Jehovah's Witnesses - Trained to Argue (page 5)

Farkel

I once argued my way out of a paper bag. It was hard, though.

Farkel

acolytes

When someone is 55% right thats very good.6o% right wonderful.75% right suspicious. 100% right a fanatic.

Acolytes

VM44

Technically "to argue" means "to reason", that is, to present a logical, reasoned line of thought.

That is NOT what the JWs do when they argue!

Actually, what the JWs really do when they argue is to read out their copy of the Reasoning book.

Perhaps the Reasoning book should have been named the Arguing book?

Chalam

It's hard to look at the world pragmatically, and realize that today's world is all about the louder argument, not the one rooted in calm fact.

Indeed. Is anyone listening though? Can anyone hear amongst all this noise?

You can't beat timeless advice

Proverbs 16:23-24 (Contemporary English Version)

23 You can persuade others

if you are wise

and speak sensibly.

24 Kind words are like honey--

they cheer you up

and make you feel strong.

Blessings,

Stephen

winstonchurchill

I once said I'm with Bill Maher on this one: Religions should say "We don't know" more often. The problems arise from Opinions and INTERPRETATIONS presented as facts.

For the sake of illustrating:

JW's find in Revelation a "Crowd no one could count", and then a group of 144K, and they INTERPRET, deduct, conclude, infer that the number must be literal. Ok. That's fine. They have the right to believe that. Maybe they are right! Problem is they present it as a FACT, and base the entire religion on that 'fact', and 2/3 of their doctrine revolves around that 'fact'. Same for 'Generation', same for "1914"... you name it.

If they were honest and objective, or at least less opinionated, they could say 'maybe', 'we are not sure' or simply, 'hell, we don't know'.

Why do they have to give a verdict on EVERYTHING? Why do we need to know what Jesus meant when he said 'Generation? Why do we need to know if those going to heaven as kings and priest will be 144,000 or 12 or a million? What difference does it make if people from Sodom and Gomorrah will be resurrected or not? WHO CARES? Will it make a difference on the basic two commandments and in your perspectives of being saved?

Jim_TX

I don't think that I was a very good lil' JW - as I never was any good at arguments, debates, reasoning - or whatever words you want to call it.

I remember as a youngster living at home - there were several 'round table discussions' where I was the focus. There would be 5 or 6 (siblings and mother) against 1 (me). The discussions would be about something that I had done, and I would be put up before everyone in my family - and basically put on trial for my actions. When you have 6 people shooting all sorts of questions at you at once - or one of them helping the other - and only one - me - trying to defend my position... well... I grew to abhore these 'round table discussions'.

However... with that being said - I may have learned - from the JWs - how to sniff out - and smell BS pretty well. It is only recently that I will verbalize myself and say 'I call BS on that' to their face.

I _do_ understand the point that you are trying to make Jeff - one thing that I want to mention though is that this is not limited to only JWs. I work with a fella who is very opinionated, and will 'argue' his points - just to try to make others believe that he knows what he is talking about... right or wrong. In fact - to try to 'win' any 'discussions' he will get louder - and louder. I believe that he thinks that if he is loud enough - that that alone makes him correct. Usually it works too - but I think that it is only because others in the discussion do not want to debate at that volume.

So... JWs do not have a patent on being 'trained to argue'... well, unless this fella used to be a JW... I have never discussed religion with him... maybe he was a JW long ago or something...

I just think that there are others out there who have the ability to 'argue until they are right'.

Regards,

Jim TX

xmkx

Actually I enjoy NOT arguing more than anything else. I like being able to participate in an honest exchange of information between people, even if those people have completely different opinions from me. I wasn't very much different as a JW, either... which interestingly enough is one of the things I was constantly getting counseled about. :P

garyneal

Jim,

Agreed. I mean, look at Rush Limbaugh, I've noticed on his radio program how he gets loud whenever someone presents an argument that does not agree with him and his staff constantly screen his calls to allow mostly 'dittoheads' to get through.

winstonchurchhill,

I used to think that the witnesses were much closer to the truth about the Bible than most religions because they would teach things that, although most christian denominations disagreed with, were indeed true when you look at some of the facts objectively. Like for example, Christmas, and the idea that the teaching of Adam becoming a living soul used the same hebrew word to describe the animals also becoming 'living souls.' I think the NIV now uses living creature rather than 'soul.' But when I looked at some of their errorneous teachings and how dogmatically they would defend them, I began to realize that they are no different than the other religions that they criticize in regards to dogma.

If they changed their ways and really held to what one of the brothers said and really dug into the scriptures and truly tried to take what the Bible literally says as opposed to what they THINK it says, that will be a religion worth joining.

Jehovah's Witnesses - Trained to Argue

Proverbs 16:23-24 (Contemporary English Version)

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