by Terry 125 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
This is how priests and magicians gained power at the court of Kings for so many centuries.
One could look at the Watchtower illusionists in the same way, they fascinated, mystified and awed the general public by using printed literature.
Mind you 7 million people are still attending the show, but a lot have left while the show was still in progress.
Terry, do you need to have a big ego to be a big expert? In other words, does expert -> ego?
It would be correct for me to give the definition of EXPERT: by virtue of credential, training, education, profession, publication or experience, believed to have special knowledge of a subject beyond that of the average person.
If I had a "special" definition of expert I'd fall into the trap best described by the saying: "Everybody is entitled to their own opinion--but--not their own facts!"
When somebody thinks they can play David as an average person against somebody else's educated and credentialed Goliath, I'd say EGO is working overtime.
Interesting, when Carl Olof Jonsson took on 607 and Rolf Furuli, pure EGO.
EGO must not be a bad thing.
Which is a point I continue to attempt to make and fail at: we only have to be bedazzled above our own level of explanation to fall into awe and superstition!
Speaking of ego my friend...
Interesting, when Carl Olof Jonsson took on 607 and Rolf Furuli, pure EGO.
EGO must not be a bad thing.
Don't misunderstand how I started all this and why...
It's okay by me how a person spends their time.
But--from the standpoint of the same subject (607 b.c.e.) popping up like wack-a-mole over and over.....
IT IS A WASTE OF TIME to argue on the level of dates, reigns, prophetic beginnings, etc. IF YOU WANT TO CHANGE SOMEBODY'S MIND!
JW's accept on trust that the GB would not mislead them. That is a given.
Ex-JW's are profoundly annoyed by this! They think they can prove to the JW how wrong 607 is as a starting point ending in 1914.
So what happens? Blah blah blah blah blah.....Ad hominem...Ad hominem.....this king....that reign....blah blah.
Final score? 0 to 0. No winner. Not once. Not ever.
Now why wouldn't I say with some enthusiasm that this is a waste of time and that there are better targets? Hmmmm?
My approach is simple. State reasonable arguments that any bloke can jump into and see the point.
I fail as often as I succeed but I do sometimes make headway. Unlike those technical arguments, at least!
The society already has this covered. This is a real article, look it up!
If animals did not kill each other for food then all is good. It was not the blood and guts world that precludes a loving God that Terry envisages.
Of course I don't believe a word of this article :-)
Watchtower 1969 9/1 P.543-544
Questions from Readers
• Some animals have characteristics that seem especially suited to killing, such as lions and poisonous snakes. How can this be, if they were all vegetarians at one time?— L.K.,Netherlands.
It is understandable that this question might arise, for as things stand now many animals do kill one another for food. But please note that this is asthingsstandnow. Is there anyone on the earth who can say from personal observation how these animals acted six thousand years ago?
Throughout the earth humans kill animals and eat their flesh. But does man’s ability to chew and digest meat prove that all men eat meat or that men have always eaten meat? No, for God’s Word, the oldest and most reliable history of mankind, shows that originally Jehovah gave man “all vegetation bearing seed” and “every tree on which there is the a fruit of a tree bearing seed” as food. It was not until over sixteen hundred years later that God permitted a change of diet for man, allowing him to hunt animals for food.—Gen. 1:29; 9:2, 3.
True, those who believe that man and animals evolved over a period of millions of years might not accept this, but it is what the Word of God says, and Jesus Christ said, “Your word is truth.” (John 17:17) If the present diet and mode of life of humans does not represent what it originally was, is it not possible that the same is true of animals?
We must keep in mind that scientists are limited in their knowledge. Even if a man is an authority in some field of animal life, he does not know all there is to know about an animal as it now lives, to say nothing about how it lived thousands of years in the past. Those who are humble and sincere admit this. The very fact that scientists have different opinions proves the point.
For instance, the question came up as to whether cobras can hear sounds. On November 27, 1968, an Associate Curator of Reptiles at one of the large zoological gardens in the United States wrote: “All snakes are unable to hear sounds; this also includes the Cobra.” That seems quite final. However, on the very same day the Curator and Chairman of the Department of Herpetology at the American Museum of Natural History explained: “It has been generally assumed . . . that snakes are deaf to air-borne sounds. Recent evidence has it, though, that some snakes can hear low-pitched sounds. How this relates to the cobra problem is uncertain. The weight of evidence is still in favor of the theory that it is movement rather than sound that influences the cobras, but themattercertainlyisnotclosed.”
The Bible long ago indicated that the cobra hears the “voice of charmers,” but could refuse to listen just as a human can refuse to hear. (Ps. 58:4, 5) Would it be wise to reject what the Bible says just because some scientists think the facts to be otherwise? The above quotations show that the answer is, No. Similarly, that certain current evidence does not seem to support what the Bible says about animal life in the past should not cause one to reject God’s inspired Word.
Another thing, is one justified in concluding that the way an animal uses its body today is the only possible way? As an example, a tiger uses its fangs and claws to catch, kill and tear apart other animals. Yet, could not these same fangs and claws be used in tearing apart heavy vegetation and ripping off husks and shells?
‘But what about poisonous snakes?’ someone may ask. Animal poisons might appear to be just for killing or protection, but are they? In “Animal Poisoners” H. Munro Fox wrote: “In some cases we know that poisons play a role in the functioning of the body of the animal which manufactures them. In many instances this may be the real raisond’être [reason for existence] of the venoms, quite apart from any protective value. The poisonous spittle of snakes, for example, has work to do in the digestion of the snake’s food.” Another illustration is a certain green marine worm that is partly covered with a poisonous slime. Is this poison to protect it from being eaten? It might seem so. Yet if the young of this worm settle on this slime, the poison changes them into microscopic males instead of the large females they would have developed into if they settled on the sea floor.
It is true that hundreds or even thousands of problem cases might be brought up, ones that apparently indicate that animals always killed one another, that this is necessary for the “balance of nature.” But should our lack of complete knowledge of God’s creation cause us to lose faith in him and his Word? Should we let questions about preying animals prey on us?
The Bible explains that in the paradise in Eden God gave to “every wild beast of the earth and to every flying creature of the heavens . . . all green vegetation for food.” (Gen. 1:30) Later all of the basic kinds of land animals lived in Noah’s ark for a whole year without devouring one another. And evidently drawing on the conditions that existed in Eden and that will be restored in the future, God’s Word says: “The cow and the bear themselves will feed; together their young ones will lie down. And even the lion will eat straw just like the bull. And the sucking child will certainly play upon the hole of the cobra . . . They will not do any harm or cause any ruin in all my holy mountain.”—Isa. 11:7-9.
Surely the grand Creator who made the heavens and all that is in them, who arranged the perfect balance and order of the stars and who knows how harmony and peace existed in Eden, can restore paradise conditions. Bringing about a “balance of nature” wherein animals do not kill one another is not beyond His ability, is it? So, let us look forward to that time with confidence and trust.
Now at last I am educated upon the subject of the poisonous slime of the green worm.
How did I miss that in 1969 when I was a young JW?
RE: Watchtower 1969 9/1 P.543-544
That article is deftly structured to create a simple seemingly logical breach as a crack to be exploited into a canyon!
1.Nobody knows for sure
2.Scientists have been wrong before where the bible was right.
3.Trust the bible because God knows best
4.We trust God
5.Trust us
In all of this no EVIDENCE was presented.
Here is my conclusion: that article as much as admits there is a PROBLEM with animals eating animals in a perfect Edenic setting because it goes to such great
lengths to defend against such a proposition!
I say: GOTCHA!
True, Terry. I loved the Straw-Man side slip on whether the Cobra is deaf or not.
The question, my dear moronic WT authors, was why it has neurotoxins - not whether it can hear the snake-charmer's flute.
Why oh why must the animals in Eden be vegetarians? Tell us, please, oh Watchtower of light and Truth?
What does it imply were it not so?
Well. I have nothing cogent to say about that WT article, except: Did they really begin a sentence with "Another thing,"?!?
