does anyone know anything about this gent?
see his program on tv with his wife and he can expound on over 14,000 scriptures.. he also speaks of the nearness of the "lords day" of armageddon, of a final destruction.... is he in line with your thinking??.
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CRI (Christian Reaserach Institute) Hank Hanegraaff President. This ministry was founded by the late Walter Martin and is leading the charge (from an Evangelical prespective) in exposing the Biblical errors of the WT.
What exactly constitutes a "biblical error"?
went to the movies with some jw friends over the weekend.
a preview for this movie was shown.
when we left the movie, everyone talked about this preview and how we would see this all happen in our time - minus the govt ships taking people to safety.
That has to be the silliest movie preview I have ever seen.
As a rule I typically enjoy these types of absurd, cliche packed, films. If you happen to go, I'll be the guy in the theater laughing out loud with his buddies like he is in myster science theater 3000.
does anyone know anything about this gent?
see his program on tv with his wife and he can expound on over 14,000 scriptures.. he also speaks of the nearness of the "lords day" of armageddon, of a final destruction.... is he in line with your thinking??.
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Anybody who watches those shows and thinks it about anything expect $$$ needs serious help
"too bad our daughter was born...., otherwise we could jehovah more fully.... ".
thats what on many occasions our long time family friend (an elder) told us.
believe it or not, they were saying this in her presence (she was 16 at the time)!!!.
I knew a number of people that were talked down upon for having kids. "What responsible person whould have a child now, especially since the end is so close?"
Old habits die hard.
i recently came across this bible student forum about evolution: http://www.biblestudents.net/forum/index.php?board=58.0.
for those who don't know, the bible students are the result off a schism sometime before 1930 that broke the religion into two parts.. after reading that forum i'm pretty sure that they're just jw's without the governing body.. .
so what's your opinion of them?.
I think the most unique feature is their greatest downfall. They remain frozen in time. Russells books were written for his time. To continue to derive belief from them is simply awkward.
here's one example: being a congregation publisher.
nowhere in the bible does it say you should be a "publisher" and turn in your time if you preach.
they try to twist the scriptures by saying that numbers are constantly being recorded in the bible so then conforming to the rules of being a publisher is from the scriptures.. yeah, right..
One tradition that most Christians believe, including JWs, is that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible. He didn't.
Exactly. Another one I can think of is the authorship of Hebrews, which tradition (and JWs) hold as being Paul, but most likely isn't. Believing that the books selected to be a part of the official Christian scriptures is a tradition. There is even the issue of what books go into the Bible.
here's one example: being a congregation publisher.
nowhere in the bible does it say you should be a "publisher" and turn in your time if you preach.
they try to twist the scriptures by saying that numbers are constantly being recorded in the bible so then conforming to the rules of being a publisher is from the scriptures.. yeah, right..
Here you are drew-that kind of religiousness has been going on for thousands of years
Mark 7:7-9 (New International Version)
7 They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men.' 8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men." 9 And he said to them: "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions
So I'm guessing that a Protestant Bible (or any Bible for that matter) isn't tradition?
All Christian denominations/theologies depend upon traditions in one way or another. Without them the basic structures necessary for the faith would cease to be.
here's one example: being a congregation publisher.
nowhere in the bible does it say you should be a "publisher" and turn in your time if you preach.
they try to twist the scriptures by saying that numbers are constantly being recorded in the bible so then conforming to the rules of being a publisher is from the scriptures.. yeah, right..
For these two examples, both groups take just a couple of scriptures, and interpret them to their own hierarchal structure. In both instances, interpretation is absolutely required, as the biblical passage lacks the clear mandate that each group and its hierarchy wishes to apply to themselves.
fwiw,
Roman Catholic, Orthodox and other traditional Christian churches do not put as much emphasis on the Bible as do protestant denominations. Proving that the office of the pope is a Bible teaching is not of much concern to Catholics. Instead they believe that the history of the Church (aka "traditions") give testimony to their belief. The same goes for Orthodox.
An interesting note on this. In the book "Truth in Translation" the NWT is picked as the best translation, but the NAB is right behind. JWs tend to focus on how the NWT was his top pick, but the NAB choice was interesting as well. In the decision to choose the NAB the author felt that it was probably better because it was a Catholic Bible, and that because Catholics do not rely upon the Bible alone to get their doctrines they had less of a motivation to be biased (as opposed to traditional Protestant denominations).
(on proofreading this, i feel that this is more preachy then i meant it.
so as a disclaimer, i hope you know that if you get that impression, that i didn't mean it that way.
having said that, this is what i feel, so if you relate to this in any way, enjoy.
I think if I didn't see so much exageration and misinformation and sheer blind hatred by some on here I wouldn't be tempted to stay and try in a small way to defend the Jws.
Just depends upon where you look. There are plenty of people here who show no "hatred". I roll my eyes many times at some of the dumb stuff people say here but I also think there is lots of great info as well. This is a message board, not a book. It doesn't represent one mindset or individual. There are people that are eaisly antagnoized and others who ignore it.
There has been talk on this site before about becoming an Ex-ex-jw. I somewhat agree with that. Ex-ex-jws are probably the people who have the most balanced opinions of the group. Yet, they are probably not here (or stop by sparatically) because the group is no longer negatively effecting their lives in an intense way (myself included). Sometimes an issue comes up and you come back here and "get into it" all over again, but it's not like it is when you are immersed by JW activity and confrontation. So it may just be that some of the people who can articulate a very good case against JW nonsense without disrespect simply don't want to do it, they have moved on with their lives.
excuse me?
i'm sure this has been rolled over many times in here, but aren't the witnesses the most class-conscious people on earth?
especially for not having a clergy class, they have all of the other ones, though!
There is an organized authority structure.
PUBLISHER > MS > ELDER > CO > DO > BRANCH/GB
The best way to determine this is to ask how power is dispersed throughout the organization. Are publishers, elders, and others of lower ranks given any sort of say in what will become watchtower policy? Some churches actually let members vote on resolutions, or let a congregation send delegates to go and participe in a convention that utilizies some kind of democratic vote.
With the JWs its all about policy and doctrine coming from the top down.
IMO I think that when the Watchtower says "clergy" they actually mean "people that are paid to preform religious rituals". That's what I felt JWs meant when they used the word clergy.
So the issue of no "paid clergy" it is a red herring imo. "Clergy" (in the Watchtower sense as I desribed above) are usually people that have a lower rank than leaders at the top no matter what the organization. Whether they are paid actually means little in terms of how authority is dispersed (the bigger issue imo).
