Why call upon the anecdotes of men, living or dead, as appeals to authority on the status of God? Why continue arguing these dogmas? There are sacred texts all around the world and across time and languages and cultures. To think that you can dictate to others what their relationship is to God is fairly arrogant. One might even call it hubris, the downfall of that most famous angel of light (Lucifer) in the biblical narrative. Each person interprets their…
For a number of reasons, I haven’t posted anything about Jehovah’s Witnesses for a while. There have been some horrible events in the news, and all sorts of doctrinal and organizational changes, but I find myself more interested these days in some of the larger questions. I’ve been trying to write something about that, but nothing I wrote was satisfactory to me. It turns out that I needed a real question for my thoughts on this to spill out. In…
As a therapeutic exercise, I attempted to rewrite the list of possible EX-JW Dysfunctional Beliefs from Mindful Construct in terms of my own perspective. I meant this to be simple, but it didn’t work out that way. Some of it is rewritten, some of it is explanatory, some of it is questioning – but I’ll honor where this took me and not go back and make the form of the responses consistent. Jehovah’s Witnesses are the only ones who know…
I’m dwelling on a few of the more illuminating passages from the Hebrew and the Greek Scriptures. There are a few (yes, there are) that are encouraging and inspiring. These are shimmer points that can always bring goodness. They are sometimes surrounded by passages that provide only the very dimmest of lights from the tain of the mirror. Perhaps that is somehow necessary, just as the best grapes for wine only grow and flourish in well-aged manure. It doesn’t prevent…
A recent column in the Chinese University’s Student Press magazine (Hong Kong) was deemed “indecent” by the Obscene Article Tribunal because it asked readers about whether they had ever fantasized about incest or bestiality. A storm of debate followed – on freedom of speech, the right to open sexual discussion, and the obligations and limits of social morality. Seemingly in response (although I’m not sure how they would know that), someone launched an anonymous web site (truthbible.net ) that said…
Peace be in you. Peace be through you. I feel a great urge for peace today. I am thinking about some of the wise and kind people that I have met, and the way I felt when I was near them. There are people of the book(s). There are people of people, so to speak. There are people of the cosmos. Each have their strengths and blind spots, but they share some things in common. Such people seem to leave…