Mankind's Search For God

by rocketman 18 Replies latest jw experiences

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  proplog2

  Mulan:

  I tend to agree with you. I'll even go so far as to say it is a pretty good book.

  The problem is that it shows the shallow basis for ALL religion. Muhammed SAYS he is God's messenger. So does Jesus. etc.

  The Bible , Koran, Vedas, etc. all have a mythical component. The main reason people believe those books is that they were born into cultures that traditionally accepted those books as sacred.

  If JW's spent a year in that book they would definitely have honed their critical skills to the point where they would be a little more skeptical of their own beliefs.
• 

  observador

  I know someone who was deconverted by his student using the very book he, as an instructor, was using to bring him to the "truth" convert him. And that book was... Mankind's Search for God.

  That may explain a lot of things.

  Observador.
• 

  rocketman

  Observador, that sounds like an interesting experience indeed, someone deconverted by means of that book.

  Blondie's recollection is mine too - I don't recall the book being used for much at all, save for, as she said, trying to relate to people of other faiths before moving them into the Knowledge book. It may have been demo'd in a few service meeting parts, but I don't recall every studying it in any progressive or organized way.

  I'd imagine you could count on the fingers of one hand the number of jws that even bothered reading it.
• 

  wannaexit

  I was really surprised when that book came out. In our area kids were discouraged from taking world religion classes in high school and then this book comes out.

  Around here it was used more like a reference book.

  I liked that book above all other society's books.
• 

  Sunspot

  I hate to be repetitive here, but I always wondered why it was never a "study" book either. It seemed as though we studied new publications usually within a year of getting a book at the Conventions. I had actually looked forward to studying this one, and I did ask a few times why we weren't. (Especially when we went through that dadblasted "Greatest Man" book I think three times?)

  The elders didn't know, either! Or so they said.

  About the "Greatest Man" book.......I got a few "comments" from others when I used the same book for all the times it was studied. I had everything already underlined and notated and thought I was one step ahead of the game <grin> and some people thought I should have gotten a fresh book and done it all over again! Like it was "cheating" or something, but I stood my ground and kept that same book, lol!

  My two "favorite" books were the Mankind's Search For God, and the Commentary on James. Figures, huh? LOL!

  Hugs,

  Annie
• 

  badwillie

  Excellent point.
  When it first came out I read it through twice, it was my favorite WT release. I seemed to be the only one who was really into that book.

  I too wanted to go through it in the Book Study and was baffled that it just sort of disappeared into obscurity without much mention ever again. In retrospect, I probably did start to view the Borg from a more realistic perspective after reading that.
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  rocketman

  About the "Greatest Man" book.......I got a few "comments" from others when I used the same book for all the times it was studied. I had everything already underlined and notated and thought I was one step ahead of the game <grin> and some people thought I should have gotten a fresh book and done it all over again! Like it was "cheating" or something, but I stood my ground and kept that same book, lol!

  Sunspot, I think some people around here were looking to find the same fault - that others just kept the old book, highlights and all.
• 

  crownboy

  Add me to the list of people who have wondered why the Mankind's Search for God book was not used. I read it and actually thought some of the religions were (gasp!).... more interesting than Christianity. I liked what was said about Buddhism and some of the other eastern religions, but they did only a very small chapter on Islam despite it being one of the largest religions.

  In one of the beginning chapters, they make the claim that all the other religious books should be measured by the bible. They "proved" this point by quoting 2 Tim. 3:16 . And IIRC, they used Josephus' Testimonium Flavium as proof that Jesus existed. Even inspite of all this, it is one of the better JW books out there.
• 

  kgfreeperson

  Oh, this is very interesting to me. I was given a copy of Man's Search for God because "I have a lot of other books like that and I might be interested in this" (The books I have? Elaine Pagels, Karen Armstrong, various other sociology of religion books. The book-giver refused my offer to lend him any one of my books!) It explains a lot that he probably never read it.