Donald Duck and Jehovah (from the book "Jehovah Unmasked")

by JamesThomas 55 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

FlyingHighNow

what does " omnicompetent" mean?
Maybe the guy in your avatar knows.
startingover

Not meaning to be a smart a$$, when I read that word, didn't recognize it. I'm sure it means being all qualified, all capable.
Again, great analogy
Cygnus

The few JWs I know hardly represent the infantile, murderous god they think they 'render sacred service' to. That's likely because I don't know very many anymore and the ones I do are watchtower-rule-breakers. But there's no question that some JWs whom I have had acqaintance with are incessant naggers and needlers. In other words, they seem so spiritually bankrupt they project their most loathsome feelings onto others, and sometimes go so far as to feel valiant and righteous by mistreating people and allowing their self-hatred manifest itself, "to their own destruction." I like to think of Christians (and JWs) as individuals involved in a false religion (as if any religion was true, besides the religion of self, i.e. What's the most important thing in life? Answer: Necessity. Any given human will do whatever he or she deems necessary at any given moment in time).
In my experience, and from what I've noticed since I awoke from my Bible/JW-induced mental slumber, good people are good people in spite of their religion, not because of it. Contrary to that, a greater percentage of bad people are bad people and do bad, even wicked, things, because of their religion (e.g. murder, shunning, theft of a person's most valuable property and asset - his mind).
JamesThomas

I find the Donald Duck analogy both humorously, and sadly, fitting.
The point made that worshipping as the highest form of morals that which is blatantly immoral - can not help but negatively influence us, I feel is extremely important, and explains a lot of mans inhumanity to man.
So, I'm not one to just silently allow the religious fundamentalist to spew their poison, as religious beliefs all too often divide us and darkly influences day to day human interrelations.....surreptitiously in the name of love and righteousness no less.
The desire to somehow come to know our Source and Sustenance, I feel is an honourable and innate urge; it's when we shrink and reduce what the word G-o-d points to, down to a personal little deity with a chosen and conditional organization that things too quickly get psychologically destructive and worse.
j
FlyingHighNow

James, I feel that judgmental people cause more harm and pain in this world. I always say, "I'll happily spend eternity with the 'sinners' rather than five minutes with a judgmental person. Especially one who uses relgion as justification to judge and show a lack of empathy and kindness." And I believe the majority of man's inhumanity to man has its root causes in religion.
Shining One

James, I guess this disrespectful post of yours needs a response. This is part of a piece written by Gregory Loukl:
... I am merely stating that there are certain things which are clearly God's prerogative. Can God create something and then destroy what He's created? Yes, He can do as He wishes, though His wishes are constrained by His character so He can't wish something that is immoral or inconsistent with His character. And there is nothing patently immoral about the Creator of life taking away life. It's immoral for us because when we take life, usually we are exercising a prerogative reserved for God alone.
There are a few circumstances where He delegates that power to us, specifically in my view, capital punishment. We know this intuitively, folks, because when men seek to make life and death decisions for others, what do we tell them? We say, "It's not right for you to 'play God.'" Well, of course it's not right for man to play God, but it implies that it is right for God to play God , and that's my point.
My point is simply this: we intuitively know that man and God have different prerogatives. It is inappropriate for men to take innocent life simply because we are robbing other human beings of a God-given gift and we are not to play God in that regard. But clearly God can play God. It is His role and He is not robbing when He takes away what He has given in the first place. It is something that is under His appropriate control. He can take a life anytime He wants. Taking innocent human life is wrong for us, because taking life is God's prerogative, not ours, which means it is appropriate for Him to do it, not us, and He can dispense and retract life whenever He pleases.
Part of the problem here is that we want to hold God to the same standard of morality He holds us to, as if the standard is above us both and man and God are on equal terms when it comes to behavior. Whatever we can't do, God shouldn't be allowed to do either. But every parent knows that such an arrangement is just plain false. Parents aren't constrained by the same standards that their children are constrained by, and in the same way God has a different set of prerogatives as well. Life and death is one of His, not one of ours, and that's why it is appropriate for Him to make His sovereign decisions with regards to the disposition of life and death. We are not to do so, and that's the long and short of it.
I want to add to a piece I did last week called "Can God Kill the Innocent?" The piece was in response to the question, "How can we morally justify God killing innocent children, or that He arranges for it, for example in the Passover, if God is a moral God?" My response was actually quite simple, but I want to add another illustration to make it clearer.
The point of my response was that God, who is the Author of life, also has the prerogative to take life any time He wants; and it's immoral for us to take life because we don't have that prerogative, but it's okay for God to do so because that's His job, so to speak. I mentioned that we have a common sense awareness of this because when someone begins to act frivolously or attempt to do so with regards to the taking of human life, or even in genetic engineering--trying to build life or make life happen--we say that one ought not do that because it's not right for man to play God. Well, if we say that it's not right for man to play God in taking human life or manipulating life, it seems to acknowledge that it's okay for God to do so because that's His job. It's God's job to do those things about life and death.
...what about the rule thou shalt not kill? ... That is a rule that applies to human beings because the taking and giving of life is not our prerogative so it is immoral for us to do that. But the taking and giving of life is God's prerogative, so it is not immoral for Him to exercise the same thing.
I want to add an illustration I think sharpens the point a little bit because it seems to suggest that there are some things that are immoral for us yet are moral for God and it's hard to make sense of that. My illustration simply is that we know this intuitively if we are parents. If we are not parents and we reflect for a moment, we realize that there are some moral rules that apply equally to all human beings and the moral rule does not discriminate between different human beings. That's the kind of moral rule it is. We ought not murder, and that doesn't change whether we are adults or children. Children ought not murder other human beings, nor should adults murder other human beings.
However, it is also true that there are things that are immoral for children that are not immoral for adults. Children ought to obey adults. Adults ought not obey children. It just doesn't work that way. So it seems clear from this illustration that there are some prerogatives that individuals have in life that changes the moral requirements of that individual.
By the same token, there are some things that are true for us as being moral because they are true for God. It is wrong to lie, because God is a truthful God and He doesn't lie because there is no deceit in His nature. And that moral quality then becomes incumbent upon us. So in a sense, the moral rule applies to both God and man although I want to be careful, you understand, when I say it applies to man that man has to answer to the rule. When I say it applies to God, I'm not saying that God has to answer to the rule. It only applies to Him in that He is a moral being who lives without deceit and so He exemplifies the rule, He is not beholden to the rule. The rule is for us. But in one sense, both God and man have the rule in their sphere.
However, what about the rule thou shalt not kill? That's a different kind of rule. That is a rule that applies to human beings because the taking and giving of life is not our prerogative so it is immoral for us to do that. But the taking and giving of life is God's prerogative, so it is not immoral for Him to exercise the same thing. He can give and take life at His whim, if that's what it amounts to, because He is God. Human beings can't do it because we are not exercising our prerogatives. That is solely God's prerogative. In the same way that parents have certain prerogatives that children do not have, God has prerogatives that humans don't have.
I think that is the key to unlocking this very tricky issue, at least it may seem so initially. How do we justify the taking of what seems to be innocent life in the Old Testament by God directly or indirectly through floods and earthquakes and things like that, or through the mediation of a go-between in the time of the Old Testament like the nation of Israel going into a country and killing all men, women and children? I think this speaks well to that issue.
God is the author of life, therefore He has the prerogative to take life whenever He wants. That is His prerogative. It is only immoral when human beings exercise prerogatives that are not theirs, that are God's alone.

What is the point of your post today? Are you trying to 'bait' or offend those of us who love God and are called according ot His purpose? If I posted some article like this that villified your father or mother would you not be offended? I love my lord that much and more. The article is simplistic, calloused and blasphemous. What's really sad, James, is that you can't see beyond the shallows of judgement into the immense depth of God's love....
Rex
FlyingHighNow

Shining, if it's moral for your god to kill innocent people, then how is God different from Satan? I don't think your god deserves respect or worship if the only solution to the painful woes of humankind is to off almost all of them. I've put a lot of thought in this. Your god is not fair or equitable. Your god offends me. You don't offend me for being snowed by the religion that teaches such a god. But your god offends me. He offends my good judgment and sense of justice and of right and wrong. The comparison to Donald Duck is only one part of the booklet Jehovah Unmasked. You should read it, for educational purposes. Try to think outside the box.
God is the author of life, therefore He has the prerogative to take life whenever He wants. That is His prerogative. It is only immoral when human beings exercise prerogatives that are not theirs, that are God's alone.
Sorry, but that's your opinion, that it's not immoral for your god to take innocent human life, just because you say he created it. Why would anyone want to serve a god like that? He is just as blood thirsty as the Hitlers of history. I'm sure you find Hilter offensive. But it's a-okay for your god to do the same type of genocide. I will never figure this out, except that you've fallen victim to unscrupulous men who seek to control you.
JamesThomas

What's really sad, James, is that you can't see beyond the shallows of judgement into the immense depth of God's love....

Before I touch upon what I see regarding God, what is even more sad is how you can not see that no matter how you paint over it, camouflage it, or rationalize it, the image of god that the Christians, Jews and Muslims worship looks and acts exactly as the worlds most bloody, psychopathic tyrants.
You have taken what everyone would agree is the most repugnant, and made it your "most high", a vision of grandeur to look to and follow as the most beautiful and loving. Now that, my friend, is truly sad; and made more deeply so because of all the harm and inhumanity such nefarious beliefs have unleashed upon the world. Look through history and see what happens when the pattern followed for "love" is a savage and homicidal one. This is insanity at it's most profound.
Now, is the Source and Sustainence of this infinitely beautiful and wondrous universe (what the word G-o-d points to) really such a cruel creature?Or isn't it far more likely that it is our feeble and limited minds which have created and anthropomorphized such a tyrannical entity? I for one have sat and deeply examined all my beliefs about a god that were gleamed second-hand from religious scripture and teachings, and have clearly seen that all is but mental abstracts and concepts with no first-hand reality and actuality to them. A murderous god, a god limited and separate lives only in our minds and in the pages of books which the mind so expertly transcribes.
How can we walk out into the raw and endless awe of nature, and not question the tiny man-like gods of religion as it's origin? Who dares tell me what God is, and where It ends and begins!
Life, is a whole, that expresses in infinite facets. The mind is great at fragmenting this indescribable Wholeness into smaller and smaller parts, that it may fool itself into to thinking it understands and has a grasp on Life. In the honorable quest to know life's Source, the mind has performed the same operation of shrinkage and fragmentation and constructed an image of god in the familiar image of itself. One which fills us with fear of punishment and greed for reward, that we may obey it. It's all bogus; and has absolutely nothing to do with our true PURE AND INFINITE SOURCE.
Everything the mind creates is and object, a thing separate and subject to and placed within time and space. Our Source, on the other hand, is what all existence and time and space exist in. It, is the ultimate truth and reality of all things. Now this is a drastically larger and more all-encompassing understanding of God (one that can be lived and realized upon deep, sincere and earnest inner investigation) that dwarfs the tiny religious deities. Because of this, religious fundamentalists are often offended at hearing of an unlimited and condition-less God. They are children of a lesser god, belong to a special club, and will do all in their power to remain so. For who would they be without their personal sacred cow? Ironically it is our diminutive beliefs of a god, that often blinds us to the present and living truth of God. That, in which we live, move and have our being.
I would not be so certain Rex, that I do not have some sense and realization of the "immense depths of God's love" and presence; and normally I could not care less what you believe or in what form you worship your god, if I did not so clearly see the harm and suffering caused by reducing Divinity to a killing-machine, and how it blinds us to our intrinsic wholeness and completeness in and of our Source.
j
trevor

Another excellent Post by James Thomas.
To shining one and those who wish to revere and love this vengeful monster created in the image of the worse of men and dare to compare him to a father, I think the title Donald Duck is far too kind.
This is the same god who calls anyone who turns away from him, ‘worse than a dog that has returned to it’s vomit.’ I think the writer was dyslectic and meant, ‘worse than a god that has returned to it’s vomit.’ No doubt a reference to the repeated acts of violence and tantrum that this man-god engaged in.
Shining One

FlyingHigh,
I posted an article from Gregory Koukl. Please deal with it if you want to judge God by your standards.
Rex

Donald Duck and Jehovah (from the book "Jehovah Unmasked")

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