by Jerry Bergman 118 Replies latest watchtower scandals
Gumby I stand by my original comment. I have come to the conclusion that some of the criticism by the Watchtower against many churches is at least partly valid. I did not say "churches certainly advocate living loosely with no moral resraint [sic]" I said that their sin is not primarily one of commission but primarily one of omission.
Edited by - Jerry Bergman on 17 December 2002 10:4:50
"Sex is great married or not married. When I found out this I found out there was no God"
I beg your pardon but what planet is this statement from? I fail to see any connection here at all. Someone also wrote "I'd rather worship a rock thatn be dumb as one" To believe or to have written the opening sentance I think you would have to be "as dumb as a rock."
I presume then that sex is a purely evelutionary product to keep the species going. Why do humans find it pleasurable when animals only copulate to reproduce.
I presume then that sex is a purely evelutionary product to keep the species going. Why do humans find it pleasurable when animals only copulate to reproduce.
If we didn't find it pleasurable we wouldn't do it. If we didn't do it, we wouldn't reproduce. Therefore, genes for enjoying sex are more likely to survive and thrive. Other animals enjoy sex too for similar reasons.
Jerry,
Do the fundamentals of Christianity tell you that if you jump off a cliff you will die? Does it teach you that if you try and do surgery on your own brain you will die? Does it teach you that trying to swim across the Pacific ocean by yourself you will die?
No, it doesn't. Why doesn't it? Do you think that having a certain amount of intelligence and common sense will tell you that trying to do those things will kill you? We do not need the bible or Christianity to tell us about things that might be harmful to us. Common sense does most of that. Just because the bible tells us about a few things that might be harmful to us doesn't make those thoughts exclusive to the bible or Christianity. Just as most of the bible stories are stolen from other religious myth so are some of the common sense things people like you try to convince other people is exclusive to the bible.
The bible says don't slit your throat because if you do you will die. Well, that makes sense, that means everything the bible says must be true then. Only a real stupid person will fall for that kind of logic. That is the kind of logic that religions use to entice the bungled and beguiled. Those who have little common sense and need a book or a religion to think for them are the ones you need to preach to, not us.
If a certain amount of common sense and intelligence will tell you that, then why can't the same be true for other things. Do you think everyone who does not read and follow the bible is out doing things that will eventually cause them to die? Do you really think the average human is that stupid?
I don't believe in the bible because of the study and research I have done. That doesn't make me fall all apart and run out and have sex with a hundred women I picked up in a bar and it certainly doesn't make me try and have any medical procedure done by someone waving a translucent rock over my body. Christians like you "think" that if people do not follow what you follow than they are "all" doing the same exact opposite thing you are doing and they are wrong! Just as the JW's think, you think. There is no middle ground with close minded religious thinkers. It is how you were programed to think.
You ask if it is not wise to at least explore the possibility of religious teachings. I agree, I did, I came up with a completely different conclusion than you did. Big shock isn't it? I found the stories and so called biblical fact to be derived from other religions myth. Most of it was taken from both the Hindu and Buddhist myths that were contrive hundreds of years before Christ supposedly walked the earth.
Following teachings contrive from myth is not any different from a person who believes a crystal will heal them. It is all myth, it is all based on a distorted faith that individuals have come to the conclusion to be true. Your faith in the bible is all in your head just as anyone's faith is in anything. That is why it is called "faith." It is what you "believe" to be true.
We do not have "faith" that if we jump off a cliff we will die. We know it to be a fact. We do not have faith in if we slice open our own head to try and do surgery on our own brain we will die, we know it as a fact.
You have faith in what the bible says because you want to. Once you do that you take it and live by it. That is your choice but it does not make it right for the rest of us. Coming here and telling us that what "you" have come to the conclusion of, and trying to tell us we are wrong or "sinning" if we do not see things exactly the way you do is a crock. Who in the hell do you think you are? What gives you the right to judge anyone else on this planet but yourself? Who empowered you to have all the answers in life? Just because you have had some college courses does that make you all knowing and absolutely right about what you have come to the "conclusion" of?
There are thousands of men and women who have studied more than you and are respected more than you that will disagree with you and be able to prove their points just as you may think you can. Who in the world told you that you are the one that is right and they are wrong?
You certainly think a lot of yourself to try and come here and pass off as what you have come to the conclusion of is what we all need to decide is true for our own lives. You are no different from the JW's. It's the same self righteous style but with a little different slant on the message. I am not slamming you, I am simply stating facts as I see them.
Dave
A good thread out of what could have become a slanging match.
Are they better of as dubs? - Is a caged bird better off protected and spoonfed by its owner, or would it not rather trade that security for the chance to fly freely? Actually dependence is a sad state ,as the example Dizzy gave us. Perhaps freedom,counsel and therapy would be better than continued dependence
Morality is not the sole perogative of the dubs ,although they would like to have the inmates believe that it was.. I have read leaflets from the Mormon church for example that say the same .
What about flaws in the moral code? I was thinking of a brother and his wife who clearly were unsuited. 30years ago they decided to stick it out because Armageddon was due in 1975, and anyway,it was wrong to separate . They still live together , bicker daily and regret wasted lives.
Jerry, when your post first went up, I thought to myself, oh no, Jerry is going to reap a real firestorm, which of course you did. Now, you know me, and you know some of my thoughts. You probably don't know what I think on this subject. I consider myself a Christian agnostic. Use this term because my values have been shaped by my upbringing as a JW. Over the years, I have made a lot of mistakes, major sins if you will. My sinning has diminished markedly because I realize that sinning is impractical. It gets you into trouble. Now, I am a wise older man who can pontificate to the younger generation, but of course, they won't listen.
Jerry, I'm gonna chime in with Dave on this one - tone and all. I'll tell you that the best thing I came away from the JWs with was a profound commitment to think for myself.
But you wanna talk morality inside the religion? Let me say this: As a teenager growing up in Massachusetts, I saw more intrigue and bed-hopping than I have ever since. In fact, as a 19-year-old, I even had tristes with a MS' wife, and elder's wife, and even a substitute-CO's wife. (not proud of it, but I was 19) The stricter a religion purports to be, the more it teaches hypocracy - not morality.
Could some still be better off inside? Maybe. But that is still not a good enough reason to stay in. I classify almost all of active, adult JWs in one of two groups: Those that want to be told black and white (victims?), and those that want to do the telling (victimizers?). Simply being willing to be a victim is no excuse for enabling those that victimize others as well.
- Cliff
Larc,
First of all, I'm still working on a response to your last e-mail. I think I am posting here to try and take time to mull over a few of my issues. When I get the fully mulled I will respond back to you.
I have read many of your responses on this board and as you know respect your thoughts and take them to heart. Your comment about being a Christian agnostic is an interesting one. I myself do not consider myself a Christian at all but more of a "agnostic until further notice." The morals that I do seem to have can be looked at by some as those of a Christian but I see them more as coming from the culture that has surrounded me living in America. The laws of the land seem to have more influence over my thoughts and action in regard to the term "sinning" than any religious thought. My thinking is also influenced by both eastern and European philosophy as well as science, psychology, and history. If you close your mind to just one of these as being the only answer you loose any benefit that one of the others could provide you with in your life.
My main complaint with Jerry and others like him is they come here and can only see things from one perspective. That perceptive is not even their own but is one that has been taught to them. I have looked at religious teachings as well as the history of myth and religion. I will admit that in some cases religion has done some good to some people. Just as smoking pot has done some good easing the pain of people with certain physical aliments.
I use to believe in a religion. I use to smoke pot. I no longer see either one of those things as something I need in my life to function as a caring, understanding, and considerate human being. I also see both of them as things some people think they need to survive an every day existence. When someone makes a post that points to religion as the answer to all mans problems It grinds at me. Just as science or philosophy alone can do nothing by themselves. Taking the good from each and using your own intelligence to develop who you are, to me, is more sensible. Once you think that any singular one of the three has all the answers your mind becomes closed to something that may have an alternative perspective that is possibly more accurate.
Most of us have lived a part of our life with closed minded thinking. When someone comes to this board and tries to reintroduce that kind of thinking I react. Most of us will spend the rest of our lives dealing with and trying to readjust the programed thinking process we were brought up with. Doctrine is a lot easier to dismiss in our minds than the programed process of how we think. It is the process of how Jerry thinks I object to more than the message he is trying to express. If Jerry would have been born and raised in Iran, or China, or even India his message would be quite different, but the process in how it is developed as well as presented would be the same. I have been and still will be fighting that programed process in my life. That way of thinking is closed to ONE way, the ONLY way!
Jerry Bergman,
You said above that at "least some of the criticism by the Watchtower against other religions is at least partly true".
Jerry, that is a wrong statement because everything that the Watchtower criticizes about other religions, are things that they do themselves. Thats why they are the biggest hypocrites on the face of the earth.
You can't criticize others for doing things that you yourself do. That is nothing but sheer hypocrisy and in doing this the borg condemns itself.
Worf
