Mary wrote:
What exactly could we possibly learn from them?
For one thing, we can learn to be joyful in our worship to Jehovah through Jesus Christ as the Mormons express through their beautiful temples and choir. Look at the beautiful temples of the past and Ark amongst other historical monuments in the temples of Jehovah over the millenniums and as documented in the Old and New Testaments (Hebrew and Greek Scriptures) of the Bible and the joyfulness that people experienced worshipping the Creator. The Scriptures have emphasized song and musical instruments, and the Mormon Church is considered by many as second to none in this area. Do we listen to musical instrument accompanyment in our Kingdom Halls during worship services? No... we sing to the accompanyment of recorded music for the most part.
Another thing, we can learn to have balance in our lives. The Bible says that for everything is a season, and in the preaching work the Latter-Day Saints assign the missionary work to youth and volunteers. Forcing everyone to go out in the field with the threat of being declared spiritually weak by the congregation elders is just plain disfunctional. Compare the success of the LDS missionary work to the JW missionary work in growth. For that matter, look at the growth of the Catholic Church where nobody is expected to cover territories and wake tired folks from their rest on Saturday mornings and compare that to ours. The truth is that the Apostles never expected everyone in the congregation to preach the gospel by knocking on everybody's doors. A new paradigm for the preaching work in this century is necessary if the organization is to experience the growth enjoyed by other faiths such as the Mormons.
Gumby wrote:
They haven't learned a damn thing from their mistakes for over a hundred years. Why do you think they would admit from learning anything from Christendom, or change their ways now? Dream on pal.
I'm sorry you feel that way, Gumby, I really do, but you know what? I completely understand your lack of faith that miracles can occur in the Jehovah's Witnesses religion. Reform for many skeptics is really on par with expecting Moses's ancestor to rise and part the Red Sea... the whole concept of reforming the Watchtower is considered by many as optimistic as trying to renovate an old house filled with dry rot and irreversible termite damage.
However, those who have seen the power of God in their lives such as I have know that, to put it bluntly, supernatural events that will shock the most hardened skeptics will happen. Such reformations have occurred in the dark ages to the disbelief of millions, and so why should God not illuminate our lives today by reforming the unreformable?
JT wrote:
It claims to speak for god like moses did, it sets up rules that impact the lives of millions, proclaims that if you don't share thier view you and i along with 6 billion folks will die at the very hands of god himself and you are suggesting they "Set up a Choir"
I laughed a little at your stark candor, JT, and then realized that as perverse as it may sound the answer is "yes"! Listening to a good choir is a spiritually and emotionally healing experience both for those performing and those in the audience, and the spiritual power of good music should not be underestimated.
And jest I did not.
Farkel wrote:
From that comment, it's obvious you are still a dub. You haven't learned nothin'. All those years on your own board, all those facts on your own board, all those horror stories of a web of lying, deceiving, false history, arrogance, manipulation and using up human lives by the Watchtower Organization and FOR the Watchtower Organization, and you still think the WTS and dupes like you STILL need to "learn something?"
The wealth of information on H2O over the years has indeed been a learning experience, believe it or not, Farkel. All those horror stories, the web of lies and deceit, their arrogance, the elderly master manipulators pulling the levers behind the curtain in "Oz" and living high off the hog on the Farm in Patterson, the used up human lives they thought would become fertilizer in the gardens of post-Armageddon survivors... it forever had its impact upon myself and countless others passing through the Hourglass portal.
All this, Farkel, you correctly pointed out but failed to recognize is in fact, with all due respect to your disagreement, all the more reason why the "dupes" in the Watchtower and myself and countless others in the organization need to learn something! Because those who fail to learn can be likened to the prophet outside the ancient city of Nineveh in the book of Jonah.
Farkel wrote:
Geeez, Rick. Are you STUPID or something?
No... actually, I'm pretty smart.
Gumby wrote:
So this Rick....had his own board and knows all the history behind the borg and still doubts?I would reeeeeeeeeally like to hear from you rick and HOW a person can do this. I'm really serious.....I want to know. I've seen joelbear long for family and friends to the point of wanting to return ....but you. You actually were serious in your comment? Please explain.
It's really very simple, Gumby. The Governing Body are human beings for whom Christ died, and so is everybody else. Everyone and I mean everyone will stand before the throne of God in the final judgment. True Christians are those who rise above all the petty-anny b.s. the world dishes out and forgives again and again (up to 7 times? 77 times?...) and believes that through faith Jesus Christ can move mountains if this will serve God's will. If the Bible says that even the secular authorities serve God's purpose, then certainly God can use the 6+ million JWs worldwide as part of accomplishing his will. It is a serious mistake for anyone to simply write them off when there is so much potential.
The comment about them forming a choir similar to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir was meant as a generalized comment, an effort symbolic of spiritual progress, because obviously there are many areas of this church that need positive changes. One could argue the lack of a choir is the least of their concerns, but my point is that unless you start at the grass roots level to bring joy to people in worship then you miss the whole point that the God of love is a joyful God that created humans for the purpose of enjoying eternal life to the fullest.
Scorpion quoted:
Did the Watchtower borrow from the Mormons?WATCHTOWER TEACHING
Dead leader still active
“…though Pastor Russell has passed beyond the veil, he is still managing every feature
of the Harvest work.”
-Studies in the Scripture, Vol. 7, p.144Earlier Mormon Teaching
Dead leader still active
“Joseph Smith holds the keys of this last dispensation, and is now engaged behind the
vail in the great work of the last days.”
-B. Young, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 7, p. 289Watchtower Teaching
God’s throne at star Alcyone “Alcyone, the central one of the renowned Pleiadic stars…from which the Almighty
governs his universe.”
-Studies in the Scriptures, Vol. 3, p.327
“…the group Pleiades. And the reasonable suggestion has been made that that center
may be the heaven of heavens, the highest heaven, the throne of God.”
-The Watchtower, May 15, 1895, p. 1814
(Society’s reprints)Mormon Teaching
God’s throne at star Kolob “And I saw the stars… that one of them was nearest unto the throne of God…the
name of the great one is Kolob…Kolob is set nigh unto the throne of God, to govern
all those planets….”
-Abraham 3:2, 3, Pearl of Great Price (1842)Watchtower Teaching
Men will become Gods “Now we appear like men, and all die naturally like men, but in the resurrection we will
rise in our true character as Gods.”
-The Watch Tower, December, 1881, page 301Mormon Teaching
Men will become Gods “God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man…and you have got to
learn how to be gods yourselves…the same as all gods have done before you…until
you attain to the resurrection”
-Joseph Smith, History of the Church, Vol. 6, pp. 305-306Watchtower Teaching
Pyramid prophecies “THE TESTIMONY OF GOD’S STONE WITNESS AND PROPHET, THE
GREAT PYAMID IN EGYPT…Call to mind that the full end of Gentile power in the
world and the time of trouble which brings its overthrow, will be in the end of A.D.
1914…If the inches of the floor-lines of these passages represent a year, each…
-Studies in the Scriptures, Vol. III, 1891 (1903 edition), pages 313 (title), 362-363Mormon Teaching
Pyramid prophecies
“…a new witness that the Lord seems to have brought to light, by the opening of the
Great Pyramid of Egypt… There seems to be a prophetic spirit running through the
construction of all that cast superstructure, pointing forward to the very end…Allowing
one year to a cubit inch… the generation that will close up the times of the Gentiles.”
-Orson Pratt, Fiftieth Annual Conference Report of the Mormon Church, 1880, pages
86-87WATCHTOWER TEACHING
God’s channel
“Unless we are in touch with this channel of communication that God is using, we will
not progress along the road to life, no matter how much Bible reading we do.”
-The Watchtower, December 1, 1981, pg.27Earlier Mormon teaching
God’s channel “Do we realize that this is the channel through which the mind and will of God our
Father is made known to us?…and it is among the privileges of every man and every
woman to approach the Lord through this channel and learn his mind and will
concerning them.”
-Journal of Discourses, Vol. 18, 1875, p.98Watchtower Teaching
Generation prophecies “Most important, this magazine build confidence in the Creator’s promise of a peaceful
and secure new world before the generation that saw the events of 1914 passes
away.”Earlier Mormon teaching
Generation prophecies “We believe in these promises as much as we believe in any promise ever uttered by
the mouth of Jehovah. The Latter-day Saints just as much expect to receive a
fulfillment of that promise during the generation that was in existence in 1832 as they
expect that the sun will rise and set to-morrow. Why? Because God cannot lie.”
-Journal of Discourses, Vol. 13, May 5, 1870, p. 362Taken from David Reeds 1991 Spring edition of Comments from the Friends
I had no idea! These remarkable similarities are quite shocking. It's as if both faiths, the JWs and the LDS, are controlled by two major corporations that seem totally separate but are secretly owned by one holding company. Those early quotes you posted make me wonder if there were ties between the early Watchtower and the Mormons and Freemasonry?
Derrick