s) to modern minds---

  there exists a credibility line that cannot be crossed without challenge and testing.

  But, it is readily demonstrable that the langauge of scripture is malleable.

  What does the word "day" or "die" actually mean?

  Adam tested "On the day you eat of it you shall surely die."

  The lifespan of Adam continued, we are led to understand, for 930 years!

  A contortion must be made to actively prevent the words of God in Eden from being false!

  The commonly understood "day" becomes stretched to the point of metaphor.

  The "die" is twisted into a metaphor or "spiritualized" for things to work.

  Such a state exists in the text that the reader must--in effect--justify already existing trust and belief by EDITING MEANING as they read.

  This "reading into" the text shoves aside imputed understanding of words in preference to radioactive mutation to "save" the belief.

  Which tampers, corrupts and damages any sense of integrity we have come to expect of Holy Writ.

  And isn't that really what Religion exists to promote? Active tampering, interpreting and legislating of solidarity with official conformity is the anme of that game. i.e. Loyalty and Faith.
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  kepler

  Terry,

  It took me a couple of readings to grasp what you were saying. One reason might be on account of the so-called paradigm effect. For example, there are other parts of the story that I or others might have stopped to examine and question. But then there are other parts such as "die" and "day" which somehow slipped past review amid all the other strange assumptions of a Garden of Eden in chapter two disconnected from chapter one.

  But another aspect of the story is that the OT text and Judaism quickly drop it. Whether it was meant to do more than superficially explain origins is not entirely clear. Abraham, his descendants and Moses are pre-occupied with a Covenant in which events in the Garden of Eden appear have little bearing. The subject of Adam, Eve, apple and serpent in the garden are all dropped - as far as I can tell - until Paul picks it up again in the Epistles.

  So I'm still back on message. Paul and the NT Gospel and Acts writers give an account of Christ's life, tell of miraculous events, relate who was present when they occurred and tell either what the Holy Spirit said or what the messengers of God said.

  In fact, the establishment wrought by Rutherford so thoroughly puts a cap on things miraculous that reflecting on it sent me back to look again at Dostoevsky's sidebar story to "The Brothers Karamazov" - The Grand Inquisitor (Book V, chapter 5). Christ returns to 16th century Spain and is immediately arrested by the theocratic authorities. You could say that he was guilty of performing a miracle. And, as noted by the narrator, he came "that day and that hour, knoweth no man, not the Son, but the Father." In the Dostoevsky account the Grand Inquisitor an old man of ninety, passed by the cathedral, and witnessed the crowd and cure of a young girl.

  It's not a dialog but a monolog when the Grand Inquisitor and Jesus meet face to face. Examination of the prisoner begins as follows:

  "Is it 'Thou'?"... "Don't answer, be silent. What canst Thou say, indeed? I know too well what Thou wouldst say. And Thou has no right to add anything to what Thou hadst said of old. Why then art Thou come to hinder us?..."

  This was brother Ivan's dream that he relates to younger brother Alyosha the monk. The book was written in 1874.

  Interesting.
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  panhandlegirl

  You have all done a good job of reasoning and answering the question of how you cannot be a witness to these unseen and unheard events and how you must contort the words used in the Bible accounts to make them fit a certain belief. As a born-in, you don't question what your parents teach you about what you should believe. Although there were some born-ins who recognized it was false reasoning before others. When everyone in your family believes this unreasonable belief, you just never question it; until you begin to think for yourself. Even then, you are asked how you dare question the FDS when they are the ones who taught you the "truth" in the first place. Most people would think you were crazy to believe someone when they told you an event happened but it was invisible.
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  kepler

  Hi, folks.

  It's been a while since any of us had made any updates to this topic, but I did come across something which had some bearing on it.

  On another similar topic, I had made mention of the following:

  "...On the authority that this publishing agency has vested in itself based on the PARABLE near the end of Matthew 24 (45-51), tying itself to the servant discussed in the second part of Isaiah (chapters 40-55). "

  I had heard of this often enough, but I hadn't realized some of the background. Cameron_Don, brings up the matter on another thread.

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/229474/1/Applying-Chapter-21-e2809cCaptives-of-a-Concepte2809d

  What I took away from that is that these matters about a faithful slave were not even brought up in 1914-1920, much less resolved in favor of a governing body. I had seen elsewhere that in effusive declarations at Russell's funeral, he was called "The Faithful Slave", but if he was - then what did that make his successors? How was the mantle supposed to have been passed on?

  I had started this topic based on the assumption that the arrival of Christ in 1914 and the selection of the WTBTS circa 1919 was a doctrine that originated shortly after the calendar dates on which they were purported to happen. I might have been wrong about that.