Posts by terraly

In itself, the fact that you deem this issue worthy of so much of your time, perhaps your even a slave to it, demonstrates that you believe they must have something.

Not really. If you take a look through the Personal Experience forum I think you will find lots of good examples of why many of us are here- the Watchtower organization hurts people and can have a very detrimental effect upon their lives. We fight here for that reason.

Did those who opposed dangerous regimes all across the world think that these regimes had something? Most likely not, but they saw the danger, and evil, and they advocated against it. As one great example see
http://www.rawa.org/
An organization that seeks to expose what Taliban in Afganistan does to women. Does this mean the women who run the site think that the Taliban is correct? Of course not.

Naturally, a first step to freeing people from the Watchtower is to expose them to the lies and duplicity of the organization and it's dogma. Thus, we argue about it and present articles about it. Are our arguments convincing? Is our reasoning good? Are our charges valid? Read, and think about it. Don't just dismiss it out of hand.

18

JW question

by Vienna in

jw
friends

quick question i haven't been able to get an answer:.

we all are human.

we all have the same makeup.

terraly

To add to SixofNine's suggestions, I would advocate that you purchase a new set of highlighters and work on rainbow coding your Watchtower, that will help everything :)

Um, I think we're all giving blow-off answers because the Witness doctrine makes no sense- there are some interesting philosophical questions about soul-body duality and whatnot, but I don't think the WT has a particularily deep or insightful take on the subject.

32

Why are the JW's so bad?

by DF in

jw
friends

i've been studying the bible with a jehovah's witness in my town, and i'm rather enjoying it.. but why do so many people hate the jw's.. i've researched on my own and have come to the conclusion that they are right on most accounts including the trinity, blood, nationalism... etc.... and the more arguments i hear against the more i'm drawn into believing what they stand for.. and every argument i've seen in support of the things jw's are against the more i think the jw's are right.. so why are they so bad?

terraly

Hey DF,

That's great that you've made up your own mind after careful consideration. Now many here will respectfully disagree with you on our conclusions about Witness dogma, and that's great too.

The trouble lies in that fact that Witnesses are encouraged to be critical of everyone else's ideas- join the Witnesses- and then shut off their mind. Having made a decision at some point in their life they are in deep trouble (disfellowhipped and severed from all their Witness friends) if they ever reconsider this decision.

Ideally, I feel this is not the way beliefs should be decided. An open mind should be kept at all time, and I hope you will continue to have an open mind even if you do join the Witnesses. One great way to do that is come here. There are lots of intelligent people who would be very willing to debate you on some of these dogmas- and this is an important learning process.

Afterall, is it really fair to make a decision based on information presented almost exclusively from one side (the Witness one). You will probably protest that you've already looked up outside sources, but are they the ones which best make the other side's case? Stick around and join in or start some debates- get exposed to what the other side really thinks, and then make your choice.

Surely it's foolish to discard the first-hand experience of people who have actually been inside the movement? Take the posts of people on this board too, combine it with what you observe in your congregation- ask the tough questions.

Do not try to convince yourself that this is the truth- try to find out if it is.

17

C.S.Lewis makes a "comeback"...

by Tallyman in

jw
friends

for those who chowed down for years on the watchtower's "spiritual food" (who was that talking about schit on a schingle in an earlier post?

) and thought you were getting christianity, and have now left the table of jehovah-of-the-watchtower... .

and purged what you consumed.... and still haven't given up on christianity - (hey, jesus did warn of counterfeits).

terraly

I loved Narnia as a kid. Raised a Christian I didn't mind the religious parallels too much, and in fact agreed with several of the points Lewis makes about Christianity in an indirect way.

I recently read Mere Christianity, and was not greatly impressed. Partly it's because the book is based on a radio series and is therefore rather informal. This is fine for most of it, but it makes the crucial first part annoying- because Lewis' proof for God is made rather informally, and fails to address what I see as several critical points. A cynic might say that this is because a case for God can only be made if one is willing to argue rather sloppily and ignore some of the finer logical problems.

It's still an good book, and one I couldn't put down- at times in frustration, at times in great interest.

Anyone else read his "Out of a silent planet" or whatever his sci-fi trilogy was called? Been a long time, and they weren't very good so I don't remember them hardly at all.

69

Christmas Star = Satan?!

by reagan_oconnor in

jw
friends

i was talking with my husband the other day about the jw's belief that the "christmas star" that guided the magi to christ was the doings of satan.

he didn't believe me; this is what i found in the "my book of bible stories" (copied verbatim from cd-rom).

who do you think made that new star to shine?

terraly

Hey Friday,

Your argument is that God takes credit for making the tree of God and Evil, and therefore we can ignore the reasoning that since (through man choosing sin) this tree has led to untold suffering and death, it cannot have been created by God.

The following is the only substantial argument you have for the star being a creation of Satan:

The star these men followed led them, not directly to Jesus' birthplace in Bethlehem, but to Jerusalem, where King Herod ruled. Their following that star resulted in the slaughter of all the male infants in Bethlehem ... it's therefore absurd -- ABSOSUTELY ABSURD -- to attribute the star to God. God would have foreseen the tragedy and not took them via Jerusalem if it had been Him that had been maneuvering the star. As it is, the way you would have it -- attributing the star to God -- you are making God responsible for the deaths of a huge number of children, which of course is not true at all.

I will acknowledge that on the face of it this seems to make some sense. However:

1)there are many stories in the Bible about man/satan peverting the designs of God. Obviously, for the Garden of Eden story to make any sense we must assume that God, for whatever reason, does choose to allow people to exercise their free will, even if it delays his plans. The star going to Jerusalem did not guarentee the slaughter of the children, it was Herod's sinful response to the news that led to this slaughter.

2)God does claim to have created the stars (in Genesis). But perhaps the "star" was not really a star (a comet or something else). We still hear that God created everything (in the opening sentences of John for instance, "through him (Jesus) all things were made"). Is there another example where Satan actually created something?

3)Why would God have allowed Satan to use the star in this way? It seems that if Satan has free reign to go around moving the stars in the heavens it sort of compromises his sovreignty, doesn't it?

Thanks

7

Fighting the Internet

by terraly in

jw
friends

apparently the taliban agrees with the watchtower on the evils of free information:.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010713/wr/tech_afghan_internet_dc_1.html.

in some ways afghanistan is a good glimpse at what "theocratic government" under the watchtower would be like.

terraly

Apparently the Taliban agrees with the Watchtower on the evils of free information:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010713/wr/tech_afghan_internet_dc_1.html

In some ways Afghanistan is a good glimpse at what "theocratic government" under the Watchtower would be like.

52

god is dead

by teejay in

jw
friends

my inactive sister who is very much a jw at heart recently discovered (i told her) that i was a budding agnostic.

she was quite intrigued and wondered why.

coming to an agnostic viewpoint has been a long journey.

terraly

Do you deliberately misunderstand what you read when it doesn't agree with you Friday?

While many supernovae have been seen in nearby galaxies, they are relatively rare events in our own galaxy. The last to be seen was Kepler's star in 1604.

Look at the first part that you didn't bold. Many supernovae are seen in other galaxies- the last one was this past July 4th (as it says on the site). The last supernovae in our galaxy was seen in 1604, but we can also see other galaxies you know- and the few we (or past astronomers) have seen in our galaxy confirm that it's not something unique to other galaxies, but a universal process.

26

The Kingdom Interlinear Translation

by VM44 in

jw
friends

the kingdom interlinear translation (kit) has been published by the.

watchtower since 1969. it still is available in it's second editon.. but how many really use this book?

or read it?

terraly

I urge to use it and you will be wiser for it.

This is true. As Tergi is getting at above- the serious changes the translators make going from what the actual Greek says to what they wish to make it say are readily apparent in the KIT.

You will become wiser in how these men twist their translation to make it support their dogma.

52

god is dead

by teejay in

jw
friends

my inactive sister who is very much a jw at heart recently discovered (i told her) that i was a budding agnostic.

she was quite intrigued and wondered why.

coming to an agnostic viewpoint has been a long journey.

terraly

Friday, Friday, Friday...

Perhaps you have not spent enough time gazing at the stars.

We see stars die all the time. The latest seen was on July 4th, a fireworks show that man in all of his fury cannot hope to match.
http://www.ggw.org/asras/supernova.html
We watch as they turn from peaceful little specks of light into a seething cauldron of super-heated star-stuff. These little dots of lines have huge amounts of information. We can see characteristic spectra telling us what elements are present, we can see dopler shifts in absorption lines telling us how fast the material is moving, we can look at the overall energy distribution and tell how hot the star is (or was).

The majesty of the universe is awesome and fearful to behold. There are several astronomical events we have seen that if they happened anywhere within our arm of the galaxy would have enough force and power to completely destroy the earth. At the same time, we can peer deeply into the swirling clouds of dust and gas in which gigantic nuclear reactions are initiated...

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990519.html

Astronomy is a study of the universe- a universe with the majestic beauty of the above image and the destructive power of the above mentioned supernovae.

We live in such a universe (whether you believe God created it or not). You should contemplate its beauty as it unfolds itself to us, hundreds of times, to hundreds of thousands of different astronomers.

We have seen stars breath their last and die Friday- next to that, what is a sky turning to blood or a plague over the earth?

Take your eye and place it on the eyepiece of a telescope, do not doubt, but believe.