Thjat's the thing about Russell, nothing new, all repackeaged things from Adventist, Dispensation, Evangelical [ coleporter's ], Pyrimidology, is there nothing he "took" from? Rutherford built an empire on all that.
JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES A MONGERAL RELIGION....
by Quentin 16 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Quentin
bttt
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Band on the Run
From my understanding, all religions are mongrel. Archaeologists have found female fertility goddess idols worshipped with Jehovah. Before the orthodox Bible took hold, Judaism had many aspects of Canaanite religion. People are influenced by trade routes and the people they encounter. Invaders frequently adopt or transform the beliefs of the conquered belief. Think of how the Romans adopted Greek gods and concepts.
It seems a normal process. So many factors are involved. Economics, trade, politics, anthropology, linguistics, etc.
I attended a Christian service at an American Anglican cathedral where well springs sacred to Mary, where the major Marian shrines emerged, were put into modern practice with a well on the grounds. All these English Marian shrines were Druid sites. Christmas is Saturnalia.
Only if you believe in a magical Bible emerging from heaven with great fanfare, completely written in God's hand (how obscene that he would have literal hands) does a problem emerge. I know the same pattern exists in Hindu and Chinese culture.
Mongrel, well a less pc word, is not bad. Certainly, Russell or Rutherford (or the current GB) used other trends. Russell was a segment of a religious movement, not a movement in himself. He taught a variant of Advent religion. Perhaps the largest mind blogger for me is the change in UN status from the worst defiled entity, evil beyond all evil, to exalted position - all for a library card in a city so rich in free libraries. People flock to research in NY's public libraries.
I was born-in and assumed the Witnesses were unique. As a child and young teenager, I sincerely believed all their outrageous claims. What did Paul write when he was a child, he did childish things but became an adult and put them away.
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designs
It wouldn't be so bad if they would just self identify as a progressive branch of christianity that way change would be expected sort of like the Episcopalians or Unitarian Universalist.
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Quentin
Perhaps Heinz 57 would have been more appropriate, eh?... Point is, Russell cherry picked from various sources, shuffled the deck and created an adventist, evangelical, dispensationalist movement. Even with the changes Rutherford, Knorr and Franz made, tell a jw they are an adventist( etc ) movement they would squeal like a stuck pig.
Even with the wtbts spin their JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES IN THE DEVINNE PURPOSE, published around 1959, is the only wt publication to come closest to their true history, as a movement. That's another thing, they are NOT a church, or religion, they are an Adventist movement that dispenses their brand of adventist belief through their publishing house literature. That, in my opinion, is not emphasized enough.
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moshe
I just found a picture of a Mongeral KH (yurts of course with no windows)- no sign because Mongerals don't read- Additionally , they have the record for quick build KHs- 2 hours, I think.
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