Posts by David

40

What Religious Trajectory Are The JWs Following?

by millie210 in

i was reading another thread and the comments got me thinking.... https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5656910430732288/pictures-tell-thousand-words.

comments such as oldskools: more like digital colonialism channeled through one of the weaker and less important institutions western society has to offer.. .

some have compared the orgs future path to the world wide church of gods.

David_Jay

Millie210,

I am what is known in Judaism as Sephardic Anusim. I am the descendant of "Conversos," and my family lived as Crypto-Jews until the 1990s.

If you are unfamiliar with that, what it means is that I am a direct descendant of four Jewish families that were heavily persecuted by the Spanish Inquisition. While much of my family lived in the Sepharic territory governed by Nebuchadnezzar since the Babylonian deportation (for you Bible buffs, see Obadiah 20, "the exiles in Judah who are in Sepharad"), the rise of the Catholic Spanish royalty would see the end of their lives there, ending with the Alhambra Decree of 1492.

I have gone over the records of my ancestors who were tortured and perished at the hands of evil men. I know far too well about the crimes committed by the Church. Let me tell you that Jehovah's Witnesses, in all their sins, have never accomplished anything as cruel as that.

There are far more evils I know of too since I lost millions of relatives in the Holocaust in about half a decade. The Sephardic Jewish communities once dotted Europe and my mother tongue, Ladino, was at one time the most spoken Jewish language in the 20th century. As Sephardic Jews have darker skin and no Aryan blood as the Askenazi Jews did, we went first. Almost 100% of Europe's Sepharic communities vanished and my language went from one of the most spoken to now being so rare that some linguists call it practically extinct.

Catholics stood by as Nazis committed horrible atrocities. But guess what, many others did too. Some, like the Protestant churches who sent me and my family a formal apology on the recent anniversary of the end of WWII for having Nazi members or, if not, for members who stood passively by and did nothing as my grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins, were taken from them homes and sent to die.

When the camps were liberated, the nightmare continued as the atheist Communists unlocked the gates by day and then savagely raped the weakened women and even girls by night.

Relatives of mine were on the St. Louis, the ship from Germany filled with Jews who were trying to escape capture and the concentration camps. All the Allies turned the ship away, including the United States, and almost everyone of the Jews on that boat ended up being arrested and died in a concentration camp.

My people cried out to the world and few did anything. Most heard and turned away. These were not just Catholics, but Protestants, agnostics, atheists, British, Americans, I can go on and on.

The Catholic Church is not special for its horrible treatments on humanity. My own people persecuted those who would not bend to the Hasmonean dynasty. Even back before Babylon swept them away, my people did cruel things and persecuted innocents like the prophet Jeremiah.

Guess what? You are no better off becuase you are not Catholic or not Jewish or not JW. You, like me, have the capacity for great evil. I am sure if you dig enough you will find that something you are connected to did cruel things that match of surpass the evils of the Catholic Church.

As a Jew I am no defender of the evils committed by Catholics. But if you want to start pointing out groups for the evil they did, you had better not be a part of any group that did anything evil first or that failed to do good when it should have. Otherwise you have the same dirt under your fingernails as everyone else, and you too will bleed when the stone you've thrown hits the walls of this glass house we all live in.

37

A question JWs almost never ask, but should

by slimboyfat in

it occurs to me, if i was starting from scratch choosing a religion or belief system to join, there's one good question i should like answered first:.

does this religion promote a way of life and view of the world that would be satisfying even if not a single word of its doctrines are true?

if jws honestly answered that question i doubt many would say it's a good choice.

David_Jay

How many times have we heard the Watchtower claim that about their way of quoting others, hmmm? Just saying that or believing that is irrelevant.

What is evident by your actions is that you can't stay on point. You like to argue anything. You stubbornly can't admit you are wrong. And you have a lot of time to write lots and lots and lots of things on here.

I don't. I have a life. It's filled with people, lots to do, love, and doing other things, some far more important that coming here. I do this in my spare time (and I have to go now.) But I wonder what all your time you have to do so much writing says about you? I like to imagine you have an even fuller and more fulfilling life than me. But what do your actions on this site tell?

Not your beliefs, Cofty, your actions and the way you act and the reactions you get from people. It's not what you spend writing about the defines you. It's your actions.

Remember that line from the Wizard of Oz? "A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others." It is the way we live our lives that defines us, the love we show others, the respect we have for them. Our convictions are meaningless if the community around us has only negative responses due to our actions.

37

A question JWs almost never ask, but should

by slimboyfat in

it occurs to me, if i was starting from scratch choosing a religion or belief system to join, there's one good question i should like answered first:.

does this religion promote a way of life and view of the world that would be satisfying even if not a single word of its doctrines are true?

if jws honestly answered that question i doubt many would say it's a good choice.

David_Jay

Frankly, Cofty, you can believe that my words mean what you believe they do.

But if you have to edit them to make them fit the way you need them to so you don't appear before others as if you are incorrect, despite the evidence that I am the author of my words and their meanings, then your actions of editing show that your convictions have not made you very different from the Watchtower. It too must splice and dice and cut up quotes to make them fit their arguments. How have your current views changed you from acting like them?

What I have been saying applies to the subject of this thread and a comment made by Xanthippe. I am talking about how Jehovah's Witnesses taught us that our beliefs were good and that adopting them made us good people. Instead, as I have admitted, it made me stupid, act in ignorance. It didn't make me morally good to shun others, regardless of my beliefs. Beliefs are irrelevant in this context, the one which should be clear that I am speaking in.

I repeat, I have stated that beliefs are irrelevant in the face of one's actions. You may believe that what you are doing is for the greater good, like a terrorist who guns down innocent people based on this belief. But the results show his belief, that his convictions lead to good, to be irrelevant. In reality what he believed about his convictions do not match the product of his conviction, the claims to be morally good. His actions prove his beliefs false, ineffective.

But I have never said that beliefs don't influence actions. My first post on the thread, which you are ignoring, shows that can't possibly be the context my words should be read in.

But I stand by what I say: merely saying or believing something is so and even debating it too can be betrayed by your actions. You are what you do, not just what you believe your convictions make you.

87

Think for Yourself: Reform Judaism Uses JW Blood Issue For Shavuot

by David_Jay in

as the jewish holy day of shavuot (pentecost) begins this weekend, the reform judaism site publishes an interesting article entitled "judaism teaches: question authority, think for yourself.".

the article employs a jewish doctor's recollection of a jw patient who refused blood and died as an example of how both religious traditions greatly differ on how they see and apply god's law.. shavuot is the day jews recall god's giving the law to israel.

the article is significant in that it demonstrates how jews see the giving of the law as a call to questioning authority, including divine revelation itself whereas the death of the jw patient is contrasted as a slavish interpretation that misses the point behind jewish scripture.. for more see the article at:.

David_Jay

That's exactly how Jews and even Orthodox and Catholics view their religions. Their belief systems came first and they produced lots of written materials. Only those materials which had value to them and coincided with what they already believed became canonized by their leaders.

These religions were founded and operated before there was any Scipture. The religions themselves are viewed by the adherents as inspired of God. The Scriptures are thus based on the inspired religions that produced them, not vice versa.

With Judaism it was the Theophany at Sinai (which is being celebrated today as Shavuot) and with Christians it was the Ephiphany of the life and passion of Jesus the Nazarene. These events were the basis for their religions. Their Scripture collections generally came afterwards.

JWs, by contrast, had no such events from the heavens to base their religion upon. Claiming that the canons set by Jewish and Catholic authority are from God (but not the religions that wrote or canonized them, oddly enough) they base their religion only on what appears in these books. As they were never meant to be used outside of their religious context, one can read much into them and get odd results because they, JWs, reject the practical tradition of the original religious systems that offered a context.

37

A question JWs almost never ask, but should

by slimboyfat in

it occurs to me, if i was starting from scratch choosing a religion or belief system to join, there's one good question i should like answered first:.

does this religion promote a way of life and view of the world that would be satisfying even if not a single word of its doctrines are true?

if jws honestly answered that question i doubt many would say it's a good choice.

David_Jay

I forgot to add, my comments about "foxholes" was somewhat central to the whole idea.

Stress, panic, fear, strong emotions and other situations can make it impossible to ever live up to some of the claims we make of ourselves in adopting a set of beliefs or a philosophy, religious or atheist. This doesn't necessarily make us a hypocrite in these cases, but sometimes it shows us that we don't have to strive to fit a mere set of beliefs that have to universally apply in every situation.

Not always measuring up to a set of beliefs does not make us valueless.

37

A question JWs almost never ask, but should

by slimboyfat in

it occurs to me, if i was starting from scratch choosing a religion or belief system to join, there's one good question i should like answered first:.

does this religion promote a way of life and view of the world that would be satisfying even if not a single word of its doctrines are true?

if jws honestly answered that question i doubt many would say it's a good choice.

David_Jay

What I said is that beliefs are irrelevant compared to actions. Notice especially the first sentences of my 4th and 7th paragraph.

What we say we are or how wonderfully enlightened we claim our philosophy or creed makes us is irrelevant to the lives we lead that prove or belie the claims.

Beliefs do make people do things, especially argue and debate. They can be valuable, they can be destructive, but many of them never get proven one way or another.

To some people attempting to prove my views wrong will motivate them to employ a lot of emotion and energy to counter it. But what does that accomplish? It doesn't make the world more peaceful, it doesn't prove you were right or I was right, and worse, I may never read what you wrote or read it and say, "Who cares?" What did all your spent effort and time on arguing your point do if no one listened to you?

What we believe has value only if we put it into practice. When our beliefs go outside ourselves they become tangible, and when those tangible things produce benefits for us and those around us they have value. But when they don't do this, they are just intangible mental concepts, sparks in the brain, and if all we do is pontificate them then they are irrelevant. That is what I said.

But I never said they don't matter or don't cause people to do what they do. That's why the JW teaching that what you believe, your adopted set of intangible beliefs that you have to guard against the slightest doubt and defend against challenges is ridiculous. True, the mind may have to change to change the actions, but if the actions never change neither has the mind, not really.

We are what we do, not what we merely say we believe in or claim we don't. We are the sum of our actions and often not the creeds we publiclize allegiance to.

37

A question JWs almost never ask, but should

by slimboyfat in

it occurs to me, if i was starting from scratch choosing a religion or belief system to join, there's one good question i should like answered first:.

does this religion promote a way of life and view of the world that would be satisfying even if not a single word of its doctrines are true?

if jws honestly answered that question i doubt many would say it's a good choice.

David_Jay

Of course, in line with Xanthippe, religions generally do mean agreeing to accept a set of belief and rules. So if you are going to join one, and if you are up to speed with the fact that in most cases this is what a religion entails, it does seem ridiculous to attach oneself with harsh demands as we did when becoming JWs.

Some of this was hidden from us who were not born in, like myself. They are not as forthcoming as they should have been now that I look back. And other times they were acting on the ignorance that came from them being cut off from education and proper analytical thinking. I can't say I know what it is for someone who is born in. In such a case you might not know where the "lies we don't tell others" begin and "the way we explain it to outsiders" gets officially marked off.

And, while I've heard that saying this causes brain freeze to JWs and even some exJWs, I belong to a religious tradition that believes that beliefs are insufficient and irrelevant.

This does not mean that we don't have convictions, beliefs, faith, etc. All people have convictions, even faith in their stand that all religion is malarkey. But believing something or not believing is mainly something you do with the mind. Those higher concepts of doctrinal catechesis and arguments why such beliefs cannot be real or reasonable are mostly only things you can argue about. Most of can't really prove what we believe or don't believe. We think we can, and whether religious or non-religious we can spend a lot of time--wasting a lot of time--arguing that what we think, the intangible convictions of our mind whether religious or against relgion, have some sort of power, value, and means to make us more than what we really are...perhaps even elevate us above those who don't subscribe to our convictions.

And yet most of us, especially when put to the test or when things get rough, will excuse ourselves of having to follow what we believe. There may be no atheists in fox holes, but the guy next to him praying his rosary has got a gun and will use it despite what the Ten Commandments say.

The problem with Jehovah's Witnesses is that they teach us that what concepts we adhere to, most of them intangible, are important. We came to believe that a small amount of doubt can ruin these beliefs. If there is a God, how is your mere mental acknowledgment of God's existence relevant? If an atheist acts with more love and fights more injustice than you the believer, didn't the atheist do a better job of bringing God into the world? But for his disbelief the atheist gets destroyed or goes to hell? Nonsense.

Beliefs are a starting point, but they are irrelevant to actions. What you do, how you act, defines what you really are, what you really believe. Fighting amongst ourselves that we are somehow more enlightened due to what we believe or don't doesn't amount to much.

You can argue that if there was a God there wouldn't be suffering in the world, but then you prove that you choose to waste your time blaming an intangible belief and arguing against it instead of using your own power and ability to bring relief from that suffering. Says a lot about us in comparison to a God that supposedly doesn't exist when we do that. Our actions are what really matter.

Then again, so does the appearance of a Kingdom Hall. If this is Jehovah's one true religion, why Kingdom Halls? They always gave me the creeps and I had to constantly be compartmentalizing my mind screaming at me that "this is the type of building a cult would meet in."

87

Think for Yourself: Reform Judaism Uses JW Blood Issue For Shavuot

by David_Jay in

as the jewish holy day of shavuot (pentecost) begins this weekend, the reform judaism site publishes an interesting article entitled "judaism teaches: question authority, think for yourself.".

the article employs a jewish doctor's recollection of a jw patient who refused blood and died as an example of how both religious traditions greatly differ on how they see and apply god's law.. shavuot is the day jews recall god's giving the law to israel.

the article is significant in that it demonstrates how jews see the giving of the law as a call to questioning authority, including divine revelation itself whereas the death of the jw patient is contrasted as a slavish interpretation that misses the point behind jewish scripture.. for more see the article at:.

David_Jay

Before I forget...

Fisherman: No disrespect to your conclusions or beliefs. As you said, you are merely presenting your view and I am not one to judge it, you, or claim it is not true or impossible to be the one that prevails. I was merely adding additional information that others might be unaware of,

As a Jew, the act of having a certain "belief" or not and judging someone for this is contrary to the way we try to live. People should not be judged because they have a conviction or lack of a creed. Humans have a value that goes beyond their interpretation of Scripture or what deities they embrace or reject, at least in my book. Regardless of what you believe, you are important. The world would not be the same without you or the unique things you bring to it.

87

Think for Yourself: Reform Judaism Uses JW Blood Issue For Shavuot

by David_Jay in

as the jewish holy day of shavuot (pentecost) begins this weekend, the reform judaism site publishes an interesting article entitled "judaism teaches: question authority, think for yourself.".

the article employs a jewish doctor's recollection of a jw patient who refused blood and died as an example of how both religious traditions greatly differ on how they see and apply god's law.. shavuot is the day jews recall god's giving the law to israel.

the article is significant in that it demonstrates how jews see the giving of the law as a call to questioning authority, including divine revelation itself whereas the death of the jw patient is contrasted as a slavish interpretation that misses the point behind jewish scripture.. for more see the article at:.

David_Jay

A little note that will change things up a bit on what's recently been said here:

This article appeared on the Reform Judaism site. Reform Jews are quite different from what TD and Fisherman have written about.

For instance: The article on dental emergencies on Shabbat never come up in Reform Judaism, though they keep Sabbath with much celebration.

The article is written from the standpoint of a very advanced and academically critical application of Torah. It is one that states that literal application of Biblical principles is tantamount to idol worship and ignorance.

For those interested, the Reform Judaism approach to Torah is found in The Torah: A Modern Commentary, which includes a revised NJPS English translation side-by-side with the Hebrew text.

As for Fisherman's comments, about the natural Jews playing no further part in the economy of salvation, that is now a limited view shared by JWs and a minority of Christian movements. For instance, in 2015 the Catholic Church has formally brought an end of supersessionist views and proselytizing of the Jews, declaring that they will remain God's covenant people for all time.

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/relations-jews-docs/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_20151210_ebraismo-nostra-aetate_en.html#5._The_universality_of_salvation_in_Jesus_Christ_and_God%92s_unrevoked_covenant_with_Israel

They are not the only Christian denomination to come to this view, either.

As for me and my family, we are Post-denominational Jews who share an approach almost identical to Reform Judaism.

37

A question JWs almost never ask, but should

by slimboyfat in

it occurs to me, if i was starting from scratch choosing a religion or belief system to join, there's one good question i should like answered first:.

does this religion promote a way of life and view of the world that would be satisfying even if not a single word of its doctrines are true?

if jws honestly answered that question i doubt many would say it's a good choice.

David_Jay

When I joined the JWs in the 1980s, it definitely was not because I felt they would make life more satisfying and happy now or because they brought benefits to the community at large.

I come from a family of Jews and Catholics with some agnostic and atheist minds included for a sprinkling of balance. Interestingly there have not been any real quarrels regarding personal convictions. Not that there have not been disagreements and family feuds (some of enormous proportion), but they were about what our family saw as more important things: one aunt marrying a man who abused her constantly while dating, an uncle who wouldn't set aside anything for the college funds of his children, who really made the best and worst turkey for Thanksgiving, and whether or not we should all go to the pride parade in June because we have one lesbian and gay man in the family (my cousins).

But differences or debates on religion? The only time it happened was when one family, my own starting studying and attending meetings, not at a synagogue or church or lodge, but at that cultish place: something called a "Kingdom Hall."

There was no doubt in my mind that becoming a Jehovah's Witness meant being hated, causing division, losing family and friends, being persecuted, not participating in the world community--even to do some practical good...

In fact, the JWs studying with me insisted that all this negativity was the sign that I was doing something good, that we truly had Jehovah's favor. The more problems, the more difficulty, the more struggle, the more you had to sacrifice and the more you hated it and were hated, yes that's what the True Religion was "supposed" to feel like. Those were its earmarks, I was taught.

My first Kingdom Hall was clean but shabby compared to the great cathedrals and temples my family worshipped in. In fact the Hall (and the people in it) looked depressingly plain, like a 1975 Sears store had an affair with a 1972 K-mart and their illegitimate love child threw up over everything and everyone, leaving this Watchtower Study in its place. Yep, this too was a "proof" that it was the True Religion.

I guess in my era of entrance the JWs sold the fact that they were shabby, had little, were hated by (and themselves hated) non-JWs. It was rough, tough, we ate dirt, and we thanked Jehovah for it because, as one of the first JWs told me (since we were at height of the Cold War era too): "We know that we are the only ones who will survive Armageddon, even if it involves nuclear bombs, so we endure all this so Jehovah will save us, even miraculously even!"

Stupid me. I believed it! And I even sold it to others, for a while.

And what did my non-JW family have during the 1980s at their places of worship? Pretty churches and modern synagogues and youth programs and family outings and scholarship programs (which my uncle was taking advantage of for his kids, it turns out) and modern Bible translations like the NJPS and the NRSV and ecumenical meetings and no persecution or knocking on doors on hot Saturday mornings to talk to a bunch of pissed-off neighbors who never converted to my stupid religion after preaching to them for a decade.

A lot of good it did me, and a "lot of good" I accomplished over that wasted decade...Not!

It wasn't a cool religion to join, that's for sure. If it was for any other reason except fearing a nuclear holocaust (yep, that's the real reason I joined), I would have never joined. They had no amenities or tradition or even real Bible education, just a self-denial complex to offer.

What I learned from the JW religion? I learned this one, very significant, and life-saving truth: I was a stupid ass in the 1980s and needed to get my act together lest I wasted the rest of my life.

You can only truly learn that lesson when you find yourself surrounded by other stupid asses in a club for stupid asses that only lets members in if they promise to be stupid asses. For this awakening, I shall be eternally grateful to the Watchtower Bible & Stupid Ass Society.

Muchas gracias. Shalom. Mike drop.

David_Jay

Posts by David_Jay