Rational Compassionate Living

Update: There is a newer series of articles, which more or less replace this particular blog. Please see:  Resurrection! Part 1: Earthly

I’m not a huge fan of science-fiction, but I do enjoy it when it’s done well. Two movies that come to mind here are Multiplicity and Blade Runner. One a comedy, and one an action drama.

In Multiplicity, an overworked man (Doug) clones himself. The clone (dubbed “Two”) turns out to be an exact replica adult (!) Two has all the memories of Doug, and initially mistakes Doug for the clone. Naturally; he thinks he’s Doug. However, there is no doubt in Doug’s mind that Two is not him.

In Blade Runner, an android is given the memories of a young woman. The android believes the memories are of her own past and does not know that she is an android. However, the woman whose memories were implanted in the android knows that the android is not her.

Why do I bring up these movies when the topic is resurrection? Because of the way the Watchtower describes the process of resurrection. Let me explain.

The Watchtower holds that there is no immaterial, immortal “soul” that is the “real you”. No; the word “soul” refers to a physical human body which has God’s impersonal “life force” animating it. They also hold that God creates a new body for resurrected ones.

Finally, everyone who dies before Armageddon (both righteous and unrighteous) will be resurrected in the Millennium that follows (well, not us apostates, but all the rest of humankind.)

That’s all well and good, however (as usual) there are problems with these Watchtower beliefs. Let’s assume the worst: you die prior to Armageddon. Death involves God withdrawing his life-force from you. After which your body rots, or is cremated — it doesn’t matter because God will create a new body for you in the resurrection. (Unlike what’s depicted in Luca Signorelli’s medieval Resurrection of the Flesh shown above.)

Okay, but what does God “put into” this perfect new body to make it you? Remember: there is no immaterial “soul” such as most other Christian religions have which can be neatly inserted into the body. No; while you were dead there was no conscious “you” floating around anywhere. In fact, there wasn’t even an unconscious “you”; you had ceased to exist entirely.

“Ceased to exist entirely,” that is, except for God’s memory of you! Here is the saving grace. The Watchtower asserts that God has kept all of your memories in his divine data-bank. Then, at resurrection time he stuffs these memories of yours into a new perfect body, and there you have it: A perfect new you resurrected into a perfect new world!

Except it won’t be you.

It will be a new being with your memories. It will be just like “Two” in Multiplicity and just like the android in Blade Runner. Oh yes, this new being on this new Earth will think that they’re you. But is that any consolation? Can you take comfort in knowing that you will have an impostor (with your name) sincerely posing as you on a different planet (with the name “Earth”) for eternity?

It’s not you that will be resurrected.

You will still be dead–forever.

See also: The Post Armageddon Blues.

Is it the Governing Body of the Jehovah’s Witnesses (as claimed in this hierarchy chart from the Watchtower, 12/15/71)?

[Notice that there was no room in the hierarchy for you lowly “publishers” much less the rest of the world!]

In a previous blog we explained why this group cannot rightly be called a “slave”.
Today we’re going to see why they can’t rightly be called “faithful” or “discreet”.

Faithful? Maybe, sort of… but not where it counts

In at least one sense they are faithful: full of a simple-minded faith in their own abilities to pontificate on things they know little or nothing about. They have perhaps also been faithful to what they imagine their god wants them to do.

One area in which they have not been faithful is in regard to the Bible. When they translated the Bible they did not remain faithful to the extant manuscripts. Instead, they admit that they inserted the name “Jehovah” in the “Christian Greek Scriptures” (aka “the New Testament) where it did not exist¹. This was “adding to God’s Word” which the Bible clearly forbids².

Discreet?

So, what does “discreet” mean, anyway?

Shakespeare famously quipped that “discretion is the better part of valor.”³ Giving humorous prestige to the coward’s “discreet retreat”.

But, thinking of the way the GB uses it, I tend to picture in my mind a shady business deal or tryst in which one party says to the other: “I rely on your discretion,” meaning “Don’t rat me out because I’ve got the goods on you as well.”

At its most basic, being “discreet” means not blurting out what you’re not absolutely certain about, especially when giving voice to your thought could result in harm to another. Take the age-old example of yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater, which is likely to cause injuries in the resultant panic. “Discretion” in this example means making damn well sure that what you saw was an out-of-control fire before you shout out your warning.

Now, in the case of the GB, what is it that they are supposed to be discreet about? They claim to be God’s spokesmen on Earth: placed in charge of his world-wide organization and its dissemination of God’s messages. In short, they are to “care for the flock” of Jehovah’s people, ensuring that they are fed the “proper spiritual food” at the proper time.

Have they done this? Have they proven to be discreet in carrying out this weighty responsibility? Or have they in effect cried “Fire!” when none was burning?

In 1967 the GB announced that organ transplants were “cannibalism” and hence against God’s law⁴. Any Jehovah’s Witness who accepted an organ transplant would be disfellowshiped: removed from the “ark of salvation” which is the Society:cut off from their “brothers and sisters”; losing their sole chance at eternal life.

In 1980 the GB reversed itself on organ transplants, declaring that they were not cannibalism and were “a matter of personal conscience”⁵.

In the interim Jehovah’s Witnesses, obediently following the Watchtower’s lead (as they vowed to do at baptism) refused organ transplants (just as they refuse blood transfusions today). Those who needed an organ transplant died.

One of these victims was Delores Busselman, who died in 1971 after obediently refusing a bone-marrow transplant. You can read her husband Gary’s account of this at: Losing My Wife To The Watchtower.

Was the 1967 announcement discreet?

This raises the question: was the 1967 announcement discreet? If there had been any question in the GB’s minds regarding organ transplants the discreet thing to do would have been to keep their mouths shut.

If we say Yes…

If we are to believe that they are truly discreet, then it follows that when they announced their new-found law of God’s–knowing that it could result in death to members of their flock–they must’ve felt certain that God had communicated this message to them. But, based on the 1980 reversal they must’ve been wrong.

This means that if the GB is truly discreet then they must not know when God is communicating with them and when he is not.

If they are led by God’s Spirit…

On the other hand, if they insist that they are God’s spokesmen on Earth, communicating God’s message to his people [as insist they do], then they had better know when God has a message for them to convey. They’d better understand what if feels like to be “led by Jehovah’s Spirit”. If that’s the case, then they must’ve known in 1967 that they were not being led by Jehovah’s Spirit in the organ-transplant announcement. (Because if they didn’t know, then they don’t know what it feels like to be led by God’s Spirit, which means that they have never felt led by God’s Spirit!)

So, if we want to maintain that they are led by God’s Spirit [at least sometimes], then we must acknowledge that their blurting out the 1967 announcement was the epitome of indiscretion.

The Dilemma

Here’s the dilemma in a nutshell: Is the GB led by God’s Spirit, or are they discreet? Their actions have proven that they cannot possibly be both.

But they can certainly be neither. Because, if they don’t know when God’s Spirit is leading them the discreet thing to do would be to shut up!

Is it all just “Human Imperfection”?

Well, yes, of course it’s human imperfection. There was no god involved in any of this fiasco. Men had developed a new way to save lives. Other men decided that this new way to save lives was against their god’s law. Later these men retracted that decision when they realized that they were wrong. It had nothing to do with their god whom they claim “does not change.”

The Watchtower likes to use the “human imperfections” excuse to try to retain their self-appointed status as being faithful and discreet. But the excuse just proves that they are merely human beings like everyone else: not “God’s spokesmen on Earth”.

The ban on organ transplants was Watchtower Society policy for 13 years! Meanwhile, people “in the world” and people in nearly all other religions were not forbidden this life-saving medical treatment. It was only those following the orders of the “faithful and discreet slave” who suffered. Real people died during those 13 years as a direct result of the GB’s announcement. Tell their loved ones, like Gary Busselman, to shrug it off as “human imperfection” of the GB which “Jehovah corrects in his due time”. You might as well slap them in the face; that’s what the GB has done with their pathetic excuse.

The organ transplant issue is just one example. We could’ve just as easily have used the example of vaccinations or blood transfusions with the same result. The GB has repeatedly made deadly proclamations which they have later admitted were wrong — though it doesn’t stop them from continuing to make them. How discreet is that?

Who, then, is the faithful and discreet slave?

When we point out how the GB of Jehovah’s Witnesses cannot possibly be honestly regarded as a “faithful and discreet slave” we always hear the same response from Jehovah’s Witnesses: “Who then is the faithful and discreet slave? Who else does yadda yadda yadda…” It’s as if they’ve been plugging their ears, just waiting to yank this canned argument from their sleeve and throw it down on the table as the ultimate trump card.

Okay, there is a parable in the Bible where Jesus supposedly related a story of a steward [“slave” in the Watchtower’s translation] who takes care of things while the master of the house is gone, and watches for his return (Luke 12:35-48). In Mark’s account Jesus says “What I say to you, I say to everyone” (Mark 13:37), so it is not meant to be one lone group of people that the parable applies to.

Asking “who is the steward?” makes as much sense as asking “who is the good Samaritan?” It isn’t a person or a class of people.

• In the case of the good Samaritan it is anyone who helps another in need (even when it’s a person from a despised group).
• In the case of the “faithful and wise steward” it is anyone who takes their responsibilities seriously and performs their duties with diligence.

Now you know. Go forth and free yourself!

— Footnotes —

¹The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures richly enhances accurate Bible knowledge… the foremost feature of this translation is the restoration of the divine name to its rightful place in the English text. It has been done, using the commonly accepted English form “Jehovah” 6,973 times in the Hebrews Scriptures and 237 times in the Christian Greek Scriptures.
– New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures with References, Revised 1984, p. 6
return

²For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book
– Revelation 22:18
return

³The better part of valor is discretion, in the which better part I have sav’d my life.
–(Falstaff) Henry The Fourth, Part 1 Act 5, scene 4, 115–121
return

⁴…removing the organ and replacing it directly with an organ from another human… Those who submit to such operations are thus living off the flesh of another human. That is cannibalistic. However, in allowing man to eat animal flesh Jehovah God did not grant permission for humans to try to perpetuate their lives by cannibalistically taking into their bodies human flesh, whether chewed or in the form of whole organs or body parts taken from others.
– Watchtower, 11/15/1967, p.702 return

⁵Regarding the transplantation of human tissue or bone from one human to another, this is a matter for conscientious decision by each one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Some Christians might feel that taking into their bodies any tissue or body part from another human is cannibalistic. . . . Other sincere Christians today may feel that the Bible does not definitely rule out medical transplants of human organs. . . . It may be argued, too, that organ transplants are different from cannibalism since the “donor” is not killed to supply food.”
–Watchtower, March 15, 1980, p. 31 return

Time plays a crucial role in the Watchtower religion. In this article we are going to examine how the concept of time is twisted by the Watchtower in an attempt to absolve Jehovah from the sin of telling the first lie.

Back to the beginning

Let’s go back to the beginning (or very nearly the beginning). When critiquing the Bible, people such as myself are quick to point out that in the book of Genesis God lied to Adam. Jehovah told Adam that in the day he ate from the forbidden tree-of-the-knowledge-of-good-and-evil he would die:

And Jehovah God also laid this command upon the man: “From every tree of the garden you may eat to satisfaction. But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die.”– Genesis 2:16-17 (NWT)

A talking serpent (“the most cautious of all the wild beasts of the field that Jehovah God had made” Genesis 3:1), contrary to God’s pronouncement, told Eve that if she ate the forbidden fruit she would not die, but would become “like God: knowing good and evil:”

At this the serpent said to the woman: “YOU positively will not die. For God knows that in the very day of YOUR eating from it YOUR eyes are bound to be opened and YOU are bound to be like God, KNOWING good and bad.” — Genesis 3:4-5 (NWT)

Who lied?

Well, if we take this story literally, both the serpent and Jehovah lied. Eve did, in fact die (eventually). Adam died too, but not in the day that he ate from the tree:

And Adam lived on for a hundred and thirty years. Then he became father to a son in his likeness, in his image, and called his name Seth. And the days of Adam after his fathering Seth came to be eight hundred years. Meanwhile he became father to sons and daughters. So all the days of Adam that he lived amounted to nine hundred and thirty years and he died.
— Genesis 5:3-5 (NWT)

So, the only truthful statement that was made on this occasion (according to the Bible) was that they would “become like God knowing good and evil” — a statement made by the serpent, though Jehovah never contradicted this statement–in fact he affirmed it after the fact:

And Jehovah God went on to say: “Here the man has become like one of us in knowing good and bad…”
–Genesis 3:22

But, did Jehovah God really lie? The Bible elsewhere tells us that God cannot lie (Titus 1:2), so in order to save the inerrancy of the Bible, fundamentalists need to somehow make God’s statement seem not to be a lie.

Time to the rescue!

Here is a quote from a real-life active Jehovah’s Witness trying to explain this:

“…a day to Jehovah is a thousand years. … 2 Peter 3:8….. Adam lived 930 years and died! Yep that’s within a day!” [sic] — “Anonymous Coward”

To sum up this Witness explanation: Jehovah is off the hook for saying Adam would die in the “day” he ate the forbidden fruit, because — according to something that someone claiming to be “Peter” wrote centuries later — God really meant a thousand years when he said “day.”

Here’s why the Witness argument is silly:

1. The Bible’s First Definition

The very first instance of the Bible’s defining a word for us is when it defines the word “Day,” and it is not defined as a thousand years. It is defined as “light,” and we’re told that God himself named it:

And God began calling the light Day, but the darkness he called Night. And there came to be evening and there came to be morning, a first day. — Genesis 1:5

Just so there can be no confusion here, not only is the day equated with light, it is also contrasted with night (which is equated with darkness). And, as if that weren’t enough, we are also told that there was an evening and a morning in that “first day.”

In what sense could a thousand-year period have “an evening and a morning?” It would be ridiculous to think that it was light for 500 years and then dark for another 500 years, with a period of twilight between them representing morning and evening — but that is what it would have to have been if the first “day” were a thousand-year period.

2. Speaking so as to be understood by your hearer.

An important question is: What would Adam have thought God meant by the word “Day”? After all, God was trying to communicate an important warning to Adam, so he would’ve used words in the way Adam would understand them. Otherwise he might as well have been speaking Greek, and it wouldn’t be fair to judge Adam on whether he obeyed a warning he couldn’t comprehend.

So, when God issued his warning, would Adam have thought: “that means I’ll die within 365,000 days if I disobey”? Not likely. If God had taught Adam language, we know how he would’ve defined the word “day” to him — because we have that exact definition in Genesis 1:5: a literal earth-day replete with a morning and evening: dawn and dusk: light and darkness.

Elsewhere, in an attempt to save the inerrancy of the Bible, the Watchtower tells us that God spoke to us in a way we could understand: according to the knowledge available at the time of the writing. So, when the Bible tells us that “the Sun stood still” or that a star “stood over a house” on Earth, etc., it is just because the people of that time thought the Sun moved around the Earth and that stars were small lights stuck up in a “firmament” a short distance above their heads. To be consistent, then, God would’ve used the word “day” in the way his hearer (Adam) would’ve understood it: a literal 24 hour day: God’s own definition, rather than the definition given centuries later by whoever forged the second epistle of “Peter.”

3. Hyperbole

The quote from “Peter” has always seemed to me to just be hyperbole, rather than a precise method for determining biblical time periods. The way that the Watchtower uses the quote completely ignores the context. The epistle was written to Christians who were wondering where Jesus was, since they understood him to have said, in effect: “I’ll be right back.” The writer of this epistle was telling them: “No, Jesus is not late, you just have to be patient, because God has a longer range time-plan than you think: a thousand years is like nothing to him.”

4. Inconsistencies

If the “day = 1,000 years” formula is meant to be a “key” to understanding the Bible’s use of the word “day,” then it should be used consistently, not just whenever it would save a doctrine. However–no surprise here–the Watchtower does not use it consistently.

Having touched on the “days of creation” above, it’s curious to note that the official Watchtower doctrine holds that the “days of creation” were not a thousand years each. For most of their history, this religion has held that each day of creation was 7,000 years long:

Thus we find the seventh “day” of the creative week to be seven thousand years long. On the basis of the length of the seventh “day” it is therefore reasonable to conclude that each of the other six “days” also was a period of 7,000 years.
–Watchtower 2/15/1970 p.120

They figured this out by working backwards from 1975 being “6,000 years from Adam’s creation” plus the 1,000 year “Millennium” to round out the 7th day to 7,000 years. So they decided each “creative day” must’ve been 7,000 years long. But since 1975 proved to be a dud, they have since been forced to change their tune: so now they say that each of the days is an indefinite period “thousands of years long”.

And, of course, there are instances where they admit that God speaks of a “day” as a literal 24-hour period, lest the absurdities become too pronounced. For instance, if the Israelites under Joshua’s command were supposed to march around Jericho for seven thousand years–when Jehovah told them to march for seven days–they’d still be marching (Joshua 6:2-4).

Other instances where they say that a “day” is not a thousand years are seen in the Watchtower’s circuitous manner of arriving at the year 1919 for their claimed appointment (by no less than Jesus) as the “Faithful and Discreet Slave Class.” So, let’s take a short digression to review exactly that:

The Tortuous Journey to 1919

1. Arriving at 1914

Okay, first of all you have to establish the year 1914 by taking the “seven times” of Dan. 2 and multiplying by 360 (according to the formula of “a day for a year” — and pretending that a year consists of 360 days instead of 365.) That gives you 2,520 years for the “Gentile Times” [even though in that account King Nebuchadnezzar, representing the Gentile power of that time, was off his throne for those “seven times,” lost to madness and grazing like a cow in the field–we’ll still pretend that the seven times represents the time when gentile kingdoms will rule the Earth before “spiritual Israel” takes over.]

Starting at 1914, you then have to go back in time 2,520 years which brings you to 607 BCE. Now, in order for all of this to work out, you have to pretend that 607 BCE was the year that Jerusalem was destroyed [even though it is known to have occurred in 587 BCE.] Then we have to pretend that we arrived at 1914 by counting seven times from the destruction of Jerusalem in 607 BCE instead of admitting that we went the other way around.

2. Arriving at 1918

To 1914 (October, to be as precise as the Watchtower) we then add the 1,260 days (aka 42 months, or 3 1/2 years) from Revelation 11:2,3 when the “temple is trampled”. Here we use the formula: “a day = a day” to bring us to April, 1918. But nothing happened then, so we arbitrarily stretch it out a couple of months by starting the 42 months in December of 1914 instead of October. That brings us to June, 1918 when the leaders of the Watchtower were imprisoned (which is the closest thing they could find to “trampling the temple.”)

3. Arriving at 1919

To June, 1918 we add the 3 1/2 days of Rev. 11:9, only this time we pretend that a day is about 2-1/2 months (a tad more than 77 days to be precise), so that 3 1/2 days equals 9 months, which brings us to March, 1919 when the Watchtower leaders were released from prison, thus “proving” that they were judged to be the “Faithful and Discreet Slave” by none other than Jesus himself [whom I’m sure would be as surprised as the rest of us to see his parable turned into this convoluted prophecy about some ex-cons]!

So what does a “day” mean in the Bible, according to the Watchtower?

• 1 day
• 77.14 days
• 360 days
• 1 year
• 1,000 years
• 7,000+ years

With such an extensive list it’s easy to give yourself plenty of “wiggle room” for all of your doctrines and prophecies! How could you ever be wrong [at least in your own eyes, and those of your gullible followers]? If one of the above doesn’t fit, you can easily make up yet another new meaning to keep everyone happily bewildered.

Conclusion

As we’ve seen, the Watchtower does not apply its formula of “a day equals a thousand years” consistently. Rather, they try to retrofit the meaning of a “day” in hindsight to fit their preconceived ideas. [In fact–correct me if I’m wrong–but I think the “talking serpent” story is the single instance where they actually apply the “day=1,000 years” formula.]

It’s as if I were to say that “in 10 days the stock-market will crash,” and then when it doesn’t crash until 5 years from now I turn around and say, “well, a ‘day’ meant 1/2 year in that instance,” so I was right.

According to the Bible, Adam and Eve died eventually, but not as a direct result of eating the forbidden fruit. The Bible shows that they still could’ve lived forever if only they had eaten from the tree of life (Genesis 3:22). So, it was not eating from the first tree that killed them; it was not eating from the second tree. The serpent was not lying: and the only liar in the little drama was Jehovah. Which I guess makes him the “father of the lie.”

It would be as if I had a very young son whom I told: “If you eat this Twinky you will die that very day.” But a neighbor-kid tells him truthfully: “You can’t die from eating a Twinky.” Then my son eats the Twinky, and I lock him outside where, after several days, he dies of exposure and starvation. Then I say: “See, I told you you’d die from eating that Twinky — within uh, a ‘day:’ as I interpret ‘days.’ Too bad for you, but the important point is that I am vindicated! I told the truth and that neighbor-kid was lying to you.”
What would you like to say to such a parent? _____________________________!!!
Now, say that to Jehovah, because time has failed to save his reputation.

BTW: I don’t recommend actually eating Twinkies–but it’s better than drinking the Kool-Aid.

Next: Part Two: “Doing Time!”