Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To refuse to take the Watchtower and send Jehova's Witnesses away with parish magazine?

378 replies

Elasticwoman · 05/09/2007 22:34

They said: hey, you've got to take a Watchtower, it was a deal!

But I welshed on it.

Was I unreasonable, and what do other people do when the God Squad come to their door trying to sell God to them?

OP posts:
lisad123 · 06/09/2007 17:20

Krang the scriptures that forbids blood:

Genesis 9:4
Leviticus 17:14 and 7:26
Act 15:29 to keep abstaining from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled

Acts 21:25.

not sure if you wanted them allq uoted or not but if you have a bible at home it will read the same.

This founder did not predict that the second coming was in 1914, but this would be the turning point and i have to say 1914 was a hell of a year, being the first world war and all.

Aimsmum · 06/09/2007 17:27

Message withdrawn

LazyLinePainterJane · 06/09/2007 17:33

Before I look at the posts from the last half hour, would just like to say, aimsmum that:

any Holby City is too much Holby City

Aimsmum · 06/09/2007 17:34

Message withdrawn

LazyLinePainterJane · 06/09/2007 17:36

I find it rather bizarre, the pleading from the religious amongst us, that we should respect the beliefs of others when this is exactly what religion has NOT done throughout history.

Athiests are not your problem.

krang · 06/09/2007 17:46

Caroline, why is it 'mocking' to ask questions pertinent to a religion?

Why is it impolite to ask these questions of people who have come on to a thread of their own volition to justify their beliefs?

Yes, indeed, aimsmum, most religions are based on incredibly loose interpretations of wholly irrelevant ancient texts, which is one reason why I am an atheist. Thank you for answering my question and pointing me to the relevant verse which could of course be interpreted to mean any war, at any time, anywhere.

Is the current ongoing case regarding the Canadian babies and blood transfusion merely an episode of Holby City? A very sad situation for all concerned. Very hard for the medical professionals to know what to do for the best, I have no doubt.

Aimsmum · 06/09/2007 17:51

Message withdrawn

Mistymoo · 06/09/2007 18:14

JW are entitled to their beliefs. As are other religions. JW's are entitled to share their views with you and you are entitled to share yours with them.

If you dont want to talk to them then don't. There's no need to be rude about it. There's nothing clever in being rude. If you really, really dont want to talk then don't answer the door. AFAIK they aren't desperate enought to break in to your house to discuss the matter.

An interesting quote:

"Better to keep quiet and let people think you're an idiot, than to open your mouth and prove you are"

Don't believe everything you hear in the media or from friends and spouting it as fact. That's a very silly thing to. I was once told JW sacrifice goats at their meetings.

They dont.

madamez · 06/09/2007 20:09

I'm alwasy kind of wearily amused that the supertitious seem to think that anyone not prepared to pay at least some sort of misty-eyed reverence to their idiot beliefs (oh, well, maybe ther;s something out there, etc)is somehow outraging their human rights. I don't rush up to people at random to announce that gods, elves and Father Xmas don't exist, nor do I have any interest in preventing people from following whatever rituals suit their delusions - as long as they confine this stuff to their likeminded mates and don't bother or inconvenience (or assault or try to put out of business) people who aren't interested. Of course, the superstitious are as entitled as anyone else to try to peddle their own brand of crap on any online discussion forum - people are at liberty to advocate sticking hosepipes up one's bottom to improve one's complexion, funding cryogenci research so they can have their heads frozen, or eating more red meat to save the rainforests. And all other posters are entitled to post what a crock of shit it all is.

MellowMa · 06/09/2007 20:13

Message withdrawn

UnquietDad · 06/09/2007 20:13

I don't see why my questions are unreasonable. Any religious person should be prepared and able to answer them. if I claimed the earth was flat, it would be reasonable to ask me to provide evidence of ships falling off the edge. If I claimed the moon was made of green cheese, I would expect to have to produce sections of cheesy-moonrock in support of this, or at least point people to museums where they can be found.

Alambil · 06/09/2007 20:18

hear hear mistymoo

lisad123 · 06/09/2007 20:44

Not everything is provable UQD. We all know air is there without seeing it, we all believe that gravity is fact. I wouldnt say your questions were unreasonable at all, just that not all of them could be answered in the way i think you mean.

lisad123 · 06/09/2007 20:47

Its ok misty, my father inlaw still believes its a cult, and suggests that we have to give a percentage of our wages to them. Also stated the other day that JWs dont believe in operations! people will believe what they want. Now where did i leave my goat??

HorseyWoman · 06/09/2007 20:51

Gravity isn't fact. Bodies on earth are drawn towards the centre of the earth, hence heavier objects having higher gravity. On earth this is having a weight. That is a fact and the name we give that is gravity. Air is the name given to the gases in the atmosphere, which chemists know are there, and without which we couldn't breathe and no organism on earth could live.

HorseyWoman · 06/09/2007 20:52

lisa, sounds like he is getting a bit confused. There are certain faiths where it is obligatory to donate a proportion of your salary back to the faith.

lisad123 · 06/09/2007 20:55

I know, very hard as he refuses to listen when i tell him otherwise, im always polite and try to understand his discomfort about it

HorseyWoman · 06/09/2007 20:55

Sorry, that's science.

I think this thread is descending into a date about epistemology. Certain things in the world are able to be proven through science and people who find it difficult to understand or believe anything that cannot be proven by science, are said to be within the scientific or investigative pedagogy. As the majority of the questions UQD asked appear to be unanswerable and cannot be proven, that means that a scientific person might struggle to see any sense in any of it.

HorseyWoman · 06/09/2007 20:56

debate obviously.

SoupDragon · 06/09/2007 20:57

The thing that bothers me about the blood is not the JWs beliefs about it but the fact that my mother was told by one set of callers that she could repent the decision she made to save my life by allowing me to have an exchange transfusion at birth. charming!

I don't have any problems whatsoever with people's religious beliefs and what religion someone is has no bearing on how I feel about that person. However, I am not prepared to give JWs any of my time when they come calling for religious purposes. There's absolutely no need to be rude though.

I had no idea you could get put on a "don't call list but will certainly do that ion future. I think I've only had one visit in 5 years here anyway.

Stroo · 06/09/2007 21:03

If it harms no one.................

lisad123 · 06/09/2007 21:04

Soup, Its horribke that someone has been so unkind to your mum. The older JW's (my granddads age) were very pushy, rude and generally could be very judgemental. Not all of them of course but I know my grandad was very like this.
Its not what most JW's are like.
If that was the case i would be shunned completely. I left at 16, moved in with my boyfriend before marriage, married a man out of the religion who has tatoo's and had some piecings done. I have now gone back to the JWs and have found them all to be understanding, loving and in no way judgmental (although my GD still is)

I understand that the blood issue is the hardest one most people struggle with, i too struggled with it too.
L

McEdam · 06/09/2007 21:08

I think gravity can be proved, actually, wasn't it Galileo who dropped stuff off a tower, or something?

I dislike JWs because MIL is still scarred by her parents converting to this faith when she was a child. Whoever is in charge did them no good at all. Worst thing, I think, was making them move 100s of miles away when they were old and frail, leaving their friends and family, to set up a new Kingdom Hall somewhere. Plus they are bloody sexist and authoritarian - judging from dh's cousins.

LazyLinePainterJane · 06/09/2007 21:18

Yeah, Stroo, religion is known to have never ever never caused any harm, no siree

UnquietDad · 06/09/2007 21:22

Sorry, but you don't just "believe" the effects of gravity and the composition of air. We accept them - that's different.

Gravity - it's a name given to a force. It exists and the theory as to why it exists is sound - if we needed to be convinced there was no such thing, peer-reviewed evidence would be demanded.

We accept the composotion of air because it's been scientifically proven in the past and could easily be, in front of your eyes, at any time (given the right equopment). Again, there's strong evidence for one solid theory and pretty much nothing for anything else.

As for why Dawkins doesn't stick to science - it's because the things religion comes out with tread on his territory. he sticks his nose into religion because religion started it - by sticking its nose into scientific theory. His take is that religion is a theory like any other, and should not be dismissed out of hand, but shouldn be subject to the same tests and strcit evaluation criteria that you'd give to ANY other view of how and why the world works.