What Doctrines or JW Views Did You Not Find Too Believable?

by minimus 80 Replies latest jw friends

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  james_woods

  These may seem like rather insignificant views (compared to the proposed killing by God of 99% of living humans) - but these were two that even as a teenager I simply NEVER believed:

  1) - the physical human heart could "think" like a second brain and lead a person into trouble.

  2) - the biblical "creative days" were exactly 7,000 years each. Thus all humans are only about 6,000 years in total history, and the dinosaurs and myriads of other primitive extinct creatures have to be folded into about 48,000 years each.

  I knew from simple science that both of these were complete and proveable BS.

  As far as I know (and current JWs correct me please if wrong), neither of these has been formally retracted. They have simply been put way back on the hidden shelves of "old light" and are just not mentioned any more. Yes, an improvement (in a kind of cowardly way) - but how could a thinking 20th century religious leadership teach such bunkum in the first place???
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  james_woods

  OK, double post (sorry) - but the JW View that I DID sort of believe, but discovered in 1970 that they had LIED to me about was this:

  The notion that the Hebrew reference to Jehovah had once been in the Greek New Testament, had been removed by apostates along the way, and that the Witnesses had historically restored it.

  I did a pretty careful study on this after discussion with a college professor of history, and was disgusted to find that he was right - the Watchtower had simply inserted Jehovah because they wanted to without any documentation or evidence. This was the first hard evidence that they were not only naieve (as per the heart and 7,000 year creative days) - but were essentially liars about their scholarship. That was in 1970.

  I mentioned this to Al Schroeder at my overseer's school, and he essentially told me I did not need to worry about such deep things as a 21 year old assistant congregation servant, and to go play in the street.

  This kind of stuff at least had me pretty much prepared in my mind that absolutely nothing was really going to happen in 1975 other than a big dissapointment of everyone who believed it. And, of course, hearing a couple of years later about Ray Franz and his issues pretty much put the icing on the cake - I was out by 1979.
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  ProdigalSon

  That hundreds of thousands of near-death experiences, millions perhaps billions of instances of deja-vu, all seances, apparitions of dead loved ones, in fact anything paranormal, are all the work of diligent little demons who have nothing better to do than pull off all this shit just so they can try to convince people of an immortal soul. Then, we have a god who would punish those people with everlasting destruction simply because they were fooled into some sort of allegedly arrogant belief.

  Nowadays, the answer is crystal clear: Jehovah truly is a jackass.
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  minimus

  How can you follow the command not to judge and still be a JW???
• 

  LovelyEunie

  How can you follow the command not to judge and still be a JW???

  You can't. It's utterly impossible. Because they don't realize that they begin to judge right after they say "We don't judge, only God has the power to judge" but then two seconds later within the same sentence they're like, "You're a perverted person and immoraly wrong if you engage in homosexuality." Didn't you just say it wasn't your place to judge???
• 

  TD

  A couple people mentioned the heart being the "seat of motivations" which they taught from 1971 to the mid 80's

  You might enjoy this:

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/188251/1/JW-Science-Quote-1-29
• 

  james_woods

  TD, how did they back away from the "thinking heart" in the 1980s? Was it just a clarification, an actual retraction, or did they just quit printing the idea? EDIT - I see a reference to the June 1, 1986 WT - but was wondering if anybody knew how they handled the transition.

  Thanks, James

  PS - believe it or not, I think the original articles began to say nearly the same thing about the kidneys - that they also had something to do with emotion.

  PSS - my theory at the time (and I was utterly appalled at the false science of this teaching) was that it was laying a foundation of a medical rule against heart transplants. Don't remember anything printed on it, but many talks from the platform suggested that a person with a heart transplant could "take on the emotions of the donor" - which could be a terrible thing.
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  Meeting Junkie No More

  I NEVER could wrap my head around the non-resurrection of animals. If humans died because of sin, why do animals die? They are not moral agents so should never have had to die in the first place - totally unfair. God sends Jesus to pay for our sins, yet the animals don't sin, and don't get redeemed? Total conundrum. Still can't wrap my head around it.
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  minimus

  I wrote letters questioning them about their view of that literal heart. After 3 letters they told me to "wait" on Jehovah and stay busy in the service. The following week a new QFR came out saying they changed their view to the old belief of a symbolic heart.

  See!!! I knew it before "The Slave".
• 

  minimus

  MJNM, interesting!