WTS hasn't corrected mistakes in NWT on John 20:28.....

by A-Team 212 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Wayne L

  Keyser, Barry, quietlyleaving - Thanks for your input. I'm at a disadvatage not being able to copy and paste.

  We have one for, one against Chrismas. Romans 14:5 can't mean anything but a choice between innocent festivals of the day. It certainly would not forsee a Holiday concocted 3 centuries in the future derived from a drunken orgy and given the same date - Dec. 25. The next verse mentions it should honor the Lord. Would you honor the Lord by celebrating Christmas?

  As to people in 200 AD possessing a religious book. they would probably have their hand chopped of or be put to death. The Dark Ages were on the horizon. The first Bibles (about 1500) were one-offs and chained. Even when the printing press arrived, very few ever saw a Bible for many years to come. This was the tail end of the dark ages and people were still being put to death for their beliefs.

  1500 - 1600 was not a time conducive to honest Bible translating, if you valued your life.

  About the mistaken predictions, and alledged misconduct of JW leadership throughout their history. That's a lifetime study in itself. I prefer to concentrate on the "meat and potatoes". The Trinity, Hell, Heaven, the immortal soul, babtism. And how the individual members conduct themselves. If they were lied to or misled about these major doctrines, I want to know.

  As Michael Jackson would say," one bad apple don't spoil the whole bunch, girl!". And about predicting, JWs did make a sort of apology a few years ago and said they won't do it again.

  I have always disagreed with them on this, or anyone else who claims to have deciphered Revelations. Doesn't the book itself say it can't be done? I don't believe everything they say and have heard all the stories.

  But I believe their main doctrines hold up to scrutiny, and the members cannot be blamed for what some of the leaders do. What group do you know of that teaches true doctrines and has an unblemished past? Name one. Thanks, Wayne
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  glenster

  I cover what Paul calls "weak faith" (1 Cor.8:7) about the JWs leaders' rules about Christmas, agreement required for salvation, on pp.1a and 37-39. The JWs leaders' can't claim to be of an especially righteous 12 or so, the only ones of a most righteous literal 144,000 who can make the rules, and of weak faith about the imagined connotations of things at the same time. That's why rules about birthday parties, etc., are there--the leaders playing prophet about guarantees beyond or even in contradiction to the Bible to create the impression of exclusiveness.

  It's to play prophet just as sure as it would be to say "Noah wore argyle" and require agreement for salvation. You don't have to make predictions to play prophet, to pretend you have an exclusive from God. I haven't seen any angels talk from shrubs about it, though--just what you'd expect to find if it were cooked up.

  I like any JWs I've met. I see much good there. Where it goes wrong is with the leaders' claiming to be of a literal 144,000 then cooking up distinctive rules, all required for salvation, to establish it (especially if anyone is hurt or killed), and I've never met one of the followers who would dare say anything so ridiculously arrogant any more than I would. I've found it's reliable to focus on the leaders, etc. If they're teaching about one of those elitist rules and quote feom a book, look for the book. If they say, "That's what they say," go see what the most reasonable thing is they say--it's probably been misrepresented. If it sounds like a forced point, think about it or ask around--it probably is one.The evidence I have for that is in that dauntingly long article at the links given above.

  There should be some kind of JWs Woody Guthrie "This Brooklyn is your Brooklyn, this Brooklyn is my Brooklyn," 6 million against 12 or so, unionize the workers, etc. Waiting to do it on the leaders' own terms, it's not going to happen--you can just get yourself thrown out. All I can think of is to spread the evidence around and maybe the leaders would change, if only for literature sales PR concerns. Then again, they've made so much money already, it could stop coming in tomorrow and they'd probably be set to retire for life. At least spreading the word around can help warn people and give them a better educated choice to make about what to most people is pretty obscure material.

  If anyone has any material for it, please feel welcome to let me know.
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  Wayne L

  Just a short post for now. The verse "1 Cor 8:7 must be one that JWs also use against the rest of the world.

  Also, unless everyone on this site agrees with everyone else on this site, and all of you have the "true faith" that pleases God, at least some of you must also be included in that verse.

  We have a varied group here, including at least one athiest and many who not only disagree with the Witnesses, but don't agree with other posters.

  Isn't it logical to assume that if JWs are on the wrong path, then many on this site are also on the wrong path?

  The same thing applies to people who have been conned by MacGregor Ministries. While smugly sending away for their anti- Witness literature, they have no idea that they are most-likely also on the MacGregor hit list. Does anyone have any idea who else is on this list. If you care, do the research.

  I have done so. Hint - Moslems and Catholics. That's 2 billion to start with. Then Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, Charismatic groups, and Christadelphians ( who have literature on this site for sale)! But of course it's easy to pick on the Witnesses.
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  Wayne L

  After posting my previous, I did a Google of MacGregor. I was writing from memory and wanted to make sure I was correct. Type "MacGregor Ministries" and the first entry should be the one you want. Post back and tell everyone whether they are for you or against you. Then tell me whether the Witnesses or MacGregor are liars!
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  glenster

  I grew up in public school, not a monastary, and have had friends of different belief and non-belief outlooks. If one wanted to persuade another to their view, I hope it was friendly and they'sd still be friends later, whatever the other decided.

  If it goes beyond differences that are harmless by general ethics, if the leader is shown evidentially to be cooking up a prophet routine and anyone is hurt or killed, the jet flies into the building, a kid is shot on the Palestine border, someone throws away their nitroglycerin or insulin after Popoff told them to while wearig a radio transmitter in his ear and pretending he was getting exclusive divine guidance (near the bottom of p.1a), and an evidential expose shows it to be so, a secular dislike of lying that causes harm should be common ground.

  The JWs leaders current stance is that they're not prophets (p.1 of my article) but just exclusively good at a conservative interpretation of the Bible, although playing prophet can be shown with "Noah wore argyle"-type rules and requiring agreement for salvation beyond prediction attempts (which they also require agreement to for salvation--they don't give them as pure speculation), so it's a "have your cake and eat it, too" stance. My focus hasn't been to take one of the common belief choices and attack anyone who believes differently in a cranky intolerant way. But there are common secular ethical grounds for seeing that the JWs leaders play prophet, to be critical if there are signs of deception and not signs of God for it, and especially if anyone is hurt or killed. The JWs leaders claim to be the only 12 or so that can make the rules out of a literal 144,000 of all Christian history, and they use deceptive methods when meaning to establish their distictions, and harm and fatalities have resulted (exclusive rules on the medical use of blood, pp.12-42, results in Germany and Malawi, p.6, and divisions between people with unusually strict disfellowshipping rules, p.3). There's merit in spreading a warning about it, as about Popoff, without needing to appeal to a specific religious or non-religious choice.
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  fjtoth

  Wayne L.,

  A person has to be pretty naive to ignore the bad and to speak only of the "good" that JWs do. You seem totally unfamiliar with their record in Africa where thousands of them died due to a silly requirement of the Watchtower Society concerning political party cards. Ditto with the record of thousands dying due to their stand on blood transfusions. Surely hundreds have died from heartbreak due to their cruel disfellowshiping policy that doesn't allow grandparents to visit or even to see their grandchildren. Consider also their record of unlawful shelter of pedophiles and wife beaters. Due to being persuaded by the Watchtower Society to reject college and to put all their financial resources into the Society's activities, possibly millions of JWs have spent their old age in poverty or near-poverty conditions.

  The Watchtower Society robs people of their human decency and good sense. Many JWs, probably the vast majority, gleefully look forward to the day when all non-JWs will be violently destroyed in a horrendous war of fiery destruction. JWs feel all such non-JWs are deserving of such painful treatment, even if they have devoted their entire lives to being doctors, nurses, etc. in a cause devoted to helping others.

  I was a JW for 50 years, having been drawn into it by my mother when I was 8 years old and unable to make serious decisions for myself. During those 50 years I personally knew JWs who said they would murder and/or do other evil things if the governing body instructed them to do so, always adding the caveat "Of course, they would never ask me to do such a thing." To leave the organization is not something that a sincere member simply decides to do. It often takes years of anguished wrestling with doubts and with the consequences of being indoctrinated into devoutly believing that disobedience to the organization is basically the same as disobedience to God.

  I for one am waiting for you to respond to what "keyser soze" wrote above: "It was either when you said they were never lied to or coerced in any way, or when you said that they were exposed to all types of literature, that no religious literature was banned. Anyone who has ever been a witness will tell you how completely false these statements are."

  Frank
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  Wayne L

  A person has to be pretty naive to ignore the bad and to speak only of the "good" that JWs do. You seem totally unfamiliar with their record in Africa where thousands of them died due to a silly requirement of the Watchtower Society concerning political party cards. Ditto with the record of thousands dying due to their stand on blood transfusions. Surely hundreds have died from heartbreak due to their cruel disfellowshiping policy that doesn't allow grandparents to visit or even to see their grandchildren. Consider also their record of unlawful shelter of pedophiles and wife beaters. Due to being persuaded by the Watchtower Society to reject college and to put all their financial resources into the Society's activities, possibly millions of JWs have spent their old age in poverty or near-poverty conditionF

  Frank, Can you give major proof of any of this?
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  fjtoth

  Wayne L,

  All that I wrote in my brief entry has been well documented many times and in many places. I'm surprised and a bit puzzled that you seem to question what is fairly well known. Try a Google search for "Jehovah's Witnesses" and "Malawi." Try also "Jehovah's Witnesses" and "blood transfusions." The May 22, 1994 Awake!, published by the WT Society, admitted that several children died due to following the Society's teaching on blood transfusions -- a teaching, mind you, that has no basis in the Scriptures. A month later I left the organization, after discovering elsewhere that the number of JWs who died due to refusing a blood transfusion numbered into the thousands. Additionally, try "Jehovah's Witnesses" and "pedophiles," also, "Jehovah's Witnesses" and "college education."

  What sort of documentation do you need in order to be satisfied that grandparents truly are denied visitation to their grandchildren by the WT Society? Right here in my neighbourhood are two couples who are denied access to relatives where children are involved. One couple is not allowed to see their grandchildren, and the other couple have a son who never sees his grandparents because they are JWs and want nothing to do with him and his parents! The sin of these two xJW couples is merely that they decided they no longer wanted to be JWs. They didn't go on an attack against the organization. They simply were tired of the numerous inconsistencies between the organization and the Bible and decided to drop out.

  My own father died several years ago, and I wasn't told about it by my JW mother, brother or sister. I found out three years after the fact from a Catholic cousin who was surprised that I didn't know. JWs say there is no "natural affection" in the world while they live in denial of the lack of compassion and affection that prevails in their own organization.

  You made the claim earlier that you spent "35 years, trying to disprove Witness doctrine." With all due respect, I wonder how seriously you went about such study if you are unaware of what is most painfully obvious about their reputation. Jehovah's Witnesses are plainly living in denial. That should be one of the first things noticed by someone who claims to have spent many years examining their teachings and claims.

  Frank
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  5go

  I have been silent long enough either you are woefully or willfully uninformed on Jehovah's Witnesses, or a Jehovah's Witness trying to pull a fast one by denying you are one hoping to save the weak ones from this site.

  You obviously have access to the internet to look these things up, please do. I want to here your comments. I will start a thread just for you to explain why the witnesses are in your opinion so great.

  Also why the catholics (Which I get the feeling from your posts you maybe a convert from them to a diffrent belief system because, I can see your distain for them in your posts) are worse than witnesses.

  Why the Witnesses not the Ebionites came up with these beliefs about Jesus Christ first ?

  5go
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  fjtoth