To You Know:
:: The JW doctrine of universal sovereignty, nicely explained by You Know, is completely
nonsensical.
: To you all things related to God are nonsensical.
Not at all. Only some things. Of course, plenty of things are merely attributed to
God, and these are also nonsensical. Given what many Christians I've discussed this
matter with have to say -- Christians who are far more reasonable than Jehovah's
Witnesses -- it's evident to me that the JW view that you espouse is yet another silly
invention of the Society and in no way represents the Bible. But for purposes of the
present discussion, I will assume that the Society's view accurately represents what
the Bible says, so that I don't have to keep inserting disclaimers.
: The Bible explains why that is where it says that to the physical man the things of
the spirit are as nonsense.
That is a generalized ad hominem that has no bearing on our discussion.
:: In the final analysis the right to rule over anything is determined by power.
: In the past Jehovah has demonstrated his power, such as in the case of the Exodus. And,
that certainly shows that he could exert his dominion through sheer force if He so
willed. The fact that He doesn't
Here's the biggest mistake that JWs make with respect to their doctrine. Of course
God "exerts his dominion through sheer force"! You might argue (within the JW doctrinal
framework) that God temporarily suspends a full exercise of his "dominion",
but in the long run, no matter what anyone else might decide with respect to whether God
has a "right to rule" or not, God will continue to rule. Otherwise you would have to
claim that if God had enough critics he'd give up being God -- which is inconceivable.
Thus the JW position is self-contradictory and nonsensical.
Given the fundamental insensibility of the JW doctrine, further arguments based on it
are nonsensical, such as those you've advanced here:
: proves that there are other issues that God wishes to clear up first. Those issues have
to do with the rightness of his way of ruling.
Which I have already shown, and you as usual have ignored, is another nonsensical claim.
And here comes another one:
: So, in effect Jehovah has temporarily waved His absolute right to sovereignty in order
to allow events to play themselves out that will prove to all observers that only He is
qualified to be God.
He is qualified to be God because he is God. He is the most powerful being in the
universe and that's all there is to it. He's not going to relinquish his position to
anyone and he's not going to say that he is violating any moral standards. No one can
argue with him because he is powerful enough either to ignore them or to kill them and
eliminate all critics. So in the long run God has to prove nothing to anyone.
:: Who determines what is moral and right? Whoever is the most powerful in the universe.
Otherwise we would have to say that a standard of morals exists apart from God, and that
God conforms to this standard.
: That's true. And in this case Jehovah claims the sole right to determine what is right
and wrong. The rightness of God's judgments is what has been called into question.
Your very statement here shows that you claim that a standard of morals exists apart
from God, and you acknowledge this next:
: However, right and wrong do exist apart from God as any reasonable person will admit.
Ah, the old "reasonable person" non-argument. No, right and wrong do not exist apart
from God as long as God is the final arbiter and judge. This is easy to prove in the
context of JW doctrine because the Bible gives a number of situations where God has
shown that sometimes a thing is right and at other times or in other situations a thing
is wrong. Take marriage and adultery, for example. According to Jesus' statement, God's
standard in Eden was "one man, one woman form a marriage". Shortly after the Flood, this
standard was not observed by people who the Bible indicates were righteous in God's eyes.
Thus God changed his standard somewhere along the line about what was right and wrong
with regard to marriage. Men were allowed to have multiple wives. Men were allowed to
have sex with prostitutes and, in fact, with all unmarried women and still be considered
righteous. Women were allowed to have sex only with their husbands in that those who had
sex with men not their husbands were considered unrighteous. That standard, according to
Jesus, changed yet again when he showed up.
Another example is incest. Today Christians consider incest abhorrent and those who
practice it unrighteous. Incest is considered a grave wrong. But is it wrong by some
absolute standard that exists apart from God? If so, then why did God allow it for Adam's
immediate offspring? Obviously God did not consider incest wrong by an absolute standard,
or he never would have permitted it in Eden. Now Christians consider it wrong, not
because it cause reproductive problems, but because God says it is wrong explicitly in
the Mosaic Law and implicitly in certain Biblical statements.
Changing standards like those described above prove that the Bible does not support the
claim that moral standards exist apart from God. Indeed, God defines all moral
standards. This is easy to prove by challenging any Christian thusly: If God told you to
commit adultery with 50 women, and you did it, would you be doing right or doing wrong?
Would God view you as unrighteous for committing massive adultery, or righteous for
obeying him? Clearly, most Christians would consider obeying God in a specific situation
as more important than obeying a general command, just as Abraham considered obeying God's
command to kill Isaac more important than obeying the rule not to murder. Thus, committed
Christians -- if they're consistent -- do not consider moral standards such as avoidance
of adultery and murder absolute, because they will violate those standards if God tells
them to. And if God demonstrably tells his servants to violate certain supposedly
absolute moral standards, then those standards are not absolute.
: Paul recognized such and made a statement that people of the nations do BY NATURE the
things of the Law and thus they demonstrte the matter of the law within. It is generally
recognized by all humans that there is such a thing as right and wrong. Every human
government has laws against murder and stealing and such things because everyone knows
that they are wrong.
Obedience to those standards is mostly a matter of training, not of giving heed to some
inner voice that informs one of "natural" standards. Various human societies have not
observed almost every one of these supposed "natural" standards. For example, in various
societies it is considered most hospitable for a man to offer his wife to a respected
visitor, and a gross violation of rules of hospitality, even an insult, for the visitor
to reject the offer. Some societies have considered it a great honor to sacrifice one's
life to the gods, even though the ones killing the sacrificial "lamb" were committing
murder by the standards of most societies today.
As for Paul, his statement is obviously limited in extent. Only a small number of ancient
cultures observed the same things as were in the Mosaic Law with its hundreds of oddball
restrictions. According to the Law it was a capital offense to eat fat, to eat pork and
other meats, and to do all sorts of things that other societies considered perfectly
normal. It is only a tiny fraction of the Law that has commonality with moral standards
that most societies have observed throughout history. Therefore Paul's statement, if you
want to apply it generally, is mostly wrong.
Even if you don't accept the above reasoning, it still does not negate the fact that it
is God who determines the moral laws. As creator, according to Paul he put a proclivity
to act according to those standards into humans. But God is still the author of those
laws. It's not as if those laws came to exist in human nature of their own accord.
: In the final analysis God's moral laws are as absolute as His laws that govern the
physical universe.
You don't even understand that you've proved my point: you say God's moral laws.
Either they are God's moral laws because he made them to be laws, or they exist apart
from God. Since you claim that they are God's laws, you admit that he made them,
and so you must agree with my premise, i.e., that the laws are created, not inherent to
the universe apart from God.
:: So a JW will have to admit that he believes God is moral because and only because he
is God. Thus the claim that God has a right to rule by virtue of his moral superiority
is a meaningless tautology.
: Pure nonsense.
You bandy words about, but you don't deliver reasoned arguments, as is evident below:
: As creatures made in God's image with the ablitiy to reason upon such things as right
and wrong, God expects people to use their powers of reason to prove to themselves, as
Paul said: "the good and acceptable and perfect will of God." The said will of God is
revealed in the Holy Scriptures. No doubt, though, Jehovah's thoughts are meaningless to
you, but that that in itself doesn't mean that they are without meaning. It simply means
that you have refused to acknowledge that Jehovah is the source of the moral code that
even you yourself live by to some extent.
Again all you've done is to admit exactly what I've said. In your own words, "Jehovah is
the source of the moral code..." Yet you again fail to realize that this admission
disproves your contradictory claim that God obeys a moral code that exists apart from
his commandments. This ability to believe self-evidently contradictory things even while
acknowledging that they are contradictory is an inherent flaw in the religious believer.
Next question:
:: The question of whether all creatures are motivated mainly by self-interest is
ridiculous. In the realm of mankind we see a complete spectrum of motivations, from pure
self-interest to massive selflessness, and this state has existed from mankind's
beginnings.
: Apparently you don't understand what the issue is, although you want to give others the
impression that you do. The issues of integrity that Satan raised involved all of God's
creatures. It is obvious that most creatures are motivated by selfish interest. That's
not the issue.
Do tell. All intelligent entities, including and especially God, are motivated by
"selfish interest". There is nothing wrong with that, as long as it does not adversely
impact the "selfish interest" of other intelligent entities too much. What is "too much"
is the subject of most moral determinations, and so we've come full circle.
: The Devil's contention is that ALL CREATURES are inherently selfish.
Oh? What scripture tells us that? What set of scriptures tells us that Satan claims that
ALL CREATURES are inherently selfish?
Of course, your implication is that there is something wrong with being "inherently
selfish", but there is nothing in the Bible that says being so is wrong. What it does
indicate is that under certain circumstances it is wrong for the selfish desires of
one human to adversely impact the selfish desires of others.
What the book of Job actually says is quite different from what JWs claim. There we find
that Satan challenges God to see if Job -- no one else -- can maintain a positive
view of God in the face of massive loss and even torture. It is purely the personal
contention of Watchtower leaders that this scenario can be extended to a challenge that
every human will not maintain this positive view if tortured sufficiently.
In fact this entire Job story is simply not believable, if the rest of the Bible is to be
believed.
First, if Satan and his demons are so powerful and intelligent that they could
create perfect human bodies (i.e., the angels that materialized) that could reproduce
with humans, then they are certainly intelligent enough to have understood God's design
specifications for humans. Given that they knew enough to create human bodies, they
certainly knew the design specs inside and out. Therefore Satan already must have known
that at least some humans were capable of maintaining a postive view of God even
in the face of extreme personal adversity. Therefore the story of Job is nonsensical.
Second, if God actually allowed Satan to kill a bunch of innocent people just to satisfy
his bet, or a sort of cosmic chess game, with Satan, then he's a particularly loathesome
and lousy father. All sane people would condemn a human father for doing such a thing,
but for some reason a lot of people lose their ability to determine right from wrong
where God is concerned. Indeed, the loss of this ability is yet another proof that
Biblical moral standards are ephemeral things determined not by some sort of absolute,
but by the God of the Bible. The Job story simply illustrates the bard's lament:
"As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport."
: The fact that a large number of humans and angels rebelled against God gives Satan's
charge some amount of legitimacy.
Duh. What a revelation! Some people are capable of bad things. But it's all "down in
writing" for intelligent reviewers to see.
: That the issue involves all creatures is evident from the fact that the foremost
creature in God's family---Jesus Christ---stepped forward as one of Jehovah's Witnesses
to stand up the the challenge.
What challenge? You have yet to provide a single scripture that proves this.
: When Christ was faithful unto death the issue was settled.
When God wrote down the design specs for humans, the issue was settled. That's why your
claims are nonsensical.
We have additional proof that the entire "Satan's challenge -- Adam's sin -- Jesus'
ransom sacrifice" JW doctrinal business is nonsensical: if Satan challenged God that
inherently sinful humans -- i.e., humans who are inherently incapable of fully
obeying God -- can be influenced to disobey God, then he hasn't proved anything we did
not already know. Further, if Jesus were "perfect", i.e., inherently sinless and
inherently capable of fully obeying God, then all Satan would have proved is that
one "sinless" human was able to obey God under one set of circumstances. But was
all in the design specs -- namely the genes -- of Jesus right from the start, and so a
demonstration was unnecessary. And of course, it is clearly unfair to stack a "perfect"
man up against "imperfect" men to prove or disprove what the latter can do.
Clearly, the logical inconsistencies of the JW teachings here are overwhelming proof
that they are nonsensical.
:: The question can also be answered by considering that God is the all-knowing designer
of mankind and that he has caused all their parts to be "down in writing" (from Psalms).
All that a competent examiner has to do to see whether God designed mankind to have a
range of motivations is to look over the "design specification document". God himself can
certainly make the specs available. If a questioner is incompetent to examine the specs,
then God wins. If a questioner questions the specs, God can enlighten him. To claim that
only a field test could answer the question of motivation, as You Know and his beloved
Society do, is to claim that God is incompetent.
: That's an interesting argument.
It's not just interesting, it's the key to understanding why the JW doctrine is totally
goofy. Obviously you've understood it enough to admit even this much, but you've not
understood it enough to see why it makes the entire claim about God needing to
demonstrate anything not only nonsensical but makes him out to be a monster, as I've
explained above in more detail.
: What you are neglecting is that humans and angels are made in God's image. We are not
insects that are programed to do certain things.
This is irrelevant, as I will show.
: Since God is the personification of love, and we, being in his image, are capable of
giving and recieving love. In order for love to be genuine it has to be totally voluntary.
That's why in order for creatures to demonstrte their love for God they have to have the
choice not to love God. God has allowed humans and angels to not love him.
Big problem here: All intelligent creatures, according to this JW reasoning, now know
very well that if they don't "love" God, he will ultimately kill them. Thus there is
great incentive for all creatures to do whatever is mentally necessary to convince
themselves that they love God, because if they slip up, they're dead. Humans might
temporarily choose to "love" God, but if they know that if they choose not to
love him he'll kill them, they know that's not a real choice. A choice would only be
ultimately a real choice if there were no adverse consequences for excercising either
choice -- and that is what JWs claim God is not offering.
Again this is easy to see in human terms. If I tell my daughter, "love me or I'll kill
you," she might do plenty of things to convince me of her love. She might work especially
hard if she knew that I could read her mind and figure out if she really loved me
or it was only an act, or even self-deception done in self defense. Only if I give her
the fully free choice, free of all threats and coercion, can I know whether she really
loves me. It's the same with God and his creatures.
: The ongoing field test, as you call it, proves to honest observers that NOT loving God
results in total disaster.
In the usual fashion of JW defenders, you're changing the parameters of the discussion.
We're not talking about whether loving God or not can result in disaster, but about
Satan's challenge whether humans as a species are 100% motivated by selfishness. You
yourself stated the parameters: "The Devil's contention is that ALL CREATURES are
inherently selfish." You ought to stick to the subject.
:: Finally there is a moral question: If God did indeed do as the Watchtower Society
claims, then God is a monster unfit to rule. An illustration proves this easily.
: What a hypocritical contradiction. Whose morality are you talking about? Yours?
Of course not. I'm talking about the morality that people like you attribute to God.
Humans are certainly capable of judging whether someone abides by moral standards, which
you have no choice but to admit, given the beliefs required of JWs. This judgment is so
simple to understand, even though you hate to admit it: Does God abide by his own stated
moral requirements?
: You are like the Devil in that respect, in that while Satan challenged Jehovah and
implied that he was unfair, he was also counting on God's sense of fairness to allow him
time to make his case.
Wrong. My argument does not hinge on whether God agrees that my argument is
correct, but on whether I and other humans think it is correct. After all,
according to your own beliefs, God allows us to make this determination.
Let me remind you that I am not claiming that God is unfair, but that the doctrines
about God espoused by Jehovah's Witnesses lead inevitably to the conclusion that God is
unfair. The fact that they don't understand the implications of their own doctrines is
what makes the doctrines nonsensical.
: Similarly, Satan charged Jehovah with bribing his creatures to love him,
According to JWs, it's not so much a bribe as it is a death threat. Are you claiming that
God does not threaten people with death for not loving and obeying him?
: and yet what did the Devil do to Christ? He offered him the world if he would just but
bow down at his feet.
Big deal. What is being 2nd in command on the earth when you can be 2nd in command of
the universe? Besides which, Jesus would have known that his rulership would have been
temporary, whereas his reward in heaven permanent. Again the ideas that JWs extract from
Bible scenarios like this are nonsensical.
Again we find an unbelievable inability on the part of Jehovah's Witnesses to understand
very simple reasoning.
: What hypocrisy. And here you say there is no real right or wrong but that God is WRONG!
LOL
I'm not saying that God is wrong in some absolute sense, but that according to the full
implications of JW beliefs God acts nonsensically.
Your LOL is the laughter of an insane person.
:: Suppose a human father is challenged by an adversary that his young children only
appear to love him, and obey him only because they're afraid of him, and that given the
opportunity they would dump him toute suite.
: The problem with your illustration is that God's creatures did dump him.
That's no problem with my illustration. On the contrary, it proves that my illustration
is on the money because, just as some will choose to stick with God and some kids will
will choose to stick with Dad, some will not. That's inherent to the way God made the
human race. Do you deny that this is all in the design specs?
: In fact, the whole human race abandoned God in the Garden of Eden
Whoa whoa whoa! The whole human race? All two of them? This is another great
illustration of the ridiculous lengths JWs will go to advance their ideas.
The actions of a mere two specimens of a race as varied as God designed humans to
be in no way illustrates what humans are all about. They merely show a few of the
capabilities inherent in their design.
Let's see just how ridiculous your claims become, with these facts in mind:
: because the first two parents of humanity turned their backs on Jehovah. So, God didn't
choose to bring hardship upon mankind to prove a point.
Then why did he?
: Mankind went their own way of their free will.
Ah, I see it all now. God creates a man and plops that specimen into a paradise of
pleasure. After many years pass he gets lonely (remember that bit in Genesis where Adam
says, "At last!..." ?) Then God creates an incredibly sexy woman to be Adam's
companion and tells him, "She's yours." He holds off jumping on her for a little while
and in the meantime this supernaturally intelligent being named Satan comes along and
tricks her into disobeying Adam. Adam, being rather horny by this time, and having had
his longtime cravings for companionship and sex fulfilled, thinks with his dick instead
of his head and, voila! The whole human race -- all two of them -- is
screwed.
So did Satan really prove anything by this little trick? Not at all. He merely proved
that a superintelligent supernatural creature can trick a newly-minted female human.
That's all he did -- according to JW doctrine.
Furthermore, according to JW doctrine, God then changed the genetic makeup of Adam and
Eve in such a way that they became inherently incapable of fully obeying
God. Then God turned around and said to Adam and Eve's kids, "Hey! You're inherently
sinful and you deserve to die! I'm going to do you a favor and set things up so my son
gets to die and then I'll reverse the changes I made to your mom and dad's genes! Ain't
I smart? Ain't I cool? Ain't I a wonderful and loving God?"
And you wonder why reasoning persons see that JW doctrine is nonsensical?
: So your illustration doesn't take reality into account that humans brought misery and
death upon themselves.
It doesn't need to, because it's irrelevant to the question of whether inherently
"sinful" people can fully obey God. The manner in which they got that way is irrelevant
to the question.
Furthermore, your objection is just plain stupid. You didn't make yourself inherently
sinful, and I didn't make myself inherently sinful, and neither did anyone else.
God did that, thank you very much! Just as all humans who suffer misery and death
are inherently sinful not of their own accord, so are the children in my illustration.
: It is in the context mankind's rebellion, degradation, and suffering that the issue is
played out whereby God allows Satan to bring additional hardships and suffering upon his
servants as it suits his purpose.
Meaningless JW jargon that adds nothing to your argument.
: In effect, you have merely taken up Satan's side of the issue by accusing Jehovah of
being unjust for even allowing his creatures to suffer unjustly.
More jargon. You haven't explained a bloody thing. You can't explain why you'd accuse a
human father of being unjust if he let his kids suffer and die just to win a bet, and
yet allow that it's perfectly ok for God to do something billions of times worse.
And again you've failed to understand what I made very clear: I am not accusing
God of anthing. I'm merely bringing out the inconsistencies and foolishness of JW
doctrine.
: How like the Devil you are, who in the case of Job, brought untold suffering upon an
innocent man to prove that God was unjust!
Really. Who have I brought suffering upon?
: So in your mind even if Jehovah allows Satan to try to prove his challenge, he is still
unrighteous for allowing it. How perverse!
On the contrary, it's perverse to allow people to suffer horribly just to win a bet. It's
particularly perverse when those making the bet merely have to consult a document to
prove who is right.
:: Anyone who thinks the above illustration is poor is welcome to challenge it and
demonstrate why the father proves himself loving by allowing his children to be tortured
and killed by a criminal.
: Your illustration is poor because it sidesteps the secondary issue of a creature's
integrity in the face of Satan's challenge that all creatures will defect.
What "secondary issue"? The issue of "integrity" is the primary issue in both
cases. According to you Satan challenged the integrity of mankind; the adversary in my
illustration challenged the "integrity" of the man's children. Here "integrity" means
a willingness to love unselfishly and without coercion and because the person who is
the object of love is worthy of it.
: It disallows the reason Christ forsook his heavenly nature and became a human and went
through his ordeal at Satan's hands when he was on earth. Jesus did so willingly. He
wanted to do his Father's will. He wanted to step up and take the Devil's best shot to
prove that the Devil was a liar. It would have been most unloving of Jehovah to prevent
his Son from standing up for his Father.
All of this is irrelevant. You're talking about a supposed "fix" here, whereas our
discussion is about why a "fix" would be needed in the first place. Try to focus, Bobby!
: All of us who are similarly devoted to Jehovah's cause want the opportunity to prove
our loyalty to God.
Perhaps you tell yourself that. Perhaps you're sincere. But I know perfectly well that
most JW leaders who consider themselves "anointed" are extremely selfish men who are
looking only for their reward. I know this because I can observe their willingness
to violate any and all Christian principles and justify it as "doing God's will" if it
advances them in their race to a reward. A scripture comes to my mind where God condemns
certain Israelites: "You've hamstrung bulls in your arbitrariness" or something like that.
Assuming there is a God at all, I simply refuse to believe that he/she/it is anything
like the monster Jehovah's Witnesses portray. Sure, they tell themselves that their
version of God is supremely loving, but they know perfectly well that in the long run,
if they step out of line, this "loving God" will kill them. JWs also tell themselves
that their leaders don't lie to them, but you, Bobby, know very well that these men have
told many lies. You also know that they've done many vile things in the name of God.
That's why you think God will soon punish them, isn't it?
: P.S. Best wishes for your daughter's speedy recovery.
Thanks! She's doing extremely well.
AlanF
