Posts by Disillusioned JW

103

Jesus is Michael the Archangel

by Fisherman in

only jesus has the power and authority to defeat satan and kick him out of heaven:.

“now have come to pass the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our god and the authority of his christ, because the accuser of our brothers has been hurled down, who accuses them day and night before our god.”.

Disillusioned JW

Sea Breeze, I have thought of a number of those verses you mentioned regarding people having a spirit within them. Yes when I think of them (both when I was a believing JW and after I became a naturalist) they always perplex me when I try to reconcile what they say from the WT point of view. Furthermore, from the atheistic naturalist point of view which I now embrace they are nonsense and superstition and foolishness to me. In regard to the latter I agree with part of 1 Corinthians 2:14. In a number of places Paul says some of his ideas are foolishness to some people and I agree with that for a number of his ideas are foolishness to me.

Your drawing my attention to verses about an inner supernatural spirit within humans does not make me want to to believe in those ideas. Instead to the extent it convinces me that the Bible teaches such others with the meaning you say they have, to that extent it reinforces my idea that vast majority of the Bible is falsehood. There is no way a person can prove that the Bible is right in saying a supernatural kind of spirit is inside people. As a result, the biblical teaching of such is superstition.

The idea of an inner supernatural spirit is nonsense to me and repugnant to me. Likewise of idea of inviting the Christ or God the Father to indwell in me is also repugnant to me (including when I was an independent Christian), because to me such is a teaching of a form of spirit possession. I hate the idea of any spirit being getting inside me and controlling me, whether it be an evil spirit (such as the devil or a demon or a ghost of a dead human) or a good spirit (such as Christ or God the Father).

In regards to these concepts and some other spiritual concepts I have never been spiritually inclined and never spiritually minded. Since early childhood I have been naturally inclined to naturalism and to science. I was born with no belief in a god (even in God) and with no belief in spirits and I wish I had never been taught to believe in those concepts. To me it is utter insanity that most of humankind worldwide believes in the supernatural, including spirits. To me, to a certain degree, the concept of living among people who believe in spirits is like being a sane person locked in an insane asylum full of insane people! To me the belief of spirits is appalling. That is part of reason I reason to Christians, with me having the hope of persuading some of them to become atheistic naturalists. I have left the JW religion and Christianity and Christian congregational worship attendance because I am not of the same sort as those who are Christians (no matter what version of Christianity they believe in). - 1 John 2:19

So-called infidelity to Christian beliefs (being unfaithful to Christian doctrines; abandoning belief in Christian doctrines) is what appeals to me, such as the agnostic writings of Robert Ingersoll. I purchased a book, edited by a hardcore promoter of atheism, of many of the agnostic writings of Robert Ingersoll. It is a great book.

The main reason why I still keep many English translations of the Bible is so that I can use them to try to correct the thinking of supernatually minded Christians, so that hopefully they will become atheists.

Update: Sea Breeze, in regarding your posts about the humans having a spirit within them, I am starting to believe you are correct in saying that the Bible teaches such and that the WT in saying the Bible does not teach such. But as a result that makes the Bible seem more full of false teachings.

The concept of humans consisting of body, eternal soul, and eternal spirit which you say the OT teaches seems to me to be the essentially the same as the ideas held by the ancient Egyptians, ancient Sumerians, ancient Babylonians, and ancient Assyrians, as well as that many other ancient peoples. That concept of those ancient peoples (since the time I learned they believed in such) and in an afterlife in Sheol has been nonsense to me since the times I learned they had that concept.

103

Jesus is Michael the Archangel

by Fisherman in

only jesus has the power and authority to defeat satan and kick him out of heaven:.

“now have come to pass the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our god and the authority of his christ, because the accuser of our brothers has been hurled down, who accuses them day and night before our god.”.

Disillusioned JW

I did not rush into atheism. I moved towards atheism over a period of 15 years from 1995 to 2010! Why do you assume I rushed to it? I wish I had adopted it before the year 1981! I only jettison WT teachings and biblical teachings to the extent that I see proof of those various teachings being false! I don't rush to change my long held convictions, since rushing would likely result in me discarding many true convictions/beliefs! Christian apologists seem to think that all Christians who become atheists quickly became Christians, but they are wrong. You are not he first to incorrectly say I quickly became an atheist!

Sea Breeze do you realize that the latter part of your quote of Richard Lewontin is one which the WT has used in their efforts to disprove evolution? You have failed to jettison that WT idea (which they likely got from other creationists quoting Lewontin). You have also failed to jettison supernaturalism.

Regardless of the quote accredited to Lewontin, I strongly disagree that materialism, and especially naturalism, is a world-view that is adopted as an assumption, instead of a worldview adopted as a conclusion derived from evidence and reason. At least by me, naturalism was not adopted as an assumption. Since I was raised as a JW and thus a Christian and thus a Bible believer I started with the assumption/premise of supernaturalism and then tested with it observations and experiments of my own to determine if the premise is instead false (or extremely likely false).

My observations, including of tests, indicated supernaturalism is false or at least extremely likely false. I could not find any trace of the supernatural at all and I even searched for ghosts by visiting and searching places which were purported to have spirits and by interviewing people who claimed to have experienced the supernatural. I also prayed to God (under the names/concepts of Yahweh, Jesus, the Trinity, and an unknown god) to provide me with evidence of his/her/its existence which he/she/it knows would convince me - but i never received any evidence which convinced me of his existence! What more could I possibly do to discover proof of the supernatural? Nothing.

Furthermore, I don't claim to be a materialist, but rather a naturalist (a more inclusive term), since I do recognize non-material natural 'things'/attributes such as mathematics, ideas, emotions, and such.

It is getting very tiresome for me to argue an use reason with apologists of supernaturalism and Christian fundamentalism on the subjects of supernaturalism and theology.

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Sea Breeze, I noticed that in your recent post which has a diagram of the idea of the "tri-partite nature of man (Jesus)" that you said "his spirit was the indivisible essence of God". When I read that it seemed to me that one idea expressed in that statement was that God the Father in his entirety existed fully in Jesus when Jesus was on Earth. But because I never accepted that idea, including never accepted it as being biblical, and because I read very few people express that idea, I assumed that you don't mean that idea. Are you saying you have that idea? Do you even believe that God the Father entirely existed in Jesus while Jesus was in the womb of Mary, thus making Mary literally the mother of God the Father and not just of Jesus?

Regarding your quote of the KJV translation of 1 Timothy 3:16, keep in mind that I rarely read more than a few paragraphs in any given day from the KJV. It never has been the main Bible I use. I have very little appreciation for the KJV Bible translation - I much more strongly prefer the RV and ASV to it. The main reasons why I read the KJV at all is because so many English speaking Christians read it and because much of the WTS literature prior to about the year 1940 quoted from it so very much. Keep also in mind that while I was an active believer in JW religion's core teachings [from early childhood (starting before baptism) through about 20 years as a baptized JW (though in my prior post I incorrectly wrote 25 years)] virtually the only time I read a Bible it was the NWT. The NWT says "He" in that verse instead of "God" and I remember that as a JW I read the WT make its case for its wording by quoting English Bibles which say "He" in that verse of translations of Greek manuscripts which support that wording. Thus I read the WTS make its case that the verse does not support the Trinity.

A number of Bibles (due to variances in the Greek manuscripts) including the RSV and the NASB (of 1975) except in their footnote to the verse, the NRSV, the NASB Updated edition of 1995, and the REB (not just the NWT) say 'He" in 1 Timothy 3:16 instead of "God". Nearly all of the times when I read that verse I read it in translations which say "He". I thus understood it to be talking only about Jesus Christ the Son of God and not God the Father, and I understood it to be talking about Jesus in a nontrinitarian sense. The RV, ARV (copyright 1898), and the ASV each say "He who" in the main text and in their translators' footnote to the verse they make the following impressive claim. "The word God in place of He who, rests on no sufficient ancient evidence. Some ancient authorities read which."

I find myself thinking, reading, and writing about theology far more than I think is beneficial to me. Much of that is due to discussions on this website. Since I am now an atheist I really need to spend drastically less time on the subject of theology, primarily confining it only to the purpose of convincing people to stop believing in Christianity, most of the Bible, and the existence of the biblical God and other alleged spirit beings. Furthermore my efforts of tried to convince people of atheistic philosophic naturalism should primarily be done in me completing my atheistic book which attempts to achieve such. I have spent most of last Saturday and much of last Friday thinking about theology when I could have spent that time thinking about other topics and doing other tasks.

For example today (hours before 'sunrise') I read fascinating articles about the species Homo floresiensis possibly still being alive! See the following articles.

- https://earthsky.org/earth/hobbits-indonesia-homo-floresiensis-relic-hominins/

- https://www.the-scientist.com/magazine-issue/opinion-another-species-of-hominin-may-still-be-alive-69869

If scientist finds living individuals of that species and presents the proof of them to the public that would be tremendous! It would cause many people to believe that human evolution happened, including the macro evolution of our species of humans from a species (though not necessarily of Homo floresiensis) which looks very nonhuman.

26

JULY 15TH STUDY EDITION :"If ever that evil slave..." page 24

by raymond frantz in

box on page 24 of the july 15th titled :"if ever the evil slave....".

jesus has placed the weightiest of responsibilities on the faithful and discreet slave-namely,overseeing the domestics and giving out spiritual food atthe proper time.

jesus knew that those with greater responsibility have greater accountability.

Disillusioned JW

Thanks for your comment about Matthew 24. I pending detailed reply to it.

103

Jesus is Michael the Archangel

by Fisherman in

only jesus has the power and authority to defeat satan and kick him out of heaven:.

“now have come to pass the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our god and the authority of his christ, because the accuser of our brothers has been hurled down, who accuses them day and night before our god.”.

Disillusioned JW

Regarding the quote of Richard Lewontin the WTS used a small portion of it on page 22 of their brochure from 2010 called "Was Life Created?" The quoted words of Lewontin were part of a review by Lewontin of Carl Sagan's book called The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. I own a copy of that book by Sagan and I consider it a great book. I am irritated that Lewontin, an evolutionary biologist said some of what he said in his review. I disagree with some of what he said, or at least with the way he worded some of his ideas in what was quoted of him. But https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Lewontin provides a helpful context to clarify, at least to some degree, what he meant. There it says prior to the phrase of "Our willingness to accept scientific claims ... " Leontin said the following.

"With great perception, Sagan sees that there is an impediment to the popular credibility of scientific claims about the world, an impediment that is almost invisible to most scientists. Many of the most fundamental claims of science are against common sense and seem absurd on their face. Do physicists really expect me to accept without serious qualms that the pungent cheese that I had for lunch is really made up of tiny, tasteless, odorless, colorless packets of energy with nothing but empty space between them? Astronomers tell us without apparent embarrassment that they can see stellar events that occurred millions of years ago, whereas we all know that we see things as they happen. (…)".

103

Jesus is Michael the Archangel

by Fisherman in

only jesus has the power and authority to defeat satan and kick him out of heaven:.

“now have come to pass the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our god and the authority of his christ, because the accuser of our brothers has been hurled down, who accuses them day and night before our god.”.

Disillusioned JW

Sea Breeze, regarding you saying "This is the same argument you just made' I said such in an effort to clarify to you my idea to you.

In answer to your question of "Why are you having such a hard time accepting that people are constructed with a soul, spirit and body?" that should be obvious to you if you recall what I said about myself in number of posts. I was raised a JW and became very active as a baptized JW for about 25 years. During that time I firmly believed in the WT teaching (based upon verses quoted by them from multiple translations of the Bible) and based upon scientific knowledge (learned through the WT's quotes of scientific literature and directly outside of the WT in some science books and Humanistic books I read) that no human ever had an immoral spirit or immortal soul. I accepted the reasoning presented in the WT's literature that the biblical verses which speak of a spirit inside of living human bodies refers to the biblical idea of a "life force energy" which keeps humans alive until the force ceases to operate within the body. That is idea is consistent with what science teaches keeps biological beings alive, except that more modern science instead speaks of biochemical processes rather than mysterious spirit-like "life force".

In fact the WT's teachings that humans do not have an inherently immortal spirit/soul, that there is thus no eternal hell torment, and that God is not a Trinity were what I thought were some of most well proven teachings of theirs (and for years I knew of no other Christian religion which taught those) and that my concluding such is largely why decided the JW religion was the one true religion and why I thus became baptized as a JW. Though I later stopped believing in much of the religion those teachings of the WT/JW still stuck with me well into my future atheism and are still very rational to me even if I see that some Bible verses might contradict those teachings. Though I now think that some Bible verses (such as John 1:1) say that Jesus is some sense God and even in sense Yahweh, that possible teaching of the Bible is still very irrational and very illogical to me! Furthermore it contradicts many verses in the OT and the people of the Jewish religion agree with me in that. As the Shema says, "the Lord our God is one" and as the Hebrew Bible says "Yahweh our Elohim (God) is one Yahweh"!

i never ever believed that I (or other human) have(has) an immortal spirit or immortal soul. I continued to believe such after becoming an atheist and a scientific naturalist; and atheistic books promoting atheism and natural also teach that, and do say such based upon science. I later came to learn that some biblical OT passages speak of shadowy existence, as shades in Sheol, and that by the first century CE some Jews came to believe in a paradise compartment in Sheol for the righteous ones, but I still recognize that much of the Bible (especially the OT) teaches that dead humans do not have a conscious spirit or a conscious soul. As the book of Ezekiel says, 'the soul that is sinning, it itself will die'. Furthermore Ecclesiastes says that the dead have no thoughts (their thought do perish) - a teaching which is also in agreement with positive/strong atheism and Jewish religious books say that was a common belief of Jews before the Jews became exposed to Greek philosophy.

103

Jesus is Michael the Archangel

by Fisherman in

only jesus has the power and authority to defeat satan and kick him out of heaven:.

“now have come to pass the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our god and the authority of his christ, because the accuser of our brothers has been hurled down, who accuses them day and night before our god.”.

Disillusioned JW

In the above mentioned article which I provided a link to, Tabor says the following.

'One thing I had noticed in my own work on the book of Revelation over the years was that the explicit references to either “Jesus” “Christ,” or “Jesus Christ” outside the letters to the churches of chapters 2 & 3, are mostly clustered in chapters 1 and 22, with few in the middle chapters.

But what is even more astounding, to me at least, was the observation that nearly all of these references can be easily removed without detracting in any way from the structure or flow of the passages in which they occur. In other words, one could get the distinct impression that references to Jesus Christ lay quite lightly on the text and could even be seen as secondary interpolations.

In the references below I have put these interpolative elements bold italicized brackets. This exercise strongly suggests that these are later additions to an original Jewish text inserted to “Christianize” a book that in its origins had nothing to do with Jesus. This is a rather astounding phenomenon and once one sees it it seems clear that the underlying original text remains intact and makes complete sense without these references:'

In the article Tabor also says the following. 'In contrast to these references to Jesus, that so clearly exhibit a heavy hand of Christian interpolation, one finds multiple references to the LORD (Yahweh/Yehovah) God Almighty, as well as “his Messiah,” that echoes closely the language of the prophetic texts of the Hebrew Bible. None of these contain explicit references to Jesus and clearly exhibit a textual integrity that reflects the language and thought world of pre-Christian thoroughly Jewish apocalypticism:'

103

Jesus is Michael the Archangel

by Fisherman in

only jesus has the power and authority to defeat satan and kick him out of heaven:.

“now have come to pass the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our god and the authority of his christ, because the accuser of our brothers has been hurled down, who accuses them day and night before our god.”.

Disillusioned JW

Sea Breeze, I am familiar with the idea of the tri-partite nature of man and I read your recent post about such, but some verses of the Bible seem to make a definite distinction between Jesus Christ and God, not just in regards to three persons making up one God (the trinity doctrine) but actually also as a way of distinguishing the Son (Jesus) form the Father (Yahweh) and some even implying that the heavenly Christ is not God. Yes I am resistant (like Charles Russel was and like the WT is) in accepting the idea of the tri-partite nature (as defined by you and many others) of humans, in regards to the spirit in humans, as being a biblical teaching.

I know that the earliest extant Greek NT manuscripts (such as those of the Alexandrian text type) have fewer trinitarian and binitarian sounding phrases and verses than those manuscripts used the translators of the KJV. I also know that such applies a great deal to the manuscripts of the book of Revelation. Furthermore, I know that most modern translations of the NT are primarily based upon those older manuscripts, and that the NKJV has footnotes which in many cases state the wording of those older manuscripts.

I am also aware that Church Fathers said the Ebionite Christians and some other Torah keeping very early Jewish followers of Jesus in their Gospel account rejected the divinity and the virgin birth of Jesus; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebionites .

Some critical NT scholars even say that the Book of Revelation was later revised by Christians into being what we find our extant Greek manuscripts; see https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12712-revelation-book-of .That Jewish Encyclopedia says the following regarding the Book of Revelation. "The last book in the New Testament canon, yet in fact one of the oldest; probably the only Judæo-Christian work which has survived the Paulinian transformation of the Church." It also says that the book includes "Christian interpolations and alterations".

Some scholars (including James Tabor) even say the original book of Revelation was a Jewish non-Christian text which was later Christianized into the text we have today. For example that see https://ehrmanblog.org/is-the-book-of-revelation-a-revised-version-of-a-non-christian-apocalypse-guest-post-by-james-tabor/ .

joey jojo, I agree that the world makes much more sense when one rejects the idea that God or a god exists.

26

JULY 15TH STUDY EDITION :"If ever that evil slave..." page 24

by raymond frantz in

box on page 24 of the july 15th titled :"if ever the evil slave....".

jesus has placed the weightiest of responsibilities on the faithful and discreet slave-namely,overseeing the domestics and giving out spiritual food atthe proper time.

jesus knew that those with greater responsibility have greater accountability.

Disillusioned JW

Vanderhoven7, from what I read of WT literature including literature of Russell, I don't think Russell thought Jesus was mistaken at all when Jesus said no human knows the day or the hour of the timing the parousia, neither the angels nor the Son. The impression that I got was that Russell and the modern day WT organization said that at the time Jesus (who had not yet died and risen to heaven) said no human, angel, nor even the Son knew the timing the Christ's parousia such was true, but that over 1500 years later God revealed to some Christians (and likely to the risen Christ even earlier) the year and possibly the month of the start of the parousia.

Consider the following. In some of the NT Gospels the disciples of Jesus who first saw the resurrected Jesus did not recognize Jesus after he had recently been resurrected (because their eyes and/or minds were kept from recognizing him, or because his appearance was different [see John 21:12 and Mark 16:12]), but those same accounts say that later their "eyes" were opened or that some other special actions took place, and that as a result they then recognized they were speaking with Jesus Christ. See Luke 24:15-16, 31, John 20:14, 16-18. and John 21:4,7. These verses possibly indicate that God and/Jesus keeps some matters hidden from Christ's disciples for a period of time, but reveals them later. Likewise Paul spoke of a mystery (sacred secret) of God which was later revealed to Christians.

103

Jesus is Michael the Archangel

by Fisherman in

only jesus has the power and authority to defeat satan and kick him out of heaven:.

“now have come to pass the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our god and the authority of his christ, because the accuser of our brothers has been hurled down, who accuses them day and night before our god.”.

Disillusioned JW

Sea Breeze, some English translations say the "Revelation of Jesus Christ" and some say the "Revelation by Jesus Christ" (not just the NWT) and come commentaries say both meanings are plausible and that both might be correct. Namely the revelation is of Jesus in the sense of being about Jesus (a revealing of Jesus) and was also transmitted by way of Jesus. Furthermore, the translations of Revelation 1:1 agree that God gave the revelation to him/Him (namely to Jesus Christ) instead of directly to John. In verse one the NKJV has the word "him" capitalized as "Him" thus indicating divinity (according to Trinitarians), thus indicating Jesus Christ in that phrase instead of John. Verse one (NKJV) also says that "He", namely Jesus, "sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John". You in your quote of me you left out my words of "(by way of his angel?)" - perhaps I revised my post to include those words after you began composing your reply to me but before ou completed your reply to me.

I thus drew my conclusion from "a plain literal reading of scripture".

Update: Perhaps you think that the "He" mentioned in verse two is God instead of the "Him" (Jesus) mentioned in verse one. But the "He" in verse has to refer to Jesus otherwise it would conflict with verse one saying saying God sent the revelation to Jesus. The two verses combined are thus say that God (the Father) sent a revelation about Jesus to Jesus, that Jesus in turn sent it "by His angel" to John the servant of Jesus.

103

Jesus is Michael the Archangel

by Fisherman in

only jesus has the power and authority to defeat satan and kick him out of heaven:.

“now have come to pass the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our god and the authority of his christ, because the accuser of our brothers has been hurled down, who accuses them day and night before our god.”.

Disillusioned JW

By the way folks, notice that Revelation 1:2 says "his/His angel". Is that saying an angel of Jesus Christ? If so, maybe according to the Bible Michael the Archangel is the angel of Jesus Christ, an angel directly under the command of Jesus Christ. Perhaps that applies also to to what Revelation 12:7-11 say. Revelation 12:7-11 is describing a war in heaven and we know that in the case of human militaries there are chains of command.