Posts by OHappyDay

39

Who Is God?

by Michael842 in

i have recently been studying some of the theology of the baptists and comparing it to that of the watchtower and i have learned some very interesting things.

by the way, i am new to this forum and i am not sure if it usually discusses topics such as this, but i will be interested to read everyone's responses.

my question is simply:.

Problem is, Trinitarians don't know what the Trinity is. The statement was made, "Jesus is Jehovah." Not according to purist Trinitarians I have spoken to. They insist that the Father is not the Son.

Those who want to believe in the Trinity will do so. Die-hard Arians like myself will opt for strict Monotheism: One God, with everyone and everything else subordinated.

All the argumentation in the world is not likely to change anyone's mind, so why bother? The Bible, depending on interpretation, can be made to support either side.

39

Who Is God?

by Michael842 in

i have recently been studying some of the theology of the baptists and comparing it to that of the watchtower and i have learned some very interesting things.

by the way, i am new to this forum and i am not sure if it usually discusses topics such as this, but i will be interested to read everyone's responses.

my question is simply:.

OHappyDay

As noted by Narkissos, the New Testament does not quote Isaiah 9:6 at all in reference to Jesus.

Perhaps this was because the NT writers used the Greek Septuagint (LXX) extensively, and those words do not occur in the LXX at Isaiah 9:6.

However, the LXX calls the child here only "angel [or, messenger] of great counsel." So, if the NT writers had used Isaiah 9:6, it could only have been to say that Jesus was an angel.

Which, in fact, is what later theologians ("church fathers") of the 2nd century did: they called Jesus an angel and used Isaiah 9:6 (LXX) as their proof text.

15

Are you free?

by MicStroz in

jw
friends

galatians 5:1 for such freedom christ set us free.

stand fast, and do not let yourselves be confined again in a .

yoke of slavery.

OHappyDay

Paul was speaking here in Galatians of freedom from the old Jewish Law, especially its requirement of circumcision.

However, since the Society spends more time with the Old Testament than the New, and has become as legalistic as the old Law, preferring ritual and restrictions to "weightier matters" such as "justice and mercy and faithfulness," the comparison is a good one.

13

My daughter came home wearing a cross...........

by happehanna in

.

and it made me feel odd, unnerved.. i haven't been to a meeting for two years now and am quite anti jw but this still felt odd, to see her wearing a cross.

any ideas?

OHappyDay

For many people the cross is just a fashion accessory. Mel Gibson's movie, "Passion of the Christ," is making them even more popular right now.

No one knows the shape of the instrument Christ died on. The only important thing is that he died.

39

Comments You Will Not Hear at the 4-18-04 WT Study

by blondie in

comments you will not hear at the 4-18-04 (week of 4/12-18, 2004) wt study (march 1, 2004 issue)

review comments will be in black and parentheses ().

wt quotes will be in red and quotes "".

OHappyDay

Thanks, Blondie. Reading the WT's rationalizations is like listening to a political address: you know there is going to be spin and half-truths in there somewhere.

Because of your meticulous research, we now have "the rest of the story"! The part of history that the WT conveniently left out and re-wrote.

RR doesn't look like an "evil slave" to me.

Maybe one day the Society will get it right. But they will have to get down from their high horse first, and admit they are just people perhaps trying to do right, but not at all God's mouthpiece.

9

Birds of a Feather

by Euphemism in

yesterday i received a flyer in the mail from the seventh-day adventists.

i knew that the witnesses were theologically an adventist group, of course.

but i had no idea how similar they were in their proselytizing pitch.

OHappyDay

However, the Adventists had well-illustrated "Bible aids" long before JWs did.

Both groups are mired too much in the Old Testament. The Adventists have their adherence to various features of the Mosaic Law, and the JWs have "Jehovah." However, the Adventists are more mainstream in their beliefs about Jesus, according to some sources (i.e., like Walter Martin's The Kingdom of the Cults, page 517)

Both groups are also representatives of the Millennial Apocalyptic movement, and share a common "ancestor" in William Miller and his theology.

A good book for you, Eu, if you haven't read it already: Apocalypses, by Eugen Weber (Harvard University Press, 1999). It surveys the whole, failed, date-setting movement, from earliest times.

7

Pioneer School memories

by undercover in

jw
friends

an earlier thread talking about the "illuminators" book used at the pioneer school jogged my memory.

i remember how excited everybody got about the upcoming school.

even the regular publishers got all excited about it.

OHappyDay

Yeah. Some pioneers stay on the roll just long enough to attend the school and get the book, and then drop out of pioneering.

Guess the book and the school were a disappointment?

27

the "annointed" witnesses

by dustyb in

jw
friends

i just realized that the annointed won't die off.

i mean, the original annointed will die off within the next 10 years or so, but then there are the younger people that think they are annointed, but don't fall under the rules and guidelines of an annointed person (per jw).

i personally don't believe in the annointed, but something struck my fancy at the memorial.

OHappyDay

The 144,000 are mentioned only in the book of Revelation.

The word anointed, anoint, anointing do not appear in Revelation at all.

There is nothing in Revelation to connect the 144,000 with "anointed" Christians.

There is nothing in Revelation that says only 144,000 Christians go to heaven.

And why, if 144,000 is a literal number, are they not connected with the literal "tribes of Israel," mentioned in the very same verse (Revelation 7:4)????

Watchtower theology says one thing, the Bible says something else.

23

Emails from elders and CO

by Puternut in

jw
friends

yesterday i decided to send an email to all the elders, ministerial servants, co's and do's on my address book.

blondie had posted a series of links to articles relating to the abuse cases in the borg.

rather than emailing the links, which i knew they wouldn't click on, i copied and pasted, about 12 articles to them.

OHappyDay

It's all about "the Organization." People don't matter. Wrongs against people don't matter. It's all about "the Organization."

Even if a brother offers a prayer and omits reference to the organization or the "faithful slave," he is suspect.

You can forget to mention Jesus in your prayer, but for Heaven's sake, don't forget to mention the organization!

How are we any different from the political and religious systems of the world, where CYA is the most important thing of all???

16

Doctrine or Scripture?

by kibizzle in

my h and i are generally good at avoiding the subject, but the other day we got into a "debate" about the "truth".

anyway, he gave a few reasons why he believes the jws have the "truth" such as the scripture that says "it is better to not have known the truth at all than have known the truth and walked away".

okay, at the time i was too upset to think rationally and say, "okay, which scripture would that be?

OHappyDay

It is futile to apply either of those verses to questioning the doctrines of Jehovah's Witnesses. First off, the Truth does not equal Watchtower doctrines.

Second, that verse in Hebrews applies to those who have the heavenly calling, which Witnesses have been taught does not apply to 99% of them.

There's a lot of unbiblical stuff being taught by this religion. Only a fool (in the Biblical sense) would not question it.