Posts by Island Man

This kind of literature that seeks to provide mythical answers to the origins of certain phenomena is not unique to Genesis. This kind of writing is found throughout the ancient world.

6

Can you imagine what that would be like?

by cookiemaster in

hey guys, here's something to think about.

in my country there's a small town of a few thousands people were most people are jws.

can you image what's like living there?

Can you imagine what that would be like?

by cookiemaster in

hey guys, here's something to think about.

in my country there's a small town of a few thousands people were most people are jws.

can you image what's like living there?

why we do not have to read the bible daily,

by sowhatnow in

or for that matter at all, from my perspective ,.

the only place in the bible that there is a mentioning of reading something [in an undertone day and night] [that i can find].

is in the hebrew scritures.

Island Man

I wouldn't say christians aren't to read the bible at all.

2 Timothy 3:15,16 makes the point that the bible makes one wise for salvation and fully equips one. So a bible-believing christians would not want to omit to read the bible.

2 Peter 3:2 admonishes christians to remember what was previously spoken by the prophets as well as Jesus' commands given through the apostles. A christian would certainly want to refresh his memory on these matters by reading them in the bible periodically.

James 1:22-25 stresses the need to diligently apply what God's word says. That would certainly mean having to "peer into it" or study it. So there is no getting around the fact that christians ought to read - no, study - the bible.

But you would notice that James 1 talks about "hearing" the word of God and not "reading" it. I think the reason for this, and the reason for the absence of statements explicitly telling christians to "read" the bible, has to do with the fact that there were relatively few complete copies of the bible back then. Or, to put it another way, the average christian did not have a personal copy of the bible. That was a time before the invention of mass-printing and all copies of the bible had to be reproduced by hand - a time-consuming and expensive task. Thus only the religous leaders and some wealthy individuals had personal copies of the scriptures in their entirety. So the people depended on the religous leaders to read the scriptures to them at their weekly visit to the temple or synagogue. The situation was likely similar for early christians of the first century. They probably had a communal bible that was read from at congregation meetings. Few christians would have had personal copies. This is why Timothy was exhorted to apply himself to public reading at 1 Timothy 4:13; and this is why James 1:22 talks about hearing the word God. I'm saying all of this to say that the absence of explicit statement telling christians to read the bible is owing to the logistical reality of the times when personal copies of the bible were the exception. It's not owing to the reading of the bible being unnecessary (for they did have to "read" it with their ears when they attended meetings).

Having said all of that, I think that JWs take an almost superstitious view of the importance of reading the bible daily. Unless you're an ancient king or judge who has to be ever on guard as to what the law says, you probably don't need to read the bible daily. JWs see reading the bible as a spiritual end in and of itself and read the bible for the sake of reading it, as if the mere act of reading the bible makes them holy or righteous in God's eyes. There is the goal of reading the whole bible in a year by reading so many chapters a day. Is that really a worthy goal? Is it wise to read all the bible in a year just so you can claim to have read all the bible? So you see it becomes all about accomplishing a feat and reading the bible becomes an end in and of itself instead of the means to an end. Reading the bible becomes a legalistic religious work to make one feel righteous - all while they are distracted from what should be the ultimate reason and benefit from reading the bible. So JWs have a similar attitude to completing chapters in the bible as they have to counting hours in the ministry.

51

Deposition of Richard Ashe

by truthseekeriam in

jw
friends

http://watchtowerdocuments.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/lopez-11exhibit-8-to-dec-of-copley-iso-opp-to-plnts-mfs.pdf.

did any of you guys sit down and read this??

it's long but i assure you it's a great read.. .

Island Man

Marked

35

Overlap what???

by dugout in

jw
friends

just out of the blue i asked my wife whos been a jw for some 30 odd years can she explain the overlapping doctrine.

she said to me she never heard of this and said she will have to look it up.

i thought oh s#^%!.

Island Man

Do you remember that recent video about explaining our beliefs about 1914? Watchtower probably thought of doing a similar video to explain the overlapping generation, but then they probably thought to themselves that by the time the video has been finished the generation teaching would have been changed to something different to what it currently is.

39

why didnt God just do this?

by sowhatnow in

for one thing, i cant get past genesis, but no matter.. when god told adam and eve if you eat from the tree youll die.

so why did he not simple let them die and not allow the offspring to?.

you see, if i was a god, and i told two people that, id let them die , .

Island Man

Yes you raise a good point - and especially in light of what Ezekiel 18 teaches. The idea of inherited sin contradicts Ezekiel 18, where the point is made that each one will answer for his own sin and mentions that a son will not have to pay for the sins of his father!

Here's another important point often missed: When arguing against hellfire, JWs sometimes ask the person: "Do you think it would be fair for God to not warn Adam that he would go to a place of torment when he died, if he ate the fruit? Surely God would have warned him about hell if it existed!"

Well, similarly, how could it be fair for God not to have warned Adam, before he sinned, that his disobedience would result, not only in his own death, but the death and suffering of countless generations of his offspring! Adam and Eve thought that they would die soon after eating the fruit. They were kept in the dark about the pain and suffering their actions would bring to billions of people, until after they had sinned.

And here's another point which exposes the dishonesty of Romans 5:18,19: If everyone is automatically condemned to death for Adam's sin, even without having to exercise faith in Adam or do any special works, then shouldn't everyone automatically be justified for life by Jesus' death, even without having to exercise faith in Jesus or do any special works? The undeserved kindness through Jesus is clearly not greater than the condemnation through Adam.

Here's some other interesting questions:

Is it a sin to just have sinful desires without acting on them?

If it is a sin, then how can a perfect being prevent himself from starting a sinful desire when its impossible to prevent a desire from coming into your heart without having to first think about it? How does a perfect angel startto have sinful thoughts, if he's perfect?

Also if sinful desires are a sin, then how is it that James 1:14,15 indicate that desire gives birth to sin, thus indicating that the desire itself cannot be a sin?

If it is not a sin, then doesn't that contradict what Jesus said at Matthew 5:28 and Mark 7:21-23?

On a lighter side: How could Jesus provide a corresponding Ransom when he wasn't fully equivalent to Adam? Jesus had some skin removed from down there, which technically makes him less the man than Adam was and therefore not a perfectly corresponding ransom.