T. Jefferson was on the money (no pun intended)

by cptkirk 6 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  cptkirk

  just listen to this excerpt from his book written what 200 years ago?

  "They have been still more disfigured"(christ's words)"by the corruptions of schismatizing followers, who have found an interest in sophisticating and perverting the simple doctrines he taught by engrafting on them the mysticisms of a grecian sophist (Plato), frittering them into subtilities and obscuring them with jargon, until they have caused good men to reject the whole in disgust, and to view Jesus himself as an imposter."

  wow?
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  Sulla

  In so many ways, he was merely a man of his time.
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  Bella15

  Yep ... WOW!

  When I woke up and started reading the bible by myself one the things I loved was the simplicity of Jesus' message and the simplicity of the gospel as preached by the apostles ... I learned not to pay attention to anyone else but just the Word ...
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  Band on the Run

  What I find interesting with Thomas Jefferson and his own attempts to purify gospels was how a major Founder and politician could get away with it? Can you imagine what Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachmann would say about an opponent who offered his own view of scripture? Jefferson descended quickly into very nasty politics, opposing Geo. Washington and even more so, John Adams. Yet despite Sally Hemmings, his massive foreign debt, and his own gospels, I am not aware that it was a major political issue.

  Most of the Founders were not religious. We are not a Christian country! Never were. Yet I turn on Tv and see a lawyer, who must know better, proclaiming our basic Christian decency. I agree that our laws reflect a Christian culture but a neutral, secular country is consciously chosen.
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  journey-on

  In other words, we DO have a way of taking something simple and complicating it. We argue and debate it to death until we attach all kinds of caveats, explanations, exceptions, and you name it.

  Whether it's Christ's simple message as Thomas Jefferson referenced or our First Amendment right. By the time we get through with it, it is all convoluted and tainted with opinion and doctrine!
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  Sulla

  When I woke up and started reading the bible by myself one the things I loved was the simplicity of Jesus' message and the simplicity of the gospel as preached by the apostles ... I learned not to pay attention to anyone else but just the Word ...

  What gospel are you reading? The one I have reports Jesus saying I should pick up a cross; that whoever has much, more will be given while whoever has little, even what he has will be taken away; that he is the way, truth, and life.

  That strikes you as simple?
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  Band on the Run

  I believe Jesus taught a radical simplicity. Putting his sayings into action is extremely difficult. Mark is especially spooky. I want Jesus to be middle class and Eastern. The WASP equivalent of a mensch. Reading the text of Mark, Jesus calls for nothing of the sort I want him to represent.