"Bible Teach" book's discouragement of investigating other religions

by M.J. 23 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  VM44

  Your time would be better spent if you studied real money. After you knew what real money looked like, you could recognize a counterfeit.

  The "counterfeit money" example relies upon hidden assumptions.

  One assumption is that one has already been provided a description of what "real" money looks like.

  What would a person do if they did not already possess such a "description"?

  And consider this variation.

  Suppose a person was presented with official paper currency from Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, China, India, and Japan. Which bills in this situation would be "real" and which would be "counterfeit"?

  The book's illustration breaks down and crumbles very easily.

  --VM44
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  Warlock

  So then, what if you think you have identified the "true religion" by studying the Bible, only to discover, in time, that this "true religion" has flaws, similar to the others? Then what?

  Warlock
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  Ade

  just a little thought here ( which is all i'm normally capable of lol )
  
  suppose everyone viewed it their way ?? then the witnessess would never have come to exist, as most other religions were present before them, so the people from these religions would never ever have considered or looked elsewhere would they .
  
  GOD bless you "BIBLE READERS" everywhere
  
  Ade
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  lost_light06

  Warlock, it's all anybody's best guess. Every religion will have flaws, humans have flaws. The WT likes to say their's is the closest to flawless but is it really? Who knows?
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  Honesty

  Not only is the bible “hard” it’s interpreted differently by everyone. There is no way to know for sure which teaching is correct, not unless God himself came down and told you personally. lost_light06

  He does:

  John 14:16-18 And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever. He is the Spirit of truth. The world is unable to receive Him because it doesn’t see Him or know Him. But you do know Him, because He remains with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you.
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  lost_light06

  Honesty,

  So I'm supposed to wait for some inner feeling that God gives me to tell me what the truth is? I have all sorts of inner feelings all the time, some contradicting others some just bad gas from too much frejoles. And who's to say the bible is God's word? Why not the Koran or some other "holy book" from some other religion amongst the countless religions of world history? Like I said before, no one can know for an absolute certainty that what they believe is the truth. There is no way to know.
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  drew sagan

  What honesty brought up is a core Christian priciple that if you go to God in faith he will give you assurance and guidence.
  Remember that thing about 'partial' knowledge? or how about 'it isn't for you to know the times and seasons'?
  What i'm driving home at is that not all Christians believe they know everything, in fact all they (should) really claim to know is that Jesus Christ is the son of God and that we should patiently wait for all things to be revealed to us in the future while living a life built upon faith and love. Many though do not think that this is good enough. They seek instead to make faith an issue of knowing volumes worth of dogma and seek to take away the personal expierance. Remember that for most high controll groups (cults), knowing is the same as believing. That's why for JWs 'knowing the truth' is the same as having faith. But they are very differant. I don't think we should ever count out PERSONAL EXPIERANCE from the mixture.
  Many have had personal expierances that have helped strenghted their faith that God is watching over them. Should this make that individual feel he has every piece of dogma correct? Of course not, but it does build faith.
  Of course we can also say that those people just got 'lucky' with their expierance or how their prayers where answered and that it proves nothing. But have we tried it in sincerity ourselves? We can't let others convictions for what they feel is ture totally guide our thinking. The Bible states that if we ask god he will guide us. We might believe that is true or not, but in the words a friend told me once 'Give it a try, what harm can it do?'
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  Mysterious

  Funny how I read that paragraph to my non witness boyfriend and he immediately picked out the exact problem with it, yet I know of no JWs who would be capable of doing so. Funny the way they are raised not to think and to be spoon fed the "food of truth".
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  AuldSoul

  Drew Sagan: In fact all they (should) really claim to know is that Jesus Christ is the son of God and that we should patiently wait for all things to be revealed to us in the future while living a life built upon faith and love. Many though do not think that this is good enough. They seek instead to make faith an issue of knowing volumes worth of dogma and seek to take away the personal expierance. Remember that for most high controll groups (cults), knowing is the same as believing. That's why for JWs 'knowing the truth' is the same as having faith.

  I knew there was some reason I liked you.

  Spirituality does not equal knowledge about spiritual things.

  Respectfully,
  AuldSoul
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  mkr32208

  How does this analogy mesh with their belief (printed a million times) that you can't come to the truth by only studying the bible? Or conversely that you COULD come to the truth by ONLY studying the watchtower publications?!