In an article from The Watchtower of May 1, 1984, p. 31 under "Questions from Readers" it states that "Jehovah's Witnesses do not go to people's homes in search of truth or clarification. Rather, they have spent countless hours learning the truth from the Word of God and, having learned the "good news," obediently go out to share it with other people.
Coming back to that one:
The idea that anyone would find this “problematic” (as did Bill Brexit) is almost too bizarre to comprehend. In my entire life, I have never opened the door to someone who doesn’t have something to say.
‘Let a householder talk long enough and he’ll tell you why he needs the kingdom.’ If they don’t, then they’re plainly not the type of person Witnesses are searching for. They look for the one who is ‘skinned and thrown about like sheep without a shepherd’—and he knows it, if only subliminally. Anyone who sees the present state of human affairs and says, ‘Things are just hunky-dory here!’—that’s not the person they’re looking for. Do a little pleasant chit-chat, and I move on. As often as not, I’m not called upon to do any pleasant chit-chat. They’re more eager for me to move on than I am to do it.
It’s the notion Brexit seems to have that Witnesses call to shake down whatever people have so as to ‘build back better’ that is crazy. Can he really think that way? Witnesses have no interest in deassembling a person so as to reassemble that one. Their looking for persons who are already deasembled, who know it, and who are dissatisfied with it. Let them talk enough and they’ll tell you why they need the kingdom.
To this end, the ‘read a scripture’ approach works well for me. I’m not a fan of these open-ended questions which all-to-often have the effect of putting the householder on the spot. It’s uncomfortable to be put on the spot. Nobody likes that. Better to say, “I stopped by to read you a scripture, you tell me what you think, and I’m outta here. Good idea?” It’s not much of a request. Quite a few people say ‘yes.’ If they think it is not a good idea, I am true to my word and outta there. If they do an answer that isn’t an answer, such as, ‘I have a church,’ I say, “it’ll still work.” If they hem and haw a little, I say ‘in the time it takes to decide I can just read it,’ and I do.
Read the scripture, explain why you chose it, in a sentence or two, and give them opportunity to converse on it if they like. If they don’t—hey, I’m happy—I read a verse and it fell flat. This is not the person I’m looking for. Move on with pleasantness. Even people who decline are apt to say, “but thanks for calling,” so pleased are they that you get right to the point and didn’t try to impose on their time.
Recently I used 1 Thess 5:11, “Therefore, keep encouraging one another and building one another up, just as you are in fact doing.”
I explained I chose it for two reasons. 1) that it was the theme of a recent meeting (a witness in itself, because it gives an indication as to what goes on at a Kingdom Hall), and 2) it seems like a big ‘Duh’—a no-brainer—seek to encourage and build up—except we live in a world where that is almost never done.
You reach this point, by which time a householder may have formed an opinion of you as a reasonable guy, not pushy, not wound up too tight, and then they may go off in a hundred different directions.
A guy I spoke with last week interrupted my spiel of 1 Thess 5:11 with, “You don’t work, do you?” I thought it was an attack. “Well—I’m retired,” I hedged. Turned out to be nothing of the sort. He just launched into how ugly people were at his workplace, how argumentative, how abusive—and, alas, I could detect a personality that would make it ten times worse, but it was a good inroad into discussing kingdom promises and the discussion went on for some time.
Bill Brexit seems to think it’s likely that the householder comes out to talk ‘theology’ with you. It’s not unheard of, but it’s not very common.
Cool hand Luke gazes into the rafters inside the abandoned church. “God, I never had much to do with you,” he says, “but you have to admit, you haven’t given me much of a break. If you are really up there, now would be a good time to show yourself.”
Silence. For several seconds.
‘Yeah, I thought so,” he says, and a generation of movie-goers say, ‘Yeah, we thought so too.’
Well, when he took us inta court I couldn't believe my eyes, The judge was a fishin' buddy that I recognized
I said "Hey, judge, old buddy, old pal, I'll pay ya that hundred I owe ya if you'll get me outta this spot"
So he gave my friends a little fine to pay, He turned around and grinned at me and said, "Ninety days, Jerry, when you hot, you hot"
He should have paid him back that hundred he owed him. Not only did Cool Hand Luke not get out of his spot. He got shot. It’s just a movie. Same as when the cast of Good Lord Bird showed up at Harper’s Ferry. The National Historical Park ranger told me people began asking them all sorts of questions about what John Brown did back then in that town, as though they were the actual participants. Look, it’s just a television show, they said.
The only one who you don’t have to worry about getting out of spots is God himself. It’s part of the qualifications for being God: “If I were hungry, I would not tell you,” he says. What! You’re going to get him out of that spot? (Psalm 50:12)
There are in the archives many life experiences of those in a spot from which they call out to God and later say they were answered. But they generally propose a ‘deal’—‘get me out of this spot and I’ll do your will forever,’ something like that. Maybe God, who can read hearts, after all, translated Cool Hand Luke’s makeshift prayer as, ‘God—get me out of this spot—so I can raise hell among your people just like I’m raising it here.’
And a cadre of humanists say, ‘How shocking! He should be able to raise hell wherever he wants!’
They didn’t just say lies in that November 2019 Watchtower. They said lies and distortion of facts.
Is it outright lies that we deal with here? Not so much. Is it distortion of fact? For the most part, yes.
”Distortion of fact” encompasses a lot and much of what it encompasses is in the eye of the beholder. If a point, in the overall scheme of things, is really quite insignificant, and it is made to seem all-important, is that not a distortion of fact?
Suppose the spies that I have sent report back to me with a dossier of George’s private life that includes a few exasperating habits of his—like nose-picking. Suppose too that he has had one of two regretful episodes in his life that he would rather not broadcast. Suppose that he flunked out of a school or was fired from a job. Suppose he made a few judgments as family head that blew up in his face—not only his face but the faces of those in his family. Suppose he let down brothers in the congregation at one time or another, and even stumbled one or two.
”Ah, here comes my spy, now…..Hello Spy, what do you have?….hmmmm……oh my…yes….hm……whoa!….will you look at that?…..looky looky looky”
Now suppose with my voluminous commenting privileges I never again focus upon anything other than one or all of these blunders, and I dismiss as inconsequential whatever good others point out that he has done, even though these matter plainly be what defines his life. Am I not distorting facts? Have I told any lies? No. Have I distorted any facts? I have done nothing else.
Another illustration—this one I gave at the meeting when it was my turn to comment—was that if there is someone in the audience who hates beets, I will not be able to argue with him that beets taste good. It is something that is beyond the scope of argument and I am proving myself pretty dense if I persist in trying. In the same way, the verse says: “Taste and see that Jehovah is good.” Some have tasted and seen that he is bad. It’s not something that is subject to arguing.
My 30 seconds were up and you can’t keep raising your hand like a jack-in-the-box. But if I was to extend the thought here I might point out that I love cake. It tastes good. That’s why I love it. Imagine my surprise upon coming here on the all-open forum and discovering some dissing cake. How is that possible? Upon probing, I find that it is because the sweetness of sugar does nothing for them, so they just drop down a notch and focus on how you can get cavities and put on weight with cake. Well, yeah—if sugar did nothing for me, I too would drop down the list and harp on these other things.
So it is with the ‘sugar’ of the Bible’s message. This is what does it for Jehovah’s Witnesses—that unique combination of accurate Bible teachings along with the united brotherhood that comes with it—a unity and love unparalleled—and a satisfaction of knowing that one is cooperating with God’s intent of declaring his name and purposes. But if for some reason none of that should matter anymore, than what is there left than to drop down a level and promote some complaints to first place? It is what the opponents here do. Is that not a distortion—the reprioritizing of facts? We tend to carry on here as though facts are islands unto themselves. They’re not. They are more like the ingredients of a cake—they work together. One’s appreciation for the baked product will depend entirely upon one’s taste for the different ingredients.
We’re a little nuts when we quibble over facts, as though individual facts in themselves are what clinches the deal. Instead, it it the prioritization of facts that matters. Seldom is it that people argue with no facts at all. It is which ones they choose to focus on and which ones they choose to downplay or even ignore that matters.
And that is of facts that are presented accurately—as many are not. For example, a Pew survey lists Jehovah’s Witnesses as bringing up the bottom of the income chart—collectively they are the financially poorest. A fact? Yes. Opponents take that fact to suggest that Witnesses are deadbeats, some by nature, and some made so by a controlling organization. A distortion? I think so. When I wrote a post on the topic I stated that, in view of what the Bible consistently says about money and the love of money, any group not toward the bottom of that list has reason to hang their head in shame. Their high placement affords proof that they do not practice what they preach and they do not trust what the Lord says.
As to the Watchtower’s own statement, ‘lies and distortion of facts’—it might be more technically accurate if rephrased as ‘distortion of facts and lies’—I am not necessarily a fan of how the warning is made—but in the end, is it not the same thing? Consider:
”Is it really so that?” (a distortion of truth, designed to plant doubt)
”You will not die.” (a lie—nothing but)
”for God knows that in the very day of your eating from it...” (a bit of both, but mostly a distortion, for it impugns God’s motives)
More is distortion than outright lie. But it amounts to the same thing. In fact, the distortion is worse than the lie, in most cases, for without the distortion to ‘prime the pump’ the lie itself will often be spotted and rejected out of hand.
Who does the fellow with the ink horn mark on the forehead? Those who are sighing and groaning over all the detestable things done in God’s name. Some aren’t. They aren’t marked for that reason. In no case is any lie being told. Even the distortion of truth is not immediately apparent. But it is there. People made in God’s image should be sighing and groaning over the detestable things done in God’s name. And sighing and groaning is not the same thing as bitching and complaining.
Too often we play their game. Given the facts that they choose to focus upon, they are exactly right, It is the choice of facts that is significant—which ones are promoted, which ones are inflated, which ones are downplayed, which ones are ignored, and which ones are declared not facts at all.
The Word makes clear from the get-go that those who serve love and serve God in the manner he directs and those who do not will have dramatically different ways of looking at things. They will have dramatically different goals in life. Once in a while (or even more than once in a while) apostates are pure loons. Once in a while (or even more than once in a while) some of us are. But for the most part, both groups act consistently with the facts that they choose to focus upon.
It is really impossible to successfully argue against their facts without also arguing against their priorities, their “tastes.” And since the latter is plainly impossible, it does make one reassess one’s time spent in doing so.
There was great joy in the atheist world during 2010, where they celebrated the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin! Sigh…..that left Jehovah’s Witnesses doubly out in the cold: we don’t celebrate Darwin and we don’t do birthdays. Nonetheless, it’s a Charles Darwin statement that will be used as a starting point for this post. It’s taken from Origin of the Species, chapter VI. Call my recognition a belated birthday present, if you must.
Darwin wrote:
“To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.”….
Q: If you quote this line, do you really have to add: “of course, this is not to suggest that Darwin does not believe in his own theory of evolution by natural selection”?
I would never have thought so. I mean, what do you expect his next words to be? “Thus we can see that my entire theory is a load of horse manure. But I’m in this to win the praise of my peers, who for some reason, eat this stuff up. That, and maybe there’s a buck to be made. So I’m putting lipstick on this pig. I’m sticking to my guns, even though you know, and I know, that it’s all nonsense.”??
No! He’s not going to say that! He’s going to say something like: “Still, many now-established truths seemed equally absurd when first proposed. Evidence is scanty with relationship to the eye’s development….no one’s saying otherwise….. but we can expect future researchers to uncover corroborating material.”
That’s my prediction (without peeking). In fact, he says almost exactly that:
“When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei [“the voice of the people = the voice of God “], as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certain the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, should not be considered as subversive of the theory.”
Alright, then. Pretty much what I predicted he would say. Any donkey ought to realize Darwin’s not throwing in the towel on his own theory by admitting evolution of the eye sounds ridiculous. If you use his quote to suggest he considers himself a charlatan, that’s dishonest. But if you use his quote to show he acknowledges some pretty high hurdles exist in proving his theory…..well, what’s wrong with that?
Now, statements like that of Darwin appear all the time in evolutionist literature. And Watchtower publications have been known to pick up and run with them, without appending the “of course, so-and-so still believes in his own theory.” So the grumblers have accused them of deliberate misquoting. But Watchtower hasn’t done that at all. They’ve used all such quotes properly. (Though I won’t vouch for non-Witness publications, some of which may well use such quotes in misleading ways)
Regarding quotes, you may have noticed that if you quote someone and don’t reach the same conclusion he does, he will invariably say you must consider his context. If you do that, and still don’t agree, he will want you to expand the context. If you do that, even to the point of quoting the entire article, and still don’t agree, he will call you a fool. That’s just the way people are.
Whenever the Watchtower quotes an evolutionist, it’s understood that he believes his own theory! You don’t have to spell that out. If he says something that sounds far-fetched, and the Creation book picks it up, do you really think the authors wish to imply that he is gleefully lying through his teeth, willfully advancing a fraudulent notion? Of course not! It’s obvious he believes his own belief! Anybody howls dishonesty when their quotes are used to support a conclusion they themselves have not reached. All you have to do when quoting someone is relay their words accurately, as they were stated, without insertions or deletions. If you can’t even do that, then you shouldn’t allow cross-examination in jury trials….where an opposing lawyer uses a witness’s own words to trip him up. It shouldn’t be allowed! Just ask the witness what impression he wishes to make upon the court, and leave it at that.
Nonetheless, to placate the critics, Watchtower just released new material geared to defending creation at the 2010 District Conventions, and they’ve taken to pointing out, whenever quoting an evolutionist discussing some glitch in his theory, that “nonetheless, so-and-so still believes his own idea.” I don’t think it’s ethically necessary. But I see why they did it.
For example, on page 5 of The Origin of Life: Five Questions Worth Asking, (published by Watchtower, 2010), Prof Robert Shapiro of New York University discusses the famous 1953 experiments of Stanley Miller. He says “Some writers have presumed that all life’s building blocks could be formed with ease in Miller-type experiments and were present in meteorites. This is not the case.” Shapiro probably says this because evolution textbooks have implied just that for the past 50 years. He further states that the likelihood of a RNA molecule arising from such a mixture “is so vanishingly small that its happening even once anywhere in the visible universe would count as a piece of exceptional good luck.”
And at this point, there is a footnote, explained at the bottom of the page:
*”Professor Shapiro does not believe that life was created. He believes that life arose by chance in some fashion not yet fully understood.”
There! Happy? Don’t ask what congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses he attends. He’s not one of ours. He’s one of theirs.
On the next page, the booklet mentions “researcher Hubert P Yockey, who supports the teaching of evolution, [and] ….. states ‘It is impossible that the origin of life was proteins first’” [an order long insisted upon by evolutionary theory, as proteins are building blocks for RNA].
See? Don’t lose your cookies. No one’s saying he’s one of ours. He supports the teaching of evolution, even though he points out the long supported protein-RNA sequence of events is “impossible.” (quote marks mine) There must be some other sequence that is “possible,” he apparently thinks. All that remains is to discover it.
Apparently, both proteins and RNA molecules have to simultaneously appear at the same place and same time….one cannot precede the other…. for their life-forming cooperation to take place. “’The probability of this happening by chance (given a random mixture of proteins and RNA) seems astronomically low,’ says Dr Carol Cleland, [who adds] ‘most researchers seem to assume that if they can make sense of the independent production of proteins and RNA under natural primordial conditions, the coordination will somehow take care of itself,’” with all efforts to explain that coordination being not “very satisfying.”
And again a footnote. *”Dr Cleland is not a creationalist. She believes that life arose by chance in some fashion not yet fully understood.”
Okay? Again, Watchtower doesn’t suggest she one of us. She’s not.
At this point, the booklet observes: “Similarly, if scientists ever did construct a cell, (see eighth paragraph of link) they would accomplish something truly amazing – but would they prove that the cell could be made by accident? If anything, they would prove the very opposite, would they not? …..All scientific evidence to date indicates that life can come only from previously existing life. To believe that even a “simple” living cell arose by chance from nonliving chemicals requires a huge leap of faith. Given the facts, are you willing to make such a leap?”
And on it goes. Other scientists are quoted: Radu Popa, Richard Feynman, Francis Crick, Eric Bapteste, Michael Rose, David M Raup, Henry Gee, Malcolm S Gordon, Robin Derricourt, Gyula Gyenis, Carl N Stephan, Milford H Wolpoff, and maybe some I missed. Each and every time, the publishers point out, usually in separate footnote, that these folks do not believe in creation. They believe in evolution. It’s just that each of them have pointed to separate long-held tenets of the belief to observe that….um….it doesn’t….ahh….exactly work the way it has long been supposed to. That’s not to say they’ve thrown in the towel. No! They’re merely wrung it out and jumped into the fray afresh. It almost seem silly to include so many footnotes…as if catering to the whiners. Still, there’s a lot of whiners, and they make a lot of noise. Maybe this will shut them up for a moment or two.
All of those quoted are respected scientists. None of them believe in creation. They all accept evolution, and they’ll continue to accept it, more likely than not. That way they get to remain respected scientists. No, they are not in our camp. They are “hostile witnesses,” every last one of them. They say things we latch onto, even though they don’t agree with us. But there’s nothing wrong with quoting them. Where would Perry Mason, Bobby Donnel, or the Boston Legal crew be if they couldn’t cross-examine hostile witnesses?
