Yeah to them it is some kind of comfort zone all these amazing things to supposedly evade growing old and dying and also oppressive human rule. But the 144 000 being literal seems to serve the purposes of the leadership more as it minimises the number of the "elite" JWs that could challenge them.
greendawn
JoinedPosts by greendawn
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27
144000 Literal or Figurative?
by why144000 inthe speaker at the memorial tonight stated straight up that the 144,000 is a literal number as we will stop celebrating the memorial when jesus 'arrives' and takes the few remnant with him.
how can the society change the 144,000 to figurative without blowing themselves out of the water?.
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144000 Literal or Figurative?
by why144000 inthe speaker at the memorial tonight stated straight up that the 144,000 is a literal number as we will stop celebrating the memorial when jesus 'arrives' and takes the few remnant with him.
how can the society change the 144,000 to figurative without blowing themselves out of the water?.
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greendawn
Yes Wolfman and it makes sense, this is either entirely literal or entirely symbolic !!
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144000 Literal or Figurative?
by why144000 inthe speaker at the memorial tonight stated straight up that the 144,000 is a literal number as we will stop celebrating the memorial when jesus 'arrives' and takes the few remnant with him.
how can the society change the 144,000 to figurative without blowing themselves out of the water?.
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greendawn
Jews and also male and virginal undefiled by women.
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144000 Literal or Figurative?
by why144000 inthe speaker at the memorial tonight stated straight up that the 144,000 is a literal number as we will stop celebrating the memorial when jesus 'arrives' and takes the few remnant with him.
how can the society change the 144,000 to figurative without blowing themselves out of the water?.
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greendawn
The book of revelation is highly symbolic so that number is bound to be also symbolic. It is very unlikely that there weren't 144 000 faithful Christians in 2000 years an average of just 72 per year on a global scale, chances are there were a lot more than 144 000 during the first three centuries of the church. And how many does this half baked sect claim that it provided in 130 years? About 8 000 now, thousands more since 1935 that already died and many more before that beginning from 1878, certainly a lot more than the 72 members average per year.
Although having observed several of these so called anointed JWs most don't seem to have anything special to set them apart from the rest of the group in terms of words or deeds it is just a case of them feeling that they have been called to a special status but otherwise there is nothing outstanding about them. But then again they might fear talking since they run the risk of a quick expulsion and subsequent total shunning if what they say contadicts the ideology of the JW leadership (the governing body and who knows who else could be hiding behind them) who made it clear that they and only they were given the divine right to formulate and modify doctrine and anyone else trying to do so is unfairly usurping their God given rights and will be severely punished by God. Such grandiose claims are often made by many leaders of relatively recently appeared sects that they have a divinely given and unquestionable monopoly of religious truth. Oh yeah pompous ass!! You can talk about having the truth on the basis of such transparent lies.
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PARTINGS - How Judaism and Christianity Became Two
by fulltimestudent ini you have a desire to understand the origin of christianity, this book may start you on the way to understanding the way it happened.
i truly doubt that the formation of a completely new religion was the intention of jesus.it is much more likely he really thought that he was about to restore the kingdom of israel, as he promised the twelve that they would rule with him ( luke 22:30).. i havn't had a chance to read this book yet, but the list of contributing scholars instantly appeals.its published by the biblical archeology society.. here's the list of chapter headings and the scholars who wrote that entry.. partingshow judaism & christianity became two - softcovernew from bas!.
edited by hershel shanks.
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greendawn
Hi Fulltimestudent, thanks for the book references above, I find the subject of the primitive church fascinating.
There are people who think that the primitive pre Pauline church is identical to today's church however it was in fact just an off shoot of Judasm their only difference being that they accepted Jesus as the expected Messiah but otherwise were indistinguishable from the rest of the Jews who nonetheless hated them deeply for the Jesus connection a manifestation of this animosity being the murder of James, a very just, observant and faithful Jew and leader of the Christian Jews AKA Nazoreans, in the Temple itself where he regularly worshipped.
It was under Paul's direction that the Church became as we know it after the connection with the Mosaic Law and its bondage was broken so strangely there were in effect two churches the Jewish Christian Church always abiding to the Mosaic law and the Gentile Christian Church abandonong it.
The former though the original one disappeared some time in history certainly before the 10th century, it survived much longer outside the Roman (later Byzantine) empire that had little tolerence for what it saw as heretical Jewish Christians clinging to the Mosaic Law. The truth is that the two churches never saw eye to eye not surprising since Paul taught that those under the Mosaic law were under curse an obvious affront to both Judaic and Christian Jews. Realistically the latter had little margins since if they denied the Law they would have been crashed by the Judaic Jews who already hated them enough for accepting Jesus someone their leaders had rejected and even executed as a supposedly religious conman.
Paul claims that his teachings were the healthy ones and were revealed to him divinely by the Holy Spirit. It is interesting that he believed the rejection of the Jews, the original inheritors of the kingdom, by God was not permanent or total and eventually they would see the light.
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Heavenly hope?
by DS211 inok i read this today and since i never can see what others think of it id like to get some feedback.
its frkm anointedjw.org.
after reading your whole site i came to a decision.
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greendawn
The "JW Anointed" group will definitely be considered as apostate by the JWs even if they challenged a minor doctrine and yet this is a major one. It is at least a step in the right direction since biblically there is only one class of christians and indeed there is no such thing as an earthly paradise or hope. The division of their members into heaven and earth bound and the exlusion of the latter from being members of the body of Christ (church) is the most damaging JW doctrine after the blood ban. This doctrine was formulated by Rutherford and not Russell.
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I'm Returing To Become A Jehovah's Witness Again
by Space Madness ina little background, i faded in 2007 and have been out ever since.
i started studying at 18 and have no jw realitives.
i'm returing because my life is heading in the wrong direction.
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greendawn
Hi Space Madness, there are other groups out there that have good moral standards but if you really feel that you will fit in well and be more fulfilled in the JWs then you should return there. Some JW congregations are genuinely friendly so you may have been associated with one of these and have overall good memories from them. There are many persons that are genuinely happy in the JWs and enjoy being there and others that just can't fit in and leave.
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Are some JWs justified in staying in the org?
by greendawn inmost of us left the organisation because we could no longer stand one or other aspect of it, perhaps its very dictatorial administration, the disappointment due to the false promises and vain hopes raised by its leadership, disagreement with the blood ban or pedophile and shunning policies, the feel one gets that this is a business and not a religious organisation manipulating its members to its own profit etc etc.
these are of course valid reasons for rejecting this religion and refusing to identify with it but do the jws who stay in have a valid argument for rejecting leaving the org?
they will say: "ok our religion, our society has its flaws but what human society doesn't?
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greendawn
If they predict a major defection and it happens it is something long overdue, hopefully that's the feedback they are getting that the internet and the failure to deliver on their promises are overtaking them how long can be people be fooled so blatantly?. And it is astonishing how a handful of devious persons at the top can intimidate and control millions of people all over the world. All the members have to do is refuse to obey them and that will be the end of their rule. There is nothing they can do about it.
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Are some JWs justified in staying in the org?
by greendawn inmost of us left the organisation because we could no longer stand one or other aspect of it, perhaps its very dictatorial administration, the disappointment due to the false promises and vain hopes raised by its leadership, disagreement with the blood ban or pedophile and shunning policies, the feel one gets that this is a business and not a religious organisation manipulating its members to its own profit etc etc.
these are of course valid reasons for rejecting this religion and refusing to identify with it but do the jws who stay in have a valid argument for rejecting leaving the org?
they will say: "ok our religion, our society has its flaws but what human society doesn't?
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greendawn
From the posts above I see that more posters argue that the JWs should leave this religion because of its various nefarious beliefs and because it is degrading to remain there given the deceit, manipulation and exploition of the membership. But still I can see that many JWs remain there without any apparent ill effects as if their psychology is totally immune to the negative influences keenly felt by those that chose to leave. So it is still a matter of personal psychology (of psychological type), of individual circumstances, of cognitive ability. And surely there are fairy tales and illusions in their beliefs but this happens in all societies.
In this world people tend to be intelectually lazy and prone to accepting and believing utter nonsense as long as it makes them feel good in some way and in the case of the JWs that nonsense is the paradise that is SOON to be and the ticket the WTS can give them to enter as long as they obey its commands. Eternal life, no diseases or anything unpleasant, total peace and security a perfect nirvana. They surrender their minds and hearts to the leadership and view them with a mix of admiration because they are leading a life saving work and fear because they are close to God and therefore close to the thunderbolts and if they disrepect the honoured leaders God might unleash one or two against them. Through some kind of cognitive block they can't see that these leaders use the Bible not with a view to helping them but with a view to making money out of exploiting them and are extremely adept at doing this, in other words they are a very efficient and copious lying machine on which they stack the label saying "The Truth".
I agree that they have a very twisted view of the world and that their indoctrination makes it difficult for most JWs to leave and then easily and quickly adjust to the world outside, after all that is why they are indoctrinated in that way to deter them from leaving, the FDS has no armies to chase and slaughter them as the Popes once had in order to deal with the restless dissidents that were disturbing them so they resort to mind control methods.
I meet from time to time with a JW (one very enlightened for a JW) who doesn't mind seeing me and I could tell him that he wasted his time serving this org but it would be too cruel to do that, to tell him that his 40 years of full time service are worth nothing, to nullify everything. I rather believe we should give recognition to their work as long as it was done by them genuinely in good faith and caused no harm to anyone. Otherwise they will surely see us as harsh, hostile persons and plain evil apostates.
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Are some JWs justified in staying in the org?
by greendawn inmost of us left the organisation because we could no longer stand one or other aspect of it, perhaps its very dictatorial administration, the disappointment due to the false promises and vain hopes raised by its leadership, disagreement with the blood ban or pedophile and shunning policies, the feel one gets that this is a business and not a religious organisation manipulating its members to its own profit etc etc.
these are of course valid reasons for rejecting this religion and refusing to identify with it but do the jws who stay in have a valid argument for rejecting leaving the org?
they will say: "ok our religion, our society has its flaws but what human society doesn't?
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greendawn
Hi Cofty, I agree with you and one of the main reasons I and many others left was the devious mental manipulations. However for many JWs this is something they don't care about and do not seem to have any ill effects from it they just seem to take in their stride all the utter nonsense that comes from the top. It is a matter of perspective. They couldn't care less if the FDS and his promises are fake or if the annointed are an imaginary class or if the org can save someone etc etc as long as they have a good time in the JWs. They value more the practical benefits they derive, others value more rejecting a dishonest leadership.