Have you ever believed something that turned out to be wrong?

by slimboyfat 32 Replies latest jw experiences

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  slimboyfat

  Apart, of course, from the obvious example of believing the evidence-free assertion of the Governing Body to be God's representatives on earth. Not to side-step that issue, but I wonder if it might be interesting to relate that huge mistake to other things I've been wrong about and how they compare and contrast with the big one.

  A couple of examples of things I was wrong about:

  1. In about 2007/8 I read a lot about "peak oil" and was totally convinced the end of the oil age was imminent. The evidence seemed pretty clear, with all the graphs, statistics, and examples from history. I couldn't think of any way it could be wrong. Yet it came to nothing, as far as I can tell. Oil and carbon seem to be as abundant (and cheap) as ever and no one talks about peak oil any more.

  2. In 2016 I was convinced my vote to "leave" the EU was totally harmless. I believed this because: 1) I was sure "remain" was going to win anyway 2) voting "leave" was calculated to help the cause of Scottish independence which was a greater priority (complicated reasons) and 3) even if it did happen it wouldn't be the end of the world and might just shake things up a bit. Well how wrong could I be? Firstly, shock horror, "leave" did win. Secondly voting "remain" would have been a better strategy to further independence, it turns out. And arguably the "leave" vote led to a sequence of events that put Trump in power, threatening the future of civilisation itself. Oops.

  All sorts of self delusion involved there. In the first instance I paid to much attention to books and YouTube videos promoting a particular view without considering the other side. In the second case I paid to much attention to the media that said "remain" was going to win and didn't take the vote seriously enough,

  I wonder what other things I currently believe that will turn out to be wrong. I guess I hold "minority" opinions on various subjects that could turn out to be wrong:

  1. I believe the New Testament originally contained the divine name.

  2. I believe the "singularitarian" view of the future taken over by strong artificial intelligence is probably correct.

  3. I believe the classical secularisation thesis is correct. (Although pretty redundant, now I think about it, in view of no. 2 above)

  4. I believe the distinction between conscious and unconscious matter is problematic and there are problems with materialist conceptions of reality generally.

  5. I believe it's more likely Trump will either be removed from office or will start a world war than that he will reach the end of his term with the planet intact.

  Is anyone else willing to share, either things you were convinced were correct, but turned out to be wrong, or minority views you currently hold that may turn out to be incorrect?
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  ILoveTTATT2

  1. I believe the New Testament originally contained the divine name.

  Based on...? The oldest manuscripts are only 50 years removed from the "original" and they say "Kyrios" where the NWT says "Jehovah", at least on 7 different places. The Hebrew Matthew only contains HaShem, not YHWH, and is considered a forgery (never mentions Christ)... I can't see where you would get the possibility that this could later be found to be true. They'd have to find even earlier manuscripts, and it's almost impossible that all extant manuscripts haven't been found in 2017. There was one example, though, of a mummy mask that was made with ancient greek manuscripts, possibly including Biblical ones, from around 50AD.
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  slimboyfat

  Which MS is only 50 years removed from the original and contains Kyrios?

  Basically I believe the NT originally contained the divine name because the LXX used the divine name and the earliest Christians probably copied its practice. Secondly, there are lots of verses that simply make a lot more sense if it originally used the divine name. "The Lord said to my Lord" is bordering on gibberish for example. Plus the whole book of Acts is a confused mess of which "Lord" is meant where. All of which suggests to me the text was corrupted by removal of the divine name.
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  Yesu Kristo Bwana Wangu

  In South Africe there is a myth called The Empty Land Myth

  http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/empty-land-myth

  I don't believe this myth. I believe it is actually true.

  When European settlers first came in South Africa there were only nomadic black people. The first encounter with real black settlements was in the far east of South Africa, over 100 years later than the first settlement of the whites in the west-Cape.

  there were wars with the Khoikhoi and the San but these black people were relatively few and they were the only ones in the whole western area of South Africa, and they had not founded real settlements/villages/towns etc.

  people call it a myth but I still believe that the land was empty when Europeans first arrived. The only real evidence of inhabitants is the nomadic khoikhoi and san people. Nothing more.

  So at this point I do still not accept the myth
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  compound complex

  Greetings, SBF:

  My awakening to reality is hardly on the cerebral level of the items you enumerate, but here goes:

  1) The Truth, and its putative basis, THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason; Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology did it for me.

  2) People: I was wrong about people, seeing only the good about my nimbus-topped friends and family. I learned that they, like me, have feet of clay. As a result of my seeing all people as they truly are -- imperfect humans -- I am a realist now, in most matters great and small. I am so much older and somewhat wiser. My dad was a male Pollyanna, and the apple, truly, falls near the tree.
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  slimboyfat

  Incidentally you are quite wrong about the possibility of finding early NT manuscripts.

  The papyri from Oxyrinchus are only being published very slowly. In recent years fragments of the NT have been published, as well as new fragments of the LXX containing the divine name, including a fragment of Job and a fragment of the Psalms.

  This early fragment of the NT published in 2009 for example:

  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_125

  Job fragment with divine name published in 1983.

  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_Oxyrhynchus_3522

  Psalms fragment with divine name published in 2011.

  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_Oxyrhynchus_5101

  It's estimated that only 1 or 2% of the total material recovered from Oxyrhynchus has been published so far.

  http://www.seeker.com/amateur-archeologists-invited-to-decipher-papyri-1765340100.html

  There may be fragments of the NT with the divine name among them.
  
  
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  ILoveTTATT2

  Which MS is only 50 years removed from the original and contains Kyrios?

  
  
  

  I made a mistake. Not 50 years but 100-150 years. See here for P46, which is 150 years removed (200AD): http://www.tetragrammaton.org/tetrapdxf.html P52 is the earliest (125AD) but it's too small to contain parts where it is Kyrios in the text and "Jehovah" in the NWT. There are three texts, some P.Oxy., 2nd century, but don't contain Kyrios in the Then there is P75, from 175AD, which MOST DEFINITELY contains "Kyrios" where the NWT has "Jehovah". There is sufficiently early evidence to disprove Watchtower's theory that the NT had "Jehovah" in early manuscripts and then around the 3rd or 4th century, it was removed. About the Oxy papyrii, thank you for that info, I didn't know. Guess we will have to wait and see if there is some evidence proving the Witnesses right... Even if evidence like that appeared though, it wouldn't make me want to go back to the witnesses, since that evidence would completely destroy anyone's faith in the Bible. Something as important as God's name taken out with no trace for over 2000 years???
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  Rainbow_Troll

  Ten things I believed less than a year ago, but no longer:
  

  1. Trump couldn't become mayor of New York City, let alone president of the USA.
  2. Einstein's Theory of GENERAL Relativity (I still believe in SR).
  3. The Higg's Field (Phase transitions? Lol!).
  4. The Ether (It has to exist a priori, but due to the lorentz tranformation, it isn't detectable)
  5. I could never fake my way back into the JWs (It's so idiotically simple).
  6. The Apollo Moon landing really happened (it's so fucking obvious it didn't).
  7. NASA actually sent a go-cart to Mars which can examine rocks for remnants of life (ditto!)
  8. The hundredth monkey phenomena (didn't happen).
  9. Online dating is stupid and American women are illiterate anyway (I actually found a woman on okcupid who's well-read).
  10. I'd have to go tens of thousands of dollars into debt just to get a bachlor's degree (only in America, the land of opportunity where everyone is born equal. Ha ha ha!).

  All in all, this year has been a pleasantly disillusioning journey.
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  blondie

  The OP question made me think of this:

  “I never made a mistake in my life. I thought I did once, but I was wrong.”
  ― Charles M. Schulz (as Lucy Van Pelt)
  
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  sparrowdown

  I believed WT when it said that the bible was ahead of modern science because of a scripture in Isaiah which refers to "the circle of the earth" now after a bit of research have found that the writer of Isaiah refers to a "ball" in chap 22 of the same book and "circle" as mentioned in the first example can be translated "disc." So the ancients who wrote Isaiah were calling the earth a circle not a ball and most definitley NOT in agreement with modern science.

  If WT were such pedants for the bible they would be pointing this out loudly and proudly because that's what the bible actually, really, truly says. No, they cherry-pick to suit their agenda like all other religions do.

  I used to think religion basically had good intent with the inevitable human factor of coruption creeping in.

  I now believe all religions to be different routes to the same end and that end has nothing to do with salvation, hope, charity but rather exploit people by making money out of their search for pupose and need for social connection and to control them.

  I now believe that if you want a purpose, to help people, to have a social or even so called "spiritual" connection you absoutely do NOT need to go through a religion to have those things. I don't think I will turn out to be wrong on this one.