by fairchild 22 Replies latest jw friends
This might sound silly, but it is something that bothers me.
For the longest time I had the desire to be baptized as a JW. Recently, after joining this forum and doing a lot of reading around here, I have come to understand that there is a difference between being loyal to Jehovah and being loyal to the WTS. If I don't join the WTS, then I will never get baptized, but people in the bible clearly got baptized. Now what do I do?
you don't have to be a JW to be babtised. Many many churches love to babtise people. If you believe Jesus is your savior they will probably be happy to babtise you. And they won't ask you the WTBS loyalty questions that the JW's do. they will ask you "Do you except christ as your savior?" You say "yes". Then your getting dunked.
That's a good question. Take a look at baptism in the bible, and see if you can figure out where it came from. After all, it predates the story of Jesus (John the baptiser, who probably didn't just make it up cuz he liked to swim....he got the notion somewhere), and yet it isn't a tenet of Judaism.
There is even a fascinating group of "Baptist" in Iraq that claim a heritage older than Christ. (not related to western Baptist in any way).
If it's important to you when all is said and done, come by my place and we'll figure something out. :)
but people in the bible clearly got baptized. Now what do I do?
Just hold your breath and hold your nose and get very very wet.
It's that simple... unless you are under the impression that certain people have "special powers" about them and only they can baptize you.
Heatmiser, I don't think I'm ready to 'belong' to a certain church at this point in time, as I don't know the first thing about churches and what they do. I used to live in Europe where things seemed simple. You lived in a town, there was one church in the middle of town and that's where all the believers went to on Sundays (except for JW's of course). But over here in the US, even a small town has several churches with funny names, like united methodist, redeemed something something, etc..
(Sixofnine,) If it's important to you when all is said and done, come by my place and we'll figure something out.
..heh, I'm on my way. Is your water potable and not tooooo cold?
Elsewhere, but how about Matt. 28:19?
Heres what the Catholic Church says about baptism, which would make them believe that most Protestant baptisms are valid and real: "In case of necessity, any person, even someone not baptized, can baptize, if he has the required intention. The intention required is to will to do what the Church does when she baptizes, and to apply the Trinitarian baptismal formula. The Church finds the reason for this possibility in the universal saving will of God and the necessity of Baptism for salvation."
You don't have to be a member of a church to get babtised. If that is all your after is getting dunked. All you have to do is talk to the pastor of just about any church and I am sure that you will find one that will babtise you.
yes i agree with elsewhere. use your own bath. have a couple of witness's (no pun intended) if you so wish, but remember your swiming costume. dunk yourself and then you are dun. after all Jehova sees whats in the heart.
All baptism is, is a ritual bath. It's religious purpose it to wash away sin. The research time may be well spent doing some research on the philosophical concept of sin and then on the concept of God. The things that keeps people bound to gurus and religions are assumptions. Identify and assign weight and value to your own assumptions, then challenge those assumptions.
Understand the difference between subjective and objective, between implicit and explicit, and between abstract and particular. Learn what dogmatism is and how to recognize it. Understand why logic and reason are the tools of a skeptic and when they are used by a religion such as the Watch Tower religion, they are a red flag.
Last, understand what reality is and how to test for it.
Thank you all. You have given me quite useful things to think about.
Garybuss, I was doing some reading on baptism yesterday and indeed the washing away of sin came up. That makes me think that it is useless for parents to get their babies baptized, because the babies are still unaware of sin and are obviously too young to feel repentance. I do have to admit, this is another point where the JW's are right though. See, it are things like that which drew me to the JW in the first place. And now I almost feel as if there is no other place to go.
