Posts by PetrW

15

J.W org and Noah's Flood

by Phizzy in

i remember when i was "in" the org.

had a ridiculous public talk outline defending the genesis flood myth.. do they have a current one doing that ?.

PetrW

@Big Dog

Agreed. You've given me a bit of a pass✌️😎

One of the earliest occurrences of the word "faith" in the NT has almost nothing to do with religious content, as we would expect with the word "faith", since it was a "trust".

In Matt. 8:5-13, the healing of the Roman centurion's servant is described.

The centurion knows from his own experience that if Jesus does heal, he will heal just as much as if he, himself, gives an order and cannot immediately verify the fulfillment, yet he expects the order to be carried out. Jesus refers to the centurion's attitude as trust. But not a word about theological issues. Only in Paul does "trust" take on any theological content, it becomes "faith."

This story actually describes the principle of trust. I then later began to look for definitions of trust in psychology or sociology, methods of testing trust, etc. Later I wrote a thesis on this (of mediocre quality! 😁) , on the topic of trust issues in psychology, sociology and pedagogy.

My main point is that trust, among other things, serves to "construct" our reality, our "world, around us". Trust is* a cognitive process (based on repeated experience, which is nothing more than a short definition of "learning") whereby things or phenomena around us that we cannot perceive are nevertheless considered real, as real as if they were so (even if we cannot see them, hear them, touch them, or feel them, because they either took place in the past or will only occur in the future, or they take place in the present tense, but outside our perceptual abilities...). A radical example of trust is a will. The one who makes a will believes that reality will occur according to the text of the will, has an anticipation of the future without being able to verify it at the time of making it, and even less so when he dies...

The life of an adult human being is then "built" on a whole series of systems, as it were "pyramids" of individual sub-trusts in this and that, where we have acquired repeated, which then allow us to solve the very complex tasks of our life. Trust has a great competitor in us and that is emotion. The verbal opposite of trust, is indeed non-trust, but the real, functional opposite is the emotion of fear. And fear, again, can come from some cognitive process and/or emotion...

More could be written, but that's probably enough for what I want to write: So why do people believe in God or science, and often juxtapose the two?

Just from the above, very limited description of trust, in terms of the bio-psycho-social model of humans, trust in God or trust in science, politics, medicine, economics, law, etc., etc., are no different. The difference is in the content of trust. It suggests to me that it is not necessary then to define what people know (and therefore also: what they trust). Example: if a group of scientists discover, describe and evaluate some skeletal find, some geological phenomena, some archaeometeorological phenomena, etc., etc., and someone else compares it to the accounts of the Bible, then my first reaction is "I don't know". I'm not a biologist, chemist, physicist or archaeologist. I just know that even they shape their world on repeated experience - but even they know that the existence of 10 white swans in a row does not preclude the existence that the next swan may be black.

My defensive reaction is not based on fear or denial of the truth of science. Healthy skepticism, must be about one's own confidence first, and then everything else. As Descartes rightly said, I can deny everything, I just can't deny myself, because I am the one denying something. I think, therefore I am. This then is precisely the starting point: I can be skeptical, but my skepticism can never be greater than I am. On the other side, there is the (paranoid) attempt to control, the attempt to avoid having to trust. Which is impossible. Trust reduces the complexity of the social world, as one definition of trust says. I believe that humanity (me), oscillates between these polarities, and it is very problematic when one group (believers), denigrates the other (atheists), or vice versa. Both groups use trust to live their lives.

*this is just a static description; trust in fact can be, and very often is, a very dynamic process, which is then harder to describe and thus also harder to verify experimentally

15

J.W org and Noah's Flood

by Phizzy in

i remember when i was "in" the org.

had a ridiculous public talk outline defending the genesis flood myth.. do they have a current one doing that ?.

PetrW

@Big Dog

Doubts about why God did not restore the earth after the flood, I had those too. But only as one of many arguments against Almighty God. I was looking for an answer to the death of Jesus. What parent lets their child be killed in front of their eyes when they have the power or means to prevent it...?

The answer is the criticism of the JWs, and other Christian churches, for not having resolved the theodicy issue. Or they have only resolved it to the level that God allows evil or that evil is to educate us to value good or that Satan is here or that we just don't know. These and other answers do provide some answer for some situation or personal life, but they certainly cannot be generalized (as e.g. JWs do) because it is unethical, without respect for the victims of e.g. the Holocaust, but also natural disasters, etc.

The unresolved role of God and evil in the world is, in my opinion, the strongest argument for atheism/agnosticism ever. If someone has reached this point, and rejects the existence of God, for these reasons, I don't blame them at all...

However, I think that the question of the relationship between God and evil, has an answer, has a solution.

15

J.W org and Noah's Flood

by Phizzy in

i remember when i was "in" the org.

had a ridiculous public talk outline defending the genesis flood myth.. do they have a current one doing that ?.

PetrW

@nicolaou

You are right in one sense that it is a myth. But if it is a myth, then they are not scientifically verifiable claims. Then it's problematic to have an argument with those statements.

On the other hand, if the author(s) of Genesis were working with the idea that Creation or the Flood was God's work, that God Almighty was behind it, then they didn't have to go into the details that we would welcome today. Example: the Hebrew "yom" => "day" appears about 2500 times in the Hebrew Bible. It has a wide semantic range, so "yom" can mean a few hours out of a 24 hour day (the light part of the day), up to an indefinite period of time e.g. in eschatological statements about Yahweh's day...

Creation in 6 days, then, could have lasted 24 hours, or thousands of years, or at the beginning of billions of years, and in the last day, maybe only 12 hours. Similarly, the flood of the world: passages from e.g. Genesis 7 speak of a planet-wide flood, but the text from Gen 2:10-14 suggests that the Euphrates River, for example, was re-identifiable after the flood, that its bed or direction of flow did not change. This raises the question of how big the flood was and what part of the planet it flooded, and what happened on the rest of the planet if it was a regional flood... to one who sees God behind the events, these details are irrelevant: the flood happened as described, and if the flood happened only as a local event, then it does not change the Bible's account. The really tricky part is the question of God's justice (why there was a flood in the first place, and why life went on)...

But of course science cannot consider the influence of God on world events. Especially natural sciences are based on experiment and if such experiment is not possible (astrophysics), then there are theoretical models that are then tested. Scientific theories are then supposed to be open to falsification (and in human terms, verification), so science itself affirms that it is not, does not want to be, and is not meant to be dogmatic. And rightly so.

The conflict between the Bible and science, then, is resolved by believers more or less well, by the person of God.

Personally, I think the arguments against, or more accurately: the arguments that do not affirm Creation, are very rational, indeed most scientists, adhere to the principles of the philosophy of science, theories of truth, etc. The competing model that the Bible describes is only slightly better. The very small, slight difference, is made up precisely because God is behind it. A biblical, religious text, without God, will not stand up to science. It becomes a myth, a legend. But this, on the other hand, says that against such a myth, serious science does not have to define itself. Science does not criticize, for example, the cosmogonic ideas of Hesiod in his Theogonies...

543

Encouraging scriptures for the day

by Kosonen in

jw
friends

hello my friends,.

here are some encouraging scriptures for the day:.

revelation 21:2 i also saw the holy city, new jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from god and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.. hebrews 11:10 for he (abraham) was awaiting the city having real foundations, whose designer and builder is god.. revelation 21:24 and the nations will walk by means of its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.. revelation 22:1 and he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, flowing out from the throne of god and of the lamb 2 down the middle of its main street (of the holy city).

PetrW

@Kosonen

K: We don't know if John saw a vision of the whole earth or a part of it.

P: For example, according to the text of Rev. 5:6, John "saw" that seven spirits were sent to "all the earth" (γη), likewise in 5:13 he describes (according to 5:11 he saw) all creation that is in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea and in them...

I was on the island of Patmos a little less than 20 years ago. For about a week. It had no major significance for the interpretation of Revelation, other than making one aware of space. The island is made up of these bays, in the form of ancient theatres, which rise steeply from the sea to the hills. It is quite rocky there, and for this reason, it is difficult to descend to the sea in these places. I think that somewhere, in a remote place, John was transported by an angel into the air and from that height he was shown - in modern terms we would say - a 3D cinema. So he saw the Earth (probably as a projection). If someone was there with him, then on the other side of the hill, they may not have heard anything, no thunder, no lightning - or attributed it to nature.

So I think he saw the whole earth (cf. also e.g. Rev 7:1 - angels on the four "corners" of the earth - I keep writing about the Greek word γη, which is usually translated as earth and also has symbolic value), so when he saw that "all the green grass was burned", he saw exactly that, green grass burning, being burned all over the earth. He saw physical fire and literal grass because he described it that way. As I wrote, I think you're thinking correctly at the beginning: it's always incumbent to ask whether a text can be understood literally. And only then, to ask whether it has, or can have, symbolic value as well. And the context suggests that yes, the text can be interpreted symbolically, because all the grass is to burn, but only 1/3 of the trees. This alone suggests that this is the intention. Further, if all the grass on the ground and 1/3 of the trees were to physically burn (burn!!!), then life would end and so would Revelation.

This reasoning of mine, then, points to the fact that this is a parable, composed of symbols.

To make a very long story short, then "trees" have a double symbolic meaning in Revelation: first, they are trees* that "bear fruit" according to Genesis chapter 1:11, and then "trees" that have "wicked" fruit. Jesus likens the false prophets in Matt. 7:15 to the very trees (7:18) that bear "vile" fruit. Now is it becoming clearer?

Let me explain just one more thing: why am I using statements Jesus said to comment on Revelation? Paul said in Col 2:2-3 that he wanted Christians to know the mystery of God: that is Christ - in him (Col 2:3) all wisdom and knowledge is stored/hidden, as in a storehouse** /treasury. And the well-known text of Rev 19:10 confirms that the sayings (literally: testimonies) of Jesus, are the "invisible, working force"/"spirit" of prophecy = simplified: what Jesus says is of primary and irreplaceable importance for Revelation.

I'll come back to the trees and grass: if Jesus, likening the false prophets to trees that bear no fruit, according to God's creation, what happens to them? Matt. 7:19 clearly says: they will be burned.

Here again an interjection: as I wrote, God saves people. For some might think that although Jesus used symbols and similes as literary forms, the burning of people, i.e., physical destruction, actually occurs. No. Only Satan, is a murderer of men. Paul again explains in 1 Cor. 3:11-15 that those who do not build on Jesus, but on another foundation, will be "exposed in the fire", the fire will "try" every work, every one of us. Then in verse 15 is the important passage for interpreting Rev. 8:4, that the fire will indeed punish such a person, but he, himself, will be saved.

This, in my opinion, has clarified the identity of the "trees" and then we just need to figure out what the 1/3 means. Here again, Jesus' parables come to the rescue. In Matt 25:14 ff he divides his servants into 3 groups (1/3 and 1/3 and 1/3) to whom he distributes symbolic talents. The last one, the third one, the last 1/3, "buries" his talent. According to Mat 25:19, the Lord returns after a very long time(!!!), and makes a reckoning. The last one, because he "buried" his talent, did not bear fruit as he should have, is cast out (Mat 25:30).

This, to me, ties it all together: the 1/3 of the trees, is symbolic, a leading group of false Christians who, though they may have borne fruit and been given talent, have brought nothing good. Thus they will be burned. Their works, they will burn. That's the punishment. But they themselves, if they repent of that punishment, will live. Some will not repent, that's why it's written about in other pages of Revelation, but I don't feel like writing it now😊 Just for completeness: it's very similar with the grass that all burns up, it refers to a similar group of people - I'll give you a hint: 1 Peter 1:24 cf. Matt 15:13.

One last thing: I'm not addressing here who, specifically, which organization or church will be affected by 1/3 of its "leadership" symbolically being burned. As I wrote, Revelation could have taken place in the 5th or 13th century. But it may not occur until the 23rd century. Therefore, to address the question of who specifically will be/are the trees in Rev 8:4 is, in my opinion, completely unnecessary. We don't know about that day and hour. Fire comes from heaven, not earth = God punishes, not men. My understanding is also that: Judge not and you shall not be judged...

* these are the "trees" in Rev 9:4 that are protected from the locusts' attacks

** θησαυρος - denotes "treasury", but the Greek, preserved on papyri from Roman imperial times, can also be found meaning "storekeepers", for example for grain brought by ship.

543

Encouraging scriptures for the day

by Kosonen in

jw
friends

hello my friends,.

here are some encouraging scriptures for the day:.

revelation 21:2 i also saw the holy city, new jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from god and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.. hebrews 11:10 for he (abraham) was awaiting the city having real foundations, whose designer and builder is god.. revelation 21:24 and the nations will walk by means of its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.. revelation 22:1 and he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, flowing out from the throne of god and of the lamb 2 down the middle of its main street (of the holy city).

PetrW

@Kosonen

Revelation 8:7 The first one blew his trumpet. And there was hail and fire mingled with blood, and it was hurled to the earth; and a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green vegetation was burned up.

The conclusion of the text, "all the green grass will be burned", shows that this is a symbolic description. It is not a physical fire, but neither is it literal green vegetation. If such a thing were to happen, then history might not continue at all. A fire that destroyed all green vegetation on Earth would destroy life on Earth. That physical fulfillment is not even the literary goal of Revelation is suggested by the fact that "green vegetation" reappears in Rev. 9:4.

I think it is necessary to ask first whether the text of the prophecy, will have a literal fulfillment. But if that literal fulfillment would prevent further events, then it is appropriate to consider the symbolic meaning. The decision as to what is literal and what is symbolic is, in my opinion, based on God's desire to save people, or more accurately: the entire plot of Revelation (until the coming of Christ with his 1000 year reign) is a description of how, through the "plagues" of God, punishment falls on sinners, with the goal of them repenting and turning to God and surviving. At the same time, Satan and his world will be activated and will want people to worship only him and he and his people, will murder others. God will not murder the righteous with the sinner, but He wants the sinner, too, to repent and be saved. It is only after all possibilities have been exhausted, at the point that the righteous dies without his death causing the sinners to repent (see Saul/Paul), that God will reveal himself as the sovereign Ruler...

My point, very briefly, is that in my opinion, Revelation will have some physical/material manifestation on Earth, but Revelation deals with roles, functions, and relationships between symbols (e.g. the beast and the woman) because it is a universal prediction of the end - which may have already come true in the 5th or 13th century. But it may not be fulfilled until the 23rd century.

In my opinion, it is more useful to be concerned with "uncovering" the parables/symbols in Revelation, in their interrelationships or roles, than to immediately look for an entity, a government or organization behind each symbol. The history of interpreting Revelation shows that this is not the way, or more accurately, it is a dead end.

Example: to discuss over Revelation that a symbol represents the UN, and it is intended to destroy religion, means that the one who interprets it that way must have information about the coming end, despite the claim that no one knows the hour and day. Either there is humility and an admission of not knowing, or there is pride, because of the supposed knowledge...

I am not saying that Revelation cannot be commented on, on the contrary! But it wants first to reveal the symbols, their roles (sometimes they have two or more), their function and their relationships: the green vegetation of Rev 8:7 will probably be different from that of Rev 9:4. If I can find the meaning of the symbol for Rev 8:7 (here grass, as those "rich" in the knowledge of God, but who are like chaff), then the symbol in Rev 9:4 speaks of "grass" as the little ones that are yet to grow in God's field, yet to bear fruit. These are the little ones....

I won't go into who specifically and which church will be the grass to burn or deserve protection in the 23rd century. Nor am I looking for that, even for my 21st century... JWs negative example of theology, is a pretty big warning 😊✌️

14

I’m not sure what this means!

by NeedsProof in

yesterday i was visited by 2 witnesses, and we had a long chat about lots of things!

one of them named claire took the lead and i instantly felt some sort of connection to her, after we had spoken and they had left i started to have this overwhelming feeling to research her and what she had spoken about but i couldn’t find her anywhere on any website or social media, so i left it and thought nothing more of it all day….

however the strange thing is i had a dream that night and claire was in it, many things happened in this dream that i was told i was only allowed to speak about with claire, i can speak of the dream to others but the details only me and claire can know!

PetrW

@a watcher

He should pray that she doesn't come, or that it's made clear that Claire got the wrong door. Claire, in his dream, returns with a baby in her arms. In this regard, Stan's advice (not to talk to his wife about it) is probably not the best, because Claire will probably want some child support...

27

Time, times and half a time - nerd time

by Anony Mous in

so, the famous 607 calculation to 1914 involves the above prophecy.

the common explanation is that time is one unit, times is an unsubstantiated number of units.. to prove you can make it say any date, we must write it as a formula:.

date = t + nt + 0.5t where n >= 2. so simplified:.

PetrW

@Stan

Good point, Stan! I'll just tweak it a bit: how many jars of beans, and several jars of beans and half a jar of beans, do I need to have to have 3.5 kg of beans? If a jar will hold 1 kg, it's easy. But, what if it doesn't? And what if those "several jars" of beans, may not be just two, but may be more?

27

Time, times and half a time - nerd time

by Anony Mous in

so, the famous 607 calculation to 1914 involves the above prophecy.

the common explanation is that time is one unit, times is an unsubstantiated number of units.. to prove you can make it say any date, we must write it as a formula:.

date = t + nt + 0.5t where n >= 2. so simplified:.

PetrW

@EasyPrompt

I think that the interpretation of "time, times, and half a time" to be a 3 ½ year stretch (according to the parallel texts in Revelation) says nothing about why the writer of Revelation used the term in the first place and whether the unit of time "time" (καιρος) means "year".

All that is certain is that the term "time and times and half a time" does not exceed 3.5 years. Whether "times and times and half a time" is also exactly 3.5 years or a shorter period is not yet refuted/confirmed.

If he wanted to write of the woman in Rev 12:14 as being in an eschatological "wilderness" somewhere for 3.5 years, then he would have directly used that time span - cf. Rev. 11:9 where it says that the dead bodies of the two prophets lay literally "three and a half days", so he could just as easily have written "three and a half years" - or he could have chosen a unit of time, perhaps 1260 days or 42 months. But he deliberately and relatively lengthily writes out a "banal" time figure, and in a few words. He must have had some special reason for doing so. But the interpretation that it is 3.5 years does not explain that reason. From my point of view, he was referring to the same passages in Daniel - which is obvious - but as to the interpretation of what these complicated time figures mean, that interpretation, there in Daniel, is also not to be found. I am offered the hypothesis that "time and times and half a time", is a shortened expression of "a week and 62 weeks and half a week", but since the interpretation of Daniel is, in my opinion, extremely demanding, I evaluate it for myself only as a working hypothesis...

Another way of describing the 3.5 year problem is to convert "time, times and half a time" into 3.5 years, and to retroactively derive a length for "time" from this time "transaction". This is prone to error.

Granted that it may be a year, but it may just as well be a week or a month: if the interpretation of "times and times and half a time" works with the time period "year", then it is equally permissible to interpret that another unit of time can be used - derived from astrophysical phenomena (week, month) or even from other domains. If the NT writers applied the term (καιρος), for example, to the period of Elizabeth's pregnancy (Lk 1:20) or to the time period of the grain "harvest" (Mt 13:30), then the time unit "time" (καιρος) must be evaluated in this respect as well. And no one has done that yet and neither have I 😊 . Yet for centuries we have all, out of convenience, copied from one another. It will be necessary to step out of our comfort zone (yuck, what a disgusting expression) in order to move on (yuck, yuck, that's the other disgusting word cliché 😊 ). It's time for a change, EasyPrompt!

30

CIVILIAN SERVICE

by blondie in

how many remember when the wts changed their policy on alternative service; changed it to alternative civilian service so jw men could choose it because it was not supervised by the military.

shows how the wts quibbles with words to advance a "new teaching.

" flag salute, voting, civilian service p. 212. civilian service.

PetrW

@Journeyman

Regarding military service today, bear in mind that Christians are prohibited from deliberately killing others. This rules out serving in a modern-day military, since being trained and used to kill others is a key part of the role. In contrast, roles like riot control, investigating crimes such as theft, murder, and other civilian duties do not require the need to kill, so a role in a civilian police force or civil/home guard is potentially more acceptable.

In Bible times, all these civilian duties were also performed by elements of the military as there was no such thing as a formal civilian police force, so at that time there would have been no distinction. So with regard to someone like Cornelius, once converted to Christianity, he could have transferred to (or perhaps was already serving in) a more 'civil' capacity as a guard or administrator/trainer/etc, but still retain his rank and position in the Roman military.

So today, I would draw the distinction between serving in the military (where a willingness to kill is essential) and serving in a civil guard or police role (where it is not), in terms of your likely exposure to behaviour that could violate Christian standards.

***

I agree with your opinion. If I just look a little at the area of soldiering and how the NT refers to it, I observe that the NT-text approach is very ambivalent: John the Baptist tells (Luke 3:14) soldiers that they are not to abuse anyone. There is nothing there about them necessarily having to end their military career. According to Matt 8:10, Jesus values the faith of the officer.

But the soldiers of Herod (Lk 23:11), as with Pilate (Mt 27:30), mocked or beat Jesus. The case of Cornelius, an active officer, has been described.

Paul is indeed arrested by the officers and soldiers (Acts 21:32), but this saves him - prolongs his life. They respect his Roman citizenship (Acts 22:26) and respond with further increased protection for Paul when they learn that the Jews want to kill Paul (Acts 23:23). Before the shipwreck, the soldiers want to kill Paul, along with the other prisoners. It is again the commanding officer who prevents this and again prolongs Paul's life (Acts 27:43).

From this brief analysis, it seems to me that the NT-text does not in any way invalidate the position of the soldiers. The context shows that the term "soldier" in our day and "soldier" in the NT-period do not exactly overlap. A soldier/officer, in addition to being part of the military structure of the Roman army, often acts in the role of a modern-day policeman or prison officer...

On the other hand, it is also true that the little boys in Bethlehem, were murdered directly by Herod's soldiers/police (although this is not directly in the text) or it can be assumed that they assisted in such an action, which was probably some sort of a cover-up to separate the parents from the little children... The soldiers/police who were supposed to guard the tomb, were put in a very precarious situation when they left their posts out of fear (Mt 28:4). They had to be bribed to testify that the body had been stolen, and in case of further inconvenience, they were given a promise that it would not affect their military career (Matt. 28:11-15).

A difficult question arises: Can a Christian be a soldier? Or a policeman? Or a prison guard?

I answer it this way:

I do not decide whether it is wrong or right. This statement is a latent criticism of globally operating churches like the JWs who centrally decide on a one-size-fits-all doctrine, even though it is clear that the military, police, or prison ministries in different countries are different. Is military submarine service permissible (see Jonah 😊 )? But what about states that don't have submarines?

If centrally led churches decide what is or is not permissible, or globally prohibit/permit it and don't respect regional specifics, then the result is similar to JWs with the issue of blood, blood fractions and platelets, autotransfusion, etc. etc. ... an absurd ban with even more absurd exceptions...

So I am not saying whether it is wrong or right, and which kinds of troops or services are or are not allowed, but rather I am focusing on the answer: if one is a soldier or a police officer and wants to be a Christian, one must be aware of the increased risk of being in a counter-ethical situation with one's own conscience. He may serve his entire service on a military submarine as a cook, opening cans and cooking delicious meals out of them 😊, he probably won't do anything more sinful than working as a taxi driver or a shop assistant or a school teacher, but the situation can change quickly...

But he can encounter counter-ethical issues just like a doctor (abortion, sex change...) or any other profession. Not something more or less sinful per se, but there are professions that are simply more risky than the other. And that is for each person to judge in their own time, in their own region, in their own conscience, and in their own relationship with God... global, there is no one answer in my opinion. That's my global answer 😊.

58

Cult or High Control Group?

by MillennialDawn in

jw
friends

i see this phrase a lot: "the indication of a cult is what happens when you leave.

" i'm not sure where that originated, but it is a faulty categorization.

"cult" is almost always used in a derogatory way.

PetrW

@resolute

Islam... but, for example, the Malleus Maleficarum (first edition of 1486) or the Code Noir (decree of French King Louis XIV of 1685) is also a "quality" perversion of Christianity.

Because Christianity also - more than once - failed totally, it was sometimes better for e.g. Protestants (in the aftermath of the Thirty Years' War) to flee to areas of the Ottoman Empire to avoid persecution from Roman Catholics. Islam, in my opinion, is neither better nor worse than Christianity, according to this assessment. One might even say that Islam does not even hide its dislike of "dissenters". The same actions by Christians are then accompanied, in my opinion, by greater hypocrisy and a more pronounced disconnect between the code of ethics and reality.

The question would be rather: why - despite good intentions - does it always fail like this?

Leaving aside the theological answer, I think the example of C.T. Russell is one answer. Notwithstanding his - not defective Christian ideas - he was guilty of taking his ideas as the "measure of all things". His individual beliefs, became a religion for others and a "measure" of right/wrong for others. Clearly others had a part in this as well, but the defining moment was sometime when he began to think he was an instrument of God. That he was - with all humility, which I do not deny - the chosen one, to proclaim his "truths" and pass them off as God's. This process was not an overnight thing, and if it occurred, then I think he also had plenty of time to "come back". At some point when his views began to be criticized (false prophecy, absurd exegesis of biblical texts, etc.). he should have "stepped on the brake" and tried to change/correct. But, I guess that couldn't be done. He had too much social "capital" invested in it and would have had to deny himself. But this completed his "turn" away from Christianity; in doing so, he laid the foundation for another religion that enslaved millions more (but it must be said here that despite the corruption of the gospel, the gospel still reached others; all is not lost! ).