The Antichristian Phenomenon
Jehovah’s Witnesses
Posted by: Allvaldr in Religion, tags: Christianity, Event, Jehova's WitnessesThis time no world news, no long essays. Just a little story about what happened to me today. You know, the kind of thing blogs exist for in the first place. 
Over here, we have this christian sect called Jehovah’s witnesses. I think they’re international. Today I was home alone, and two of them rung my doorbell. As a small kid I was already taught never to open the door for preachers. But heck, I was curious. Besides, I wanted to see how they would deal with their faith under pressure. If it’s of any interest, I was wearing my T-shirt from Stormwarrior as I welcomed them inside. A shirt depicting a Viking warrior who smashes in a christian preacher’s skull.
I offered them a seat and a coffee, and then I began my questioning. Question one went something like: “Is it true your sect interprets the bible as being literal?”
The two witnesses in question were a young couple. A man and a woman. I doubt they’re much older than I am. Early 20s, around 25 at most. The guy started his rhetoric, about how they weren’t a sect, and that I had to choose my words different. Then the woman added that the word interpret was also judgemental, because the bible is god’s direct word, and therefore not open to interpretation. Anyway, given their objections I just smiled and added that they answered my first question enough.
My second question was: “Coming from a bible that is the direct word of an infallible god, what existed first. Humans or trees?” Both answered the trees. Now, that’s fine. Genesis 1 (fn) does indeed state that mankind was created last. Genesis 2 (fn) however states that man was created, then everything else was created, then man was placed in it.
So basically, I pointed this out to them. Apparently they weren’t very trained preachers yet. Because after just one contradiction they already began mumbling about how they would have to check with their “Elder” and that they themselves weren’t wise enough to answer such a critical question.
Last words we shared as they left the house were “If your elder can’t answer the question properly, feel free to return. I’m keeping two chairs reserved at the dark side.” After which they were racing to get away from me as soon as possible.
It was so cute to see. Two young people, so in love, so bonded together. And so misguided. I love that kind of people. They give me a reason to keep fighting.
And to conclude. While I was doing some research to doublecheck that I didn’t say anything wrong to them, I stumbled across the wikipedia disambiguation page of genesis. They had a long list of the term genesis in fiction. Yet the bible story wasn’t in that category. I corrected this error and classified the bible story under fiction together with the genesises from Marvel, DC and Star Trek. I wonder if that counts as vandalism or not though.
Footnotes:
Genesis 1: [After creating everything else] Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
Genesis 2: And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
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October 8th, 2007 at 10:11 am - Edit
Naturally I, too, had no idea what the answer might be, but then I checked with my elder:
“And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden”
Did you ever plant a garden? Does that mean no plants ever existed on earth previously? Do you really think that as a contradiction? Do you have other ones?
October 8th, 2007 at 12:06 pm - Edit
Nicely worded. As a matter of fact, I was hoping that they hadn’t given up that early. That way I could have moved on to other ‘contradictions’. I just felt that it made sense to start at the beginning of the bible.
The longer quote goes like:
7And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
8And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
9And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food.
It’s true that maybe I should have quoted all three lines immediately. But people in the past have told me I make my posts on other forums and blogs way too long. And I guess the extra line fell as a part of my constant crusade to make my writings more concise. I figured those two lines, without the third one added to further specify.
Also note that in real life I don’t speak English. So those aren’t the EXACT same words I said to them. The words quoted here come from the English online bible. The words I said in person were from the Dutch bible.
October 8th, 2007 at 10:59 pm - Edit
I still don’t see that you have anything. Am I missing something? Are you claiming vs 9 changes something?
Incidentally, the most significant item to be drawn from those verses, IMO, is “the man became a living soul,” not “the man came to possess a soul.” Lot’s of inconsistency among religions as to what is the soul. Vs 7 is the first instance the word is usedand gives a pretty good indication of what the Bible means by the term. It is a lot different than most religions understand it.
October 9th, 2007 at 6:11 pm - Edit
Take into consideration Tom, that the Dutch translation of the bible may be slightly different than the English version, and it may note precisely what Sneltrekker is proposing. Personally, they look like two entirely separate creation stories. Same creation theme, but different events.
But in some ways, regardless of exactly what is behind each story, this highlights one of the issues I have with any “infallible” or “absolute” religious text; what language accurately represents the intended message? Perhaps the English version takes away from the overall meaning, and the Old Testament should only be studied in Hebrew as the Torah. The Jewish community certainly feels so, and considering Christianity developed from Judaism they may understand translation issues better than anyone. I know that they believe each word to be sacred, and take great effort when scribing a Sefer Torah to not change or alter a single character as it could lead to mistranslation, misuse, and misunderstanding of the divine. Now think about not only possible syntax or verb variation, but an entire language change.
October 10th, 2007 at 3:12 pm - Edit
For a really good listing of contradictions, absurdities, injustices, cruelty et cetera in the bible have a look at Skeptic’s Annotated Bible. An example of another Genesis contradiction is this: Was man created before or after the animals?
October 11th, 2007 at 5:47 pm - Edit
Okay, I suppose you COULD view them as two separate accounts, but that’s a lot different than saying you HAVE to. Why cannot the first be viewed as laying out the “big picture” and the 2nd a close-up on the first human pair and the specific home prepared for them? I see no contradictions between them.
Go see a modern movie. There are flash-backs, flash-forwards, and frequent changes in settings and narrators. Nobody pounces on such things as proof of a “contradiction.” Nor do they claim it as evidence of numerous authors.
October 11th, 2007 at 6:14 pm - Edit
But then again, nobody is claiming the modern movie to be an absolute truth from the mouth of a god.
October 12th, 2007 at 3:55 am - Edit
I think that, as far as the English can be read… there really doesn’t have to be much of a contradiction. However, the truth, or something closer to it, will come when one of us gets a bit of time to analyze the Hebrew. A quick look in my Pentateuch (Jewish Commentary, I wish I knew enough Hebrew to write my own though…) explains Genesis 5-9ish roughly in this way:
“5. no shrub Vegetation remained in the same state as on the day of its creation… through lack of rain. not a man The edible fruits of the earth require not only God’s gift of rain but also man’s cultivation. Man must be a co-worker with god in making this earth a garden.
6 [...] watered The vegetation did not therefore decay, though there was insufficient moisture for growth.
7. formed The Heb. (word) is from the same root, yatzar, as is used of the potter moulding clay into a vessel [...] Rabbis point to the fact that in this verse, the word for formed (vayyitzer) is written with two yods whereas in v. 19 when relating the creation of animals, it has only one yod. [...]”
So basically what the Jews say on this, is that “plants were technically ‘created’, they just hadn’t grown yet”, since technically the seeds were there but not the plant itself. And the man that was created in this verse was not the bestial shell from Genesis 1 but rather the soul.
However, this can be read with the interpretation that yes, man was fully formed before the trees were fully formed.
(Strangely enough, despite this, the vegetation blooms in genesis 1:11-12 too…)
And it also would be amusing to show them fossilized spores from plants that predate the dinosaurs… since dinosaurs were formed in Genesis 1:21 (according to some interpretations. The hebew word for “large animal” in that verse is rather ambiguous and has been translated a number of ways), man wasn’t formed until 1:27, but the plants don’t actually GROW until 2:7-9? So how is it, if plants grew after the creation of humans, we have spores and fossils that predate us as a species? And how was it, that the animals that were created in the morning of the sixth day survived until the evening, when man was created, since we all know that “a day to God is like a million years to us”, or whatever security-blanket explanation is currently acceptable…
I thereby conclude yet again that taken literally, Genesis is impossible. Figuratively is another story, but we aren’t speaking figuratively, are we, Christians?
This actually makes Sneltrekkers story more funny, if possible. The Preachers in training couldn’t bother to come up with their own explanation, or see how to technically at least partially resolve the contradiction, and an easy one to “solve” at that! What will they do when faced with much more glaring contradictions…
October 12th, 2007 at 3:56 am - Edit
Can we no longer edit our comments? I thought we could do that before?
October 12th, 2007 at 1:53 pm - Edit
Apparently not. But if you were posting more often, you would have remembered to use html!
Great comment though.
October 15th, 2007 at 12:03 pm - Edit
I tried…. I just didn’t use the right brackets.
October 18th, 2007 at 8:55 am - Edit
Fixed it. I thought you could as well…hmmm…are you logged in?
October 18th, 2007 at 12:04 pm - Edit
Yes..
October 29th, 2007 at 6:40 am - Edit
This ‘thread’ is an example of arguments that give the loonies hope. Personally, just using logic I see no "for sure" contradiction – by starting this thread you give the loonies hope that they may not be as daft as we KNOW they are.
I usually stick to simple, TERMINAL put downs. Easy things that show that what they believe is INSANE, that how they respond to what they believe is INSANE and that had they thought it through they’d realize they’d been INSANE. Remember, most religious people are religious for GOOD reasons – namely they believe in the GOOD stuff from religion, love thy neighbour etc. AS DO ALL WE ATHIESTS – the difference is we know the "good stuff" has F.A. to do with Religion but EVERYTING to do with the human capacity for love.
Tell any follower of Abraham (the big three STUPID religions) the following; (this is only one of dozens of similar argument that they CANNOT win.)
You belive that an all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful god created the Universe, the earth and mankind. This diety then shorty thereafter decided to murder everyone on the planet except for a few of his homeboys that could fit in Noah’s yacht. You believe that this all-knowing, all loving, all-powerful entity is a self-confessed homicidal mass murdering INSANE maniac and FURTHER you wish to spend eternity in his loving embrace. AND, you think I’m the one that’s crazy!
March 5th, 2008 at 6:19 am - Edit
I loved what you did on wiki, so I went on down to check it out. Some dumbarse re-Abrahamised it! So I changed it back to fiction, and took away the christian-biased place of foremost-mentioned. Let’s keep on checking on that one, make sure it doesn’t go down the drain again.
June 13th, 2008 at 4:05 am - Edit
# Mylegacy says:
This ‘thread’ is an example of arguments that give the loonies hope. Personally, just using logic I see no “for sure” contradiction – by starting this thread you give the loonies hope that they may not be as daft as we KNOW they are.
I usually stick to simple, TERMINAL put downs. Easy things that show that what they believe is INSANE, that how they respond to what they believe is INSANE and that had they thought it through they’d realize they’d been INSANE. Remember, most religious people are religious for GOOD reasons – namely they believe in the GOOD stuff from religion, love thy neighbour etc. AS DO ALL WE ATHIESTS – the difference is we know the “good stuff” has F.A. to do with Religion but EVERYTING to do with the human capacity for love.
Tell any follower of Abraham (the big three STUPID religions) the following; (this is only one of dozens of similar argument that they CANNOT win.)
You belive that an all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful god created the Universe, the earth and mankind. This deity then shorty thereafter decided to murder everyone on the planet except for a few of his homeboys that could fit in Noah’s yacht. You believe that this all-knowing, all loving, all-powerful entity is a self-confessed homicidal mass murdering INSANE maniac and FURTHER you wish to spend eternity in his loving embrace. AND, you think I’m the one that’s crazy!
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This is not correct. Mylegacy, it is easy to answer your above argument. I am not a JW by the way.
If you want more details, I would need more time to type everything and I would not like to post it here, as it would be lengthy in order to make it clear and complete – free of bad replies. But here is a very brief summary. Please note the following and actually, each point on its own would be a lengthy analysis:
- God allowed repentance for 120 years before the flood would come and Enoch preached to them. Obviously they did not repent. So God sent the judgment because all mankind (except Noah in his generation and Enoch was not there at that time anymore – Read Genesis 5 and count the years) was corrupted in violence.
- God did not “Repent” in Genesis 6 as we use the word today. That’s the way it was translated, but the Hebrew word (in context – always in context – because the Hebrew word can mean lots of things when taken out of context such as the word “YOM” or “Day” in Genesis 1) implies that God was disappointed and irritated as taken a deep breath in a *Sigh. You can look at lots of Hebrew dictionaries for these difficulties in the translated biblical texts ( that may seem to be contradictory or nonsensical). He did not repent as if he had made a mistake. He knew they were not going to repent. Why do you suppose he told Noach to build the Arch during the 120 years?
- God is a Loving God, but his love cannot contradict his judgment and righteousness toward evil and sin. When someone is guilty, something must be done to punish ( I am not referring to our corrupted system by the way). However, note that God allows to repent. God did allow Cain to repent, but Cain continued in Sin to kill his brother. God Told cain not to let Sin overcome him in Genesis 4, but Cain continued toward his desolation.
- God is also a God of consuming fire (always in justice and righteousness). He will not cast you out for no reason. Satan was cast out because of his rebellion and he will be tormented ( not tortured!) in Gehenna ( NOT HELL!). Hell actually is used to the KJV, but should have been translated as HAdes which maps with the Hebrew word SHEOL, which is the abode of the dead at the core of the earth. Gehenna is in outer darkness as shown in Jude and Revelation and Matthew. Men that do not repent cannot be redeemed, because they won’t allow God to renew them ( obviously if they do not believe how can they repent?).
- You misunderstand the authority of the creator over his creatures. God does not Kill per se. He can take away your life because he is the giver of life and owns you. You, on the contrary do not own ANYONE ( in terms of Creator VS Creature ) and so you would not be eligible to take away a life, unless God tells you to do so for a specific reason ( As you may notice in 1 samuel or Deutoronomy ).
- You misunderstand Free will of his creatures.
- You misunderstand God’s plan. He knew we were going to fail, but this has to happen for him to show his extreme love to pay for our sins and also the fact that the earth is a test field. Jesus refers to this in many of his parables. Parables always refer to something literal, but compared with analogical imagery to HIDE the meaning from the Jews ( because they did not believe and had already rejected their messiah ), not to enlighten the meaning.
Anyways, I have not answered your comment, but merely noted the points you missed.
I am not a Jehovah’s Witness. I am a born-again believer that accepted Yeshua as my redeemer and God, and changed my life.
Take care
June 13th, 2008 at 4:15 am - Edit
Genesis 1 and 2 are NOT two different creation account.
Genesis 2:4 starts a Colophon! This means that Genesis 2 merely goes in depth as to what happened to the man and female God Created during Genesis 1. There are lots of colophons in Genesis and they are not to be confused with the previous passages. Genesis 1 and 2 were written separately (supposedly) and Genesis 2 puts the focus on man. It is the same creation account.
When it says that God planted the garden of Eden, and made the trees grow, it is only flashing back to what happened in Genesis 1 ( at least partly ) ,Not the whole creation in Genesis 1.
Gen 2:4 This is the account of heaven and earth when they were created, at the time when the LORD God made earth and heaven. <—- This is the colophon, it will now start recounting some of the things that were already told in Genesis 1 to continue to storyline putting the emphasis on mankind ( Adam and Eve etc,….). It is not a different creation account. There are lots more colophons in the bible.
Gen 2:5 Wild bushes and plants were not on the earth yet because the LORD God hadn’t sent rain on the earth. Also, there was no one to farm the land.
Gen 2:6 Instead, underground water would come up from the earth and water the entire surface of the ground.
Gen 2:7 Then the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the earth and blew the breath of life into his nostrils. The man became a living being.
Gen 2:8 The LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east. That’s where he put the man whom he had formed.
Gen 2:9 The LORD God made all the trees grow out of the ground. These trees were nice to look at, and their fruit was good to eat. The tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil grew in the middle of the garden.