by tec 340 Replies latest jw friends
You say Jews have hard hearts. This is racism.
Tammy, I could see straight away cofty is trying to wind you up. Don't worry, I didn't think for a minute you were anti-semitic or anti-anything for that matter. Cofty is anit-getagoodargumentodebate he needs a challenge he can get his teeth into.
Kate xx
Islam also has divisions and sects, and is not all united/one.
Its all hateful bullshit.
Thank you Sam. I will move on from Cofty's accusations then.
Peace to you,
tammy
I believe Christians, because of our history, must go the extra mile in making sure we don't make antisemitic references. Of course, it still isn't clear what you believe, either to a progressive Christian, such as myelf, or a more conservative one, such as Elaine.
I believe those antisemitic references in the Bible are unfortunate. In my church, we don't quote them. Jews are not blamed for Christ's death. You may think it is no big deal but it is a big deal. The concentration camps are evidence of Christianity gone wild.
So you believe that Christ talks to you. Rather than write about fallacies atheists have, I suggest it woudl have been more instructive to outline what your faith believes are. My faith is Christ centered. There is no so much talk about the Father. You don't believe in the Trinity, do you? Do you believe Christ is the Incarnated? Is Christ the same as God? Is the Holy Spirit a separate person or aspect of God or an impersonal force used by God? It would be interesting to go down the list of JW dogma and see where the variances are. When I visited your forum many months ago I found much of the content was from the OT. It reminded me of the WT teachings. I do believe their life goal is to be ancient Israelites.
I am also curious as to what Christ speaking to has has instructed you. If he is speaking to you, I assume there is a special message.
It is very strange to be on a forum so long and have no idea. When someone else posted, there also was never a central message. The message appeared to be Christ speaks to me. Listen to what I command.
dear Tammy...
while it's true that a person might be drawn to seek out the true God because of love shown by one of His people, actually a person is drawn TO Jesus Christ by hearing and believing the reproving message of God the Father followed by the message of Forgiveness through Jesus Christ
You said:"It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the Truth(in Christ, who IS the Truth), just as the Father commanded us."...yes words in brackets are yours...and your added words can change what the message is trying to convey. For instance, perhaps these people were meeting regulary, praying together, donating their money, taking turns hosting traveling preachers, reproving false teachers etc...that could very well be the meaning of walking in truth in this letter but you assign the capital letter T and your own meaning and voila...you've succeeded in removing all the things walking in truth could mean and replace it with walking in Christ which means to you walking in love...without defining what God means by walking in love...1 john 2-3-6 again "the truth" is not capitalised.
love michelle
p.s. I never said anything about what religion teaches or about what mainstream christianity teaches so I'm unclear as to why you threw that in your response to me.
Band, I am leaving for work soon, so will get back to you later tonight or in the next day or so. Same to you Michelle, though in the meantime, maybe you could answer the questions asked of you?
Peace,
tammy
Myelaine said- There isn't one scripture about pedophilia. from the beginning of the bible God speaks to mankind using a marriage motif. He makes it clear that marriage is between a man and a woman and its greatest aim is the production of children. because the bible doesn't say how young a maiden fit for marriage is we can based on the objective (children) conclude that she would have started menstruation.
Perhaps you're unaware of the Numbers 31, then, where Moses commanded genocide against the Midianites?
1 The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people.”
3 So Moses said to the people, “Arm some of your men to go to war against the Midianites so that they may carry out the Lord ’s vengeance on them. 4 Send into battle a thousand men from each of the tribes of Israel.” 5 So twelve thousand men armed for battle, a thousand from each tribe, were supplied from the clans of Israel. 6 Moses sent them into battle, a thousand from each tribe, along with Phinehas son of Eleazar, the priest, who took with him articles from the sanctuary and the trumpets for signaling.
15 “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. 16 “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord ’s people. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
The Hebrews, after defeating the Midianites, were allowed to keep virginal females of all ages as wives or potential wives when they sexually matured (and note that righteous Phinehas was among the Hebrew congregation who accepted the Midianite girls who were virgins).
Killing all the male children, but keeping the young girls "for yourselves"? In fact, being kept alive for the purpose of pedophilia might be considered merciful compared to being put to death, like the male children of Midian were, instead of being kept as a breeding cattle.
See, that's the thing: most Xians have an airy-fairy view of the God of the OT, apparently unable to see the absolutely horrific accounts in the Bible that are simply evil according to today's morality, and go on and on about how great God-given morals are.
BOTR said- Very bad antisemitism. It flourishes among certain Christians on this forum. Portions of the New Testament are antisemitic. There is no objective findng that Jews are hard hearted.
Hey, people are only quoting the Holy Book of the Jews, and the hard-hearted reference appears in the Tanakh in Ezekiel 2, with the usual self-loathing 'we're not worthy' stuff due to stiff-necks and head-hearts of the Jews. A broader point is, be very careful of what you write in your Holy Book, as it may be used against you.
BTW, since ancient Hebrews believed that the heart literally was the organ of cognition (and not the brain, as we all know today), saying that someone had a 'hard heart' was an idiom analogous to saying that a person has rocks in their head, i.e. stubborn due to stupidity. It was applied to the Egyptian pharoah, but also was applied to the Chosen People themselves.
Adam
Antisemitism in Christianity has caused great pain. Jews don't need their religion fulfilled in Christianity. They have their own religion. Also, they are nice enough to not convert people. Christianity has a dreadful record of forcible conversions, exile, and extermination. Tammy's comment was inappropriate in this day and age. Jews are not hard hearted. Never were and are not now. I don't think Tammy is a bad person. Just unaware of the context of such remarks. It seems to me that Christians can focus on Christ without saying degrading things concerning Jews.
This phenomena has been discussed in ecumenical settings for decades. Christians need to worry about thesmelves and leave others alone. When Christians genuinely imitate Jesus, we can worry about other religions. I am so tired of the remarks about Jews being hard hearted on this forum. Next, it is some prophecy fulfillment garbage. Jewish people consider their scriptures holy. The New Testament can stand on its own. Viewing Jews as less than Christians is wrong.
If you want to discuss this further, a thread can be started. Language is important. I find it odious.
Jews face discrimination today b/c of such language and belief. Christianity and Judaism parted company. We don't have to embrace every stereotype and belief that Christianity once had. Blacks may call each other the N word or boy. I am not going to do it. It is unacceptable.
Why can't we say humans can be hard hearted rather than Jews are hard-hearted. The appropriate point is made. Why we do we continue today what was wrong even in its time?
Waging war against innocent civilians is amoral. I would argue that the plagues in Exodus are amoral. Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac is nauseating. The existence of slavery is despicable. There are so many Bible stories that give me pause. To ignore the problem is silly. The worst thing we could is based our present law on such concepts.
The Bible's depiction and treatment of women is wrong. Our present laws are not based on these stories. When you read the Old Testament, I would venture that our laws today are a repudiation of these stories.
You can say that again, Band on the Run!
dear Adamah...
You said:"Killing all the male children, but keeping the young girls "for yourselves"? In fact, being kept alive for the purpose of pedophilia might be considered merciful compared to being put to death, like the male children of Midian were, instead of being kept as a breeding cattle."...you really have to have a low opinion of this group of people and their potential for moderate behaviour to so easily read pedophilia for sexual gratification into this scripture.
I don't have a fairy-tale view of OT God...far from it. Based on the OT accounts of God I actually fear the LORD and that's WHY I'm thankful that Jesus took my punishment...When He ordered entire nations killed I can be sure that He is absolutely serious when He says that He is against sin and those who practice it and that He has every intention of routing it out regardless of how horrendous others might think HE is.
the NT scripture says it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God...I have no reason to doubt that.
love michelle
