Posts by opusdei1972

61

I know there is NO GOD

by jam in

isis, plain and simple.

if there is a god there is no way he.

would allow this to occur (beheading of james foley).

opusdei1972

My hypothesis is that there is a God, but he does not interfere in human life and if you worship him, he is apathetical about it.

15

The Watchtower and its absurd accusations against the Church Fathers

by opusdei1972 in

i love to read the watchtower's article "the church fathersadvocates of bible truth?

" (w01 4/15 pp.

there we may read the most contadictory statements of the watchtower society, which shows how deceptive and ignorant is the jehovah's witnesses religion.. .

opusdei1972

HowTheBibleWasCreated

1. The seven signs from John 1-15?

2. The Prayer in 16-18 (An addition)

3. The passion in 19,20 (based on the gospel of Pontius Pilate so early second century)

4. The last chapter likely very late in early third century

5. Lastly the 7:53-8:11 narritive... added after the Vulgate 400+CE

How do you know the above?.....I clearly see that the last chapter is a later addition, but I thought it was added after "the beloved disciple died" around the year 100. Who was that beloved disciple?

15

The Watchtower and its absurd accusations against the Church Fathers

by opusdei1972 in

i love to read the watchtower's article "the church fathersadvocates of bible truth?

" (w01 4/15 pp.

there we may read the most contadictory statements of the watchtower society, which shows how deceptive and ignorant is the jehovah's witnesses religion.. .

opusdei1972

Another fact is that Jesus believed in the doctrine of hell (as it appears in the Gospels). I was just expelled from a forum of ex-witnesses, just for declaring that Jesus had to believe in hell as a man of his time. Of course, It does not mean that Hell must exist, but Jesus taught this doctrine. The Church Fathers did not take it from the Greek Philosophy, because many greek concepts were already assimilated by the Essenes and the Pharisees well before the first century.

70

Jehovah told to Moses: "....kill every woman who has had sexual relations with a man"

by opusdei1972 in

in numbers 31 we read the following:.

jehovah then told moses:2 take vengeance for the israelites on the midianites.

afterward you will be gathered to your people.3 so moses spoke to the people, saying: equip men from among you for battle against midian and to execute jehovahs vengeance on midian.4 you should send 1,000 of each tribe of all the tribes of israel into the army............ 7 they waged war against midian, just as jehovah had commanded moses, and they killed every male.8 along with the others slain, they killed the kings of midian, namely, evi, rekem, zur, hur, and reba, the five kings of midian.

opusdei1972

millie210 I admired Greg when I was a Watchtower apologist, and I was disappointed when he became an apostate by publishing his book "Three Disertations". Of course, it was so when I was a witness. But after leaving the Society I admitted that he was right by writing that book. Now, I still think that he is right in some issues, but now I see that he is enclosed in a fundamentalist position about the Bible.

So, as you may see, I have passed through different religious steps. First I was jealous witness, then I left the Society but continued to be a fundamentalist christian, and now I don't believe that the Bible is inspired by God. Why?, because I realized that it is a colection of books that create more questions than answers. If a written work produces more questions than answers it will only cause confusions and divisions. This is why early christianity could not be a united religion. This is why even the Jews who were the first owners of the Bible could not be united in one doctrine. Why??, Why the Bible is the source of divisions?....Now I think that I know the answer: It is because it was written and inspired by different human minds to fulfill their own agenda.

I recomend you the book The Bible Unearthed

15

The Watchtower and its absurd accusations against the Church Fathers

by opusdei1972 in

i love to read the watchtower's article "the church fathersadvocates of bible truth?

" (w01 4/15 pp.

there we may read the most contadictory statements of the watchtower society, which shows how deceptive and ignorant is the jehovah's witnesses religion.. .

opusdei1972

The Watchtower's stance against the Church Fathers is ridiculous, because the Society needs them to support the NT canon. The Society quotes them many times as early witnesses of the NT books.

15

The Watchtower and its absurd accusations against the Church Fathers

by opusdei1972 in

i love to read the watchtower's article "the church fathersadvocates of bible truth?

" (w01 4/15 pp.

there we may read the most contadictory statements of the watchtower society, which shows how deceptive and ignorant is the jehovah's witnesses religion.. .

opusdei1972

I love to read the Watchtower's article "The Church Fathers—Advocates of Bible Truth?" (w01 4/15 pp. 17-21). There we may read the most contadictory statements of the Watchtower Society, which shows how deceptive and ignorant is the Jehovah's Witnesses religion.

"For slightly more than 100 years after Nicaea, theologians, most of them writing in Greek, worked out in a long and bitter debate what was to be the distinguishing doctrine of Christendom, the Trinity. Chief among them were Athanasius, the assertive bishop of Alexandria..."

Yes, but you needed Athanasius to defend the Pauline authorship of the Letter to the Hebrews:

Writership of the letter to the Hebrews has been widely ascribed to the apostle Paul. It was accepted as an epistle of Paul by early writers. ... Hebrews is listed among “fourteen letters of Paul the apostle” in “The Canon of Athanasius,” of the fourth century C.E. (it-1 pp. 1077-1080)

Or consider the teaching of the immortality of the soul, a belief that some part of man lives on after the body dies. Again, the Church Fathers were instrumental in introducing this notion to a religion that had no teaching about a soul surviving death. The Bible clearly shows that the soul can die: “The soul that is sinning—it itself will die.” (Ezekiel 18:4) What was the basis for the Church Fathers’ belief in an immortal soul? “The Christian concept of a spiritual soul created by God and infused into the body at conception to make man a living whole is the fruit of a long development in Christian philosophy. Only with Origen in the East and St. Augustine in the West was the soul established as a spiritual substance and a philosophical concept formed of its nature. . . . [Augustine’s doctrine] . . . owed much (including some shortcomings) to Neoplatonism,” says the New Catholic Encyclopedia. And the magazine Presbyterian Life says: “Immortality of the soul is a Greek notion formed in ancient mystery cults and elaborated by the philosopher Plato.”

really?....the church fathers just took "the belief that some part of man lives on after the body dies" from Jesus teachings. For example, Irenaeus, a second century bishop of Lyon wrote the following:

The Lord has taught with very great fullness, that souls not only continue to exist, not by passing from body to body, but that they preserve the same form [in their separate state] as the body had to which they were adapted, and that they remember the deeds which they did in this state of existence, and from which they have now ceased—in that narrative which is recorded respecting the rich man and that Lazarus who found repose in the bosom of Abraham. In this account He states (Luke 16:19, etc.) that Dives knew Lazarus after death, and Abraham in like manner, and that each one of these persons continued in his own proper position, and that [Dives] requested Lazarus to be sent to relieve him— [Lazarus], on whom he did not [formerly] bestow even the crumbs [which fell] from his table. [He tells us] also of the answer given by Abraham, who was acquainted not only with what respected himself, but Dives also, and who enjoined those who did not wish to come into that place of torment to believe Moses and the prophets, and to receive the preaching of Him who was to rise again from the dead. By these things, then, it is plainly declared that souls continue to exist that they do not pass from body to body, that they possess the form of a man, so that they may be recognised, and retain the memory of things in this world; moreover, that the gift of prophecy was possessed by Abraham, and that each class [of souls] receives a habitation such as it has deserved, even before the judgment. (Against Heresies (Book II, Chapter 34))

After even this brief examination of the historical backdrop of the Church Fathers, as well as the origins of their teachings, it is appropriate to ask, Should a sincere Christian base his or her beliefs on the teachings of the Church Fathers? Let the Bible answer.
For one thing, Jesus Christ himself ruled out the use of the religious title “Father” when he said: “Do not call anyone your father on earth, for one is your Father, the heavenly One.” (Matthew 23:9) The use of the term “Father” to designate any religious figure is unchristian and unscriptural

Really?...so the Apostle Paul was an apostate because he said "For though you may have 10,000 guardians in Christ, you certainly do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus, I have become your father through the good news." (1 Cor 4:15)

The written Word of God was completed about 98 C.E. with the writings of the apostle John. Thus, true Christians do not need to look to any human as the source of inspired revelation. They are careful not to ‘make the word of God invalid’ because of human tradition. Letting human tradition take the place of God’s Word is spiritually lethal. Jesus warned: “If . . . a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”—Matthew 15:6, 14.
Does a Christian need any revelation besides the word of God as contained in the Bible? No. The book of Revelation cautions against adding anything to the inspired record: “If anyone makes an addition to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this scroll.”—Revelation 22:18.

How do they know that the last writings belonged to the apostle John?. The early source the Watchtower has is what Irenaeus (a Church Father) wrote about the authorship of them, that is 80 years after those supposedly writings of John. On the other hand, about the inspired books, why the first book of Enoch was not included in the canon?....we know that Jude quoted it. If Jude quoted the book of Enoch, the Bible used by the Watchtower is incomplete. Furthermore, we don't know how the original of the book of Revelation was. For instance, we have two versions of Rev. 13:18, some manuscripts say 616 and other ones 666. Even Irenaeus reported such discrepancy in the second century. Professor David Parker, Professor of New Testament Textual Criticism and Paleography at the University of Birmingham, thinks that 616, although less memorable than 666, is the original. However, the New World Translation ignores it.

On the other hand, in the 2013 revision of the NWT, the NWT contains the Gospel of Mark until the verse 8 of chapter 16. How do they know that the original ended in that verse?. How do they know that John 1:18 says "the only-begotten god" and not "the only-begotten son"?.

Moreover, the true Christian congregation is “a pillar and support of the truth.” (1 Timothy 3:15) Its overseers safeguard the purity of their teaching within the congregation, preventing any doctrinal pollutant from creeping in. (2 Timothy 2:15-18, 25) They keep out of the congregation ‘false prophets, false teachers, and destructive sects.’ (2 Peter 2:1) After the death of the apostles, the Church Fathers allowed “misleading inspired utterances and teachings of demons” to take root in the Christian congregation.—1 Timothy 4:1.
The consequences of this apostasy are evident in Christendom today. Its beliefs and practices are a far cry from Bible truth.

Really?...what do you think the Apostle Paul would say after reading the following Rutherford's new light?

“Instead of the ‘servant’s’ being moved into action by the operation of the holy spirit as a helper, the Scriptures seem clearly to teach that the Lord directs his angels what to do and that they act under the supervision of the Lord in directing the remnant on earth concerning the course of action to take. -Rev. 8:1-7″ (Salvation, 1939, p. 263)

So, angels (demons), replaced the "Holy Spirit" in the Watchtower teachings during Rutherford's age.

70

Jehovah told to Moses: "....kill every woman who has had sexual relations with a man"

by opusdei1972 in

in numbers 31 we read the following:.

jehovah then told moses:2 take vengeance for the israelites on the midianites.

afterward you will be gathered to your people.3 so moses spoke to the people, saying: equip men from among you for battle against midian and to execute jehovahs vengeance on midian.4 you should send 1,000 of each tribe of all the tribes of israel into the army............ 7 they waged war against midian, just as jehovah had commanded moses, and they killed every male.8 along with the others slain, they killed the kings of midian, namely, evi, rekem, zur, hur, and reba, the five kings of midian.

opusdei1972

millie210 Some years ago I was a witness, who believed that the Bible was 98 % inerrant. After leaving the Society I still believed that the entire Bible was the word of God. But I have to admit that I did not want to analyze the Bible through critical eyes. So, when I found a contradiction, I used to read websites of christian apologists, in which the contradictions are harmonized by sophistic arguments. That was the way I was deceiving myself. Now I see that the Old Testament can't be the word of God, because a loving God could not be partial. I realize that the Old Testament was written by Jews who had a nationalistic agenda. So, those stories where YHWH is shown as the God of Israel, the Lord of Hosts who endorses genocide against Israel's enemies, were based on ancient wars, but reconfigured by the Jewish scribes so as to raise the pride of an inferior nation compared with Babylon, Egypt, Persia, etc. Accordingly, YHWH of the Hosts is a Jewish invention.

If God is the God of the Old Testament, why doesn't he use his supernatural power to save inocent people who die in many natural disasters? ...The fact is that that God who protected the Israelites in the story of the Exodus does not exist. The true God (as I see) never chose a nation and favored a religious system.

70

Jehovah told to Moses: "....kill every woman who has had sexual relations with a man"

by opusdei1972 in

in numbers 31 we read the following:.

jehovah then told moses:2 take vengeance for the israelites on the midianites.

afterward you will be gathered to your people.3 so moses spoke to the people, saying: equip men from among you for battle against midian and to execute jehovahs vengeance on midian.4 you should send 1,000 of each tribe of all the tribes of israel into the army............ 7 they waged war against midian, just as jehovah had commanded moses, and they killed every male.8 along with the others slain, they killed the kings of midian, namely, evi, rekem, zur, hur, and reba, the five kings of midian.

opusdei1972

I wonder how could Jesus say that his Father and God was the God of the Old Testament. This fact lowers his credibility.

70

Jehovah told to Moses: "....kill every woman who has had sexual relations with a man"

by opusdei1972 in

in numbers 31 we read the following:.

jehovah then told moses:2 take vengeance for the israelites on the midianites.

afterward you will be gathered to your people.3 so moses spoke to the people, saying: equip men from among you for battle against midian and to execute jehovahs vengeance on midian.4 you should send 1,000 of each tribe of all the tribes of israel into the army............ 7 they waged war against midian, just as jehovah had commanded moses, and they killed every male.8 along with the others slain, they killed the kings of midian, namely, evi, rekem, zur, hur, and reba, the five kings of midian.

opusdei1972

THIS IS WHY JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES ARE AS THEY ARE, BECAUSE THEY LOVE THEIR GOD, WHO IS THE GOD OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”(Richard Dawkins)

70

Jehovah told to Moses: "....kill every woman who has had sexual relations with a man"

by opusdei1972 in

in numbers 31 we read the following:.

jehovah then told moses:2 take vengeance for the israelites on the midianites.

afterward you will be gathered to your people.3 so moses spoke to the people, saying: equip men from among you for battle against midian and to execute jehovahs vengeance on midian.4 you should send 1,000 of each tribe of all the tribes of israel into the army............ 7 they waged war against midian, just as jehovah had commanded moses, and they killed every male.8 along with the others slain, they killed the kings of midian, namely, evi, rekem, zur, hur, and reba, the five kings of midian.

opusdei1972

....How did they know who were not virgin women?...it seems that they did an inspection.