On the Nature of Our Savior & Idolatry

by Perry 23 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  designs

  Perry-

  The fallback position of personal revelation is what many religions do that have a set of beliefs in experientialism. When we were Witnesses we had the 'experience of the worldwide brotherhood', it is all seductive on many levels- emotional, familial, social, and spiritual. Are people being good and doing good under these beliefs, sure, but people should be good and are good in much of their lives even with different religions and even among agnostics and atheists. As I asked another board member who believes in the 'revelation from God' confirmation- what do you do besides pray and sing hymns that another other good and productive person doesn't do, no answer, because good people do good things every day. It is how we live, we know what to do.

  When does a belief go from being simply a good code to live by to being a Cult. You are familiar with the social and psychological studies that list things to watch for. How free are the children of Evangelicals and Fundamentalists to leave their parents religion and seek new ideas. How is the world defined by Evangelicals and Fundamentalists, by your own admission they are the saved and unsaved, you even go so far as to segregate Church goers into unsaved preachers. As for the moniker of being 'Born Again' the Evangelical movement abrogated a term that would mean something different to the Jew Jesus was speaking with in the Gospel account, but that is never considered in any literature from a Baptist or Calvary Chapel publisher.

  We experience the Armageddon syndrome in ourselves and our children, the Hell Fire syndrome produces an equally destructive personality trait in its believers and sadly the children.

  Its the children that need to be helped the most. We have a responsibility to them to set the groundwork of knowledge and have it in place that they can read and learn that there are choices, that there are good and descent places and people in this world and not limited to any Faith or Creed.

  I got my children out of the Watchtower and my hope for my grandchildren will be that they live full productive and honorable lives free from the kind of fear and superstition that religion feels the need to promote to hold its members in place.
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  ProdigalSon

  dear ProdigalSon...

  you said: "If we see God in ourselves, we will also see God in others" the problem with celebrating the "God in ourselves" etc. is that everyone has a different idea about what constitutes "god"...some people idolize their children, some people idolize movie stars, the pope, their church, angels, their friend...that is where having and knowing that there IS an "outside" God who is seperate from but a part of us helps each of us have a correct perspective as to WHO we should worship...revelation 19:10 speaks to me about being too inclined to focus on the "god/inner christ" of "your brother".

  Hi myelaine

  I think that if a person really wants to get to the root of their own spirituality, it would be a good idea to find out the difference between the egos and the true inner being or higher self. It's really not open to interpretation. We can certainly try to fool ourselves and go ahead and incarnate the egos but that is Black Magic, a Watchtower specialty! That can be done every bit as much through FEAR as it can through pride. haughtiness or narcissism. Egos can destroy us by dragging us down too low or raising us up too high. Finding the Divine Inner Monad is what all the great Masters have taught throughout human history. Yes, there is a God outside of you but also within you. You are as much connected to him/her as he/she is to you...

  Try this experiment.... read the 17th chapter of John and imagine yourself saying those words to God, not Jesus 2,000 ago but YOU, right here and right now...and all the other people that Jesus refers to are YOUR friends and family, and everyone that YOU know or don't know that you wish to enter into the Love of Christ. Trust me, the Catholic Church, the Watchtower, and every other Pharisee religion would have you believe its blasphemous to do so, but it isn't. YOU are the "I AM". YOU have every bit as much a birthright to being "anointed" as any one of them!

  There are many, but this article might help explain the difference between the "self" and the "ego"....

  http://www.vedanta.org/reading/monthly/articles/2003/8.ego_%26_the_self.html
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  Perry

  The fallback position of personal revelation is what many religions do that have a set of beliefs in experientialism. When we were Witnesses we had the 'experience of the worldwide brotherhood', it is all seductive on many levels- emotional, familial, social, and spiritual.

  Experience is not synomonous with knowing. Your kind of knowing, is not the kind of knowing that the gospels promise. You and I both know that no JW would ever claim that they "knew" that they would get into the New System. But, Christianity promises this knowing.

  1 John 5:13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.

  We experience the Armageddon syndrome in ourselves and our children, the Hell Fire syndrome produces an equally destructive personality trait in its believers and sadly the children.

  Says who? God will judge sin and sinners. If he were to refuse to do so, that would make him evil......him having the means to judge and punish evil but refusing to do so. This is the delimma for all philosophies that deny the reality of Judgment. A good God cannot exist and at the same time not judge evil. That is a fact. You or anyone else cannot change this fact.

  Granted, it is pyschologically burdensome to examine this fact because of our personal guilt, but it leads directly to the foot of the cross. When I became a Christian by surrendering my will to Jesus, he came into my life and started cleaning house little by little. I am his work. There is nothing purely good inside me, but him.

  The reality of Hell has no impact whatsoever on a born again believer because he possesses this knowing of his salvation straight from the Source. This of course is very hard to imagine for the unregenerated, because they have never had something spoken into their spirit. You cant know what you dont know. Sorry.

  Prodical,

  You severly criticize the bible and then reccommend heathen Literature from India to tell Michelle how she can be annointed in a Christian sense? You seem lost. Would you like to KNOW for sure what would happen to you if you died tomorrow? You can KNOW this directly from the Souce.
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  designs

  Perry-

  You have all of the traits of the good Regular Pioneer, facts and evidence such as the teachings of Judaism in this case that dismantle the Bishops contentions for Christianity mean little. Jewish Sages from the first century on keep repeating- You have your facts and assumptions wrong in the NT. Eternal torture was not a Jewish belief. For the non-believer in the Jesus of the Fundamentalist world they argue an all powerful diety would not let things get out of hand in the first place and in the second place would argue that no one is holding back this Jesus from returning, but he doesn't so better to get on with life and continue doing good.

  See the problem with a text like 1 John is that in Judaism concurrent with this period was the belief that all of humanity was already taken care of by a good heavenly Father in the afterlife and everyone gets to come to Gan Eden eventually. Odd how the socalled 'Paul' and Jesus, Peter and John never mention this or debate the Jewish Sages and Rabbis. Again it is just further proof that the NT is a fabrication of the minds of the Greek Bishops who intentionally decieved the Gentiles or were only partially knowledgeable about Judaism and like the dishonest bastards that they were built a powerhouse on a foundation of lies and halftruths.

  Hey, we saw the slavishness to an ideology in action every Sunday during Watchtower study, and for those of us who took the time after leaving the Watchtower Society and attended other Churches we saw it there as well. Its a journey.