I was talking to my Jehovah’s Witness friend the other day and he was telling me how important it is to use God’s real name, Jehovah, and how they’re the only ones to do it. He was telling me that “they” took his name out of the Bible on purpose. So I did a quick Google search on the word “Jehovah” in the King James Bible. Of course it’s in there, and a few times. It’s just not every other line. So if “they” were trying to hide God’s true name they did a pretty crappy job.
But the very first verse I found actually shot down his entire argument, even if taken from his own bible.
Exodus 6:3 - And I used to appear to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty, but with regard to my name Jehovah I did not make myself known to them.
Right there, in God’s own words (this is a direct quote from God), God is saying that he did not tell Abraham, Isaac and Jacob his name. Probably only Moses is a more influential figure in the OT than these 3. Abraham definitely comes a close 2nd to Moses. And God is saying, in plain speech, in his own Bible that he did not tell 3 of the 4 most important figures in the Bible what his name was. It was very much not important to him that they know his name.
Of course when you have something definitive like that the response is always, “The Bible doesn’t say what it says! It says what I say it says!” Extremely frustrating. He demanded that those three DID know God’s name and that what God said in that verse is NOT what God said in that verse. Essentially I was supposed to take his word for it that that’s not what God meant. Apparently God is sometimes incapable of speaking clearly.
That is frustrating especially since the changing names of god, including the use of a plural early on, are very important to understanding the evolving religion and its history. It’s some of the easiest introduction to the Documentary Hypothesis.
I miss my JW friends who used to come by every few months. Not so much as a pamphlet wedged in my door when I come home since last fall.
Covid is putting a serious kink in their plans to get me on the invite list of the 144,000 going to heaven.
You aren’t invited to go to Heaven. Everyone going to Heaven was born on or before 1933. Your invite is to Paradise Earth. And you technically don’t need an invite anyway. Do all the boozing and hoaring you want. As long as you’re not Hitler or Trump level evil, after the war with Satan is won, you’ll be resurrected and asked, with temptation dead, if you accept Jesus as your lord and savior. Say “Yes” and you’re in. Say know and what happens to you is the same thing you already think is going to happen anyway. There is literally ZERO incentive for an atheist to join the church.
Widder's: "There is literally ZERO incentive for an atheist to join the church."
That's a curiously attractive feature of the JW's.
They’ve eliminated the ‘eternity’ based scare tactics used by 99% of Christianity and use ‘here and now’ scare tactics (shunning for example), in order to prevent people from leaving.
Basically:
- The JW's sneaky tactics - attract with a carrot and keep them trapped with a stick.
- 99% of other religion's tactics - threaten with a stick and keep on threatening.
The JW's are unique in some ways, but only in the details of how they are wrong.
That’s why I’ve long held that the JW religion is specifically the one I am rejecting. There is a possibility that I am wrong and magic is real. If it is, I want it to be their magic. Though I think I’d still probably choose to not live forever. Eternity just doesn’t sound that appealing to me, especially an eternity without change, ever.