Jehovah Witnesses- True Christians?

rich5678

What do you say to people outside the religion that say Jehovah Witnesses are the only true christians and they are the only group that follow the bible as opposed to other reilgions? I see these comments on youtube about videos that addressed the issue with the policy jws follow today. I am not bitter but I thought if you think that jehovah witnesses are true christians and follow the bible, why not join the group? What is the reason for not joining? I don't know. I may be wrong in my thinking...

leavingwt

It's called Mind Control. It's all too real.

jaguarbass

JW's are not Christians. The reason the religion/ faith is called Christian is Christians believe Jesus is God.

Jehovahs witnesses dont believe Jesus is God. All the JW's will ever be are Jehovahs witnesses.

moshe

Since Jesus did such a poor job of explaining what He was and what the true dogma's his followers were to have, that it's not the fault of JW's that they are different from orthodoxy. It was Paul, who never saw Jesus, and Paul's visions that layed the foundation of Christian dogma. Jesus was either OK with all these changes, the original new light, or he was dead and could care less.

ldrnomo

It's a CULT.

If you try to get out you are punished with social ostracisim. For some that's not so bad but for many of us some of our family are still in and it would make things difficult for them and us. It is a punishment.

The religion also does not let people think independent thoughts it uses mind control to demonize independent thinking. Many members supress thoughts that go against the teachings of the Watchtower Society.

I could go on and on but as a noobie, you will have a chance to read many good points from this forum.

Good luck in your search

May the power of the universe be with you

LD

mindmelda

Following the Bible as a whole and following Christ are two different things. The first part of the Bible was the law and history of the Jews, so I've never figured out why Christians feel so obliged to adopt it or honor it? I don't see a lot of rabbis on TV explaining the New Testament for Jews, but somehow, Christians just feel this need to interpret the OT for Christian application. Does that make any sense?

See, to me, this is a huge area where the JWs screw things up. They're so into getting Yahweh, that ancient Jewish way of looking at God (which probably was more or less appropriate for people of that time and place), into modern Christianity that they forget things like Oh...Christ said he fulfilled that, for instance?

They're always trying to shoehorn the WTS into the OT prophecies about the Jews. I used to sit there at those book studies about Daniel and Isaiah and listen to these ridiculous conclusions with absolutely no logical progression of "Well, obviously, Isaiah was foretelling the modern day organization" and my brain was just exploding from the STUPID.

No, Isaiah wasn't foretelling anything about the WTS, at least, not that I could see. It was just because they SAID SO, and that's why that's the first meeting I quit going to.

Christ is pretty simple, really, and actually nothing that many other religious innovators have come up with, which shows that they're good and workable ideas because so many people see the usefulness of them.

The necessity fundamentalists and literalists seem to have of making every sentence or word of the Bible fit into their lives and intepretations of reality astound me. I don't get it, never will. How does that make you more RIGHT than other religions?

It's not more RIGHT to be more literal in interpretation of ANYTHING. I don't understand how those two things overlap and serve to convince people of their RIGHTNESS. They don't even have the same definition!

yknot

What do you say to people outside the religion that say Jehovah Witnesses are the only true christians and they are the only group that follow the bible as opposed to other reilgions? I see these comments on youtube about videos that addressed the issue with the policy jws follow today. I am not bitter but I thought if you think that jehovah witnesses are true christians and follow the bible, why not join the group? What is the reason for not joining? I don't know. I may be wrong in my thinking...

Why would someone who is outside of the WTS believe it was 'the only true religion'?

(Do you mean former JWs who for whatever reason aren't associating but are still being held captive to the myth?)

If so the answer in harmony with the mind control cult commentary is that these individuals simply don't feel 'worthy' of full membership into the WTS. So their defending is their attempt at doing good. It also creates persecution and as you well know we are all trained to feel better when persecuted for defending/preaching/suffering for the 'troof'.

Just my two cents, but my thinking might be in error as well......

moshe

-I don't see a lot of rabbis on TV explaining the New Testament for Jews, but somehow, Christians just feel this need to interpret the OT for Christian application. Does that make any sense?

No, it does not make sense. I can see the problem now, but before I converted to Judaism, I thought it was perfectly proper for Christian theologians to put their spin on the Hebrew Bible, the holy books that belong to the Jews. Now, Jews don't presume to interpret the NT part of the Bible, as it is the Christians book. When I mention to a Christian that the Eden story is allegory and metaphor, they get upset with me. How dare a Jew try to tell me that what I have been taught in church is wrong.

mindmelda

Talking to a rabbi (my husband and I regularly did work for him on properties he owned when we had a plumbing business) just absolutely ruined me on traditional Christianity. Mostly because he was actually such a funny guy. I've never been so entertained talking about religion or anything else. A really smart cookie.

I developed a lot more respect for all religions as soon as I realized that the Witnesses have none and how invalid that is. I've learned something from every person of faith I've ever spoken with, even if I don't agree with them at all. I started picking the brains of anyone I met who was well educated in their own particular faith.

But I got originally became curious about Judaism after my paternal grandfather died and my family, specifically, my aunt, knowing he had been an orphan from age 5, decided to try and find out what his real name and background was. We had always assumed he was Irish, as the name he was adopted under, Rose, is an Irish name.

Imagine our surprise when my aunt found his parents immigration papers into the United States doing this genealogical search, and they were in German...and there were several pictures of them in traditional Jewish clothing of the period and after we got the papers translated, well...we found out my grandfather had been born Jewish, orphaned young (his parents died in the Spanish influenza epidemic and so did his two younger siblings...a brother and a sister) and adopted and raised by a Methodist family in Arkansas when he was 7. Of course his real last name wasn't Rose, either. It was Rosenberg.

The whole thing started when my aunt was puzzled doing the geneaology because we didn't seem to have any connection to any other family in America with the last name of Rose.

I really don't believe my grandfather ever remembered any of that...he lost his family traumatically at quite a young age and had very few memories of his birth family, from what I was told.