A Jehovah’s Witness Tract Arrives At My Doorstep

Yesterday I opened my front door to go outside. While Meg slept, I put up Christmas lights on the house. White, lemon-drop sized lights to define the tiered gables, the same roof lines that caught my eye when I first saw my house.
As I opened the front door, a pamphlet fell to the ground from where it was wedged. I grunted and bent over to pick it up.It was small, 3.5 in x 6 in, with a picture of sunbeams shining through a leafy forest, and the title under, JEHOVAH Who Is He?
Jehovah’s Witnesses, I thought to myself. Usually they’re most likely to use the word “Jehovah” these days, and they also tend to stick pamphlets in my door now and again. I flipped through the pages and satisfied my suspicion when I found on the back “© 1998, 2001 Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania.” I know that the Jehovah’s Witnesses associate themselves with “Watch Tower,” which I read originates from the idea that they are “keeping watch for when God’s Kingdom will directly intervene in mankind’s affairs.”
I tossed the tract on my desk, thinking I might look at it later with a more critical eye, and continues to staple Christmas lights up the slopes of my roof.
Whenever I approach anything religious, I keep two things in mind:
1.       “What counts is not what sounds plausible, not what we’d like to believe, not what one or two witnesses claim, but only what is supported by hard evidence, rigorously and skeptically examined. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. – Carl Sagan, Cosmos, episode 12, “Encyclopaedia Galactica.”
 
2.       Tautology is not evidence. If someone says “The God of the Bible exists because the Bible says that God exists,” this is tautology. The Bible cannot be used solely as evidence for any Biblical claim. A = A, therefore you should believe that A exists does not make a convincing argument.
 
With that said, let’s take a look at Jehovah: Who Is He? and weigh the claims with fairness and skepticism.
                JEHOVAH
Who Is He?
HACKING his way through the jungle in Cambodia, Henri Mouhot, a 19th-century French explorer, reached a broad moat surrounding a temple. It was Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument on earth. Mouhot could tell at a glance that the moss-covered structure was the work of human hands. “Erected by some ancient Michelangelo,” he wrote, “it is grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome.” Despite its having undergone centuries of abandonment and neglect, he had no doubt that behind the complex structure, there was a designer.
I’ve never heard of Henri Mouhot before. Looking him up online produces a wealth of information, including this quote:
One of these temples—a rival to that of Solomon, and erected by some ancient Michael Angelo—might take an honourable place beside our most beautiful buildings. It is grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome, and presents a sad contrast to the state of barbarism in which the nation is now plunged.
Henry Mouhot (2005[1864]): Travels in the central parts of Indo-China (Siam), Cambodia, and Laos, vol. 1. London: Elibron Classics.
So the quote in the tract is accurate, although Mouhot’s point was to point out the current state of affairs of the Cambodian civilization, rather than point out anything of religious significance. Well, fair enough, obviously an explorer can recognize a building of human construction. If I saw a temple like Angkor Wat, I would also arrive at the conclusion that it was built by human design and human hands.
I suspect that the tract isn’t pointing out Angkor Wat for the sake of marveling at the grand architecture of the 800 year old sprawling building, but rather it’s to make the classic “watchmaker” argument first presented by William Paley. In his book published in 1802, Natural Theology, Paley put forth this argument:
In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer I had before given, that for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there. (…) There must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed [the watch] for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use. (…) Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation.
Paley’s watchmaker argument has long been proven fallacious and can be easily disproven. What surprises me more is that people continue to trot out the watchmaker argument as proof of their particular god’s existence. Usually this is accompanied by a blithe dismissal of any scientific findings that do not fit their point of view, as well as the assumption that their “designer” of the universe is the god they happen to believe in.  Paley’s watchmaker argument shows a distinct lack of imagination and a gross blindness to reality.
Let’s see if my suspicions are correct and continue on with the tract.
Interestingly, a book of wisdom written centuries ago used similar reasoning, stating: “Of course, every house is constructed by someone, but he that constructed all things is God.” (Hebrews 3:4) But some may say, ‘The workings of nature are different from what is man-made.’ However, not all scientists agree with that objection.
As I noted earlier, the Bible cannot be considered as evidence for proving things that the Bible claims are true. Therefore, I can discount the quote from the Bible. The second part drives to the heart of the matter, that nature does indeed work differently than what is man-made. So now they claim to have scientific evidence?
After conceding that “biochemical systems aren’t inanimate objects,” Michael Behe, associate professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., asks: “Can living biochemical systems be intelligently designed?” He goes on to show that scientists are now designing basic changes in living organisms through such methods as genetic engineering. Yes, both animate and inanimate things can be “built”! Examining the microscopic world of living cells, Behe noted amazingly complex systems made up of components that are dependent on one another to function. His conclusion? “The result of these cumulative efforts to investigate the cell—to investigate life at the molecular level—is a loud, clear, piercing cry of ‘design!’”
I’m surprised that the Jehovah’s Witnesses are using Michael Behe as a credible “scientist.” Michael Behe, the author if Darwin’s Black Box and The Edge of Evolution, Behe accepts the common descent of species, including that humans descended from other primates, as well as the scientific consensus on the age of the Earth and the age of the universe. However, Behe is a known proponent for “Intelligent Design” (ID). From what I understand, Behe thinks that there is too much complexity in biochemistry for evolution to not have a guiding force as well as a designer, known as the Designer. (The Designer also just happens to be conveniently the god of his Protestant Christianity.) Behe’s argument is called “irreducible complexity” and is essentially a ramped up version of William Paley’s watchmaker argument.
Behe is best known for being called as a primary witness for the defense at Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District for the defense. 2005’s Dover was the first direct challenge brought in United States federal courts to an attempt to mandate the teaching of intelligent design on First Amendment grounds. Behe’s testimony proved a disastrous for the defense, ultimately conceding in court that “there are no peer reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of any biological system occurred” and that “and that his definition of ‘theory’ as applied to intelligent design was so loose that astrology would also qualify.”
John E. Jones III, the judge in the case, ultimately ruled that intelligent design is not scientific:
We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are: (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980’s; and (3) ID’s negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community. As we will discuss in more detail below, it is additionally important to note that ID has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research.
Judge Jones also noted in his ruling that “The evidence at trial demonstrates that ID is nothing less than the progeny of creationism.” This was an important finding in the case, since the Supreme Court held that creation science is religious and cannot be taught in public school science classes (in Edwards v. Arkansas, 1987).
Dover was an important victory for upholding science in the classroom in the U.S., and Behe played a large role in discrediting his own positions in the trial. Calling upon Behe as an expert witness to prove the Jehovah’s Witnesses point in the tract falls into the same pitfalls as calling upon Behe as an expert witness in the Dover trial. His theory of irreducible complexity, as shown in court, has been summarily and definitely discredited, and by Behe’s own admission, not peer-reviewed or science.
Who, then, is the Designer behind all these complex systems?
Who Is the Designer?
The answer is available in that ancient book of wisdom quoted earlier—the Bible. In its opening words, the Bible answers with remarkable simplicity and clarity the question of who designed all things: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” –Genesis 1:1.
I like how they try to make it sound surprising when they call the “ancient book of wisdom” the Bible. The Bible, you say? I’ve never heard of this ancient book of wisdom before! I’m ready to believe anything that’s written down in an ancient book of wisdom. It’s ancient, so it must be true. Do tell me more.
In distinguishing himself from others who are said to be God, however, the Creator identifies himself by a unique name: “This is what the true God, Jehovah, has said, the Creator of the heavens…, the One laying out the earth and its produce, the One giving breath to the people on it.” (Isaiah 42:5, 8) Jehovah is the name of the God who designed the universe and made men and women on the earth. But who is Jehovah? What kind of God is he? And why should you listen to him?
This is where the Jehovah’s Witnesses start to spin the tract towards their particular views. They put particular significance on one particular name of their god from the Bible, Jehovah. When they state “Jehovah is the name of the God who designed…,” one wonders if they believe that there are other gods, too.
Polytheism isn’t a new concept, even in the Bible. Christians believe in three gods, if not more. Jews in the Tenach frequently switched to worshipping other gods. One of the ten commandments even mentions other gods: “Thou shalt have none other gods before me.” (Deut. 5:7) Psalms 96:4 says, “For the Lord … is to be feared above all gods.” The New Testament also mentions other gods: “TheLord … is to be feared above all gods.” (1 Chronicles 16:25)
One also wonders what they think of the name Elohim. This is the Hebrew word for “gods,” often used to describe the Israelite god in the Tenach, like “Elohim called until him out of the midst of the bush….” (Exodus 3:4) The word Elohim occurs more than 2500 in the Tenach, not always but sometimes in reference of the Israelite god.
And then there’s Yahweh or YHWH (since vowels are not spelled in Hebrew texts) or the Tetragrammaton, which appears to be the actual “name” of the Israelite god. Jews have an odd habit of avoiding calling their god by its actual name. Traditionally, Jews could not verbally say “YHWH” except by the High Priest in the Holy Temple during Yom Kippur. In Jewish tradition, saying something by its “true name” was to invoke powerful magic. If you happened to be living in Israel in ancient times, trying to pronounce the name of their god would be blasphemous and a capital punishment. These days, Jews often writing in English will abbreviate “God” and “Lord” to “G-d” and “L-rd” as a way of avoiding writing in the full name of their god, even though both of these words aren’t names, but titles. I find it a linguistic curiosity.
In all, there are seven official names of the Jewish god:
1.       Eloah (God)
2.       Elohim (Gods)
3.       Adonai (Lord)
4.       Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh (I am that I am)
5.       YHWH (I am that I am)
6.       El Shaddai (God Most High)
7.       YHWH Tzevaot (Lord of Hosts: Sabaoth in Latin transliteration)
In the King James translation of the Tenach into the Old Testament, the scholars translated “YHWH” as “the Lord” and rarely as anything else. For example, in the Bible passage from Isaiah 42:5-8 that the Jehovah’s Witnesses tract quoted, the King James Version says:
5 Thus saith God the Lord, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein:
6 I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles;
7 To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.
8 I am the Lord: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.
“Jehovah” is the latinization of the Hebrew YHWH. Instead of sticking with “the Lord,” some Latin texts used a vocalization of YHWH by adding some vowels to the consonants in an attempt to make it sound more like the word Adonai (“my Lord”), which was already being used instead of uttering the Tetragrammaton. So “Jehovah” is a hybrid form derived by combining the Latin letters JHVH with the vowels of Adonai, ca. 1100 C.E. It’s the equivalent of saying “Yahweh,” and is the proper name of the Israelite god of the Tenach.
Culturally speaking, it’s obvious that the Jehovah’s Witnesses are using someone else’s ancient texts, since the Jews aren’t allowed to pronounce the name of their god directly, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses are clearly pronouncing it clearly, albeit in mutated form. Not even the King James Version did this—which makes it obvious that the Jehovah’s Witnesses came later than the KJV finished in 1611. And this is quite true, since the Jehovah’s Witnesses only originated in the 1870’s in Pittsburgh, PA.
Significance of His Name
First of all, what does the Creator’s name, Jehovah, mean? The divine name is written in four Hebrew letters and occurs nearly 7,000 times in the Hebrew portion of the Bible. This name is considered to be the causative form of the Hebrew verb ha·wah’ (“to become”) and thus means “He Causes to Become.” In other words, Jehovah wisely causes himself to become whatever he needs to be in order to accomplish his purposes. He becomes Creator, Judge, Savior, Sustainer of life, and so forth, in order to fulfill his promises. What is more, the Hebrew verb takes the grammatical form that denotes an action in the process of being fulfilled. This indicates that Jehovah is still causing himself to become the fulfiller of his promises. Yes, he is a living God!
Even assuming that the etymological origins of the word “Jehovah” is as they say, they’re reading far too much into the name of their god. Just because a name means something doesn’t make it relevant. Just because someone is named “Rory,” for example, does not make him a red king. Someone named “Sarah” does not make her a princess. They’re just names.
In the land of religious fervor, however, names carry significance, power, and meaning. Anything from the Bible can be interpreted to the finest detail and strange attributions given to the most insignificant of its words. A proper noun originating from a verb naturally indicates fulfillment of promises. You can’t be dead and fulfill a promise; ergo, god exists.
As I stated before, I will not accept the Bible as proof that the Bible is true, never mind an argument made on weak etymological grounds.
Jehovah’s Predominant Qualities
The Bible shows this Creator and fulfiller of his promises to be a very appealing person. Jehovah himself revealed his distinctive qualities and said: “Jehovah, Jehovah, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in loving-kindness and truth, preserving loving-kindness for thousands, pardoning error and transgression and sin.” (Exodus 34:6, 7) Jehovah is depicted as a God of loving-kindness. The Hebrew word used here can also be translated “loyal love.” In accomplishing his eternal purpose, Jehovah loyally continues to show love to his creatures. Would you not cherish such love?
I remember reading a very different Bible. To quote Richard Dawkins from The God Delusion:
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
Quite so. I need not get into the evidence for Yahweh’s vileness here, since volumes could be written about the direct actions and the indirect results of the petty dictatorial actions of Yahweh as told by the Bible. It’s easy to turn a blind eye to all of it and marvel in ignorant wonder at the character and his actions in the book, most due to tradition and cultural pressure. It simply comes down to believing what your parents and figures of authority say is true, rather than weighing any evidence whatsoever to its actual veracity. Thankfully, the Bible is a work of historical fiction, and I don’t need to worry about the monstrous qualities of such a god as Yahweh.
As for the message of the tract, it’s clear evidence of the Jehovah’s Witnesses blindness to understanding their own religious text. If they cannot understand that Yahweh is a villain and instead conflate him to be loving-kind to anyone other than a particular nomadic desert tribe in the Middle-East, I’m sure would also fail to understand that the Bible cannot be evidence for the claims of the Bible. The delusion promulgates into thinking that everyone sees the wonder in a despicable fictional character from an ancient text—so much so that they think that there is a god named Jehovah somewhere out there, ready and willing to love us.
Jehovah is also slow to anger and quick to forgive our errors. It is heartwarming to be around a person who is not faultfinding but who is willing to forgive us. Yet that does not mean that Jehovah condones wrongdoing. He declared: “I, Jehovah, am loving justice, hating robbery along with unrighteousness.” (Isaiah 61:8) As the God of justice, he does not forever tolerate brazen sinners who continue in their wickedness. Thus, we can be sure that in his due time, Jehovah will correct injustice in the world around us.
I was suspicious of the biblical quote in this paragraph due to its weird conjugation of the verbs in the present participle. Looking up Isaiah 61:8, the KJV says: “For I the Lord love judgment, I hate robbery for burnt offering; and I will direct their work in truth, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.”
Odd. That doesn’t sound quite the same as the Jehovah’s Witness version, especially the “burnt offering” part.
Maintaining perfect balance between the qualities of love and justice calls for wisdom. Jehovah balances these two qualities in a wonderful way when he deals with us. (Romans 11:33-36) Of course, his wisdom can be seen everywhere. The wonders of nature testify to it.—Psalm 104:24; Proverbs 3:19.
The tract’s pace begins to quicken. Instead of actually quoting the Bible, it paraphrases and starts listing verses without much context. It’s just as well. Since I’ve disallowed the Bible as evidence for the truthful of the Bible’s own claims, it’s no use quoting me verses.
At this point, though, I start to wonder if the Jehovah’s Witnesses have ever heard of the philosophical argument known as the Problem of Evil? That is say, how to reconcile the existence of evil with that of a deity who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent? Originally stated by the Greek philosopher Epicurus, the argument goes thusly:
1.       If an all-powerful and perfectly good god exists, then evil does not.
2.       There is evil in the world.
3.       Therefore, an all-powerful and perfectly good god does not exist.
In contrast, the Jehovah’s Witnesses appear to be stating this argument:
1.       If Jehovah maintains a perfect balance between love and justice, there are wonders of nature.
2.       The wonders of nature exist.
3.       Therefore, Jehovah maintains a perfect balance between love and justice (and exists).

[Editor’s note: Please read the next entry for Part II.]