Raf

On another thread, Allan wrote: I think Allan raises a very fair question, one that deserves an honest answer. Here’s the challenge, as I see it. According to TWI, sonship is an inside job that cannot be renounced. I can’t renounce being a son of God anymore than I can renounce being my father’s son. [More accurately, I can renounce it all I want, but I can’t undo it]. So if TWI is correct, I’m saved, and there’s not a thing I can do about it. I can renounce Christianity as a fairy tale (and I do) and it would not change the fact that when the trumpet sounds, I’ll be right next to the rest of you, praising away. You want to know if I take comfort in that? Well, no, not really. I am no more comforted by Christianity’s heaven than I am worried about Islam’s hell. I believe both fates are equally imaginary. Do you lie awake at night worried that maybe the Norse had it right and Odin is going to be really, really mad at you? Neither do I. In the same way, I take no comfort in what I once believed. I recognize that the particular brand of Christianity that I followed had no more chance of being right than Catholicism, no more chance of being right than the Watchtower Society, no more chance of being right than the Mormons. I will say this: If I’m wrong now, as an atheist, then I hope I was right before, because that wouldbe comforting. But if I’m wrong now and I was wrong then, well, wow, so what? I lose twice. But at least I’m being honest with myself and not believing “just in case.” Wierwille used Pascal’s Wager in his teaching: “If we’re wrong, we have nothing to lose. If we’re right, we have everything to gain. Unbelievers have nothing to gain and everything to lose.” Pascal’s Wager, of course, has a fallacy you could orbit a galaxy around: It only makes sense if there are only two choices. It does not acknowledge that Christians and atheists could both be wrong and destined for Allah’s hell. So to answer your question, Allan, no, I do not take comfort in “knowing” that I’m “saved.” I’m not saved. Neither are you. We are fortunate enough to have beaten the odds against our existence, to have this one shot at experiencing this wonderful, beautiful thing called life. I don’t know what will happen when I die. Lot's of things, I suppose. All I know is, they won’t involve me.

Allan, that's an interesting point you raise. My problem is, TWI taught that I couldn't renounce my salvation if I wanted to. I'll see you up there, period, no matter what I believe now. I believe a full answer to your question would be off-topic. I am posting my response here, to avoid derailing THIS thread.

In this thread, I'll be picking up comments made on OTHER threads and responding to them here. My goal is to NOT derail the other threads. If I can make a comment on the original thread without going off-topic, I'll do that. But if my comment detracts or distracts from what's actually being discussed, I'll reply here. Although this is not a doctrinal thread per-se, I think this is the best place for me to do this. And again, my goal is to NOT derail other threads. Thanks.

It happens often, and it happened in this thread as well (right at the beginning). Whenever a critic accurately cites God's law as evidence that God is immoral, the defense frequently seems to be, "well, it was a different time and a different culture." I don't think that argument washes, for a lot of reasons. I have yet to hear a compelling case for why that argument should be accepted. Allow me to explain my position: God is GOD. I mean, He's GOD! He is omnipotent. And He has just shown His power and might to the Israelites in some pretty incredible ways. So he brings them out of Egypt and into the wilderness, and he hands them HIS law. So far, I'm not seeing ANY room for the intrusion of the hard-heartedness of the Israelites, unless God is being pre-emptive here, which I suppose is his right. But making concessions for hard-heartedness (for example, allowing divorce or making it relatively easy) is not the same as allowing EVIL because the Israelites could not handle good. That is preposterous. I mean, if he's going to make concessions for that, He might as well not give His law. "Well, these folks can't really handle not owning another human being, so I'll just regulate human being ownership and forbid them from killing their slaves. Hurting is okay, I guess, as long as the slave isn't hurt for too long. BUT NO SHELLFISH! And if you work on Saturday, you're DEAD!" This is not rational behavior from a North Korean dictator, much less from someone who embodies and defines "objective" morality. Second-guessing God is a HUGE sin. I know, because often when I discuss this with people, I am accused of second-guessing God. Funny that these same people have no compulsion whatsoever when it comes to second-guessing Allah. But then, Allah is obviously a made up God, which we know because when we scrutinize his word, it is filled with barbaric admonitions and declarations we know to be untrue. Not like the Bible at all (why, yes, I am being sarcastic! And props to you for noticing). My sense is, if God were really opposed to slavery, He would have just banned it, like he banned shellfish and working on Saturday. So he must not be opposed to slavery. (But... but... but...) But NOTHING! I'm supposed to be impressed that he banned it later? I'm not, for two reasons. First, he allowed it initially, and that is morally unacceptable. Second, he never banned it. Old Testament and New, God never banned slavery. The best you can say, on a good day, is that he laid out a moral case against it. But it never became important enough to him that he felt compelled to say, "You know what, don't do that. Period. Don't own people. Ever." The fact that Yahweh got slavery wrong -- slavery is one of the easiest moral questions man has ever faced. Seriously. It's not hard at all. Thou shalt not own people. Yahweh came down on the wrong side of it, regulating it instead of banning it (when you look at the list of things he banned on punishment of death, the absence of slave-owning on that list becomes startling). Now, I know what some of you are thinking. If I don't believe in God, who am I to declare God's permission of slavery to be morally unacceptable? I want you to think about that question, long and hard, and about what it imlpies. The question implies that I am wrong, by God's objective standard of morality, to declare slavery unacceptable. The question implies that slavery is acceptable. And if THAT's what you think, then I shudder at what else you would permit in God's name. If it's NOT what you think, then you, too, are more moral than Yahweh. I invite feedback.

Given it some thought. Not a lot, but some. And I would have to conclude (preliminary/don't care enough to research it further) that it must be some kind of translational screw-up. For the author to have made such a mistake would have been incredibly sloppy. One would expect that kind of mistake in Genesis, which is believed by scholars to have more than one author (hence the repetition and contradiction in the Flood account, for example), but for one writer (Exodus) to forget that he hasn't yet introduced priests into the narrative... yeah, seems a bit far fetched. Still possible, but I'm more willing to accept the idea that I missed something in the translation than that the writer made such a spectacular blunder. So, I stand corrected without prejudice (meaning, I reserve the right to revisit if my give-a-rat's ever rises to the level of wanting to).

The opposite, I think. It's why some of us still insist on going to some church of some kind, even one that's not based on the "rightly divided word," because the alternative, abandoning church and its doctrines altogether, would be a tacit admission that all the time spent parsing the choice of prepositions in order to unlock the nature of the Creator of the Universe might maybe have been wasted. How could I have been wasting my time when I was taught how to think? (Answer: you were simultaneously taught that questioning God was bad, the first step to the fall of man. And the moment you accept the premise that God as a concept cannot be questioned, you become potential prey to anyone you believe speaks for that God).

Yes

I never took the WUS class. BUt I would argue that TWI was a bit more clever than what you're describing. I think they did a fantastic job of teaching critical thinking skills, as long as those skills were directed elsewhere. Spotting the flaws in other people's positions and arguments was something they did exceptionally well. They (we) just couldn't apply the same discerning eye to themselves (ourselves) in terms of what TWI taught.

At the risk of being "that guy," I personally would apply this fallacy to my experience with religion in general. So much time in my life was spent trying to figure out what the correct interpretation of the Bible is. Did the JW's have it? Did The Way have it? Which offshoot had it? Was it mainstream Christianity after all? Maybe some combination of various approaches? I spent so much time invested in the premise that The Bible Is Truth, it never occurred to me to question it. To do so would be to open myself up to the probability that all the time I invested in Who Got It Right was wasted. How would you approach someone who devoted his life to understanding the Quran or Dianetics? It's not easy to cut your losses, but it sure beats the alternative.

Myth as opposed to history. George Washington, first president of the United States, is history. George Washington, confessed to chopping down his dad's cherry tree, is myth. Yes.

Silence of the Lambs " I am a nice shark, not a mindless eating machine. If I am to change this image, I must first change myself. Fish are friends, not food."

I see no reason to believe that any of it ever happened. Maybe when we start getting into Abraham, but anything before that comes off as entirely mythical. No? Is there evidence to suggest it's anything other than myth?

It was a 2014 release. It was considered a creative gamble, as it differed in style and content from similar movies in the same genre by the same studio. But it paid off and was one of the year's top grossing films and COME ON YOU GUYS KNOW THIS!

No.

No. But it's on the soundtrack and was in most of the trailers.

Yes

Hook. Next.

Before we get started, does anyone want to get out?

cough young obi wan cough

Ooga chaka, ooga ooga.

Good question, Twinky. I'll look it up. Here's some attempts at an explanation. I don't find them persuasive, but not concerned enough to argue the point. http://biblehub.com/commentaries/exodus/19-22.htm

It is not and has never been my intention to "complete" any look at any particular book of the Bible. Topics are popping up as I encounter them, and I'll cite them as the opportunities to cite them arise. Today my attention was drawn to Exodus 19: 21-22. ... ... ... ... ... ... What priests? There was no priesthood yet.

Still waiting for that report, Allan. If you think I'm abusing my authority as a moderator on this thread, surely you have evidence of this and are not just making an irrelevant connection between my duties as a moderator and my participation in this thread. Perhaps a copy of the rules might help you sort out which one I've broken, make reporting me a bit easier? Anything I can do to help.

If you don't want your views discussed, don't put them on a message board. It's not difficult.

What are you babbling about? Was there a coherent point in there? Report me if you think I violated a rule, allan.