The Watchtower Society is guilty of 'special pleading' on an ever more desperate scale

by yadda yadda 2 10 Replies latest watchtower scandals

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  yadda yadda 2

  Special pleading is a form of fallacious argumentation and faulty logical reasoning. It occurs when someone is exposed as wrong but rather than admit they were wrong they dream up some rather pathetic and weak excuse for why they are still correct. One's pride is just too hurt to admit one is wrong. It's intellectually immature and dishonest.

  The Watchtower Society is clearly engaging in special pleading on an increasingly desperate level when it comes to their whole 1914 and 'invisible parousia' creeds.

  This is especially seen by their ongoing flip-flopping on the meaning of the 'generation' of Matthew 24:34 as linked to 1914, with their latest 'overlapping generations' interpretation an undeniable and dishonest twisting of Jesus words. It should also be clear by now to everyone except the most die-hard JW's that after 100 years and counting since 1914 Jesus certainly was never enthroned as King then. The Watchtower Society has clearly got this wrong, as they did with every other date-based prediction they made! And yet, we see the January 2014 Watchtower proudly tub-thumping and celebrating 100 years of Jesus invisible rule since 1914 - with the evidence mostly being heralded as the mere existence and growth of the JW religion itself (another fallacy called 'circular reasoning').

  Can you think of any other examples of such 'special pleading' by the Watchtower Society?

  https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/special-pleading

  special pleading

  You moved the goalposts or made up an exception when your claim was shown to be false.

  Humans are funny creatures and have a foolish aversion to being wrong. Rather than appreciate the benefits of being able to change one's mind through better understanding, many will invent ways to cling to old beliefs. One of the most common ways that people do this is to post-rationalize a reason why what they thought to be true must remain to be true. It's usually very easy to find a reason to believe something that suits us, and it requires integrity and genuine honesty with oneself to examine one's own beliefs and motivations without falling into the trap of justifying our existing ways of seeing ourselves and the world around us.

  Example: Edward Johns claimed to be psychic, but when his 'abilities' were tested under proper scientific conditions, they magically disappeared. Edward explained this saying that one had to have faith in his abilities for them to work.
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  Island Man

  Would these also be forms of special pleading on their part:

  The Watchtower refuses to acknowledge that it made false predictions in the past, during the Russel and Rutherford years, saying that it was just a case of having wrong expectations, not wrong predictions. They engage in semantic games to excuse their obvious wrongs.

  If you look in the Reasoning book under the section on False prophets you would notice that Deuteronomy 18:21,22 is suspiciously absent from that entire section! They discuss every other way of identifying false prophets but those two verses. Special pleading by glaring omission?

  Another example would be claiming they are spirit directed but not spirit inspired. Is there really a difference? They claim to be directed by God's spirit so that they can use fear of God to manipulate the membership into obeying them and accepting their teachings. But when their predictions or teachings prove wrong they would say well we never claimed to be inspired so you can't accuse us of being false prophets. We're just imperfect men. In other words the term spirit directed gives them justification for demanding the obedience of all (practically as if they were inspired) but it allows them to absolve themselves of responsibility and the charge of false prophesy, when they fail.
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  eyeuse2badub

  They really screwed up with holding on to the "blood doctrine". It was concocted in the whacky minds of Rutherford and Franz. They can't abandon it now because of liability. So, now JW's can 'accept' blood fractions!

  BUT, the WTBTS still needs to reconcile:

  How can a JW accept blood fractions when only those who violate Jehovah's law regarding the sancitity of blood will donate the blood from which the fractions are derived?
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  compound complex

  Greetings, eyeuse2badub:

  They really screwed up with holding on to the "blood doctrine". It was concocted in the whacky minds of Rutherford and Franz. They can't abandon it now because of liability. So, now JW's can 'accept' blood fractions!

  According to information in Gruss' THE FOUR PRESIDENTS, it was Franz and Woodworth who devised the doctrine. The result: to stir up publicity when the war was over and persecution necessary to keep the cult alive was lacking. Rutherford would not permit this new teaching to go into the WT.

  It was Knorr whom Franz convinced to run with the new doctrine in order to help establish his fledgling presidency.

  CC

  While Rutherford swallowed some irrational rantings by Franz and Woodworth over the beginnings of the blood issue, he would not allow publication of FWF's "special knowledge" as "new light" in THE WATCHTOWER. The two mischief makers kept things stirred up and began convincing others, including Knorr. The author was told that now that "King Saul" [FWF] is dead, the leadership would like blood transfusions to be a matter of conscience and lay the blame for all the suffering at the feet of Franz and Woodworth.

  THE FOUR PRESIDENTS OF THE WATCHTOWER SOCIETY (JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES), Edmond C. Gruss, Editor, pp. 74, 75, 231
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  compound complex

  "After the Judge's death, as World War II was ending and persecution against the Witnesses began declining, along with the attendant drop in news-media publicity, Hayden C. Covington told the author [of THE FOUR PRESIDENTS] that Fred Franz saw the prohibition against blood transfusions as a way to accomplish two things: to continue to publicize the religion, and to create an uproar in the community. This reaction would convince the membership they were being "persecuted" and "suffering for righteousness sake," a sure sign they were "in the truth."

  According to Jerry Bergman, author of BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS: A HISTORY AND EVALUATION OF THE RELIGIOUS, BIBLICAL, AND MEDICAL OBJECTIONS, 1994, p. 5.
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  KateWild

  Yadda,

  Very interesting OP. Special pleading only happens when a person is stubborn. We need to look at oursleves, we could do with making sure we don't enter into a pattern of special pleading.

  Thanks

  Kate xx
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  eyeuse2badub

  compound complex;

  Thanks for the info. You did your homework. I only figured Rutherford had something to do with it because of his contrairian personality and the timing of the doctrine. I'm still learning little things about the sordid past to the WTBTS. haven't read all the books yet.

  eyeuse2badub
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  compound complex

  You're welcome, eyeuse2badub!

  We're all still learning.

  CC
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  steve2

  Stinky pants Rutherford was guilty of many weird and provocative beliefs - but he did not develop the blood ban doctrine.

  Credit for this most dangerous of all Watchtower beliefs goes to those who eagerly stepped into his smelly shoes after he (finally) died, with Mr Nathan Knorr being the main architect of the destructive and lunatic-fringe blood transfusion ban.
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  Oubliette

  yadda yadda: we see the January 2014 Watchtower proudly tub-thumping and celebrating 100 years of Jesus invisible rule since 1914

  The only think visible is that the WT is wrong.

  How can anyone disprove something which is allegedly invisible and which only the WT leaders claim to know?

  Great OP with nice reasoning!