Tough Questions for Jehovah's Witness...

by Tuesday 10 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Tuesday

  Hey folks! Wondering if everyone here is willing to weigh in on a thought I had. So I've been on YouTube alot lately and came across this profile:
  http://www.youtube.com/user/azsuperman01

  He has a section on his channel that is called Tough Questions for Christians, it really has sparked some incredible responses and from what I can see has gotten some incredibly thought out answers from Christians and Atheists alike. If you haven't had a chance to see his videos please click on the link above and check them out, they're very articulate and very well produced. You'll also notice that he is not condescending in his questions, he doesn't ask them sarcastically, he just asks the question. For people who don't feel like going through all his videos two examples of the questions that I found really interesting are:

  - If you believe that people who have never heard of Jesus before their death get a "free pass" into heaven; then why preach to them about Jesus, giving them a chance to reject Jesus and thereby be sent to hell?

  - If God punishes those who don't abide by his rules or that go against his will, then why did God give us free will?

  So how this ties into Jehovah's Witnesses is that I was thinking of doing something similar, but gear it specifically towards Jehovah's Witnesses. I was even thinking of calling it "Tough Questions for Jehovah's Witnesses" (Yup, I'm real original). I have a couple of problems with this, first off I don't know if I will get anything but "You're an apostate"; "Jehovah's Witnesses are the right religion" responses. Especially since the Watchtower frowns upon people being online or looking at apostate material. I know there are witnesses online that view apostate material because they comment on the various anti-witness videos out there. AZSuperman01's videos have people posting video responses, which I don't know if that's something that would happen here because even if the witness was responding to my video posting positive Witness stuff, he still could end up getting counselled for viewing apostate material in the first place. So first off I don't really know if I would just be wasting my time. The second thing is that like AZSuperman01's videos he's simply asking a question it isn't pointing a finger at anyone. That's the type of thing I would like to ask; I wouldn't want to play the game of quoting various Watchtower articles and saying "You said this, now defend it". More general questions, that really forces people to think and hopefully if my demeanor is nice enough, if I'm poised enough, if my question seems genuine enough I can get some people to post responses. I'm thinking first off I would need to do an introductory video, to explain that basically I'm not a witness now, but I'm also not disfellowshipped, I was never baptised and am not considered a bad associate now nor when I was a witness. For an example of questions I was thinking of asking they would be along the lines of:

  - Let's say that science finally mastered cloning and could create an exact duplicate of your body, and also created a super-computer capable of storing your entire brain contents from your mannerisms to your memories and could then implant these memories into this exact duplicate of you. When the process is completed you are looking at an exact copy of you, the body and the mind, the same memories, the same mannerisms, in every way this person is identical to you, he is a complete re-creation of you. When you die and are resurrected in the New System, Jehovah creates the exact duplicate body for you, and implants your memories, mannerisms etc into this exact duplicate of you, how would this differ from the example given before? Science in the previous example had re-created you, but in the end while it was your memories, your mannerisms, your body, they didn't make another you, the re-created a copy of you. If you died, this clone while exact in every way to you is still not you. Explain how in paradise if God is truly implanting your memories, your mannerisms into an exact copy of your body that it is actually you who is enjoying life on paradise earth vs. an exact clone of you enjoying life on paradise earth for the life that YOU lead in this system?

  Yeah I know a little wordy. But I'd be saying them, and I have 9 minutes and 59 seconds to ask my question :) So if you could give me your opinion, do you think that witnesses will respond with actual thought out answers, or even look for the answers in the Watchtower and post them, or do you think they will just continually comment with "Apostate!". Also if you have some thought provoking questions please post them here so that I could put them up when I actually start this project. Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me.
• 

  Tired of the Hypocrisy

  Hey, I think you have a good idea. There are LOTS of jw's that comment on the apostate stuff on youtube. However, I think you hit on a valid point. I think with the typical jehova's witless lack of education you are inevitably going to run into more of the WE HAVE THE TRUTH YOU EFFING APOSTATE, than you may want to deal with. One way to get away from these asswipes would be to put that in your description. Just say, if you are a jw please give a well thought out response with some reliable sources, or at least cite your sources.

  I am looking forward to seeing your work!
• 

  DoomVoyager

  It's already been done - but putting it in a video format would probably be helpful. Here's the link:

  http://www.jwfacts.com/index_files/questions.htm
• 

  Tuesday

  the link you provided is really good, I'm kind of looking for a little more though. I'm not interested in trying to have witnesses provide wacky answers and come up with a bunch of follow up questions, I'm looking for one big question that can start debate. For instance in the jwfacts questions it would have me ask:
  

  When did Jehovah’s Witnesses start?

  There have always been Jehovah’s Witnesses

  I thought they were quite a new religion?

  Russell started the Watchtower Society in the 1870’s, but that was prophesied by Jesus who said the virgins would awaken in the last days

  But you said there have always been Jehovah’s Witnesses. So who were they before Russell?

  We don’t know but there have always been some worshippers of Jehovah

  So which Jehovah's Witnesses did Russell get his teachings from?

  Well no one really, God directed him

  This is a really good line of questioning, but I'm looking for one question though. This line of questoning is kind of a set up too, it's designed to lead to a specific answer. I don't know how much different this would be but for my video what I would want to ask is:

  The Faithful and Discreet slave is a term that I hear alot around the Jehovah's Witnesses, this Faithful and Discreet slave is God's authority, God's channel to communicating with the human race to let his purpose be known. The Faithful and Discreet slave has been in existence since the beginning of time from Abraham to Moses to Jesus to Paul and the First Century Christians finally to the Jehovah's Witnesses. The only problem is while the Faithful and Discreet Slave is considered to be Paul and the First Century Christians and Jehovah's Witnesses there's no list of anyone representing the Faithful and Discreet slave in between the First Century Christians and the 1870's when C.T. Russell started the Bible Student movement. So my question would be, if the Faithful and Discreet Slave were always in existence, and there is a clear line of succession of the light getting brighter for Jehovah's Purpose, who were the Faithful and Discreet Slave from the Second Century all the way to the Nineteenth Century?

  While it's not as succinct as the line of questioning presented on jwfacts website I think wording the question that way will at least open this up a bit. The question I'm asking is genuinely looking for an answer, I want the witnesses to try and answer who were the Faithful and Discreet Slave for that time period. I'm not looking to get them to answer a specific way so I can set them up. Personally with my quest for spirituality the more damning things to my faith were the questions I couldn't answer, especially if they were a sincere question.

  I'm really not trying to take anything away from jwfacts website, it's an amazing tool and I will definetly use it as inspiration. I think I might be trying to do something a bit different though. Anyone have some more opinions if I will get responses or the usual Ostrich head in the sand response? Also if anyone has any question ideas it would be great, I really don't want to only have like 4 or 5 questions on there.
• 

  oompa

  Tuesday: The Faithful and Discreet slave has been in existence since the beginning of time from Abraham to Moses to Jesus to Paul and the First Century Christians finally to the Jehovah's Witnesses.

  You may want to double check your references here for the start of this question. I believe WT teaching is that they only started when HS was poured out in the upper room in 33 CE.................................oompa

  more fun is trying to find out how and when modern day JW's first said, "hey we must be the FDS."
• 

  ColdRedRain

  Here's one to ask them. "Is the Watchtower Society capable of saying anything that's factually inaccurate?" The JW would say "yes" but in reality, they would want to say "no".

  Then a good follow up question would be "If they were found to be factually inaccurate, would the JW religion still have the truth or will they not have the truth?".

  And if they talk about the light getting brighter, then follow up with "What makes your concept of 'new light' so much different than the 'progressive revelation' doctrine of the other churches, and who is to say what you're preaching right now isn't 'old light'?" That will be a good stumper for a JW.
• 

  Tuesday

  Thanks Oompa I'm going to double check that reference. I'll probably just cut out everything before first century christian.

  Thank you so much ColdRedRain, I really want to ask something about the whole new light concept. That's a really good question.
• 

  Robert7

  I've always felt the same way...
  
  - Since 99.99% of people reject the 'good news', aren't all preachers condemning virtually all people they preach to death? They're not giving a lifesaving message, they're killing everyone.
  - Is it fair that they get death for a typically poor 10-second presentation of a WT magazine, not even the bible?
  - Did the people even know what they said no to?
• 

  Tuesday

  I've always felt the same way...
  
  - Since 99.99% of people reject the 'good news', aren't all preachers condemning virtually all people they preach to death? They're not giving a lifesaving message, they're killing everyone.
  - Is it fair that they get death for a typically poor 10-second presentation of a WT magazine, not even the bible?
  - Did the people even know what they said no to?

  I think that is an interesting question, once again I'm not looking to really lead someone to a specific answer, for me the more things that end in "faith" as the answer the more damning it was to me. I had to have Faith that the bible wasn't altered, faith that the WT was indeed God's Originization, faith that God was leading us to the right people in field service. If you were still a witness and there was a series of questions pointed at Jehovah's Witnesses where every single answer to all the questions was "We have faith that it does" would that deter you. When I was a Jehovah's Witness it was always proving things through the bible that they were the true religion, and proving by acts that they were the true religion, it was always through proof. They attempt to combat everything with "logic" and "accurate knowlege", they wrote a book on Evolution, on whether the bible was God's word or Man's, the book of Revelation and Daniel, all of which were specifically designed to prove through logic and reason that Jehovah's Witnesses were unequivocally the true religion. I can think of nothing more damaging than forcing a person who believes theirs is the true religion (which they came to the conclusion due to logic and reason) than to make them admit that they actually believe they are right because they have faith, and it actually has nothing to do with logic and reason. In essence they're admitting that they believe their religion is the true one for the same reason everyone else believes their religion is the true one...faith. I love the subject of preaching door to door mainly because in the end it comes down to faith. Faith that God will have the people that he wants to be home, then to not be busy, then to be willing to listen, then to accept a study and ultimately become a baptized member of the Jehovah's Witnesses. When armageddon comes it boils down to faith that the right person wasn't too busy to be home, or while home too busy to deal with a pushy salesperson at their door, or that they even answered the door, or that their house was even worked to begin with, or that they didn't already have a pre-conceived notion of what Jehovah's Witnesses were enough to close the door without listening to the presentation, or that the presentation given was the right one at the time....etc. I think a really powerful first step is realizing that the one "true" religion is really the same as all the other "false" ones. Does anyone else think this is the case as well? Is there something I'm missing that might shift my viewpoint a bit to get me on a better track to producing these videos?
• 

  10p

  When I was a Jehovah's Witness it was always proving things through the bible that they were the true religion, and proving by acts that they were the true religion, it was always through proof. They attempt to combat everything with "logic" and "accurate knowlege",

  You know, you've just hit the nail on the head for me. That's why I'm an apostate. Because I was brought up, as a witness, to use logic and reason to 'prove' my beliefs. But I just kept going ... the invisible walls that the organisation tried to build in my mind to keep me from going 'too far' just didn't hold up against the momementum of 'reason and logic' that they had energised me with.

  I like the idea of Youtube, cos witnesses won't go to an apostate website, but they will go to Youtube.

  Also, I wouldn't use the word 'tough' in the title - that is already ringing of apostate in the ears of JWs. Call it something like 'Serious questions for Jehovah's Witnesses' or 'Honest questions for Jehovah's Witnesses' ... I dunno exactly, but 'Tough questions for JWs' would have put me off when I was one.

  And, I can tell already that you are going to keep the tone neutral, and that is good, because it is critical. Even the slightest inflection that hints of apostate will get the computer shut down so fast, it won't even have time to 'saving your settings.'