Thanks TD, those are excellent points and clarifications you made. You are right about me being "familiar with the sexual escapades of Oholah and Oholibah (Samaria and Israel respectively) in Ezekiel". I vaguely had those examples mind, as well as having others in mind, when I wrote the following. "... I know that the Bible (in words attributed to Yahweh)
sometimes figuratively described worship of other gods as acts of
fornication (in a spiritual sense) and I think some prophetic books of
the OT Bible sometimes referred to the nations of Israel and/or other
nations as prostitutes".
I moment ago I opened up the 1963 large print edition (Student's Edition) of NWT at random and read a passage therein at random. It was the one about a mother and a prostitute who had each given birth to a son, and in which the prostitute's son died. The two women claimed the same living son as theirs, etc. I'm sure you remember that story. That story is appalling in regards to the prostitute saying to cut the baby boy in half, but it was very loving that the mother of the son said to keep the boy alive, saying to give it to the other woman instead of killing the boy. Whether the story is a real story or not, it is true in the sense of accurately reflecting the cultural views and values (and human nature) of the ancient Jews. What it depicts of many of the Jews is appalling.
I then randomly flipped to another page in the Bible and I read a portion of a story of chiefs accompanied by 50 men taking turns approaching Elijah and appealing to him. In response Elijah called down fire from Jehovah upon those men, and the fire came down and killed them, except for the last group that approached Elijah. The passage said the deaths were due the men being sent "to inquire of Ba'al-ze'bub the god of Ek'ron" (see 2 Kings chapter one). That story of brutally by God (and by a request to God by a prophet of God) is appalling to me.
The OT portion of the Bible has so many abhorrent passages of people (Jew and non-Jew) deliberately causing harm, even death, to other humans - as well as Jehovah doing such to Jew and non-Jew. The idea of people being killed for worshiping a god other than Jehovah, or engaging in some other kind of religion (one deemed false by some worshipers of Jehovah), is something totally against the values that are stated in the first amendment of the USA Constitution.
The framers of that amendment learned from the history of Europeans having numerous wars with each other about each other's religions. They also learned from the history of wars between Christians and Muslims over the matter of religion. Furthermore, they also learned from the history of persecutions of various sects withing individual nations, and even within some of the British colonies in America. The framers of the 1st Amendment to the USA Constitution were much more enlightened than the ancient writers of the OT Bible and than many of the other peoples who were living in ancient biblical times.
The framers of the amendment guaranteed freedom of religion (even of deism), with those rights being extended to all branches and sects of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, and to all other religions. As result in our day people can worship any god (or goddess, or spirit, or human) they imagine (provided their practice doesn't harm other people). They can worship Baal if they want, or Zeus, or Ishtar, or even Satan if they want. In modern times the amendment is also interpreted to mean that people have the freedom to have no religion and to not worship at all. The vast majority of people in our time in the USA do not kill or violently attack each other over the practice (or non-practice) of religion - and the people of the USA are not being attacked by Jehovah God. We (not just people in the USA and most other countries, but even in Islamic nations) are so much more tolerant, so much more liberal, of people's religious practices, than the Bible portrays the ancient Israelites and Jews (and Jehovah) as being.
The USA (and many other countries with similar laws guaranteeing freedom of religion) are thriving. Many of the values of the OT Bible are outdated and now recognized by many as being wrong. Human society today is so much more liberal/tolerant and hence so much more civil (and so much less barbaric, though the weapons of today are far more dangerous) and so much better, than that which existed in biblical times.
There will be no battle of Armageddon in the biblical sense - no mass slaughter of people by Jehovah God or Jesus Christ or other alleged heavenly spirit beings. The WT and JWs are wrong in teaching there will be a battle of Armageddon and a destruction by God and Christ (and by JWs who claim to be the anointed of Jehovah to rule with Christ in heaven) of the human governments of the USA and of all other human governments, and of people who practice what the WT calls false religion. Much of what the Bible teaches as good and right is actually very bad.
I need to somehow kick the habit of reading religious literature (both WT literature and other religious literature). I wish I hadn't been raised as a JW or even as a Christian in general, except for being taught most of the basic teachings on morals and ethics.
