Delta,
Take a good look at this site:
http://www.ajwrb.org/
Pole
New here
by Delta20 145 Replies latest jw friends
-
Pole
-
frankiespeakin
Delta,
You're basing your judgement of us here on JWD on a false premise:
You automaticly presume the Bible is God's word,,with out reasonable proof,,but by faith alone.
If you base your judgement from this false premise,,then your very foundation is worthless. For there is no proof that the Bible is God's word!!!
-
Gill
If you want the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society verstion of the 'truth' what ever that may be, then by all means be a witness. If you want a wider perspective from which to find out what the 'truth' is then you may be better going to Uni and studying theology, religion and ancient history.
There are some really lovely people who are JWs and there are some truly horrible ones and you can find those anywhere. The 'truth' is not about members of a religion but , in my humble opinion, WTBTS doctrine is based on nonsense and twisted notions. But you must believe it if that's what you want. But if you want the 'truth'....well start looking elsewhere!
Good luck!
-
NewLight2
Ok, Jaron, I hear what you are saying, but you still seem to be missing the main point. You like to ask questions, but after you become a "Baptized JW", all such questioning must STOP. If you continue to question the Elders about key doctrines, they will DF you just for asking the questions. The JW's are a very high control group and DEMAND 100% agreement to everything that is published in the WT publications.
Please read the following site completly. It will explain why much of what the JW's teach as 'Truth' is not truth at all.
Jehovah's Witnesses: A Critical Analysis
These 3 links are from that site.
Obedience to the Watchtower Society
The above link has a quote from a WT that says, "FIGHT AGAINST INDEPENDENT THINKING" Are you sure you want to 'blindly accept' what they say is 'Truth'?
These two links show how the WT has MISQUOTED the original source material to make it 'fit' what they only wish it said. Are you sure that you want to trust an organization that must lie by MISQUOTING others??
The Dishonesty of the "Should You Believe in the Trinity?" Booklet (Part 1)
The Dishonesty of the "Should You Believe in the Trinity?" Booklet (Part 2)
NewLight2 -
NewLight2
For some reason the link html did not take. Here is the link.
The Dishonesty of the "Should You Believe in the Trinity?" Booklet (Part 2)
Also I have been having trouble getting the site to appear. It give me a page that says 'not found' yet when I reload it, it DOES come up. -
Delta20
The bible clearly states that blood is holy. And you can perfectly defend the case of a bloodtransfusion, you see, if, as you say, we are not allowed to eat blood, and when we eat blood most of it stays out of our system (digestion system), isn't it then a much larger decision to pour blood directly into yours? If you dont think so then we ahave a disagreement here, but that doesn't mean that what I am saying isn't based on the bible.
Also, Judaism created that principle, and sometimes the persecuter can be yourself. You can want something which is wrong and have to fight an internal battle. That doesnt take away that, in the cases I described its against God's Law to do so, even if the death penalty awaits. Isn't that, for JW, the same with blood? It's something God has forbidden, so in this case the persecutor, or better the Judge, is God himself. You dont always need a persecutor to do God's will.
Pole,
If you read the top article you see that JW can now safely use the hemoglobin substetute for actual blood. What is wrong with doing that? If you can have either a blood transfusion or a sibstitute, and you know its wrong taking blood itself, then why not take the substitute?
Actually for me believe in the bible as God's word has become more of an axioma, a sort of 'basetruth' that you can rely on. You have to have something like that, otherwise you come into an endless regression (toy say something is the foundation, but you need proof for that, but that means that that proof is more basic, so the actual foundation, but then you'll need proof of that proof etcetera). I don;t have proof that my foundation is 100% correct, but I do have arguments that support it. It helps that the bible seems to be historically correct, learns you wise lessons, contains fullfilled prophecies, say things about the world that the writer couldnt have known, plus the bottomline of the bible, love god above all and your neighbour as yourself, is a very wise lesson and if you hold to that you will live a good life.
If you ask me the question, is the bible true? Then I will answer yes. If you ask me are you 100% sure of that, then I will answer no. That's mostly because im not 100% sure about anything (besides cogito ergo sum and some intrinsic contradictions). But besides all the above, I agree with what Pascal ones said. Suppose you believe in the bible and turns out the bible is true, then you go to paradise. Suppose you believe in the bible and it turns out that its not true, then at least you lived a good life. Suppose you dont believe in the bible and it turns out to be true, then you do not go to paradise. Suppose you dont believe in the bible and it turns out not to be true, then it all depends on how you filled in your life, you could have had a good or a bad life. But either way, believing seems more profitable in this case. Maybe a better analogy: Suppose you work at the airport as security personel, and you get a phonecall that theres a bomb on the airport, wouldn;t you take it seriously? Yes you would. Why? Because IF ITS TRUE, the damage it does by NOT believing this caller is going to be tremendous. Of course you know that there are things like prankcalls, but the fact that those exist isnt enough reason to judge this particular call as a prankcall. Again, the damage if its real is too great. This is, for me, a very good reason to take the bible as a starting point.
Even if there was no proof, its not deductively correct to say that because theres no proof, its false. So what you are saying doesnt make sense logically ;) And I am not trying to judge you, what I did was telling you guys what your replies look like and that I'm looking for other forms of replies to 'falsify' the JW, and if that doesnt happen, then they might be the truth after all. But Im not concluding that yet ;) Im no way near there.
-
Pole
Hi Delta,
If you read the top article you see that JW can now safely use the hemoglobin substetute for actual blood. What is wrong with doing that? If you can have either a blood transfusion or a sibstitute, and you know its wrong taking blood itself, then why not take the substitute?
Actually you're wrong. It's not the substitue. It's real hemoglobin.
There's nothing wrong with that. The problem is this doctrine has nothing to do with what the Bible says on the issue. As the doctrine changes people die. That's what's wrong. Jehovah's witnesses lie when they say they make personal decisions about blood. Most of them don't even understand their current position.
It's a bit more tricky - like many other issues in the WTS religion which are so patchy and contrived that a newbie needs a few months to figure out what's wrong - if he/she ever manages to. Meanwhile you get a "bible study" and baptism.
You just need some more time to research the site, dude. Take your time. It's worth it. Actually - you've noticed one of the good sides of this site - it's written in the best interest of the witnesses.
Just one question for now. How can you prove the current WTS stand on blood is bible based? If donating blood is a breach of what the Bible says, then why can the JWs benefit from it, by accepting fractions of real blood?
Pole
-
Delta20
I want to say 2 things about what you just posted.
First of all, if its true what it says about having to stop studying and only being able to read and talk about WT articles or WT-pro articles when you are baptized, is thats true then that is a very bad doctrine and I would surely fight it. So if that is true, I must say that you are totally right that that is a big flaw. It means that the organization, on a very high level, doesnt listen to its own religion (which says that knowledge is a good thing). But heres the thing, and I wrote this before.... In my experience this is not the case, and I cannot test the claim that it is the case for I have not been baptized yet. And Of course I could take your word for it, but theres always 2 sides to a story. What do you think a JW would say, lets say an Elder, when I asked him if that were true? =)
About the links you gave, especially the one about the trinity, some stuff is plain wrong. I study philosophy and theres has been a Trinity since Plato's Timaeus. And this greek philosopher was known at the time of the christians, we know this because Philo of Alexandria wrote about it (between 30-50 GT) plus theres a lot of other documentation about it. So this quote:
"It is probably a mistake to assume that the doctrine resulted from the intrusion of Greek metaphysics or philosophy into Christian thought; for the date upon which the doctrine rests, and also its earliest attempts at formulation, are much older than the church's encounter with Greek philosophy."
Is plainly wrong because the churchfathers have been misintepreting it from Plato's and Philo's work (we know this now).
But the writer of the article also takes things out of the context, for example:
Booklet: "Neither the word Trinity nor the explicit doctrine appears in the New Testament."
Source: There is a period (.) here while there is actually a comma (,). While the quote is exact, it has been taken out of context. Directly following the statement, the encyclopedia proceeds to document the implicit teaching of the Trinity and quotes Biblical passages where the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are associated together and concludes with:
"Thus the New Testament established the basis for the doctrine of the Trinity."So where was the booklet wrong? What is wrong with saying that the doctrine or the word trinity never appears in the NT? The encyclopedia ends with concluding that the NT established a basis for the doctrine. That doesnt mean that it appears somewhere in the NT, it means that some people (even Philo out of the OT and strongle seduced by Plato) interpreted or even rationally concluded that there is a trinity. But this is not what the bible says, its what the interpreters, stringly motivated by the believes of that time, make of it.
Some of the other texts are taken by the writer himself out of context. So if we carefully examine these texts (at least some of them, dont have time to do all of them) then we can conclude that both the author is wrong and some of the texts are outdated and cant be brought forth as proof against the doctrine of the Trinity. By the way, some sources havent even been looked up correctly, for I see a few here that I looked up here and I could find them but the author here seems to have not been able to do so.
-
Delta20
Pole,
I think I'm actually right. Let me explain. I said blood is forbidden and that hemoglobine is a substitute for it. Hemoglobine is indeed a part of the blood, namely the protein which binds oxygen and does the work which the blood is for. But is that the part that makes the blood holy? What is it that makes blood holy? The WTS decided that the hemoglobine produced in laboratories and which can act as substitute blood isn't what the bible means with blood, but the blood in bloodtransfusion is what falls under blood. I agree with the article that its the WTS that decides on this, and there is ofcourse nowhere in the bible that says "If you are in need of blood, the substitute hemoglobine is allowed." But their reasoning is based on their interpretation of the bible. Now, let me make clear that I have absolutely no idea of God would say that its right or wrong to take blood for transfusions, in the bible theres room for interpreting both of those ideas, and the "easy" version is that what most people believe at the moment. But again, since this is a very important decision to make (what happens if it wasnt correct to take blood, see above) it might be better to be safe then sorry, and thats what JW chose for.
-
Pole
To clarify one more thing Delta,
But I do understand why JW dont do bloodtransfusions. Remember when people were laughing at JW because they werent allowed to smoke? "Those stupid JW, such a strict religion, may not even smoke". We know now how much the JW's were right on that call. Bloodtransfusion is still a thing that is under development (new ways, cleaner ways, alternatives, etcetera are being created as we speak), so I think we must wait what the future holds. But that the JW follow the bible in a strict sense doesnt take away the potency of their religion... the opposite, it makes it stronger, although I have to agree that its hard in this particular case, but as I tried to say before, this isnt the only case imaginable.
The smoking analogy is not the best one really. Actually, the direction of change is the opposite. A few decades ago Jehovah's Witnesses were much more strict about the blood issue. They've relaxed their stand a lot and they accept fractions of blood - in some cases up to 97% of the fractions (see my post above). This is impossible to support using the Bible. If you have no scriptural proof for the current position and you wait for the Governing Body (I hope you are familiar with this concet) to make new relaxations in the policy for you, don't call it a test of faith. It's a classic case of self-indoctrination.
Just think of it: you don't understand the JW policy on blood. Neither do many witnesses. But you already consider dying for it and perhaps even having your children die for it in some cases.
Pole