| Subject: Pre-Empt |
Author:
Donald
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Date Posted: 08:07:49 06/17/04 Thu
In reply to:
Shandon
's message, "Re: Harry Potter and Academics" on 09:01:21 06/16/04 Wed
Scooter,
I am baptised seven years. My views are not that divergent as Vince assumes. His list seems stark, but here is the background.
I was on the Reachout forum for years and had some bad experiences along the way. I was excluded once and left of my own accord a couple of other times. Before I wrote as ROTW I had not posted for a while because other posters were becoming increasingly hostile to me, so that when I returned I though that if I used a different posting name that others might give me a fairer hearing. I also realised that I could not be as strident in defending Jehovah's Witnesses as I had been previously or I would be instantly recognised. So I decided to stress those few things that I could possibly say I had in common with the others so as to try to have more balanced discussions. I thought that maybe if I started with a less obviously apologetic position concerning Jehovah's Witnesses then I could perhaps have more success winning them round on the more important issues.
Indeed I did say that our understanding of Bible prophecy is provisional, so as to try to show that I was not such a hard liner. But what Vince does not seem to realise is that Watchtower publications have also made this point. The proclaimers book points out that our understanding has needed to be corrected in the past and that this will no doubt also happen in the future. The Revelation book also states at the very beginning that the interpretations offered are a sincere, but not infallible attempt at understanding that book. The same applies to Daniel. By making this point I wanted the others to see that Jehovah's Witnesses are not so rigid as they are made out to be.
As regards the comments about the meetings being boring, I want to point out that those comments should be taken in context. I often start a discussion with an extreme position to get things going, though, as is obvious from my comments, this particular discussion has not gone the way I wanted. Vince should notice that although I started out by saying that the meetings could sometimes be boring, the point I wanted to make came out at the end of the discussion when I showed how the governing body had recently changed the meetings to make them more interesting. I know that that was where I wanted to take the discussion, but Vince does not seem to realise that. He seems to think that when I made those comments I was showing my true self, which was previously kept hidden. He is wrong in that assumption just as I was wrong in guessing that he had not read Harry Potter.
Vince also seems to have missed the point that while I questioned the thought that 144 000 is a literal number, I have never questioned the belief, clearly taught in the Bible, that there is a fixed number who will go to heaven, the rest remaining on earth. I know some in the truth who are inclined to believe that there are more than 144 000 anointed, and I was partially persuaded by that argument when I made those comments. Again, I wanted to emphasize what I had in common with the anti-Witnesses on Reachout at the time, and I now think that I unwisely went to far in appeasing them by saying that I agreed that the 144 000 is not literal. I think that the number is literal. And it should also be noted that even those few who think that this belief will be revised do not any of them consider the issue so important as to spread divisions among Jehovah's Witnesses.
On a lighter note, Jehovah's Witnesses are generally against Harry Potter, especially as far as children are concerned. But, as in all matters of entertainment, individual Jehovah's Witnesses make up their own mind in these matters and they don't come under nearly as much pressure to conform as those in some evangelical communities do. I know two adult Jehovah's Witnesses who are Harry Potter fans because they love reading and they say that they are great books. My little sister likes Harry Potter very much and she is responsible for my seeing the films and reading the first book. Unlike almost everyone else who has read Harry Potter, I did not think it was very particularly well written and it did not grab me. The films were better, but still not worth the watch in my opinion, but then, I don't care films in general, unless they be of the Star Trek variety, of course.
Donald
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