by OnTheWayOut 26 Replies latest jw friends
TheListener's wife:
"The Israelites were just like we are now. They were God's chosen people. They made mistakes like we do, they made corrections to their worship like we do and they followed Jehovah's orders, like pooping outside the camp and not eating certain foods, even though they had no idea why these laws were beneficial. Why do you have to nitpick the WTS so much?"
An answer for her from jwfacts.com:
"It's the truth because it follows the Bible, ..."
It follows an interpretation of the Bible.
BTS
My study conductor spends about 70% of the time in normal conversation about things, then he remembers what he is supposed to do and cracks open some piece of Society literature.
The way I handle it is thus:
"Oh, that's interesting. Let's look up that scripture they cited and see what it says."
It is often a stretch to connect the scripture to any WT assertion, and often it is way off. So I may offer:
"Let's look up what else is said about that in other parts of scripture."
So this "study" has gone in directions that are not according to what the WT would like, but it has been enjoyable for me. I have learned a lot.
A@G - Would you be interested in posting the entire letter (or if you have already, direct me to the post). I love the way you set out argument using the WTS's own words.
OTWO- The reality is that "it's the truth because I want to believe it's the truth". Until someone is willing to look at the facts without bias, they'll never be convienced.
Oh, and while we're on the subject, Darling, do you think that God guided the council of Hippo in the year 393 to select the correct books that belonged in the Bible? Why or why not? do you realize that the Council of Hippo came AFTER the Council of Nicea when the Trinity was debated and defined?
People have said all sorts of things are true because it "follows the Bible".
Many examples, often contradictory, are given in the book, "The Bible Tells Me So: Uses and Abuses of Holy Scripture," by Jim Hill.
"Even the devil can cite scripture for his purpose." - Shakespeare
"If a religion is the truth because it follows the Bible, then I need it to not go beyond what is written. If the Bible
was never proven to contain God's name anywhere in the original Greek writings, then the true religion would not
decide that God didn't protect HIS WORD enough, so the religion must put the name there for him. If the Bible
doesn't go into the bedrooms of husbands and wives to dictate what kind of sex they can have, then the true
religion won't either. If you say the Bible does go there, then I would expect that you are saying the Bible claims
that sexual relations are for the purpose of conception, so the true religion would ban all sex unless it was for
husband and wife to have children- nothing else."
So I tried this with the JW who stated it to me yesterday. I spoke with him again.
His response was that the Greek was clearly quoting the Hebrew and it was extremely
most likely that the authors were quoting using the name of Jehovah. He granted that
the most ancient available copies did not contain "Jehovah" but the originals are not
available to us. He stood by this no matter how I pointed out that WTS stands on both
sides of this issue. They say that God protected the Word to make it available to
mankind, but then they say the great apostasy occurred to remove the name, so they
needed to restore it. He just went into a repetition loop.
The next point- true religion going into the bedroom. My friend claimed that we need
morality in our life, and that the government sets rules on accepted sex practices mostly
in the past but still today. I said that we are not talking about government, we are talking
about the one true religion which represents God. He said that he did have some problems
with the past rules about mates being told to divorce a spouse over certain sex practices
and some mates being told they cannot divorce a spouse over homosexual practices.
So my point is that there are cracks in the foundation of the tower. We just need to find
each individual's cracks.
