Rolf Furuli

by inbetween 13 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • inbetween
    inbetween

    My experience with JW so far taught me, that among them are all kind of personalities, with their particular reason for joining or staying in a religion (cult) like JW.

    You find those with mental problems, those born in, who dont know any better, those with serious problems handling life (drug, alcohol, porn addic, who need strict rules to function).

    But there are also quit normal people, who manage their life failry good, they often just accept anything of the org on a superficial basis, without giving too much thought, and going more or less through the motions.

    Then there are those, who really are deep thinkers, often with higher education. Besides their belief they take interest in things like quantum theories, history, even philosophy to a point etc....

    However, they do not use their sharpe mind when it comes to examining their own religion. I can in the meantime even understand this, because mostly they have emotional reasons as well to be a JW, and anything contradicting they put under "cognitive dissonance", and just dont think about it.

    However, what puzzles me most, is when some of them, being exposed to apostate ideas, still use all their ability and skills to defend clearly ridiculous positions.

    Personally I also like to scrutinize things, I tried the same with some doctrine, particularly blood teachings, and could not find a solution, thinking it was my lack of insight. But one I stumbled over the AJWRB webside by accident, thinking its a webside from HLC, all started to come down crashing. I realised, my doubts and concern were indeed valid, and the position of the Watchtower is indeed false and deceiving. I am certainly no genius, but it was so clear to me, and even though, I wished at that time, that what I was told alife long was right after all, I had to admit, I followed in many ways a big lie.

    Later I got acquanted with other problems of the watchtower teaching, like 607/587 chronology, faithful slave class teaching etc. and I learned fast, mostly because many lingering doubts of mine just got uncovered and exposed.

    Being exposed to apostate ideas apparently did the same for many others on forums like this. Then there are some crazy apologist, that appear once in a while, like djeggnogg, alice, made jw etc, who from their posts seem mentally a bit off. Ok, is to be expected in any cult or religion.

    But what stunns me are guys like Rolf Furuli. He is certainly a very well educated intelligent person. He surely has a scientific mind, much more then me or most others here. I would understand if he just ignores every argument, like many others, and just does not think too deep about it, and moves on as a JW. But getting into discussions with people like Dr. Muramoto regarding the blood issue, or regarding the chronolgy with Carl Olof Jonnson, and in both fields gets clearly beaten, is totally strange to me. As far as I know, he has no agenda like a lawyer, who has to try to defend even the undefendable, he is not in any payroll of the society. Why risc his good reputation as a scientist by using fallacious arguments, only to proof JW right ?

    I just dont get it....

  • bigmouth
    bigmouth

    Highly intelligent and astute people still get caught by scammers and frauds (e.g. Nigerian scams) and we wonder at their gullibility.

    Some are greedy, many are trusting but naive.

    People like Ron Furuli, I suspect, fall into a category of educated people that are unable to admit error due to pride. Imagine having invested so much of your life in a belief system that you simply cannot concieve that you are mistaken. The psychological cost to you would be nearly unbearable.

    Brother Furuli is likely a victim of cognitive dissonance. Poor chap.

  • diamondiiz
    diamondiiz

    What bigmouth said. IMO the man is too proud to admit that he is being conned and will do everything in his power to twist the reality so it fits with his bogus belief. Personally I have no use for people like him, to me they are the worst human scum out there. They have the truth in front of them but will reject it and continue to teach falsehoods to others.

  • dozy
    dozy

    I was wondering about this kind of situation when I was watching a documentary this week about people who believe the moon landings were faked in a Hollywood studio.These guys weren't all wide eyed nutters - there were a few PHDs & a university professor amongst them. As part of the documentary the conspiracists spoke to astronauts , NASA staff , politicians , military men , astronomers etc & yet almost all of them still believed afterwards that it was all a scam despite overwhelming evidence. It is very difficult when you have defended a policy for so long & believed it wholeheartedly to overturn it , even though all the facts are at your disposal. One guy , however , suddenly realised , with the sheer weight of evidence , that man really had landed on the moon. It was something of a "eureka" moment.

    Furuli is something of a rare species in the Watchtower world - an educated man who has a "higher education." Doubtless he is feted by the JWs in Norway & enjoys almost a celebrity status. Nice meals in good restaurants when he travels to Brooklyn. Articles written for the WTBTS publications.

    Maybe one day he will have a eureka moment. Maybe not.

  • TJ Curioso
    TJ Curioso

    Remember what happened with Greg Stafford. Maybe this will be happen to Furuliā€¦ some day.

  • yourmomma
    yourmomma

    TJ said exactly what I was thinking, he reminds me of Stafford, as some point he will either leave or they will DF him. That is certain. Stafford is a smart guy also, but he is blinded by his pride, I mean that debate he did with James White was embarassing.

  • Broken Promises
    Broken Promises

    I heard Stafford da'd himself.

  • Cadellin
    Cadellin

    Highly intelligent people are actually better than others of less intelligence at deceiving themselves. They are more skilled at building complex and convincing (to them) arguments as to why what is clearly a ridiculous scenario is believable. When you couple that ability with time and emotional investment in that scenario, you get a very potent, tenacious mind set. My father is a great example of this. Although not well-educated--formally, that is--he is one of the most well-read and intelligent people I know. He's in his late 70's and has a memory that honestly puts mine to shame. His reading comprehension rivals that of folks with post graduate degrees. Yet he is a "company man" when it comes to the WT, lock stock and barrel. He can defend anything that they do and will do so, right to the death.

  • OUTLAW
    OUTLAW
    But what stunns me are guys like Rolf Furuli. He is certainly a very well educated intelligent person. He surely has a scientific mind..

    Furuli`s Expertise is in Linguistics..Although he would like to pretend it`s more than that..

    I read Stafford went back to the WBT$..

    ......................;-)...OUTLAW

  • TD
    TD

    In line with what Cadellin said, when an intelligent JW finds the 'Official' teaching and explanation to be less than satisfactory, they forge their own argument in support of the position. The more intelligent they are, the better they are at it.

    You've mentioned AJWRB and blood. Furuli has his own arguments in support of the JW position. It doesn't even seem to matter that his argument is at odds with official rulings made by the JW parent organization and letters they have sent to JW's working in the medical field. He appears to truly believe his own convoluted reasoning.

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