by EdenOne 54 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
An estimated 300 million people died from smallpox in the 20th century alone.
"Thinking people would rather have smallpox than vaccination, because the latter sows the seed of syphilis, cancers, escema, erysipelas, scrofula, consumption, even leprosy and many other loathsome affections. Hence the practice of vaccination is a crime, an outrage and a delusion." Golden Age 1929 May 1 p.502
Old view: the earth is flat
New view: The earth is a sphere
Both are true.
Amazingly, it wasn't that many years ago the WT blasted the Catholic Church for changing it's 'don't eat meat on Fridays' rule. How can anyone have confidence in their religion when it changes major teachings about what is/or isn't truth, WT asked?
Somehow that reasoning only works when casting stones at someone else's glass house.
That is a disturbing picture.
JW's even have a unique phrase to describe this slippery, nonsensical view: "present truth." I actually had a convo with my mother some time ago about the generation of 1914 having all passed away and she maintained, quite emphatically, that the Society wasn't wrong about that prediction because it had been "present truth" at that time. The fact that the events did not happen as predicted was irrelevant because it was the correct understanding at that time. Now, "present truth" consists of something else (even weirder, ironically, that of the overlapping business) and so that is entirely correct, now, just as the previous understanding was entirely correct at that, and for that, time. This circular reasoning (if that's what it is) completely short-circuited her ability to think through this to the logical conclusion: If that's how "truth" works, then the word is meaningless.
Orwell's Ministry of Truth has nothing on this.
Sounds like a similar reply I got when I tried to mention the Conti case. "Don't read overseas news papers because this would confuse me". Another reply I got to the gonzalo campos case was "he had better and more important things to worry about". In hindsight I think you got such an intelligent reply.
cadellin - "I actually had a convo with my mother some time ago about the generation of 1914 having all passed away and she maintained, quite emphatically, that the Society wasn't wrong about that prediction because it had been "present truth" at that time. The fact that the events did not happen as predicted was irrelevant because it was the correct understanding at that time. Now, "present truth" consists of something else (even weirder, ironically, that of the overlapping business) and so that is entirely correct, now, just as the previous understanding was entirely correct at that, and for that, time."
Points to my Dad for - I admit - coming to a better intellectual defense than that, back when I was a kid...
...the way he saw it; yes, it was capital-W wrong, but it was what JWs needed to adhere to at the time to maintain unity in the face of a world bent on snuffing them out.
Not that I was able to ever fully agree with him on it, even back then.
The fact that the events did not happen as predicted was irrelevant because it was the correct understanding at that time. Now, "present truth" consists of something else... and so that is entirely correct, now, just as the previous understanding was entirely correct at that, and for that, time.
Yet a JW will completely dismiss the above 'logic' as absurd when a person of another religion says the same thing.
Hi EdenOne, How about mirroring back what your friend said to you so that he can listen to what he just said, and validating your friend's authentic persona's feelings when he says something that does not show blind obedience to the WTBTS?
What do you think of:
Are you saying that Jehovah has had to correct the coarse of the organization? If Jehovah has to correct the coarse of the organization and the organization says that the GB are imperfect men, then when do JWs know they are serving Jehovah or imperfect men?
In the November 2013 Watchtower Study Edition, the "Seven Shepherds, Eight Dukes - What They Mean for us Today", the Watchtower teaches, "All of us must be ready to obey any instructions we may receive, whether these appear sound from a strategic or human standpoint or not." How would you interpret that instruction? What if an elder came up to you pressuring you to do more or donate more to the Watchtower, would you, if it would reduce your family's welfare? Do you feel that Jehovah would want you to support the Watchtower at the expense of your family's welfare?
Peace be with you and everyone, who you love,
Robert
If Jehovah allows for a teaching or procedure to persist, it's because He wants it that way, therefore it can Never be wrong at any time in present time"
but The Watchtower said
Wt 95 7/1 p8
The Greek word for “truth,” a·le′thei·a, derives from a word meaning “not concealed,” so the truth often involves the revealing of that which was formerly hidden.—Compare Luke 12:2.
[Box on page 6]
Does the Truth Ever Change?
THAT question was raised by V. R. Ruggiero in his book The Art of Thinking. His answer is no. He elaborates: “It may sometimes seem to, but on closer inspection it will be found not to.”
“Consider,” he says, “the case of the authorship of the first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis. For centuries Christians and Jews alike believed that the book had a single author. In time this view was challenged, and eventually replaced by the belief that as many as five authors contributed to Genesis. Then, in 1981, the results of a 5-year linguistic analysis of Genesis were published, stating that there is an 82 percent probability of single authorship, as originally thought.
“Has the truth about the authorship of Genesis changed? No. Only our belief has changed. . . . The truth will not be changed by our knowledge or by our ignorance.”
and The Bible said
Heb 6.18 " in order that through two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie,"...
I don't think I'll ever have another conversation of this sort with him, as now I'm being treated as stranger for not attending meetings anymore. But back then, that reasoning was so bluntly stupid that it caught me off guard that someone could actually racionalize things in such way. And that was the guy in charge of determining if I was going to be considered an apostate or not. Clearly I wasn't in a position to win that argument, so I didn't even reply to that. But it stayed in my memory as a monument to religious irrationality.
Eden
The courts (at least in the USA) recognize that genuine truth cannot include omitting facts, telling half-truths, or embellishing the truth, which are, for all intents and purposes, lies.
"Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth"?
Yet again, the secular world recognizes a higher standard of truth than WT's God of Truth, Jehooey.
For a JW, being told half-truths is completely acceptable. They like going on a Fool's Errand and being played for a sucker repeatedly.
