Posts by Cold Steel

65

What strand of Christianity gave birth to WTBTS?

by Band on the Run in

i know about johnathan edwards and william miller being some of the forerunners of the wtbts.

how about much earlier in time?

was there a group during the middle ages or even earlier that preached something similar to the wt doctrine?

Cold Steel

That is the litmus test. JW's, Mormons, and the Popes all claim there is no salvation outside of their organization-priesthood-Ark, etc. All bible-cults claim something similar to this. It is belief in this claim that damns them, because their association becomes an idol in that the group itself becomes a sharer in the salvation event....something God would NEVER share.

I can only speak for the "Mormons," of course, but as stated above you claim that we teach that there is no salvation outside of our organization, or church. This is not true. Sects that teach divine excusivitity almost universally condemn everyone who's not a member of their church to hell. Because of the Atonement, however, all men will be resurrected and delivered from the fall. We also believe that hell, while real, is remedial and that men are not condemned because of their beliefs, but because of their actions.

So what is the role of the church? In our view, it is to provide the divine authority to act in God's name. People say that works don't save, and that's absolutely correct. At the same time, it is impossible to gain Eternal Life without works. This may sound contradictory, but it isn't. It isn't works like baptism, confirmation and the gift of the Holy Spirit that do the saving, for works don't save. Obedience to God's commandments save, and He has commanded baptism and the gift of the Holy Spirit to be administered at the hands of his authorized servants, called and commissioned by Jesus Christ. So if man is to be saved, he is to have faith, baptism and the gift of the Holy Spirit conferred by the laying on of hands. He cannot be saved by faith alone, nor by works alone.

Those who do not repent of their own sins must suffer for them, even as Christ suffered: "Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer in both body and spirit--and would that I might not drink the bitter cup...." Eventually, after the final judgment, every knee shall bend and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ.

56

A Mormon becomes a JW in the Feb 2013 Watchtower...

by cedars in

glancing through the feb 2013 "public" watchtower edition, an interesting article appears on page 8.. here is the pdf download link.... http://www.jw.org/download/?fileformat=pdf&issue=20130201&output=html&pub=wp&langwritten=e&option=trgchlzrqvnyvrxf&txtcmslang=e.

it's interesting how, in the story, the young man's jw aunt and uncle switch him from mormonism to the jw faith using third-party material (the nov 8, 1995 awake!

article), and he ends up becoming a jw after confirming on the official mormon website that the claims in the awake!

Cold Steel

Cold Steel: How do Mormons respond to the accusation that LDS religion is not historicaly supported?

Not sure what you mean by this. Are you speaking of some aspect of Mormon history or the Book of Mormon?

....some present and former LDS members it's clear many feel damaged by their experience with Mormonism.

Yes, any time one feels they've been deceived, or who have put a great deal of time, effort and money into something for nothing, of course they're going to feel damaged. If someone were to convince me that the church was not what it purported to be, I would feel the same way. I've been LDS since 1971 and I've read countless anti-Mormon books and anti-Christian books. Sometimes I've been stumped on things I couldn't know, such as the Book of Mormon's geographic claims in Saudi Arabia and Oman (which people waved under my nose for years). All I could do was shrug. Then in the 1990s, some of our people got access to that land by special permission, and, using only a Book of Mormon, a compass and a land rover, they traced Lehi's route down by the Red Sea through a steep mountain gorge, found what appears to be the elusive "river of water" and the campsite Lehi and his family lived at for months. They also found an altar of stones and, according to the Saudi Department of Antiquities, the entire campsite dated back to circa 600 B.C., the right time for the Lehites to have been there. The entire route was consistent with The Book of Mormon's account, all the way to the harbor where they built their ship. Neither Joseph Smith, nor anyone else who lived in the Western Hemisphere in 1830, could have possibly been as consistent in their account unless they had actually been there. Back in 1972, no one was able to gain access to that area, so, like I said, we could only shrug and wait. Now extensive work is being done in Mexico, where the Book of Mormon events in the Western Hemisphere are thought by many to have taken place. And as the years go by, it looks more likely, not less likely, that Mexico is the spot. If the BoM were fiction, that should not be the case. So if people find themselves swamped by stuff they read in anti-Mormon books, they will leave and feel embittered, thinking they've been deceived. Apostasy also was common in the early Christian church, so much so that Paul marveled that they were so soon removed unto another gospel.

See YouTube Video

76

more wifey issues. she seen my phone and this web site was op

by unstopableravens in

my son grab my phone and wifey seen this site.

on for a second she was mad.

led into arugment today.

Cold Steel

It's unfortunate when religion becomes an issue in a marriage. To you, you're investigating the Society's teachings in a biblical light. But remember, to her you're endangering both your and her future, and the future of however many children you have and intend to have. I know this may not be what you want to hear, but you may have to just back off and be as happy as you can be as a Jehovah's Witness. The alternative is domestic tension and possible divorce. The question is, can you live and be happy as a JW? Can you enjoy the meetings and the field work? Because let's face it, field work isn't what it was. The JWs that work my area don't even try to get their foot in the door like they did years ago. Just a few days ago two very nicely dressed JWs dropped by, handed me a Watchtower and Awake!, wished me the best and *poof*...were gone. Years ago they would have tried to arrange a Bible study with me!

I'm not like others who think JWs are going to Hell. And if I loved my wife and children, I wouldn't bail out of it just because you had issues with doctrine or the theology posse at Bethel. But doesn't the religion have something to say about honoring one's husband? If your wife is constantly nagging you, making your life miserable and threatening you, such marriages don't bode well for the future, anyway. So if you're looking for a way out, you're on the right track.

If your wife is exceedingly loyal to the church, she may be feeling insecure by your doubts. After all, if you leave the church, you will give up all your chances to be resurrected and you won't get to live with her forever on Earth. Add to that the humiliation of having an apostate husband and you can see she's got a lot to lose, especially if her family are JWs.

65

What strand of Christianity gave birth to WTBTS?

by Band on the Run in

i know about johnathan edwards and william miller being some of the forerunners of the wtbts.

how about much earlier in time?

was there a group during the middle ages or even earlier that preached something similar to the wt doctrine?

Cold Steel

William Miller had such great success in his predictions that the JWs are proud to follow in his footsteps! The JWs, though, are adamant that they're the only true religion although they have no predictive scriptures...even though none of their leaders was called or ordained by God, or was visited by angels or received revelation.

The three basic forms of Christianity today are Catholic, Protestant, and Restorationist. The Catholics consist of the churches which came out of the seven ecumenical councils: Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Orthodox Christians don't like to be put into that category, but I'm using the term as "universalist." The Protestants came out of Catholicism and were part of it. Unlike the Catholics, the Protestants mostly chose to minimize the issue of whether authority in the ministry was necessary for a church to have legitimacy. After all, if the Catholics had it, they were apostates, so the only way they could claim legitimacy was to announce that it wasn't needed. And they reasoned that all Christians held this authority. Luthor, Knox, Calvin and others towed this line.

The Restorationists were those who believed that Christianity couldn't be "reformed" -- that it needed a reboot. It needed to be restored to its pristine biblical purity. Alexander Campbell, who founded the churches of Christ around 1830; Joseph Smith, the prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; Ellen G. White, who was the cornerstone of the Adventist movement, which included the Seventh Day Adventists, Radio Church of God (later just Church of God), founded by the inimitable Herbert W. Armstrong, and various cousins and break-offs; the Watchtower Society of Jehovah's Witnesses in 1881, which like to be classed under the "millennialist restorationist" banner; and the Christian Restoration Association founded in 1922 by Sidney S. Clarke. This group says: "The uniqueness of this group lies in its desire to restore the church of the New Testament." Of all these groups, only two believed that they were called and commissioned of God by revelation to restore the primitive Christian faith; and these were the LDS or "Mormon" movement by Joseph Smith in 1830 and the White Adventist movement by Ellen G. White in 1844.

The Restorationist movement, also known as the Second Great Awakening, mostly believed that Christianity could be restored only by a tenacious study and dogged return to the New Testament scriptures. Yet Campbell, Russell, Clarke and Armstrong all came up with different doctrines they championed; and the two revelationist restoration groups, headed by Smith and White, each had different doctrines allegedly revealed by God.

There's no doubt that Charles T. Russle and the Watchtower church he helped produce, were significantly influenced by the Congregationalist Church. Two beloved practices, disfellowshiping and shunning, both came from that church. But where each congregation was self governing in the Congregationalist Church, the Watchtower group started fairly independent and then started down a long path to consolidation. Is it Protestent or Restorationist? Although it shares a number of doctrines with the Adventists, no one in the Watchtower group ever claimed any revelations, visions or prophecy (unless one counts the repitition of wrong dates). But since it claims to have been "restored" by a careful study of the Bible, as Campbell, Clarke and Armstrong claimed, and since it claims to be God's only true religion, I'd put them in the third group. Spiritually, though, they are Protestant in that he protested just about everything everyone else ever did. My dad once told me he didn't know what Jehovah's Witnesses were for, but that they were against everything! It was an old country joke.

56

A Mormon becomes a JW in the Feb 2013 Watchtower...

by cedars in

glancing through the feb 2013 "public" watchtower edition, an interesting article appears on page 8.. here is the pdf download link.... http://www.jw.org/download/?fileformat=pdf&issue=20130201&output=html&pub=wp&langwritten=e&option=trgchlzrqvnyvrxf&txtcmslang=e.

it's interesting how, in the story, the young man's jw aunt and uncle switch him from mormonism to the jw faith using third-party material (the nov 8, 1995 awake!

article), and he ends up becoming a jw after confirming on the official mormon website that the claims in the awake!

Cold Steel

Depends on how you define "cults," mate.

The Romans considered the first century Christians to be members of a cult and used the term repeatedly in reference to them. They believed them to be secretive, cliquish and disloyal. Later, Nero used them to deflect anger over Rome's burning (and naturally the Romans believed him...we never learn). Cults originally said to be religions that broke off from other religions and added their own distinctive material to them. The Christians came from the Jews and added unusual and distinctive doctrines which now are taken for granted but then viewed as being strange and heretical. Three gods being one, God having a Son who also would be God, the Messiah not being a deliverer, the concept of hell, the virgin birth and so forth. Although the Christians pointed to various passages in the so-called "Old" testament, the Jews didn't buy off on the theology.

The Mormons are also considered to be secretive, cliquish and disloyal during its early days. It also added distinctive material and scripture, introduced newly "revealed" doctrines that many Christians find strange and heretical; and though we point to many Old and New Testament scripture we believe to support our cause (and who doesn't?), many prefer their own doctrines and traditions. And as Christians are discovering more about the Bible to prove its veracity, we Mormons are discovering more about the Book of Mormon that we feel is strong evidence of its veracity.

It's all point of view.

31

Invited to Attend a J W Kangaroo Court Proceeding: Tell Them to: Put the Reason for Requesting Your Presents in Writing Along With Any Alleged Charges of Wrong Doing, So You Can Give it To Your Lawyer.

by frankiespeakin in

by doing this the elders have to contact hq to get further instructions.

in many cases they will think it just not worth the red tape to proceed any further.

unless they concider you a real bad apple or threat that needs to be delt with in which case it should hold them off for a couple of months till they get direction from hq.. the wt is being threatened with law suits, they have to deal with big legal concideration of child molestation and other areas as the public is become less and less tollerant of wacko religions with abusive behavior.

Cold Steel

Two days after I sent Letter 1, I received a call from two the the elders of my congregation. They asked if I were formally disassociating myself. When I replied that I was not, I was invited to appear before them to face charges of apostasy. I sent this letter as a reply to that invitation.

This letter, while very well written, is not legally binding. You may request some of the itemized demands; however, they are not beholden to grant most of them. As far as recording devices, you can probably get around that by checking out some of the electronics websites on the Internet.

Also, please excuse my ignorance, but what are some of the things a member can do that would land them in this sort of situation? And in what way would they be expected to be false witnesses? Isn't that one of the things Christ was subjected to? Would they knowingly manufacture untruths or would they just bend the facts into prevarications?

With the new policy on the veneration of the Governing Body (Peace Be Upon Them), can not the church disfellowship a person legally, morally and theologically for disputing, questioning or showing disrespect towards them? As they see it, doing anything like that to them would be like doing it to the ancient apostles or even the Lord Himself. For example, there are a host of reasons a person might have for rejecting the doctrine that Jesus was the premortal Michael the Archangel or that Jehovah is not the Father, but the Son. Or that blood transfusions are a sin. But now that the policy has changed regarding the GB (PBUT), even disputing them can be regarded as apostasy and sin. Forget the part about them being self professed, self appointed, unordained blind leaders of the blind; they've still got you because of their binding declaration, even though it wasn't sustained or voted upon by the congregations. And I'm not sure, but do they ask you about the GB (PBUT) in their pre-baptismal questions? Do you have to agree to the doctrine of "from God's mouth to their ears"? It's like President Morsi in Egypt declaring his unlimited new powers. It was a declaration, not a proposal!

If it is not a court then it is not a Judicial anything, if it is a court it should act according to the standards laid down in the Human Rights legislation of various countries and by the U.N.

While I understand and sympothize with your sense of injustice over this, I hold the United Nations and other international organizations that infringe on the sovereignty of other nations to be, in themselves, illegal and contemptable. Our freedoms and rights in the U.S Constitution are the acme of justice and human rights, and while I concur that each country has its own standards for human rights, the edicts of the U.N. should never trump or interfere with the standards of other nations. The dictatorships will ignore them anyway. (The U.N. already is trying to trump the Second Amendment rights of Americans with its International Small Arms Treaty, and Obama, who didn't support it during his first term, is widely expected to support it during his second term. The treaty would require signatory nations to implement mandatory gun registration and overwrite state control of firearms. So that's why my negative tilt on this.) Not only that, but the U.N. has corrupted and screwed up everything it's touched since it was implemented. I'd just as soon as keep them out of the picture.

56

A Mormon becomes a JW in the Feb 2013 Watchtower...

by cedars in

glancing through the feb 2013 "public" watchtower edition, an interesting article appears on page 8.. here is the pdf download link.... http://www.jw.org/download/?fileformat=pdf&issue=20130201&output=html&pub=wp&langwritten=e&option=trgchlzrqvnyvrxf&txtcmslang=e.

it's interesting how, in the story, the young man's jw aunt and uncle switch him from mormonism to the jw faith using third-party material (the nov 8, 1995 awake!

article), and he ends up becoming a jw after confirming on the official mormon website that the claims in the awake!

Cold Steel

As a true blue dedicated “Mormon” myself, I have never known of any knowledgeable member leaving the church to join the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Atheists, yes. Agnostics, more so. We have a very complicated theology and, while it clashes at times with the dogmas and the creeds of “traditional” Christianity, it is far more defensible than the, comparatively, superficial theology of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. So I’m always suspicious when I read articles like this. And despite what some of you think, the LDS church does not engage in “mind control” any more or less than any other religion.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses do. As some of you have pointed out, we LDS are free to visit other churches, read religious material from any other church, pursue higher education (which is encouraged) and exercise the priesthood by baptizing our children and our friends, anointing and blessing the sick, blessing the emblems of the Sacrament and so forth. In our Sunday classes, we have a wide latitude in what we say without fear of some “elder” or “overseer” reprimanding or reporting us and there is no snubbing by family members and friends. If it happens, it’s because people are people; the church discourages it. In one of the collected revelations to the church, the Lord discusses the duties of leaders, advising them to “[Reprove] betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy.” In 1963, church leader Hugh B. Brown stated: “Let us be very careful about this matter of reproving, and yet part of our duty is to see that there is no iniquity in the Church. Again I say, let us be careful how we trample on the feelings of our brothers and sisters. Let us lift them and bless them and benefit them...and never be guilty of humiliating them or causing them to think that we do not appreciate their work.”

We also do not publish articles criticizing other churches. Most LDS would read an article like that and become angry, and with good reason. Is that really what Bethel wants? Even when I went to BYU, one of my theology professors spent an entire lecture on the doctrine of soul sleeping. He spent considerable time explaining the doctrine as though he believed it. Then he spent about equal time explaining the other side and finished by explaining that both sides of the debate had merit, and that it was one reason that the Bible could not be interpreted except by the power of prophecy and revelation.

The bottom line is that people can read our doctrine and judge for themselves. We don’t tell our people not to associate with those outside the church or read or listen to the news. They advise against watching “R” movies, but if you do it, no one will reprimand you. In other words there’s a high level of trust. We’re not perfect, but we’re not what our critics say we are any more than what the critics of first century Christianity said they were.

If anyone has any specific questions, feel free to send me a message.

23

So ARE Mormons a cult?

by Found Sheep in

had a short, cuz i cut it off, conversation about mormons today.

she claims to be one.

before i knew she was my big mouth called it a cult.

Cold Steel

I'm a Mormon and can say, definitively, that we aren't a cult by today's standards. We don't exercise unreasonable control over our members, discourage them from higher education, forbid their free intercourse with members of other religions, we don't have a doctrinal snubbing, and we have both traditional doctrine and non-traditional doctrine. We also have a great apologetics arm at BYU.

We believe in the Book of Mormon, we believe in apostles and prophets as did the early saints. We believe they were called, ordained and commissioned to guide the church. We not only believe in life after death, but that we existed as spirits before coming here. We also believe that angels and men are of the same race and that all angels become men, live upon the earth and then return to God. As children of God, we believe that man can be resurrected to personages of glory and might. Also, that all animals and plants existed as spirits before they were made a part of this earth.

Many people who have suffered near death experiences have reported meeting not only people who had died and passed on, but people they knew before coming here. People don't remember their previous lives because of a veil placed over their minds.

BTW, the early Christians were accused of being members of a cult, not by the Jews, but by the Romans. They also were accused of secrecy and, in some cases, being stand offish.

If anyone has any questions on Mormonism, I'll give you straight answers. Just send me a private message.

As for ex-Mormons who say they are snubbed, I can tell you it's not church doctrine nor does the church in the least encourage it. Since we believe that marriage transcends death, many spouses resent it when their husbands or wives renounce their religion and become bitter against it. People are encouraged to make their sacred commitments before entering the temple. We believe in the family unit and when someone leaves, it destroys that unit. The spouse who remains faithful finds it increasingly difficult to live in the church with their children without the husband or wife who bailed on them. That may result in conflict and snubbing, but it's not encouraged by the church.

13

Are you sure you have not spoken to someone about Jehovah or the Bible for at least 15 minutes?

by Calebs Airplane in

how many here have had this conversation before (especially just before the week-long visit by the circuit overseer)?:.

brother irregular, i don't believe we've received your report for last month.

did you turn it in yet?.

Cold Steel

I believe Jesus is nothing more than a hoax cobbled out of some 18 different Gods that themselves were representations of the human soul, the sun, or both. And when I mention Jehovah, it is always that he is some type of tyrant that wants us in absolute enslavement.

That's quite a cynical approach to religion. Many believe that Jesus and Jehovah are one and the same, and that the Father is not Jehovah. Why do you feel that as a historical figure, Jesus is a hoax...a myth? Do you believe the seven churches are fiction, too, or that the author of Revelation wasn't John of Patmos? A lot of people thought Troy and Mycenae were complete fiction, but when there is as much written about someone like Jesus, it's difficult to believe he was mere myth. I'm also impressed by the conversion of Paul, who saw a light and heard a voice. We do know that many of Christ's apostles, save John, died horrible deaths rather than renounce him, including Paul. Peter, Jesus' chief apostle, was condemned to death for not renouncing him and even requested being crucified upside down, as he didn't feel worthy to be crucified right side up, as Jesus had been.

When people so readily give their lives for their beliefs, it impresses me. Not the kooks who strap bombs to themselves, but people who preach as the apostles did, were persecuted and died bravely. The Christians also escaped the destruction of Jerusalem because Jesus had prophesied it, and they had been told by revelation to flee the city. Many of them went to Pella and other cities to the north and were saved from the city's destruction. Jesus also prophesied the destruction of the temple, and even though Titus gave strict orders that it be saved, one soldier threw a firebrand into one of the windows. Both the Jews and the Romans then ceased fighting there and together they tried to put out the flames. But it burned anyway. Jesus also foretold the dispersion of Judah from their land and also their restoration to that land in the latter days.

4

S.Q.R.R.R LESSON FOR AWAKENING JW'S AND LURKERS

by DATA-DOG in

survey.

question.

read.

Cold Steel

Which is worse, being a Heathen or being a Pagan? I'd rather be a Pagan, but I know nothing about motorcycles...and I hate beards and cheap beer.