I know special pioneers in Malaysia and they are instructed not to preach to Muslims. If they were to convert someone that person would risk being killed and so would the teacher.
Still pointing your Finger when having a Rafter in your eye?
by DocHouse 245 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
-
-
LoveUniHateExams
Thanks for that, NVR2L8. The post I remember was that in Morocco, a 'moderate' muslim country, JWs were told to preach only to tourists and to any Moroccan Christians they could find. -
galaxie 2
Doc house;....your reply seems to equate you and your friends with jesus and moses , and the gb aka fds with the high priest or pharaoh?..how bizarre.
Are you really a jw?
-
Ucantnome
Ucant, I've been a JW for over 30 years, yet am not happy with the changes I'm seeing with the WTBS, though. The Truth stands on its own- but a lot of absurd opinion is still being ADDED to it...
Ucan't- I have ALWAYS taken the WTBS dates with a BARREL of salt- however, 1914 IS pinpointed in Daniel's prophecies. The meaning as to what it signifies is what's at dispute.
30 years. I was a baptised publisher for more than 30 years myself. We were in the 'truth'
The book Insight on the Scriptures Vol. 2 (Watch Tower 1988) on page 1132. Under the heading ‘Walking in the Truth’
‘The entire body of Christian teachings, which later became part of the written Word of God, is “the truth” or “the truth of the good news.” Adherence to this truth, ‘walking in it, is essential if an individual is to gain salvation.’
I have ALWAYS taken the WTBS dates with a BARREL of salt - DocHouse
The Watchtower that I mentioned in my previous post from 1974 had this in the paragraph that I would have drawn my answer from to the question (C) As shown in the Bible, when will the "great tribulation" strike?
Watchtower of January 15th 1974 the study article
Keep Close in Mind the Presence of the Day of Jehovah that I mentioned in my previous post on page 51 the answer to question c on paragraph 11
‘Unmistakably, the Bible pinpoints 1914 C.E. as the time when the “kingdom of the world” became the kingdom of the Lord God and of his Christ. Before the generation that was then alive passes off the scene, the “great tribulation will strike.’
Watchtower June 1 1968 page 331
On the Joyful March to Mankind’s Millennium
'Arguing against a literal future millennial rule by Christ, some have claimed that such a teaching would chill the missionary ardour of Christians to make disciples of all nations. (Matt. 28:19,20) But not so! Today no people are more zealous in carrying out this missionary commission than are the Christian witnesses of Jehovah, who believe that the 1,000-year reign of Christ is literal and future. In comparatively few years these have grown to more than a million. Today they are carrying out this commission in 197 lands and islands of the sea and that in 169 languages. Last year they devoted 184 million hours to this work!
And no wonder. What good news they have to tell the people! They proclaim the good news that the millennial rule of Christ will begin with this generation and that it will mean ever so many blessings for the people :..'
The part I have underlined says it is the good news and you say 'I have ALWAYS taken the WTBS dates with a BARREL of salt'
What made you feel that about the good news?
In the book Man’s Salvation Out of World Distress At Hand! (Watch Tower 1975) on page 29 after quoting the apostle Paul at 1 Corinthians 15:18,19 where Paul has been discussing the 'good news' and Christ resurrection and
‘So,too, with our generation in this twentieth century. After all that we have gone through since 1914, our generation would be, of all generations, the “most to be pitied.”
Think of it, though! Worthy ones of this generation of mankind will be saved alive out of the rest of this world distress so as to survive the worst of it and enter into God’s Messianic new system of things and not need a resurrection from the dead to life here on earth!’
The Awake magazine carried this on the inside front cover
'Most importantly, this magazine builds confidence in the Creator's promise of a peaceful and secure New Order before the generation that saw the events of 1914 passes away'
This I understood was part of our good news which we believed and had faith in, confident that we could witness regarding the establishment of the kingdom in 1914 and the benefits to mankind that it would bring within the life time of the generation that witnessed this event. We were told.
In book The Nations Shall Know That I Am Jehovah – How? (Watch Tower 1971) page 66
‘It is manifest that in the year 1919 the invisible heavenly organization of Jehovah, like the celestial chariot seen in Ezekiel’s vision, rolled up and stopped, not stopped, not before Christendom’s advocates of the League of Nations, but before the anointed proclaimers of the heavenly kingdom of God in the hands of Jesus Christ. From atop this celestial chariotlike organization Jehovah commissioned this dedicated, baptised anointed class of servants to speak to all the nations in His name.’
The Watchtower 1989 Sep1 pg.19
‘Only Jehovah’s Witnesses, those of the anointed remnant and the “great crowd,” as a united organization under the protection of the Supreme Organizer, have any scriptural hope of surviving the impending end of this doomed system dominated by Satan the Devil.’
My salvation depended on my being a witness, sharing this good news being in the 'truth'
So I don't understand why you said this 'I have ALWAYS taken the WTBS dates with a BARREL of salt' - DocHouse
I just want to add this regarding the 'good news'
Joseph Ratzinger Pope Benedict XVI in his book Jesus of Nazareth page 46/47 writing about the Greek term evangelion used in the Mark and Matthew and translated as “good news” says,
’but it falls far short of the order of magnitude of what is actually meant by the word evangelion.’
The term was used by the Roman emperors who saw themselves as lords and saviors.
‘The idea was that what comes from the emperor is a saving message, that it is not just a piece of news…What the emperors, who pretend to be gods illegitimately claim, really occurs here - a message endowed with plenary authority, a message that is not just talk, but reality.’
-
EdenOne
DocHouse,
At one point I was capable of being just like you. I could live with the doctrinal "adjustments", and even tolerate the theory that the Almighty God could operate perfectly via an organization made up of imperfect men.
I began to wake up when I saw the hypocrisy of a religion who puts so much emphasis on honesty - to the point of it being the tilting point on a Judicial Committee, in case you don't tell the whole truth in a confession to the Elders - and then they go and practice historical revisionism, obfuscation of events, outright lies and glaring omission of inconvenient facts in order to look good in the eyes of their flock, when it comes to account for their own history. THAT, in itself, raised the first big red flag in my mind after decades of faithful service. Nevermind "theocratic warfare" - how come these people have to go to such great lengths to obfuscate the truth about their own history? If they can be dishonest about their own history (when it would be fairly easy to admit they were mistaken, had bad calls), then how much more willing would they be to be dishonest when it comes to doctrine? After all, didn't Jesus taught: "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much." - Luke 16:10
Upon further extensive research, I've also came to the conclusion that the Organization had also been dishonest about doctrine. To give you a small example, about the hope for Christians. The "earthly hope" is a poorly concocted religious HOAX, put simply. It's something that belonged to the ancient Israelites, and tied them to their aspirations towards their holy land, but it's NOT the hope presented to Christians in the Greek Scriptures. The only Christian hope is the heavenly hope. That's what the canonic gospels, the apostolic epistoles and Revelation clearly point to. The Watchtower has stolen that glorious hope from the masses and reserved it for a poorly defined elite of 144.000, something that reality is demonstrating to be a false claim. Religious deceptions such as these - and many more concocted in the minds of Rutherford and Freddy Franz, such as the murderous blood ban doctrine, the silly type/anti-type speculations, the absurd 1914 chronology - turned out to be nothing more than propaganda stunts to make the JW's look "different" than mainstream Christianity and carve a niche for themselves in the religious market. To them applies aptly the words: "Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering." - Luke 11:52
So, they've been dishonest about their history and about their doctrine. But, they can all be excused because they act in the sincerity of their hearts, right? Wrong. Were the nazis who sincerely believed in the Nazi Party propaganda - and thus participated in crimes against humanity - excusable because they were sincere believers? No, they were rightfully punished based on their refuse to follow their conscience and ability to reason. If even the lower officers were condemned, how much more the leadership who generates and spreads that propaganda! That's the great sin of the WTS leadership since its inception. They know what they're doing. Doesn't matter if they do it while believing it - the surely know exactly what they're doing. It's not that they lack information at their disposal. The library of the writing committee in Bethel has many, many great scholarly works that they read - and go to great lengths to misrepresent, when they quote them.
But then comes another much more serious issue: The foundation of it all - the Bible. Just how reliable is the Bible? I used to think that I could live with an unreliable Old Testament ("Old Light"), as long as the New Testament ("New Christian Light") was rock-solid. After extensive, unbiased research (believe me, I went through more scholarly works that I can enumerate from memory), the results were devastating. The so-called "canonic gospels" aren't but a collection of quite inharmonic accounts about the life of Jesus, who have been extensively reworked a posteriori to paint a picture of Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God, the being that became god-like (or God, according to certain views) after his resurrection. But, tragically, that is a FABRICATED STORY by the apostle Paul and his followers, who eventually took over the charismatic jewish sect that followed this Rabbi Jesus. This fabricated story was designed to appeal to the religious palate of the Greek/Roman world, and it went on to become incredibly successful, but it has no roots in reality. Unfortunately.
Because the historical Jesus - and I am confident that he existed - was through and through a Jew, a teacher, a defender of the Mosaic Law, who had the liberty to re-interpretate it, like the most brilliant rabbis did, but who never intended to start a new religion, didn't see himself as the only begotten, pre-existent Son of God. Those stories were superimposed LATER into the gospel narrative, but it wasn't how Jesus regarded himself. He was an apocalyptic prophet of his day who ended up having his prophecies wrong, especially regarding the establishment of an earthly kingdom coming from heaven within his generation. Later on, his followers, on the wake of the shock of the destruction of the Jewish nation and the temple by the Romans in the aftermath of the Jewish revolts between 66-136 CE, concocted other supernatural explanations to overcome the obvious: Jesus was wrong in his prophecies. Yes, Jesus was a great teacher of ethics, but he was far from original, as history can easily tell you.
Now, you are free to believe in whatever you want, Doc. It's a free world, free speech, democracy, blah blah blah. No one is going to stop you from believing nonsense, or to dedicate your life to follow a myth. People have been doing it for millennia and mankind has survived and thrived. There are many positive things that Christianity - not to mention other religions - have offered mankind. Many atheists argue that such ethical achievements would have been attainable without the assumed existence of a deity. I think it's impossible now to prove that claim, so let's just accept things as they are. It's also no less truth that in the name of religion and deity much suffering has been inflicted upon mankind, making the observation recorded in Ecclesistes 8:9 a given: "All this I have seen and applied my mind to every deed that has been done under the sun wherein a man has exercised authority over another man to his hurt."
But the question is (going back to your OP): Who has in fact a rafter in the eye and is pointing fingers? From my decades inside the WTS, it's them who point fingers constantly at everyone else, while they have huge rafters in their eyes. Worse, they constantly add more thickness to that rafter, and indoctrinate their rank and file to become more blind to reality and to blindly follow them. And when you defend them and throw stones at the critics, YOU are the one with the ratter in your eyes. And frankly, God, if he indeed exists as a person and takes the least of care about us as his creation - which I'm strongly skeptical at this point - could do so much better than using the Watchtower. Or the RCC. Or the LDS. Or Scientology. Or ...take your pick. If God was really interested in our well-being, he wouldn't need to test us through faith. He wouldn't need to be an illusive being who only "reveals" himself indirectly through creation and a flawed, crooked book. He wouldn't hide behind the excuse that he's so powerful that "no human can see him and remain living". That's, sorry to say, bullshit. An all-powerful God would have no issues in making himself visible to every single human being, so that all could observe him and serve him based on EVIDENCE. Because, if you believe that God made us the way we are, then God would also know that we rather lead our lives based on evidence and facts, rather than in stories and faith.
Eden
-
LoveUniHateExams
Excellent post, EdenOne, with a good critique of both the WTS and religion in general.
If God was really interested in our well-being, he wouldn't need to test us through faith - this was the stand-out sentence for me. As you rightly say, if God exists, he should reveal himself and state clearly whether he wants to be worshipped or not, and if so, how.
I think I'm at a similar stage of personal development as you are at - I'm strongly critical of organised religion, think it's the worst joke ever played on mankind, and seriously doubt if God exists. The watchtower of October 1995 that had the generation change also contained a disgraceful article about paedophilia, I believe. That was what did it for me.
-
AndDontCallMeShirley
What I find fascinating about WT apologists like DocHouse is that, while they admit WT teaches falsehood ("baloney", in DH's words), they simultaneously declare it is a truthful organization. While they declare WT must be followed, and come to an apostate website to shout it from the rooftops, they also claim to have knowledge and truth the WT hasn't figured out yet.
I have ALWAYS taken the WTBS dates with a BARREL of salt - DocHouse
But, DH, the organization you are defending says you cannot take its teachings with "a barrel of salt" and still be considered a loyal JW:
"But anyone who publicly or privately advocates views that are divergent from what appears in the publications of an organization, and who does so while claiming to represent that organization, causes division." (Jv p.629)
You cannot call its teachings "absurd" and "baloney" and still be a part of the group:
"... Jehovah is not pleased if we receive that food as though it might contain something harmful. We should have confidence in the channel God is using." -- W 2-15-81
Ironically, DH says he's discovered real truth by his own study, but WT, whom he defends, says it's impossible to gain any knowledge through independent study:
"No matter how hard and seriously and prayerfully we study, we cannot get the true understanding apart from the organization and the spirit." -- W 8-15-52
"... the Bible is an organizational book and belongs to the Christian congregation as an organization, not to individuals, regardless of how sincerely they may believe that they can interpret the Bible. For this reason the Bible cannot be properly understood without Jehovah’s visible organization in mind." -- W 10-1-67, p.587
"A mature Christian must be in unity and full harmony with fellow believers as far as faith and knowledge are concerned. He does not advocate or insist on personal opinions or harbor private ideas when it comes to Bible understanding. Rather, he has complete confidence in the truth as it is revealed by Jehovah God through his Son, Jesus Christ, and the faithful and discreet slave." (Watchtower, August 1, 2001, p. 14).
DocHouse, The WT says that it is the only religion that understands the Bible, and any views that are different than what the organization teaches are wrong. You defend WT yet WT says you are wrong.
How do you explain this?
"Only this organization functions for Jehovah's purpose and to his praise. To it alone God's Sacred Word, the Bible, is not a sealed book.
How very much true Christians appreciate associating with the only organization on earth that understands the deep things of God!" --W 7-1-73, p.402
-
DocHouse
Erbie: "The simple fact is DocHouse, it is your job to convince people that the Watchtower cult is truth, if indeed you really believe that. We are not obligated to prove you wrong! Incidentally, I am not convinced that anyone really does believe the nonsense but that is for another debate."
>> Heh! He/she used the word "cult" in his/her pompous arrogance- not even realizing that ALL churches (the RCC, too) are "cults".
cult
Etymology: French & Latin; French culte, from Latin cultus care, adoration, from colere to cultivate
1 : formal religious veneration : WORSHIP
2 : a system of religious beliefs and ritual; also : its body of adherents
3 : a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious; also : its body of adherents
4 : a system for the cure of disease based on dogma set forth by its promulgator <health cults
5 a : great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (as a film or book); especially : such devotion regarded as a literary or intellectual fad b : the object of such devotion c : a usually small group of people characterized by such devotion
Erbie:"It is quite clear in that there is but one true God. Only one! And the Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Jesus is 'a' god which of course causes a huge conflict. Of course, the scriptures do speak of false gods but that is not what we are talking about here.">> Yeah, I've heard all the excuses and spins.
Double Talk- or Triple Talk: "So many times I have heard people like you misrepresent the Trinity with simple minded reasoning. The word trinity does not appear in the Bible as you would be quick to point out but I assure you that it is an essential ingredient in understanding how both God Almighty and Jesus can be God and yet there is only one true God according to scripture."
My, what pompous assumption. One God= a Trinity (Three or 3-in-One Oil Gods).
It just doesn't GET any funnier!
-
DocHouse
Fascinating view Eden: I, too, have done much deep research about the Bible- and came to just the OPPOSITE conclusion. I would be VERY interested to hear what you think I have missed.
About the earth, the Bible states it will exist FOREVER, and Jesus said the meek (not the arrogant) will inherit it.
But since you don't trust the Bible- such points are moot.
Look forward to what you discovered!
-
DocHouse
Galaxie 2: "Doc house;....your reply seems to equate you and your friends with jesus and moses , and the gb aka fds with the high priest or pharaoh?..how bizarre. Are you really a jw?"
Yes, indeedee, G2- just far from a NORMAL one. My brotherhood is the only one I know of that knows and worships the God of Jesus Christ- to the best of their abilities.
The last thing on Earth I wanted to be as a brainless Catholic- was a JW- but prayer over the scriptures they showed me, and an intensive PERSONAL study of the Bible for the first time swayed me!
