Posts by moggy lover

31

Question for Believers: How can God be PERFECT?

by kid-A in

several weeks ago the issue of god's 'perfect nature' came up on a thread.

the concept of "perfection" is a persistent in vitually all faith traditions and theological constructs.. jws in particular, have an obsession with the concept of perfection and use it regularly in their propaganda: "live forever in a perfect paradise earth"; "live forever in perfect health"; "humans and animals will live together in perfect harmony", etc etc...... the point was raised about the possibility or impossibility of god being perfect.

if we begin with the basic judaeo-christian tenet that god created the universe from nothingness, then he is the designer and creator of every single entity, sentient or non-sentient, and object within reality.

moggy lover

I guess one of the problems we have is our use of language and its application to certain philosohical concepts. The limitations of this creates certain conundrums that can be exploited to justify any contravening idea one wishes to express. In this case the idea of God being simultaneously the creator of good and "evil".

God of course, being Ulitimate Holiness, did not create evil, because in a sense "evil" actually cannot be created. It is the natural consequence of the removal of that which is created, good. This is where semantics breaks down and philosophical concepts become muddied.

But lets take an example from physics. It is well known that "cold" is a term we use to describe a condition that exists. But that which exits is not "cold", it is only the word we use to describe this phenomenon. The thing that actually does exist is HEAT. Now, being an energy, we have learned to manipulate heat for our benefit. By reducing heat, we "create" a condition that is a natural consequence of a loss of heat. We use a word to describe this - Cold. But remember we have not created cold, because "cold" is not an independantly created condition, but what we have done is we have actually manipulated a thing that is created, heat. To arrive at a point where heat no longer exists, we need to reduce the temperature to -273.16C [-459.69F] At this point all we have is cold. But "cold" as a phenonenon on its own cannot be created. To arrive at this point, Absolute Zero, there is nothing we can do to cold, as if we can "add" to it. What we have to do is constantly keep removing heat, till no more heat exists.

May I then suggest that "evil" is the same idea. You cannot create "evil" but what you can do, because of the divine gift of free will, is manipulate "good" - the thing which is really created. The more you remove good, the more "evil" is manifested. The absence of "good" is what we call "evil" but remember that "evil" is the semantical way we have to describe a condition for which we are, in reality referring to the absence of good.

"Evil" which is a condition that describes the "removal of good" does exist, just as "cold" does. The Bible injects a moral precept into the lifeblood of the human psyche. Just as "cold" ultimately brings death, so, the Bible warns, the removal of good, brings a worse kind of death.

Cheers

18

JW Terminology

by KW13 in

jw
friends

ok guys, list the ones ya know.. the truth/truth = the truth according to jw's is their religion.

for example someone baptized as a jw is baptized in the truth, whereas someone baptized elsewhere is not.. new light/light = a better understanding of the current status quo or 'light' in general which is just knowledge, new light allows for a complete change in beliefs without exception.. god's word = mainly the bible but anything else published by the wbt tract society is also acceptable.. true christians = refers only to jehovah's witnesses or suitable examples from the bible.. apostates = anyone who has been a jehovah's witness who opposes their beliefs (not necessarily people or individuals) and shares how they feel about the watchtower bible and tract society with anyone.

a person who hasn't been a jehovah's witness but does clearly oppose their message and beliefs may also be referred to as an apostate.. experiences = stories that will upbuild and encourage jw's.

moggy lover

My particular favourite is "System of things" An incomprehensible expression and one that is unknown ouside the patois used by WT adherants. The meaning is never fully explained, even to new recruits, who run into this expression for the first time. It is merely repeated, with monotonous regularity, in WT literature, and the assumption is that the R&F will simply accept it.

For what its worth, here is the official "explanation" of this term as published in the "Insight" book, Vol 2, pg 1054, where the writer[s] quotes at least two seperate scholars in support [out of context, naturally]: "It signifies time short or long, in its unbroken duration....but essentially time as the condition under which all created things exist, and the measure of their existence.....Thus signifying time, it comes presently to signify all which exists in the world under conditions of time.....and more ethically, the course and current of this world's affairs. It is the totality of that which manifests itself outwardly in the course of time" [The ellipses are in the original] Understandable?

Note that these scholars whom the "Insight" writers are quoting, along with the ellipses, are not endorsing the WTS use of the expression "system of things" but are in fact explaining the Greek word "Aion" which the WTS uses as the basis for its "system of things" idea. These scholars are endorsing the use of the word "Age" as a close enough equivalent to "Aion" to be understandable. Every other intelligent reader has no problem in understanding "Age" in such texts as "What will be the sign of Your coming and the end of the age"? Matt 24:3 [NASB]

To paraphrase the WT: "It is only in the WT system of things that the expression "System of things" has any currency"

Cheers

9

Jerusalem was not Destroyed in 607 B.C.E. New Web Site

by jdough in

there is a new web site devoted to the false claim by jehovah's witnesses that jerusalem was destroyed in 607 b.c.e.

please feel free to link to the site.

http://www.geocities.com/jerusalem607/

moggy lover

I hav read your stuff. I thought it was very good, comprehensive, and yet not too complex to miss the point.

The WTS, using nimble ambiguity and misplaced rhetoric, has produced a dogmatic assertion that satisfies neither scripture nor the abundance of factual evidence. Several of its auxillaries like the "Jim Space" of the WT approved site merely serve as an echo, not a voice, to this position.

Arguments on both sides of this issue can be at once impenetrable as well as prolix, but despite its complexity, I feel your site has avoided both conditions.

I can only encourage you to further your research and write more articles. We need all the information that we can get, and people like you, willing to stick their necks out, are our biggest assets.

The only problem is not with the article itself, but the site. The geocities board does not allow one to save this information to a computer. But that has nothing to do with the well researched subject matter you have produced.

Keep it up, and looking for more

Cheers

6

Book study week of 02-12 - Revelation 1:10-17

by Inquisitor in

hiya all!.

i would love to hear from you guys how mainstream christians and textual critics/scholars interpret the following features of revelation 1:10-17. i) the lord's day.

ii) the seven congregations - did these really exist?

moggy lover

See my post to your topic on the previous page, pg 301 on Feb 15.

Cheers

46

What Religion Are You?

by choosing life in

jw
friends

i know a lot of posters are not religious and others feel no need to attend a church.

but, for those that do attend somewhere, i was curious as to what type of church they chose after leaving the jws and what attracted them to that particular church or religion?

if you were not raised as a jw, did you return to the church you were raised in?

moggy lover

Baptist

11

New Jerusalem 607 B.C.E. web Site

by jdough in

jw
friends

there is a new web site devoted to the false claim by jehovah's witnesses that jerusalem was destroyed in 607 b.c.e.

please feel free to link to the site.

http://www.geocities.com/jerusalem607/

moggy lover

Incidently I can't link to the site. When I punched the adress you gave the page came up blank. Evidently your adress was incomplete.

For what its worth I can pass on something that I did pull up and which is relatively new. Its a WT favoured site and written in a manner to support WT policies. Its bright, even scholarly, and quite well written. I would reccomend it to anyone interested in a WT leaning justification for their chronology. It is written by someone called "Jim Space" [which may be a psedonym] and shows how bankrupt official WT writings are in that they have to rely on auxilliaries like "jim space" rather than themselves

http://geocities.com/jimspace3000/JWstrs/index.htm

Cheers

7

thnetopsychism - I have never heard it called that before

by BluesBrother in

ok , you scholars no doubt are familiar with this term , but please be patient with a laymen like me.

i found the word by linking from one of flying high now's threads.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/soul_sleep.

moggy lover

Unfortunately, that Wikpeda article does not name any of the ancient groups who believed in and taught the mortality of the soul. It does give some of the modern day Christian sects such as the Christadelphians etc. Off the top of my head I can recall the Stoics, the Epicureans, the Sadducees, and several Gnostic philosophies who did teach this.

I myself have never heard this long-winded word but if I had to have a go I would pronounce it:

" Th neto sigh kism" in four syllables.

Cheers

1

Book study week of 02-12 - Revelation 1:10-17

by Inquisitor in

hiya all!.

i would love to hear from you guys how mainstream christians and textual critics/scholars interpret the following features of revelation 1:10-17. i) the lord's day.

ii) the seven congregations - did these really exist?

moggy lover

Most evangelicals being different from the insular, dogmatics of WTS theology openly acknowledge that Revelation can be perceived in different ways:

1 Lord's Day may refer to an expression that was familiar to 1st century Christians and found in several OT and NT verses: Isa 2:12, 13:6, 13:9, 34:8, Joel 1:15, 2:1, Zeph 1:7,8, 1Th 5:2, 2Pet 3:10, etc, and which portrayed a future day, when the earth will experience God's judment.

2 It may also refer to an expression, that having followed on from Revelation, led to becoming a technical phrase in the 2nd C AD, meaning the first day of the week, Sunday. Deismann has shown that defiant Christians replaced the Roman expression "Emperor's Day" which was celebrated at least once a month and usually weekly, with their own phrase. The term "Lord's Day" came to memorialize the resurrection of Christ, hence the belief in His exaltation to sovereignty.

3 The phrase "Like a SOM" recalls Dan 7:13, and doubtless is used with the remembrance of our Lord's use of this title, despite its absence in Paul's and other epistles. Evidently John is sactioning the validity of his own vision by drawing freely from OT apocalyptic themes. The sword out of His mouth may have several meanings, but one could be that Christ was now no longer a humble human being, but a future, divine judge.

4 The seven churches were indeed real, and are presented in a geographical progression. A messenenger would naturally travel the route from the seaport of Ephesus north to Smyra, another port some 60 kms away. A journey further north and east would bring one to Pergamos, and then would swing east and south to the other four cities.

A basic problem in interpreting the Book of Revelation is the various chronological schemes it may fit into: past, historic, and futurist.The WTS follows its own idiosyncratic scheme in that it deliberately wrests much of the book out of its own context and applies it, with varying degrees of credulous inconsistency, to the historical development of the WTS, especially since 1918. Evangelicals though differing in detail, feel only a futuristic interpretation of chaps 4 - 22 has any consistency for theological expression. What is mentioned therin has, in other words, not come about yet.

Before unfolding the tremendous prophetic scenes of chaps 4 - 22, Christ gave a personal message to each of the seven churches mentioned, a personal message that many believe, has practical application today to the universal Body of believers residing in all denominations, and even seperately, and which we call His Church.

Cheers

7

EXPOSED: THE WT tweaks verses to fit their own agenda.

by pixel in

ok, here's something i noticed when i was in the book study this week, related to the "seven time" prophecy, the verses are daniel 4:19-32.

related to the interpretation of nebuchadnezzar's dream, daniel wish the dream to apply to those who hate nebuchadnezzar and the interpretation, to his adversaries.

verse 22 says explicitly that the big tree is him, nebuchadnezzar.

moggy lover

In my opinion, the almost fatal flaw in the WT "explanation" of the vision found in Daniel, is their deliberate avoidance of the verse that sums up the vision, vs 28. Dan 4 tells us that Daniel explains Nebuchadnezzar's dream from vss 20 - 27. Did the explanation come to pass? You bet!! Because vs 28 says: "All this befell Nebuchadnezzar the King"

Now when the text says "all" I assume it means exactly what it says. That everything ever involved in that dream was completely fulfilled. Whatever Daniel's Spirit-inspired explanation was, it was fully, and irrevocably fulfilled in the person of Nebuchadnezzar, and we need seek no further sense to Daniel's meaning.

But the WTS, evidently exercising some perceived divine prerogative, attempts to further extend the fulfillment to suit their own theological agenda. It is the only case I can think of where an OT prophecy, having been fulfilled in the OT, has another fulfilment, in our time.

In fact, in chap 9 of the book, "The Bible God's word or man's?" they point to several such prophecies to show the Bible's truthfulness, and in none do they ever attempt to see any further application.

But in Daniel chap 4 they do see some further, mystical meaning.

Convenient.

Cheers

10

The Unforgivable Sin

by lfcviking in

i was browsing a section of the watchtower cd rom 2003 on a section to do with 'repentance' and this is what it said:.

beyondrepentance.

those practicing sin willfully after having received the accurate knowledge of the truth have gone beyond the point of repentance, for they have rejected the very purpose for which gods son died and so have joined the ranks of those who sentenced him to death, in effect, impaling the son of god afresh for themselves and exposing him to public shame.

moggy lover

There appear to be several different ways we may look at these verses, any one of which, or even a combination would shed light on this question for us:

1 There does not appear to be any one particular sin in view, otherwise Christ would have revealed it, lest his hearers even unintentionally commit it. So, whether you strangle your mother-in-law, or even kick Ted Jaracz in the nuts even if he deserves it, is not the issue. It is more a state of the mind, or more appropriately, the state of the heart that is important.

2 If you are concerned about it, you have'nt commited it.

3 The sin is against the Holy Spirit. It is not a sin against you or me, or even the "manifest operation of the spirit as revealed in WT literature" It is against the Holy Spirit. He decides what that sin is. He condemns, and an eternal condemnation it is. It is not for us, or even for those pompous degenerates who arrogantly claim divine sanction, while luxuriating in comfortable surroundings in WT HQ in New York, to dictate what this sin is.

4 The sin against the Holy Spirit is spoken of as being in two eras. Evidently one can commit this unforgivable sin in "This Age" and in "The Age to come" "This age" would be the time in which Jesus was alive, the "Jewish Age" and the "Age to come" would be the coming "Millennium Age" The one common factor in these two ages is the physical reality of the Presence of The Son of Man. Back in Christ's time the Pharisees actually saw the real Christ and saw the work of the Holy Spirit through His miracles. Rejecting Him, they rejected the Spirit. That was what bordered on the Ungforgivable. The text does not say whether or not they actually did commit this sin, but they were in danger of that very thing. Similarly, those in the Millennium will see the living Christ who will bring about even grander wonders by that same Spirit. Believe it or not there will be some who simply will not recognize this, ascribing these to the devil.

5 The age we live in now, the Gospel Age, brings the redeeming work of Christ's blood to all. There is no sin, and no person or group of persons that is beyond the infinite value of the blood of Christ

6 This is not to say that we need to be unrepentant now. The Unforgivable Sin may be a sin awaiting a future generation, but as far as we are concerned, the Bible does warn about an unrepentant heart. We can die in our sins, ie without "believing that Jesus is who He claimed to be". This is not the Unforgivable sin, but yet we die in a state of unforgiveness.[Jo 8:24] We will then reap the consequences of unforgiveness. You get one shot at eternal life, and it is now.

7 Those making a practice of sin show that they are not of that sort who have believed the claims of Christ, for, as John says, those who are born of Him practice righteousness. They may indeed sin, but they practice righteousness [1Jo 2:29]

Cheers