by Trapped in JW land 58 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Cofty,
Brilliant summation. I''m just now getting around to reading it (work travel). When you take away the 'god-spin' from these accounts, they are what they are: genocide, murder, infanticide, slaughter. These are criminal actions; 'spinning' it does not change that, and those continuing to do so are dulusional, trapped in a failed belief sustem and mindset. Thanks for making it clear. And as you know ColdSteel isn't the only one.
Cofy, APPRECIATE your time for the brilliant summary. When I left the WT, I asked an elder if he would have killed the Children, if he had been living back then in Moses time. He said "Sure I will"
That confirmed my thought that people would even murder for the sake of religion.
The WT is beyond stupid. Samson in Hebrews 11 is considered a man of faith.
Gamglimg
Vengenge
Lying
Unsanitary food practices
Marriage outside the faith
Animal cruelty
Deliberate murder to avoid payment of gambling debt
Self-defense which turn into murder 1000 men using a jawbone (If he killed a few in self defense thats one thing but after a few guys the others would have been running and he would have been chasing)
Suicide bombing (sort of)
I asked an elder what he thought and his answer was: "If your were and Israelite you would have been cheering!" This of course ignores the facts of chapter 15 where his own people betray him. It also shows a low sense of JW morality.
Now I find Samson story easy since I know it came from the Hercules story.
If it makes us feel any better, the mass slaughters and virgin rapings were probably largely fictitious. Not to say these atrocities didn't happen, but evidence is lacking that the Israelites routinely kicked the surrounding nations' butts on this scale. These were stories told to promote the idea that the Israelites were God's people, to justify violence against the gentiles, and maybe also to exaggerate past victories. I don't say this to minimize the danger of allowing an ancient book's tribalistic screeds to determine our sense of morality.
Even Hitler Provided explanation for his atrocities, just like you did.
God doesn’t need for me to provide apologies for why He did what He did, or does. If He is God, He has the right to do as He wishes and will command His people. But you, who know nothing about the times, the context of God’s actions, the people the Israelites were facing and the warnings that had been issued to them, are perfectly willing to stand in judgment of God. I feel perfectly secure in promising you that you’ll have the opportunity of presenting your charges against Him on the day of judgment.
But, if the “brilliant” Cofty is right and God doesn’t exist, then no one is right or wrong. As atheist playright, philosopher and author Albert Camus, put it:
If we believe in nothing; if nothing has any meaning and if we can affirm no values whatsoever, then everything is possible and nothing has any importance. There is no pro or con: the murderer is neither right nor wrong. We are free to stoke the crematory fires or to devote ourselves to the care of lepers. Evil and virtue are mere chance or caprice.
At the point where it is no longer possible to say what is black and what is white, the light is extinguished and freedom becomes a voluntary prison.
Camus, by the way, changed his views and became a Christian after having written some of the most bitter and antagonistic things about God. At the end, he simply could not believe that your friend Hitler and his ilk would end up the same as those who lived good, honorable, decent lives. So the argument boils down to this: If God lives and if He guided Moses and the Israelites, as recorded in the Bible, then all those He ordered killed were simply placed in a penalty box, as it were, to await later administration of the gospel when Jesus preached to the spirits of the dead (see 1 Peter 3:18-19). Or, two, if God does not exist, then it doesn ’ t matter who killed who, for all will receive the same reward. Thus, who are you or anyone else to judge anyone??
Mormons don't mind a good massacre...
Many inaccuracies here, including the charge that those who carried out the massacre were members of the Nauvoo Legion, which existed in Nauvoo, Illinois. Those who carried it out were individual members who may have been part of the local militia (where every man was considered a member of the militia).
I can’t completely blame the Mormons of the time. Their flocks had been scattered and stolen, they had been run off their lands and an extermination order had been signed by the governor of Missouri, their wives and children raped and murdered. Now they were in the mountains of Utah, and in California newspaper editors were calling for their eradication by the U.S. Army. Wagons full of people heading to California were going through Utah’s valleys hurling insults at the Latter-day Saints and threatening them with further violence once they had the numbers. Mormons had been murdered at the Haun’s Mill Massacre, including men, women and children. Brigham Young had told the saints to let the wagons pass in peace, but he also warned the leaders of the trains to take care in their treatment of the saints and not to insult them or their women, or use foul language. I don’t condone what happened, but the people in the wagons failed to heed Young’s warnings.
Again, it’s the ignorance of the times and events that lead people to casually judge them. People who attempt to blame Young or the church on the massacre are ignoramuses. It was the last thing we needed, and Young, most of all, knew such an atrocity would be a powder keg. And after the War of 1861, the U.S. Army was dispatched. Fortunately for us, the weather and lack of food had the expedition starving and in need of supplies. Had not Young shown the compassion he did, the expedition would have been a one-way trip. It was called the Utah War, Buchanan’s Blunder, the Mormon War or the Utah Campaign. But regardless of what actually happened, it did not come from the church, nor was it a directive of revelation. It was cold blooded murder. See this write-upfrom our perspective. Also this video, which is the first of several.
Samson in Hebrews 11 is considered a man of faith.
Who said he was a man of faith? The Lord did not condone one thing that Samson did. Did he deliver the people of Israel? No. He’s an example of a failed hero who didn’t live up to his potential. He did everything you said and he committed fornication with a Philistine woman, which alone was a serious sin. Murdering to pay a gambling debt alone will alone condemn him. And cruelty to animals also was an outrage.
I don't know where you got the idea he was a prophet, man of God or man of faith. He, rather, was a man who missed his calling. And he did not deliver Israel. If that's how the Jehovah's Witnesses see him, they missed the point completely. Samson, blind and bound to two pillars, was to be killed. But people love strength, and the Greeks loved Heracles, even though he could lose his temper and kill people at the drop of the proverbial hat. Like Samson, Thor and others, he wasn't too bright. Yet he, and not Theseus (his cousin), was the one found on most urns. But Samson's story is worth being told.
The only book I'd remove from the Bible is the Song of Solomon. Still, I can see why it was so popular.
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The writer of Hebrews said he was a man of faith. lol Hebrews 11:32. Along with hims is Gideom who beat rhe $hit out of people with thorn of the wilderness.
David... do I need to mention... slaughtering 2 lines of Moabites
Japthah... child killer
Barak.. Wimp
Hebrew author found some gems along with Samson lol
Two come to my mind, Noah's time, the angels come down and mate with woman and have Giant offspring who go off and kill rape and do whatever they wish to mankind and the whole place goes to hell. So god kills all the humans and animals for something the angels did. Number 2; Aaron makes a golden calf and the hebrews help him, he is the high priest after all. This calf inst another god but a representation of their god Yah. So god gets pissed and kills many of them before NOTE this , before Moses delivers the ten commandments telling the jews not to do what they just did, so they didn't even know what they did was wrong and god still kills them. Isn't he awesome!!!!
Kinda like how god told eve she would die if she ate the fruit without eve having the slightest inkling of an idea about what death was. Didnt know the consequences and was ignorant of disobedience until the disobedience was carried out. Yet God cursed us all because of a mistake of eating fruit and listening to a snake. Then punishes snakes instead of satan....yet he says hes merciful and loving. Hmmm.
Excellent post Cofty.
John Preston: ...God told Eve she would die if she ate the fruit without Eve having the slightest inkling of an idea about what death was. Didn’t know the consequences and was ignorant of disobedience until the disobedience was carried out. Yet God cursed us all because of a mistake of eating fruit and listening to a snake. Then punishes snakes instead of Satan....yet he says he’s merciful and loving.
That’s a very superficial way of looking at it from a theological aspect. I prefer to think of it as God intending that we should fall. After all, if He didn’t foresee what would happen before He placed them on the earth, He wasn’t a very omniscient God, was He? And because He knew what would happen, He arranged for the atonement before Adam and Eve even stepped onto this planet. Also, because He values free agency, some believe that He had our prior permission and approval before being born.
When Adam and Eve were created, they were created as immortal beings; however, they had no glory, nor did they have a knowledge of good and evil. Had they not fallen, they would have continued on without the ability to become like their Father. Unfortunately, to do this, they had to pass through death and receive the benefits of an eternal sacrifice. Thus it was all worked out in advance. We accepted death, a veil of forgetfulness, and the free agency to follow the promptings of both good and evil. We had a lot to lose, but we also had a great deal to gain.
Both the Greek Orthodox and the Mormons take this view, more or less, and if you read the New Testament books by John, he explains that because of Christ, man has the ability to inherit everything that Christ did. Because of Jesus’ sacrifice, man has the power to become equal to Christ, who is one with the Father. Instead of living out eternity as pasty, naïve beings with no power of reaching out eternal potential, we have the power of being resurrected to a host of varying glories, the greatest of which is to become like Christ and of having access to all knowledge, all glory and dominion. In short, Adam and Eve, by falling, were as essential to our eternal potential as was Jesus.
As an Eastern Orthodox website puts it:
In Eastern Orthodoxy deification (theosis) is both a transformative process as well as the goal of that process. The goal is the attainment of likeness to or union with God. As a process of transformation theosis is brought about by the effects of katharsis (purification of mind and body) and theoria. According to eastern Orthodox teaching theosis is very much the purpose of human life. It is considered achievable only through a synergy (or cooperation) between humans’ activities and God’s uncreated energies (or operations).
Also:
St. Athanasius of Alexandria wrote, “[Jesus] was incarnate that we might be made god”. His statement is an apt description of the doctrine. What would otherwise seem absurd—that fallen, sinful man may become holy as God is holy—has been made possible through Jesus Christ, who is God incarnate.
So the above would not have been possible without first, the fall, and the subsequent atonement. Living forever in a garden would have stifled mankind, which would have been condemned to an eternity of stagnation. As the children of God, we have a brighter future outside of a garden environment, which is why it’s always stunned me that Jehovah’s Witnesses would want to return to such an existence.
Now how much of the story of Adam and Eve is figurative, and what the mechanics of the fall were, I don’t know. But I believe very much in Jesus, and Jesus certainly thought of Adam as a real person. I’m perfectly willing to make the leap of faith and continue to watch the fulfillment of prophecy unfold. Then, if I’m right, so much the better. And if I’m wrong, I’ll never know it. But I would have lived a happier, more fulfilling life.
I can’t imagine any atheist feeling ebullient about his or her realization that there is no God. They may feel some relief that they can live their lives free of any guilt over the most heinous acts imaginable and not have to worry about eternal consequences in an afterlife, but I’d think ultimately facing the last moments of life, when they can expect the lights to go forever out on their existence, would be a terrifying transition. They may go out like Stalin, shaking their fists defiantly at the heavens, or, more likely, timidly, like the woman I saw in the medical facility where I worked. Just months earlier, she had joked about being an atheist and about how she’d finally find out if she was right. But in the end, the stoicism went right out the window. I walked into her room and saw her clutching the hand of her young male nurse, a physical trainer, tears welling up in both eyes, and pleading, “I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die!” (As if he could change the inevitable.)
It would be interesting to see how many of the atheists on this site will make that transition. Will their last thoughts be how amazingly amusing and insightful Cofty’s remarks were on this forum in the days they so eloquently traded snippets? Or will they face the end like a condemned man about to be escorted from this life against his will, but wise enough to know he can’t avoid its inevitability. So he counts the steps to the execution chamber, his mind swirling in anticipation of the nothingness he was returning to.
Those who have had “near death” experiences have a near consensus in saying, upon their return, that they will never fear death again. To me, even if there is no future, I’d rather depart this life thinking that there was. But it’s up to each man to make the choice. As one ancient prophet said, “When men are learned, they think they are wise.” Either way, what we know about what’s out there in the many billions of universes and galaxies would blow our minds.
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