Posts by Vanderhoven7

In order to answer this question properly, it is important to distinguish between the various meanings of the phrase ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’. The term can refer to the individuals who are members of the religion, but also to the religious ideology known by that name. These are the two uses that I will consider in this answer.

JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES AS INDIVIDUALS

I have nothing against Jehovah’s Witnesses as people. In the main, I have found them to be lovely people, but they are unfortunately victims of their religion. Their emotions are continuously subjected to manipulation by the leaders at the top of the religion’s hierarchy who have the self-appointed authority to dictate the doctrines and to subtly control the members. The leaders make alluring but entirely false claims which appease the deep fears of the members and gratify their idealistic wishful thinking patterns, keeping them in a mind-trap.

So many have thrown away their lives in anticipation of the fulfilment of their unsubstantiated hope in the Watchtower’s rendition of the ‘next life’, where they anticipate enjoying eternal youth with perfect health, and living in an idyllic world full of peace, harmony and prosperity for all.

They have bought into all the irrational arguments and false reasonings used to uphold their religion, which has hooked them into a concept that is extremely addictive and hard to relinquish. After all, who wouldn’t relish the prospect of living forever on a paradise earth?

The hubristic claims made by the founder of the religion in the 1870s have been vastly added to and reshaped over the years. Successive leaders have become more and more carried away with promoting their assertions as the absolute and unquestionable truth, to the point that now members don’t pause to check whether or not their beliefs are based on a solid foundation or on rational arguments. All they care about and fixate on is having their future hopes affirmed. They only consider ‘evidence’ that appears to promote their romantic notion of the future and conversely reject anything that challenges what they choose to believe.

The only significant objection I have against Jehovah’s Witnesses as individuals is their dogmatic irrationality.

JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES AS A RELIGION

The most serious issue I have with the religion is that there is no good evidence to back up any of the claims that the followers buy into, and the core of its entire theology is based on irrational arguments. These include presuppositions, baseless assertions, false reasoning and logical fallacies. At first glance, the teachings have the appearance of having their roots in sound logic and good reasoning, but when closely examined, they have no validity whatsoever.

If one looks into the apologetics of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in any depth, it quickly becomes all too evident that the premise of every argument they use to uphold their convictions is based on a logical fallacy.

Let’s consider a few common false arguments they use:-

Jehovah’s Witnesses’ teachings come from the bible

To a Jehovah’s Witness, this argument is all that is required to assure them that their beliefs are correct. If their beliefs harmonise with the bible then they are considered true. But this claim does not in any way indicate that they are correct.

Jehovah’s Witnesses conveniently overlook the fact that every previous teaching which has since been discarded was likewise originally firmly based on the bible, but those teachings are now considered to have been wrong. They also ignore the awkward reality that every one of their widely promoted prophetic interpretations was based on the bible, but every single one also proved to be false.

These facts should cause Jehovah’s Witnesses to have serious reservations about their current teachings. They have no means of knowing that their current understanding of the bible is correct and no idea whether or not the teachings that they now preach and believe are the truth, will also be discarded in the future.

God reveals His truth in a progressive manner… otherwise known as the ‘progressive light’ argument

If you were to highlight to a Jehovah’s Witness any past teaching which has now been proved wrong, it’s virtually guaranteed that you would soon be presented with the argument above.

The ‘progressive understanding’ argument commits the logical fallacy known as ‘moving the goal posts’. When a doctrine has proved to have been wrong or when falsehoods are brought to light, the Governing Body simply invents another teaching and claims it as a ‘new truth’ from God. Any ‘old truth’ can thus easily be discarded without accountability. Attempts are usually made by the leadership to supress mention of the previous old ‘truth’ amongst members. The change of doctrine is invariably couched in positive terms, heavily playing down any inconsistency, and the members submissively accept the new understanding without question. However former members are quick to spot when the goal posts are moved and question the motive in great depth .

Progressive light places a serious question mark over all the current beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses, because each teaching could well be subject to ‘progressive understanding’ in the future. All their doctrines could be wrong, in the same way that they now consider many of the teachings of the early 20th century to be mistaken.

Furthermore, JWs do not extend to other religions this same liberty to discard failed or embarrassing teachings, despite seeing no problem in awarding themselves the right to do so whenever necessary. On an equal playing field, every denomination and faith community has the same authority to claim they are the one true religion, because all of them can assert that they are awaiting correction from God, thereby negating any false teachings they happen to hold. But it escapes the JWs attention that logically they should equally excuse errors in other religions using the same reasoning they use for their own failings.

JWs also spin the fact that they have owned up to (some of) their past mistakes and portray it as a virtue. They don’t recognise that admitting errors does not negate the fact that these serious mistakes undermine their position or that these errors have important ramifications as explained above. Neither do they graciously excuse other religions who have far more readily, publicly and humbly owned up to making mistakes. But they expect full leniency when justifying their own failings.

The ‘progressive light’ argument renders all the Watchtower’s teachings as unfalsifiable, i.e. they cannot be proved false, however they also cannot be proved true. This fact leaves Jehovah’s Witnesses with no metric with which to evaluate their beliefs. Owing to the almost infinite number of ways the bible can be interpreted, there is no solidity in their theological structure.

If Jehovah’s Witnesses are not the true religion, who is (whom shall we go away to)?

This argument commits the ‘argument from ignorance’ fallacy and is a very easy trap to fall into. It presupposes that there is a ‘true’ religion, and when all other religions fail to meet up to the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ criteria, they make the flawed conclusion that their religion is the only one left standing and therefore must be the correct one, or the one that has the most ‘truth’. It is incredible how many Jehovah’s Witnesses fall for this argument in their defence of their religion.

They overlook the fact that every proposition stands or falls on its own merit. The fact that a religion can be demonstrated to be untrue, doesn’t indicate that another religion is more credible by default. Even if all the world’s other religions are false, it doesn’t make the Jehovah’s Witnesses any more true. The theological teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses need to meet their burden of proof regardless of the status of the religious teachings of alternative denominations with whom they disagree.

False reasoning keeps so many JWs indoctrinated by the Watchtower’s dogma and so many lives are wasted as a result. Flawed apologetics keep members prisoner to this religion. So many have sacrificed their freedom and become addicted to a false hope which is based on unsubstantiated theological dogma. It is this that I hold against the Jehovah’s Witnesses as a religion, and it is for this reason that I expose it's falsehoods, in the hope that I might help a few to avoid the pitfalls of allying themselves to an ideology founded on empty promises.

44

Dearest Tec... re the Rich Man and Lazarus..

by AGuest in

jw
friends

the greatest of love and peace to you, dear one!.

thank you for your kind patience.

his request to have lazarus dip the "tip" of his finger in "water" and "cool" his "tongue," tells us: there is no water in the world of the dead.

Vanderhoven7

I finally made a video entitled, "Lazarus and the Rich Man: Parable or Parody".

I'd like some feedback if you have the time and inclination.

https://youtu.be/2Y-p9Ol_Shs

25

Differences, on average, between men and women

by LoveUniHateExams in

quite bizarrely, there are people trying their level best to blur the lines between man and woman, male and female.. so, i thought it a fairly good idea to list the differences, on average, between men and women.. ok, starting with the most obvious .... women have a vulva, a vagina, and internal gonads (ovaries); men have a penis and external gonads (testes).. women get pregnant, give birth and breastfeed their babies; men do none of those things.. men are taller than women.. men have greater upper-body strength than women.

men have greater bone density and percentage of muscle mass than women.. women live longer than men (this is partly due to life choices and behaviour and partly due to genetics).. men have higher testosterone levels than women.. men heal more quickly from physical injury than women.. the sexual dynamics between men and women tend to be different, too.

re sexual selection, women typically have their choice of the most suitable men.

Vanderhoven7

Or shipping preferences....

5

Delete account?

by Lostreality in

im in the midst of doing an audit of my online presence, and found that, shockingly, this account is still active.

since there is no way to change the password that i can find, im curious if the account can just be outright deleted?.

thanks.

Vanderhoven7

Do you wish to delete your account because you have changed your mind about things?

10

How to delete account

by Youngaposthate in

hello i’m looking to delete this account completely ya know.

.

Vanderhoven7

So what's motivating you to delete your account, change your current status and publish once again? Got family in?

10

How to delete account

by Youngaposthate in

hello i’m looking to delete this account completely ya know.

.

Vanderhoven7

Do you believe being reinstated will help?

10

How to delete account

by Youngaposthate in

hello i’m looking to delete this account completely ya know.

.

Vanderhoven7

Are you thinking of changing your apostate status?

15

Tony Morris Needs Money

by Vanderhoven7 in

looking for a laugh.... listen to this gal's response to tony's encouragement to donate.. https://youtu.be/mvjv__r7xaw.

Vanderhoven7

Looking for a laugh.... listen to this gal's response to Tony's encouragement to donate.

https://youtu.be/MvJv__R7xaw

122

1995 generation change

by Gorb in

jw
friends

now, many years later, i remember the 1995 generation change, very well.. since early youth, hearing my father explaining in field service the 2520 years.

it was his main theme in the field.. with the change my doubts started.

with some jw friends we did not trust the organization anymore.

Vanderhoven7

The Watchtower promised that many of the original GC members would be alive to survive Armageddon. The GC were first identified by Rutherford in that famous 1935 Washington convention. If the oldest JW at that convention was 15 he would be 101 today. Watchtower leaders never keep their promises.