Posts by TonusOH

75

God won't lift a finger to help you.

by nicolaou in

sea breeze: @nicolau,i stated my case rather succiently, which you failed to address.

if you have a better solution to the problem of evil than what jesus offers, then why don't you present that in a new topic?.

pathetic diversion.

TonusOH

Halcon: The book confirms that we have as much, or as little, depending on what God sees fit. This message is clear throughout the entire Bible.

"What God sees fit" can be literally anything. For one, standards of moral or ethical behavior are inapplicable to him. God's actions are good, just, merciful, etc because they are performed by God. Second, the Christian view is that humanity cannot redeem itself without God, and is therefore never able to earn anything better than condemnation from him. However he chooses to treat us is deserved, at best. Regardless of circumstance.

Based on these descriptions and explanations, there is no reason to expect that the afterlife will be pleasant for anyone. We cannot earn heaven. God can take it all away at any moment and without explanation. You have no reason to believe that he will treat you in a way that you would define as good, or kind, or merciful. These terms are meaningless when applied to him. It is not a matter of understanding him, either. The explanations cannot lead us to any other outcome.

75

God won't lift a finger to help you.

by nicolaou in

sea breeze: @nicolau,i stated my case rather succiently, which you failed to address.

if you have a better solution to the problem of evil than what jesus offers, then why don't you present that in a new topic?.

pathetic diversion.

TonusOH

Anony Mous: because if you read it from the JW perspective, it is indeed horrendous.

I agree. They treat it as a literal story, and it really doesn't work as a literal story. I also think it doesn't work if we make certain assumptions that are based in a modern Christian understanding, such as the Devil being evil or the personification of evil. Or Yahweh being infallible, pure, or perfect.

If we read the story as a fable or moral lesson, and view the Devil as a counselor instead of a force of evil, it makes a lot more sense. In this version, God isn't necessarily boasting to Satan about Job; he is asking what he thinks of his (God's) decision to protect him. When the Devil points out that this skews the situation, Yahweh is agreeable to having Job put to the test. They are not in opposition as much as they are working together.

In the context of a fable, the many deaths and the loss of livestock is not as jarring. It's just 'movie violence.' The reaction of God to Job's expectation of an explanation also makes more sense. Sometimes, bad things happen to good people, and there's no rhyme or reason to it. Expecting a chaotic world to make sense is potentially counterproductive. God is as much an agent of the universe as he is its designer.

When we define god in the Christian sense --all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good, etc-- the story takes on a much more sinister tone. A being in such total and complete control shouldn't be acting as if anything is out of his hands. Which means that everything that happens --including everything that goes wrong-- is a deliberate decision on his part.

43

Is 1st Century advice on marriage still relevant in today’s modern world?

by liam in

republicans want to make a law that forbids ‘uncontested divorce”.

they based this on this scripture.. matthew 19. is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”.

4 “haven’t you read,” jesus replied, “that at the beginning the creator ‘made them male and female,’and said, ‘for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’ so they are no longer two, but one flesh.

TonusOH

If I had to guess, I would think that the blood policy is on the GB's radar. It's more a question of figuring out how to deal with it. The way they interpret Acts 15:29 is shaky, to say the least. This would mean two things: one, they would have to admit that they had it very wrong, obviously wrong, for decades. Two, they now have to deal with the fallout from people who lost loved ones (including children!) or nearly died due to the policy (including my mother... twice).

They will probably try to quietly allow for a 'conscience matter' option, then wait a few decades more before finally reinterpreting it to allow for transfusions. To make a wholesale change anytime soon might open them up to a lot of lawsuits and some very heavy criticism.

3041

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars (continued)

by Simon in

jw
friends

uh oh, looks like the mega thread gave up the ghost, so while i investigate / fix it just continue the discussion here .... it's been a long 9 years lloyd evans / john cedars.

TonusOH

As entertaining as that sounds, I would be worried about an ex-elder who started divulging information given in confidence. But the thought that Evans might suffer a few sleepless nights over the possibility is amusing.

75

God won't lift a finger to help you.

by nicolaou in

sea breeze: @nicolau,i stated my case rather succiently, which you failed to address.

if you have a better solution to the problem of evil than what jesus offers, then why don't you present that in a new topic?.

pathetic diversion.

TonusOH

Konagirl: God is the presiding judge of His court. We aren’t. But the accuser, the devil would like to be.

God is not only the judge, he is also the jury and the executioner. What the devil wants is irrelevant, since God is the only one who can take final action against anyone and everyone else. We see this in the book of Job-- the devil admits that he is unable to lay a finger on Job, because God has protected him.

More to the point, God does not have to allow any of this. Since he knew that Job was a genuinely good person, he should have dismissed the devil's request. Since God is fully capable of forgiving us at any time, his demand for blood sacrifices is unnecessary. One must wonder what it says about this god, that he allows suffering and even demands it as part of the process of forgiveness.

And we must also note that the story of Job opens with God bringing up the subject of this one man and his pious devotion. It seems to me that Satan could have ended the conversation by pointing out that, in a world full of humans, Yahweh had managed to find only a single one that earned his approval. What is Job's reward for being unique amongst humanity for his loyalty and goodness? Being put through a series of truly horrible experiences, including the loss of his children.

Getting rewarded afterwards still doesn't negate his realization that his life could be upended at any moment, no matter how devoted he was to serving god. This is the nature of Jehovah, a being whose nature is unchanging. This is god, forever.

75

God won't lift a finger to help you.

by nicolaou in

sea breeze: @nicolau,i stated my case rather succiently, which you failed to address.

if you have a better solution to the problem of evil than what jesus offers, then why don't you present that in a new topic?.

pathetic diversion.

TonusOH

Konagirl: the scriptures tell us that it was Satan, who demanded to “sift” Job as “wheat”.

According to the story, Satan asked to be allowed to visit those horrors on Job, his family, and his servants. God, who could easily (and reasonably) have told him "no", agreed to allow the Devil to massacre people and livestock, strike Job with an illness, have his wife advise him to 'curse god and die' and sent so-called friends to break him mentally. Job only expressed his belief that god would explain why this had all happened. It is a reasonable thing to think, if Jehovah was the kind of person Job assumed him to be.

But, no... Jehovah excoriates Job for having the temerity to expect an explanation for the terrifying experiences he had been put through and the suffering that he was, even then, still enduring. Job was forced to apologize to god for this apparent display of hubris. Only then did god restore what had been brutally taken from Job (although his first ten children and countless servants remained dead). Job would now spend the rest of his days knowing that he had better be unquestioningly loyal to Jehovah, because who knows what fate might suddenly and unexpectedly befall him and his family?

This is another example of the problem with the way we excuse god's behavior as always good. God can take care of you and give you an amazing life, and then suddenly rip it all away and put you through the most traumatic experience, for no particular reason. And if you dare to wonder why you were made to suffer in such a terrible manner, he might also dress you down and demand an apology. And also, he won't take responsibility for any of it. It's your fault. Or someone else's. Not his.

3

Meet up?

by KIMSILVIO in

hi 👋 .

just wanted to leave a message saying hi 👋 i’m going to england in november, if anyone wants to catch up or organise a meet up with me, let me know via dm or twitter dm .

TonusOH

I'm afraid it's too long of a drive for me.

But I hope you have a safe and fun trip.

75

God won't lift a finger to help you.

by nicolaou in

sea breeze: @nicolau,i stated my case rather succiently, which you failed to address.

if you have a better solution to the problem of evil than what jesus offers, then why don't you present that in a new topic?.

pathetic diversion.

TonusOH

I think we are able to understand the concepts of omni-traits, to coin a term. But we need to define what this means for any specific individual. The Bible only vaguely describes Yahweh's traits; the descriptions of god as all-knowing or all-powerful are later interpretations and come across as conveniences. And attributing such traits to Yahweh creates problems that I think cannot be resolved, which is when we turn to the incomprehensibility of god as a way to deal with them.

However... until we get to one of those difficult issues, we seem to have no problem at all comprehending god. We have a clear basis for judging his character and actions as long as they fit into an acceptable moral framework. When his actions fall into a gray area, we decide that he is inscrutable. That we cannot fathom his ways. That he exists on a higher moral and ethical plane, and thus our judgments do not apply.

If god is inscrutable, then we do him a disservice by trying to explain his actions. This leaves us in the uncomfortable position of realizing that god can do or be anything, because our notions of good/right/moral/etc do not apply to him. When combined with the actions he takes (according to the Bible), the picture we get is a concerning one. His quick temper and willingness to solve problems by killing should make the believer very nervous.

9

Gaslighting older JW couples to avoid BLAME

by raymond frantz in

https://youtu.be/kvdqtookscu?si=fuqhj44cokmdzkt7.

one of the greatest issues facing the organization today is couples that sacrificed family life or businesses opportunity in order to preach the many dates the watchtower set in the .

past only to be betrayed in recent years as the watchtower is moving away from date setting.

TonusOH

I think that 1975 taught the GB that setting a hard date was a very bad idea. Even in the runup to 1975, they often tried to hedge their bets by claiming that they weren't making any such prediction. I guess that they understood that they would need to point to those claims if things did not happen as expected.

I think that they switched to pointing at 'signs.' Like 1986, when the UN proclaimed that year to be the year of peace and security. For the WTS, that was a clear reference to Paul's letter stating that the cry of peace and security would be the catalyst for the end. But, like any other signs that they pointed to, nothing happened. If there were more natural disasters than usual, they would remark about it. If there was political upheaval, they would point it out.

Sign after sign after sign that we were at the very end... and nothing would happen. I don't even recall noticing the 1995 change, but by then the doubts had accumulated enough that I was beginning to fade even though I didn't want it or even realize it.

50

Pomo because of Proclaimers book, 1995 generation change and Daniel prophecy book

by Gorb in

jw
friends

have some time thinking about my recent and less recent personal history because of the summer holiday.. the 90's crossed my mind.

the years i became pimo.

a friend, a room mate during the 1993 moscow international convention, went to university.

TonusOH

It's a lot easier to accept the wackiness when you are convinced the WTS has the truth. And even moreso if you are raised a JW, which means you only know their interpretation (and have been conditioned to reject any other interpretation). Because JWs are forbidden to question the GB's interpretation, it can be tough to entertain any doubts. And even when you have doubts, you worry that maybe it's you.

But the further you get from the mindset that they cannot be wrong, the easier it is to spot the odd statements and teachings. And some of the things they say are outrageous enough that even a loyal JW feels a bit uncomfortable when they read it. That was where the doubts began for me-- one or two statements in the magazines that I tried to accept, but they nagged me.