To those who lurk, or to those on the brink of leaving the ranks of Jehovah's Witnesses, try for a moment to put yourselves in the position of we who are not members. I just bought a book by a former JW, and while I really don't put much credence in the works of apostates I do know how to read in between the lines for things I know to be accurate. For example, I've read how Jesus, in 1914, inspected all of the world's religions and selected the Hari Krishnas...er...I'm sorry, the Jehovah's Witnesses...as the one true religion.
To say the least, this sounds a little strange to the uninitiated. People should not be cruel or sarcastic to believers in my opinion, but sometimes the way the JWs come across to unbelievers it's a bit difficult to hold one's tongue. For those who have visited me in the past, they talk about other religions as being "man made" and they refer to other believers in Christ as "Christendom" -- which I have nothing against except when it's used in the pejorative sense.
Paul writes that "in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established" (2 Cor. 13:1). In Moses' day, many saw the plagues he called down upon Egypt, but more importantly, we have this testimony: "Then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel:And they saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness.And upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand: also they saw God, and did eat and drink."
In Jesus' day, the apostles and other disciples saw the risen Lord, and he ministered to them for 40 days following his resurrection.
Sadly, though, there doesn't seem to be any witnesses of Jesus' choice of churches. In fact, the JWs are loath to use the term "church," and the leadership in various Kingdom Halls tends to be increasingly arbitrary. They establish the number of meetings, grooming, dress and so forth, all with no witnesses! Or do I have it wrong?
I recently had a hard disk give out on me. I had backed up most of what I needed, but not everything. I found a company on the Internet (Spotmau) which claimed boldly that "any" hard disk which had failed could be made to work. The advertising was just what I was looking for. The only problem is, despite all the hoopla in the advertising, it didn't work! It found my partition, but not incredibly, the file manager failed to find my missing files. But it said it could! "Any" disk it said. Why pay for expensive data recovery it blared in the advertising!
Anyone can make claims. And as anyone can tell, there's not a shread of evidence that Jesus went into heaven or picked any church in 1914 or any other year. It's much like transubstantiation in the Catholic Church. One takes the emblems of our Lord and they transubstantiate into the Lord's body and blood. It's a miracle! It's much like the fastest gun in the West routine.
Wanna see it again??
If there are any believers out there, I'd like to hear your views, and again we should be respectful to the beliefs of others. I'm just curious as to how anyone would know what Jesus did or did not do in 1914 or any other year. It's true that 1914 was a pivotal year in world history, but so was 1861 and 1776. In fact, many people see 1861 as a much more decisive year in world history. We should not think of the American "Civil War" as just a local event. Many saw it in other countries as the dividing line between how wars were fought and how they would be fought in the future.