A Look At The Jehovah's Witnesses Religion

[Miles]

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I came across the following piece in Wikipedia some time ago, and recently remembered how priceless it was and thought I'd share.

"Central to Jehovah's Witnesses' beliefs are their interpretations of the second coming of Christ, the millennium and the kingdom of God. Watch Tower Society publications have made, and continue to make, predictions about world events they believe were prophesied in the Bible.[1] Some of those early predictions were described as "established truth",[2] and beyond any doubt.[3] Witnesses are told to "be complete in accepting the visible organization's direction in every aspect" and that there is no need to question what God tells them through his Word and organization since love "believes all things".[4][5][6] If a member advocates views different from what appears in print, they face expulsion.[7][8][9]

Failed predictions that were either explicitly stated or strongly implied, particularly linked to dates in 1914, 1915, 1918, 1925 and 1975, have led to the alteration or abandonment of some teachings. The Society's publications have at times suggested that members had previously "read into the Watch Tower statements that were never intended"[10] or that the beliefs of members were "based on wrong premises".[11] According to Professor Edmond Gruss, other failed predictions were ignored, and replaced with new predictions; for example, in the book, The Finished Mystery (1917), events were applied to the years 1918 to 1925 that earlier had been held to occur prior to 1914. When the new interpretations also did not transpire, the 1926 edition of the book changed the statements and removed the dates.[12]

Predictions (by date of publication) include:

1877: Christ's kingdom would hold full sway over the earth in 1914; the Jews, as a people, would be restored to God's favor; the "saints" would be carried to heaven.[28]
1891: 1914 would be "the farthest limit of the rule of imperfect men".[29]
1904: "World-wide anarchy" would follow the end of the Gentile Times in 1914.[30]
1916: World War I would terminate in Armageddon and the rapture of the "saints".[31]
1917: In 1918, Christendom would go down as a system to oblivion and be succeeded by revolutionary governments. God would "destroy the churches wholesale and the church members by the millions". Church members would "perish by the sword of war, revolution and anarchy". The dead would lie unburied. In 1920 all earthly governments would disappear, with worldwide anarchy prevailing.[32]
1920: Messiah's kingdom would be established in 1925 and bring worldwide peace. God would begin restoring the earth. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and other faithful patriarchs would be resurrected to perfect human life and be made princes and rulers, the visible representatives of the New Order on earth. Those who showed themselves obedient to God would never die.[33]
1922: The anti-typical "jubilee" that would mark God's intervention in earthly affairs would take place "probably the fall" of 1925.[34]
1925: God's restoration of Earth would begin "shortly after" October 1, 1925. Jerusalem would be made the world's capital. Resurrected "princes" such as Abel, Noah, Moses and John the Baptist would give instructions to their subjects around the world by radio, and airplanes would transport people to and from Jerusalem from all parts of the globe in just "a few hours".[35]
1938: Armageddon was too close for marriage or child bearing.[36]
1941: There were only "months" remaining until Armageddon.[37]
1942: Armageddon was "immediately before us".[38]
1961: Awake! magazine stated that Armageddon "will come in the twentieth century.... This generation will see its fulfillment."[39]
1966: It would be 6000 years since man's creation in the fall of 1975 and it would be "appropriate" for Christ's thousand-year reign to begin at that time.[40] Time was "running out, no question about that".[41] The "immediate future" was "certain to be filled with climactic events ... within a few years at most", the final parts of Bible prophecy relating to the "last days" would undergo fulfillment as Christ's reign began.
1967: The end-time period (beginning in 1914) was claimed to be so far advanced that the time remaining could "be compared, not just to the last day of a week, but rather, to the last part of that day".[42]
1968: No one could say "with certainty" that the battle of Armageddon would begin in 1975, but time was "running out rapidly" with "earthshaking events" soon to take place.[43] In March 1968 there was a "short period of time left", with "only about ninety months left before 6000 years of man's existence on earth is completed".[44]
1969: The existing world order would not last long enough for young people to grow old; the world system would end "in a few years". Young Witnesses were told not to bother pursuing tertiary education for this reason.[45][46]
1971: The "battle in the day of Jehovah" was described as beginning "[s]hortly, within our twentieth century".[47]
1974: There was just a "short time remaining before the wicked world's end" and Witnesses were commended for selling their homes and property to "finish out the rest of their days in this old system in the pioneer service".[48]
1984: There were "many indications" that "the end" was closer than the end of the 20th century.[49]
1989: The Watchtower asserted that Christian missionary work begun in the first century would "be completed in our 20th century".[50] When the magazine was republished in bound volumes, the phrase "in our 20th century" was replaced with the less specific "in our day".

It should be noted that on average a new prediction was coming out about every 5 1/2 years, but since 1989, 34 years ago, nada. Can we assume the JW prediction business has since shut down?


QUESTIONS:
1. Should continuing blunders such as these have any bearing on the credibility of a religion? Any religion?
2. What do you think it says about the Jehovah's Witnesses religion?

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[2timothy316]

What I pay attention to the most is what a person does when they discover they are wrong. Here are the responses that irk me.
1. Double down on their wrong course.
2. Try to change the meanings of words so that they seem like they were always right. Or with the Bible, fumble through trying to change the meaning of a scripture on-the-fly.
3. Put their fingers in their ears and say 'la la la la la'.
4. Attack the credibility of the person they got the information from. (This tool is worn-out on us JWs)
5. Say, "well, this is MY truth", then ignore the new information, as if truth was subjective.
6. They see the information is correct but can't be bothered with changing their minds. Sunk-cost fallacy: "I've lived my whole life believing this way, I don't want to change."
7. So full of themselves they can't hear anyone since the love the sound of their own voice so much.

I have so much triggered and hate for #5 that I will explode and say things that get me in trouble. They never mean it. Subjective means they can't impose on others, either, and they always want to. Here's how it goes for me:
Purple Knight: "As far as that goes, here are the reasons I think X is actually true."
People: "Don't give me your rationality and your logic. My truth is that X is not the case. I feel this way and you can't impose your truth on me."
Purple Knight: "Well I feel this other way about it, so X is still my truth then."
People: "You're bad and you should feel bad."

That does pretty much sum it up, sadly.

I'm nowhere near as bad off as JWs, who actually have the Bible right and come under attack from Christians who have never read the Bible at all, simply because "fringe nutjobs lol," when the fact is that any rational person who has read the Bible critically with the mind of a nerdy, intelligent Star Trek fan, can see that you have canon correct and there is simply no support for these mainstream Christian beliefs like that people turn into angels when they die, and the afterlife is non-physical.

Well, thank goodness at least somebody gets it. Now, I'm not going to say there are not JWs that are just mainstream JWs. Going through the motions, going out field service, going to meetings, etc without giving much thought as to why they do what they are doing. This type of person doesn't last in the JW religion. They just simply burn out from the weight of persecution and ask themselves, 'why am I dealing with this?' Then go about their merry way. Sometimes into a really bad situation. Like a good friend of mine did this in the late 90s. He ended up going wild, like so many do that think they have been denied a good life being a JW, myself included, I did some moronic things in my youth too. But this guy did a cocktail of drugs fell asleep at the wheel of a car and slammed into a family of 4, killing them all. Next they spend 22 years in prison. While in prison he became a nerdy intelligent Star Trek fan of the Bible. He is no longer that mainstream person and I have forgiven him for his past deeds because he is truly sorry. His debt to society is paid and he gets it now, as do I. Today, we are better friends than we ever were and we are nerdy Bible people together having a blast, living the way of life that we wanted to get away from so badly while we were younger. Never realizing how much protection that way of life was.

But I get a little taste of it because my conscience doesn't work like normal peoples' and I have to reason everything. Sometimes, logical and inescapable conclusions of the things that are mainstream beliefs, are things that are hateful to those beliefs. Regular people don't introspect, they don't scrutinise, they just believe whatever they're supposed to and get angry or offended, and start shaming anyone for not seeing it their way, which should probably be #8 on that list.

Yeah, that probably should be #8. Go from 0 to 'I hate your guts' in 2 words. People today don't want to scrutinize and there is only one thing they don't want more and that is to be scrutinized. I welcome intelligent scrutiny. Not hateful opinion based garbage. This is why avoid the C&A forum.

Now, a person will either admire the humble person admitting their error or bash them for admitting their error.

This is why you can't find a humble person in the sense you're talking about. (Humble and proud are weird words. For example, I think a lot of myself, but if I couldn't admit I was wrong when I very well was, I wouldn't deserve that.) People in modern day will take an apology and use that to tear a person asunder. They're always sniffing for any sign of weakness, like an apology, and when they find one, the whole pack falls upon the victim.

This fact saddens me deeply. It takes away the ability to grow as a person when one is in fear of admitting a mistake. Do I like doing it? No way! But after putting into practice James 5:16, "Therefore, openly confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. A righteous man’s supplication has a powerful effect." and Hebrews 12:11, "True, no discipline seems for the present to be joyous, but it is painful; yet afterward, it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it." I have found this advice to be sooooooo true. I use in a lot in my marriage when I'm in the wrong. Whew, and man I hate eating crow. SO the best thing is to be careful in the first place. I have literally been trained by admitting fault when I'm in the wrong. By being introspective and scrutinizing myself, as you have pointed out, before I say or do something. This saves me from eating crow all the time. This all leads to a healing. I heal my relationships and heal myself by being more thoughtful.

Compare this to many in the world. Proverbs 28:13, 14 says for them that do the exact opposite... "The one covering over his transgressions will not succeed. But whoever confesses and abandons them will be shown mercy. Happy is the man who is always on guard, But whoever hardens his heart will fall into calamity." Most of mankind has not learned the wisdom of these words and because of that here is what plays out, "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." Proverbs 16:18

I don't try to correct anyone. I've decided that those humble people don't exist. I get into fights because I'm just trying to do me, and there's always some moralist out to take that away on the basis that everything is subjective. This used to be religious people filling that niche, trying to take stuff away because morality was objective. Surely, I thought, if we depose the objectivity people, the subjectivity people won't be able to do that. Nope! Turns out people are fundamentally illogical and don't need a sound basis to impose their dogma on others.

Yes, this does seem to be the case. I give correction to the one who is seeking it. But, I "Do not speak in the ears of the stupid one, For he will despise the wisdom of your words." and "Proverbs 9:7, "The one who corrects a ridiculer invites dishonor, And whoever reproves someone wicked will get hurt."

There are fewer and fewer humble people in the world everyday. Not to say that the religious wack-a-doos back in the centuries before us had a whole lot more humble people and didn't need to be taken down a notch, because they did. Their treatment of many under the old laws that they had were brutal if you weren't from the right pedigree, race, sex, or country. Humility is not mankind's strong suit and kindness to the point of acting is only so-so. There is always some group that thinks they are better in every way. Now, instead of groups, everyone thinks they are the best individual on the planet and they have the only truth that matters, their own. When actually, it makes them weaker for thinking that way and puts them in harms way more often. It's just sad and there is little anyone can do. Despite that, Jehovah's Witnesses still turn over every log and rock looking someone who is humble enough to preach and teach to. Jehovah wants everyone to be offered the chance to get out of this depraved world. (2 Peter 3:9) and since we love our Heavenly Father then we adapt His will as our own. And let me tell ya, in the decades that I have spoken to people from door to door, we hardly find anyone with a humble heart in the USA. I hear JWs in Africa are having the most success but everywhere else, its like trying to get blood from a stone. It might seem like a effort in futility but we press on because we believe even if talk to a million people but just one come to love Jehovah and lives forever, then it was worth the billions of hours that millions of people put into save one person. This is how much we love people and how much we share our Father's vision.

Just the other day I was arguing with a moralising vegan who told me that animal lives outweigh my enjoyment. Yet they have a dog and a cat. Dog food has meat in it. Cat food has to, because cats are obligate carnivores. By having those carnivores instead of letting them die in the shelter, they are valuing their enjoyment over animal lives. If they let the cute, intelligent carnivores that actually make good pets shrivel up and die, plus lives, right? It didn't take long before they got mad and turned out a "How dare you?!"

"The righteous one takes care of his domestic animals, But even the mercy of the wicked is cruel." Proverbs 12:10.
"Every moving animal that is alive may serve as food for you. Just as I gave you the green vegetation, I give them all to you. Only flesh with its life—its blood—you must not eat." Gen 9:3, 4
Chicken is my comfort animal, I'm comforted when I eat one. That's all I have to say about that.

And yeah, I was super duper wrong. I predicted a lot of modern culture in the 90's, but on this particular point I got the bed I wanted and it's sticky and nasty, and now I have to sleep in it.

I talk to many that think mankind can turn it around somehow. That everyone is going to get it together like in Star Trek. But even in Star Trek lore mankind almost comes to it's end in the 21st century due to its hubris. I was right there with you in the 90s saying much of the same thing. I got into politics in the late 90s and early 2000s and thought I could make a difference, get more religious free people in places of power...wow talk about being wrong about something. I got to rub shoulders with people who now are congressmen. They don't care about anything but themselves and learned how they can get what they want out of these crazy people in the world before the world's population turns the earth into a dumpster fire. World leaders know their constituents are psychos and they just ride the waves of their anger to get what they want. It's actually scary brilliant how they do it. It was a congressman that taught me, 'if you don't want something in the news, don't write it down.' I heard my fill. There are a few dreamers that really want to make the world better but they really don't know how to do it and the lobbyist and corruption of the others always crush them. So, about 2010 I abandoned politics forever.

We can't afford to be dogmatic.

This is why I would prefer to talk to a fringe believer than a mainstream one, any day. The mainstream guy doesn't have to have his facts straight. Not only dogmatic but people who know their thinking can't stand up to challenging will avoid the organisation. By and large you will only get people who have strong logical reasons to believe they are correct. Illogical reasons will filter where they are most protected from scrutiny.

Ah, isn't that the truth!? There is nothing anyone can do for such people. They can only help themselves but it will probably take many self-made disasters before they take note that their life formula isn't working. Even then many will not get it before something they put into motion out of ignorance of refusal to listen ruins them.

It does seem like something is in the water that just makes people...nasty. Jehovah's Witnesses have to drink the water too and sometimes we make choices that are not beneficial to anyone. This is the sin that Jehovah's Witnesses believe is in all mankind. All humanity is drawn to what is bad and to rebel against what is good, and you're correct, it is in our bones. (Romans 7:21) However, we are not doomed for it to be master over us, we can be master over sin if we ask for God's help gain master over it. (Gen 4:7)

...

Since mankind has been on earth there a truth, "Man has dominated man to his injury”!

I think true, reasoned atheists like me, think of it in terms of humanity's vile past as filthy apes. It really clicks if you watch social animals like wolves and chimps. You start to realise that this nastiness is something that is strongly encouraged. If you don't have it, you will not get food. Everyone used to think humans were better than that, and they would point to overcoming that vile nature, but at this point I think we're all just physically weak monkeys who can only pretend there is a better, so we can be even worse. Moralism is just the new dominance.

I think humans always go to extremes when describing themselves. To atheists, we're apes. To most religions we are angels in meat bodies. Jehovah's Witnesses and myself believe it's something in the middle. Lower than angels but more than just an animal.
"What is mortal man that you keep him in mind, And a son of man that you take care of him? You made him a little lower than godlike ones, And you crowned him with glory and splendor." Psalms 8:4, 5
"you are worth more than many sparrows.” Matthew 10:29-31

Atheists see no divine help coming for mankind's nasty ways and most religions think so highly of themselves that they don't need divine help or they are divine themselves and instantly forgiven for the nasty ways. Really, both dogmas yield the same result, people making their own way in the world the way they think is best with little or no guidance from anyone or anything.

As humans we have the right to judge some things. Like we judge who our friends should be. We judge for ourselves as to what kind of entertainment we should watch. Really any decision that comes to feeding what could encourage us to do bad things. As one Native American proverb says, 'Everyone has a good wolf and a bad wolf inside them. The one that survives is the one you feed.'

The bad one doesn't need any help. It takes food from the good one easily. Uphill battle.

It's still our internal battle and JWs see this as where we need God's help. "The wolf will reside for a while with the lamb, And with the young goat the leopard will lie down, And the calf and the lion* and the fattened animal will all be together." Isaiah 11:6, 7. JWs believe that while this is describing the world to come, in context is also describing that a person's animalistic qualities can be brought to heel with the knowledge of God. https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2018247#h=25:0-27:0

They think they are doing everyone a favor. They have judged us as untrustworthy. But do these folks turn that same light on themselves or the organizations they like? When they do, do they react the same way?

They just get offended. What I start to think is that nobody reasons. Like, at all. Nobody thinks about anything. The other day, Boatsnguitars was arguing with JW about a doctrine, and JW presented the consistent version of that doctrine, and Boat was like, "Yeah but that's only believed by a tiny minority of Christians." And I'm sitting there between laughter and tears because that's not an argument. Ad populum is one of those fallacies that I don't think is always a fallacy, but this is a perfect example of when it is a fallacy, and couldn't be any worse.

Indeed. There is a poster that said that if a majority of people looked at scripture one way and he looked at it a different way, that he would be worried. viewtopic.php?p=1120957#p1120957
Why why why would anyone look to the majority of people's opinion as a reason to call something true? Ad populum fallacy indeed.

Are they really sorry? As you well know no one can read minds. Jehovah's Witnesses are no exception. Even though we catch much finger-wagging and nasty comments about disfellowshipping a person, it's the only thing we are allowed to use to determine what is in a person's heart. I've seen a person cry their eyes out after doing wrong and then go right back to their harmful lifestyle. So, JWs use shunning to determine if the offender is really sorry. If they are really sorry they will continue to show up at meetings and follow all the rules of being disfellowshipped. After a time, then the person is welcomed back to tears and hugs for their determination to show they really are sorry through their act of worship despite their being disfellowshipped.

I actually know of a case in one of the local congregations in my area where there is a baptized JW that is a known drug user and dealer. In the past she had said she was sorry and sobbed many times only to return to their lifestyle of drugs and dealing. What other choice do the elders have but to disfellowship this person to keep the congregation safe and read if they are really sorry. There are literally black SUVs that case their house and the house of their parents. While she still goes to congregation meetings, no one speaks to her. No one has any dealings with them at all. Now, some will call this harsh but disfellowshipping is a last resort in the hopes that the person will change coarse. Sadly, this person hasn't improved and there are indications that despite trying to get them rehab and other help, they are going deeper into a dark path. They have also turned to manipulation to get what they want from anyone. Truly this is what disfellowshipping is for but it only keeps people from harm and tries to correct the course of this person if people follow the instructions at 1 Corinthians 5:11. About 3 years ago when this person was disfellowshipped they called me and I didn't take the call. They left a voice mail about helping find some dog's owner. I didn't return the call. Imagine where I might be if I had allowed this person to stay in contact with me. I might have black SUVs at my house right now.

Yeah there was no lost dog. I know what these kinds of people will do. If there was a dog, she stole it. People around here have to watch their dogs and not put them in the front because drug-addled bums will steal dogs out of peoples' yards, use them to beg, and then abandon them.

What I find ridiculous is that you take flak for kicking people out of your own fellowship, and the people dishing out the flak probably love cancel culture which kicks people out of the entire larger society and that's somehow fair. Sure, mob J.K. Rowling because her definition of female is not the one you like. Make sure you're not friends with anyone who buys any Harry Potter stuff; kick them out of your friend group they're basically Hitler, and you are too if you hang around them. But those JWs disfellowshipping people? OMFG how cruel and heartless!

At least with JWs there is a way back in with full restoration to fellowship with no grudge holding allowed. I have seen this happen twice in my congregation, being there with a person is reinstated and is a wonderful thing. Pent-up hugs for years all come at the person at one time the very day the person is reinstated. Do people around the world do that with the people that admit they are wrong and then they make the correction? I have yet to see it.

Well, I guess this is your version of disfellowshipping. However, the grudge holding and demanding double the recompense might backfire if a person truly is sorry in the future. The Bible says we better be ready to be judged as harshly as we judge others. With the person I mentioned above, I have no problems accepting any equal judgement I have decided in following the disfellowshipping arrangement. If I turn into a drug using drug dealer, by all means avoid me at all costs.

Once the person gives me the two coats, I put them in the category of trustworthy and pick up the tab for meals and things. I worry about druggos, and sometimes I half-believe the AA crud I was sold as a kid that they're genetically programmed to be vulnerable to addiction and can't help it. I'm pretty addicted to caffeine but at the same time, if it was steal or deal with headaches, I'll be dealing with the headaches. It's not out of the question that one day someone injects me with a drug that turns me addicted, and it's so strong I can't help myself. I know it's possible because I can't kill myself by deciding not to breathe. If someone defined that air as somebody else's property, then stuck me at the bottom of a pool, I'd come up to breathe. I'd take positive action I knew was wrong and take from others in order to keep myself alive. Even if I knew there were people that needed to be saved up there and limited air for them. The urge to breathe is too strong.

But what I can do is make up for what I do in that state and always give back the two coats. If I don't do that, I judge myself the same.

Crime and punishment. It's a wild game no matter how anyone deals with it. Freedom of choice and a lack of knowing of what is dancing around in another person's head will always make justice a tricky thing.

[Purple Knight]

But this guy did a cocktail of drugs fell asleep at the wheel of a car and slammed into a family of 4, killing them all. Next they spend 22 years in prison. While in prison he became a nerdy intelligent Star Trek fan of the Bible. He is no longer that mainstream person and I have forgiven him for his past deeds because he is truly sorry. His debt to society is paid and he gets it now, as do I. Today, we are better friends than we ever were and we are nerdy Bible people together having a blast, living the way of life that we wanted to get away from so badly while we were younger. Never realizing how much protection that way of life was.

You're talking about rules. People see a rule and hate it, because they have never seen life without it, and they don't stop to think, "What would life be like, without this rule?" They just think they don't want to follow this rule, it is an inconvenience, and they don't think further than that. I don't think all Bible rules are good ones, but I'm not that guy who just goes, "muh freedom!" and reactively hates rules, either. People in modern day see it as a basic right to take drugs. I told one Libertarian who preached this to go move to the ghetto then, where the police never come and you can do drugs to your heart's content. They want it both ways. Ben Franklin may have said that he who chooses safety over liberty loses both and deserves neither, but these new age hipsters who want the safe society but at the same time, to ignore its rules, are something else.

I'm too jaded to ever believe 100% that a druggo has reformed. The longer they seem normal, the more I'll trust, but it'll never ever be 100%. I think normal people outside of religion do reform. I once met a former police officer who got into the evidence locker because everyone else was doing it, and he alone just could not stop. He basically took all the drugs, got caught, and that was the end of him being a cop forever. His life fell apart. When I met him he was already clean and back together and working as a handyman. He told me, never again. He'd been clean for almost a decade so I tend to believe it. But these people, crackheads and alcoholics mainly, not just people joyriding on mushrooms or whatever... one drop of their drug is all it takes.

I welcome intelligent scrutiny. Not hateful opinion based garbage. This is why avoid the C&A forum.

I'm trying to reform it. The rules don't cover everything and the phenomenon you're describing is something that definitely happens, but it would be so hard to deem the people doing it as rulebreakers that it's not going to happen without the people caught believing (maybe justly imo) that they were punished wrongly.

I want to see if people can be nudged toward actually reasoning, the way I do, with understanding and acceptance and maybe they don't actually have to be beaten into it. I don't think it's possible but that doesn't excuse me from trying. And I may be pleasantly surprised. If someone is using reason and evidence as a dogmatic tagline, I want to show them what it can be when it's not a tagline. Maybe they don't accept it. I tend to believe your Hebrews 12:11 thing which seems to be implying that people don't change unless they get a negative consequence now and again.

But I have this wish that people are cats and not dogs. Dogs, you kind of have to be rough with them. You don't have to beat them but you absolutely do have to be harsh, enforce every time, and make sure the consequences of bad behaviour cannot be escaped. But you don't punish a cat. The cat will not associate what it did with the punishment. The cat will associate you with the punishment and retreat, growing to hate you. The way you bring a cat toward good behaviour is just understanding and acceptance.

I have 1 dog so I can sell my cats as "good with dogs" and I think I love my dog, but I hate dealing with it. I hate that I have to be so harsh. I hate that every little thing, the dog will test and test and test if it can get away with it, to the point that I feel like a monster for not letting the dog get away with it, because it will find ways to make the infraction so minor, always, always testing, so that I really should feel like a monster for enforcing. The dog thinks nothing but that it wants every little thing it can get, and it isn't capable of following a rule because it should. I want to believe that people aren't like this, or at least, not all of them.

By being introspective and scrutinizing myself, as you have pointed out, before I say or do something. This saves me from eating crow all the time. This all leads to a healing. I heal my relationships and heal myself by being more thoughtful.

My views are very, very reasoned, but when it comes to saying things, sometimes I'm a hothead. I'm getting better at this but sometimes I just see red and can't hold it in anymore, especially when I know full well that someone is an unreasoning idiot and usually he's chastising someone else, and I do exactly what your Proverbs 9:7 thing warns about, and I get in trouble for it. All I hope is, I got through to the person I was trying to save from being torn apart unfairly. I think it makes a difference. I think it's the last glowing ember of chivalry. And it absolutely won't happen but if enough people started doing it, it really would turn the world around. Top-down is not the way. Our leaders are the worst of us. Bottom-up is the only path. For every bully, there are six or seven people he's cowed into misery who wish someone would just bloody say something. And it hurts. Words are sharper than swords, now, and inflict more damage. But the big secret is that because this is so, because you get cut up worse and get less recognition because you never put yourself in danger of real harm (so they think, so they say), you're every bit as good as a warrior in armour if you do it. So I don't think chivalry is dead, it's just... had its limbs cut off and is currently bleeding out.

It might seem like a effort in futility but we press on because we believe even if talk to a million people but just one come to love Jehovah and lives forever, then it was worth the billions of hours that millions of people put into save one person.

It might not be a pure positive though. You might see it as a gamble you can only win, albeit an unlikely win, but you might very well have one or two people finding your religion naturally, who are instead, in this timeline, turned off to it permanently precisely because of the door-to-door stuff. It might still be the way to go if you're getting people, like you are in Africa. But if you've been fishing a lake until it's bone dry, you have to wonder if your nets are doing any damage.

I talk to many that think mankind can turn it around somehow. That everyone is going to get it together like in Star Trek. But even in Star Trek lore mankind almost comes to it's end in the 21st century due to its hubris. I was right there with you in the 90s saying much of the same thing.

I think that can happen, in theory, but it won't. I think we idiocracy'd ourselves out of that option, but we'll see. The vast majority who don't introspect enough to see their leaders are eating them like cattle... just have to die. And they can't die in concentration camps or the like - nobody can kill them off - because that leaves somebody to blame and in a generation, history will turn against whoever did it as soon as the world is out of danger again. They have to die and it has to be natural, so they have to keep the reins and just run the world into the ground. If the prescient can just wait it out somehow, maybe things can be better.

And I know this is Nazi-ish but when and if it does happen, people need to take that moment where they come out the other end, realise what buys the safe world, and make sure that stupid people aren't born in such overwhelming numbers that they hand the world over the the worst of us by being an exploitable, vacillating can of worms. I sadly see it as largely a matter of IQ, but runaway rewarding of irresponsibility doesn't help. People need to be smart, and they need to be taught to act it.

Will it happen? No. But is there a way? Sure.

They can only help themselves but it will probably take many self-made disasters before they take note that their life formula isn't working. Even then many will not get it before something they put into motion out of ignorance of refusal to listen ruins them.

I don't hope they'll change, because I don't see it as very possible. I'll still try but at this point, it's a wish, as in, I wish I could fly, not even a hope. I know it's horrid but I hope they'll just die. It's on the level of hoping a horse that won't drink thirsts to death, because what I hope won't happen is people keep wasting their time and effort as well as yours and mine, convincing everyone through moral head-bashing that tying the horse down and funneling water down its throat is a moral obligation. I hope the people doing this run out of resources and people to footstool for them.

"you are worth more than many sparrows.” Matthew 10:29-31

I hate to say it but I'm on the Devil's side here, unless I see much different. We made a world that selected for trash and we became trash. The reasoned few are demonised. The unreasoned moralisers are exalted. I hope if any of this is real, I'm called to fight against humanity after I die, and what I'll fight for will be me and the rest of the apes being atheist dead and God not putting crowns of glory on monkeys, or pearls on swine again.

But if you're my enemy when we meet then, you'll get an honest fight. Nobody will be posing. Nobody will be greedy-grubbing, manipulating, or engaging in sophistry. Just, an honest fight, for what we each believe is right. I think that used to happen on Earth and it doesn't anymore, and maybe never will again.

Really, both dogmas yield the same result, people making their own way in the world the way they think is best with little or no guidance from anyone or anything.

Atheists can be pretty dogmatic. Guidance has to be personal though. If you ever accept something that fundamentally makes no sense to you, out of trust or faith or being bashed on the head enough, you're risking being one of those dupes supporting something horrid by vacillating in your worm can. It's not necessarily so but it's a risk.

Indeed. There is a poster that said that if a majority of people looked at scripture one way and he looked at it a different way, that he would be worried. viewtopic.php?p=1120957#p1120957
Why why why would anyone look to the majority of people's opinion as a reason to call something true? Ad populum fallacy indeed.

When I do take notice is when I think people aren't comparing notes. I think people are stupid but not crazy.

[2timothy316]

But this guy did a cocktail of drugs fell asleep at the wheel of a car and slammed into a family of 4, killing them all. Next they spend 22 years in prison. While in prison he became a nerdy intelligent Star Trek fan of the Bible. He is no longer that mainstream person and I have forgiven him for his past deeds because he is truly sorry. His debt to society is paid and he gets it now, as do I. Today, we are better friends than we ever were and we are nerdy Bible people together having a blast, living the way of life that we wanted to get away from so badly while we were younger. Never realizing how much protection that way of life was.

You're talking about rules. People see a rule and hate it, because they have never seen life without it, and they don't stop to think, "What would life be like, without this rule?" They just think they don't want to follow this rule, it is an inconvenience, and they don't think further than that. I don't think all Bible rules are good ones, but I'm not that guy who just goes, "muh freedom!" and reactively hates rules, either. People in modern day see it as a basic right to take drugs. I told one Libertarian who preached this to go move to the ghetto then, where the police never come and you can do drugs to your heart's content. They want it both ways. Ben Franklin may have said that he who chooses safety over liberty loses both and deserves neither, but these new age hipsters who want the safe society but at the same time, to ignore its rules, are something else.[/quote}I used to be a rebel. Like Marlon Brando in the Wild One. "What are you rebelling against?", Marlon replies, "What have you got?" This attitude might have killed me or put me in prison if I my friend didn't go to prison. When I learned of what happened to him, I took a close look at myself and thought, 'could that have been me?' Yes, it could have. I stepped back from the edge of the cliff. I experienced the 'free life', got my fill of it and I learned, it's not really free. What it is, is a short life. Those that survive it to their 40s and 50s look like they are in their 70s. Many are dead by their 60s. The things they did to their bodies in their 20s and 30s took years off their life. That's when I decided, rules are there to help, not hinder.

As far as the rules of the Bible goes, the way to live a life according to the Bible is to not look at it as a set of rules. There are rules in it but what is important is to look at the principle of the rule. Today, many do not like the rule against sex outside of marriage. Yet, this rule is a protection if followed. No one is going to die from not having sex. But, a person having sex with anyone they want with as many as they want can lead to disease and even death. Unwanted pregnancies lead to all sorts of problems. Especially those in poor countries. If there is a Bible rule, a person must find what it is trying to protect against. There is no principle that meant to harm mankind. Yet many take a rule and focus only on the rule. Jews in the first century did this and they still do it today. This in turn sends a bad message to those that don't know the Bible or it's purpose. They judge it based on the many actions of people following many rules that make no sense and don't have a protection or a benefit.

When looking at the rules of the Bible I'd suggest to also consider the time period. The rules for ancient Israel don't fit for today's christian. Take food restrictions for Jews in the Hebrew Scriptures. They seem odd to us today. Yet, if a person understands the rule for cooking chicken thoroughly today then they can understand the food restrictions of ancient Israel. There was no refrigerated transport of food from one place to another. Many countries around Israel fed their enemies bodies to pigs. Then ate the pigs...gross! It's also dangerous. So, now I follow any Bible rule even if I don't understand why at first. So far, the reason presents itself only after I follow it for a period of time. Then that is when I learn to follow the principle of that rule and learn that sometime the rule doesn't need to be followed in all situations. All of the Bible's rules have worked really well for me there hasn't been a single one that I have regretted following. The only harm that comes to me from following them comes from people that hate me for following them. Even then, so far it has only been words meant to hurt my feelings or someone stops associating with me. Don't worry, I'll live, unless some hateful nut job decides to kill me, but I'd die faithful to God and my resurrection would assured. So following the Bible's rules are still a benefit.

I'm too jaded to ever believe 100% that a druggo has reformed. The longer they seem normal, the more I'll trust, but it'll never ever be 100%. I think normal people outside of religion do reform. I once met a former police officer who got into the evidence locker because everyone else was doing it, and he alone just could not stop. He basically took all the drugs, got caught, and that was the end of him being a cop forever. His life fell apart. When I met him he was already clean and back together and working as a handyman. He told me, never again. He'd been clean for almost a decade so I tend to believe it. But these people, crackheads and alcoholics mainly, not just people joyriding on mushrooms or whatever... one drop of their drug is all it takes.

Drugs are a powerful vice. I'm glad that I stopped in my youth before I got into something that the body becomes chemically addicted to. I have seen people get out from underneath it and I have seen people return to it. I have seen it so often I can tell the ones that will make an the ones that will not. The ones that make it are the ones that don't let themselves go back to their old drug using friends. There is a principle for this in the Bible, "Do not be misled. Bad associations spoil useful habits." 1 Cor 15:33. Those that stay busy and will not allow themselves to associate with those that misuse drugs or alcohol do well. If they truly don't want to stay away deep in their heart, they stay sober easier than a person that plants themselves right back with the kind of people they use to hang out with.

I welcome intelligent scrutiny. Not hateful opinion based garbage. This is why avoid the C&A forum.

I'm trying to reform it. The rules don't cover everything and the phenomenon you're describing is something that definitely happens, but it would be so hard to deem the people doing it as rulebreakers that it's not going to happen without the people caught believing (maybe justly imo) that they were punished wrongly.

I want to see if people can be nudged toward actually reasoning, the way I do, with understanding and acceptance and maybe they don't actually have to be beaten into it. I don't think it's possible but that doesn't excuse me from trying. And I may be pleasantly surprised. If someone is using reason and evidence as a dogmatic tagline, I want to show them what it can be when it's not a tagline. Maybe they don't accept it. I tend to believe your Hebrews 12:11 thing which seems to be implying that people don't change unless they get a negative consequence now and again.

But I have this wish that people are cats and not dogs. Dogs, you kind of have to be rough with them. You don't have to beat them but you absolutely do have to be harsh, enforce every time, and make sure the consequences of bad behaviour cannot be escaped. But you don't punish a cat. The cat will not associate what it did with the punishment. The cat will associate you with the punishment and retreat, growing to hate you. The way you bring a cat toward good behaviour is just understanding and acceptance.

I have 1 dog so I can sell my cats as "good with dogs" and I think I love my dog, but I hate dealing with it. I hate that I have to be so harsh. I hate that every little thing, the dog will test and test and test if it can get away with it, to the point that I feel like a monster for not letting the dog get away with it, because it will find ways to make the infraction so minor, always, always testing, so that I really should feel like a monster for enforcing. The dog thinks nothing but that it wants every little thing it can get, and it isn't capable of following a rule because it should. I want to believe that people aren't like this, or at least, not all of them.

I wish you well with that! LOL! Reasonableness is not a word I'd use to describe the C&A forum. I have found the biggest reason a person becomes reasonable is after they have suffered a PTS event. Loss of a loved one, prison, witnessing violence, coming close to dying and other major life events can shake a person out of their dogmatic mindset. This doesn't guarantee they will stay reasonable though. I'd say 75% of the time the person goes back to what I call 'asleep'. Closing their eyes to all the things that made sense a month ago but now they throw it away like trash. Its heartbreaking to watch a person go back to their old way of thinking. I don't think I have ever talked a person into being reasonable. I'm not sure I have ever seen it done just by talking or when I think I've seen it, see it last long. The next day they are back to saying what they said before. It's always been the person themselves that talks themselves into being reasonable. Comes back to humility and a determination to truly learn something. I've tried the harsh approach (the stick) and the nice approach (the carrot) and watched both fail due to the person simply not wanting to change their thinking habits.

By being introspective and scrutinizing myself, as you have pointed out, before I say or do something. This saves me from eating crow all the time. This all leads to a healing. I heal my relationships and heal myself by being more thoughtful.

My views are very, very reasoned, but when it comes to saying things, sometimes I'm a hothead. I'm getting better at this but sometimes I just see red and can't hold it in anymore, especially when I know full well that someone is an unreasoning idiot and usually he's chastising someone else, and I do exactly what your Proverbs 9:7 thing warns about, and I get in trouble for it. All I hope is, I got through to the person I was trying to save from being torn apart unfairly. I think it makes a difference. I think it's the last glowing ember of chivalry. And it absolutely won't happen but if enough people started doing it, it really would turn the world around. Top-down is not the way. Our leaders are the worst of us. Bottom-up is the only path. For every bully, there are six or seven people he's cowed into misery who wish someone would just bloody say something. And it hurts. Words are sharper than swords, now, and inflict more damage. But the big secret is that because this is so, because you get cut up worse and get less recognition because you never put yourself in danger of real harm (so they think, so they say), you're every bit as good as a warrior in armour if you do it. So I don't think chivalry is dead, it's just... had its limbs cut off and is currently bleeding out.

JWs certainly have their share of being bullied by governments and people in general. It's hard not to say something to someone who is saying lies about us. I mean, I know the hearts of the majority of JWs because I share the same kind of heart. Its like a person saying lies about someone you love and you want to rush in and set matters straight. But, many don't know this but we as JWs are actually counseled not to do this. When you see something on TV that is a lie about Jehovah's Witnesses you don't see some member from the Governing Body march themselves to a press conference to confront a lie said about us in the media. Here is why, "Further, reject foolish and ignorant debates, knowing that they produce fights. For a slave of the Lord does not need to fight, but needs to be gentle toward all, qualified to teach, showing restraint when wronged, instructing with mildness those not favorably disposed. Perhaps God may give them repentance leading to an accurate knowledge of truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the Devil, seeing that they have been caught alive by him to do his will." - 2 Timothy 23-26. I will admit, easier said than done. But I continue to try to follow this because the result may be, "God may give them repentance leading to an accurate knowledge of truth." This is what I want for people so I will keep trying to do what this says.

It might seem like a effort in futility but we press on because we believe even if talk to a million people but just one come to love Jehovah and lives forever, then it was worth the billions of hours that millions of people put into save one person.

It might not be a pure positive though. You might see it as a gamble you can only win, albeit an unlikely win, but you might very well have one or two people finding your religion naturally, who are instead, in this timeline, turned off to it permanently precisely because of the door-to-door stuff. It might still be the way to go if you're getting people, like you are in Africa. But if you've been fishing a lake until it's bone dry, you have to wonder if your nets are doing any damage.

There are those that find Jehovah on their own. There are those that are brought in because there was someone who cared enough to come to them. In either case. JWs believe the method is not what draws a person to Jehovah God. Matthew 13:44-49 describes that it is a discerning person that sees that they have found something of value. It also says there is more than one way a person comes across the Good News. Some will just stubble on to it. Some will seek it. Some will be picked out after someone searching for them. The door to door work does indeed turn some away, that is ok because the person that is looking for truth will not care. Just like if a hand sized rock came into your possession but after you examined it you see that its not just a rock but a sold piece of gold ore. You're rich! I don't think you'd care if you found it in a field or if someone came by your door and gave it to you for keeps. Of course, you're correct, these days most people just see a dumb ol' rock. I think this is because of so much worthless crap shoved in people's faces. Robo calls, SPAM email, etc. That doesn't help us but still we go. If nothing else, we enjoy each other's company while riding in the car or walking together with friends when we go out in field service and some days that's all we get and that is still worth it. Plus there is Hebrews 6:10 that says that God remembers our efforts and that can't hurt.

I talk to many that think mankind can turn it around somehow. That everyone is going to get it together like in Star Trek. But even in Star Trek lore mankind almost comes to it's end in the 21st century due to its hubris. I was right there with you in the 90s saying much of the same thing.

I think that can happen, in theory, but it won't. I think we idiocracy'd ourselves out of that option, but we'll see. The vast majority who don't introspect enough to see their leaders are eating them like cattle... just have to die. And they can't die in concentration camps or the like - nobody can kill them off - because that leaves somebody to blame and in a generation, history will turn against whoever did it as soon as the world is out of danger again. They have to die and it has to be natural, so they have to keep the reins and just run the world into the ground. If the prescient can just wait it out somehow, maybe things can be better.

And I know this is Nazi-ish but when and if it does happen, people need to take that moment where they come out the other end, realise what buys the safe world, and make sure that stupid people aren't born in such overwhelming numbers that they hand the world over the the worst of us by being an exploitable, vacillating can of worms. I sadly see it as largely a matter of IQ, but runaway rewarding of irresponsibility doesn't help. People need to be smart, and they need to be taught to act it.

Will it happen? No. But is there a way? Sure.

Well, you're more right than you know. You're 100% correct that mankind can't be the ones that make this decision. Psalm 37:10 says the wicked will be no more. We will actually try to find a wicked person and will not be able to find one. Now, I know that there are those on the fence about if there is a God or not and might wince at the thought of an uncountable number people to die. However, lets move past that for just a moment and think hypothetically. If a person saw everything the Bible said about the last days, the Great Tribulation and Armeggoddon come true before their eyes and now had concrete proof that God does exist. Then one would have to come to realize that the entire universe was created and if such a thing as the whole universe and everything in it could come from the mind of that creator, wouldn't it be wise to trust that they could figure out who should live and who should be cut off from the world? Can't be mankind's decision for sure.

They can only help themselves but it will probably take many self-made disasters before they take note that their life formula isn't working. Even then many will not get it before something they put into motion out of ignorance of refusal to listen ruins them.

I don't hope they'll change, because I don't see it as very possible. I'll still try but at this point, it's a wish, as in, I wish I could fly, not even a hope. I know it's horrid but I hope they'll just die. It's on the level of hoping a horse that won't drink thirsts to death, because what I hope won't happen is people keep wasting their time and effort as well as yours and mine, convincing everyone through moral head-bashing that tying the horse down and funneling water down its throat is a moral obligation. I hope the people doing this run out of resources and people to footstool for them.

I view it like a person that has won the lottery. All they have to do is come claim the prize. I will not try to convince them they are a winner for very long. They either come or they don't. Or like hurricane warnings, the warning isn't a waste of time to post, its up to the individual to act on it and decide if acting is a waste of their time. From my view point, Im just waiting on paradise on earth and the end of suffering on the earth. Between now and then what else am I going to do with my time? Become a millionaire just to see that money become worthless? Become a doctor only for God to cure all disease even reverse death? I might as well use my time and serve as a spokesperson that everyone has an opportunity to live in a paradise if they act right. Those that don't want that, I might as well use my time to serve as a warning of what the alternative is. Of course I don't use every minute of my day. I do like video games and fishing.

"you are worth more than many sparrows.” Matthew 10:29-31

I hate to say it but I'm on the Devil's side here, unless I see much different. We made a world that selected for trash and we became trash. The reasoned few are demonised. The unreasoned moralisers are exalted. I hope if any of this is real, I'm called to fight against humanity after I die, and what I'll fight for will be me and the rest of the apes being atheist dead and God not putting crowns of glory on monkeys, or pearls on swine again.

But if you're my enemy when we meet then, you'll get an honest fight. Nobody will be posing. Nobody will be greedy-grubbing, manipulating, or engaging in sophistry. Just, an honest fight, for what we each believe is right. I think that used to happen on Earth and it doesn't anymore, and maybe never will again.

I understand where you're coming from and the justice you like to see carried out. I want to see justice too. I feel a lot more wishful than you but I also am surrounded by many loving people and that dulls the edge of the nastiness of the world a bit. Thus I guess I will continue to see some value in everyone until the day Jehovah comes and says otherwise by removing them from the face of the earth.

2 Chronicles 32:8 Jehovah said that He would fight for Hezekiah and that no man was going to have to do the fighting. So, it is my belief and every JWs belief is one that makes themselves our enemies and enemies of the earth makes themselves God's enemy. (Revelation 11:18) Even though we are JWs, we are not qualified to make choices as to who lives and who dies. We are Witnesses for Jehovah not soldiers. That job will fall to His Son and his angelic millions which whether everyone knows/believes it or not, it is better they are judged by God and His Son rather than other person. I'm certainly glad I don't have to do it.

Really, both dogmas yield the same result, people making their own way in the world the way they think is best with little or no guidance from anyone or anything.

Atheists can be pretty dogmatic. Guidance has to be personal though. If you ever accept something that fundamentally makes no sense to you, out of trust or faith or being bashed on the head enough, you're risking being one of those dupes supporting something horrid by vacillating in your worm can. It's not necessarily so but it's a risk.

There is faith/trust and their is credulity. Example: A stranger that claims he a member of a well known religious group. He hands you a piece of fruit and says, 'it will make you life forever'. If you eat that fruit base just on the fact they are a member of a well know religon then this would be a credulous act. On the other hand. Your best friend you have known for years comes up to you and hands you a piece of fruit and says. 'you'll like this'. This is not the first time he has given you something tasty to eat. So you eat it. This is an act of faith/trust.

I personally don't take many credulity risks. I can't think of the last time I did. Especially if it's going to risk harm to myself or others. Those that do, I agree and it has happened before in history, they could end up serving a horrible purpose.

Indeed. There is a poster that said that if a majority of people looked at scripture one way and he looked at it a different way, that he would be worried. viewtopic.php?p=1120957#p1120957
Why why why would anyone look to the majority of people's opinion as a reason to call something true? Ad populum fallacy indeed.

When I do take notice is when I think people aren't comparing notes. I think people are stupid but not crazy.

I find most people are just lazy.

[2timothy316]

But this guy did a cocktail of drugs fell asleep at the wheel of a car and slammed into a family of 4, killing them all. Next they spend 22 years in prison. While in prison he became a nerdy intelligent Star Trek fan of the Bible. He is no longer that mainstream person and I have forgiven him for his past deeds because he is truly sorry. His debt to society is paid and he gets it now, as do I. Today, we are better friends than we ever were and we are nerdy Bible people together having a blast, living the way of life that we wanted to get away from so badly while we were younger. Never realizing how much protection that way of life was.

You're talking about rules. People see a rule and hate it, because they have never seen life without it, and they don't stop to think, "What would life be like, without this rule?" They just think they don't want to follow this rule, it is an inconvenience, and they don't think further than that. I don't think all Bible rules are good ones, but I'm not that guy who just goes, "muh freedom!" and reactively hates rules, either. People in modern day see it as a basic right to take drugs. I told one Libertarian who preached this to go move to the ghetto then, where the police never come and you can do drugs to your heart's content. They want it both ways. Ben Franklin may have said that he who chooses safety over liberty loses both and deserves neither, but these new age hipsters who want the safe society but at the same time, to ignore its rules, are something else.[/quote}I used to be a rebel. Like Marlon Brando in the Wild One. "What are you rebelling against?", Marlon replies, "What have you got?" This attitude might have killed me or put me in prison if I my friend didn't go to prison. When I learned of what happened to him, I took a close look at myself and thought, 'could that have been me?' Yes, it could have. I stepped back from the edge of the cliff. I experienced the 'free life', got my fill of it and I learned, it's not really free. What it is, is a short life. Those that survive it to their 40s and 50s look like they are in their 70s. Many are dead by their 60s. The things they did to their bodies in their 20s and 30s took years off their life. That's when I decided, rules are there to help, not hinder.

As far as the rules of the Bible goes, the way to live a life according to the Bible is to not look at it as a set of rules. There are rules in it but what is important is to look at the principle of the rule. Today, many do not like the rule against sex outside of marriage. Yet, this rule is a protection if followed. No one is going to die from not having sex. But, a person having sex with anyone they want with as many as they want can lead to disease and even death. Unwanted pregnancies lead to all sorts of problems. Especially those in poor countries. If there is a Bible rule, a person must find what it is trying to protect against. There is no principle that meant to harm mankind. Yet many take a rule and focus only on the rule. Jews in the first century did this and they still do it today. This in turn sends a bad message to those that don't know the Bible or it's purpose. They judge it based on the many actions of people following many rules that make no sense and don't have a protection or a benefit.

When looking at the rules of the Bible I'd suggest to also consider the time period. The rules for ancient Israel don't fit for today's christian. Take food restrictions for Jews in the Hebrew Scriptures. They seem odd to us today. Yet, if a person understands the rule for cooking chicken thoroughly today then they can understand the food restrictions of ancient Israel. There was no refrigerated transport of food from one place to another. Many countries around Israel fed their enemies bodies to pigs. Then ate the pigs...gross! It's also dangerous. So, now I follow any Bible rule even if I don't understand why at first. So far, the reason presents itself only after I follow it for a period of time. Then that is when I learn to follow the principle of that rule and learn that sometime the rule doesn't need to be followed in all situations. All of the Bible's rules have worked really well for me there hasn't been a single one that I have regretted following. The only harm that comes to me from following them comes from people that hate me for following them. Even then, so far it has only been words meant to hurt my feelings or someone stops associating with me. Don't worry, I'll live, unless some hateful nut job decides to kill me, but I'd die faithful to God and my resurrection would assured. So following the Bible's rules are still a benefit.

I'm too jaded to ever believe 100% that a druggo has reformed. The longer they seem normal, the more I'll trust, but it'll never ever be 100%. I think normal people outside of religion do reform. I once met a former police officer who got into the evidence locker because everyone else was doing it, and he alone just could not stop. He basically took all the drugs, got caught, and that was the end of him being a cop forever. His life fell apart. When I met him he was already clean and back together and working as a handyman. He told me, never again. He'd been clean for almost a decade so I tend to believe it. But these people, crackheads and alcoholics mainly, not just people joyriding on mushrooms or whatever... one drop of their drug is all it takes.

Drugs are a powerful vice. I'm glad that I stopped in my youth before I got into something that the body becomes chemically addicted to. I have seen people get out from underneath it and I have seen people return to it. I have seen it so often I can tell the ones that will make an the ones that will not. The ones that make it are the ones that don't let themselves go back to their old drug using friends. There is a principle for this in the Bible, "Do not be misled. Bad associations spoil useful habits." 1 Cor 15:33. Those that stay busy and will not allow themselves to associate with those that misuse drugs or alcohol do well. If they truly don't want to stay away deep in their heart, they stay sober easier than a person that plants themselves right back with the kind of people they use to hang out with.

I welcome intelligent scrutiny. Not hateful opinion based garbage. This is why avoid the C&A forum.

I'm trying to reform it. The rules don't cover everything and the phenomenon you're describing is something that definitely happens, but it would be so hard to deem the people doing it as rulebreakers that it's not going to happen without the people caught believing (maybe justly imo) that they were punished wrongly.

I want to see if people can be nudged toward actually reasoning, the way I do, with understanding and acceptance and maybe they don't actually have to be beaten into it. I don't think it's possible but that doesn't excuse me from trying. And I may be pleasantly surprised. If someone is using reason and evidence as a dogmatic tagline, I want to show them what it can be when it's not a tagline. Maybe they don't accept it. I tend to believe your Hebrews 12:11 thing which seems to be implying that people don't change unless they get a negative consequence now and again.

But I have this wish that people are cats and not dogs. Dogs, you kind of have to be rough with them. You don't have to beat them but you absolutely do have to be harsh, enforce every time, and make sure the consequences of bad behaviour cannot be escaped. But you don't punish a cat. The cat will not associate what it did with the punishment. The cat will associate you with the punishment and retreat, growing to hate you. The way you bring a cat toward good behaviour is just understanding and acceptance.

I have 1 dog so I can sell my cats as "good with dogs" and I think I love my dog, but I hate dealing with it. I hate that I have to be so harsh. I hate that every little thing, the dog will test and test and test if it can get away with it, to the point that I feel like a monster for not letting the dog get away with it, because it will find ways to make the infraction so minor, always, always testing, so that I really should feel like a monster for enforcing. The dog thinks nothing but that it wants every little thing it can get, and it isn't capable of following a rule because it should. I want to believe that people aren't like this, or at least, not all of them.

I wish you well with that! LOL! Reasonableness is not a word I'd use to describe the C&A forum. I have found the biggest reason a person becomes reasonable is after they have suffered a PTS event. Loss of a loved one, prison, witnessing violence, coming close to dying and other major life events can shake a person out of their dogmatic mindset. This doesn't guarantee they will stay reasonable though. I'd say 75% of the time the person goes back to what I call 'asleep'. Closing their eyes to all the things that made sense a month ago but now they throw it away like trash. Its heartbreaking to watch a person go back to their old way of thinking. I don't think I have ever talked a person into being reasonable. I'm not sure I have ever seen it done just by talking or when I think I've seen it, see it last long. The next day they are back to saying what they said before. It's always been the person themselves that talks themselves into being reasonable. Comes back to humility and a determination to truly learn something. I've tried the harsh approach (the stick) and the nice approach (the carrot) and watched both fail due to the person simply not wanting to change their thinking habits.

By being introspective and scrutinizing myself, as you have pointed out, before I say or do something. This saves me from eating crow all the time. This all leads to a healing. I heal my relationships and heal myself by being more thoughtful.

My views are very, very reasoned, but when it comes to saying things, sometimes I'm a hothead. I'm getting better at this but sometimes I just see red and can't hold it in anymore, especially when I know full well that someone is an unreasoning idiot and usually he's chastising someone else, and I do exactly what your Proverbs 9:7 thing warns about, and I get in trouble for it. All I hope is, I got through to the person I was trying to save from being torn apart unfairly. I think it makes a difference. I think it's the last glowing ember of chivalry. And it absolutely won't happen but if enough people started doing it, it really would turn the world around. Top-down is not the way. Our leaders are the worst of us. Bottom-up is the only path. For every bully, there are six or seven people he's cowed into misery who wish someone would just bloody say something. And it hurts. Words are sharper than swords, now, and inflict more damage. But the big secret is that because this is so, because you get cut up worse and get less recognition because you never put yourself in danger of real harm (so they think, so they say), you're every bit as good as a warrior in armour if you do it. So I don't think chivalry is dead, it's just... had its limbs cut off and is currently bleeding out.

JWs certainly have their share of being bullied by governments and people in general. It's hard not to say something to someone who is saying lies about us. I mean, I know the hearts of the majority of JWs because I share the same kind of heart. Its like a person saying lies about someone you love and you want to rush in and set matters straight. But, many don't know this but we as JWs are actually counseled not to do this. When you see something on TV that is a lie about Jehovah's Witnesses you don't see some member from the Governing Body march themselves to a press conference to confront a lie said about us in the media. Here is why, "Further, reject foolish and ignorant debates, knowing that they produce fights. For a slave of the Lord does not need to fight, but needs to be gentle toward all, qualified to teach, showing restraint when wronged, instructing with mildness those not favorably disposed. Perhaps God may give them repentance leading to an accurate knowledge of truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the Devil, seeing that they have been caught alive by him to do his will." - 2 Timothy 23-26. I will admit, easier said than done. But I continue to try to follow this because the result may be, "God may give them repentance leading to an accurate knowledge of truth." This is what I want for people so I will keep trying to do what this says.

It might seem like a effort in futility but we press on because we believe even if talk to a million people but just one come to love Jehovah and lives forever, then it was worth the billions of hours that millions of people put into save one person.

It might not be a pure positive though. You might see it as a gamble you can only win, albeit an unlikely win, but you might very well have one or two people finding your religion naturally, who are instead, in this timeline, turned off to it permanently precisely because of the door-to-door stuff. It might still be the way to go if you're getting people, like you are in Africa. But if you've been fishing a lake until it's bone dry, you have to wonder if your nets are doing any damage.

There are those that find Jehovah on their own. There are those that are brought in because there was someone who cared enough to come to them. In either case. JWs believe the method is not what draws a person to Jehovah God. Matthew 13:44-49 describes that it is a discerning person that sees that they have found something of value. It also says there is more than one way a person comes across the Good News. Some will just stubble on to it. Some will seek it. Some will be picked out after someone searching for them. The door to door work does indeed turn some away, that is ok because the person that is looking for truth will not care. Just like if a hand sized rock came into your possession but after you examined it you see that its not just a rock but a sold piece of gold ore. You're rich! I don't think you'd care if you found it in a field or if someone came by your door and gave it to you for keeps. Of course, you're correct, these days most people just see a dumb ol' rock. I think this is because of so much worthless crap shoved in people's faces. Robo calls, SPAM email, etc. That doesn't help us but still we go. If nothing else, we enjoy each other's company while riding in the car or walking together with friends when we go out in field service and some days that's all we get and that is still worth it. Plus there is Hebrews 6:10 that says that God remembers our efforts and that can't hurt.

I talk to many that think mankind can turn it around somehow. That everyone is going to get it together like in Star Trek. But even in Star Trek lore mankind almost comes to it's end in the 21st century due to its hubris. I was right there with you in the 90s saying much of the same thing.

I think that can happen, in theory, but it won't. I think we idiocracy'd ourselves out of that option, but we'll see. The vast majority who don't introspect enough to see their leaders are eating them like cattle... just have to die. And they can't die in concentration camps or the like - nobody can kill them off - because that leaves somebody to blame and in a generation, history will turn against whoever did it as soon as the world is out of danger again. They have to die and it has to be natural, so they have to keep the reins and just run the world into the ground. If the prescient can just wait it out somehow, maybe things can be better.

And I know this is Nazi-ish but when and if it does happen, people need to take that moment where they come out the other end, realise what buys the safe world, and make sure that stupid people aren't born in such overwhelming numbers that they hand the world over the the worst of us by being an exploitable, vacillating can of worms. I sadly see it as largely a matter of IQ, but runaway rewarding of irresponsibility doesn't help. People need to be smart, and they need to be taught to act it.

Will it happen? No. But is there a way? Sure.

Well, you're more right than you know. You're 100% correct that mankind can't be the ones that make this decision. Psalm 37:10 says the wicked will be no more. We will actually try to find a wicked person and will not be able to find one. Now, I know that there are those on the fence about if there is a God or not and might wince at the thought of an uncountable number people to die. However, lets move past that for just a moment and think hypothetically. If a person saw everything the Bible said about the last days, the Great Tribulation and Armeggoddon come true before their eyes and now had concrete proof that God does exist. Then one would have to come to realize that the entire universe was created and if such a thing as the whole universe and everything in it could come from the mind of that creator, wouldn't it be wise to trust that they could figure out who should live and who should be cut off from the world? Can't be mankind's decision for sure.

They can only help themselves but it will probably take many self-made disasters before they take note that their life formula isn't working. Even then many will not get it before something they put into motion out of ignorance of refusal to listen ruins them.

I don't hope they'll change, because I don't see it as very possible. I'll still try but at this point, it's a wish, as in, I wish I could fly, not even a hope. I know it's horrid but I hope they'll just die. It's on the level of hoping a horse that won't drink thirsts to death, because what I hope won't happen is people keep wasting their time and effort as well as yours and mine, convincing everyone through moral head-bashing that tying the horse down and funneling water down its throat is a moral obligation. I hope the people doing this run out of resources and people to footstool for them.

I view it like a person that has won the lottery. All they have to do is come claim the prize. I will not try to convince them they are a winner for very long. They either come or they don't. Or like hurricane warnings, the warning isn't a waste of time to post, its up to the individual to act on it and decide if acting is a waste of their time. From my view point, Im just waiting on paradise on earth and the end of suffering on the earth. Between now and then what else am I going to do with my time? Become a millionaire just to see that money become worthless? Become a doctor only for God to cure all disease even reverse death? I might as well use my time and serve as a spokesperson that everyone has an opportunity to live in a paradise if they act right. Those that don't want that, I might as well use my time to serve as a warning of what the alternative is. Of course I don't use every minute of my day. I do like video games and fishing.

"you are worth more than many sparrows.” Matthew 10:29-31

I hate to say it but I'm on the Devil's side here, unless I see much different. We made a world that selected for trash and we became trash. The reasoned few are demonised. The unreasoned moralisers are exalted. I hope if any of this is real, I'm called to fight against humanity after I die, and what I'll fight for will be me and the rest of the apes being atheist dead and God not putting crowns of glory on monkeys, or pearls on swine again.

But if you're my enemy when we meet then, you'll get an honest fight. Nobody will be posing. Nobody will be greedy-grubbing, manipulating, or engaging in sophistry. Just, an honest fight, for what we each believe is right. I think that used to happen on Earth and it doesn't anymore, and maybe never will again.

I understand where you're coming from and the justice you like to see carried out. I want to see justice too. I feel a lot more wishful than you but I also am surrounded by many loving people and that dulls the edge of the nastiness of the world a bit. Thus I guess I will continue to see some value in everyone until the day Jehovah comes and says otherwise by removing them from the face of the earth.

2 Chronicles 32:8 Jehovah said that He would fight for Hezekiah and that no man was going to have to do the fighting. So, it is my belief and every JWs belief is one that makes themselves our enemies and enemies of the earth makes themselves God's enemy. (Revelation 11:18) Even though we are JWs, we are not qualified to make choices as to who lives and who dies. We are Witnesses for Jehovah not soldiers. That job will fall to His Son and his angelic millions which whether everyone knows/believes it or not, it is better they are judged by God and His Son rather than other person. I'm certainly glad I don't have to do it.

Really, both dogmas yield the same result, people making their own way in the world the way they think is best with little or no guidance from anyone or anything.

Atheists can be pretty dogmatic. Guidance has to be personal though. If you ever accept something that fundamentally makes no sense to you, out of trust or faith or being bashed on the head enough, you're risking being one of those dupes supporting something horrid by vacillating in your worm can. It's not necessarily so but it's a risk.

There is faith/trust and their is credulity. Example: A stranger that claims he a member of a well known religious group. He hands you a piece of fruit and says, 'it will make you life forever'. If you eat that fruit base just on the fact they are a member of a well know religon then this would be a credulous act. On the other hand. Your best friend you have known for years comes up to you and hands you a piece of fruit and says. 'you'll like this'. This is not the first time he has given you something tasty to eat. So you eat it. This is an act of faith/trust.

I personally don't take many credulity risks. I can't think of the last time I did. Especially if it's going to risk harm to myself or others. Those that do, I agree and it has happened before in history, they could end up serving a horrible purpose.

Indeed. There is a poster that said that if a majority of people looked at scripture one way and he looked at it a different way, that he would be worried. viewtopic.php?p=1120957#p1120957
Why why why would anyone look to the majority of people's opinion as a reason to call something true? Ad populum fallacy indeed.

When I do take notice is when I think people aren't comparing notes. I think people are stupid but not crazy.

I find most people are just lazy.

[2timothy316]

But this guy did a cocktail of drugs fell asleep at the wheel of a car and slammed into a family of 4, killing them all. Next they spend 22 years in prison. While in prison he became a nerdy intelligent Star Trek fan of the Bible. He is no longer that mainstream person and I have forgiven him for his past deeds because he is truly sorry. His debt to society is paid and he gets it now, as do I. Today, we are better friends than we ever were and we are nerdy Bible people together having a blast, living the way of life that we wanted to get away from so badly while we were younger. Never realizing how much protection that way of life was.

You're talking about rules. People see a rule and hate it, because they have never seen life without it, and they don't stop to think, "What would life be like, without this rule?" They just think they don't want to follow this rule, it is an inconvenience, and they don't think further than that. I don't think all Bible rules are good ones, but I'm not that guy who just goes, "muh freedom!" and reactively hates rules, either. People in modern day see it as a basic right to take drugs. I told one Libertarian who preached this to go move to the ghetto then, where the police never come and you can do drugs to your heart's content. They want it both ways. Ben Franklin may have said that he who chooses safety over liberty loses both and deserves neither, but these new age hipsters who want the safe society but at the same time, to ignore its rules, are something else.

I used to be a rebel. Like Marlon Brando in the Wild One. "What are you rebelling against?", Marlon replies, "What have you got?" This attitude might have killed me or put me in prison if I my friend didn't go to prison. When I learned of what happened to him, I took a close look at myself and thought, 'could that have been me?' Yes, it could have. I stepped back from the edge of the cliff. I experienced the 'free life', got my fill of it and I learned, it's not really free. What it is, is a short life. Those that survive it to their 40s and 50s look like they are in their 70s. Many are dead by their 60s. The things they did to their bodies in their 20s and 30s took years off their life. That's when I decided, rules are there to help, not hinder.

As far as the rules of the Bible goes, the way to live a life according to the Bible is to not look at it as a set of rules. There are rules in it but what is important is to look at the principle of the rule. Today, many do not like the rule against sex outside of marriage. Yet, this rule is a protection if followed. No one is going to die from not having sex. But, a person having sex with anyone they want with as many as they want can lead to disease and even death. Unwanted pregnancies lead to all sorts of problems. Especially those in poor countries. If there is a Bible rule, a person must find what it is trying to protect against. There is no principle that meant to harm mankind. Yet many take a rule and focus only on the rule. Jews in the first century did this and they still do it today. This in turn sends a bad message to those that don't know the Bible or it's purpose. They judge it based on the many actions of people following many rules that make no sense and don't have a protection or a benefit.

When looking at the rules of the Bible I'd suggest to also consider the time period. The rules for ancient Israel don't fit for today's christian. Take food restrictions for Jews in the Hebrew Scriptures. They seem odd to us today. Yet, if a person understands the rule for cooking chicken thoroughly today then they can understand the food restrictions of ancient Israel. There was no refrigerated transport of food from one place to another. Many countries around Israel fed their enemies bodies to pigs. Then ate the pigs...gross! It's also dangerous. So, now I follow any Bible rule even if I don't understand why at first. So far, the reason presents itself only after I follow it for a period of time. Then that is when I learn to follow the principle of that rule and learn that sometime the rule doesn't need to be followed in all situations. All of the Bible's rules have worked really well for me there hasn't been a single one that I have regretted following. The only harm that comes to me from following them comes from people that hate me for following them. Even then, so far it has only been words meant to hurt my feelings or someone stops associating with me. Don't worry, I'll live, unless some hateful nut job decides to kill me, but I'd die faithful to God and my resurrection would assured. So following the Bible's rules are still a benefit.

I'm too jaded to ever believe 100% that a druggo has reformed. The longer they seem normal, the more I'll trust, but it'll never ever be 100%. I think normal people outside of religion do reform. I once met a former police officer who got into the evidence locker because everyone else was doing it, and he alone just could not stop. He basically took all the drugs, got caught, and that was the end of him being a cop forever. His life fell apart. When I met him he was already clean and back together and working as a handyman. He told me, never again. He'd been clean for almost a decade so I tend to believe it. But these people, crackheads and alcoholics mainly, not just people joyriding on mushrooms or whatever... one drop of their drug is all it takes.

Drugs are a powerful vice. I'm glad that I stopped in my youth before I got into something that the body becomes chemically addicted to. I have seen people get out from underneath it and I have seen people return to it. I have seen it so often I can tell the ones that will make an the ones that will not. The ones that make it are the ones that don't let themselves go back to their old drug using friends. There is a principle for this in the Bible, "Do not be misled. Bad associations spoil useful habits." 1 Cor 15:33. Those that stay busy and will not allow themselves to associate with those that misuse drugs or alcohol do well. If they truly don't want to stay away deep in their heart, they stay sober easier than a person that plants themselves right back with the kind of people they use to hang out with.

I welcome intelligent scrutiny. Not hateful opinion based garbage. This is why avoid the C&A forum.

I'm trying to reform it. The rules don't cover everything and the phenomenon you're describing is something that definitely happens, but it would be so hard to deem the people doing it as rulebreakers that it's not going to happen without the people caught believing (maybe justly imo) that they were punished wrongly.

I want to see if people can be nudged toward actually reasoning, the way I do, with understanding and acceptance and maybe they don't actually have to be beaten into it. I don't think it's possible but that doesn't excuse me from trying. And I may be pleasantly surprised. If someone is using reason and evidence as a dogmatic tagline, I want to show them what it can be when it's not a tagline. Maybe they don't accept it. I tend to believe your Hebrews 12:11 thing which seems to be implying that people don't change unless they get a negative consequence now and again.

But I have this wish that people are cats and not dogs. Dogs, you kind of have to be rough with them. You don't have to beat them but you absolutely do have to be harsh, enforce every time, and make sure the consequences of bad behaviour cannot be escaped. But you don't punish a cat. The cat will not associate what it did with the punishment. The cat will associate you with the punishment and retreat, growing to hate you. The way you bring a cat toward good behaviour is just understanding and acceptance.

I have 1 dog so I can sell my cats as "good with dogs" and I think I love my dog, but I hate dealing with it. I hate that I have to be so harsh. I hate that every little thing, the dog will test and test and test if it can get away with it, to the point that I feel like a monster for not letting the dog get away with it, because it will find ways to make the infraction so minor, always, always testing, so that I really should feel like a monster for enforcing. The dog thinks nothing but that it wants every little thing it can get, and it isn't capable of following a rule because it should. I want to believe that people aren't like this, or at least, not all of them.

I wish you well with that! LOL! Reasonableness is not a word I'd use to describe the C&A forum. I have found the biggest reason a person becomes reasonable is after they have suffered a PTS event. Loss of a loved one, prison, witnessing violence, coming close to dying and other major life events can shake a person out of their dogmatic mindset. This doesn't guarantee they will stay reasonable though. I'd say 75% of the time the person goes back to what I call 'asleep'. Closing their eyes to all the things that made sense a month ago but now they throw it away like trash. Its heartbreaking to watch a person go back to their old way of thinking. I don't think I have ever talked a person into being reasonable. I'm not sure I have ever seen it done just by talking or when I think I've seen it, see it last long. The next day they are back to saying what they said before. It's always been the person themselves that talks themselves into being reasonable. Comes back to humility and a determination to truly learn something. I've tried the harsh approach (the stick) and the nice approach (the carrot) and watched both fail due to the person simply not wanting to change their thinking habits.

By being introspective and scrutinizing myself, as you have pointed out, before I say or do something. This saves me from eating crow all the time. This all leads to a healing. I heal my relationships and heal myself by being more thoughtful.

My views are very, very reasoned, but when it comes to saying things, sometimes I'm a hothead. I'm getting better at this but sometimes I just see red and can't hold it in anymore, especially when I know full well that someone is an unreasoning idiot and usually he's chastising someone else, and I do exactly what your Proverbs 9:7 thing warns about, and I get in trouble for it. All I hope is, I got through to the person I was trying to save from being torn apart unfairly. I think it makes a difference. I think it's the last glowing ember of chivalry. And it absolutely won't happen but if enough people started doing it, it really would turn the world around. Top-down is not the way. Our leaders are the worst of us. Bottom-up is the only path. For every bully, there are six or seven people he's cowed into misery who wish someone would just bloody say something. And it hurts. Words are sharper than swords, now, and inflict more damage. But the big secret is that because this is so, because you get cut up worse and get less recognition because you never put yourself in danger of real harm (so they think, so they say), you're every bit as good as a warrior in armour if you do it. So I don't think chivalry is dead, it's just... had its limbs cut off and is currently bleeding out.

JWs certainly have their share of being bullied by governments and people in general. It's hard not to say something to someone who is saying lies about us. I mean, I know the hearts of the majority of JWs because I share the same kind of heart. Its like a person saying lies about someone you love and you want to rush in and set matters straight. But, many don't know this but we as JWs are actually counseled not to do this. When you see something on TV that is a lie about Jehovah's Witnesses you don't see some member from the Governing Body march themselves to a press conference to confront a lie said about us in the media. Here is why, "Further, reject foolish and ignorant debates, knowing that they produce fights. For a slave of the Lord does not need to fight, but needs to be gentle toward all, qualified to teach, showing restraint when wronged, instructing with mildness those not favorably disposed. Perhaps God may give them repentance leading to an accurate knowledge of truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the Devil, seeing that they have been caught alive by him to do his will." - 2 Timothy 23-26. I will admit, easier said than done. But I continue to try to follow this because the result may be, "God may give them repentance leading to an accurate knowledge of truth." This is what I want for people so I will keep trying to do what this says.

It might seem like a effort in futility but we press on because we believe even if talk to a million people but just one come to love Jehovah and lives forever, then it was worth the billions of hours that millions of people put into save one person.

It might not be a pure positive though. You might see it as a gamble you can only win, albeit an unlikely win, but you might very well have one or two people finding your religion naturally, who are instead, in this timeline, turned off to it permanently precisely because of the door-to-door stuff. It might still be the way to go if you're getting people, like you are in Africa. But if you've been fishing a lake until it's bone dry, you have to wonder if your nets are doing any damage.

There are those that find Jehovah on their own. There are those that are brought in because there was someone who cared enough to come to them. In either case. JWs believe the method is not what draws a person to Jehovah God. Matthew 13:44-49 describes that it is a discerning person that sees that they have found something of value. It also says there is more than one way a person comes across the Good News. Some will just stubble on to it. Some will seek it. Some will be picked out after someone searching for them. The door to door work does indeed turn some away, that is ok because the person that is looking for truth will not care. Just like if a hand sized rock came into your possession but after you examined it you see that its not just a rock but a sold piece of gold ore. You're rich! I don't think you'd care if you found it in a field or if someone came by your door and gave it to you for keeps. Of course, you're correct, these days most people just see a dumb ol' rock. I think this is because of so much worthless crap shoved in people's faces. Robo calls, SPAM email, etc. That doesn't help us but still we go. If nothing else, we enjoy each other's company while riding in the car or walking together with friends when we go out in field service and some days that's all we get and that is still worth it. Plus there is Hebrews 6:10 that says that God remembers our efforts and that can't hurt.

I talk to many that think mankind can turn it around somehow. That everyone is going to get it together like in Star Trek. But even in Star Trek lore mankind almost comes to it's end in the 21st century due to its hubris. I was right there with you in the 90s saying much of the same thing.

I think that can happen, in theory, but it won't. I think we idiocracy'd ourselves out of that option, but we'll see. The vast majority who don't introspect enough to see their leaders are eating them like cattle... just have to die. And they can't die in concentration camps or the like - nobody can kill them off - because that leaves somebody to blame and in a generation, history will turn against whoever did it as soon as the world is out of danger again. They have to die and it has to be natural, so they have to keep the reins and just run the world into the ground. If the prescient can just wait it out somehow, maybe things can be better.

And I know this is Nazi-ish but when and if it does happen, people need to take that moment where they come out the other end, realise what buys the safe world, and make sure that stupid people aren't born in such overwhelming numbers that they hand the world over the the worst of us by being an exploitable, vacillating can of worms. I sadly see it as largely a matter of IQ, but runaway rewarding of irresponsibility doesn't help. People need to be smart, and they need to be taught to act it.

Will it happen? No. But is there a way? Sure.

Well, you're more right than you know. You're 100% correct that mankind can't be the ones that make this decision. Psalm 37:10 says the wicked will be no more. We will actually try to find a wicked person and will not be able to find one. Now, I know that there are those on the fence about if there is a God or not and might wince at the thought of an uncountable number people to die. However, lets move past that for just a moment and think hypothetically. If a person saw everything the Bible said about the last days, the Great Tribulation and Armeggoddon come true before their eyes and now had concrete proof that God does exist. Then one would have to come to realize that the entire universe was created and if such a thing as the whole universe and everything in it could come from the mind of that creator, wouldn't it be wise to trust that they could figure out who should live and who should be cut off from the world? Can't be mankind's decision for sure.

They can only help themselves but it will probably take many self-made disasters before they take note that their life formula isn't working. Even then many will not get it before something they put into motion out of ignorance of refusal to listen ruins them.

I don't hope they'll change, because I don't see it as very possible. I'll still try but at this point, it's a wish, as in, I wish I could fly, not even a hope. I know it's horrid but I hope they'll just die. It's on the level of hoping a horse that won't drink thirsts to death, because what I hope won't happen is people keep wasting their time and effort as well as yours and mine, convincing everyone through moral head-bashing that tying the horse down and funneling water down its throat is a moral obligation. I hope the people doing this run out of resources and people to footstool for them.

I view it like a person that has won the lottery. All they have to do is come claim the prize. I will not try to convince them they are a winner for very long. They either come or they don't. Or like hurricane warnings, the warning isn't a waste of time to post, its up to the individual to act on it and decide if acting is a waste of their time. From my view point, Im just waiting on paradise on earth and the end of suffering on the earth. Between now and then what else am I going to do with my time? Become a millionaire just to see that money become worthless? Become a doctor only for God to cure all disease even reverse death? I might as well use my time and serve as a spokesperson that everyone has an opportunity to live in a paradise if they act right. Those that don't want that, I might as well use my time to serve as a warning of what the alternative is. Of course I don't use every minute of my day. I do like video games and fishing.

"you are worth more than many sparrows.” Matthew 10:29-31

I hate to say it but I'm on the Devil's side here, unless I see much different. We made a world that selected for trash and we became trash. The reasoned few are demonised. The unreasoned moralisers are exalted. I hope if any of this is real, I'm called to fight against humanity after I die, and what I'll fight for will be me and the rest of the apes being atheist dead and God not putting crowns of glory on monkeys, or pearls on swine again.

But if you're my enemy when we meet then, you'll get an honest fight. Nobody will be posing. Nobody will be greedy-grubbing, manipulating, or engaging in sophistry. Just, an honest fight, for what we each believe is right. I think that used to happen on Earth and it doesn't anymore, and maybe never will again.

I understand where you're coming from and the justice you like to see carried out. I want to see justice too. I feel a lot more wishful than you but I also am surrounded by many loving people and that dulls the edge of the nastiness of the world a bit. Thus I guess I will continue to see some value in everyone until the day Jehovah comes and says otherwise by removing them from the face of the earth.

2 Chronicles 32:8 Jehovah said that He would fight for Hezekiah and that no man was going to have to do the fighting. So, it is my belief and every JWs belief is one that makes themselves our enemies and enemies of the earth makes themselves God's enemy. (Revelation 11:18) Even though we are JWs, we are not qualified to make choices as to who lives and who dies. We are Witnesses for Jehovah not soldiers. That job will fall to His Son and his angelic millions which whether everyone knows/believes it or not, it is better they are judged by God and His Son rather than other person. I'm certainly glad I don't have to do it.

Really, both dogmas yield the same result, people making their own way in the world the way they think is best with little or no guidance from anyone or anything.

Atheists can be pretty dogmatic. Guidance has to be personal though. If you ever accept something that fundamentally makes no sense to you, out of trust or faith or being bashed on the head enough, you're risking being one of those dupes supporting something horrid by vacillating in your worm can. It's not necessarily so but it's a risk.

There is faith/trust and their is credulity. Example: A stranger that claims he a member of a well known religious group. He hands you a piece of fruit and says, 'it will make you life forever'. If you eat that fruit base just on the fact they are a member of a well know religon then this would be a credulous act. On the other hand. Your best friend you have known for years comes up to you and hands you a piece of fruit and says. 'you'll like this'. This is not the first time he has given you something tasty to eat. So you eat it. This is an act of faith/trust.

I personally don't take many credulity risks. I can't think of the last time I did. Especially if it's going to risk harm to myself or others. Those that do, I agree and it has happened before in history, they could end up serving a horrible purpose.

Indeed. There is a poster that said that if a majority of people looked at scripture one way and he looked at it a different way, that he would be worried. viewtopic.php?p=1120957#p1120957
Why why why would anyone look to the majority of people's opinion as a reason to call something true? Ad populum fallacy indeed.

When I do take notice is when I think people aren't comparing notes. I think people are stupid but not crazy.

I find most people are just lazy. Or maybe just comfortable where they are.
I mean you don't many jumping into this conversation. This is way too much to read for some.

[Purple Knight]

If there is a Bible rule, a person must find what it is trying to protect against.

In the case of the Jewish rules against certain foods, I think it's parasites and disease, and you can get that level of protection, if not higher, if you just cook your bloody food. Like, actually cook it. Not this:

If they truly don't want to stay away deep in their heart, they stay sober easier than a person that plants themselves right back with the kind of people they use to hang out with.

With alcohol this is putting people in a bad situation. Most men drink. So the choice is, give up all your friends and be alone, or try to be among them drinking and not drink, or just be an alcoholic. None of these is a good option. I tend to think alcohol should be illegal.

I'd say 75% of the time the person goes back to what I call 'asleep'.

This is a forum made with people who are not asleep in mind, so it really bugs me that this happens. If they're spewing that they're not asleep, there should be a way to latch onto that and show them where they are asleep. They're the ones thinking they're not asleep, saying they're not asleep.

JWs certainly have their share of being bullied by governments and people in general. It's hard not to say something to someone who is saying lies about us. I mean, I know the hearts of the majority of JWs because I share the same kind of heart. Its like a person saying lies about someone you love and you want to rush in and set matters straight. But, many don't know this but we as JWs are actually counseled not to do this. When you see something on TV that is a lie about Jehovah's Witnesses you don't see some member from the Governing Body march themselves to a press conference to confront a lie said about us in the media. Here is why, "Further, reject foolish and ignorant debates, knowing that they produce fights. For a slave of the Lord does not need to fight, but needs to be gentle toward all, qualified to teach, showing restraint when wronged, instructing with mildness those not favorably disposed. Perhaps God may give them repentance leading to an accurate knowledge of truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the Devil, seeing that they have been caught alive by him to do his will." - 2 Timothy 23-26. I will admit, easier said than done. But I continue to try to follow this because the result may be, "God may give them repentance leading to an accurate knowledge of truth." This is what I want for people so I will keep trying to do what this says.

I just feel bad not for the people fighting, but for the people who only see one side of the story because the people being bullied won't fight for theirs.

I think this is because of so much worthless crap shoved in people's faces. Robo calls, SPAM email, etc. That doesn't help us but still we go. If nothing else, we enjoy each other's company while riding in the car or walking together with friends when we go out in field service and some days that's all we get and that is still worth it. Plus there is Hebrews 6:10 that says that God remembers our efforts and that can't hurt.

It has taught them that if there are gold nuggets, people will not be handing them out.

Then one would have to come to realize that the entire universe was created and if such a thing as the whole universe and everything in it could come from the mind of that creator, wouldn't it be wise to trust that they could figure out who should live and who should be cut off from the world? Can't be mankind's decision for sure.

This is probably my main point of contention against religion. I don't think God has to be good, just because he is powerful, even assuming he exists.

I present the Purple Wager, which is a pure upgrade to Pascal's Wager, but the conclusion is different. The conclusion is to just be a good person.
If there is a fair god, then he knows he hasn't given proof of his existence, and he won't judge you for picking the wrong religion or not picking any religion, but he might judge you for not being a good person.
If there is no god, then just be a good person. It's the right thing to do anyway.
If there is an unfair god that will punish you for choosing wrong, it is so overwhelmingly likely that you do choose wrong, that there is no point in fretting. If there's an unfair or cryptic god he'll punish you if he pleases, and there's not a thing you can do about it. Ignore him, and just be a good person anyway.

They either come or they don't. Or like hurricane warnings, the warning isn't a waste of time to post, its up to the individual to act on it and decide if acting is a waste of their time.

The only time I get upset and angry is people moralising at me that I owe fools more than to just let them marinate in the effects of their own decisions.

That job will fall to His Son and his angelic millions which whether everyone knows/believes it or not, it is better they are judged by God and His Son rather than other person. I'm certainly glad I don't have to do it.

I think people are judged by their own selves.

Your best friend you have known for years comes up to you and hands you a piece of fruit and says. 'you'll like this'. This is not the first time he has given you something tasty to eat. So you eat it. This is an act of faith/trust.

I personally don't take many credulity risks. I can't think of the last time I did. Especially if it's going to risk harm to myself or others. Those that do, I agree and it has happened before in history, they could end up serving a horrible purpose.

It's just not smart to take those sorts of risks when people can lie to you and be lauded as clever and ambitious go-getters if they succeed in deceit. If deception is the coin of the realm, expect deception. It is in just such a world, and no other, that people would get offended that you thought they were trying to deceive you. If I tell somebody something, I hope they think I'm trying to deceive them and act accordingly. Since I'm not, if they go down that road, they'll find that out. Only somebody who was deceiving, would be upset that you wouldn't just assume they weren't.

I find most people are just lazy. Or maybe just comfortable where they are.

Being asleep seems to be a survival mechanism in a world of deception.

[2timothy316]

If there is a Bible rule, a person must find what it is trying to protect against.

In the case of the Jewish rules against certain foods, I think it's parasites and disease, and you can get that level of protection, if not higher, if you just cook your bloody food. Like, actually cook it. Not this:

True in some cases. There are somethings that shouldn't be eaten even if cooked. Like barracuda. Eating them can cause ciguatera poisoning. Viruses and diseases animals can carry change over time. Who knows what was dangerous about some of the animals in the middle east 4000 years ago. Basically the food restrictions was a protection but what the Jews do now doesn't make sense. Like not eating meat with dairy...It's based on Exodus 23:19 which is about the way a goat is cooked. Exodus 23:19 was likely a reminder for Jews to think about not using a gift that God made to be nourishing and turn it into something that is harmful. There Jewish sects that have taken this to another level and it makes no sense to follow the no meat with diary law.

If they truly don't want to stay away deep in their heart, they stay sober easier than a person that plants themselves right back with the kind of people they use to hang out with.

With alcohol this is putting people in a bad situation. Most men drink. So the choice is, give up all your friends and be alone, or try to be among them drinking and not drink, or just be an alcoholic. None of these is a good option. I tend to think alcohol should be illegal.

With JWs we are to seek, 'not his own advantage, but that of the other person.' ( 1 Cor 10:24) Therefore when throwing a celebration or having friends over we might not provide alcohol at the gathering. If we have friends over ask them their feelings about alcohol. In our congregation we know the people that are weak around wobbly pops and help them to stay sober. We watch out for each other in that regard. I have refrained from drinking alcohol many times because there were people that around me had a weakness for it.

When I quit smoking I had to stop hanging out with people that smoked. I was determined not to smoke so I had to do what I had to do and yes there were many people that I stopped hanging out with. Which really was better for me as they had other habits that were not good either. If a person has the same problem with alcohol then they might have to change their entire environment of friends or hopefully have friends that they have more in common than just drinking.

I'd say 75% of the time the person goes back to what I call 'asleep'.

This is a forum made with people who are not asleep in mind, so it really bugs me that this happens. If they're spewing that they're not asleep, there should be a way to latch onto that and show them where they are asleep. They're the ones thinking they're not asleep, saying they're not asleep.
[/quote]If you find the answer how to wake people up that doesn't involve a rolling pin and a frying pan, by all means share it with me.

JWs certainly have their share of being bullied by governments and people in general. It's hard not to say something to someone who is saying lies about us. I mean, I know the hearts of the majority of JWs because I share the same kind of heart. Its like a person saying lies about someone you love and you want to rush in and set matters straight. But, many don't know this but we as JWs are actually counseled not to do this. When you see something on TV that is a lie about Jehovah's Witnesses you don't see some member from the Governing Body march themselves to a press conference to confront a lie said about us in the media. Here is why, "Further, reject foolish and ignorant debates, knowing that they produce fights. For a slave of the Lord does not need to fight, but needs to be gentle toward all, qualified to teach, showing restraint when wronged, instructing with mildness those not favorably disposed. Perhaps God may give them repentance leading to an accurate knowledge of truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the Devil, seeing that they have been caught alive by him to do his will." - 2 Timothy 23-26. I will admit, easier said than done. But I continue to try to follow this because the result may be, "God may give them repentance leading to an accurate knowledge of truth." This is what I want for people so I will keep trying to do what this says.

I just feel bad not for the people fighting, but for the people who only see one side of the story because the people being bullied won't fight for theirs.

We really do hope, "they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the Devil, seeing that they have been caught alive by him to do his will." There is some pretty bad stuff reported in Russia right now concerning JWs. Not just JWs either. Really anyone that is considered a threat to the state. JWs threat is that they teach their people to be politically neutral. That means to not back Russia's wars. JWs don't protest in streets about it but if a person is interested in JWs then they will get the teaching that Jesus Christ's kingdom is no part of this world. Same thing as in Germany in WWII. In both cases JWs are rounded up and imprisoned. Hopefully Russia doesn't go as far as Germany did with firing squads and concentration camps. I pray Jehovah gives them courage everyday to go on and that their captors show compassion to them in prison. I have heard reports that there are policemen in Russia that are really perplexed and demoralized as to why they are arresting some 70 year old woman that has suffered a stroke that can't even stand up for extremest activity. The peaceful unified front that JWs display because of the command in the Bible to 'love one's enemies' makes a bigger impact on a person than if we were to start killing and protesting. The only protest that Witnesses did when Russia banned us was a global letter writing campaign with letters send directly to Putin. Millions of the letters dumped at his front door pleading to not do what he was doing. So far, he has proven to be one hard hearted person.

I think this is because of so much worthless crap shoved in people's faces. Robo calls, SPAM email, etc. That doesn't help us but still we go. If nothing else, we enjoy each other's company while riding in the car or walking together with friends when we go out in field service and some days that's all we get and that is still worth it. Plus there is Hebrews 6:10 that says that God remembers our efforts and that can't hurt.

It has taught them that if there are gold nuggets, people will not be handing them out.

Indeed. Things that sound too good to be true are normally scams. Someone in the early 2000s told me to invest in bitcoin that it would be worth a lot of money one day. I thought it was a scam....dang it! LOL

Then one would have to come to realize that the entire universe was created and if such a thing as the whole universe and everything in it could come from the mind of that creator, wouldn't it be wise to trust that they could figure out who should live and who should be cut off from the world? Can't be mankind's decision for sure.

This is probably my main point of contention against religion. I don't think God has to be good, just because he is powerful, even assuming he exists.

I present the Purple Wager, which is a pure upgrade to Pascal's Wager, but the conclusion is different. The conclusion is to just be a good person.
If there is a fair god, then he knows he hasn't given proof of his existence, and he won't judge you for picking the wrong religion or not picking any religion, but he might judge you for not being a good person.
If there is no god, then just be a good person. It's the right thing to do anyway.
If there is an unfair god that will punish you for choosing wrong, it is so overwhelmingly likely that you do choose wrong, that there is no point in fretting. If there's an unfair or cryptic god he'll punish you if he pleases, and there's not a thing you can do about it. Ignore him, and just be a good person anyway.

My main contention against religion is that truth is not as important as their dogma but that's not what we are talking about here.

JWs believe what 1 John 4:8 says, "God is love". It also says that one that doesn't know love doesn't know God. While God is fair, that fairness is based on love. All God's decisions are based not on what is fair but was most loving. Yet what is love, fair and good? Who sets these standards? Are they subjective or objective?

As far as I am concerned accepting that God exists doesn't depend on if I have proof or not. It doesn't depend on if I see examples of fairness in the world. For my belief if there is a God is simply what is reasonable and what is unreasonable. But this subject is for a thread that has been debated to death.

They either come or they don't. Or like hurricane warnings, the warning isn't a waste of time to post, its up to the individual to act on it and decide if acting is a waste of their time.

The only time I get upset and angry is people moralising at me that I owe fools more than to just let them marinate in the effects of their own decisions.

As far as I see it, if you know they have received what more do I own anyone? Just they better not start saying in essence, "I didn't know". That hurricane will not care.

That job will fall to His Son and his angelic millions which whether everyone knows/believes it or not, it is better they are judged by God and His Son rather than other person. I'm certainly glad I don't have to do it.

I think people are judged by their own selves.

They do, the way I see it as to who should judge a person's eternal fate, is God's Son. Been a man himself and has all the knowledge and power he needs to make perfect choices. Including looking into one's heart, past the smoke and mirrors people project to fool others and even themselves.

Your best friend you have known for years comes up to you and hands you a piece of fruit and says. 'you'll like this'. This is not the first time he has given you something tasty to eat. So you eat it. This is an act of faith/trust.

I personally don't take many credulity risks. I can't think of the last time I did. Especially if it's going to risk harm to myself or others. Those that do, I agree and it has happened before in history, they could end up serving a horrible purpose.

It's just not smart to take those sorts of risks when people can lie to you and be lauded as clever and ambitious go-getters if they succeed in deceit. If deception is the coin of the realm, expect deception. It is in just such a world, and no other, that people would get offended that you thought they were trying to deceive you. If I tell somebody something, I hope they think I'm trying to deceive them and act accordingly. Since I'm not, if they go down that road, they'll find that out. Only somebody who was deceiving, would be upset that you wouldn't just assume they weren't.

Constant vigilance.

I find most people are just lazy. Or maybe just comfortable where they are.

Being asleep seems to be a survival mechanism in a world of deception.

Agreed. It works until it doesn't. Then they say, "I didn't know" as a last ditch lie to stop reaping what they have sown.

[Purple Knight]

There are somethings that shouldn't be eaten even if cooked. Like barracuda. Eating them can cause ciguatera poisoning.

Soooo weird that you happen to mention the one time, in my entire life, that I took the risk. Sounds like we both lived near the coast. I am originally from Florida. I knew about the bacteria but ate the fish anyway. It attacked me. I wasn't trying to fish for it. It was my fault as I had my car keys on my ankle to avoid them being stolen while I was swimming. Not entirely sure how it happened, but I killed the poor thing. So I had this dead fish, and there was a fishing pier right there, so I took it to the pier. The consensus was that the size of it was not the super huge one certain to have the bacteria, but it was still pretty big and was a risk. I was just coming off of being a vegetarian and had vowed not to kill needlessly, at least, so when someone offered to filet it for me, I accepted, went home, and ate it, pan-fried with oil.

Fish that has just been caught is pretty amazing. I'm not into fishing because I find the way the deed is done a little gross. But I am glad I got to try actually fresh fish. And I won't be seeking out any more barracudas to eat. The pier people also said, it won't taste very good, it's a "trash fish" - but I found out, if it's fresh, there are no trash fish.

Therefore when throwing a celebration or having friends over we might not provide alcohol at the gathering. If we have friends over ask them their feelings about alcohol. In our congregation we know the people that are weak around wobbly pops and help them to stay sober. We watch out for each other in that regard. I have refrained from drinking alcohol many times because there were people that around me had a weakness for it.

Just being conscientious like that is so rare these days. I'll do that for a drunk, but for me the problem is that I don't want to be around him for fear he'll relapse and then people will start with the, oh you cut him off just because he relapsed, so heartless. I don't ever feel a need to drink, and it's such an inconvenience to go to a party and drink that I don't do it.

When I quit smoking I had to stop hanging out with people that smoked. I was determined not to smoke so I had to do what I had to do and yes there were many people that I stopped hanging out with. Which really was better for me as they had other habits that were not good either. If a person has the same problem with alcohol then they might have to change their entire environment of friends or hopefully have friends that they have more in common than just drinking.

It's hard because I don't imagine these people thinking of their friends as disposable/fungible. That, and I've never really known anyone who has an easy time just making new friends.

If you find the answer how to wake people up that doesn't involve a rolling pin and a frying pan, by all means share it with me.

You yourself said, they have to do it themselves. But I think that if they're going around screaming about how they're not asleep, that's the way in. That's them starting it themselves. That may even be them asking for help. But my technique is going to be to treat them like cats and not dogs. It may not work but it'll be fun to find out. It might be fun for you to keep tabs on me trying to reform the sleeping, "reasoning logical totally not asleep" atheists.

If you wake up in a dream, that doesn't mean you're awake. But it means you have the capacity to keep waking up until you're free.

We really do hope, "they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the Devil, seeing that they have been caught alive by him to do his will." There is some pretty bad stuff reported in Russia right now concerning JWs. Not just JWs either. Really anyone that is considered a threat to the state. JWs threat is that they teach their people to be politically neutral. That means to not back Russia's wars. JWs don't protest in streets about it but if a person is interested in JWs then they will get the teaching that Jesus Christ's kingdom is no part of this world. Same thing as in Germany in WWII. In both cases JWs are rounded up and imprisoned. Hopefully Russia doesn't go as far as Germany did with firing squads and concentration camps. I pray Jehovah gives them courage everyday to go on and that their captors show compassion to them in prison. I have heard reports that there are policemen in Russia that are really perplexed and demoralized as to why they are arresting some 70 year old woman that has suffered a stroke that can't even stand up for extremest activity. The peaceful unified front that JWs display because of the command in the Bible to 'love one's enemies' makes a bigger impact on a person than if we were to start killing and protesting. The only protest that Witnesses did when Russia banned us was a global letter writing campaign with letters send directly to Putin. Millions of the letters dumped at his front door pleading to not do what he was doing. So far, he has proven to be one hard hearted person.

Neutrality can be frustrating if you believe you're right. They can seem like enablers, surrounding the true evil with a wall of innocence. The people on the American Political Left say that if you sit down at a table with ten Nazis, there are eleven Nazis at that table. People tend to see being neutral as enabling evil. But I think to some degree, the side of evil shows itself when it attacks the neutral.

I wish he'd stop it too, and it actually has a direct effect on me, because the Russian lines of my cat breed are the best, Oriental Shorthairs being prized there above elsewhere, but the only way to get one out now is to smuggle it through Belarus. Here's an example of a pedigree you'll see in this breed. This is my best king. Any time you see (RU) or Russia, it's a cat bred in Russia. 10 out of his 16 great-grandparents originated there.

Java Pedigree Small.png

Someone in the early 2000s told me to invest in bitcoin that it would be worth a lot of money one day. I thought it was a scam....dang it! LOL

I invested far less than I should have. If I'd put in half of what I could have, I'd be set for life. But I put in a little, cashed out and got a car.

The only time I get upset and angry is people moralising at me that I owe fools more than to just let them marinate in the effects of their own decisions.

As far as I see it, if you know they have received what more do I own anyone? Just they better not start saying in essence, "I didn't know". That hurricane will not care.

I just feel trapped. Any time anyone is floundering, I am expected to go save them. And all they learn is that their judgment must have been good because nothing bad happened to them. I don't really want them to die, I just see this reinforcement of bad behaviour sucking everyone down into a pit of quicksand, making more and more irresponsible people every iteration, and every time, expecting the responsible to sacrifice more and more.

Including looking into one's heart, past the smoke and mirrors people project to fool others and even themselves.

If we don't do that ourselves, and take that long hard look, it's hard to believe someone omnipotent could get a fair one. If someone has been fed a certain story all their lives, by their parents, themselves, nobody ever says different, maybe the "I didn't know" is true. We think about things all the time, but in the end, the result is the result. If you do X and you get Y, the hardest thing to convince yourself of, is that you didn't deserve Y and someone else did. The people being pulled out of the quicksand, saved from the hurricane, on the backs of the responsible... They did X and they got Y. The businessman who can't fail because he lobbies, also did X and got Y. It's going to be hard to convince him that he didn't deserve that bailout money. He did the thing that brought it to him, after all.

Let me construct a parable.

There was a farmer, who had very little water for his crops. He has always tended his crops as best he could, and came up with so little that his children are always hungry. One day, this farmer stopped watering his crops, and started using that energy to cry about his starving children. Others start watering his crops with their water. He has got more than he did. "I am reaping what I have sown," he says to himself, thinking himself to be doing the right thing now. Others follow, and people start to complain. But, the farmer thinks, they're just upset because what I do, works, and they're still doing the inefficient thing scrounging for themselves.

Eventually the dam burst and there wasn't anymore help to be had, and then, none of the people who said, "Aha, I am reaping what I have sown," thought it was true any longer.

[2timothy316]

Therefore when throwing a celebration or having friends over we might not provide alcohol at the gathering. If we have friends over ask them their feelings about alcohol. In our congregation we know the people that are weak around wobbly pops and help them to stay sober. We watch out for each other in that regard. I have refrained from drinking alcohol many times because there were people that around me had a weakness for it.

Just being conscientious like that is so rare these days. I'll do that for a drunk, but for me the problem is that I don't want to be around him for fear he'll relapse and then people will start with the, oh you cut him off just because he relapsed, so heartless. I don't ever feel a need to drink, and it's such an inconvenience to go to a party and drink that I don't do it.

Agreed, It is rare, and we are continuously reminded to think conscientiously. I know I need to be reminded anyway.

When I quit smoking I had to stop hanging out with people that smoked. I was determined not to smoke so I had to do what I had to do and yes there were many people that I stopped hanging out with. Which really was better for me as they had other habits that were not good either. If a person has the same problem with alcohol then they might have to change their entire environment of friends or hopefully have friends that they have more in common than just drinking.

It's hard because I don't imagine these people thinking of their friends as disposable/fungible. That, and I've never really known anyone who has an easy time just making new friends.

"For the time that has passed by is sufficient for you to have done the will of the nations when you carried on in acts of brazen conduct, unbridled passions, overdrinking, wild parties, drinking bouts, and lawless idolatries. They are puzzled that you do not continue running with them in the same decadent course of debauchery, so they speak abusively of you." - 1 Peter 4:3,4.

That scripture describes the kinds of friends I had and there were a lot of them. Turns out they were bar buddies and when I stopped acting like a fool we didn't stay in contact too much longer after that. Only like 2 of them stuck around after I stopped getting drunk and stopped smoking. but I don't spend a whole lot of time with them these days as they have no desire to live their life according to the Bible. Their language is pretty abrasive and they don't always look for the best in people and speak negatively about people quite often. These are habits I don't want to fall into doing again either. My life is more peaceful this way. But I do reach out from time to time because they really do love me for me and not because of what I do or don't do but why I do. So that to me is worth something and I think it's worth something to Jehovah too thus I reach out to them from time to time and just see where they are in their life. Drop some scriptures on them when we get together, just to see if they are still opposed to God. So far, they are, but it might change one day. I don't smother them with the Bible but I show them something relevant when the occasion arises. Who knows, it might be because of my reaching out that they have a change of heart.

If you find the answer how to wake people up that doesn't involve a rolling pin and a frying pan, by all means share it with me.

You yourself said, they have to do it themselves. But I think that if they're going around screaming about how they're not asleep, that's the way in. That's them starting it themselves. That may even be them asking for help. But my technique is going to be to treat them like cats and not dogs. It may not work but it'll be fun to find out. It might be fun for you to keep tabs on me trying to reform the sleeping, "reasoning logical totally not asleep" atheists.

If you wake up in a dream, that doesn't mean you're awake. But it means you have the capacity to keep waking up until you're free.

Trying to get them to stop doing it to themselves is the trick.When a person lets go of what makes them feel comfortable they are terrified that this whole time they might have been wrong. That is just not something many are willing to face and unacceptable to give up with makes them feel ok about the actions they take in their life. It's like the Coyote in loony toons when the rock suddenly drop from beneath him. As long as he doesn't look down he feels ok and the whole world seems to be waiting on him to figure out what is going on. Same with people and their dogma. Someone can be telling them about the missing rock, how it is gone and describe the land below. But as long as they don't actually look at it, they will feel like they can just stay where they are. The truth is the same truth about real gravity, the rock was never there and they have been falling this whole time. I put out a hand as they go by but they don't reach for it because in their mind they are not falling.

We really do hope, "they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the Devil, seeing that they have been caught alive by him to do his will." There is some pretty bad stuff reported in Russia right now concerning JWs. Not just JWs either. Really anyone that is considered a threat to the state. JWs threat is that they teach their people to be politically neutral. That means to not back Russia's wars. JWs don't protest in streets about it but if a person is interested in JWs then they will get the teaching that Jesus Christ's kingdom is no part of this world. Same thing as in Germany in WWII. In both cases JWs are rounded up and imprisoned. Hopefully Russia doesn't go as far as Germany did with firing squads and concentration camps. I pray Jehovah gives them courage everyday to go on and that their captors show compassion to them in prison. I have heard reports that there are policemen in Russia that are really perplexed and demoralized as to why they are arresting some 70 year old woman that has suffered a stroke that can't even stand up for extremest activity. The peaceful unified front that JWs display because of the command in the Bible to 'love one's enemies' makes a bigger impact on a person than if we were to start killing and protesting. The only protest that Witnesses did when Russia banned us was a global letter writing campaign with letters send directly to Putin. Millions of the letters dumped at his front door pleading to not do what he was doing. So far, he has proven to be one hard hearted person.

Neutrality can be frustrating if you believe you're right. They can seem like enablers, surrounding the true evil with a wall of innocence. The people on the American Political Left say that if you sit down at a table with ten Nazis, there are eleven Nazis at that table. People tend to see being neutral as enabling evil. But I think to some degree, the side of evil shows itself when it attacks the neutral.

And there are some that take notice. There are reports of police in Russia refusing to arrest some Witnesses because they see it as morally wrong. I remember such a case when they went to arrest a 65 year old woman that had a stroke for acts of extremism. One policemen was quoted as saying, 'what are we doing?!'

I wish he'd stop it too, and it actually has a direct effect on me, because the Russian lines of my cat breed are the best, Oriental Shorthairs being prized there above elsewhere, but the only way to get one out now is to smuggle it through Belarus. Here's an example of a pedigree you'll see in this breed. This is my best king. Any time you see (RU) or Russia, it's a cat bred in Russia. 10 out of his 16 great-grandparents originated there.

War has such far reaching effects. Things we never even thought about before the war began. Just so sad to see so much pain being caused...and for what? Makes no sense.

Someone in the early 2000s told me to invest in bitcoin that it would be worth a lot of money one day. I thought it was a scam....dang it! LOL

I invested far less than I should have. If I'd put in half of what I could have, I'd be set for life. But I put in a little, cashed out and got a car.

IKR!

The only time I get upset and angry is people moralising at me that I owe fools more than to just let them marinate in the effects of their own decisions.

As far as I see it, if you know they have received what more do I own anyone? Just they better not start saying in essence, "I didn't know". That hurricane will not care.

I just feel trapped. Any time anyone is floundering, I am expected to go save them. And all they learn is that their judgment must have been good because nothing bad happened to them. I don't really want them to die, I just see this reinforcement of bad behaviour sucking everyone down into a pit of quicksand, making more and more irresponsible people every iteration, and every time, expecting the responsible to sacrifice more and more.

Personally, I have limits. I might not write them off completely, but I will not expose myself or my family to harm for someone that has proven over and over they will not get out of the way of harm. There is a DMZ that put between me and those that would if they could suck all the life out of me and my family. It has to be done or how can I be called responsible if I am irresponsibly funding or supporting bad behavior?

Including looking into one's heart, past the smoke and mirrors people project to fool others and even themselves.

If we don't do that ourselves, and take that long hard look, it's hard to believe someone omnipotent could get a fair one. If someone has been fed a certain story all their lives, by their parents, themselves, nobody ever says different, maybe the "I didn't know" is true. We think about things all the time, but in the end, the result is the result. If you do X and you get Y, the hardest thing to convince yourself of, is that you didn't deserve Y and someone else did. The people being pulled out of the quicksand, saved from the hurricane, on the backs of the responsible... They did X and they got Y. The businessman who can't fail because he lobbies, also did X and got Y. It's going to be hard to convince him that he didn't deserve that bailout money. He did the thing that brought it to him, after all.

Let me construct a parable.

There was a farmer, who had very little water for his crops. He has always tended his crops as best he could, and came up with so little that his children are always hungry. One day, this farmer stopped watering his crops, and started using that energy to cry about his starving children. Others start watering his crops with their water. He has got more than he did. "I am reaping what I have sown," he says to himself, thinking himself to be doing the right thing now. Others follow, and people start to complain. But, the farmer thinks, they're just upset because what I do, works, and they're still doing the inefficient thing scrounging for themselves.

Eventually the dam burst and there wasn't anymore help to be had, and then, none of the people who said, "Aha, I am reaping what I have sown," thought it was true any longer.

This is of course is a mathematical disaster waiting to happen. This really isn't too different from Tulip Mania. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/du ... bubble.asp
An interesting historical disaster if you like that sort of thing.

The idea of getting something for nothing isn't unsustainable. Somewhere at some time there needs to be a tulip planted.

[onewithhim]

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QUESTIONS:
1. Should continuing blunders such as these have any bearing on the credibility of a religion? Any religion?
2. What do you think it says about the Jehovah's Witnesses religion?

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Don't you think it is a good thing that a religion stops its attempts at interpreting certain Bible passages by use of educated guesses? The WT doesn't claim to be prophets, they merely try to explain what God tells us in the Bible. The WT is the "watchman" that is to warn all the people. This they are doing. Why don't you list what other religions have said about the end? I think that most religions have tried to guess when the end will come. All of them failed. So JWs are on a level playing field, if you will, with everyone else, concerning the day and hour of Christ's return. So we have to go with what the religion actually teaches and what it inspires in its people to do. Compare JWs faith with that of other faiths. See which religion actually follows what Jesus said.