By the way, Origen probably isn't the best source to use in discussing what the early Church Fathers believed. His doctrine was pretty wonky in a number of areas. Some scholars in the area of Patristics consider Origen to have been a heretic.
NeonMadman
JoinedPosts by NeonMadman
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34
The Church's Biggest Lie
by ProdigalSon inthink you've sorted out the mess that christianity has become?.
ever wonder why the other 2/3 of the planet doesn't believe the utter nonsense of "resurrection"??.
chew on this, christians:.
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The Church's Biggest Lie
by ProdigalSon inthink you've sorted out the mess that christianity has become?.
ever wonder why the other 2/3 of the planet doesn't believe the utter nonsense of "resurrection"??.
chew on this, christians:.
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NeonMadman
We have thousands of New Testment manuscripts dating back as far as the 2nd century, and not one mentions reincarnation anywhere.
Who is "we"? Lol... the Catholic Church? Sorry, but that simply isn't true.
Yes, it simply is true. You are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. "We" refers to the entire scholarly community. There are almost 6,000 manuscripts or parts of manuscripts of the NT in existence today. The oldest of these is currently the Rylands fragment, a portion of the Gospel of John dating back to about 125 A.D., only 30 years or so after the original was written (see http://carm.org/manuscript-evidence). Some of the manuscripts, to be sure, are held by the Catholic Church, others are in the possession of museums and universities. Most are available for scholarly study. None carries any explicit message endorsing reincarnation.
The New Testament is the most reliable of any document of ancient times in terms of the manuscript evidence for the text. Copies of the NT writings were circulated far and wide, even during the first century. It would have been impossible, even then, to have gathered up all the manuscripts and "changed the Bible" - how much more so 500 years later, when the text had been distributed even further?
We also have the writings of early church Fathers dating back to people who were contemporary with the Apostles, and again, there is no mention of reincarnation.
Sorry again, but that isn't true either.
I stand by my statement. As soontobe pointed out, Origen wrote against reincarnation, not in favor of it. The article you cite doesn't actually provide any quotations from Origen that supposedly advocate reincarnation, but relies on Gnostic sources, and even the quotations from them are not explicit regarding reincarnation. In fact, the Gnostics would have denied reincarnation, since their belief was that the flesh was evil and it was desirable to be freed from the body of flesh, not implanted into a new one after death. Even if you could find an odd Church Father or two who believed in reincarnation - and I don't think you can - that's still a long way from supporting the claim that " At the beginning of the Christian era, reincarnation was one of the pillars of belief." Clearly anyone who held such a belief in the early days of Christianity would have been regarded as a heretic.
Nor does finding a verse or two in the NT that, when taken out of context, might be compatible with the idea of reincarnation, prove your case. If you think text has been removed from the Bible, you need to offer evidence - tell us which manuscripts out of the 6,000 have the missing verses. The articles you have been linking to are long on assertion and very, very short on substantive proof. And make no mistake, in making claims such as this, the burden of proof is on you, not on those who disagree with your assertions.
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The Church's Biggest Lie
by ProdigalSon inthink you've sorted out the mess that christianity has become?.
ever wonder why the other 2/3 of the planet doesn't believe the utter nonsense of "resurrection"??.
chew on this, christians:.
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NeonMadman
Reincarnation is a fact. That it is no longer a part of today’s Christian beliefs is due to one power-hungry woman who had all references to reincarnation in the early Bible removed.
What was that thing that skeptics keep throwing at Christians about extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence? We have thousands of New Testment manuscripts dating back as far as the 2nd century, and not one mentions reincarnation anywhere. We also have the writings of early church Fathers dating back to people who were contemporary with the Apostles, and again, there is no mention of reincarnation. By the 6th century, when reincarnation was supposedly "removed" from the Bible, the canon had been fixed and copies of the Bible were distributed throughout the civilized world. Are we to assume that one "power-hungry woman" had the ability to gather up every copy of the Bible in the world and change them all so that not even one manuscript remained that reflected this "pillar of belief" of the early church, and also somehow managed to alter all the writings of the early Fathers? You might as well try to alter the Bible today by gathering up all the copies and changing them.
Even the Gnostic gospels, which were about as mainstream to Christianity as the average issue of the Watchtower, don't reflect a belief in reincarnation. The "facts" stated in this article are simply false. The Chalcedon council did not endorse reincarnation, nor was it a topic of discussion there (or did the "power-hungry woman" somehow alter all the records of that council, too?). Whoever wrote this article is either massively ignorant of church history or is simply being deceptive.
Or is this supposed to be like the old joke, where someone claims that reincarnation was taught in the Bible but was removed by the church, and when asked how he knows that the church removed it, answers, "Because it's not there."?
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Memorial Invites from Door to Door?
by NeonMadman inis this the first year that the jws have been out aggressively handing out memorial invitations from door to door?
i've been out for about 12 years now, but as i recall, congregations used to receive a relatively limited number of memorial invitations, and they were pretty much reserved for bible studies, good rvs, inactive persons, and others who had some sort of connection to the organization.
they were not just randomly handed out from house to house - that was what the "special talk" invitations were for.. it occurs to me that this might be an attempt by the wts to pump up the memorial attendance so as to maintain the illusion of continued growth.
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NeonMadman
Is this the first year that the JWs have been out aggressively handing out Memorial invitations from door to door? I've been out for about 12 years now, but as I recall, congregations used to receive a relatively limited number of Memorial invitations, and they were pretty much reserved for Bible studies, good RVs, inactive persons, and others who had some sort of connection to the organization. They were not just randomly handed out from house to house - that was what the "special talk" invitations were for.
It occurs to me that this might be an attempt by the WTS to pump up the Memorial attendance so as to maintain the illusion of continued growth. If the general public was not aggressively invited before, and now is being invited, it would likely result in a higher total attendance. However, it skews the comparison with prior years, since the public was generally not solicited to come back then. With growth in developed nationd becoming flatter and flatter, might this just be a way of convincing the rank and file that Jehovah is still 'speeding up the work?'
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Question For Elders - Am I being Paranoid?
by The Searcher ini gave the talk last week on the meaning of the memorial emblems in the 'b' school.
(included subtle 'seeds' as well) i was puzzled to see a member of the service committee come in as part of the spectator group, because he never leaves his family to come into the 'b' school.
(i was wondering if i'd been deliberately assigned the material, to test me).
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NeonMadman
It might be that, but it seems more likely to me that they are watching the person conducting the second school. Is it being conducted by a ministerial servant or a newer elder? If so, they are probably having more experienced elders sit in to observe how he is doing and offer advice.
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NeonMadman
Yeah, it seems like there should be something in that white box...
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for CoCo - you'll get it
by Hortensia inoh for god's sake - edit, edit, edit!.
today's crossword had the following clue: penultimate word in a fairy tale.
the answer?
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NeonMadman
"Ever" is usually the penultimate (second to last) word in a fairy tale: "...and they lived happily ever after." I'm not sure what the problem was?
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Is the Revelation Grand Climax book in print anymore?
by wallsofjericho ini watched a couple daniel clark videos on youtube (simple but interesting btw) and he mentioned the revelation book is no longer in print.. is that true??
what other books did we grow up with that are out of print?.
truth booklive forever book(old) united in worship(old) evolution/creation bookthose seem to be the biggies.
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NeonMadman
BTW:
The change from "in our 20th century" to "in our day" was in the January 1, 1989 Watchtower. The printed magazine carried the former wording, but it had been changed to the latter when the bound volume was issued (and, of course, in the later CD-ROM).
The book that said explicitly that Armageddon would come in the 20th century was The Nations Shall Know That I Am Jehovah - How? (p. 216). Ironically, this was the book that also claimed prophetic status for the organization (e.g., p.58).
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Is the Revelation Grand Climax book in print anymore?
by wallsofjericho ini watched a couple daniel clark videos on youtube (simple but interesting btw) and he mentioned the revelation book is no longer in print.. is that true??
what other books did we grow up with that are out of print?.
truth booklive forever book(old) united in worship(old) evolution/creation bookthose seem to be the biggies.
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NeonMadman
A revised edition of the book was issued in 2006, and, as far as I know, is still in print.
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34
Porneia in marriage - a changing view:
by Splash in1974 - can divorce your marriage mate if they insist on oral / anal intercourse.
1978 - can still divorce your marriage mate if they insist on oral / anal intercourse.
1983 - cannot divorce your marriage mate if they insist on oral / anal intercourse.
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NeonMadman
1. How would you feel if you were disfellowshipped for divorcing a mate, only for the teaching to later change so that you would no longer be disfellowshipped?
Except that you would still be disfellowshipped because you didn't obey the organization at the time, and in order to get reinstated, you would have to repent of doing something that is not now prohibited, so if you did it now, you wouldn't have to repent but because you did it then, you need to repent...
HUH??