If you believe in nothing, then how do you know JW's are wrong?

by slimboyfat 70 Replies latest jw friends

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  slimboyfat

  hillary_step

  A non-believer can demonstrate that the WTS is incorrect in many of its Biblical interpretations by using the Bible itself to prove this. The non-believer can then go on to prove the Bible itself to be suspect, at least as the literal word of God, by providing external evidence for this fact.

  Indeed the "non-believer" can proceed on that basis. But "non-believer" as I understand the terms does not equate with someone who claims belief in nothing as I have tried to sketch. A non-believer is typically someone who affirms all sorts of commonplace secular assumptions such as the primacy of rationality, the reliability of the empirical method, the unliklihood of supernatural intervention and so on. This is not what I had in mind when I said someone who believes in nothing has difficulty articulating why they feel the Witnesses are wrong. To be a "non-believer" you must believe in all sorts of things, and as such have no problem rejecting the Witness view because it largely contradict those beliefs.

  But how does someone who genuinely believes nothing reject Jehovah's Witnesses and all the while make sense, that is my question. On the other hand, maybe it does not make sense to make the claim "I believe in nothing" at all.

  Slim
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  Homerovah the Almighty

  Possibly its a point that the organization is wrong by virtue the its doctrines either non-believers or believers can discern this for themselves.

  Or its the complacency of power that exists and seeing the personal damage as a result of such complacency.

  If there is a honest concern for the health of humanity.
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  Awakened07

  But "non-believer" as I understand the terms does not equate with someone who claims belief in nothing as I have tried to sketch.

  In that case I think you'll be hard pressed to find someone who 'believes nothing'. I guess I can do a Bill Clinton and say it depends on what the definition of 'believes' is, but if the words 'believes' and 'accepts' or 'holds true' are mutually replaceable, I don't think you'll find anyone who 'believes nothing'.
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  AlmostAtheist

  Hey SBF,
  
  I confess i didn't read your entire post. what i did read sounded very black and white, either/or, and the world tends not to work that way.
  
  I rejected the bible, and thus any religion based on it. I have concluded that the bible both proves and disproves various doctrines, such as the trinity. it isn't harmonious, as we were taught, but instead contradicts itself. So there are certain doctrines I realy can't label 'wrong'.
  
  However, i can still read the bible academically and decide if I think it supports certain beliefs or not. in the cases of blood and disfellowshipping, to name two, i think that it does not. I think JW's are wrong in their belief that the bible teaches those things.
  
  I don't have to believe something else in order to make that call, do I?
  
  Dave
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  Galileo

  I'm a little puzzled by your premise. I don't know anyone that believes in nothing. Personally, I believe in a great many things, but god is no longer one of those. Are you saying that you believe in nothing?
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  BizzyBee

  Why single out what JWs believe? Do you also have to prove to yourself that Mormons are wrong? That Hindus are wrong? That athiests are wrong? How unendingly tedious!

  Your basic premise is deeply flawed because the parameters are not well-defined. Just to try to clairfy one tiny aspect of your suggestion: to which JW beliefs are you referring? - the 1914 generation change, blood fractions, anointed? JW beliefs are inconsistent, changing frequently. That puts them in the same boat with the rest of humanity - believing, but not really knowing.
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  Tired of the Hypocrisy

  I don't believe in nothing, but I am gonna chime in here anyways.

  I have been to the hall and associated with the washtowel society over 40 years now. Been baptised since 1981 and have seen enough of the crap they try to pass off as food at the proper time to know when it isn't right. They suck, and their teachings suck, and I hope they all go to hell and that satan pokes them all in their stupid asses!
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  parakeet

  sbf wrote: "A non-believer is typically someone who affirms all sorts of commonplace secular assumptions such as the primacy of rationality, the reliability of the empirical method, the unliklihood of supernatural intervention and so on."
  
  
  
  
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  Homerovah the Almighty

  I believe that Charles T. Russell had a psychology of a salesman, there you see I don't believe in nothing
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  slimboyfat

  You are all in different ways "affirming" a view that I have suspected may have some merit: that "believing in nothing" is an impossibility. This is in fact the point I was clumsily trying to make. To the extent that I find I believe in nothing, I find it difficult to articulate disagreement with Jehovah's Witnesses. And to the extent that I do manage to give expression to disagreement with Jehovah's Witnesses I find that this divergence necessarily attaches itself to all sorts of assumptions; assumptions which I find to be disconcertingly fragile upon closer inspection. And if I then doubt those assumptions then I am back to the "nothing" with which I find it impossible to combat the Witness worldview.

  Actually the statement "I believe in nothing" might be viewed with some suspicion as a nifty way of prioritising one's own beliefs while claiming for them a status separate from the beliefs that others affirm.

  Slim