smmcroberts

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Posts by smmcroberts

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  26

  As A Jehovah's Witness Did You Never Accept Or Believe Something They Taught?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i never believed that in 1975 or by the end of the 20th century, we would see the great tribulation occur.

  some witnesses would listen to fred franz' talks where he clearly told his audience that 1975 was the end of 6000 years and the beginning of the jubilee....or something like that.. was there something that you never truly accepted that you were supposed to believe as a jehovah's witness?.

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  smmcroberts

  That the great plagues of Revelation found their fulfillment in the conventions in Ohio in the 1920's.

  That always sounded so ridiculous to me.
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  19

  Need help...Letter from m-i-l calling us apostates

  by TweetieBird in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  we got a letter from my mother-in-law today (3 hand-written pages).

  i will type it for you and hope that you can help me reply to it.

  this is the whole letter exactly.. first a little background.

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  smmcroberts

  If you have children (or plan to) you could express your concern that they would be treated as oddballs by the other kids, be discouraged from playing sports and pursuing an education, and would be in mortal danger if they ever needed a blood transfusion. As a mother she should be able to relate to your wanting to protect your children.
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  29

  How old does someone have to get, to gain immunity for blood-guilt for being a part of JWs?

  by King Solomon in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  threads arise were elderly jw's are discussed, and we see thoughts that it's ok to be a jw if it makes them happy, or that it would be cruel to tell them ttatt after having spent their entire lives as a jw.. on the flip-side, other threads discuss teens who commit suicide after their immediate families (including their own grand-parents) shun them, as does everyone else in their kh.

  the outrage rises to the point where the tendency is to accuse anyone who's a part of the organization of sharing in the blood-guilt.

  that actually makes sense to me: jws claim that even being a cook in the military violates the neutrality principle, since it frees up someone else to carry a weapon; hence being a member of the military in any capacity is sharing in the blood-guilt.

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  smmcroberts

  But the element that struck me is the trend that it's OK to give a pass to an elderly JW for a lifetime of supporting an organization that practices cruel shunning and death (via policys like blood tranfusion), as long as it's that of someone we know. But If the JW is the relative of someone we don't know (a stranger), then it's OK to blame them and hold them accountable. Is that about right?

  There's a lot of truth in that. When we put a human face to the abstract concept it makes a difference. For instance, in another thread I expressed my empathy for a GB member that I knew.

  There is the concept of group-think wherein people go along with things they never would by themselves. Do they share in the blame for what the group does? Or can we just blame the group but not its members? Collectively it is blameworthy, but we are loathe to point to any one individual and assign them the blame. After all, many of us were once carried along by the same delusion, so we should have empathy for them; they are as we once were.

  Yes, there may be exceptions, but on the whole I think of them all as victims: even the GB members.

  I think there are times when it is not kind or appropriate to break the truth to someone. You can't assign an arbitrary age; it's on a case-by-case basis.

  Nothing would be served by telling a GB member on his deathbed that he had been living a lie. Well, maybe a cruel sense of revenge that we would later regret.

  In the overall scheme, blame is of little importance: change is what's important. If someone is past the point of being able to change, then there's little reason to make them aware of their blameworthiness.
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  79

  What did God accomplish with the flood?

  by jam in

  1. social
  2. humour

  the purpose of the flood, because man grieved him to.

  his heart, so he started over.

  did his plan work?

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  smmcroberts

  (An Elephantine statement): I believe in an invisible all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving spirit who does stupid, futile things which cause the death of millions of people because that's what he meant to do. Now, Solomon: Prove me wrong!

  It's not possible to prove that statement wrong to the true believer in it.

  But it's up to the one putting forth extraordinary claims to provide the proof.
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  79

  What did God accomplish with the flood?

  by jam in

  1. social
  2. humour

  the purpose of the flood, because man grieved him to.

  his heart, so he started over.

  did his plan work?

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  smmcroberts

  Elephant: " i promise not to get stupid or condenscending"

  Too late.
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  79

  What did God accomplish with the flood?

  by jam in

  1. social
  2. humour

  the purpose of the flood, because man grieved him to.

  his heart, so he started over.

  did his plan work?

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  smmcroberts

  Great point, HeartOfaBoy, I hadn't thought of that! Where was the room for the potential converts on the already hopelessly overcrowded ark? God hadn't allowed for that in his blueprints.

  I guess he foreknew that only Noah and his family were worth saving. The Bible tells us that Noah was a man "perfect in his generations". If that was true, then -- using the same logic as for Adamic sinful inheritance -- all of Noah's offspring (including you and I) would be perfect as well! But how did Noah become perfect when he was decended from imperfect Adam? That blows away the theory of Adamic sinful inheritance. So, either way we have no inherited sin! No need for a ransom sacrifice in that case, or Kingdom Halls!

  @serein: Angels can be drowned? I thought they were supposed to be spirits.

  If you don't believe it was an earth-wide flood, then why do you believe the story at all? If you're picking and choosing which parts to believe, then why not just toss the whole thing and be done with it? There is no evidence for it, and you even question why god would kill everyone for the angel's "sin" -- so why cling to this tall tale?

  In any case, if it was god's purpose to kill off the innocent children of the angels, the flood was a failure even on that account; the Nephilim are later mentioned as still being on Earth in Numbers 13:33.
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  6

  Jah's Obit!

  by smmcroberts in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  all good things must come to an end... and evil things as well.. here it is: jehovah's obiturary.. you'll never guess the cause of death.. does anyone know who to send condolences to?

  (does anyone need condolence for this?

  ).

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  smmcroberts

  @Solomon,

  I don't know the source of that cartoon, but would love to find out. I found it via a Google image search of "Jehovah" where it was labeled as "an outsider's view," though it's not far off from some of the "inside" cartoons one sees in the Rutherford era.
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  6

  Jah's Obit!

  by smmcroberts in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  all good things must come to an end... and evil things as well.. here it is: jehovah's obiturary.. you'll never guess the cause of death.. does anyone know who to send condolences to?

  (does anyone need condolence for this?

  ).

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  smmcroberts

  All good things must come to an end... and evil things as well.

  Here it is: Jehovah's obiturary.

  You'll never guess the cause of death.

  Does anyone know who to send condolences to? (Does anyone need condolence for this?)
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  5

  The WT sense of "true"

  by smmcroberts in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i always liked the wt definition of "truth".. too bad what they teach has been the antithesis of that definition, as i relate in my latest blog: the watchtower sense of "true".. as for me, i love the truth!

  that's why i left..

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  smmcroberts

  I always liked the WT definition of "truth".

  Too bad what they teach has been the antithesis of that definition, as I relate in my latest blog: The Watchtower Sense of "True".

  As for me, I love the truth! That's why I left.
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  76

  Atheist Book of Bible Stories

  by crystlew123 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  ok so i dl'd this book.

  and i immediatly began reading it.

  i am about 50 pdf pages into it.

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  smmcroberts

  @ Sulla,

  Because you show no evidence whatever of having any familiarity with the considerable amount of scholarship / commentary on these stories that begins with an understanding of exactly what the stories contains. And there is a lot of it that you have not considered.

  You don't know what I have considered. I have read more books and taken more classes about the Bible and religion than I care to admit (and how I wish I had that time back again to spend more fruitfully!) I feel that I've certainly spent more than enough time to make an informed decision. I'm not going to try to share all of that in a reply to a post: who would or could? So, no; you may not see evidence of it here, but I don't think that justifies making assumptions and calling people names based on those assumptions.

  And yet, you still had your mind blown when you read all the bad stories in the OT. Was your bible missing Judges, Kings, and Genesis? But I hope you can see why someone like you, who finds all that stuff amazing and concludes that the whole thing is bunk probably hasn't a clue about what she is reading.

  No, I really can't see why you would assume that I haven't a clue. My Bible did contain those books, that's why I was amazed when I read them. I had been taught that the god of the Bible was a god of love. It turns out he was a god of war. Yes, non-fundamentalists may have already known this, but as JWs we did not, and this happens to be a JW forum. So why are you amazed by our reaction when we first discover that the Bible is not "God's Word"? Yes, we were "dumb" to have ever believed this, but it's rather rude of you to say so.

  What claim do you suppose is being made in the OT that is not true? Was that claim supposed to be that followers of YHWH are transformed into 21st century humanists? Was that claim supposed to be that King David was a man who kept control of his appetites? What was it, in your estimation?

  Where does one begin to answer a question like that? There are so many obviously false claims to choose from! How about the claim that Moses talked with God and God told him that one of the original ten commandments was not to boil a kid in its mother's milk ( Ex:34:26) . That's a claim in the OT that I suppose is not true. Since you're so much smarter than I am, let me humbly ask: Do you suppose it is true?