just a few questions I don't want to ask directly hell (page 3)

treadnh2o

I would like to add... Good luck with your studies! heheheh

shamus100

JUST WANTED TO SAY HELLO TO YOU IN ALL CAPS SO YOU DON'T FEEL ALONE.

Quandry

Hi Janey.

You owe it to yourself to ask questions. Why not? Shouldn't they be able to answer questions about their religion?

Please ask them about the founder of the religion, Russell. You may remember from history the age was called the "great enlightenment" and many preachers were travelling about the country preaching "the end is coming."

Russell was interested in many of the ideas of the time, especially Egyptology. In fact, he stated that the year 1914 came from a measurement of the great pyramid, and called it "God's witness in stone." Books that he wrote have the emblem of the Egyptian Sun God on the front. Please ask the ladies about it.

There were many interesting beliefs promulgated in the Watchtower Magazine. One was that vaccinations were loathsome, "like taking pus into the body." For many years Witnesses were not allowed to take them.

The next President of the Watchtower, Rutherford, claimed that in 1925 (God's words, not his) Abraham, Isaac, David, and other "ancient worthies" would be resurrected. He had a mansion built for them in San Diego. He also had two cadillac cars at the ready. He nicely kept them warmed up by using them, and stayed in the house during the winter until they could come take posession of them. Yes, please ask the ladies about this.

For many years, organ transplants were considered "cannibalism" and anyone who had one would be disfellowshipped, and completely shunned by all Witnesses. This belief was later changed, although too late for many who died rather than disobey the WTS directives.

For many years, No blood of any sort was allowed. Now, fractionated blood-yes-the components-are allowed, but not whole blood. Oh yes, you can take the fractionated parts of others' blood, but cannot donate any for others to use. Perhaps the ladies can explain this-although I doubt it.

If you have children, they are not encouraged, but are discouraged, from getting an education beyond High School.

Yes, please look up information about the Witnesses and ask the ladies. Get the answers to your satisfaction, because if you become baptised, you are NOT allowed to question anything, for fear of being shunned.

Let us know how it goes!!

Janey214

I thank you all for your replies - I'm now on the desktop so no more CAPITALS!

Unfortunately I still don't feel that I really know what you're saying the answer is. This has been my problem with the two ladies who've visited. There are so many unanswered questions that they're researching or having to ask the brothers (sic.) about.

Thank you for all the kind information that you've supplied, and despite my extensive research most of you have provided extra information that I had not yet uncovered, and thank you for the links too.

What I want to know is, does the Watchtower say CT Russell was a prophet or a scholar? If they deny he was a prophet, then surely that means he and the students would've taken a thorough search of religions, especially the many restorationist religions springing up around the USA? If he was a prophet, then where are the stories of visions and burning bushes? This is what I'm trying to clear up by going directly to the heart of the matter!

I'm sure I'll be back here as my journey progresses but I must stress that at this point in time I have absolutely no wish to baptised a Jehovah's Witness or to join them in their Kingdom Hall.

Someone asked me why I would be worried about offending them, basically I don't want to rattle off at them a load of things that are in direct conflict with them. This is for two reasons. I don't want to make them think that I'm simply out to attack them when I do sincerely want to know more about the Watchtower movement, and at the same time I don't want them being confronted with information that they might not be aware of. I think sometimes such information can galvanize a person's position and they will either take off and be very angry and be all 'Grrr, I know this church is true...' or they will be 'right, I quit'. I am also very much aware from other websites, and from what some of you have included here, that the Watchtower organisation seems to have a fear of it's members reading non-WT literature. I am opened minded about their reasoning on this.

I hope that someone somewhere will be able to answer my question about CT Russell!

In regards to the house that was built for the OT patriarchs, was this because of marks on a pyramid or numbers in the Bible, or was this also a prophecy and if it was, how was the prophecy received?

Many thanks!

J

nelly136

why on earth would it cause offense to ask about historical side of jws? that alone should set off alarm bells in your head that you cannot ask something so simple without causing offense? an organisations historical roots has absolutely nothing to do with apostacy its just history!

theres a marley cole book that they endorsed in the 50's that you may find interesting, you could probably find a copy on ebay.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Taze_Russell

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Franklin_Rutherford you can follow the food chain from here, if you google the names of the presidents or top men it makse quite an interesting history

nelly136

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associated_Bible_Students you might want to check these out as well, they carried on following russell after rutherford started the jws

soz your last post wasnt showing when i replied earlier

Black Sheep

Just a few questions I don't want to ask directly

An interesting choice of words, Janey.

I am a born-in, but never made it to baptism in spite of the pressure to do so.

One of the things that sticks in my mind from my childhood is a mantra of my father, "Nothing else is to be believed under my roof!"

I was not encouraged to question anything. If anything, the opposite was true.

"You wouldn't want to displease your Heavenly Father now, would you?" was often used as a means of squashing a question while I was only just leading up to it. Consequently, I entered my teens with a heap of questions about the religion that had never been expressed, let alone answered.

What did I do about my doubts? I buried them. I pretended I didn't have those questions. I drifted out of the religion thinking that, if there was a true religion, that the JWs were probably it, but I hadn't delved into any of my doubts.

I had decided that, if the WT really did have the Truth, that Jehovah could kill me.

He didn't.

I want you to understand that.

He didn't.

The time frames for Armageddon to occur are all well past their 'use by' dates and I am not dead yet. I had planned my life around the notion that I would be dead before I was 30 years old and I was still here. I am 57 years old and I am supposed to be dead.

The thing is, I was born into the religion. I didn't choose to be brought up in it.

My parents made a choice to join it. They both had normal childhoods. They got to choose their own religion. They think that I don't have a choice and persecute me because I don't choose their religion, even though I haven't even chosen any other.

You have to ask all of your questions now. If you don't, and you ask questions that they don't like after your baptism, you will be thrown on the trash heap and your new-found friends will not even look at you, let alone answer your questions. You will be a filthy apostate like us, just for asking a question and not accepting an answer that doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

Test everything they say.

Cheers

Chris

digderidoo

What I want to know is, does the Watchtower say CT Russell was a prophet or a scholar?

The Watchtower of April 1st, 1972, page 197, had this statement, "So, does Jehovah have a prophet to help them, to warn them of dangers and to declare things to come?...These questions can be answered in the affirmative. Who is this prophet?... This "prophet" was not one man, but was a body of men and women. It was the small group of footstep followers of Jesus Christ, known at that time as International Bible Students. Today they are known as Jehovah’s Christian witnesses..Of course it is easy to say that this group acts as a "prophet" of God. It is another thing to prove it. The only way that this can be done is to review the record. What does it show?"

As you can see the Watchtower claims that Russell's bible students were prophets.

Paul

Janey214

Now that's interesting digderidoo, so they do set themselves up as prophets? Do they provide evidence then or at least stories of prophetic visions? What they are? How they experience them etc?

Also I've just thought of another question, just this week I was told by my visiting JWs that the Bible is written only for the 144,000, now perhaps I've misunderstood what they said but would former and current JWs agree with this assertion?

Thanks

J

Black Sheep

Also I've just thought of another question, just this week I was told by my visiting JWs that the Bible is written only for the 144,000, now perhaps I've misunderstood what they said but would former and current JWs agree with this assertion?

Wow, That is amazing. That is the teaching, but I have NEVER heard of a study conductor admitting it at this stage.

It is one of those things that you usually don't find out until you are too deeply entrenched in the religion (many cults have a similar doctrine) to question it.

Cheers

Chris

just a few questions I don't want to ask directly hell

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