Christian Guy: Your posting brought me back here after a while away. I too am an ex-jw Confirmed Christian and your loving reasonings with those poor witnesses made me so proud and brought a lump to my throat. Only when you have experienced the "New Birth" as the Lord explained to Nicodemus can you experience the true joy of defending the Christian faith and witnessing for Christ. A big, big thumbs up from me and God Bless You..... from a Christian Lass. (ps. Regrettably you must expect hurtful negativity on here from those who have now turned away from Christ - its heartbreaking). xxx
How I recently handled JWs at my door
by Christian guy 310 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
-
-
cofty
Regrettably you must expect hurtful negativity on here from those who have now turned away from Christ - its heartbreaking - abbasgreta
Do you really think that is fair?
CG has spent years searching for "evidence" of god in the number 400. Some of us are unimpressed, we think it sounds contrived and have asked some reasonable and respectful questions.
How exactly do you get from that to "hurtful negativity"? Would you find gullibility more desirable?
I find the "us and them" mentality of christians to be very unhelpful. Debate the facts and stop worrying about your precious feelings.
-
AnnOMaly
Actually it appears that he did make some of them exact.
But they are not exact.
As I pointed out, " The moon and the sun's most commonly published diameter measurements in miles are 2,160 and 864,000 respectively which equals a ratio of exactly 400.00."
The diameters you've given are rounded, thereby giving a rounded result. Even more precise figures are mean (thus evening out the variations).
And I wrote that, " according to the World Almanac and many other reference works, 'our sun is 400,000 times as bright as the full moon.' Amazingly, this brightness magnitude ratio of four hundred thousand appears to be an exact, or virtually exact, number."
Again, this figure is an approximation - not exact. It is APPARENT magnitude and the logarithmic calculation for the Sun's brightness ratio involves the Moon's MEAN apparent magnitude (i.e. the Moon's magnitude varies). The Sun is ABOUT (not exactly) 400,000 times brighter than the Moon as seen from Earth.
God could have certainly designed every one of these 400s to be an exact number. But then we would all be forced to acknowledge his existence and our obligation to serve him right now. But that would defeat God's own stated purpose. For the Bible tells us that God has chosen to save that time, a time when "every knee will bend" to him, for Judgment Day.
Hold on, you gave these numerological connections as evidence for God's existence. You suggested that God made and positioned the Moon as He did, when He did, deliberately, to be meaningful to humans now ... so that they could see all these 'coincidences' and discern they are evidences for His existence. That was where you were going, right? If these number connections are not exact and God never meant them to be used to convince people, why are you using them that way?
[To Cofty] The reason I referenced Knight and Butlers book, Who Built The Moon?, is not because I found all of their arguments that the moon must have been inteligently designed to be convincing. I referenced their book to show that even some atheists believe that the moon must have been inteligently designed, due mainly to the 400s which all astronomers admit appear readily to their minds every time they see a solar eclipse. Those are the same points that I find most compelleng. 400 X diameter + 400 X distance produces solar elipses. Which appear on average over any one spot on earth "about every 400 years." That along with the sun and full moon's relative brightness, a virtually exact 400,000 figure. These things taken together with the Bible's frequently using the numbers 4, 40 and 400 in symbolic reference to Christ. .... And Bible chronology indicating that exactly 4,000 years passed between Adam and Christ.
It does little to give credibility to the pro-God argument if the atheists you quote believe time-travelling humans built the Moon!
I also cannot trace your other '400s' detail (in bold) about total solar eclipses appearing on average (there's that 'mean' concept again) every 400 years over any one spot on Earth. The book you referenced says on p. 4,
"... in any given location on Earth a total eclipse will only happen once every 360 years."
The same page cited the 1999 total eclipse. Checking on NASA's eclipse calculator, I found that from the 16th to 28th centuries, Cornwall UK will have had 8 total solar eclipses with erratic spacing between them ranging from 32 to 411 years, which averages out at about 1 every 161 years. So, where did you get your '400' figure from?
-
snare&racket
Christian guy,
In all sincerity, i seek truth and answers more than anything Too, please can you help me by answering a few questions?
Before we refer to the bible, please can you give a logical and evidence based reason to rely on the bible?
Before we go on can you tell me the weaknesses of the bible and innacuracies ?
Can you please explain how to differentiate the useful and useless information in the bible?
Can you please using logic and evidence give reason to believe why the holy text you subscibe to is unique, special, insipred etc?
have you examined and rejected ALL other 'holy' texts? Did you scrutinise them more than the bible and hold the bible to the same level of exam and scrutiny? Do you think you give the bible more leeway for errors, contradictions and immoral acts than the other texts?
Doyou have any evidence or logic for beleiving in a god?
Do you have any emotional reason to believe in a god and the bible?
When science or history or logic contradicts the bible what do you do, what do you think, does this concern you?
Can you speak aramaic, hebrew, ancient hebrew, greek or latin?
With the bible undergoing several translations, how do you hold value in, not even verses but individual words and concepts, which have a huge probability of being misrepresented.
Any historical reading on the older manuscripts makes clear that much translation of the bible is guess work . E.g. due to the ancient hebrew having no grammar or vowels, this being the case interpretation could be wildly different. If you dont know what i mean, select a random berse and attempt to translate it yourself and see. Even with some 'best guesses' would you agree it is not water tight? Is it safe or appropriate to make life and death decisions on these texts? How can you trust the version you have?
Do you feel any connection to the jewish nation today? How about Jews 2000 years ago? Is it not odd to be dedicated to the beleifs of a minor sect of rural jews from 2000 yrs ago? in case you miss my point, a friend from the middle east found it odd to come and fins people dedicated to holy texts from 2000 yr old ancestors in his local desert, here in western cities. Its like people in New York being dedicated to the stories and writings of welsh druids!
Is there a chance you have all this wrong? What MOSTLY makes you think yes, what MOSTLY makes you think no?
lastly...
How do you feel about the catholic church?
How do you feel about the fact that they decided on the texts to be collated into the bible?
Do you feel confident that the texts chosen are appropriate? Have you checked the other texts? Why did you rule them out?
A few personal Qs now, but probably the most significant.....
Do you know for sure god has a relationship with you, AS MUCH as you know you have a relationship with one of your good friends?
Is the relationship with god actually a litle less resl/substantial in nature than a real human relationship? Do you think this is an important thing to note?
Is it so one sided that you have more of a CONFIRMED DEFINITE relationship with a local shop keeper or neighbor than your deity?
If you beleive you do have a legitimate, normal, two way relationship with your god, do you appreciate this is a miracle by definition and could you please explain it in detail?
Could i ask, be honest, could this be an internal, personal invention?
If not.....why not? if yes, does this have any bearing on everything?
lastly...... Does the idea of no god scare you? What made you an agnostic, what agnostic stands did you reject and based on what evidence?
thank you xxx
cant wait to,hear you reply!
-
Antioch
Returning to the original post. As I scanned through the 10 pages of comments ... "Bravo!" "Good job!" etc., my heart kinda sank. His argument is terrible logic and it fundamentally misunderstands what is so attractive about JWs.
JWs are a Christian group who have applied rigid rationality to basic Bible premises.His argument is like a knat to be swatted away. It is like Christian guy looked at the elder in his 40s and whipped out a picture of him when he was 20 and saying "You are not him! See! You look different!." Well no duh. Of course the "good news" is "different" because the entire Bible is one long argument for progressive understanding and changed rules. When I look at the criticism of JW "waffling" and it being a "different" goodnews, I ask how JW critics can forget entire Hebrew saga and how the Christians were like "ya, about that .... um, we gotta tell you bros something ..."
JWs see the Bible plan, the "sacred secret" as a continually developing idea coming to fruition. It goes like this:
The vast universe is actually at peace and there is no strife.
The earth was supposed to join in.
It did not.
The sacred secret is how God brings the earth back in line with the universe.
Contrast this logic with evolution and science which shows a chaotic universe wherein resources are fought over, this group destroys this group, and on and on in a continual tension that keeps a sort of organic homeostasis. Or contrast it with Mormonism which thinks of earth as a testing ground for angels on their way to godhood. Or, contrast it with the lack of rationalism in mainstream Xianity which suggests an illogical circle of creating humans on earth, so they can be taken to heaven (didn't he already have angels who skipped the earth and were just created as angels?). What drew us to JWs was the rational logic of the larger scheme and how they poked holes in the logic of established religions.
So of course the "good news" is the same as it was in the 1st century to a JW. It fundamentally IS. But within the paradigm that the Bible itself justifies, it is justifiably at a different point of development.
Adam
-
cofty
Adam?
What have you done with Adamah?
ETA - Just looked at your psting history and you are not Adamah.
-
Antioch
Word of clarification. I'm not a JW anymore. Like all of us here, I fought hard and gave up much before I finally broke free. I do not think their beliefs are "justified" at all unless we accept the premises they take for granted. It's a very rational religion and that is what gives them the strength to do the horrible things they do. Because if we follow the logic, that's where we end up. So we did it.
I think it's kinda like when I shoot a bullet. It looks like I'm aimed in the right spot, but the fact I missed the target should be proof that I wasn't. Fundamentalists never look at where the bullet went (or will go) because they are so smug in the self-righteous precision of how they set up and decided on their direction based on being parrallel with some "guide" that pointed their gun for them (ie the Bible, Organization). "It HAS to be right! I set it up just like the rules showed me!" It's tragic.
-
Laika
Adam, I don't follow your argument, if Paul said don't listen to anyone who declared a different good news and JWs do that, it's a problem for them.
-
cofty
I agree that its a good point to mae to a JW. It's one I have mentioned a few times on the forum before. The "gospel" of the early church was about forgiveness through faith in the vicarious death and resurrection of JC.
If you research the word kerygma you will find plenty scholarly articles on the topic.
JWs have invented their own good news. When they boast about their preaching work it is effective to ask them what they mean by that.
My problem is the assumption that "genuine" chrsitianity is any less a cult than the Watchtower.
-
Antioch
Laika,
If I said: "Don't trust any man but this man because he is your real father." and showed you a picture of a man wearing khakis and a white shirt, and then 10 years later a man showed up who looked just like him but you know, was 10 years older, and wore different cloths. Would you be like:
"I don't get it. You are not exactly like this man here. You're older. Different clothes."
Would you really just ignore time and treat things as if they don't develop?
Let's presume God has a plan and that life on earth is not supposed to go on for eternity like this. Do we really think his plan has not developed in it's stage over 2,000 years? That's irrational. If we presume god has a plan to change things, then we rationally have to expect things to change over time and be able to recognize it when it does.
THIS is why the Governing Body thinks they are special. They think they have the inside track on God's developing plan. It's the rational position unless you think God is a nimwit of a project manager. According to the Bible, God is not a nimwit. He has a plan to change things. He is changing things. According to the Bible.
