i'm quizzing all my sources for the ultimate "silver-bullet" question for a jw at your door.
the best questions will be used in a video series on watchtower comments.
the goal is to help people respond to jws.. the question must be direct and designed to open the jw mind, not necessarily to win an argument.. i would prefer to avoid doctrinal debate such as trinity, cross, even thiest/athiest subjects.
Or along the same lines of
The WTS/FDS/GB teaches that a Christian (jw) cannot store their blood to be transfused later. Why then is it a conscience matter for a jw to use hemoglobin-based products made out of expired stored human and animal blood?
ask: If blood is to be poured out onto the ground, how can blood fractions be scripturally obtained?
i'm quizzing all my sources for the ultimate "silver-bullet" question for a jw at your door.
the best questions will be used in a video series on watchtower comments.
the goal is to help people respond to jws.. the question must be direct and designed to open the jw mind, not necessarily to win an argument.. i would prefer to avoid doctrinal debate such as trinity, cross, even thiest/athiest subjects.
Q. (thinking blood issue) Would it be right to break one of God's explicit laws in order to save a life?
A. Of course not!
Then refer to the Lord Jesus Christ's view on the same question to the Pharisees (Mark 3): "is it right to save a life on the sabbath?"
looking to try something a little different with my ongoing campaigns to free minds from the wt.. .
if this was sent to a few thousand jw's do you think any would respond?
i'll check back in tonight and see if anyone has any thoughts on this.. .
Nope. Sorry to be negative, but here's how it will go:
Hmmm, what's this?
Do you honestly think a loving God would kill over 6 billion people, and spare only 6 million, because they wouldn't serve him?
Yes, of course, it's what the bible says, God is the judge, and he will only kill the wicked and the righteous will live in paradise
Would your conscience allow YOU to do that, if you were the all powerful creator?
It's not up to me mate, anyway, where's this going? I bet it's that apostate literature I've been warned about
If you wouldn't have the heart to kill all those people, old men and women, babies and young children, do you honestly think a loving God would?
I already told you, didn't I? Yeah, this is definitely apostate literature, bye bye
most of my family have been members since the early 1970's.they attend 3 meetings per week,fly or drive to summer assemblies,preach the average 10 hours per month,and read the same boring watchtower magazine week after week.
the congregation has lost nearly all the young teens,many have quit attending all the meetings,some divorced,and some members just going thru the motions.
i'm never going to question them on why they still remain members but shouldn't all the promises of "this generation never dying" make them question the wts.... just a little?
Wobble said:
I believe you have it spot on,but how can we break through that mindset,I have nearly all my close family,and some dear friends still"in". I know this has been discussed but how do we help them to open their eyes and hearts?
From my experience so far, and I expect yours too, even those that love and trust us will recoil at any attempt to tell them the truth. They are so comfortable in, and comforted by, their beliefs that it feels almost unkind to try to unplug them. Really, change can only come from within them themselves, and at a time when they're ready for it, when they realise that it is not wrong (and not too painful) to face up to the possibility that they've been misled. A turning point for my wife was when she suddenly became conscious of the fact that her main reason for going to meetings and on the ministry was guilt, and that that could not be the right motive for serving God. But it has not been easy for her and we're not free yet. Like you we have family still 'in', and we are treading very carefully.
I know that feeling of helplessness. We want a quick fix. But I think the most we can do is to be non-confrontational, plant a little seed, maybe a question or a piece of scriptual information which may get them to think. Other than that, love them and always be there for them. I don't know what else we can do.
i'm reading the public edition of watchtower for september and it says that "jehovah" means "he causes to become".
i've never seen this before... is this the jw's definition of the tetragrammaton?
.
Isn't 'He Causes to Become' simply another way of saying Creator?
I said this at a group study once. Went down like a lead balloon then as well.
i have never until a few days ago been able to reconcile the 70 year prophecy with the 587/6 bce date for jerusalems destruction.
although a post was about this in a previous thread by a@g , i would like to explore this more.. when the 70 years are applied to babylonian rule, rather than the jewish exile everything seems to make sense.. to ellaborate for those who haven't come across it, this is how 587/6 does match the 70 year prophecy.. i hope a@g doesn't mind but i have cut and paste his post:-.
the 587 date does match the bible.... (jeremiah 25:11) 11 and all this land must become a devastated place, an object of astonishment, and these nations will have to serve the king of babylon seventy years.".
So scholar, the debate is between "Celebrated WT scholars" and blind "apostates and higher critics".
Well, I'm neither. Please prove to me that the year 537 BCE is a scriptual date. Prove to me scriptually that the Jews could not, say, have returned to Israel in 536 BCE or 535 BCE.
Unless you can do that you are disqualified because you have an internally inconsistent argument because you claim to rely solely on scripture.
i have never until a few days ago been able to reconcile the 70 year prophecy with the 587/6 bce date for jerusalems destruction.
although a post was about this in a previous thread by a@g , i would like to explore this more.. when the 70 years are applied to babylonian rule, rather than the jewish exile everything seems to make sense.. to ellaborate for those who haven't come across it, this is how 587/6 does match the 70 year prophecy.. i hope a@g doesn't mind but i have cut and paste his post:-.
the 587 date does match the bible.... (jeremiah 25:11) 11 and all this land must become a devastated place, an object of astonishment, and these nations will have to serve the king of babylon seventy years.".
Hamilcarr,
No one is saying 539 BCE is irrefutably correct, just as well attested as it gets historically. Compare to the crucial date (for JWs) of 537 BCE, which as far as I can tell is completely unattested.
i have never until a few days ago been able to reconcile the 70 year prophecy with the 587/6 bce date for jerusalems destruction.
although a post was about this in a previous thread by a@g , i would like to explore this more.. when the 70 years are applied to babylonian rule, rather than the jewish exile everything seems to make sense.. to ellaborate for those who haven't come across it, this is how 587/6 does match the 70 year prophecy.. i hope a@g doesn't mind but i have cut and paste his post:-.
the 587 date does match the bible.... (jeremiah 25:11) 11 and all this land must become a devastated place, an object of astonishment, and these nations will have to serve the king of babylon seventy years.".
"The bible contains no dates whatsoever. All dates used are human conjectures."
The bible gives us relative dates, these are perfectly good if you can agree an absolute date to relate them to, and most seem to agree that 539 is such a date. But there is no scriptual two year offset from 539 that allows a dogmatic assertion that 537 is the exact date that the Jews returned to Israel.
i have never until a few days ago been able to reconcile the 70 year prophecy with the 587/6 bce date for jerusalems destruction.
although a post was about this in a previous thread by a@g , i would like to explore this more.. when the 70 years are applied to babylonian rule, rather than the jewish exile everything seems to make sense.. to ellaborate for those who haven't come across it, this is how 587/6 does match the 70 year prophecy.. i hope a@g doesn't mind but i have cut and paste his post:-.
the 587 date does match the bible.... (jeremiah 25:11) 11 and all this land must become a devastated place, an object of astonishment, and these nations will have to serve the king of babylon seventy years.".
Scholar said:
"the Return in 537 BCE as also attested by all of the OT and Josephus."
Really? As far as I know the OT does not attest to 537 BCE in any way, it's just a made-up date. All the OT tells us is that the Jews returned sometime after the secularly established date of 539 BCE. As far as I can tell 607 was the date C T Russell wanted from the bible in order to match up with his pyramid inches (something now considered demonic) to get to the year 1914 as the date of armageddon, and 607-70=537. But in the interest of finding at least some corroboration for the 537 date I'd be interested to hear how Josephus supports it, perhaps you could supply the attestation.
could anybody please shed light on this for me.
why did the jews always celebrate 'after sundown'.
why did everything happen 'after sundown'... is it based on the torah alone, or on tradition?
Thanks JCanon, I'd come to pretty much the same conclusion myself about passover, as based on the scriptures. My take on it is that Jesus died on the afternoon of Nisan 14th at exactly the same time as the passover lambs were being slaughtered (according to the type), therefore the 'passover' meal observed by Jesus cannot possibly have been the lamb-and-bitter-greens passover meal (John more or less confirms this). I've not been able to rationalise this with the other gospel accounts, other than to think that they report a (pre) passover meal, not the passover meal. But as well as the seeming gospel discrepancy, that raises uncomfortable questions for JWs, for example, if it's not the passover meal, then is it right to be dogmatic about how often it is observed.
