I dropped TTATT to some door knockers today

by TheStumbler 53 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  TheStumbler

  @ Heaven

  'When they say 'we believe God's word not mans'. that's when you show them complete falsehoods in the Bible'. I agree but the problem with this approach is that because they know God is more reliable than man any information contrary to the Bible is automatically written off as neccesarily wrong by default. Better to point out that all they've got is a human mind so they reliant on human reasoning and they use that reasoning to support their faith in God. If human reasoning cannot be trusted then how can they trust their own faith. I'm not sure if I articulated this point well to them, or now
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  Ding

  The irony is that if the GB announced "new light" that the creation days were 24 hour days, those same JWs would change their views immediately and start arguing in favor of that position.
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  breakfast of champions

  Excellent!
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  designs

  One of the many oddball periods of the Wt. was the late 60s when the Aid Bk. came out stating the creative days were of unknown duration while Freddie Franz was saying they were 7000 years.
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  snare&racket

  fantastic, much respect and kudos for taking the effort and time to be prepared to help those two people. I hope they think about it, all these incidents contribute to people leaving on occasion. I wish I had met you as a householder when I was a JW, The householders that did make me think remain in mymemory to this day.

  snare x
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  emeth

  no big deal we drop our truth to millions of people after knocking their doors and manage to turn hundreds of thousands of them in doorknockers each year
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  Magnum

  Thanks. I copied your post as a text document so I can record all the good points later. I learned a few things. I saw a number of good points that I want to add to my reasoning arsenal.

  Witnesses are so smug. They think they have all the answers and the rest of the world is clueless and just waiting to be enlightened by them. I love to hear of them encountering people like you.

  the context in Genesis suggest the primary meaning of the word was intended. The creative days were described as having a morning and evening. The bible uses the word 'yom' about 30 times in conjunction with the words 'morning' and 'evening' and in every instance a literal 24-hour day was being described. The days in the Genesis were also numbered, you know, 'the first day', 'the second day'. Every other time the bible designates a day with a number it is a literal day being referred to. Since it is you claiming 'yohm' should not be interpreted by its primary meaning, the burden of proof is on you to support your claim'

  Never thought about that.

  'we have to rely on human reasoning because it is all we have. You claim that you put your trust in God's word not mans but there are many books and religions that claim knowledge about God. It is only human reasoning that enables us to separate those claims into what is true and what is not. If you don't trust human reasoning then how can you trust your own discernment that the God you believe in is the truth? The only way to establish truth is human reasoning because its all we have, no matter how imperfect it might be. Anything else is blind faith'.

  Excellent! So it is precisely human reasoning that enables us to determine whether we believe in God, whether we believe in evolution, etc. It is human reasoning that is appealed to when JWs study the Bible Teach book with potential recruits. It is human reasoning that enables individuals to choose between JWs, Baptiists, Catholics, or athiests. How can they say they don’t trust human reasoning???

  'how do you know that science is right, science has been wrong in the past, the Bible has proven to be more reliable than science'

  Wow, can’t believe they said that. The Bible has proven to be more reliable than science… really??? Science can predict very precisely when astronomical events will occur. Science allows for guiding space vehicles to heavenly bodies with precision – knowing precisely where they will land and when. Science allows us to know exactly how medicines we take work in the body – down to what individual electrons in atoms are doing, exactly how much heat is given off in any chemical reactions of those medicines, what the byproducts are, how they will be eliminated, etc.

  However, take me, for example. I have based my entire adult life on so-called Bible predictions of events that were supposed to occur – events that were supposed to drastically alter my life. Those events did not occur and I have been left working a low-paying stressful job with no future in it. I have absolutely no retirement prospects – no pension, no 401K, no investments, etc. So much for the reliability of the Bible (at least JW interpretation of it). And even if the end comes tomorrow, they were still wrong. It did not come when they said it would.

  Liked the point about the Babylonians’ believing the earth was a flat disc. I now realize that things that were simple to me as a JW are not so simple.
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  galaxie

  The words;..bang, head, brick and wall come to mind.

  Doorknockers can knock for ever and a day, but the TRUTH will always be the truth.

  Seek and ye shall find(just to plagiarize)all ye followers of the faithful and discreet con men of old Brooklyn town.
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  Magnum

  emeth - For once I agree with you.

  we drop our truth to millions of people

  Yes, JWs drop 'their truth', a weird kind of truth that always changes and is sometime untrue. Kind of reminds me of quantum physics which describes a world where things are not as they sometimes appear. They change, cease to exist, come back into existence, cannot be pinpointed precisely, etc. - just like JW truth.

  we... turn hundreds of thousands of them in doorknockers each year

  I agree with that, too. You do turn them into "doorknockers". That term describes precisely what they are - clueless doorknockers who don't even understand their own doctrine. By far, the vast majority don't even have a basic grasp of the most simple, fundamental high school subjects. They have poor reasoning skills and a poor grasp of logic. And how successful are they in their 'doorknocking'? How many doors do they have to knock on in order to get one recruit? And what is the quality of that new recruit. Is he a stable, normal person who is bright and well-read?

  JWs sometimes argue that it doesn't matter how many recruits they get; it's more about glorifying god and warning the wicked. Well, in what way are the doorknockers accomplishing that? The vast majority of people JWs have talked with know virtually nothing about them or their god. Their preaching is ineffective. The doorknockers are ineffective and their tools are ineffective. If there are some instructive, informative points in JW literature, those points are buried under or hidden by loads of fluff - articles like "Let's Send a Greeting Card!" or "An Interview with Mr. Water Buffalo" (I actually remember those two articles. Titles might not be exactly right).

  If the JWs are right and the world is coming to an end soon, then JWs should be destroyed and the rest of the world saved. That is because if they're right, JWs have a moral responsibilty to effectively and seriously and responsibly inform and warn people, and they fall far, far short of that. They send out unqualified messengers - brand new recruits with virtually no training and who probably have never even read the Bible, little children who don't know the difference between a JW and a Buddhist, uneducated misfits, etc. Even the somewhat educated, articulate ones are blinded by devotion to a concept (GB & org), and they won't listen to reason & logic. Almost all of them have zero knowledge of real JW history. A lot of times (at least in the past) the literature offer for a given month has been determined by some JW factory guy who determines that they need to get rid of a certain publication that they have too many of (I am going to post a new topic on that soon). And, as I've already mentioned, JW literature is filled with fluff that hides any potential important info.
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  jgnat

  Bravo!