Thanks for that Mouthy.
That 1986 Questions from Readers article and the awful footnote should be proof enough that the organisation is just as much (probably more) about mind-control/cult tactics than genuine Christian freedom.
yaddayadda
JoinedPosts by yaddayadda
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Do JW's flout Romans 14:1?
by yaddayadda inromans 14:1 .
nwt welcome the [man] having weaknesses in [his] faith, but not to make decisions on inward questionings.
niv accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters.
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yaddayadda
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15
Do JW's flout Romans 14:1?
by yaddayadda inromans 14:1 .
nwt welcome the [man] having weaknesses in [his] faith, but not to make decisions on inward questionings.
niv accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters.
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yaddayadda
Hey good luck with that ErEf. Be sure to emphasise Romans 14:1 (take a copy of the different bible versions with you perhaps?) to show them you are scripturally within your rights to hold to different opinions about 'doubtful'(and downright false) beliefs taught by the Society. Put the onus on them to prove from the bible that you must conform to every whim of teaching from men.
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Christianity did NOT borrow from pagan "Dying-Rising" God motifs
by yaddayadda init is a fallacy that the early christians weaved the tale of a dying and rising god-man on the loom of mystery religions.
the idea of the dying-rising god as a parallel to the christian concept of the death and resurrection of christ was popularized by james frazer in the golden bough, first published in 1906. scholar edwin yamauchi (1974; easter: myth, hallucination, or history?
) has observed that, although frazer marshaled many parallels, the foundation was very fragile and has been discredited by a host of scholars since frazers ideas were at the height of their popularity in the 1960s.
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yaddayadda
tetrapod: "people who fight this view, have an ulterior motive that they may not always own up to, or even be aware of: God."
Oh come on! Spare us the self-righteous 'ulterior motive' crap. The exact same thing could be said of those who attack the reliablity of the New Testament. They can just as easily be charged with being motivated by a disbelief of God.
(But if you want to indulge in ad hominem attacks, hows this) And even more so, since disbelief in God, hence disbelief in the Bible, means no accountability to anything higher than yourself and the police. Eat, drink, fornicate, and generally be merry with impunity, for tomorrow you are to die. Complete moral freedom. Lovely notion aye. So very tempting. I'd fight tooth and nail to defend my right to complete moral freedom.
Its not hard to see who has more reason for 'ulterior motives'. -
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Christianity did NOT borrow from pagan "Dying-Rising" God motifs
by yaddayadda init is a fallacy that the early christians weaved the tale of a dying and rising god-man on the loom of mystery religions.
the idea of the dying-rising god as a parallel to the christian concept of the death and resurrection of christ was popularized by james frazer in the golden bough, first published in 1906. scholar edwin yamauchi (1974; easter: myth, hallucination, or history?
) has observed that, although frazer marshaled many parallels, the foundation was very fragile and has been discredited by a host of scholars since frazers ideas were at the height of their popularity in the 1960s.
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yaddayadda
“ One has to take into account the accommodating language of the early Christians. This seems to take at least two forms, language articulated by "a missionary motive" and language motivated by a desire to be accepted by the culture at large. The apostle Paul fits the first model; the second century-writer Justin Martyr, the second.
Paul told the Corinthians, "I have become all things to all people, so that by all means I may save some" (1 Cor. 9:22) Paul knew how to speak the language that would best communicate to his particular audience. He did this when he addressed the philosophers in Athens (Acts 17) and the recently converted Christians in Thessalonica. The real question is, "Does the fact that some New Testament writer knew of a pagan belief or term prove that wheat he knew had a formative or genetic influence onhis own essential beliefs?" The language Paul used is meant to be a point of departure - to show that Christianity is not in any of its essentials like the pagan religions.
Justin Martyr (c.100-165) was motivated by impulses that find their antecedents in Philo of Alexandria (c.20 B.C.-A.D. 50), the Jewish writer who packaged Judaism in Greek philosophical terms. Does this mean that Judaism was indebted to Greek philosophy? Hardly. But it does show the lengths to which an ancient writer might go to make his religion winsome, understandable, and palatable to outsiders.
Similarly, Justin Martyr came from a pagan home and was weaned on Greek philosophy. “Justin was forced by his conversion to Christianity to seek connection between his pagan, philosophical past and his Christian, theological present. This biographical quest would come to expression as he sought to mediate between the worlds of Greek and Christian thought.” For example, Justin defends the virgin birth as follows “And if we even affirm that He was born of a virgin, accept this in common with what you accept of Perseus.” Obviously, there is a sense in which Justin wants to find commonality with other religions – in part, to lessen the attacks on Christianity (since it was an illegal religion at this time) and, in part, to present the gospel in a winsome manner, to show that it is not really unreasonable to embrace it.
It is true that Justin claimed that Satan had inspired the pagan religions to imitate some aspects of Christianity, but even this is a far cry from claiming that he saw the essential Christian proclamation duplicated in any other religion. As J.Gresham Machen argued, “We should never forget that the appeal of Justin Martyr and Origen to the pagan stories of divine begetting is an argumentum ad hominem, ‘YOU hold,’ Justic and Origen say in effect to their pagan opponents, ‘that the virgin birth of Christ is unbelievable; well, is it any more unbelievable than the stories that you yourselves believe?’ “
Whether this kind of accommodation was the best approach in spreading the gospel is a matter of debate. Tertullian (c.160-c.225), the North African defender of orthodoxy, felt that it was inappropriate. “Justin’s view that philosophy is continuous with Christianity was emphatically not shared by “ Tertullian, who “regarded philosophy as folly and the source of heresy.”.
At the same time, a careful reading of Justin shows that at every turn he sees the gospels as ultimately unique and thus superior to pagan religions. “
Komoszewski, James Sawyer, Wallace (2005; ‘Reinventing Jesus – what The Da Vinci Code and other novel speculations don’t tell you’) -
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Christianity did NOT borrow from pagan "Dying-Rising" God motifs
by yaddayadda init is a fallacy that the early christians weaved the tale of a dying and rising god-man on the loom of mystery religions.
the idea of the dying-rising god as a parallel to the christian concept of the death and resurrection of christ was popularized by james frazer in the golden bough, first published in 1906. scholar edwin yamauchi (1974; easter: myth, hallucination, or history?
) has observed that, although frazer marshaled many parallels, the foundation was very fragile and has been discredited by a host of scholars since frazers ideas were at the height of their popularity in the 1960s.
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yaddayadda
Narkissos, your response is a classic case of someone who embraces the old “history of religions” school of biblical criticism. To you the gospels merely represent some kind of complicated, fictional patchwork embodying all manner of literary redactions, plagiarisms and syncretism over a long period of time. The slightest similarity between the NT and other literature is taken to mean the latter borrowed if from the former.
Even the premier liberal German historian of early Christianity during the first three decades of the twentieth century, Adolf von Harnack (1911), admitted:
“We must reject the comparative mythology which finds a causal between everything and everything else…By such methods one can turn Christ into a sun god in the twinkling of an eye, or one can bring up the legends attending the birth of every conceivable god, or one can catch all sorts of mythological doves to keep company with the baptismal dove…the wand of “comparative religion” triumphantly eliminate(s) every spontaneous trait in religion.”
All religions must appeal to universal human needs and desires. It’s no surprise that Christianity and other religions have some similarities of language and codes of conduct. But it can hardly be maintained that parallels indicate dependence. Walter Kunneth (1965) argues it this way: “The fact that the theme of the dying and returning deity is a general one in the history of religion, and that a transference of this them is possible, must not be made the occasion for speaking at once of dependence, of influence, or indeed of identify of content. Rather, the scientific task is not to overlook the essential differences in form, content and ultimate tendency, and even in cases of apparent formal analogy to work out the decisive difference of content.”
Those who see parallels every which way between the NT and other religions fall into the ‘terminological fallacy’. Nash puts it this way: “one frequently encounters scholars who first use Christian terminology to describe pagan beliefs and practices and then marvel at the awesome parallels they think they have discovered.”
Metzger summarizes any claimed parallels as follows: “It goes without saying that alleged parallels which are discovered by pursuing such methodology evaporate when they are confronted with the original texts. In a word, one must beware of what have been called, ‘parallels made plausible by selective description’ .”
According to Komoszewski, Sawyer and Wallace (2005), “Oxford University historian Robin Lane Fox asserts that nearly all the supposed parallels between pagan practices and Christianity are spurious. Fox challenges the thesis that Christianity was “not so very novel in the pagan world.” His research led him to conclude that there is, in Leon McKenzie’s words, only “a marginal and weak connection between paganism and Christianity.” “
Thus there is no “overall similitude” as Narkissos claims.
Furthermore, there is no evidence of syncretism in apostolic Christianity. The first century Jewish mind-set loathed syncretism and refused to blend their religion with other religions. Judaism was strictly monotheistic, as was Christianity.
There is no archaelogical evidence today of mystery religions in Palestine in the early part of the first century. Norman Anderson (1984): “If borrowing there was by one religion from another, it seems clear which way it went. There is no evidence whatever, that I know of, that the mystery religions had any influence in Palestine in the early decades of the first century”.
Nash (2003) states: “The uncompromising monotheism and the exclusiveness that the early church preached and practiced make the possibility of any pagan inroads…unlikely, if not impossible.”
Metzger (1968) makes the same point: “Another methodological consideration, often overlooked by scholars who are better acquainted with Hellenistic culture than with Jewish, is involved in the circumstance that the early Palestinian Church was composed of Christians from a Jewish background, whose generally strict monotheism and traditional intolerance of syncretism must have militated against wholesale borrowing from pagan cults.
If there is any dependant relationship between the mysteries and Christianity, as some liberal scholars contend, it is for the most part a REVERSED dependency. The mystery religions from their very beginning displayed syncretistic tendencies. So it was Christianity, beginning in the first century, that influenced the mysteries, not the other way round. The mysteries that became more eclectic, softening their approach, and adapted to compete with Christianity. But any evidence that these same cults had all these features prior to the rise of the Christian faith is nonexistent. On this Nash states:
“Far too many writers on this subject use the available sources to form the plausible reconstructions of the third-century mystery experience and then uncritically reason back to what they think must have been the earlier nature of the cults. We have plenty of information about the mystery religions of the third century. But important differences exist between these religions and earlier expressions of the mystery experience (for which adequate information is extremely slim.).”
The sources skeptics typically cite as evidence that pagan religions influenced early Christian beliefs postdate the writings of the New Testament. It was only in later centuries that Christianity borrowed from the mystery religions. -
15
Do JW's flout Romans 14:1?
by yaddayadda inromans 14:1 .
nwt welcome the [man] having weaknesses in [his] faith, but not to make decisions on inward questionings.
niv accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters.
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yaddayadda
Romans 14:1
NWT – “Welcome the [man] having weaknesses in [his] faith, but not to make decisions on inward questionings.”
NIV – “Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters.”
NASB – “Now accept the one who is weak in faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions.”
NLT – “Accept other believers who are weak in faith, and don’t argue with them about what they think is right or wrong.”
NKJV – “Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things.”
If a JW told a few people in his congregation that he had developed some doubts about certain teachings of the Society, and that it was his opinion that some of the teachings might in fact be wrong, what would the reaction be?
If they mentioned what their specific 'opinions' and 'doubts' are - for example, if they said, "I think it is doubtful that that Kingdom was established in 1914" - what would the reaction be?
Even if that JW refrained from arguing and disputing over the matter, ie, simply expressed their specific doubts and opinions and left it at that (out of consideraton for the conscience of the other person as Romans 14 counsels), do you think they would avoid being perceived as an 'apostate' and facing a judicial committee or suffer 'marking' by the congregation? -
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JW's - Satanic Cult or just wrong-headed religion?
by AK - Jeff inthe evils of the religion are well documented here and elsewhere - but does that prove to you that they are indeed 'satanic', under the direction of satan?
or are they just screwed up?
jeff .
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yaddayadda
The question is redundant as it assumes JW's can be categorised in such a 'black and white' manner.
To suggest that the organisation of JW's might be a 'satanic cult' is just as invalid as the JW's assertion that there is only 'one true religion' and all other religions are controlled by Satan.
It's about as pointless as asking: are all Catholics evil, or just misled?
There are only good and bad persons everywhere, and all manner of shades in-between. Same goes for Christians of all denominations. There are only individuals who may be under the direct control of Satan, not entire organisations, whether its JW's or any other group. -
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They make mistakes just like 1st century christians did.
by GBSJG inwhen i'm discussing problems i have with the wts with my family they often say well they make mistakes just like the early christians did, they are not perfect.. i try to argue that if you think that way you can go to any christian church and say the same.
but usually they say that compared to other religions the wts makes less mistakes so you should go there.. i know that such reasoning doesn't make sense to me but what is a good response to this?.
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yaddayadda
What better way to convince them than by using the Bible!:
Point them to Zephaniah 3:8 & 9 and get them to read it carefully, then ask them WHEN does Jehovah give the 'pure language' (of doctrinal truth) to his people? Watch their jaws drop when they see for themselves that it is DURING the great tribulation, not before! This proves that Jehovah has not given to any one group of Christians any 'pure' teachings and therefore logically no single religion can claim to be the only 'true' religion.
Then ask them why the Society from 1995 has taught that the separation of the sheep and the goats is a FUTURE event, yet, in a clear contradiction to that, it still teaches that the separation of the wheat from the weeds has been ongoing from 1914-19?? To prove the error of the Watchtower Society in this regard, ask them when the 'harvest' is by getting them to read Matthew 13: 39 for themselves. There, Jesus clearly says that the harvest is 'a conclusion of a system of things'. The 'conclusion' of this system of things is obviously still FUTURE. This logically means that Jesus has YET to gather together the various wheat-like Christians that are still scattered, intermingled, amongst all the weeds.
These two passages of scripture prove that any claim of an ingathering of Christians into one organisation exclusively used by God to teach a 'pure' body of doctrinal 'truth' can only be a FUTURE event. Until it happens, true and false Christians remain scattered together as wheat and weeds in EVERY Christian denomination until the harvest. -
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When did WT start teaching all wicked would be destroyed at Armageddon?
by cabasilas inrussell did not teach that all the wicked would be destroyed at armageddon.
neither did rutherford, initially.
that is why he preached that millions then living would never die.
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yaddayadda
Great research TD, thank you very much.
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yaddayadda
Which of your own teachings do you have doubts about and why?!!