Jesus taught us how to be effective APOSTATES

by Terry 18 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Terry

  Why would it be any different for Christians today?

  In Early Christianity the strongest and most notable feature of faith was seen in the following behavior.

  1.Jesus constantly argued, questioned and debated with Authorities of his own religion'

  2.Jesus constantly argued, questioned and debated his own disciples and apostles.

  3.Jesus was more interested in "why" than "what". Religious authority was more interested in conformity to their power and position.

  4.The early feature of Christianity was the arguments and debates over who and what Jesus was as well as what true teaching was.

  A. Jews under law vs. Christians freed from law and under the authority of a spirit-led conscience.

  B.Christian vs Christian over whether Gentiles should be included.

  C.Christian vs Christian over circumcision and dietary observances

  Constantine's era of Roman Empire as Christian was an endless series of debates, arguments and tussles over what true doctrine was down to the smallest defintions of words.

  The Authority of the early Church was never sealed. The debate often flip-flopped as one argument prevailed for a time over other arguments. Early bishops, elders and deacons were in favor and then out vis a vis the Authority.

  CHRISTIANITY has never been anything less than a constant state of flux because of the testing of authority as to the truth of their pronouncements.

  From the time of Jesus onward it cannot be demonstrated anybody was solely in charge of pronouncing Truth from a position of unassailable authority.

  What conclusions can we draw from these historical examples?

  There is no basis for assuming that there should be in our day and time ONE CENTRAL AUTHORITY who pronounces what TRUTH IS which is free from being questioned, debated and called to demonstrate the veracity of their official stance on doctrine.

  IF JESUS COULD QUESTION and DEBATE with the authorities set in place by JEHOVAH; why shouldn't a follower of Jesus imitate his behavior and attitude today?

  THE ACCUSATION OF APOSTACY cannot be an authentic means of freeing a religious authority from being called to account for their ERRORS of doctrine by members of the same religion.
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  outofthebox

  Excellent observations :)
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  Hope4Others

  This is more than excellent, this is perfectly right on the money. It makes perfect sense!

  Cheers!

  Hope4others
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  Terry

  When dealing with bad ideas, it is best to destroy their force by using BETTER ideas.

  When you don't have better ideas you must resort to name calling.

  Using the term HERESY, HERTIC and APOSTACY and APOSTATE, the Catholic Church demonstrated an utter lack of ability to defeat contrary ideas with better ones.

  The Church used the power of the state to banish, burn, beat and belittle those whom it could not defeat with debate and demonstration of true doctrine and soundness of reason.

  Jehovah's Organization has taken the same cowardly and defeatist position as the Catholic Church in the early days of Christianity.

  Loaded language of ad hominem seethes like pus from a sore when they address those with whom they disagree!

  EVIL SLAVE and APOSTATE are anathema.

  They seek to marginalize and disempower those with whom they do not agree.

  Worldly, Satanic and pagan are affixed to their focus.

  The clamp down on reading material, associations, references and conversations is ample demonstration of the FEAR they will be defeated in an open comparison of ideas, orthodoxy and historical references.

  All they really have to work with in Bethel is demonizing the opposition and reframing into strawman positions the actual premise of controversy.
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  BurnTheShips

  Constantine's era of Roman Empire as Christian was an endless series of debates, arguments and tussles over what true doctrine was down to the smallest defintions of words

  Not so, the controversies were noticable because they were a breach.
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  5go

  Christianity is on a cross road and facing eventual oblivion if it makes the wrong decision soon. Unlike Islam (which BTW invented the method science uses to verify findings, which is killing Christianity ironically) Christianity must deal with the genesis account's effect on their doctrine. They might be able to keep Jesus non-existence in doubt but Adam's non-existence is rock solid.

  Without Adam, Jesus existence as written is open to increasing doubt. Which sort of creates a logical death spiral which can be delayed but not overcome without major changes to most christian sect's dogma.

  Which is playing out in the ID debate currently. The IDers are trying hard to delay the inevitable. Hoping to get absolute power in the scientific community to sweep this under the rug, or hold this off enough to change their doctrine in hopes of stopping the death spiral of Jesus denying to come up from the current "no first sin event dilemma" posed by evolution.
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  BurnTheShips

  Christianity is on a cross road and facing eventual oblivion if it makes the wrong decision soon. Unlike the Muslims which (BTW invented the method science uses to verify findings which is killing Christianity) must deal with the genesis account's effect on their doctrine. They might be able to keep Jesus non-existence in doubt but Adam's non-existence is rock solid.

  Christianity has been facing oblivion since it's inception, when it's first leader was killed followed by a long series of martyrs, many of them the leaders of the Church. Christianity surivived. Christianity faced oblivion from within due to the idiocy and wickedness of prominent Christians. Christianity survived. Christianity will survive.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baconian_method

  Without Adam, Jesus existence as written is open to increasing doubt. Which sort of creates a logical death spiral which can be delayed but not overcome without major changes to most christian sect's dogma.

  Not really. It is in doubt FOR YOU.

  And Genesis has been interpreted allegorically from very ancient times.

  Which is playing out in the ID debate currently. The IDers are trying hard to delay the inevitable. Hoping to get absolute power in the scientific community to sweep this under the rug, or hold this off enough to change their doctrine in hopes of stoping the death spiral of Jesus denying to come up from the current "no first sin event dilemma" posed by evolution.

  The ID debaters are only a minority of Christian believers.

  As for some event threatening to obliterate the Church, this has been expected for a very long time. The Jesus denier(s), they have a name. It is called "antichrist".

  http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s2c2a7.htm

  Paragraphs 675-677

  BTS
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  yknot

  

  I think Bro. Terry's talk deserves another round...please stand now.

  
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  Eyes Open

  IF JESUS COULD QUESTION and DEBATE with the authorities set in place by JEHOVAH; why shouldn't a follower of Jesus imitate his behavior and attitude today?

  Possible JW answer: Because he does not have the authority from his heavenly father, Jehovah, that Jesus did. Hence, he should humbly submit to the channel that God is using today.
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  WTWizard

  Jesus was actually trying to draw people into more fully integrated thinking than what the religious leaders wanted. Notice how forcefully he bashed the Pharisees for holding people back from thinking on their own. He was much more tolerant with people that merely disagreed with each other, helping them to find the truth (but they would have to do the thinking for themselves).

  This is the exact opposite of what the Filthful and Disgraceful Slavebugger wants. They want people to do exactly as they tell them, and not check out the doctrines or verify the accuracy of the Bible or the New World Translation using independent sources. The Filthful and Disgraceful Slavebugger is doing exactly what the Pharisees were lambasted for.