by OnTheWayOut 26 Replies latest jw friends
So, they were smart enough to see that those doctrines were silly. Big whoop! They took those non-doctrines and built a cult around them. Just because they got a few things right does not make them innocent.They've gotten a lot wrong (607, generation, blood...)
By the way, that is the logic they use to point to any religion and say it's false. "If any part of the religion is false, it's 'false religion' ".
changeling :) All religion is hogwash!
To TheListener: When the Israealites messed up, it was by their own doing, not because Jehovah gave them new light that turned out to be no light at all.
changeling :)
In a magnificent display of their circular reasoning, there used to be an outline for the Public Talk (hour talk in my day), that was on the subject "how can you find the true religion".
What it basically did was to list out just about every JW doctrine - 144,000, paradise earth-great crowd, no hellfire, soul sleeps, 1914, blood, no trinity, etc...and then systematically eliminate every single other religion on earth by name!!! It pretended to actually be a serious and studious search of other religious doctrine to hopefully find just one other true christian religion...
I can still remember having to give it! - OK - they don't believe in Jesus; well there goes Buddhism, Taosim, Hindu, etc.etc.
Don't reject the immortal soul and hellfire? Well, there went the Catholics, Methodists, Baptists - etc. etc.
Finally, after working through the very similar ones - Christadelphians, 7th Day Adventists, etc...we come to an amazing and entirely unexpected conclusion:
JWs are the World's only true religion - it is obvious because they are the only ones that believe in all the JW doctrines!!!
I will post 2 versions of this post... the short one and the long one (which is an excerpt of an unanswered letter that the society has a copy of).
Basically I reject JW's since they believe in unBiblical things:
1. "Seven Gentile Times" (this does not appear in the Bible as a single idea)
2. "Great Crowd of Other Sheep" (This expression does not appear in the Bible)
3. FDS and it's "governing body" (this expression does not appear in the Bible)
The fact that these main doctrines are not explicitly taught in the Bible leads me to reject JWs as unBiblical.... see my next post for further details if you want WT references....
The last time, I challenged the aspect of a worldwide preaching work.
I said that the work is barely scratching the surface in 2/3rds of the world- Muslim, Hindu, Buddist lands.
The JW said that it was, he knew because the WTS told him so.
You can prove it to him, via the published annual report in the KM and a world almanac.
The annual report always shows the (estimated) population for each country listed. Add them up, and it comes out to about 4.5 billion.
Get the current global population from the almanac. Subtract those 4.5 billion from that total, and you are left with about 2 to 2.5 billion persons left to be covered by the "other lands" grouping at the end of the report, Just a few thousand JWs are available in those "other lands".
Add in India, with its 1 billion+ population and about 25,000 JWs.
You could throw in Bangladesh too, with 100 million + population and something like 100 JWs.
So, you end up with around 3.5 billion people, and only arond 40,000 or so JWs to preach to them. The majority of those 40,000 are clustered in the "Christian" section of India, and the rest are working under an and so necessarily can't accomplish much.
what have I learned?....you can give them all the logical reasons you like and they will still not listen......best you can hope for is to plant seeds.....only when they are ready they will question and leave.......also let them keep their dignity.......remember we were once that person......ninja.....(disclaimer.....ninja has taken a nosebleed by writing more than one paragraph and needs to lie down)
I cant post????? I have this problem with my job computer sometimes... I'll PM OTWO.. you can post if you want.
From A@G:
| So here are the details if you want to post them or use them: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Points that A@G questions about the WatchTower Society Note that only the NWT and WT publications are cited. The reasoning book states about Jehovah’s Witnesses: *** rs p. 199 Jehovah’s Witnesses *** Jehovah’s Witnesses Definition: The worldwide Christian society of people who actively bear witness regarding Jehovah God and his purposes affecting mankind. They base their beliefs solely on the Bible. What beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses set them apart as different from other religions? (1) Bible: Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that the entire Bible is the inspired Word of God, and instead of adhering to a creed based on human tradition, they hold to the Bible as the standard for all their beliefs. (emphasis mine) Therefore, I have always believed that one of Jehovah’s Witnesses must believe the entire Bible. However, while I was in Gilead I realized that certain teachings of the Society were not clearly taught in the Bible. Consider if the following phrases are found in the Bible: 1. “The Seven Gentile Times” : The phrase “seven times” is in Daniel Ch. 4. Luke 21:24 mentions the “Gentile Times”. But Jesus did not specifically refer to Daniel Ch. 4 here as he did in Luke 21:20, where he referenced Daniel Ch.9 (as can be seen by Matthew’s parallel account. Therefore, an attempt to link the “Gentile Times” to the “seven Times” is a matter of conjecture and opinion since Jesus, had he had Dan 4 in mind would have mentioned it as he did a few verses previously. 2. w90 7/15 p. 13 par. 13 “great crowd” of “other sheep”: These are two phrases that are separated by the quotes, as can be seen by this example. This phrase does not appear in the Bible together. In Gilead, I discovered that these verse can be understood differently. I will mention each one separately: John 10:16. Most Bible commentators take this expression and apply it to the Gentiles. Since Jesus did not specify who these were, a specific application to a specific group would be conjecture. But given that his audience was the Jews the idea that the other sheep would be the Gentiles who would soon enter the congregation is in line with Eph 2: 11-20 (I cite a few verses so you can see the connection: (Ephesians 2:15-16) 15 By means of his flesh he abolished the enmity, the Law of commandments consisting in decrees, that he might create the two peoples in union with himself into one new man and make peace; 16 and that he might fully reconcile both peoples in one body to God through the torture stake, because he had killed off the enmity by means of himself. Rev 7:9 “Great Crowd”: In the book of Revelation, the “Great Crowd is said to be serving in the Temple “naos” (an area reserved for the priests). Such a location would seem to be speaking of a heavenly class. Allowing the Bible to interpret itself, Rev 19: 1 states: (Revelation 19:1) 19 After these things I heard what was as a loud voice of a great crowd in heaven. They said: “Praise Jah, YOU people! The salvation and the glory and the power belong to our God, (emphasis mine). 3. Dan 8:14 “2300 days”: In Gilead I realized that this prophecy seemed to be arbitrarily applied to the Watchtower Society. The dates that this prophecy was claimed to have been fulfilled have been changed several times, but the result has always been the same: It applies to the Watchtower Society. Researching this prophecy, I realized that this is hat led William Miller to choose 1844 as the day for the Lord’s return, which led to disappointment, yet was a root of Adventism that paved the way for Russell’s beliefs. (See jv p. 40, which mentions Miller and 1844, I am not making this up, it’s in the Society’s publications.) These scriptural questions have plagued me since I left Gilead, and have led me to certain conclusions: Dates: 1914, 1918, 1919, etc, are based on the Seven Gentile times premise (which was invented by a man named Brown in 1823, not by the WT Society (again see jv book as I indicate below: *** jv chap. 10 p. 134 Growing in Accurate Knowledge of the Truth *** As early as 1823, John A. Brown, whose work was published in London, England, calculated the “seven times” of Daniel chapter 4 to be 2,520 years in length. But he did not clearly discern the date with which the prophetic time period began or when it would end. He did, however, connect these “seven times” with the Gentile Times of Luke 21:24. In 1844, E. B. Elliott, a British clergyman, drew attention to 1914 as a possible date for the end of the “seven times” of Daniel, but he also set out an alternate view that pointed to the time of the French Revolution. Robert Seeley, of London, in 1849, handled the matter in a similar manner. At least by 1870, a publication edited by Joseph Seiss and associates and printed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was setting out calculations that pointed to 1914 as a significant date, even though the reasoning it contained was based on chronology that C. T. Russell later rejected. Therefore, my decision to reject the 1914 chronology is Biblical, since it appears to be mere guesswork, as opposed to something that is specifically stated in scripture. Russell arrived to his 1914 date in part through Pyramidology. Additionally, the 1914 calculation is based on the date 607 BCE, which is rejected by archaeologists. The same documents that establish 539BCE also establish 587 as the destruction of Jerusalem: *** kc p. 186 Appendix to Chapter 14 *** VAT 4956: This is a cuneiform tablet that provides astronomical information datable to 568 B.C.E. It says that the observations were from Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year. This would correspond to the chronology that places his 18th regnal year in 587/6 B.C.E. However, this tablet is admittedly a copy made in the third century B.C.E. so it is possible that its historical information is simply that which was accepted in the Seleucid period. This tablet mentions both the 539BCE date and the 587BCE date. If you reject if as a forgery, you must also reject the 539 BCE date that is accepted as a pivotal date! Additionally the astronomical information (related to lunar eclipses) is so specific, that modern astronomers have confirmed the dates in the VAT 4956 tablet. If the date was 607BCE, the lunar eclipses do not match the reality of the moon going around the earth in predictable cycles. |
Noted
My wife always throws this conversation stopper out to me: "The Israelites were just like we are now. They were God's chosen people. They made mistakes like we do, they made corrections to their worship like we do and they followed Jehovah's orders, like pooping outside the camp and not eating certain foods, even though they had no idea why these laws were beneficial. Why do you have to nitpick the WTS so much?"
So, then why did Charles Russell start his own sect in violation of the Scriptures? Because the Catholic Church was there, like the Israelites, getting things wrong and right (they got the Scriptures right). So why didn't Russell do like the Israelites and realize that the original Church made mistakes but you don't leave it. You wait for it to evolve and correct their mistakes.
I'm not nitpicking. I'm just asking questions like a Borean, honey pie.
