| Original Message |
Walrus (no login)
Posted Jun 2, 2005 2:55 PM
If one were to look to nature and decide it evolved, thereby contradicting the Jehovah's Witness' interpretation of the Bible, he would obviously not be a Jehovah's Witness. I think you're misunderstanding what it means for people of faith to "believe" something, and where their freedom comes from. Michael has perfect freedom to choose not to be a Jehovah's Witness, but Jehovah's Witnesses take the Bible as authoritative, not our own reasonings and observations of nature. If the Bible is authoritative, then any time nature appears to disagree with it, our perception or understanding must be wrong, not the Bible. Saying Michael doesn't have freedom on the basis that he chooses to hold the Bible as authoritative would be like him saying you don't have freedom on the basis that you hold your finite understanding of nature to be authoritative; if you were to come to the conclusion that God must have created the world, you wouldn't be an atheist would you? In fact, if you tried to call yourself an atheist, the atheist community would "disfellowship" you. Therefore, you must not have freedom to choose whether God created the world as an atheist. You do have the choice to choose whether you are an atheist, however. |
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