Posted by Gedanken [Gedanken] on November 17, 1999 at 14:54:02 {xx2d.1sWpQHdgEG/iekYGxDfYXLgH2}:
In Reply to: **AP and AF posted by Friend on November 17, 1999 at 13:47:37:
Friend,
Of course you are correct. There is no such thing as clear error except in exercises in pure logic. Greg and you are right: No one can prove absolutely that the Society deliberately lied. No one can prove that what looks like an error is actually an error. After all, someday evidence may surface to prove that Jerusalem was destroyed in 607 BCE or that all of the various claims in the Creation book are actually true. Or that space-time will warp so that two diametrically opposed concepts, viewed from just the right angle, will complement each other. Since we cannot rule any of these things out then folks like AF and me have no case to make. As an alternative, and as you say, the Society might just be incompetent. So you win. I admit defeat. In fact, I would now maintain that AF squarely lost the debate because he, and I, fell into the simple trap of attaching the normal everyday meaning to words.
So where does that get us? It may be fun to argue hypotheticals but it is basically a total waste of time. The Society is about as honest as a tobacco company and we all know how ridiculous their arguments look in retrospect.
Sometimes we naively forget that in the topsy-turvy world of Jehovah's Witnesses nothing is as it seems. Strangely enough I can communicate fairly complicated aspects of physics to over 1000 students a year with few complaints that I am being opaque. If I am being, they ask and I try to explain it till either they get it or I realize that I miscommunicated something, which happens enough for me to be aware of it. All in all I think that I am fairly patient. And yet, on this board I sometimes feel that if said the sky were blue I would be asked to prove first of all what blue is. That is, of course, unless the boys in Brooklyn had decided that today the sky will be blue.
As for your point? Well, what is a point :-)
Gedanken, who finally understands how Alice felt.