Posts by Liza

35

When is it 'going too far'?

by nekone041 in

i'm new to the forum (in fact, i just joined about 10 minutes before starting this post), and am a new jw (i began learning and attending meetings since about november of '06).

i have a question involving my girlfriend and i, and i'm hoping to find a moral answer.

my girlfriend and i fell in love two summers ago, and we're still pretty young (we're turning 17 this year).

I'm not going to bet my salvation on it now, but there are some who say that Greek word for "fornication" really means "having sex with a prostitute" or "sex without love" or something like that, not "unclean acts" like the WTS says. And in biblical times, just about everyone was bethrothed, so in a sense everybody was married, hence why the Bible explicitly condems adultery rather than fornication. I dunno, I should research this more, and you are welcome to do so yourself, but if you are convinced of this, the WTS will not let you be.

But greendawn gave an excellent point, I've always wondered about that too. Dosen't the WTS condemn the government, yet say that the approval of two people having sex should be by the government.

57

Why a paradise earth is so appealing to JWs?

by Lady Lee in

why a paradise earth is so appealing to jws?.

well no one can say they look around at the problems today and can say they like everything they see.

so a nice clean paradise world would be pretty great.

Liza

I set there puzzled though, he was still smiling, so I asked, "are you not happy right now though, working on this garden, you look happy?" He laughed, "Do you know what I am doing? I am cutting each blade of grass one at a time to pass the time, I am so bored I spent 50,000 years cutting this grass over and over and over again. Because there is just nothing I haven't done, nothing I have not seen, no conversation I have not covered. We don't even speak to one another anymore, as we all know each others thoughts so well. We end each others sentences, and even tell each others stories. I sometimes don't know what stories are mine, and what stories are the ones I heard a million times before. It is all just done over and over again, nothing new."

"But you are smiling though," I said with a confused tone.

He set up again, "Well recently one of the brothers located something we never cleaned up in South America, in which there was a calender that had a time line as to when the sun would burn out and destroy the earth. It was a great day of excitement and news traveled quickly, we all celebrated the news that soon we would get a second chance to die and get out of this promised eternal life of paradise."

Heh, I've actaully given that a thought, maybe because I have a fascination of vampires(ironically I think my JW teaches may have led to it) cause this always comes up in sappy vampire novels.

Though the thought of total non-existance is quite frightening to me, I admit. Probably because I am one of those people that I fall asleep on the bed and 1 second later it's morning, thought that really does not happen, at least it seems that way.

If there is indeed an afterlife, which I could accept, then maybe our notion of time would be far diffrent from the mortal world. I mean, wouldn't God himself and the angels feel this way? Maybe they percieve time more statically than the way time passes like a train here on Earth. Or maybe it's like the Trafaldamorians in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five.

61

Did God ever Exist?

by found-my-way in

reading so many posts on atheism which is the belief that there is no god, and reading comments from creationists made me ponder if there was an alternate reason for our existence.. if god is up there, why does he permit suffering?

if i were god, i wouldn't of let it happen in the first place, these are my children, why would i let them suffer?

maybe i am influenced by my creationist upbringing and beliefs while a jw, because i find it hard to wrap my brain around the idea that everything came from nothing.

Liza

That idea reminds me of the story of Tiamat. Tiamat was some goddess turned dragon (the four headed D&D depiction of tiamat is made up by them, the believed Tiamat looked more like a giant winged lion) who got slaughtered and then the universe was created with her guts.

116

Convince me

by Liza in

i am highly considering becoming a jehovah's witness.

i have been raised in the congregration, but left it when i was a child because my mom left too, but we still retatined the core belifs including the ressurection and the blasphemous pagan influence on mainstream churches.

my mom has recently returned to the congregation, and it has helped her a lot.

Liza

Hmmm Bebu, that's good. I found a link there on the quest page about "the JW doctrines vs. what the Bible really says", I will look into it, as well as the trasncipt, if it's true then that is hard evidence for me
then.

If salvation is through Jesus, then if the Bible is true this is a very serious matter.

Also, some JWs might claim that "But this is man's interpretation", well the governing body is also men too.

Something I'd also like to put in:

People have always have sexual desires. For the JW, such desires ought to be repressed, and can be repressed, even homosexuality, through "spiritual food", prayer, and developing a relationship with Jehovah. But if this is true, then why are even elders molesting kids like Catholic preists, and I've heard that many JWs marry early, like 18-21, becuase they really really are attracted to someone else and know they can only get into that person's pants by marrying them. This also happens to Mormons too. Then again young people haven't been in the congregation as long as thier parents(if thero parents were born into it too).

Now as for propagada, maybe I admit I've seen it in the Watchtower. There was an article I've read regarding the prodigal son and teens who left the congregation. All of the teens mentioned got themselves involved in drugs, crime, and promiscuity. Afterwards their life became a hellhole and they returned to the Kingdom Hall. Now, I have left the JWs for a long time, but none of this happened to me, I did have some bouts of deppression but those never resulted in sniffing cocaine or stealing. I did however kept some things in mind(no sex, drugs, holidays, looking at porn, obey the 10 commandments, be a good person, but that was it. I still watched R rated movies, cussed, read sci-fi and fantasy books(no not the naughty fatnasy kind), and played violent video games, things that if I am baptized I would certainly get in trouble).

I am going to have a talk with the Elders soon. I ceratinly have a lot of questions to ask them.

116

Convince me

by Liza in

i am highly considering becoming a jehovah's witness.

i have been raised in the congregration, but left it when i was a child because my mom left too, but we still retatined the core belifs including the ressurection and the blasphemous pagan influence on mainstream churches.

my mom has recently returned to the congregation, and it has helped her a lot.

Liza

Okay sounds like a good point, as for you Arthur, I'll do it, sounds lengthy but this task on itself will be lengthy, and wherever I land, I hope Yaweh will spare me and understand if I dive into the wrong path.

But here is something I found, thanks to the JW facts website:

Here is from: http://bible.cc/1_corinthians/15-22.htm

NASB: For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive
GWT: As everyone dies because of Adam, so also everyone will be made alive because of Christ.
BBE: For as in Adam death comes to all, so in Christ will all come back to life.

NWT has it as:

For just as in Adam all are dying, so also in the Christ all will be made alive.

How did die become dying? Then again this may not mean anything other than "scratching the surface".

But as for holidays I still won't go thorugh the trouble of praising pagan deities.
And neither have I made my final decision.

The blood thing, for me is not important, there are blood substitutes available.

Now, the whole Lord thing I might take. I became a tad suspicious of this long ago because in the comminity college I attend there are a lot of "nondenominational Christians" asking people to study the bible with them. The New Testament they had used "Lord".

However I still haven't seen something truely damming.

Now though I have seen, even in NWT something about the other sheep being in heaven. However, what about the concept of the soul? I heard it's a pagan idea that the soul is separate from the body. The word used in the scriptures the congregation claims is "psyche" which means "breath" or "life"?

116

Convince me

by Liza in

i am highly considering becoming a jehovah's witness.

i have been raised in the congregration, but left it when i was a child because my mom left too, but we still retatined the core belifs including the ressurection and the blasphemous pagan influence on mainstream churches.

my mom has recently returned to the congregation, and it has helped her a lot.

Liza

Actaully I think I mistyped it, I meant to say Bible verses, as in Bible verses that deviate a lot from the NWT.

So does Yaweh not appear in the original Bible? How come in does in some non NWT versions in the Online Parrallel Bible?

116

Convince me

by Liza in

i am highly considering becoming a jehovah's witness.

i have been raised in the congregration, but left it when i was a child because my mom left too, but we still retatined the core belifs including the ressurection and the blasphemous pagan influence on mainstream churches.

my mom has recently returned to the congregation, and it has helped her a lot.

Liza

Yes I am ignorant, remember this is the only religious group I have really known.

Enlighten me.

116

Convince me

by Liza in

i am highly considering becoming a jehovah's witness.

i have been raised in the congregration, but left it when i was a child because my mom left too, but we still retatined the core belifs including the ressurection and the blasphemous pagan influence on mainstream churches.

my mom has recently returned to the congregation, and it has helped her a lot.

Liza

I am still going to be rather neutral here.

Okay, I just came back from a JW meeting this morning.

-I noticed something funny. The sisters I spoke to said that there are two types of ressurections: The ressurection of the rightous and the ressurection of judgement. Yet in today's meeting it seemed like only the "righteous" would be ressurected. They point to a verse in Proverbs stating that "who will reside in Jehovah's tent?" and that only the righteous will. I think it's because if they emphasise this point it would be like "Then what's the point?" and it is said that the JW will teach the unrighteous for 1000 years.

But here are some things I'd like to ask:

-That God will commit a massive holocaust? Well didn't he do that when bringing Noah's flood? And dosent' the traditional view of the Apocalypse hold this belief?

-I think there's more to Jesus than just having faith in Jesus. Afterall don't more mainstream churches hold almost identical views as the JW to immorality? (Hence the internet joke: "Every time you mastrubate, God kills a kitten")

-Where in the Bible does it support a Holy Trinity? Don't pagan religons also have them? How can Jesus be on Earth when God reacted to his death? (with an earthquake)

-What about the pictures of the Hebrew text in the "Insight" book that show Jehovah's name?

However:

-I think you do have a point that it's because it's the faith I've been raised in.

-Since I am not baptized, maybe that's why I am not experiencing the awful things people talk about here. It distrubs me that even Bethel members and elders have become apostates.

-Are there any Bible versions that question the validity of the NWT?

116

Convince me

by Liza in

i am highly considering becoming a jehovah's witness.

i have been raised in the congregration, but left it when i was a child because my mom left too, but we still retatined the core belifs including the ressurection and the blasphemous pagan influence on mainstream churches.

my mom has recently returned to the congregation, and it has helped her a lot.

Liza

Woah, I didn't know you guys would respond so quickly! Thanks heh.

I think to get to know Jehovah, I decided to take a "spiritual journey". I have always been taught it is best to look at both sides of things. In fact the very sheep metaphor used by JWs and "training our thinking" creeps me out all the time. This though isn't the end of that journey, it is the mere begining :3.

So, I have read all your replies, and here's my request: Is there a website that pits the NWT Bible agaisnt a thoughougly translated Hebrew\Greek to plain english Bible? Even before I found this website I wanted to find a third party Bible, or perhaps many of them.

Oh and I found this:
http://ewatchman-exposed.co.uk/research/read.php?t=2453&reply=10#msg10

116

Convince me

by Liza in

i am highly considering becoming a jehovah's witness.

i have been raised in the congregration, but left it when i was a child because my mom left too, but we still retatined the core belifs including the ressurection and the blasphemous pagan influence on mainstream churches.

my mom has recently returned to the congregation, and it has helped her a lot.

Liza

I am highly considering becoming a Jehovah's Witness. I have been raised in the congregration, but left it when I was a child because my mom left too, but we still retatined the core belifs including the ressurection and the blasphemous pagan influence on mainstream churches. My mom has recently returned to the congregation, and it has helped her a lot. She used to be very erratic and had bouts of severe depression and even suicidal thoughts, she is in much better control of herself now. I am also looking at my secular practices that have developed over the years and wondering if Jehovah dissaproves with them. It is nothing truely bad, but still.

But why did I come here? Of course before I make a decision, I must always look at both sides of the issue, because there will always be bias if I look on one side only.

However stumbling in this forum has not convinced me not to go, many of your reasons to reject the congregation don't hold water.

-So what if C.T Russel was a freemason and dabbled in the occult? Studying the bible may have made him change his ways. Afterall lots of changes to rid the congregation of pagan influence have continued past his death. Jehovah's Witnessses used to use the cross as a symbol, and celebrate holidays and birthdays. But upon discovering that holidays and birthdays originated as pagan celebrations to honor certain false dieties have stopped. The cross is also a pagan derived symbol, and so is the "Holy" Trinity which can be traced from ancient Egyptian and Chinese cults. The only thing that would concern me, is if occult dabbling has effected his interpretation of the Bible.

-Watchtower is a pagan symbol? Please. Watchtowers were used by the Isrealites to watch out for incoming enemies. Similarly, the Watchtower magazine helps strengthen the faith of those who find the truth against it's enimies.

-The idea that the ressurection is "too good to be true" or is "nonsense" is a mere opinion. For one thing Jehovah's Witnesses don't believe that only they would be saved. Other mainstream churches think they are the only ones that will be saved. Most of the moral restrictions are on the 144,000.

-The true religion does not preach hate, only hate to what is bad, but not who is bad. Other mainstream churches preach hate toward muslims and gays. Don't forget the Spanish Inquisition and the Crusades. They did not listen to "Thou shall not murder".

-If people are going to go to heaven and hell when they die, how come even mainstream church bibles always speak of a ressurection too? How come even Jews and Muslims recognize that a new paradise will come to Earth?

-How can Jesus be god if even he himself said he was the Son of God?

-Jehovah's Witnesses use an edition of the Bible that is translated directly from Hebrew and Greek to modern English. Other churches use one that has been courrupted through centuries of Catholic papacy and censorship.

-Jehovah's Witnesses always quote the Bible to back of their belifs.

-Much of Jehovah's morals can have secular benifits, for they are his wisdom. For example, it has been discovered that condoms aren't very effective when it comes to AIDS.

-The congregation is supposed to be based off the the pre-Catholic Christians.

-Even my Catholic relatives recognize that the last days are comming, since a day for God can be a very long time for humans, it may be centuries till the New System comes. The signs are there, the feet of clay and iron that is the last empire. That last empire being the US, and Republicans being iron and Democrats being clay. The blashpemous unity of church and state being represented by the whore that rides the wild beast. And a grea tribulation that may come, and think that maybe the Bush Administration may have something to do with it. Also that in 1914 WWI started, and an event in the middle east there was triggered whose effects still occur today with the constant chaos of the middle east.

-------------

However I also have my own doubts:

-I do not think that humans have been here a mere 6,000 years. I think for example that Noah's flood may have happened 10-18,000 years ago and have triggered the ice age.

-During a convention when I was about eight years old, I heard about a brother whose mother was sick in the hospital. He and his wife prayed to Jehovah God, and later on his mother got better. Is this a miracle? If so then the congregation has stated before that miracles would no longer happen and any such "miracles" are works of demons and Satan to misguide people from the truth. But Jehovah may have just given his mother the strength to get better.

-I think that, just the way that children can make up wild fantasies and superstions, pagan cults and belifs may not have been entirely inspired by satan. Though they may have been perpetuated by satan to stray the practitioners from the truth. Rather such beliefs were formed by people searching for explanations and spirituality.

-Sometimes my faith in a creation is sometimes blurred when I see the similarities between monkeys and humans. For one I may be a girl but I am also quite hairy. My cousin has a pet monkey and when I went to visit him I almost viewed the monkey as not just looking but behaving very human like.

-The greek words may be misinterpreted or "lost in translation"

-I think that my secular experiences by themselves have made me a better person. And that suffering can indeed improve some and thier outlook in life. Though many people have been reforned by becoming Jehovah's Witnesses, so have people in mainstream churches and even spiritual organizations like Kabbalah.

-If I keep fearing Jehovah all the time, I don't think I will be happy. I have been told that Satan wants us to see God as a totalitarian dictator, but isn't the congregation's constant injection of fear just this?

-The congregation says that homosexuality is unatural. But then why do animals do it too? But then again animals don't always mate for life either.

-I have heard rumors about a "cult of Mithras". That the story of Jesus was inspired by a greek sun god named Mirthras who also raised the dead, healed the sick, and "walked on water" like the sun, and was "the light of the world". But some say that it was many years after Jesus and was inspired by Jesus instead of the other way around. The Jehovah's Witness publication of "Mankind's search for God" says that "Why would people risk their lives and stand firm against something false?" in response to this speculation.

-What defines a marriage? Isn't a commited relationship enough? Doesn't legally married mean getting a marraige licesce from of all organizations...the GOVERNEMENT?

-Why can't I love Jehovah my own way? I want to become a psycology researcher\fiction writer\illustrator when I grow odler and get out of college. But I think my work will promote love toward God and his wisdom.

Heh.