Credulity? Dude, if it was a matter of credulity I think I would have been a Witness a long, long time ago. I am anything but "too willing to believe that something is real or true." No one or no thing is deceiving me of anything. Even if this hypothetical scenario was a real one.
Faith.
by wearewatchingyouman 44 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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adamah
WAWUM said-
Well, I don't have faith in the GB. This is hypothetical after all, but I suppose if I was truly able to rationalize that link it would simply be how most witnesses who know TTATT stay in. It's run by imperfect men who are just trying to figure out things the best they can, and Jehovah makes the light brighter and brighter as the end draws nearer. You just have to keep the faith and trust in Jehovah.... Like I said just below those quotes. I'd have to have faith that Jehovah is guiding them to do certain things for reasons that are beyond me.
The only thing a JC would care about is that you answer in the affirmative when asked, "Do you believe the GB is Jehovah's spirit-directed Earthly organization?" That's really the bottom-line question, and it's a deal-breaker if you respond "no". I suspect you'd be viewed as somewhat of an oddball or egg-head type, and another deal-breaker would be if you dared to share apostate beliefs (TTATT).
They'd be perfectly OK with your whole concept of the existence of some things us piddly humans simply cannot understand so obedience on faith is required, since that fits right into their "mortal logic is inferior to God's logic" meme.
I suspect you're getting closer to the reality of beliefs for a large % of JWs, many of whom put on an act or play the role, with many who see it as something to do to fill their social needs and lives, etc. There are some who actually buy it all as literal truth, but who knows how the stats break down?
All I know is that as long as you harbor a belief in anything without their being any reason or proof, you're potentially at-risk for being fooled by someone (even yourself).
Adam
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wearewatchingyouman
"All I know is that as long as you harbor a belief in anything without there being any reason or proof, you're potentially at-risk for being fooled by someone (even yourself)."
Very good fodder for meditation there Adam!
Thanks everybody for contributing. Many valid points raised. I really appreciate your heartfelt responses to this very odd hypothetical scenario. Keep on rockin' in the free world!
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tec
I can't say that I understand the 'why' of your question, because I do not understand why anyone would hand their faith over to a group of men they KNOW are not the truth. (I mean, yes, I understand that it happens... sometimes for family reasons... but other than that, not usually by someone who KNOWS that they are not the truth)
I think it would depend upon the elders. Your response "I believe the GB is God's channel" (even though they are actuallky calling themselves the Word of God in that, and so are their followers, albeit in ignorance (blindness)), though I disagree with some teachings, might keep you from being df'd if you were already baptized. As long as you promised not to speak against them and their teachings, perhaps. I don't know if it would be enough for them to baptize you. Though technically, it should be enough... since baptism has you dedicate yourself to the organization, right? They don't seem to have a problem with you going against your conscience, as long as you obey.
Peace,
tammy
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wearewatchingyouman
"since baptism has you dedicate yourself to the organization, right?"
That's a very good point. This is another one of those schizo teachings which make no sense to me. Let's look at this for a minute as it's the main point I make to my family as to how my concience can't allow me to have a JW baptism.
In the "What The Bible Really Teaches" book it states:
However, baptism is not a mere bath. It is a symbol of something very important. Going beneath the water symbolizes that you have died to your former life course. Being raised up out of the water indicates that you are now alive to do the will of God. Remember, too, that you have made a dedication to Jehovah God himself, not to a work, a cause, other humans, or an organization. Your dedication and baptism are the beginning of a very close friendship with God—an intimate relationship with him.—Psalm 25:14.
Now this I could agree with. However, the baptism vows are a direct affront to this:
(1) On the basis of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, have you repented of your sins and dedicated yourself to Jehovah to do his will?
(2) Do you understand that your dedication and baptism identify you as one of Jehovah's Witnesses in association with God's spirit-directed organization?
How can this be reconciled rationally? They're basically saying that what the bible really teaches is in direct contradiction to what they practice.
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jgnat
1) No. I pray as if God exists. I indulge in worship, reverence and awe. Does this make me a soft theist?
2) After. It was after a couple years of intensive, painful examination.
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jgnat
My revelation this week:
http://www.slideshare.net/fletcherl/the-elephant-and-the-rider-lessons-about-change
As handy as reason is, its control is tenuous. There is great benefit from tapping in to the inexpressible.
To take this out of the woo, I suggest we may have an internal god, a potential to rise above our raising.
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adamah
WAWUM said- That's a very good point. This is another one of those schizo teachings which make no sense to me. Let's look at this for a minute as it's the main point I make to my family as to how my concience can't allow me to have a JW baptism.
In the "What The Bible Really Teaches" book it states:
However, baptism is not a mere bath. It is a symbol of something very important. Going beneath the water symbolizes that you have died to your former life course. Being raised up out of the water indicates that you are now alive to do the will of God. Remember, too, that you have made a dedication to Jehovah God himself, not to a work, a cause, other humans, or an organization. Your dedication and baptism are the beginning of a very close friendship with God—an intimate relationship with him.—Psalm 25:14.
Now this I could agree with. However, the baptism vows are a direct affront to this:
(1) On the basis of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, have you repented of your sins and dedicated yourself to Jehovah to do his will?
(2) Do you understand that your dedication and baptism identify you as one of Jehovah's Witnesses in association with God's spirit-directed organization?
How can this be reconciled rationally? They're basically saying that what the bible really teaches is in direct contradiction to what they practice.
You're likely forgetting that the entire Bible, OT and New, included examples of mortal men who were authorized and appointed by God to enforce His Will on Earth, starting with Noah in Genesis 9:5-6, who was charged to place his fellow man under his dominion to enforce God's newly-introduced "no bloodshed" law, just as the animals had placed under Adam's dominion back in the Garden of Eden. Giving the law AND authorizing Noah to enforce it WAS God's solution to the problem of 'evil in the hearts of men' that was offered immediately by God AFTER the Flood, a point often overlooked by those who prefer to ignore the ramifications and embarrassment involved in exposing the fact that God's delay in prohibiting bloodshed didn't occur until AFTER the Flood (common knowledge to OT scholars, but not exactly something that's going to be told to believers in Church on Sunday by their pastors).
I've written on the topic here:
The trend of ruling over one's fellow man continued under Moses, who was tasked to lead the Chosen People into the wilderness and establish a rule of law over them (10 commandments, and the law of Moses), which included the ability to pronounce the death penalty (as given to Noah); the trend continued thru the series of Kings and Judges of Israel, and onto Jesus, who would've claimed such authority as the Messiah, but delegated it to Peter (the rock upon whom the church was built).
The delegation is clearly seen in establishing congregations in the establishment of the early church, and instructions are seen in NT scriptures to submit to elders; the GB is not the only religion to abuse Jesus' parable of the faithful and wise servant to establish authority over the rank-and-file members of the laity.
But none of that matters, since it's an appealing to one's "flawed" mortal sense of reason; that kind of thing is quite useless to the truly faithful, since a "true believer" is one who's willing to accept all claims based on faith, where faith requires no justification other than itself. Faith doesn't HAVE to make logical sense, and hence why the GB recently said some nonsense about, "Obey, even if it makes no sense to you from your imperfect mortal standpoint, and do it anyway".
Adam
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adamah
Jgnat said- 1) No. I pray as if God exists. I indulge in worship, reverence and awe. Does this make me a soft theist?
I dunno (yet).
The question then is, even though you don't SAY it to others (and hence don't bear the burden of proof), do YOU actually believe God exists?
If there's enough doubt in your mind to make you reject the theist's claim that God exists, then if you were a skeptic, you'd be compelled to remain in the 'soft atheist' category, since you'd not believe in things until AFTER you've seen sufficient proof to ADOPT the belief. (Of course, the value of evidence is dependent on the viewer's perception and understanding, eg a believer sees a frog as absolutely convincing proof of God, and an evolutionist sees it as proof of evolution.)
Granted, some people have been exposed to theist beliefs for so long, that they forget thinking about any other way but believing in God; that's likely because they accepted a belief in God long-before rational thought had even possibly developed. It is thus a vestige of childhood thinking that has persisted.
There's MANY 'soft theists' (i.e. those who believe in God, but don't profess their beliefs to others) who technically SHOULD be asking questions about why they've allowed their default position to become BELIEF, rather than NON-BELIEF (as it should be, if they were skeptics: we're not born believing in pink unicorns, etc, so belief in God clearly is learned).
Jgnat said- My revelation this week:
http://www.slideshare.net/fletcherl/the-elephant-and-the-rider-lessons-about-change
As handy as reason is, its control is tenuous. There is great benefit from tapping in to the inexpressible.
Well, now you're waxing poetic over the benefit of the inexpressible, which is rather paradoxical, in and of itself: if something is inexpressible, how could it even be 'expressed'?
Jesus often appealed to the rhetorical power of the paradox, which is actually a "thought-stopper", intentionally employed to make the one who speaks them appear to be wise, and to set the brain of the listeners into a vapor-lock after being overpowered with a wave of emotions (paradoxes are simply a linguistic version of "sleight of hand" tricks). That kind of thing is anathema to a scientist, NOT because the paradox is irresolvable or that it appeals to the sense of wonder and the mysterious, but largely because it leads to, as Cofty often says, fruitless navel-gazing; it rarely leads to finding answers to the KNOWN mysteries and problems that DO exist.
Jgnat said- To take this out of the woo, I suggest we may have an internal god, a potential to rise above our raising.
Einstein and Spinoza believed in cosmic wonder as their religion, where God is in everything; that's another way of expressing their awe and wonder at life and the Universe. But rather than praying to a personal God for answers handed on a silver platter, Einstein set out on a mission to FIND them, and such endeavors continue today.
Adam
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wearewatchingyouman
I completely understand that, biblically, God has used men to carry out his will. My issue is that vowing yourself to a man made organization at the time of your baptism seems like a form of idolatry. It seems that even their own publications agree, beyond the recent one I posted above:
"We do not dedicate ourselves to a religion, nor to a man, nor to an organization. No, we dedicate ourselves to the Supreme Sovereign of the Universe, our Creator, Jehovah God himself. This makes dedication a very personal relationship between us and Jehovah." Watchtower 1966 Oct 1 pp.603-604