A number of years ago I started doing something I had never done before.
I started questioning the basic premise of things which cause arguments.
Why?
Long running controversy usually contains a hidden premise BOTH sides buy into without knowing it.
By backing up one whole step and questioning the BASIS for the hidden premise the problem quickly goes away.
Like a fish looking at a worm wriggling in the water. It looks yummy. The fish bites the worm and---suddenly---YANK!
The fish is gutted, panfried, eaten and pooped out the end of some fisherman who had baited a HIDDEN HOOK.
This has happened to all of us here reading these Discussion topics.
We were pooped out the back end of a Kingdom hall wondering what the hell happened to us.
We started off our journey from pious believer in the bible to a steaming pile of Apostate Crap in an amazing journey of dizzying confusion.
Where was the HIDDEN HOOK?
It was when we accepted the Bible as the actual words of God, the actual words of Jesus, the actual factual accounts of Apostles and an accurate historical record of real events in mankind's history.
We had been conditioned to automatically accept that as a GIVEN and we did.
We saw wriggling in the water a yummy morsel of The Truth, beautifully explained FROM THE BIBLE and we chomped down on it.
Perhaps we need to back up next time.
Sniff that bible a bit longer. Nudge it with your nose before you bite.
Maybe the Bible itself is the hook that is hidden.
Maybe it contains man's words and not God's.
Maybe it was assembled by men with men's intentions and men's interpretations.
Maybe it was copied by ernest, well-intentioned people just trying to do the right thing.
Maybe the translators kept "helping" by changing things.
Maybe each generation of copyists, redactors, translators THEMSELVES simply accepted what the PREVIOUS men had done as FACT.
I'm just saying.....none of us would spend five minutes actually considering that a man saved all the animals in a big wooden box IF IT WEREN'T FOR ACCEPTING the hidden hook: the Bible.
Imagine how many arguments simply vanish instantly if the Bible is just an assembly of man's myths, stories, ideas, assertions MIXED IN with holy writings, folk history, hallucinations, philosophy and constant interpetations.
1.We don't have a chain of custody for scripture. Evidence must have chain of custody. Why? To prevent TAMPERING.
No Provenance? Trying selling a painting as "original" without a provenance. How much more necessary selling Truth.
2.We don't have custody of ORIGINAL writings. Nothing exists that is original pertaining to the Bible. NOTHING.
We don't even have first generation copies. None. We begin to see scraps about the size of a postage stamp. Then, copies of copies.
By the time we get to actual whole pages we are far removed from Chain-of-Custody provenance or Originals.
3.Men always have a strong agenda to PROVE THEIR OPINION RIGHT. How would scripture escape such human nature? Using a Holy Book to persuade people to DO WHAT YOU WANT THEM TO DO is a powerful motive.
It would not be dishonesty to interpret writings in a way that matches exactly YOUR OWN opinion. Just look at the New World Translation as an example. Amazing how many previously translated words and phrases CHANGED TO MATCH JW belief system, isn't it?
How would any of the thousands and thousands of such translations have escaped similar AMAZING CHANGES in interpretation?
4.There is no AUTHORITY without the BIBLE in Christianity unless you pretend God speaks directly to you.
Every RELIGIOUS LEADER looks to the Bible to prove his own beliefs and will convince YOU if you accept the Bible and his interpretation.
Go to any religious bookstore. How many hundreds and hundreds of commentaries and theology books contain OPINIONS and INTERPRETATIONS from the Bible? How many AGREE with each other?
This is only possible BECAUSE the Bible is a fragile and malleable HIDDEN HOOK for men to use to REEL PEOPLE IN who believe in it.
None of us has escaped being yanked out of the water, panfried, eaten and pooped.
We are a steaming pile of Apostate crap in the opinion of the Jehovah's Witnesses.
How did we get here?
WE CHOMPED DOWN on the Hidden Hook.
When will you learn to examine the hook itself before biting????
Have you since been yanked out of the water YET AGAIN?