by Terry 54 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
What I am saying is I believe what I want to but can not share the
journey, for everyone has their own. But someone else believes
differently than me. I can not be so sure of my own understanding
to be able to bend another one's understanding. The best we can
do for anyone is to make their journey more pleasant.
And please remember, Jesus is ALSO on a journey.
Did I answer the query?
The starting point of human life is survival.
Real world=real threats.
Our mind is what equips us to the task.
Along with real threats their are phony ones.
If we divide our struggle between imagined threats and real ones we are less effective.
Jehovah's Witnesses live with one foot in the real world and the other in an imaginary one.
They are less effective while simultaneously IMAGINING they are MORE effective!
When you deal with people in everyday life it isn't just you dealing with them; your mind (approximation of reality) is dealing with their mind (approximation of reality).
That is what makes a Discussion Board such as this one fascinating!
We aren't so much dealing with the reality of other people's lives as we are wading through the flood of approximate madnesses.
This is 21st century technology age. We have so many safety nets surrounding us here in the West it is possible like never before to be quite nutty and yet, safe and secure!
Rock on!
We have so many safety nets surrounding us here in the West it is possible like never before to be quite nutty and yet, safe and secure!
There is only one safety net that matters Terry. People fall into two binary camps to try and create well-being:
1. Belief that Jesus took the Judgment hit for them; Or
2. Belief that there is no Judgment.
Since Jehovah's Witnesses deny that Jesus died for them personally, they fall into the same camp as atheists and materialists that assume there will not be a personal judgment after death. Gos says different:
Hebrews 9:27 - ... it is appointed unto man once to die, then judgment
Perry offers a binary choice:
1. Belief that Jesus took the Judgment hit for them; Or
2. Belief that there is no Judgment.
As I have stated repeatedly, Judgement and Justice go hand and hand.
If Jesus, an innocent, paid a penalty while innocent it may be Judgement but it isn't JUSTICE.
If believers, while guilty, avoid penalty--this makes a mockery of JUSTICE.
Consequently, here is my binary back to you: If God is a god of Justice
1.Either there is no Justice in salvation for man through Jesus
or
2. The concept of salvation through Jesus is counterfeit BECAUSE it is unjust.
The pattern Jehovah established and enforced throughout history was : You broke it you pay for it. The "Perfect Law" of Moses was eye-for-eye. A balance of scales. Justice = getting what you deserve and not getting what you don't.
Suddenly, Jesus arrives. Does Jehovah abandon his Perfect law of Justice?
We have to answer "Yes" if the innocent man dies and the guilty man walks free.
therueone Charly Brown nice poetry! Long words strung together. I like it!
It's angry though, right?
No not really just observational to the mythology of the god of the ancient Israelites, Yahweh.
We have to answer "Yes" if the innocent man dies and the guilty man walks free.
Quite a quirky precedent of morality as a guide or justification for subsequent situations when you think about it.
And they wonder why few Jews bought into the Jesus story...
If Jesus, an innocent, paid a penalty while innocent it may be Judgement but it isn't JUSTICE. If believers, while guilty, avoid penalty--this makes a mockery of JUSTICE.
Terry, you are wrong in several ways that come readily to mind. First, you'd have to be God yourself in order to negate what God says is Just, him being the ultimate standard of JUSTICE. Second, the payment model for crimes isn't unheard of in our justice system. Your own mother tried to take your punishment for you when you went to prison for not accepting alternate military service. This is a characteristic of a loving parent, which God is and without doubt you mom was as well.
Thirdly, the terms of the New Testament Contract require the DEATH of BOTH PARTIES.
Believers seal their end of the bargain when they die to themselves, give up their rights to themselves and sincerely can pray to God, "Do with me as you wish". When they FINALLY experience the separation of the soul from the body, they do indeed die. I have explained this to you over and over, yet you continue mischaracterizations of the Atonement.
The substitutionary atonement is not a free for all. It is very costly. It is a blood covenant to the death. It is designed so that "whosoever" can avoid JUDGMENT not the penalty for sin. Get it?
When a believer is "born again" he is a "new creation"; his piece of the new spirit that is within is truly forever his..... the old spirit having died in a very real sense.
It is all the real deal Terry. Real death, real cost, real penalties, real victory.
Not wishing to interject myself in an ongoing discussion on the differences between obstinence and certainty (sort of like arguing between being dead or being no longer in existence.....)
Terry's excellent essay is a very revealing look at the theology JW's offer.
The mechanism is less romantic, but no less telling.
Binary is a preferred language for programmers. There are other's out there. Binary is convenient and easy. JW's use their own version of binary that Terry so eloquently points out for their own dubious purposes.
As Terry's essay points out, JW's (and other religions as well) seek to serve their cause by offering a canned "either/or" scenario that ultimately points the less wary towards the groups objectives.
What has fascinated me since leaving JW's (and why I can't write much about JW's lately) is how simple the whole thing really is. The JW technique that is used to introduce their binary "either/or" teachings is almost boring, yet brilliant at the same time.
How can you get people to accept only two choices when it is so apparant that many more alternatives exist? Simple. You control the conversation, and most importantly, you control the questions.
When you control what questions are asked, you control the answers too
JW's from the leadership on down through the rank and file are adamant about not free lancing when it comes to studying, that their "bible based" publications "save lives". The unwary at first get a magazine or book. They read the articles, see the pre printed control mechanism questions at the bottom of the page, and then read on, unaware of the purpose that these questions will in time serve.
At first, it is the home bible study. "But what do JW's teach about going to heaven, who?" What is always the answer? "That answer is found in chapter 10, and we will get there, be patient. Build upon this knowledge first."
A pattern develops at the very start. Inoculate the weird teachings that would be dismissed out of hand by giving out the candy first. "Live forever in paradise". "The ressurection!" "The love of Jehovah's people".
Then, and only then, can you slowly give out the weird 144,000 go to heaven doctrine. The unsustainable teaching of the JW hiearchy (aka, listen to the governing body and the elders) How is this slipped in? Little by little, with each seemingly innocuous question, and the cute little answer, almost read out of the paragraph, but put in your own words of course.
By the time you get use to this, it is time to go to the meetings, where the unwary is introduced to the wholesale level of question control, esp at the WT study.
The answers are already there! Did you study? You didn't? Why not?
How can you answer the questions correctly when you didn't read and memorize the supplied answers first???
Either/or. Binary. The control mechanism for JW's is to control the questions. Because at that point, you control the answers.
And then you really do have a bunch of sheep, nodding their heads, forgetting that the answers were never their own, and now, they have been tricked into not caring about where the answer comes from anymore.
Sort of sick isn't it?
Terry wrote: It is a difficult argument to make, in my view, that JW's who put themselves in harm's way are merely obstinate. Even more so when parents allow blood issues to threaten the life of their own beloved children. is that really stubborness? I can't imagine so, personally. It is more closely akin to TRUST that what they are doing is the ONLY TRULY GOD-APPROVED course of action. I see it as a helplessness which renders obedience as the only default behavior.
True, but I think we should stick to to basis here, which is survival instinct. In this case it is not surpressed, rather it is directed to oppose the reality of the situation. If one instinctly feels, that if one fails to demonstrate his loyalty through obeying the command even when facing death he would risk his life permanently, he does not retract from the action that would actually endanger his life in a reaction based on survival instinct. He would retract from the choice that have been programmed into his instinct to be life-endangering.
A mother would instinctly try to save her child from danger. If she instinctly feels that if the child had a blood transfusion its life would be endangered, she would fight against it.
In reality most JW's exists in a highly tense field between the "dreamworld" reality and the "real world" reality. In the above example both are a choice of survival, but with two directly opposite "right" choices. Most JW parents will seek a secret compromise, that would lie in the least tense part of the field, which means that they let the doctors do what they must unspoken and without any mention of it in the journal.
@alltimejeff
True, but you are dealing with the method of indoctrination. Terry is dealing with "the energycore", the very source that enfuels the doctrinal power over the witnesses.
What Terry now deals with is the hot fire, that most of us try to eliminate from our analyzis of the JW faith. It lies deep within us, even after we have left JW and will never truly disapear. It is why we feared the elders and shunned knowledge, indulging ourselves into the safer art of analysis rather than "knowing" ourselves. If love is connected to and countered by survival instinct which is the strongest? What will this do to our lovelife? If all that we are, are connected to and countered by survival instinct, how would we ever feel safe about ourselves? If every time we try to rest in our feelings we encounter a highly unpleasant all dominating nauseating fear, how can we enjoy?
It is what kept us in check. It is what we really had to fight, each in our own way.
The rest is just method and the consequenses of the nature of this death-cult like religion.
