What about the invisible spiritual paradise? It is dangled as a carrot almost as much as the literal paradise is.
INVISIBLE JESUS ALREADY CAME BACK........Gosh! Really?!!
by Terry 23 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Witness 007
Like me saying I'm in your kitchen right now.....but invisibly........and you can't talk to me either except in prayer....and I won't do anything physically to show you I'm there...but in your heart you know....I'M WATCHING YOU COOK!!!!!
Jesus came "invisibly" in 1914. they Watchtower society should have died then and there.
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Terry
He said within a few seconds, his entire life felt like it was being uploaded (to ???)
When I was about 16 I woke up and out of the corner of my eye noticed a black stinging scorpion had burrowed itself partially into my armpit!!
You know how they love to hide themselves in a dark, moist place? Right!
I use to sleep on a backporch because it was very hot at night in Texas in the summertime. (Yes, this was pre-air conditioning days).
I can't tell you the extradinary contradictory feeling it gave me to have to keep from jumping out of my skin. Somehow I didn't.
But--I forced myself with every ounce of willpower to remain absolutely motionless! (If you've ever been stung by a scorpion's tail barb you'll know why I was terrified!) Days earlier, my mom had stepped on a scorpion and it had stun her on her bare foot! She jumped out of a nearby window in terror, pain and panic which injured her shoulder and elbow! This, of course, was uppermost in my consciousness.
I instantly decided I'd pull the sheet off of me and poise myself for a quick launch out of bed by imperceptible inches at a time! I moved so-o-o-o-o slowly (so as to avoid triggering the scorpian's reflex tail strike!)
It must have taken me ten minutes of agonizing incremental (non)movement to get to the tipping point where I could go all out in a flash, bang, wallop of an escape!
It seemed like years!
Just as I was about to make the explosive jettison from the bed I gave an extreme hard look at the scorpion's position to determine my chances.
It was then and only then I saw clearly (for the first time) that it wasn't a scorpion at all!! It was only my matted armpit hair twisted into the semblance of a shape which my sleepy consciousness INTERPRETED incorrectly and sent me into crisis mode.
Ye Gods!
I was awash in sweat, trembling and mixed emotions all at once!!
Practically speaking, I was not terrified of my own armpit hair--was I? No. I was terrified of my misperception.
I leave you to draw any conclusions you like.
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M.J.
Here's an interesting tidbit. The idea of an invisible return of Christ has its origins in the 1830s. The idea of TWO stages to Christ's return started to become publicized by a preacher named Edward Irving. These stages consisted of an invisible secret appearing of Christ to gather His saints, followed by an appearing when He brings judgment on the earth.
Edward Irving apparently got this idea from the visions of a 15 year old girl named Margaret MacDonald, who wrote him a description of her visions. He started publishing her "revelation" in his publication, The Morning Watch. Regarding the "invisible return", MacDonald wrote "Only those who have the light of God within them will see the sign of his appearance." (see the text of her own description of her visions here: http://bibleprophesy.org/vision.htm)
This teaching became widely circulated, and became a key teaching among the Dispensationalists...In short, the idea was part of the the theological milieu from which Russell emerged.
I'm still doing some reading on this but I find it interesting so far.
Here's an article which references some of the source material for the origins of this belief:
http://www.truthkeepers.com/chapter_four.htm -
Robdar
We actually use to believe Jesus returned. He came back in 1914. He was----invisible!
I never believed it. I was in grade school when we first studied that doctrine. I remember thinking, "how convenient." As I recall, that was my first rebellious thought against the WTS. I remember it fondly.
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Terry
This teaching became widely circulated, and became a key teaching among the Dispensationalists...In short, the idea was part of the the theological milieu from which Russell emerged.
I was watching a fantastic film the other night (THERE WILL BE BLOOD) and started having problems with the DVD disc. It froze, then started tiling and froze again. I had to go back to the beginning a try the Chapters section. That stuck also. I tried playing the movie again from the beginning and fast forwarding.
When I fast forwarded to the part I had left off on (where the trouble began) it flickered and froze. I pushed the "next" button on the remote and---FINALLY--it started off okay. I finished watching the film and was extremely impressed by it. I did, however, have some nagging unanswered questions which I mentally satisfied myself by "filling in the blanks" with educated guesses.
As it turns out---in speaking with my son about the film--(he had reccomended it highly) I discovered to my horror that I had NOT SEEN three of the chapters on the disc!! The entire middle section of the movie was missing from my viewing experience.
Why do I bring this up? Read on!
I went out and got another copy of the DVD and watched it again---this time with the "missing sections" intact. I still loved the film. However, the reasons for the missing "this and that" motivations did not match the actual motivations of the film.
I made it work by using my imagination and extrapolating causes and effects to work it all out. I WAS COMPLETELY SATISFIED with my own imaginings!
This is how the human mind works. Give your mind two disparate pieces of information and your brain will FILL IN WHAT IS MISSING with a PLAUSIBLE ENOUGH scenario to make it work!
This is really all we are dealing with in beliefs about END TIMES!
The Watchtower has, from day one, extrapolated yet another fanciful and imaginative way to think about End Times while, at the same time, bringing Jesus back for THEMSELVES alone!
A remarkable feat of engineering!
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Billy the Ex-Bethelite
Growing up a JW around JWs, being in Bethel surrounded by JWs, you accept things based on the fact that everyone around you accepts them. The generation change in the 90s blew me away, but nobody around me seemed concerned, so I kept my thoughts to myself and accepted. I accepted "Jesus' invisible presence since 1914" because everyone close to me did. Now I can think rationally and understand that Jesus has been visibly absent since 33 C.E. "Invisibly present", "visibly absent", just like Santa.
B the X
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kurtbethel
Alright.
So if I accept that claim at face value, along with the claim that Jesus was throwing an inspection on the 'tower, I would expect to see some evidence to give it some credibility.
I don't expect anything big, just one small thing. If Jesus had come back and was hanging with the one true channel(tm) I would expect they would have noticed it, being so plugged in to the truth and all. Certainly the FDS would have noticed Jesus skulking around, and since their responsibility is to give the faithful some meat in due season, then point me to where they mentioned it in their journal of record, the Watchtower, or any other publication in the time period from 1914 to 1919. I have copies of most of those publications, so I want to see where this was mentioned during that time period. -
Billy the Ex-Bethelite
KB: Jesus was throwing an inspection on the 'tower, I would expect to see some evidence to give it some credibility.
What? You don't think that the Judge and his boys getting released from the Atlanta Penn. is proof enough that Jesus inspected the Bible Students, approved them, and Babylon the Great fell?
Hey, everybody around me believed it. Who am I to question, eh?
B the X
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Terry
What? You don't think that the Judge and his boys getting released from the Atlanta Penn. is proof enough that Jesus inspected the Bible Students, approved them, and Babylon the Great fell?
You've reminded me of something I had forgotten!!
In the 1940's and 1950's the Society's publications were heavy into the SHADOW and the MODERN FULFILLMENT or TYPE and ANTITYPE of certain prophetic events.
They would NEVER go on record with that sort of nonsense today!!
Every prophecy in the bible had a TYPICAL fulfillment (back then) which was only a "shadow" of the GREATER modern fulfillment which-----ready for ths?-------ALWAYS REFERRED to some event in the Watchtower boys shenanigans!
Revelation's pouring out of bowls was the Watchtower convention's passing "resolutions" against Christendom!! (As an example).
This sort of stuff is embarassing, ludicrous and downright wacky!
It would be fun to ask older JWs who still go to the hall about these "fulfillments" rather innocently to see what they'd say!!!
Let's face it---JW's who have been around a long time have had to eat a lot of shit sandwiches as "food at the proper time."!!!!