Do you not see, Do you not hear, Are you asleep? (page 3)

peacefulpete

There are many kinds of blindness. For those with eyes to see, 1 and 2Tim and Titus are the work of a second century writer of emerging Catholicism. The style, vocabulary and time setting are not those of 'Paul' but rather those from a century or so later. An appeal is made to adherence to "tradition" rather than inspiration. The 3 books taken together demonstrate that the "last days" description was formulaic rather than specific and indicative. The very same descriptions are used of the present day of the author as that of 2 Tim 3 which modern readers misinterpret as a sign of a future "last days". IOW it was the "last days" in the mind of the writer, but it is yet difficult to say just what he understood that to mean.

scout575

Peacefulpete: I was always struck by the similarity between the 'last days' description given at 2Tim 3:1-5, and the then present-day description given at Romans 1:29-31. However, if the writer of 2 Tim 3:1-5 was describing attitudes that he believed were already prevalent, why did he use the future tense, "in the last days perilous times SHALL come."?

AuldSoul

jw,

Thank you for trying to look out for my best interests in the only way you know how. I appreciate the thought. However, when door-to-door proseletyzing, hypocrisy, and/or false prophecy are the identifying marks of your religion from the perspective of those outside it, you can't really expect to draw us to it by using the Bible.

Jehovah's Witnesses are not known for their love, they are not thought badly of because of their high moral standards, they are not even widely considered to be Christians. For all the effort your religion puts forth it has succeeded in communicating only two things loudly and clearly (even in the US): (1) We're Jehovah's Witnesses (<-- no Christ there) and (2) we have the latest issues of the Watchtower and the Awake! magazine.

What you have failed to do is save anyone from anything except life and family. What you have succeeded in doing is supporting an organization that steals money, energy, time, and families in the pursuit of spreading empty traditions and false doctrines of men. Hooray!

You point to the critical times? Okay, suppose you are right. Were the people who preached the exact same thing in 1879 right, too? Were they living in the last days, as the Watchtower proclaimed at the time? Was 1914 going to be the end of this wicked world? If so, then why would I think that it will come soon this time? A lot of people have lived, and loved, and worshipped (or not), and married, and had children who've lived their entire lives and died of old age since 1879. Was that what God meant by "critical times?"

Every few decades throughout CE history a group has started up proclaiming a certain year as the end and the period before that year as the Last Days. They always have a clever mathematical formula for their date. They are always wrong. Jehovah's Witnesses began as one of those groups, then their dates failed (all six of them) and they finally learned their lesson and stopped setting dates.

Jehovah's Witnesses were very fortunate to have people like you who are willing to ignore history that disagrees with their dogma. It is very nice of you to indulge them that way. You only look at their claims, their reasoning. Lo and behold, according to them they are right! What a surprise.

According to EVERYONE else, they are wrong, but no matter...God chose them in the late 1800s...while they were proclaiming a certain date...which Jesus specifically told us to ignore...but they are an exception because Jesus chose them...to do what he said not to do...as his appointed servant...but he had to look for them first among all the churches...even though Jehovah began to use Russell prior to 1879...'cause Jehovah was playing hide-and-seek with Jesus...who had long since been granted all authority in heaven and on earth...if that doesn't make sense you need to study their history a little more deeply.

I see. Do you? I hear. Do you? I am awake. Are you? I am not one of Jehovah's Witnesses because a Christian preaches Jesus Christ—no one can...unless...—that is the name Paul took to the Gentiles (John 6:28-71; 1 Corinthians 2:2)

Respectfully,
AuldSoul

Hellrider

What you have failed to do is save anyone from anything except life and family

Of course, in Jws eyes, he believes he and the JWs are saving people from dying at Armageddon. But think of it this way, Jw: If Armageddon doesn`t come in your lifetime (as it didn`t come in the lifetime of Russel or Rutherford, even though they both said that it would), then what will be the accumulated accomplishments of all JWs living today? I`ll sum it up for you:

1) Screwing up childhoods with regular and severe beatings (yes, it`s common in almost every JW-family, all justified with Proverbs 13:24, 22:15, 23:13-14, and similar verses), all in the name of training them to "serve Jehovah". 2) Even more messed up childhoods, because pedophiles are allowed to do their dirty deeds without being reported to the police, due to the "two witness rule".

3) Getting no education, because you`re so sure the end is near, that you devote yourself to do pioneer work, and waste your 20s and 30s pushing magazines for a billion-dollar-corporation which claims to be "Gods visible mouthpiece on earth" (despite the fact that this "mouthpiece" has predicted, and failed, about the date of the end of the world something like two dozen times).

4) People willingly going to their deaths over the blood issue, even though the blood-doctrine is and always was incorrect, and the WTBTS knows it and are trying to "soften up on it" by allowing "fractions", but, of course, can`t go all the way and drop the whole doctrine, because that would mean that tens of thousands have died for no reason.

...and...the list goes on and on.

Narkissos

if the writer of 2 Tim 3:1-5 was describing attitudes that he believed were already prevalent, why did he use the future tense, "in the last days perilous times SHALL come."?

That's the trick of pseudepigraphy: the actual writer has "Paul" (dead long ago) speaking of his own time (as he sees it) in the future tense... cf. the similar case of Acts 20:29 which has Paul speaking of what will happen "after he has gone".

But the author somewhat betrays himself by adding "Avoid them" in v. 5 (see also the following verses). This might not be a complete contradiction: the writer might have assumed that Paul's time was already "the last days" and that everything only went worse from then on (cf. v. 13). Anyway, this sure shatters the JW interpretation of "the last days" beginning 18 centuries later or so.

Spectrum

AuldSoul,

That was a great post. I hope it filters through his brain before it comes out the other ear.

When you realised that being a JW was barking up the wrong tree how long did it take you to get out?

greendawn

Much of this could be applied to the JWs especially all the false and empty knowledge they have produced and their lack of natural affection and love for goodness despite their claim to be the truth.

As someone noted such descriptions on the state of society were always valid and it seems that the last days that began at the time of the apostles still continue to this day.

AuldSoul

Spectrum,

When you realised that being a JW was barking up the wrong tree how long did it take you to get out?

I honestly didn't know until near the end of 2004, but I have never really been one of Jehovah's Witnesses. Once I found that out, I was mentally and emotionally severed the same day from the organized religion. It took a year longer to make that severance official.

The 10-year Associate membership to the UN/DPI tore it first for me, but close on the heels I found out that they teach Jesus is not the mediator between God and every person. I have always believed that Jesus was my mediator with God. I just didn't know they disagreed with the Bible on such a fundamental teaching of early Christians.

Respectfully,
AuldSoul

toreador

The 10-year Associate membership to the UN/DPI tore it first for me, but close on the heels I found out that they teach Jesus is not the mediator between God and every person. I have always believed that Jesus was my mediator with God. I just didn't know they disagreed with the Bible on such a fundamental teaching of early Christians.

That part got me too.

peacefulpete

Thanks for responding to that Narkissos. I'll only add that it is possible that the motif had come to have some meaning other than strictly eschatological, kind of like how people complain today about how 'the world is gone to Hell' without any serious belief in an impending mass destruction by god.

Do you not see, Do you not hear, Are you asleep?

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