Welcome MarkAnthony!
You said:
: I was talking with someone I work with who is a JW and suggested I might look into it.
By now you've seen a lot of responses negative about the JWs, along with comments that are probably of some minor interest. I want to comment on a fundamental teaching of Jehovah's Witnesses, since if that teaching can be proved false, the relatively minor things are lost in the noise.
The most fundamental teaching of Jehovah's Witnesses is what I call their Fundamental Doctrine, namely, the idea that all true Christians are required to acknowledge that the "faithful and discreet slave" as represented by the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses speaks for God, and indeed, is the only group of men on earth that speaks for God. That this doctrine is THE fundamental one of Jehovah's Witnesses is proved by the fact that when a JW questions the Watchtower organization, and elders are called in to question him in turn, the question of whether he believes this doctrine is THE litmus test that they use to determine whether to disfellowship him for "apostasy". Elders will usually ask questions like, "Do you believe that there is a faithful and discreet slave today?" "Do you believe that this slave is associated with the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses?" "Do you believe that the Governing Body represents this slave?" A "no" answer usually results in the person's being disfellowshipped for "apostasy". The person might profess no longer to have faith in Jehovah, or admit to all sorts of other doubts, but virtually always it is only this question of loyalty to the Governing Body and acceptance of the "faithful slave" doctrine that is the determining factor in questions of "apostasy". Any number of participants on this board can verify this.
It's not difficult to disprove the "faithful and discreet slave" doctrine using nothing but the Bible and Watchtower publications. The doctrine is based on Matthew 24:45-47 (NWT):
45 Who really is the faithful and discreet slave whom his master appointed over his domestics, to give them their food at the proper time? 46 Happy is that slave if his master on arriving finds him doing so. 47 Truly I say to YOU, He will appoint him over all his belongings.
The Watchtower Society claims that this parable is actually a prophecy that a group of men would exist who were appointed at Pentecost of 33 A.D. to a position of authority over the entire body of true Christians. This spiritually authoritative body, they claim, would exist during the entire time from Jesus' day through the time of "the great tribulation", whenever that would prove to be. One generation of "the slave" would feed another (W95 5/15 p. 16; W75 1/15 p. 46; God's Kingdom of a Thousand Years Has Approached, 1975, p. 344). Of course, when push comes to shove, the Witnesses cannot point to anyone down through the centuries who might fit the bill, except for the founder of the Bible Students, C. T. Russell. Furthermore, they claim that in 1919, the leaders of Jehovah's Witnesses were appointed over all of "Christ's belongings", namely, were appointed to a specially recognized position of authority. (W94 1/15 p. 16; W75 2/1 p. 79)
The disproof of this doctrine is found in the verses immediately preceding the Society's proof text, namely, Matt. 24:42-44. In the New World Translation, these verses read:
42 Keep on the watch, therefore, because YOU do not know on what day YOUR Lord is coming. 43 But know one thing, that if the householder had known in what watch the thief was coming, he would have kept awake and not allowed his house to be broken into. 44 On this account YOU too prove yourselves ready, because at an hour that YOU do not think to be it, the Son of man is coming.
The Society, since 1993, admits that these verses will not be fulfilled until "the great tribulation" comes (W03 12/15 p. 19). Since verses 42-44 and 45-47 are obviously in time sequence, and verses 42-44 have not been fulfilled, verses 45-47 cannot have been fulfilled. It's easy to see, reading other passages in Matthew 24, such as verses 29-41, that the entire sequence of events of Matthew 24 has yet to be fulfilled. Therefore, JW leaders' claim that they were appointed to a special position of spiritual authority "over all of Christ's belongings" in 1919 is false. Therefore their claim to be a "faithful and discreet slave" is false, and they are -- by their own definition (W30 5/15 pp. 153-5; "In the New Testament, and in our day, the word "prophet" has a thought similar to that of our word "teacher," in the sense of a public expounder. Hence when the term "false prophet" is used, we shall get the correct thought if we think of a *false teacher*.) -- false teachers and therefore false prophets. False teachers and false prophets obviously will not have been appointed by Jehovah over anything whatsoever. It almost goes without saying that the Bible's definition of "false prophet" parallels this.
In the discussion to follow, keep in mind one of the main ideas expressed above, that a false teacher is called in the Bible a false prophet.
During the last 120 years or so, the Watchtower organization, led by its self-proclaimed "faithful slave", has promulgated any number of false teachings -- all in the name of God and under the banner of "spiritual food in due season". That a number of these false teachings have been abandoned is proof to everyone that the teachings were false to begin with. A number of false teachings have yet to be abandoned.
What are some false teachings that were once taught and were abandoned? Here is a brief discussion of some of them:
That Jesus returned invisibly in 1874 and began ruling over the earth (W74 8/15 p. 507). This was abandoned gradually between 1930 and 1943 (W74 8/15 p. 507). By 1943 it replaced with the equally false claim that Jesus returned invisibly in 1914 (see below for a brief refutation).
That the "resurrection of the saints" occurred in 1881 (Proclaimers, p. 632). This was not abandoned until 1927 (1975 Yearbook, p. 148; it incorrectly states 1878, although this was Russell's teaching prior to 1878). The Watchtower of April 1, 1986 (pp. 30-31) explicitly declared that anyone who teaches something false as to the time of the resurrection is an apostate. Therefore, the Watchtower Society's leaders from 1878 through 1927 were apostates -- again according to their own definition.
From C. T. Russell's earliest written expositions, he viewed the "superior authorities" (NWT) or "higher powers" (KJV) of Romans 13:1 as human governmental authorities (W96 5/1 p. 13). In 1929, J. F. Rutherford and the rest of the "faithful and discreet slave" decided that these "superior authorities" were really Jehovah God and Jesus Christ. They made belief in this false teaching a litmus test of loyalty to Jehovah, even going so far as claiming that true Christians are *required* to believe this. But in 1962, the belief was changed back to what Russell taught. During the time when adhering to the false belief was a litmus test, it is obvious that the "faithful and discreet slave" was neither faithful nor discreet, and in fact, was merely expounding "the teachings of men."
From the early 1920s until 1952 the Society taught that vaccinations were the work of the Devil, and were a violation of the "everlasting law of Noah" given in Genesis 9:4 (W52 12/15 p. 764).
From 1967 (W67 11/15 pp. 702-704; W67 12/1 pp. 719-725) until 1980 the Society prohibited organ transplants, on pain of disfellowshipping, the same penalty as for taking a blood transfusion (W80 3/15 p. 31). It is not possible that a "faithful and discreet slave" would do this.
In 1971 the Society decided that the human mind resided in the brain, while human emotions were seated in the literal, physical heart (W71 3/1 pp. 133-139). At the 1971 summer district conventions, this idea was brought home by a massive display on the stage of a giant green brain on one side, and a giant red heart on the other side. During the main talk on the subject, when the brain had something to say to the heart, it would light up, and when the heart emoted back to the brain, it would light up. Needless to say, this ridiculous idea was eventually abandoned, but not until 1984 (W84 9/1 p. 6).
Beginning in late 1969, the Society decided to get involved in sexual and marital matters. At first it was decreed that a woman whose husband engaged in practices such as homosexuality and bestiality could not divorce him, since "sex", the Society decided, was equivalent to whatever could result in pregnancy. Thus, a man who was sexually involved with, say, a sheep or a homosexual man, was not subject to a "scriptural divorce" by his wife. Soon this changed, and the Society decided that all manner of sexual conduct not in line with the ancient idea of "the missionary position" between a man and his wife was "porneia" -- the Greek term for "sexual perversion" -- and that violators were subject to disfellowshipping. I remember hearing, as a young man not yet 20, discussions at the Kingdom Hall of sexual practices I had never heard of, including bestiality, and oral and anal sex. This public discussion caused all sorts of problems, especially with couples who were not both JWs and whose normal sexual practices included oral and/or anal sex. Some couples actually divorced when the JW took heed of the Society's "spiritual food in due season" and left the non-JW mate out to dry. Eventually the Society was hit with a number of lawsuits from injured non-JWs, and it changed its policy beginning in the late 1970s, eventually finalizing its policy in a 1983 Watchtower article (W83 3/15) "Honor Godly Marriage!" that essentially amounted to a "don't look, don't tell" policy. A policy that has rarely been enforced to this day, and one that I'm sure the Society would like to get away from silently.
For many years the Society taught that there were no such things as ice ages, and in the 1960s and 1970s, many articles were published in The Watchtower and Awake! "proving" that Noah's Flood resulted in the accumulation of virtually all of the sedimentary rock and fossil-bearing strata in the world. Indeed, the entire time of creation of life on earth was claimed to encompass only about the last 20,000 years, based on the idea that the "creative days" of Genesis were 7,000 years each. This notion was espoused by C. T. Russell from his earliest days of Bible teaching. But around 1980 all of this was begun to be abandoned. Especially in various Awake! articles, the notion of "flood geology" was implied to be part of "young earth creationism" which the true Christian would not embrace. By 1985, the notion of 7,000-year creative days was no longer espoused in all Watchtower publications, being replaced by the weasel-word "millennia" (cf. the 1985 Creation book). After 1987 the notion of 7,000-year creative days was not mentioned at all in Watchtower publications. It's pretty obvious that anyone truly speaking for God could not get all of this so wrong for so many decades.
The 1985 Creation book is one of the best examples available of how a Christian cult with an agenda expounds on the subject of evolution. I have personally documented more than 100 examples of misrepresentation of sources, misunderstandings, misinterpretation of sources, and just about every example of scholastic and literary sin imaginable, in this one book. See http://www.geocities.com/osarsif/ce01.htm for an extensive writeup on this.
How about some just plain false teachings? Following is a small list. I could do a lot more, but I'm tired and I think that all of the material in this post is sufficient to prove to anyone that becoming a Jehovah's Witness would be incredibly stupid.
The resurrection is one of the doctrines of JWs that is extremely attractive to prospective converts. Who wouldn't want to be united with loved ones in the future? Unfortunately, the JW teaching that when one dies, one goes completely out of existence, is completely incompatible with their view of the resurrection. In their view, a person is recreated from scratch, so to speak, and God "downloads" into the fresh brain an exact copy of the original person's personality and memories. Voila! The original is back! But not so fast. What if I tried to sell a museum a copy of a Renoir painting? It's an exact copy, I say. It's so exact that even experts can't tell the difference. But the difference is that I -- not Renoir -- painted it. Would the museum pay the same for the copy as for the original? Not on your life! Why? Because people value an original over a copy -- even over an exact copy. Now, suppose that God made a copy of a Renoir perfectly identical, down to the individual atoms, of the original. Do you suppose that a museum, knowing this, would buy the copy for the same price as the original? Not on your life! The same goes for the resurrection. God, according to the JWs, makes an identical copy in some future time of the original person, but a copy cannot possibly be the original. The problem is continuity. A person can go through life, changing all the while until he dies. Why is the old man who dies the same person as the egg immediately after fertilization? Because of continuity. Break the continuity and you've discontinued the person. Making a copy after discontinuation does not bring the person back. It only creates a copy. Today, we call such copies of living organisms clones. So the JW view of the resurrection simply amounts to this: in the future, God will bring back a clone of most people who ever lived -- not the original person. However, the Bible teaches, not that a clone will be created, but that the original person will be resurrected. This necessarily implies continuity. Where does one get that continuity? Through some form of "immortality of the soul" or whatever you want to call it. Like it or not, the doctrine of resurrection of original people -- as opposed to copies -- requires such continuity.
The Watchtower Society puts a huge amount of stock in its claim that Jesus returned invisibly to the earth in 1914. Its entire doctrinal house of cards is, in fact, based on the notion that an "invisible presence" (parousia; properly translated "coming, arrival"; the term has no connotation of invisibility whatsoever) began in 1914. The 1914 date is based on a variety of poor assumptions and unjustifiable scriptural interpretations. The idea is that, based on a variety of scriptures, there was a period of 2,520 years called "the Gentile times" that began in 607 B.C. and ended in 1914 A.D. There are massive problems with every aspect of this claim. The best reference that disproves these claims is the book The Gentile Times Reconsidered (4th edition; available from www.commentarypress.com and www.freeminds.org). For a cursory look at how a JW apologist "defends" this doctrine, see the thread on this forum "Pivitol Date Stuff" http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/12/84135/1.ashx
By this time it should be obvious that the Watchtower Society is a corporate false teacher, and therefore a corporate "false prophet" -- by its own definition. Therefore it should behoove any prospective JW to carefully research the Society's history and claims. There are a huge number of resources available, barely alluded to in this post. The interested reader can easily check everything in this post, as well as much in the links provided.
AlanF
