Posts by Disillusioned JW

39

I Will Give President Biden Credit

by minimus in

jw
friends

he’s really implementing the democrats agenda!

he’s wasting no time !.

Disillusioned JW

Vidiot, thanks for your answer to my question. I agree with your statement of '... the WTS is -by and large - an fundamentally conservative organization, and just because some JWs leave the WT, doesn't mean they leave conservatism per se. Not to mention that the conditioning to distrust "The World" can be somewhat difficult for some to grow past.'

I guess because I very rarely ever heard active JW's express their political views (as JWs are told by the WT to be neutral politically), because I live in a politically liberal geographic area, and because of my inclination to be progressive minded on social and environmental issues, and in some other ways, it did not occur to me (till I read your reply to my question) that a very high percentage of JWs are conservative on political matters (of those JWs that allow themselves to have political views). When became a baptized JW I begrudgingly accepted a number of the teachings of the Bible and the WT.

Kramer, you are right regarding the degree of education (if you mean the percentage who have college education) among JWs. After all, the WT has strongly discouraged (on many occasions) JWs from attending college and obtaining 4-year degree, and to read writings (and listen to ideas) that are critical of the WT's teachings and of the Bible. That influence of the WT even caused me to decide to avoid taking any courses (while I was in college) that would teach: evidence and reasoning in support of the theory of evolution and in support of the reliability of radiometric dating (including carbon dating), criticism of the Bible, and argements against the existence of God (any god).

I wish I hadn't let the WT's influence cause me to avoid courses that provide such information. I wish I had instead taken an introductory course in each of the following (or at least purchased a used college textbook on such while I was in college): physical anthropology, historical geology, biology, problems of philosophy (where arguments against the existence of God are considered), philosophy of religion (where arguments against the existence of God are considered and where teachings of non-WT doctrines of religion would be taught), and the Bible as literature (which might teach the Bible was not inspired by a god and which might say some of the biblical events never happened). However, during the years I attended college I did purchase a scientific book and science magazines which did have articles in support of evolution and I did read those articles and I did wonder, while reading them, if evolution is true.

Polls of religious people report that JWs in the USA have the lowest (or next to the lowest) percentage of members who have completed college and who consider evolution to be true, of all the other religions in the USA. In contrast, Jews and Hindus have the highest. The polls also say that of all the religions in the USA the JWs have the lowest (or next to the lowest) average income, whereas Jews and Hindus have the highest. In each of these categories the two groups ranked at the bottom are JWs and Baptists.

99

If not the WT/JW relgion where else are 'we' to go? Why not atheistic/scientific philosophical naturalism?

by Disillusioned JW in

sometimes jws wonder if the wt/jw is not the truth, 'then where else are we to go?

' i say 'why not atheistic/scientific philosophical naturalism and why not a secular philosophy which teaches a way of life?

' what do you folks say?.

Disillusioned JW

Sometimes JWs wonder if the WT/JW is not the truth, 'then where else are we to go?' I say 'why not atheistic/scientific philosophical naturalism and why not a secular philosophy which teaches a way of life?' What do you folks say?

If JWs were to look up the quoted sources of atheists and other nontheists quoted (or at least referred to) in the WT's publications and research the secular philosophies referred to in the WT's publications, they might find that they agree with those nontheists and philosophies. I know that I do in regards to many of them. I wish I had studied them prior to becoming a baptized JW. The following are some examples:

Volume V of the 1915 edition of Studies in the Scriptures (see http://www.strictlygenteel.co.uk/atonement/atonetitle.html ) says at the beginning of the book the following:

"Christian people are becoming more and more awake to the fact that a great tidal wave of unbelief is sweeping over Christendom; — not the blasphemous atheism voiced by Thomas Paine and Robert Ingersoll, but the cultured kind represented in the scholarship of our day, which makes the danger all the more insidious.
Not only are the great Colleges and Seminaries undermining the faith of the better educated, but the Common School books, and especially those used in the High Schools, are similarly inculcating a distrust in the Bible, a contradiction of its teachings. For a college graduate of to-day to declare his faith in the inspiration of the Scriptures would bring upon him the scorn of his companions — a scorn which few would court, or could endure. At very best, a few will be found to claim that they believe that Jesus and his Apostles were sincere, though they blundered in quoting from the Old Testament as inspired.
Such a belief in Jesus and his Apostles is no belief at all; for if present-day "higher critics" are wise enough to know when and where our Lord and his Apostles! erred in their quotations from the Old Testament, then these wise men of our day are our proper guides, — more inspired than Jesus and his Apostles."

Prior to getting baptized I knew nothing or virtually nothing about Thomas Paine's deist ideas and his book (in three parts) called The Age of Reason. If I had read it when wondering if there is no god and if Christianity is false, that book would have made a huge difference. If I had read the section quoted above from the Studies in the Scriptures it might would have led to me seeking out the religious writings of Thomas Paine. Likewise back then (and not even for some 20 years later) I knew nothing of Robert Ingersoll. If I had I read the WT's book which mentioned him I might would have sought out a book containing his irreverent teachings about religion, so I could learn if there are good reasons to reject Christianity and the Bible. I might would have found an excellent (in my opinion) book by atheist Joseph Lewis (the leading spokesperson for atheism in his day in the USA) called Ingersoll the Magnificent: To which Has Been Added a Special Arrangement of Some Gems from Ingersoll for Inspiration, Wisdom, and Courage. That book could have a made a huge difference for me back then if I had read it.

If I had read the beginning to the 1915 edition of Volume V of Studies in the Scriptures and noticed what it said about "higher critics" of the Bible I might would have sought out the writing of those critics. If I had done so it could have made a difference in my life.

By the way, despite what Russell said about Paine and Ingersoll they were not atheists in the sense of believing there is no god, though they were in the sense of not believing in the existence of a personal god. Paine was a deist and Ingersoll was an agnostic.

11

Street-Talk with Jehovah's Witnesses

by Vanderhoven7 in

street-talk with jehovah's witnesses.

opening up a street-level dialogue with jehovah's witnesses:.

since this will probably be a one time occurrence, an important objective of any street encounter is to bless jws with doubt about their beloved organization.. after exchanging niceties, you might say something like:.

Disillusioned JW

Vanderhoven7, you gave great examples of what people can say to JWs on the streets, except for one problem. All of the examples, except for one, you gave of JW teachings and rules are from more than 25 years ago - not what JWs teach today. Except for two of the examples, none of them were current when I became baptized as a JW. Many JWs would thus say the examples (other one) do not pertain to what the religion is today. [They are evidence however of whether or not the JW religion over the years has been chosen and directed by a true god.] Thus they are not direct examples of whether the current JW religion is religion is correctly based upon the Bible, but only of whether the older versions of the JW religion correctly based upon the Bible. It would be like saying the USA today is very bad because of the great injustices it did from 50 to 225 years ago but have later abandoned, such as: slavery, decimation of most of Native Americans [first peoples] living in what is now the USA and the breaking of the vast majority of the treaties the USA made with native tribes, exploding of nuclear bombs during World War II on civilian populations, discrimination based upon gender and race, extremely harsh working conditions in many factories with no rights for the workers regarding working conditions, very limited environmental protections (to insure clean air and water for example), etc.

39

I Will Give President Biden Credit

by minimus in

jw
friends

he’s really implementing the democrats agenda!

he’s wasting no time !.

Disillusioned JW

I am astonished at the immensely high percentage of posts on this web site's political message boards that are antagonistic of the Democratic party and of politically liberal policies. Are most ex-JWs really antagonistic of progressive/liberal politically?

Many ex-JWs (including those on this site) are atheists and most atheists in the USA are politically and socially progressive/liberal, so one would think that there would be many more political posts on this site that are favorable of politically progressive/liberal policies, than is currently being posted onto this web site.

Biden's version of the Green New Deal is a very good thing and he is doing what he can to implement it. Biden's handling the Covid-19 vaccine distribution is very good and the results from such actions are very very good (there are now far fewer new cases of Covid-19 infections and far fewer deaths attributed to Covid-19 in the USA than there were 7 months ago). The USA stock market continues to rise under the Biden administration and a great many people are returning to work. Many more women are being allowed to enter the USA military and they are entering the USA military, and they are successfully meeting the same rigorous standards that the men are meeting.

48

An Expert Explains the Beginning of Christianity with Dr Richard Carrier

by Rocketman123 in

here is an interesting discussion about how christianity probably began.

hierarchical political interest may have been involved.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=civ8gscbo_g.

Disillusioned JW

If you are saying that Licona has moved towards a theologically modernist view, one more in line with agnosticism and atheism, then I consider that a good thing since I am an atheist. But from what I read, including the christianpost.com article you provided a link to, Licona says he believes the Bible is inerrant but that one passage in the Bible was not written to be interpreted literally, but instead was written to be interpreted as a poetic special effect (like when people sometimes say while they made love 'the ground shook').

At https://thebestschools.org/special/ehrman-licona-dialogue-reliability-new-testament/michael-licona-interview/ Licona says:

'As a historian, I realize that a lack of data may prohibit us from affirming the historicity of a report, but does not justify rejecting it. As I read through the Greco-Roman and Jewish literature of that period, I found numerous examples of reports of phenomena similar to those Matthew reports to have occurred at Jesus’s death. These were connected to historical events having a huge amount of significance. In one case, Virgil lists 16 phenomena related to the death of Julius Caesar in what is certainly a poetic genre.

So, for a number of reasons, I posited that Matthew’s raised saints may have been a poetic element of Matthew’s account of Jesus’s death — the addition of “special effects,” you might say. It’s much like we might say that the events of 9–11 were “earth-shaking” or that “it rained cats and dogs.” When North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-Il (right) died in December, 2011, it was reported that a snowstorm hit as he died. Ice cracked on the volcanic Chon lake near his reported birthplace at Mount Paektu. When the snowstorm ended at dawn, a message carved in rock glowed brightly until sunset saying, “Mount Paektu, holy mountain of revolution. Kim Jong-il.” Finally, on the day after his death, a Manchurian crane also adopted a posture of grief at a statue of the dictator’s father in the city of Hamhung. So, the same sort of rhetoric occurs even today.

You cannot dehistoricize a story if Matthew did not intend for it to be read as history.

A few ultraconservatives who have what I regard as an overly wooden view of the doctrine of biblical inerrancy accused me of dehistoricizing the biblical text, asserting that I didn’t believe Matthew’s story because of its supernatural nature. I was shocked! Did it not occur to them that my treatment of Matthew’s raised saints appeared in the context of a large book that contended for the physical resurrection of Jesus? The matter for me was whether Matthew had intended for his readers to think that some saints had actually been raised. My opinion was that he did not. And you cannot dehistoricize a story if Matthew did not intend for it to be read as history.'

48

An Expert Explains the Beginning of Christianity with Dr Richard Carrier

by Rocketman123 in

here is an interesting discussion about how christianity probably began.

hierarchical political interest may have been involved.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=civ8gscbo_g.

Disillusioned JW

pistolpete, regarding Michael Licona believing in post mortem experiences, many Christians believe in accounts of Near Death Experiences and some consider such to be scientific evidence of such. Many Christians also believe that use of the Ouija board brings people in contact with evil spirits (whether they be considered demons or spirits of dead humans). So why would Christians think such beliefs by Licona would discredit him as a scholarly authority/expert? https://thebestschools.org/special/ehrman-licona-dialogue-reliability-new-testament/michael-licona-interview/ contains an interview of Licona in which Licona mentions the reasons for his beliefs, including why he believes in Near Death Experiences. In the interview Licona also mentions that he tried very hard to not let his Christian beliefs get in the way of his scholarly approach to the study of whether Jesus was resurrected or not & it mentions why Licona disbelieves (or doubts) the literalness of Matt. chapter 27's account of the bodily resurrection of saints. Regarding the latter, the interview says in part the following:

"Could it be that, on the contrary, it was my detractors who were historicizing a text not intended as history? The biblical authors lived in a different culture from ours. So, there are going to be times when the literal meaning of the text is not how we should interpret it. Now, that’s not always easy for us to determine. Many early Christian males castrated themselves after misinterpreting Jesus’s teaching about some making themselves eunuchs for the sake of God’s kingdom (Matthew 19:12). Hermeneutical blunders can have tragic consequences! And notice these early Christians adopted a literal interpretation of a text not intended to be understood in that manner. If they could make such an error while being far more connected than are we to the culture in which Jesus lived, how much more might I be vulnerable to making a similar error!

I empathize with the concern of the ultraconservatives that, taken to an extreme, one might attempt — as many already have — to make the same move with respect to Jesus’s resurrection and claim it’s a metaphor or “special effects.” But I provided reasons in my book why such a move will not work; specifically, we can establish that Jesus’s apostles clearly intended for us to understand Jesus’s bodily resurrection as a historical event. It is far from clear that Matthew had the same intent when it came to the saints raised at Jesus’s death.

Most of the highly respected evangelical scholars sided with me in the controversy. Not all agreed with the interpretation of Matthew’s raised saints I had proposed. But they were all in agreement that this was entirely an interpretive matter and had nothing to do with whether the Bible contains any errors."

48

An Expert Explains the Beginning of Christianity with Dr Richard Carrier

by Rocketman123 in

here is an interesting discussion about how christianity probably began.

hierarchical political interest may have been involved.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=civ8gscbo_g.

Disillusioned JW

pistolpete, regarding Licona's acknowledged belief in ghosts and in demons, a great many of his fellow Christians believe in such (and the New Testament teaches the existence of demons) and many Christians also believe in ghosts (heck, the KJV calls the Holy Spirit the Holy Ghost and some NT accounts of the ascended Christ make it appear that some of Christ's disciples believed in apparitions and ghostly spirits of the dead), so why would Christians think that his beliefs in such discredits him as a NT scholar and historian in the minds of Christians?

Regarding micro scale psychokinesis, I remember reading that even Carl Sagan in one of his agnostic/skeptic books and Sam Harris in his book The End of Faith (I don't have citations available for such at this time) said there seems to be scientific evidence for micro scale psychokinesis. Sagan and Harris later recanted their ideas of micro scale psychokinesis being scientifically plausible after fellow non-theistic skeptics later criticized those views of theirs.

john.prestor, wasn't The Acts of Philip written much later than 1 Corinthians? If so, how could the writer of 1 Corinthians have gotten the idea of the 500 witnesses from The Acts of Philip?

17

Why a 1914 Return Date is Impossible

by Sea Breeze in

revelation 20:2-3. and he [jesus] laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and satan, and bound him a thousand years,.

and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.. we see that the millennial reign begins with satan being bound.

he will be bound for 1000 years.

Disillusioned JW

The WT admits they don't know the day or the hour his reign will begin (or did begin) but they claim (or used to claim) to know the month and year, and as a result they claim to not be contradicting the verse regarding the day and hour.

48

An Expert Explains the Beginning of Christianity with Dr Richard Carrier

by Rocketman123 in

here is an interesting discussion about how christianity probably began.

hierarchical political interest may have been involved.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=civ8gscbo_g.

Disillusioned JW

I am very impressed by much of what I have read from Richard Carrier's atheistic scholarly writings.

17

Why a 1914 Return Date is Impossible

by Sea Breeze in

revelation 20:2-3. and he [jesus] laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and satan, and bound him a thousand years,.

and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.. we see that the millennial reign begins with satan being bound.

he will be bound for 1000 years.

Disillusioned JW

Update: SeaBreeze, I now see that you recognize that technically the WT teaches Christ's rule is more than 1,000 years.