Posts by doubtfull1799

9

Updated Recommended Reading List

by doubtfull1799 in

not long after i joined here i posted a reading list of books that helped me wake up, but since then i've read so many more that i've found invaluable in furthering and refining my new worldview, plus giving me a more in-depth well read perspective on theological and scientific issues.

so i thought i'd post an updated comprehensive list for other voracious readers like me who are always looking for good books to read.

how jesus became god - bart d. ehrman.

doubtfull1799

Smiddy3 & KiddingMe - sorry its hard to suggest a top 3 because the subject matter varies so much.

However what I can suggest is watching some of the authors lectures on youtube first to get a summary of their ideas and research to see which ones interest you and then you can dive into the books to get more detail.

For example, in the field of Biblical history (including the questions of the historicity of the Gospels and Jesus etc) I would recommend Richard Carrier, particularly because he takes a very scientific approach to history and everything he researches he publishes for peer review so it is well documented and well thought out using excellent methodology. He also happens to speak well on scientific issues and evolution etc. His books can be heavy going due to their academic nature, but if you search for him on Youtube you will find many recorded lectures he has done of about an hour duration that sum up his research very well in much simpler terms. Just pick a few on subjects that interest you and go from there...

Here's a few of my faves:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5MUUP4l6l4&list=PLdWE24VOnsuT9FnLP0TcuO7oafghIbfFG&index=1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUYRoYl7i6U&t=3087s&list=PLdWE24VOnsuT9FnLP0TcuO7oafghIbfFG&index=9

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e7uhaed594&list=PLdWE24VOnsuT9FnLP0TcuO7oafghIbfFG&index=5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79UAYyMYk7I&t=2805s

9

Updated Recommended Reading List

by doubtfull1799 in

not long after i joined here i posted a reading list of books that helped me wake up, but since then i've read so many more that i've found invaluable in furthering and refining my new worldview, plus giving me a more in-depth well read perspective on theological and scientific issues.

so i thought i'd post an updated comprehensive list for other voracious readers like me who are always looking for good books to read.

how jesus became god - bart d. ehrman.

doubtfull1799

Not long after I joined here I posted a reading list of books that helped me wake up, but since then I've read so many more that I've found invaluable in furthering and refining my new worldview, plus giving me a more in-depth well read perspective on theological and scientific issues. So I thought I'd post an updated comprehensive list for other voracious readers like me who are always looking for good books to read. Hope you find something useful here.... they are in alphabetical order, not in order of favourites or subject matter or anything like that.

Reading List of Books on History, Science, Philosophy, Archaeology, Theology & Critical Thinking

1984 - George Orwell (What a genius!)

Ancient Israel: A New History of Israel - Niels Peter Lemche

Apocalypse Delayed - Penton

The Art of Thinking Clearly - Rolf Dobelli

The Battle For God - Karen Armstrong

The Better Angels of our Nature - Steven Pinker

The Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Breaking the Spell - Daniel C. Dennett

Captives of a Concept - Don Cameron

The Cave and the Light: Plato vss Aristotle - Arthur Herman

Christianity in the Light of Science - John W. Loftus

Cognitive Illusions: A Handbook on Fallacies & Biases - Rudiger F. Pohl

Crisis of Conscience - Raymond Franz

Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of your Life - Richard W. Paul

Doubt - Leigh Sales

The Early History of God - Mark S. Smith

Endless Forms Most Beautiful - Sean B. Carroll

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - David Hume

Evolution - What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters - Donald R. Prothero

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds - Charles MacKay

Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion - Stewart Elliot Guthrie

A Field Guide to Lies & Statistics - Daniel Levitin

The Fine-Tuning Fallacy - Victor J. Stenger

Forged - Bart Ehrman

Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism - Aron Ra

The Four Presidents of the Watchtower Society - Edmond Gruss

Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism - Susan Jacoby

The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins

God’s Gravediggers - Raymond D. Bradley

God is Not Great - Christopher Hitchens

Godless - Dan Barker

God, the Devil, and Darwin - Niall Shanks

God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction - Dan Barker

The Greatest Show on Earth - Richard Dawkins

How Evolution Explains Everything About life - New Scientist

A History of Religion in the Old Testament Period - Rainer Albertz

Hitler Homer Bible Christ - Richard Carrier

Holy Fable: The Old Testament Undistorted by Faith - Robert M. Price

How Jesus became God - Bart D. Ehrman

How the Mind Works - Stephen Pinker

How to Defend the Christian Faith: Advice From an Evolutionist - John W.Loftus

Introduction to the Bible (Open Take Courses) - Christine Elizabeth Hayes

The Invention of Nature - Andrea Wulf

The Invention of Religion - Alexander Drake

The Invisible History of the Human Race - Christine Kenneally

Irrationality - Stuart Sutherland

Letter to a Christian Nation - Sam Harris

Losing My Religion - William Lobdell

Lost Christianities: The Battles For scripture and the Faiths we Never Knew - Bart Ehrman

A Manual For Creating Atheists - Peter Boghossian

Misquoting Jesus - Bart Erhman

Mistakes Were Made, But Not by Me - Carol Tavris

The Moral Arc - Michael Shermer

101 Myths of the Bible - Gary Greenberg

Not the Impossible Faith - Richard Carrier

The Not So Intelligent Designer - Abbey Hafer

The Origin of Species - Charles Darwin

Paul & Jesus - James P. Tabor

The Power of Parable - John Dominic Crossman

The Pursuit of the Millennium - Norman Cohn

Pythagoras: His Life & legacy of a Rational Universe - Kitty Ferguson

The Quest for the Historical Israel - Israel Finkelstein

Questioning the Millennium - Stephen J. Gould

Rejecting Pascal’s Wager - Paul Tobin

Rock of Ages - Stephen J. Gould

Second Temple Judaism - Lester L. Grabbe

Sense & Goodness Without God - Richard Carrier

Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought 7 Belief - David Madison

The Serengeti Rules - Sean B. Carroll

The Story of Life in 25 Fossils - Donald R. Prothero

The Story of Philosophy: A History of Western Thought - James Garvey

A Treatise of Human Nature - David Hume

The True Believer - Eric Hoffer

Unintelligent Design - Robyn Williams

The Vital Question - Nick Lane

Waking Up - Sam Harris

The Wasp that Brainwashed the Caterpillar - Matt Simon

What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It? - William G. Dever

When Prophecy Fails - Leon Fesrtiger

Why I am Not a Christian - Bertrand Russell

The Works of Immanuel Kant - Immanuel Kant

The Writings of Thomas Paine - Thomas Paine

You Are Not So Smart - David McRaney

Your Inner Fish - Neil Shubin

25

"Cultivate Self-Control"

by mrssauk in

this weeks watchtower study (september 2017) about self-control states: "clearly, people who lack self-control are causing problems for themselves and for others.

and the problem of lacking self-control is worsening.

self-discipline was studied in the 1940’s, but recent studies have shown that people have become much worse at exercising self-discipline.

doubtfull1799

This is a classic example of the kind of cherry picking and mis-application of research that I was guilty of when I worked as a researcher and writer for the Australian branch writing desk. If the article mentioned above was indeed referring to the same studies the Watchtower was referring to, all it shows is that Children had greater difficulty at physical regulation as similar aged children from 60 years ago. It says nothing about adults. It says nothing about moral or behavioural self-control - that is inferred without evidence by the commentary on the study. It is not saying that children are becoming more unregulated, at most it is showing that they are taking a few more years in age to become better at regulating themselves....

Neither the Watchtower, nor that article, actually references the original study so it is impossible for one to look up the methodology used to confirm wether the study was a good one or not (in terms of the number of participants, how they were elected, how the measurements were done, and how the data was interpreted etc)

Even if this study was of the highest calibre, this one isolated test alone does not prove a point, more research would be needed to show the results could be duplicated for starters and to provide more context and meaning.

To draw the very long bow that this study is proof of some "sign of the times" is extremely intellectually dishonest and nothing more than propaganda.

"Today's 5-year-olds were acting at the level of 3-year-olds 60 years ago, and today's 7-year-olds were barely approaching the level of a 5-year-old 60 years ago," Bodrova explains. "So the results were very sad."

20

Clue re approach to Annual Report in Jan 2018 MWB

by Nicholaus Kopernicus in

at the agm on oct 7th, his eminence miserable morris iii stated the jw yearbook would cease publication and that the annual report would instead be released via the "about us" menu in the jw website.

related to this, the "life and ministry meeting workbook - january 2018 (living as christians)" outlines the following item to be considered jan 1-7 2018...."annual service report: (15 min.

) talk by an elder.

doubtfull1799

FedUp - thanks of the good laugh. You owe me a new computer - snorted my drink out over the keyboard!

39

Why pigs???

by stuckinarut2 in

why did jesus supposedly cast the demons into a herd of pigs?.

(matt 8 / luke 8).

and, how were there so many demons inside one man, that when "released" by jesus, it took a whole pack of pigs to contain them??.

doubtfull1799

Good OP stuck.

David_Jay Even though I’m an atheist I always enjoy your contributions. It is always fascinating to read the perspective of a practising Jew that has a scholarly knowledge of the history and traditions of the Bibliclal topics under discusssion. Something we never learned as JWs. Your comments are always educational, whether one agrees with the Jewish viewpoint or not. It is still enlightening to hear that perspective form a more authentic channel. Please don’t leave or stop contributing. You are appreciated here.

36

"Circumcision is a sign to set you apart from the people of the nations"

by stuckinarut2 in

we know that the hebrew scriptures, or old testament states that the practice of circumcision (of males) was supposed to be yet another sign that set the jews apart from the "people of the nations".

but apart from so many odd things, how dumb is this?.

i mean, how did someone know if a male was circumcised or not??

doubtfull1799

Yes it is quite a bizarre way to mark a "difference" or "ownership" of his people isn't it. Pretty much like branding a cow? Later they also had to wear special fringes on their garments - surely that was a more sensible and outwardly apparent approach? Why not just do that from the beginning - wold it not have been sufficient?

Aside from that I believe circumcision was practised in Egypt and in many other of the Canaanite cultures (don't quote me on that, but I believe I read it in a good quality source) - so that is most likely where it came from, rather than a divine edict. If so it certainly didn't make them "different."

18

New Light - God chose the Bible students as his org long BEFORE the official inspection in 1919

by doubtfull1799 in

was watching this recently done new history of the society - here it is on youtube if you missed it when it first came out:.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv82k1z7n_4&feature=youtu.be.

lots of contradictory and nutty comments - for instance stating one minute that 1914 proved such a faith strengthening event because it fulfilled all their predictions, how encouraged they were, and then a few minutes later claiming the opposite - that many were disappointed and shocked because their expectations were not met!.

doubtfull1799

@Diogenesister - that is a complicated question. I would recommend the book "The 4 presidents of the Watchtower society" by Edmund Gruss for further reading on that subject.

As far as Maria goes, according to her testimony at the (divorce/separation?) trial with Charles - also documented in the above book - she played a huge part in writing the books that bear his name.

18

New Light - God chose the Bible students as his org long BEFORE the official inspection in 1919

by doubtfull1799 in

was watching this recently done new history of the society - here it is on youtube if you missed it when it first came out:.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv82k1z7n_4&feature=youtu.be.

lots of contradictory and nutty comments - for instance stating one minute that 1914 proved such a faith strengthening event because it fulfilled all their predictions, how encouraged they were, and then a few minutes later claiming the opposite - that many were disappointed and shocked because their expectations were not met!.

doubtfull1799

Good point @jwleaks - I'd forgotten that quote. Seems it was not new light after all, just old light recycled again!!!

18

New Light - God chose the Bible students as his org long BEFORE the official inspection in 1919

by doubtfull1799 in

was watching this recently done new history of the society - here it is on youtube if you missed it when it first came out:.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv82k1z7n_4&feature=youtu.be.

lots of contradictory and nutty comments - for instance stating one minute that 1914 proved such a faith strengthening event because it fulfilled all their predictions, how encouraged they were, and then a few minutes later claiming the opposite - that many were disappointed and shocked because their expectations were not met!.

doubtfull1799

Was watching this recently done new history of the society - here it is on youtube if you missed it when it first came out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV82K1z7N_4&feature=youtu.be

Lots of contradictory and nutty comments - for instance stating one minute that 1914 proved such a faith strengthening event because it fulfilled all their predictions, how encouraged they were, and then a few minutes later claiming the opposite - that many were disappointed and shocked because their expectations were not met!

Then came across this stunning claim, which was emphasised twice:

Around the 48min mark David Splane says (in the context of what would happen to the Bible students after the disappointment of 1914 and Russell's death in 1916): "It is evident that Jehovah had already chosen this organisation. (interesting how he calls it an "organisation" when earlier they claimed that it wasn't one, that Russell did not start a "new religious organisation" as there were too many already!) Because of the faithfulness and the sincerity of the men who were behind it, it is was obvious that Jehovah had already chosen this organisation to get his work done."

So where does that leave the 1919 doctrine? The doctrine that Jesus inspected ALL Christians then, and chose the Bible students then? According to Splane, Jesus/God had already made their decision long before the official inspection in 1919, and that decision was based, not on the quality of the spiritual food, but on the "sincerity" of the men?????

If you are interested in and have not had a chance to examine the early history of the adventists movements that influenced Russell, I highly recommend this summary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_c-PdT0SsE

It highlights how absurd and arrogant it is to claim that one particular group of millennialists was somehow "unique," "special," "different," or more "faithful & sincere" in order for it to be chosen by God above all others.....

40

How Are Ex Elders Treated In The Congregation?

by minimus in

jw
friends

are they pretty much left alone?

are they respected for their having been elders at one time?

are they treated like crap?.

doubtfull1799

I can tell you from my own experience that Heb 6:10 does not apply, it goes out the window as fast as you leave. You are considered dangerous, toxic, poisonous, whatever...

Except for one elder who still treats me like a friend, the others don't speak to me anymore unless they happen to run into me on the street. I did have a recent visit from two of them but that was to "investigate" reports of things I had posted online.

I have received a couple of invites to things from regular brothers or sisters that still seem to think fondly of me (usually through my wife who still goes to meetings). NO invites from my fellow elders for over 18 months now. I have asked my wife to invite them over, but no.