I notice that the WT does a lot of quoting from various sources eg. for their creation/ecolution and their magazines.

Do they ever check whether their sources of information are reliable?

What does all this quoting `prove', when I can do selective quoting that `proves' fairies exist, give me various books about fairies and I could cut and paste to `prove' fairies exist

Notice that they almost never footnote anything. It makes double checking the quote for accuracy or context nearly impossible.

They don't check anything, if they misquote something it's called New Light.

Hi all,

As someone who writes for a living, I can tell you that the WT would never pass muster with any self-respecting newspaper or magazine editor. Their material is rife with gratuitous and unattributed quotes-- a real no-no among journalists of any repute.

The Society's purpose in quoting is not to convey the truth of a matter, but to bolster its argument of the moment by any and all means at hand. Source references are not used to examine the pros and cons of issues, but to fool readers into thinking that "authorities" support the Society's position. The only thing they're really concerned about getting right is the precise sequence of words between the quotation marks. Whether they misunderstand or misrepresent whoever they're quoting is irrelevant.

The best examples I know of to illustrate dishonest and stupid quoting practices are the Society's books on evolution/creation from 1967 and 1985. I've done an extensive analysis of the latter book, Life: How Did It Get Here? By Evolution or by Creation?, which you can find here http://www.geocities.com/osarsif/index2.htm in the article "The WTS View of Creation and Evolution". I've documented more than 100 misquotes.

A few years ago I found out that the main author and compiler of the 1985 Creation book is one Harry Peloyan, a long time Bethel Writing Staff member who is now the editor-in-chief of Awake! magazine. I went in to Bethel and, after some difficulty, got him to come to the lobby of the main building. We talked for about 45 minutes, mostly about the book. He was fairly hostile and kept threatening to walk away, but for some reason kept on talking. He absolutely refused to discuss any details of misquotes, except for one instance. This is the one where paleontologist Richard Lewontin is misquoted. He wouldn't admit that Lewontin was misrepresented, and asked, "Are the words between the quotation marks correct?" I said Yes. He said, "So what's the problem?" I said, "Alright, suppose that a Watchtower article quoted an evolutionist as saying 'evolution is true'. Would it be fair for me to start claiming that the Society is now teaching that evolution is true?" He looked at me with an evil eye and refused to answer. I said, "I think you understand my point." Peloyan is absolutely typical of Watchtower writers, who think they're above normal standards of honesty in writing.

The Society has been hugely bashed by criticism of the Creator book, so when they came out with the Creator book in 1998, they left out most of the source references. Clearly this was so as to make it much harder for critics to find the misquotes. On a more positive note, I think that this newer book contains far fewer flat-out misquotes than the 1985 book. However, the arguments are much more fuzzy and carefully avoid real details. Unfortunately the typical JW reader is too stupid to realize that the devil is in the details and that the irrelevant verbiage in the book lends no real support to the book's basic thesis.

AlanF

worth bttt-ing

~Merry

And here's the link to Kristfer's Trinity thread (which was actually what made me think of bringing this one back up)...

http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/107582/1.ashx

~Merry

For years especially during the 1980's in the 'young people ask series' the watchtower would quote from teenybopper seventeen magazine endlessly.

They done to death that one about how,"we only use 10% of our brains" as a scientific source,well that is inaccurate and was from a non scientist.(perhaps they would know from experience)

Another wopper/blooper is stress caused stomach ulcers with scripture link to proverbs "jealousy is rottenness to the bones" i had severe ulcers (ulcerative colitis) and the quack flunky elders would counsel me on my condition being my own fault,and put me on a big fat guilt trip.---Danny Haszard