Posts by jschwehm

16

WT practice of misquoting scholars

by kj in

.

i need some help- can anyone give me the names of scholars that the wt frequently misquote, maybe even links to show the true context of some of the misquotes.

kj

jschwehm

http://www.bible.ca/trinity/trinity-jw-deceptions.htm

26

Who the hell is Dr. H.O.Phillips????

by Terry in

jw
friends

book:insight on the scriptures (wtb&ts)

volume 1, page 632/633

subject: diseases and treatment

jschwehm

Or he could be like Dr. Denys of Blood Booklet fame.

Jeff S.

24

WT Now actively encouraging Education Awake Oct 8th

by stillajwexelder in

take a look at awake october 8th page 11 --- bullet point "try to get some education" "the wise are the ones that treasure up knowledge," says proverbs 10:14. while it is especially true of bible knowledge, it is also true of secular education.

you need to develop the necessary skills to make a living --------- .

--------- nicole was later able to get training to support herself as a paralegal.

jschwehm

Hi Scully:

When I was in graduate school at the University of Arkansas the JWs were regular visitors at the Student Union. They would have a table set up with lots of literature. They even had some pretty nice computer software with pictures from the Creation book on it. I would ask them questions that they could not answer. The last time I spoke with them they told me that my questions were a waste of their time.

Jeff S.

245

Are Christians harmless?

by gumby in

first off....let me qualify something.

lets keep this to modern day christians in civilized lands.. many on this board are non-believers, and there are quite a number of christians.....so we have a mix.. non believers feel they need to speak out concerning what they have come to understand regarding the bibles authenticity to believers because they feel these ones need to at least see the sceptical side so they can make an honest choice.. believers feel they need to speak out to others concerning what they have come to understand about salvation.

here's the deal..............if believers can live a happy, good, healthy life, and take this to the grave with them..........should a non-believer try to mess all that up.....or leave well enough alone?.

jschwehm

Unless he is like the God churches teach about who murders and tortures people for eternity for simply being confused about who the heck is telling the truth down here.

Hi Gumby:

The Christian God does not do what is being described above. The Catholic Church teaches the following in paragraph 847:

"Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience-these too may achieve eternal salvation."

God saves whomever chooses to love Him. He meets us where we are and is more interested in us and our lives than we are.

The Bible is simply a collection of books that the Catholic Church says is consistent with the Traditional Teachings of Christianity handed down to us from the Apostles. To understand the Bible we must understand the religious tradition that handed the Bible on to us.

The Old Testament records events that are terrible according to our 21st Century sensibilities. The writers of the Old Testament lived in a different time period and a very different culture. God worked through that culture and time period to reach out to people through the nation of Israel. Today, God works through our culture through Christ and His Church to reach out to people.

The destruction of those nations by the Israelites was done because God had pronounced judgment on them. Since God knows all, He knew the hearts of everyone there and whether they wanted to spend eternity with Him or not. Of course, there are those who asked for mercy and received it. There are countless examples of non-Israelites who chose God. These include the prostitute Rahab, the Moabite Ruth, Caleb, etc.

I am convinced that God loves us MORE than we love ourselves. Plus, God's love is unconditional. Even those individuals who choose to be eternally separated from God are loved by God. In a sense, hell is a merciful provision from God because those who through their free will choose to live in a state of complete separation from God are still allowed to exist through God's mercy.

Hi Six of Nine:

No, I am not god. I am simply explaining to Gumby and others what the Christian Church teaches about God and His nature through Divine Revelation...(Scripture and Sacred Tradition). I apologize if my writing comes across as cocky or arrogant. I do not mean to come across that way.

I am as you are. Searching, learning, and discovering more and more each day about God and His love for us through my life experiences, prayer, and ALOT of reading particularly in the area of philosophy, theology, and Church History.

Of course as with anyone, there are LOTS of things about God, life, my soul, that I have questions about and that I am unsure about. In many ways, I am like the man who said to Jesus "I do believe, help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24).

I apologize if I said anything that offended you. My point to Gumby and others is that the Christian God that I worship loves all of you unconditionally whether you are Hindu, Buddhist, Atheist, Agnostic, Gay, Bi-sexual, Heterosexual, Divorced, Married, Single, JW, Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, etc.

Jeff S.

245

Are Christians harmless?

by gumby in

first off....let me qualify something.

lets keep this to modern day christians in civilized lands.. many on this board are non-believers, and there are quite a number of christians.....so we have a mix.. non believers feel they need to speak out concerning what they have come to understand regarding the bibles authenticity to believers because they feel these ones need to at least see the sceptical side so they can make an honest choice.. believers feel they need to speak out to others concerning what they have come to understand about salvation.

here's the deal..............if believers can live a happy, good, healthy life, and take this to the grave with them..........should a non-believer try to mess all that up.....or leave well enough alone?.

jschwehm

Hi Gumby:

You wrote: That's one thing I have trouble with as far as christianity goes. Christians who believe in the bible are forced to believe that all those who do not believe in gods son as being an actuall godman and savior are all going to burn/die. Although thats a bad and negative thought toward your fellowman, I don't know that it is harmful to a great enough degree to "rain on their parade" ...as LT put it.

I know that there are many fundamentalists who will tell you what you write above. I do not believe that. God reaches out to all of His children. He wants nothing more than to spend all of eternity with you. However, God does not force Himself on anyone. Those who wish can choose to spend eternity without God. That is what Hell is in the Christian tradition. The imagery associated with Hell is that of fire and brimstone and suffering because Christians believe that eternity without God would be terrible. Is it a literal fire? Who knows. I prefer to think of it more as a state of being rather than a place. Interestingly, the Catholic Church has never said anyone is in hell. They have stated that a lot of people are in heaven with God right now...We refer to them as Saints...but the Church has never said anyone is in hell.

Also, God does not punish people for ignorance. Those who do not know the specifics of God's plan can be saved. God can do whatever He wishes. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says in paragraph 847:

"Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience-these too may achieve eternal salvation."

Jeff S.

245

Are Christians harmless?

by gumby in

first off....let me qualify something.

lets keep this to modern day christians in civilized lands.. many on this board are non-believers, and there are quite a number of christians.....so we have a mix.. non believers feel they need to speak out concerning what they have come to understand regarding the bibles authenticity to believers because they feel these ones need to at least see the sceptical side so they can make an honest choice.. believers feel they need to speak out to others concerning what they have come to understand about salvation.

here's the deal..............if believers can live a happy, good, healthy life, and take this to the grave with them..........should a non-believer try to mess all that up.....or leave well enough alone?.

jschwehm

Hi Funnyderek:

Atheism is "lack of a belief in gods"; no more. Grouping all "atheistic philosophies" together makes no more sense than grouping all non-Buddhist philosophies together. The fact that I don't believe in gods doesn't mean I have any connection with a communist dictator who may also have not believed in gods.

Exactly! The question was "Are Christians Harmless?". An example of their harmfulness that was given by some was the tragedies of the Inquisition and/or Crusades. It has been my experience that those who bring these up usually want to show that in general Christians are harmful or these examples are listed to show the inherent evil of religion in general.

It is my position that the fact that people claiming to be Christian do stupid and cruel things inconsistent with the teachings of Christ does not make the teachings of Christ harmful or wrong. It does however, show that people are sinners and make serious mistakes and can do much harm.

The Inquisition was perpetrated by people specifially claiming to Christians, acting in the name of Christ for the purpose of spreading and enforcing Christianity.

Yes, and clearly Stalin had an Atheistic Marxist agenda as well and killed off those who opposed him. In fact, he was extremely effective at it. Much more effective than the Christians in the Spanish Inquisition and even more effective than the Nazis which is why I said I think the Spanish Inquisition is the lesser of the two evils.

The only reason why I brought this up was because I hear this criticism of Christians so often but I rarely hear anyone bring up the faults of those in other belief or non-belief traditions and their shortcomings. To me, this whole argument is a wash. I know that people whether Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Atheist do mean things.

But claiming to be Christian obviously doesn't make it so. Am I correct in assuming that you would denounce all those involved as unchristian, despite their claims?

Claiming to be a Christian does not make it so. Behaving as a Christian is very difficult under the best of circumstances so all Christians exhibit unchristian behavior unfortunately (myself included). And, yes I do denounce those actions done by Christians in the excesses of the Spanish Inquisition, Crusades, etc as terribly sinful and wrong.

Jeff S.

245

Are Christians harmless?

by gumby in

first off....let me qualify something.

lets keep this to modern day christians in civilized lands.. many on this board are non-believers, and there are quite a number of christians.....so we have a mix.. non believers feel they need to speak out concerning what they have come to understand regarding the bibles authenticity to believers because they feel these ones need to at least see the sceptical side so they can make an honest choice.. believers feel they need to speak out to others concerning what they have come to understand about salvation.

here's the deal..............if believers can live a happy, good, healthy life, and take this to the grave with them..........should a non-believer try to mess all that up.....or leave well enough alone?.

jschwehm

Hi Gumby:

Are Christians harmless?

I would say that they are not. They can do incredible damage to certain philosophies bent on destroying the inherent dignity of man as a creature made in the image and likeness of God. When a Christian lives up to the oath of his/her adoption as a true child of God, the generosity and love that radiates from that person is infectious and will destroy any philosophy that believes in the destruction of innocent life. Here are links to a couple of my heroes of the faith. People who really lived up to their calling to be a Christian and paid the ultimate price for it: (I hope to join these two saints in heaven someday by the grace of God)

http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/saintm01.htm

http://www.catholicexchange.com/vm/index.asp?vm_id=6&art_id=24684

Secondly, I would say that those who claim to be Christian and yet do not live up to their adoption as children of God are also not harmless. They reflect poorly on their Father in heaven and do harm to those who are searching for truth and wish to live as a child of God by creating scandal. Lord knows that we all know who these people are and, at times, I have to say that I see a person like that when I look in the mirror.

Thirdly, I find it interesting that individuals bring up the Spanish Inquisition as an example of Christianity's failure. While I am not condoning the Spanish Inquisition's excesses, I would much rather live with the excesses of the Spanish Inquisition than the excesses of the Stalinist regime which was clearly based on atheistic philosophies.

Fourthly, someone here wanted to meet God so that he could fully denounce Him for what He has done or I guess not done for us here on earth. Really, God has already been found guilty by us and was in fact executed by us. You can read about it in the New Testament when you read of the crucifixion of Jesus. God was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death.

Jeff S.

116

Give the JW experience a movie title:

by Preston in

i've come up with a few (made up and real):.

- rebecca of bethel farms.

- cries and judiciary meetings.

jschwehm

Millions Then Living Are Now Dead

11

For Alan F. Current Awake speaks favorably about Intelligent Design

by jschwehm in

jw
friends

hi alan:.

i have been visiting my jw in laws and had the opportunity to read the june 22nd awake!

the author of the article on creation quotes the big names in the intelligent design movement throughout the article in a very favorable light.

jschwehm

Hi Alan:

I have been visiting my JW in laws and had the opportunity to read the June 22nd Awake! The author of the article on Creation quotes the big names in the Intelligent Design movement throughout the article in a very favorable light. I was just wondering if you were aware of this and what your thoughts were on it.

Jeff S.

29

Numbers both literal and symbolic (April 1st Watchtower)

by ozziepost in

i wonder how many readers of the watchtower have noticed the seeming inconsistency of the 144,000 teaching in the april 1st issue?.

after discussing the symbolic nature of the numbers 666 on the wild beast comes this statement:.

"immediately after disclosing the number 666, revelation mentions 144,000 followers of the lamb, jesus christ, who have his name and the name of his father, jehovah, written on their foreheads.".

jschwehm

A very interesting book to read for a totally different perspective on the Book of Revelation is entitled "Joy in Our Weakness-A Gift of Hope from the Book of Revelation" by Marva Dawn. It turns out that the book of Revelation was one of the last books to be accepted as part of the New Testament canon by the bishops of the Catholic Church.

In any case, there are a variety of ways to interpret the book of Revelation and I found the perspective in this book to be rather encouraging and reasonable. Unlike our experiences with the millenialism of the JWs.

I hope you guys enjoy it.

Jeff S.

"A Recovering Millenialist"