: Can anyone help me try and prove to my dad that just because JW's teach a lot of good and do get a lot of things right(mainly common sense, I might add) that this does not mean that you can ignore the things they have got wrong,
This is TOO easy! Jehovah's Witnesses make extraordinary claims, right? Things like they are God's ONE and ONLY TRUE religion which was PERSONALLY selected by God, right. THAT is a pretty extraordinary claim, and requires extraordinary evidence.
JWs vilify all other religions, but especially the Catholic Church, but it doesn't matter: they vilify all religions.
Most other Christian religions do a LOT of good thing and have also gotten a lot of things right. In fact, most other Christian religions actually help PEOPLE personally with hospitals, food, clothing, shelter, work training and so forth. The JWs do none of this. They just sell worthless books. The WTS not only doesn't help outsiders like most (or many) other Christian religions they don't
and WON'T even help their own. In fact, the congregations are not even allowed to help THEIR own unless they meet WT guidelines: long and faithful service and "spiritually strong." New "spiritually strong" people are screwed. Long-timers (40-50 years) who are currently not spending enough time selling books are also screwed. By their very own congregation who has been mandated by the society the qualifications they must meet even to be helped a little bit. And even if they DO qualify, they only qualify to be helped if they have no relatives to help and the government resources have been exhausted. I can prove this from the society's literature, btw.
So, the society makes extraordinary claims, but not only do they not have extraordinary evidence they want to be held to the same standards (we screw up, but we also do good things and have some things right) that they CONDEMN all other religions for!
Now, I've been through this discussion a number of times and I know virtually all of the braindead dub reactions. We'll use the Catholic Church for an example of comparison. One need only thumb through some of Da Judge's books and look at the illustrations printed by the society to see that their HATE for the Catholic Church is consuming.
First reaction from a dub:
"Well, we've got the basics right. Other religions don't. For example, no hellfire, no trinity, no immortal soul, we bear Jehovah's name."
What they never consider is the fact that those "basics" are benign. Believing in the trinity (or not) doesn't affect one's way of life. In fact the trinity or no is easily debatable from the Scriptures either way! Believing in hellfire scares people, yes, but people still go about their lives knowing that they either will or won't roast-and-toast for eternity. Same is true with the immortal soul: since no one has come back to tell us such a belief is true or no spirit entity has told us it is not true, it doesn't matter and it doesn't hurt anyone. "Bearing Jehovah's Name?" Whoopdeedoo! Jesus never used that name, nor did any of the apostles. Furthermore, dubs don't even pronounce it properly and the WTS has admitted that. The short of this is, those doctrines don't hurt anyone.
Can dubs say the same thing about: blood transfusion, banning organ transplants, banning vaccinations, forbidding alternative military service, meddling in marital sex practices, DFing women for not screaming while they were raped, telling young folks for forty years not to get married and not to have children because the "end" was imminent? How about chastising and removing congregational privileges, including deleting someone who was a pioneer for merely attending college? Can any dub HONESTLY say those practices did NOT hurt people. How about shunning for being caught smoking a cigarette? How about ruining not only a single life but the lives of an entire family for their shunning? How about a "Christian love" that is so conditional it will vaporize from an entire congregation after a thirty minute judicial hearing?
Remember what I said at the beginning: Dubs make extraordinary claims, and as I've shown not only do they not have extraordinary evidence, the actual evidence is shameful.
How many people's lives were ruined because they were forbidden to eat meat on Friday? Oh, the WTS made a BIG deal about that one, and an even BIGGER deal when the Catholic Church relaxed their rules. "See how FALSE the Catholic Church is," they cried. They've changed their doctrine! Yet, they falsely prophesied about 1914 being the end and 1918 being the end and 1919 being the end and 1925 being the end and WWII being the end and 1975 being the end and "This Generation(tm)" being the actual generation of 1914. Then they quietly changed their doctrine and turned around and blamed their own members for believing all that shit. Their excuse? "We're just imperfect men." Yet, those hypocrites want all the reverence of being the true religion and all the loyalty and trust due to prophets but want virtually none of the responsibilities that go with it.
The next thing dubs will do is to try to bring up the wealth the Catholic Church has accumulated. We'll they've been arund for 1700 years, and they have one BILLION members! Let's HOPE they've accumulated something. The dubs have been around 125 years and still have billlions in property including the Patterson Resort which is only for their elite. It is worth around $400,000,000 dollars today.
Dubs like to bring up the unsavory past of the Catholic Church, e.g. the Crusades, Inquisition, corrupt popes who sold out to political powers. Fine and dandy they did all that. Yet, when one tries to bring up the past of the WTS including Russell's demonized pyramidology and Rutherford's trying to sell out to Adolf Hitler himself, they fluff it off. "Well, we don't do that anymore." Well, the Catholic Church doesn't conduct Inquisitions anymore, either.
I have a lot more to say about this but not enough time to say it.
The short of it is, the dubs religion actually HURTS people, ruins lives, destroys families and keeps much of its membership in near-poverty, all in the name of God. Mainstream Christians do not do that.
Dubs make extraordinary claims but produce no worthy evidence for those claims, yet they demand worthy evidence for other religions who make extraordinary claims.
In short they are hypocrites of the worst sort.
Farkel, typing as fast-as-he-can-and-not editing :)
