Jehovah`s Witnesses an Old Testament Religion

by smiddy 13 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  tor1500

  Hi All,

  The general feeling is the old testament GOD is a bloodthirsty God of war, an avenging God.

  The general feeling in the New testament of Jesus is a God of love and forgiveness

  You know why? See these two points I've copied & pasted....This is who they are...they are bloodthirsty, and vengeful. They love to DF, to shun, all the ways in the OT, appeals to them...The NT is about love & they have to learn that, because it's not in them...I've spoken to a few folks that are not JW's & they say, They love the fact that they DF folks when they do something wrong & want to keep the congregation clean....BS. If you want to keep the congregation clean, you'd have to clean out the entire org. At the core of most witnesses is a mean spirit. Anyone who wants God to destroy folks because they won't listen to them, that tells you who they really are.

  Many of them can't identify with love....they never came from a loving home, so that's why they really can't get the NT. They talk about love, but they don't have it. From what I observed, parents are good JW's, but not loving parents...they are about rules & regulation (again, that's why they love the OT). They make sure they feed them, clothe them, roof over their head but much rather their kids be servants of Jehovah then them actually nurturing them...I watch them at the hall. They stare at their kids, make sure they sit straight, don't fall asleep, & paying attention....& it looks could kill their kids would be dead. Oh yes, make sure they raise their hands to comment.

  They don't a clue how to imitate Jesus....even though their are no more sacrifices, if God brought them back, the JW's would be the first to do it...they love to sacrifice when it is seen. They do nothing unless it's seen or counted.

  They feel that they have to bring back the name of God...that's their main objective...good works, faith, all on the back burner.

  It's funny someone brought up this topic, a sister that just got baptized a year ago, brought up this same point to me...she said, I think they dwell in the OT too much...Life is beautiful, nothing like the OT...she was too new for me to say anything..I just told her to pay attention...& remember, you don't serve man...

  Witnesses are afraid to imitate Jesus, means they would have to come out of their comfort zone of a mean spirit, which is the core of most of them.

  I know about it first hand...believe me...I see it all. I could go on...but won't.

  Tor
• 

  Finkelstein

  To the greater god comes the greater power .
  

  Organized, Legalistic, misogynist, vengeful, self-loathing, insular religions dream of the Old Testament every night, wondering how they can re-create the Communist State of ancient Israel.

  Well said Data Dog
  

  I think some of this theological adherence goes right back to C T Russell's teachings as a Zionist who was supposedly decoding the greater god's will and purpose for all mankind.

  Those other faiths in Christendom focus their worship onto Jesus. the lower god, or as "The God" incorrectly.
  

  True worship should be directed to Jehovah and not his son.
  
• 

  Cold Steel

  I've never heard a theology graduate complain about God being a bloodthirsty, genocidal baby killing desert deity. Why? Because they're generally not copying and pasting from atheistic websites.

  Theological commentator Jonathan Sherwin points out that since there's no way to scientifically attack God, that atheists resort to the same old attacks on God's character:

  Leaving behind the intellectual front, those with a particular disdain for Christianity retreated only to launch an offensive on the moral character of God. Instead of talking about such things as beginnings and designers and all the rest of it, now perhaps some of the thrust is towards what sort of a God is there.
  

  Richard Dawkins, the best-selling author known for his articulate attacks on religion – and Christianity in particular – takes special objection to the character of God found in the Old Testament. Dawkins tells us that “[the] God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction”, before unleashing a torrent of nasty character attributes upon God. Whilst leaving aside claims of the Bible as “fiction” for a later article, the accusation of unpleasantness should be taken very seriously.
  

  Let us be quite clear here, the Bible has some very difficult passages to digest. Many of these are found in the Old Testament and centre on the exploits of Joshua in his handling of the Canaanites.
  

  Cries of ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ and ‘Genocide’ ring out from the towers of atheism. How on earth could you love that same God? How on earth could you say that same God is loving? After all, we rightly condemn the atrocities committed at the hands of the Nazis upon the Jews, or of blood spilled in Rwanda in 1994, so how can the God of the Old Testament not be held to the same standard?
  

  Some of the problematic parts can be found in the book of Joshua. In one such place it is said that Joshua “struck all the land” and “left no survivor.” He is said to have “utterly destroyed all who breathed”. Heavy words. Now to set the scene briefly, we must understand something about Canaanite culture. It was bloodthirsty. Think of a scene from the film 300, but worse. Child sacrifice? Absolutely, it was built in to the heart of the culture. Bestiality? Part of the norm. If we today, part of a nice, civilised, anaesthetised, culture were to be transported back to their day we would most likely break down under sensory overload at the horrors that confronted us.
  

  But surely, you might say, there could be a better way to deal with this than killing everyone. After all, isn’t God supposed to merciful? Well, we read earlier in Genesis that God was patient. In fact, God waited 1,430 years before acting. We also read that this sort of thing wasn’t just a judgement on one people group, and indeed, when the Israelites, God’s own people, got mixed up in some bad things their judgement was equally bad.

  Although the Bible never says so, I personally believe that God destroyed Carthage during the Punic wars using the Romans. Although Rome wasn't a perfect society by a long shot, they had a good, solid form of government and they didn't practice human sacrifice. They were trade competitors with Carthage, but as far as they were concerned, it was nothing personal. But the Carthaginians were profligate in their religious practices with ritual prostitution and throwing their infants into the fires of Molech. Atheists, however, are more critical of God than those degenerate peoples he destroyed. And they do it not because they believe in God, but because they believe that if He did exist, His actions would disqualify Him for the job.

  But the fallacy of such thinking is obvious. God's critics say if God did exist, He's a monster. But that's a classic non seqitur. Because if God does exist, He knows all things, has all power and knows the hearts of all men. They also ignore the obvious fact that if there is a God, then all men have spirits and continue on after death. If there is no God, then men and animals cease to exist at death and do not live on...in which case this entire debate is meaningless. Nothing has any meaning.
• 

  Vidiot

  All Xtian fundies love the OT.