"Mankind's Search for God" book

My Name is of No Consequence

This book was published around 1990, but was never studied (to my knowledge). Does anyone know the reason why?

KalebOutWest

I can't say why the book was never chosen to be studied.

After leaving the JWs, I got a good secular education and became a teacher in religion and manuscript transmission. I can attest that the book is not accurate at all in that, while it quotes from religious sources, it does so sparingly and from the Watchtower angle, and then proceeds to tell why each religion is wrong.

So you never get an accurate view of what each religion really believes, teaches, and why. It is useless.

ExBethelitenowPIMA

I seem to remember it was studied but my memory could be wrong

i seem to remember going through it on. Tuesday evening and being shocked at the bloody heart being ripped out of a live human drawings

joey jojo

I dont believe we studied it.

I remember thinking some JW's might find other religions interesting if they studied the book.

road to nowhere

It was designed to know about other religion, especially non judeo Christian eastern ones and counter theur influence.

What i remember was it was not as offensive as some books, but I was in pretty much jn then too.

The best bok I remenber was commentary on james; we know that story

dropoffyourkeylee

I have always had a pet theory (each time I have ever tried to explain it, it has been shot down rather quickly), but here goes:

WT was trying to establish their WT representatives as 'ministers' (for draft purposes) and, for those going overseas, as 'missionaries'. To qualify as ministers or missionaries they need to have credentials, and to have completed a course of study equivalent to mainstream schools. Many governments require minister credentials to include study of 'all religions'. A lot of Christian schools fail in this regard in that they only teach their own specific faith's beliefs. So the 'minister training' of JWs and JW missionaries needed something in the course of study about all religions. Voila, they produce a textbook for study that is held (at the time) in every KH library and is 'studied' in the 'minister' training. It mattered little that it wasn't really studied or looked at much; the fact that it was published and in the library was enough.

Witness 007

We did study it.

My Name is of No Consequence

@ Witness 007,

Do you remember when we studied it? I was in until about 2015 and wondered for years when we were going to study it. But the years seem to run together, so I could be wrong.

vienne

As I understand it, the book was designed as a study book for newly interested. There are Kingdom Ministry articles advocating starting studies in the book. I do not know how successful that was.

It wasn't meant to be an academic study. As far as I can tell, no Watchtower product was meant to appeal to academics or meet that kind of standard. They're all meant to gain adherents and to project the Watchtower's theology. So It's no surprise that someone expecting an academic product is disappointed.

Disillusioned JW

I remember studying at least part of the book it in the congregational book study (which consisted of the entire congregation meeting in the kingdom hall instead of in homes). In my copy of the book I have answers (to the questions at the bottom of the pages) underlined in the first two chapters of the book. I would only have done that if the book was being studied in the congregational book study. Though the book is designed to keep JW's believing in the JW religion and perhaps to be useful to convert people to the JW religion, the book is interesting to me, as a guide to further research (since I can look up the sources and quoted in the book to learn more and since it gives some ideas which I can do further research about in other publications. I appreciate the chapter on Buddhism and part of the chapter on Modern Disbelief. By it mentioning the names of some atheists, it causes some reasons to think about atheism and it causes some of those to want to do research about the atheists mentioned. For example, I eventually obtained books written by Darwin, Marx, and Nietzsche, and read some by Feuerbach. I especially appreciated two of Darwin's books about evolution (including On The Origin of Species). I have also purchased books which both describe and promote Buddhism. I also have a book by Durant called The Story of Philosophy.

I think that a number of the philosophical ideas of the Buddha have utility and also compatible with both Christianity and atheistic naturalism. Now there is something called Secular Buddhism.

"Mankind's Search for God" book

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