by cofty 2596 Replies latest jw experiences
This world is not the Kingdom of God. If it were... then it would be ruled by the one He appointed. But Christ said that his kingdom was NOT from this world, but from another place.
????
I thought Jesus was made King of Kings and Lord of Lords some 2000 years ago . Whats the delay ?
O.K. I get it , the kingdom is just around the corner .
smiddy
Ahh Tec,
Could you tell us any philosophy or teaching unique to Jesus and no other human as you have chosen to credit him with them?
I don't know what all other humans have taught. But the teachings of Christ came from His Father, who is before everyone... and they were not all unique even when Chirst taught them... as they are truth, and were also taught to Israel before, as well as others before Israel. Even just follow the law of love and you are bound to come to similar laws and teachings.
I would have to say that I don't know anyone else who died and was resurrected, who lives and speaks even today. I don't know about the Kingdom teaching from others either.
With the gospels being handpicked and edited for a political message, how can you quote the new testament or hold any beliefs held in them?
I think that is an assumption, or a layman 'theory'. Regardless, I can quote what also backs up what is heard from the Spirit (who is Christ). Because I heard it from Him.
The very idea of a Jesus charachter is founded on books proven to be manipulated. Let's not even go into the books chosen and ignored.
The books are founded on Him. No Christ... no books on Christ. Regardless of whether they have been manipulated or not. Regardless, they are not infallable. They are simply witnesses to Christ.
Tec, your hipocrisy is as clear as day to everyone but yourself.
Lets examine that. Because I have no problem having my hypocrisy pointed out to me, so that I can also see it and work to no longer BE it. But I think your suggestion of hypocrisy in this case is based upon things about me that are not accurate.
You say you know which scriptures are legitimate as they do not contradict scriptures you hold true, namely the ideaology of Jesus.
Sort of. I know what to reject (or at least to 'shelve' on the basis that I might not understand what has been written)... based on whether or not something contradicts Christ. Or seems to contradict Christ. I would also have no reason to believe something that is not in contradiction with Christ, and is in fact corroborated by Christ, are not legitimate.
You dont have access to a source of data other than the bible as formed by the catholics, to use the teachings of christ to determine what is right or wrong in the bible is nonsensical, the verses about Jesus ARE IN THE BIBLE TOO !!!!!
I do have a source of data other than the bible: Christ, himself.
Now I know you do not accept this as possible or true, Snare. But what can I do about that? Other than simply agree to disagree on this point?
You handpick the verses on Jesus and for no reason make them the ultimate authority to judge the rest of the bible, do you not see the illogical nature of this approach?
I have said that IF you are going solely upon the bible and what it says... then according to that bible, Christ is the Truth, the Word of God and the one about whom God said to listen TO. So if you were going to approach the bible as a whole... then would you not logically follow through to its conclusion? Because its conclusion is Christ being the Word and Truth, the Image of God, the One sent to us to teach us all things. He even corrected things that were being taught wrong from before. So would not everything that came before Christ... some of which Christ said was not the truth (such as the law on divorce that Christ said Moses gave the people because their hearts were hard)... need to be tested in light of THE Truth?
Even if you don't believe in it, from simply a literary perspective, that is the conclusion of the book.
So does it sound logical to take something that came before the Truth... and believe that over and above the One who IS the truth, the One who IS the perfect representation of His Father?
Further to that are you aware of the history of...
Heaven
Sin & Forgivness
Monotheism
The son of a deity, his death and ressurection (long before the new testament, and not stories of Jesus).
I am aware of various elements of such things in various religions, as well as a progression in some of those things, and various theories on such things. (layman theory... not scientific theory) I am also aware of a great number of false statements about copycat myths regarding god-men (Christ being included in that) but that have no actual basis and are false. A result of lies to promote an agenda or sell books perhaps... or simply a result of shoddy research; but lies that have caught on because people want to beleive them, and so they are rampant on the internet.
If you do alongside knowledge on the history of the bible, you will know that the verses on Jesus you use to judge the rest of the bible, are arguably the most illegitimate of the whole book ! All these teachings are older than the jews as a people, they are beliefs that began in pagan worship and slowly evolved into teachings the jews held dear. The origin being anything but inspired!
The origin being God. Same One from whom Christ learned. Various cultures knew about God (even followed Him for a spell until they turned their back on Him) before Israel came along. Abraham even left his people and came from the East, and had the faith to heed the call of God. Others he met along the way knew about God Most High as well.
Back to the gospels, they contradict each other constantly, they were written AT EARLIEST 30yrs after jesus dies and most likely over 70 years after.
They don't contradict each other on His teachings. But yes, to the timeline that things were written.
This in a time where only word of mouth was used until it was written. The logic of using these words as an an authority of anything is ridiculous! Why these scrolls from the desert overy any other Tec ? Your answers are usually about Jesus.. a charachter IN THE SCROLL. Do you see your issue in doing that ?
Please see above, keeping into perspective that these teachings and words of Christ have more authority than anything else... in that book.
The bible is a bunch of witnesses to Chirst. But Christ himself lives and speaks, and is the authority.
JesusChrist' is as much evidence as you need, his name would have been Ieshua and Christ is a greek term....
Chirst is just greek for Messiah. And you won't catch me using the name 'Jesus'. Not after having learned that this is not his name years back. But Christ is a title... and so it is accurate, even if in another language... the meaning of the title is what matters.
The meaning of a name also matters. Not in our society, but in many others and in many much older ones.
His name is Jaheshua... pronounced Yah'eshua (Y'eshua... which I am assuming is what Ieshua might sound like as well). However, the JAH part is the name of God, and Christ came in the name of God. Just as Elijah did, and many other prophets, that had the names Jah or El in them. In fact, ELiJAH means... My God is Jah.
This is a huge clue to the pollution of the message, even the name is clearly historically incorrect. I bet you NEVER call him Ieshua! What else is wrong ?
See above.
As for the message of 'Jesus' it promotes and defends slavery and even being a good slave
Does not promote enslavement of others at all... as love does not enslave one's fellow man. Nor does the golden rule. You recall what Christ said to His apostles? Whoever wants to be the greatest, must become the least. That too negates the enslavement of others.
, he treats women terribly,
He treated women great. He spoke to them when this was not done by the men, and treated them with respect, and he had female disciples. He encouraged Mary to continue to listen as a disciple rather than do the cooking, cleaning, etc, with Martha when Martha complained. He honored the women with his disciples by revealing himself first to them.
Where did he ever treat a woman terribly?
his attitude to the poor was disgusting,
Give to the poor. Sell your possesions and give to the poor. Shelter the homeless. Feed the hungry. Give to those in need, give to those who ask of you. What is disgusting in that?
his words on breaking up the family are reprehensible and those EXACT words are respoinsible for much pain on this very forum.
His words are about those who would toss HIS people out of the synogagues, or deliver them up to death. The wts is the one who DOES these things that Christ warned would be done TO his followers, not BY his followers. Just sayin'.
He talks of returning, then returned several times accordinf to the gospels, though the end did not come in any of those returns... What reason is there to hang on the words of a text with no historical or spiritual authority, none of the message is uniue, none of it is historically evidential and it is FULL of inconsistancies, how on earth can you, do you, use these verses as an authority to judge everything else?
Again, see above.
However, what do you mean in that he returned several times?
I just dont get it Tec, then you respond by talking about Jesus... a charachter in the scrolls.... it is like me promoting that Superman is real, then quoting the superman film script as evidence.... of course the bit where he fly's around the earth to change time is made up, i use the script from the first movie to judge the others... and in the first film, the laws of physics are respected.
No, it is not like that at all. You know the superman script is fiction. No one reported what they had seen, no one knew superman, superman never walked the earth and is not alive now. He is a fictional character (albeit based on the running theme of savior, and even carrying the name EL... Kal-El, and his father Jor-EL)
The gospels are testimonies about the one that the disciples knew. Not some story that they dreamed up and told people to entertain them.
Do you see the issue...
I see what you see as the issue, Snare. I truly do. What might be the issue if the bible was my authority, end-all, know-all; what I consider proof/evidence, etc. I know that it is for many people who call it the word of god. But it is not. It just points to the One who IS.
Finger pointing to the moon... but not the moon, itself.
Peace to you as always my friend,
tammy
NO TRUE SCOTSMAN...
No true Scotsman would ever spit on the grave of Wallace...
Tiz True...
No true Christian, born of the Holy Spirit, would ever trample the Blood of Jesus underfoot by professing Atheism.
Psalm14:1, 53:1
Isaiah 32:6
Tammy - All of your posts from when I went to bed last night until this morning are irrelevant to the topic.
Please see the summary and then decide if you have anything to add
Strypes - What on earth are you on about? (for those of us not familiar with Strypes' brand of chrisitanity, this the person who prayed for the demise of an ex-christian who is suffering from a life-threatening illness)
To everybody else, please don't feed the troll.
Seems you are still spreading those lies eh Cofty?
Surely you can comprehend the relevance to this thread.
NO TRUE SCOTSMAN...
No true Scotsman would ever spit on the grave of Wallace...
Tiz True...
No true Christian, born of the Holy Spirit, would ever trample the Blood of Jesus underfoot by professing Atheism.
Psalm14:1, 53:1
Isaiah 32:6
: )
I'm becoming more and more convinced that "belief" is a form of mental illness, keep it up and you may well prove it.
As a last resort, if you can't answer the OP, just write a wall of off-topic text...
Ha! Funny WitnessMyFury. Belief may or may not be a form of mental illness, but giving over all of your thought processes to a religion/belief simply cannot be good for one's mental faculties. Studies have suggested that the very relgious, especaily those in high control groups, often have less mental acuity. Duh. That's who we were as JWs; unfortunately, too many ex-JWs want to hold onto a failed belief system rather than explore all of the potential of their minds and lives.
The only answer that is not allowed is anything that sounds like "its a mystery". That is ruled out as dishonest sophistry.
In my pet illustration I imagine that you would say from the pet's point of view "it's a mystery". But from the POV of the owner you would say that the pet isn't fully capable of grasping it. There is a difference.
You want to rule out any version of events that involves something that we are not fully capable of grasping at this time. Is that logical?
I submit this:
1) It is possible that something is going on that we are not fully capable of grasping.
2) If something is going on that we are not fully capable of grasping then it would be wrong to reach firm conclusions based upon only things we are capable of grasping.
However, you are attempting to reach a firm conclusion based upon only that which we fully understand. For us to reach a right conclusion we MUST therefore presuppose that we understand everything.
I believe that this is a flawed presupposition.
I think PelicanBeach was angling for this point in the first few pages, but didn't quite follow through.
Note that this is not just a “cop out”. Either we state as a starting premise that we can be sure we fully understand every factor – what is at stake, the options available, etc – or we cannot be certain of that. Only one can be true. And I think it is a bold individual who claims such knowledge, since there is no way that it can be substantiated.
See youtube: Louis CK Punches Dog in the Face to Save Her Life-Conan O'Brien
Humbled
That was very funny. Thanks.
No, the reaction of the receiver(s) of the treatment has very little to do with my point. It was not intended to be one of those illustrations which works whichever way you stretch it. My point is simply as put to Cofty above – if we reach a firm conclusion despite knowing that we do not have all the information then we stand a good chance of reaching a flawed conclusion.
Let's take the original point. The 250,000 people is really irrelevant as a number. The same principle applies whether God allows 1 preventable death or 1 billion. So I think the tsunami itself is a red herring. The question is whether there is any conceivable reason why a loving God would allow ANY person to suffer and/or die. And just because we cannot conceive of one that makes absolute sense to us, it does not mean that there isn't one.
