Questions For Jehovah's Witnesses Regarding Doctrine

by Corvin 31 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  XQsThaiPoes

  The Governing Body of JW?s are far more to them than just pastoral caregivers.

  The notion that Jehovah is exclusively working through and directing the F&DS and its "Governing Body" is used by them as a litmus test of one?s Christianity. Reject this idea and you are not a "True Christian" as far as they?re concerned.

  Therefore it is the importance that JW?s have attached to this notion that demands its Biblical basis.

  Well then I guess I missed the part were we believe they are demi-gods. I just like the terms in the press releases. Just look up born again christianity its all there. You are not a christian if Jehovah is not exclusively working with you. It is a dellusional belief all founded in the new testament. Something about Holy Spirit in your chest or something. Strange belief but we let these people do everything from run non profit media companies and real estate developers to become presidents of the USA. If I was a hardcore atheist I would swear it was all a para-psychotic dellusion I mean the president thinks God is in his Chest?

  Even if the original question was poorly phrased, it still deserves an answer don't you think? Quibbling over words aside, where does the Bible say the heavenly calling was closed in 1935?

  Wouldn't this be a serious thing for Christians to be wrong about? Remember one of Jesus' condemnations of the Pharisees? "They do not enter into the Kingdom of heaven, neither do they allow others to."

  It could not have been closed in 1935 many of the GB was concived after 1935, the rest were not old enought to comtemplate that sort of thing. Considering that was a disposable doctrine there is nothing left to be wrong about. I mean check the publications about memorial for the last 5 years 1935 is off the radar. If you believe in born again theory you can't block anyone from heaven.

  Do do you reject the two class soteriology as taught by JW?s?

  No there never really was two classes. There has always been one since 1935 people going to heaven. The rest are just heretics of good will. The watchtower just changed the name of the religion to take the sting out of it.

  Do you reject the significance of 1914 as taught by JW's?

  If you can tell me what the watchtower currently claims happend in the visible world in october of 1914 sell it to me. If you want to argue about Jesus "turning his attention to", looking, or glancing at the planet earth in october of 1914 I can't confirm or deny it. If you want to talk about him becomeing an "active" king, an enthroned king, a "reigning" king in october of 1914 I can't confirm or deny that. Because I dont live in heaven nor do I ever plan on doing so in the future.

  The 1914 date is much more to JW?s than "para-Christian numerology." I think most JW's would find this term somewhat offensive.

  Acceptance or rejection of 1914 is another JW litmus test of one?s Christianity. Again, it is the importance that JW?s attach to it that demands that it have a Biblical basis, not the unadorned doctrine itself.

  Anything less and the Christianity of others is being judged by something other than the Bible. Wouldn't you agree?

  If you can tell me what I am to currently accept about 1914 maybe I'll argree with you. So far there is nothing in october of 1914 that makes it significant other than para-christian numerology. If you want to know if I think we are in the "last days" yeah probally.

  Also if you are a religion any religion you make your own doctrine. If the jews the people that wrote the bible can decide mid stream to replace it with the talmude then religion is a supple branch. So based on precident someone can always add or subtract a doctrine. Look at circumcision. It is acceptable to be uncircumcise why? Because a few guys wrote some nice notes. They were not anymore inspired than the people they were writing to. Something clicked, and now people do not have to go under the knife when they become a christian.
• 

  Leolaia

  True North....I agree. The truth is that the Witnesses, like the Sadducees during Jesus' day, deny the resurrection. They do not teach a hope of resurrection...they teach a future recreation. They deny the resurrection precisely because they deny the existence of a soul that can survive death. In addition to that, the body is recreated anew. There is thus no continuity of existence between the person who died and the recreated person who thinks they have just been raised from the dead. In contrast, the biblical concept of the resurrection is of "standing up again" (Greek anastasis), in which the dead person itself rises again. That was the whole point of Jesus showing his nail prints in his hands and feet -- which the Society suggests was a ruse since God had already disposed of Jesus' original body. The Society says that the concept of an immortal soul was borrowed from Greek philosophy. That is only partially true. The Hebrews had long believed that the dead experience a shadowy afterlife; the concept occurs throughout the OT (cf. Philip Johnston's book SHADES OF SHEOL). What they didn't have a clear concept of was a sharp dichotomy between body and soul. Thus Persian and Greek ideas influenced the concept of the soul. But the Jews had little concept of a disembodied soul living forever in heaven. Rather, the resurrection was itself the concept of immortality in the afterlife. The Pharisees in particular (whose eschatology was adopted by early Christians) believed that the souls of the dead were temporarily waiting, or sleeping, in Sheol/Hades until Judgment Day when they would be resurrected and assembled and separated like sheep and goats, with the righeous being sent to everlasting bliss and the wicked to everlasting fire. This is the concept throughout much of the NT, and it originated especially in the Hellenistic period (cf. Daniel 12, 1 Enoch).
  

  The Sadducees rejected any such concept of immortality. But it wasn't that they were rejecting Greek philosophy. No, instead, they adopted Epicurianism and believed that death is essentially the end to all existence, and so one should aspire to live life fully before death. That is why the Sadducees were often wealthy, enjoyed their food and wine, and were thus roundly criticized by Jesus for their selfishness. It is also why the Sadducees rejected a belief in the resurrection -- as well as disembodied spirits and angels (Acts 23:8). Josephus said of them: "They also take away the belief of the immortal duration of the soul, and the punishments and rewards in the underworld" (Jewish War 2.162-166). The book of Ecclesiastes reflects Epicurean and Sadducee teaching and was most likely written by a Sadducee in the early Hellenistic period, so it is ironic that the favorite proof-text cited by the Society in favor of annihilationism (Ecclesiastes 9) has its origin in a group that denied the resurrection. However, the Society does not have the same luxury in explicitly denying the resurrection, as it forms the cornerstone of the NT. So, instead of letting go of their denial of immortality and embrace of annihilationism, the Society instead redefines the term "resurrection" to mean something totally different than it meant in first-century Judaism and Christianity. Thus, unlike the Pharisees, the Society teaches that in the end times, God will repopulate the world and heaven with people (either with spiritual bodies, the 144,000, or with physical bodies, those who will live on the "paradise earth") who will genuinely believe themselves to be people long dead (courtesy of the memories preserved in God's great memory bank) but who lack any tangible continuity with the people they believe themselves to be (as they lack neither the original body nor soul). It is not a hope of a future life for themselves as the Society conceptualizes it, though few Witnesses truly realize what is being taught. What a let down it would be to realize that your own hope of life in a paradise earth (provided Armageddon doesn't arrive before you die) is nothing more than best wishes for the success of a future clone who will be given your memories but not really be you. It's enough to creep me out to really think about it.
• 

  XQsThaiPoes

  I have always looked forward to my future clone who thinks he is me. Maybe he can find my stuff an use it. Infact Maybe I should save some nice clothes for him and burry them in the ground so when he is created he can dig them up and try them out.

  And what about people that bodies are destroyed unless the hebrews shared the veiw of some native americans that person is screwed. Scavengers can totally consume a corpse. What if only fragments of you are left. Does God animate the fragments?

  Resurrection in real life is akin to ressurection in video games if you wait too long to retrive the body it does not work that well. You need a soul to have a resurrection, but then that makes no sense because you were never dead to begin with. So maybe you will need to use the atoms that were in your old body, but then your old body sheds those every decade or so. Forget the soul I want my clone. Heck if i am rich enough decaded from now JWs wont even need God or the new order just sixth-day your self a copy. Actually we had a talk the brothers were trying to claim that cryogenics and cloning/ bioengineering is not mankinds awnser to problems, and that we should only trust on jehovah's system. So the watchtower is actually paranoid on these technologies that may bring a totally man made new order.
• 

  TD

  XQ,
  
  I'm not a JW and would be one of the last people on earth to try and convince you of the correctness of JW doctrine. I was just curious if you are a JW (Apparently you're not) and if you were answering Corvin as such.
  
  Kind regards,
  
  Tom
• 

  Leolaia

  And what about people that bodies are destroyed unless the hebrews shared the veiw of some native americans that person is screwed. Scavengers can totally consume a corpse. What if only fragments of you are left. Does God animate the fragments?

  I think there was a range of different ideas and beliefs. While the Egyptians took care to preserve the flesh for the afterlife, they did not consider the organs and brain worth preserving. The Hebrews took great care of burying bones but allowed the body to be consumed by the elements. The concept of the resurrection certainly drew on the passage in Ezekiel 37:4-10 describing the restoration of the Israelite nation from exile: the bones would first reassemble together into skeletons with "a rattling sound," and then "tendons and flesh would appear on them," to then be "covered with skin," followed at last by the divine breath that would bring them back to life. This is not a concept of the resurrection per se, as there would not be a reuniting of soul with the body, and it draws on the older Hebrew concept of the buried corpse as the seat of the dead's experience in the underworld. But it is certainly influential in the belief that the original bones will be reassembled in the resurrection and clothed in flesh and skin. Thus Jubilees 23:31, in reference to the righteous, says that "their bones rest in the earth" awaiting their spirits. Thus the survival of the flesh did not seem to matter; it could just be regenerated, as the mere clothing of the bones (as Ezekiel has it). If the bones themselves were smashing into pieces or burned to ashes, I'm not sure what the Jews felt about that. Rabbinical sources show that cremation was not practiced by second Temple Jews, and there are indications that many were offended by it. It is possible that some feared that cremation may interfere with a future resurrection of the body, but there is no clear indication of this. The process of the reformation of the body was likened by some to the process of development in the womb (Genesis Rabba 14; Leviticus Rabba 14). Others claimed that the bodies of the righteous would be transformed into those of angels, while the bodies of the wicked would be mutated into "horrible shapes" (2 Baruch 49:1-51:5). Indeed, we read in 2 Baruch 51:10 that the resurrected righteous "will be like angels and be equal [in glory] to the stars. And they will be changed into any shape which they wished, from beauty to loveliness, and from light to the splendor of glory". This is the same concept as in 1 Enoch 62:13-16 which says that the "righteous and elect" will be clothed with "garments of glory," 1 Enoch 104:4 which says that they "will be rejoicing like the angels of heaven," Luke 20:36 which says that the resurrected "will not marry or be given into marriage but will be like the angels of heaven," and 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 describes how, during the resurrection, we all "shall be changed in a twinkling of an eye," and the the preceding v. 12-50 gives an extended discussion of how the imperfect "flesh and blood" bodies will "put on incorruptibility" in the resurrection. This view is likely harmonizing with Platonic beliefs of immortality, as some apocalyptic writers of the period stressed the continuity of the soul in the resurrection instead of the body. But the WTS view of the "resurrection" posits a total discontinuity of existence.
• 

  Terry

  Quote:

  "The only difference between a copy and an original is quality and authenticity. Assuming God makes good copies whats the point? It is not like we are more than crude organic automations"

  For years I worked in the the Art business. The difference between an original and a copy is rather profound in Art. The original painting of Sunflowers by Van Gogh went for about 38million dollars at auction. A copy or print of it goes for under twenty bucks. If I were expert enough to copy every brush stroke; my duplicate painting would in no way be considered anything but a copy of a masterpiece. Surely there is a qualitative difference intrinsic to originality.

  I'll turn it around and ask you, "What IS the difference between an original and a copy?"
• 

  XQsThaiPoes

  TD yeah I am still one. It is just the most arguments people pose the more the watchtower shaves doctrine. Until it becomes a point that anyone that understands basic grammar and has access to a dictionary will be soundly confused with each new serving of spiritual food. I mean when did they change from Jesus coming to earth in 1914 to him looking at earth? I have no idea, but they did change that.When did it change from becoming ruler to him "actively" ruling. How does one passively rule? 1914 is not worth an current JWs time IMO. Do other JWs notice things like this I have no idea.
• 

  UnDisfellowshipped

  The difference between the original (you) and a copy (a clone of you) is that the the copy (clone) is NOT YOU.

  If some scientist were to make a clone of a you right now, that clone would not be YOU. It would have your memories (perhaps), but it would not BE YOU.
• 

  XQsThaiPoes

  Considering that a twin only has its memories that is true, but if my twin had a duplicate of my memories thats a whole new game.

  It would be me suffering from a spacial discontinuity. We would only differ by what we experience separately. So at the begining we would be identicle and as times goes by slightly different. It is like buying cars with the same options. They both leave the factory almost identicle but 5years from that date they are long from it.

  It all truth you are not you. Ever notice how when you get old you start to look different and think different, you may even loose your memories or go senile. He for all we know every time we go to sleep we die and some clone is put in our place thinking he is us. I mean we could be living in dark city right now. Talk about "beware of the voice of strangers".
• 

  Terry

  Write the sentence: "I am what I am today."

  Every few minutes erase one of the letters and rewrite it.

  Repeat this for, ummmm, say: seventy years.

  At the end of seventy years the sentence still reads:

  I am what I am today.

  Is it the same sentence?

  We are bundles of molecules which are themselves bundles of atoms. The atoms, we are told, are bundles of quarks. Repeat ad nauseum.

  Are we more than the momentary total arrangement of those parts?

  What if each part is replaced every few minutes with "other" atoms, molecules, cells, etc.? What then?

  Why draw the line at WHAT WE ARE?

  We only remember an event once. After that, we remember how we last remembered the event.

  We aren't who we were. We are barely who we are. An inventory isn't possible. So, we rely on a list. The list is an inventory of exactly what it is that is "us".

  Let us take out the list and check it. What does it say?

  "I am what I am today".