Of course you have a dark look: your sort of decision is not made lightly or without profound consequences. You have that look because it mirrors a real crisis within you. So, yes, she is probably correct. It's a cost of this path you have chosen.
Posts by Sulla
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11Just wondering
by Freeof1914 ini am sure that some of you know my story, but in case you don't, i come fromma family of extremely zealous witnesses.
my immediate family as well as much of my extended family.
my father and brother are all elders that are used on the circuit and district level.
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268
Is Biblical Morality Situational, Based Upon the Arbitrary Whims of Yahweh?
by leavingwt inis biblical morality situational, based upon the arbitrary whims of yahweh?
murder is wrong... if god orders it however, then murder is right, and failing to murder is a sin.. .
exodus 20:13 versus 1 samuel 15:1, 7-11. .
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Sulla
I have stated here before that I am agnostic.
My comments are on the simple statements translated in generally available christian Bibles.
The bible record as presented shows a situational enforcement of morality if taken as literal truth.
James woods, this is what I mean when I say Christians think about God differently than you do. For that matter, differently than JWs do.
But let me move away from the simplistic critique that the morality of God is situational. And to do that, let's look at an exhibit of this situational morality: the idea that God commanded certain populations to be entirely erased during the Jewish conquest of Caanan.
I think everybody basically agrees on the problem: we look on this sort of thing as a barbaric act and wonder if a morality that endorses this sort of act in one age and condemns it in another can be the product of the same mind. But that is to read these works in the wrong way, I suggest. The right way is to place the Jews within their cultural framework that was, everywhere, shockingly violent (in ways that are familiar to us in the 21st century) and observe how the preparation for the ultimate Christian revelation was made.
These are religious works, james woods, and need to be read in that manner. When God instructs Joshua to take the Promised Land, we are correct to note that this instruction can only be accompished with the means available at the time and with the people, and their own limitations, who happened to live then. These did not have the benefit of a couple thousand years of Christian reflection and several thousand years of Jewish reflection and hundreds of years of Greek philosophical reflection.
I think the approach we see on this thread is essentially mistaken. We need to read these books in a way fundamentalists do not. Your criticism of OT morality depends on reading these stories the way fundamentalists do, and ignores the main themes. That is my complaint.
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70
If the WT dumped 1914 tommorow ...?
by faithfulslavedriver inthis is my first post here.
i've been a lurker for awhile but had no particular desire to join until the other day.. anyways, do you think that if wt decided to face the fact that 607-1914 is an indefensible pile of crap that has been artificially kept steaming for way too long, would it really kick off a mass exodus or anything?
in the short term the fds/gb might lose some authority, but they are hemorrhaging people anyways keeping it around (607 started me on the road to this place).. if wt stopped talking about 1914 for awhile then later killed it, blaming it on "further research" or something, and acknowledged some uncertainty in 607/587, i really doubt that very many of the r&f would think much about it.
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Sulla
Well, the could change it the way they change any other doctrine and have no particular effect on the typical follower. The problem, I think, is one of self-justificaiton.
As AllTimeJeff can testify, the prophetic interpretations involving 1914 and its derivatives all focus on the WT organization. The central claims of the JW ecclesiology, one that is very well known among the hardest core, all involve these derived interpretations.
I think that these interpretations are necessary for the guys who run the organization to justify themselves to themselves. That's why it can't go away. It doesn't have anything to do with what they think the people will accept.
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64
Transubstantiation?
by leavingwt indoes anyone here accept the doctrine of transubstantiation?
if so, please elaborate.
theology: the changing of the elements of the bread and wine, when they are consecrated in the eucharist, into the body and blood of christ (a doctrine of the roman catholic church).
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Sulla
Physical change is what is understood by practically everybody that believes in this doctrine. I just read of a famous physicist (Fred Hoyle, IIRC) who went to the effort (as a boy) of saving some of the eucharist in his mouth to take home and examine by microscope to compare with living samples. He was, of course, dissappointed to find that it was not transubstantiated physically.
Couldn't tell you what the Catholic on the street thinks, any more than you can, I guess. It is a substantial presence which is a technical term requiring some grounding in Aristotle, Aquinas, and the rest to get a handle on. It is not surprising that there is confusion about this teaching.
...and wouldn't this be a form or cannabalism?
Well, that was clearly the problem the Jews had when Jesus talked about it, as the Gospel of John says. It was also a problem for the Romans in the second century, according to the apology by Justin Martyr. It's one of those weird, impossible things the Christians have always taught, like that a man could rise from the dead.
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Sulla
Easy. If the universe is as the JWs say it is, you don't want any part of it. Live as you like and accept the judgment from the petty JW god.
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268
Is Biblical Morality Situational, Based Upon the Arbitrary Whims of Yahweh?
by leavingwt inis biblical morality situational, based upon the arbitrary whims of yahweh?
murder is wrong... if god orders it however, then murder is right, and failing to murder is a sin.. .
exodus 20:13 versus 1 samuel 15:1, 7-11. .
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Sulla
No, we are complaining that God did not give everybody the same moral code, even people living at the same time.
OK. Well, like I keep pointing out, you have this very JW-ish vision of God that supposes he has some sort of agenda and that, being the most powerful creature out there, should have been able to impose that agenda on whatever ancient people he wanted to ointeract with. Since he did not, he must not exist, or something.
And what I am trying to tell you is that this way of thinking is not the way Christians have been approaching the question. (And before you go find me some Christians who clearly do think this way, let's just agree not to bring up American fundamentalists, ok? How about we just assume I mean Christians who are not fundamentalists?) All that stuff in the OT has been known for quite some time now and yet, somehow, Christians have managed not to be so profoundly dismayed by this knowledge. Couple options for explaining that.
1. Christians are all dumber than you
2. Christians are all less moral than you
3. Christians don't think about God the way you do
Maybe there are other options, but that's all I have right now.
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64
Transubstantiation?
by leavingwt indoes anyone here accept the doctrine of transubstantiation?
if so, please elaborate.
theology: the changing of the elements of the bread and wine, when they are consecrated in the eucharist, into the body and blood of christ (a doctrine of the roman catholic church).
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Sulla
The claim is that the elements are truly changed in essence, but exist to the senses as bread and wine. Nobody says there is a physical change, if by the term you are referring to a change that is observable to the senses.
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268
Is Biblical Morality Situational, Based Upon the Arbitrary Whims of Yahweh?
by leavingwt inis biblical morality situational, based upon the arbitrary whims of yahweh?
murder is wrong... if god orders it however, then murder is right, and failing to murder is a sin.. .
exodus 20:13 versus 1 samuel 15:1, 7-11. .
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Sulla
Yeah, but cofty, you and others present these sorts of arguments as if they were shocking news. This whole thread is presented as if nobody ever actually read the bible: "Golly, guys, did you have any idea???!!!"
Well, yea, actually. We always had a pretty good idea. The ones who seem not to actually have an idea are those who imagine that the morality by which they critique scripture is critically dependent on the ideas found within scripture. Again, you are really complaining that God didn't make everybody perfect right away -- or anyway, that he didn't give everybody your particular moral code immediately, by which you mean the same thing.
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64
Transubstantiation?
by leavingwt indoes anyone here accept the doctrine of transubstantiation?
if so, please elaborate.
theology: the changing of the elements of the bread and wine, when they are consecrated in the eucharist, into the body and blood of christ (a doctrine of the roman catholic church).
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Sulla
That's a little present-ist, isn't it? We can be reasonably certain that the Christians of the primitive Church were quite aware that the bread and wine, since they do not taste like blood and flesh, were not transformed in a way perceptable to the senses. So, your modern scientific test would tell us exactly what everybody already knew. The claim is one of spiritual reality.
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Is Biblical Morality Situational, Based Upon the Arbitrary Whims of Yahweh?
by leavingwt inis biblical morality situational, based upon the arbitrary whims of yahweh?
murder is wrong... if god orders it however, then murder is right, and failing to murder is a sin.. .
exodus 20:13 versus 1 samuel 15:1, 7-11. .
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Sulla
Yeah, james woods, there are obvious contradictions. But they are hardly something that we've just discovered in the last couple decades. Hell, the complaint that the OT is filled with really horrible stuff was behind the Marconian controversy (I speak from memory, so it could have been somebody else). That idea ran in the gnostic tradition that the OT is the work of the evil creator god who is opposition to the good NT God. As such, the proper thing to do was to eliminate the OT from the Christian religion, focusing instead on all the "love thy neighbor" NT stuff.
Point is, the raping and killing and all the rest of it has always created some tension within the Christian community. For that matter, the same could be said for the Jewish community. But that doesn't imply that morality is arbitrary.