Posts by thomas15

16

The age of the Earth - Golden Age 1921

by undercover in

from time to time a discussion will pop up about what the society has taught in the past in regards to the age of the earth.

currently they teach the planet itself, as a mass, possibly existed for millions and millions of years, thus agreeing with science findings about the age of the earth.

notice the following quote s from the watchtower.org site:.

thomas15

Na na na naaa na,

My God is better than your god because my God is powerful enough to create everything by simply speaking the word and in six (24 hour) time blocks. Evening, morning-the first day. He is also able to instruct his inspired writers to use the right word and language that is very easy to understand. But you god is not able to instruct his gospel writers to use a word or words that convey the exact amount of time it took him to create everything.

My Savior is also better than your savior because when my Savior wanted to feed 5000 people, he spoke the word and right then and there he created 5000+ fishes and loaves (MREs-meals ready to eat) that had the appearence of age that they didn't have.

My God is an awsome God I want you to know.

178

Why is Jesus kept side stage ?

by iknowall558 in

john 5 :39 ' 40 "you study the scriptures, because you think that in them you will find eternal life.

and these very scriptures speak about me!

yet you are not willing to come to me in order to have life.

thomas15

Dear Reniaa,

I do feel sorry for you taking all these hits but I assume you are an adult so I want to ask you a few questions. The WT uses verses in Isaiah 43:10 "You are my witnesses" declares the LORD. and so on. This is the WT theme. It also mentions in vs. 3 that the LORD is the Savior, and vs. 10 again that there is no other God except the LORD. This you probably already know.

The Christian New Testament reads Acts 1:8 (Jesus speaking)...."and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth."

Unless I'm really stupid, which is a real possibility, Christians are to be witnessing the name of Jesus, that's our job. But you disagree right?

In Luke we read that 2:11 "For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord"

Who is the savior? according to the New Testament, the Christian Savior is Jesus, according to Isaiah 43:3 it is Jehovah. How can there be one God, who is the savior and two (2) saviors if Jehovah and Jesus are both saviors?

In Matthew 28:17 we read "And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

? In this passage, how much authority does Jesus have? My reading is states that he has it all. What is left for Jehovah after Jesus gets all of it?

? Again, in the above passage-- the deciples worshiped Jesus, but some doubted. The normal reading of this would indicate that some of those present doubted that Jesus was worthy of worship. If he was in fact not worthy, why didn't the New Testament writer tell us so? In light of Rev. 22 where John incorrectly worships an angel, he is promptly corrected. Why not here?

? Christians, according to Matthew 28:19 are to be baptised in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit. I don't see anything else Christians are to be baptized into, do you? How can the One True God, who is by His own admission a jealous God, share His Glory, Honor, Authority and Power with anything else but the One True God?

22

How To Choose the Best Translation of the Bible; Guess Which One Wins?

by passwordprotected in

http://watchtower.org/e/20080501a/article_01.htm.

of course, they fail to mention adding word like [other], [union] and the name jehovah to the inspired text.. tut, tut, more intellectual dishonest from the "faithful and discreet" slave who never runs ahead of jehovah..

thomas15

Grace= God giving me what I do not deserve.

Mercy= God not giving me what I do deserve.

Not bad for a non-JW?

BTW, the WT article linked in the OP regarding how to select a good translation of the Bible. A quote "The New World Translation has been printed in whole or in part in more than 60 languages, with a total printing of more than 145,000,000 copies"!

The Gideons (an independant para-church group) gives out free of charge 78,000,000 Bibles per year in 200 languages. So, it takes the Gideons 1.78 years to distribute as many Bibles as the WT has published in 59 years. I have seen estimates that the NIV still sells at retail 20,000,000 per year and this is an English translation.

12

In case you haven't been to a meeting in years........things haven't changed!

by RULES & REGULATIONS in

i went to sunday's talk and watchtower meeting.

sorry to report..............nothing has changed!.

i walked in and as usual elders are talking with fellow elders.

thomas15

The Sunday Talk, who writes this , the WT or the person giving the talk?

250

Jesus not crucified on torture stake. Impossible!

by sacolton in

unwittingly the germans, during wwii, they experimented with many, many ways for killing people, efficiently and quickly.

their records show that when a person is suspended with their hands over their head, as they would be on the jw "torture stake," they can survive for approximately one hour.

if their feet are tied down, as well, the time is reduced to about 15 minutes.. .

thomas15

Reniaa,

tenyearsafter makes a very good point but it needs to be simplified. OK, I accept the challange.

All you have to do is reenact the act in a scientific way. Take a full size human dummy and the Biblical discription of the event. In order to hold the body weight, accomodate the length of the body with arms held high, the sign above and say 1 or 2 feet of timber in the ground. Then it must be thick enough to support the body weight and receive the nails without splitting. And also, it has to be robust enough to NOT FAIL since the Romans would not tolerate a botched execution any more than we would today.

My calculations indicate a 12 or 13 foot timber that is 6" x 6"

Go the the lumber store and (try to) pick up a 12 foot long 6X6. Two healthy strong men will struggle to pick this lumber up.

There is no way Jesus or anyone else for that matter carried his cross to the execution site if it was just a stake. It is impossible.

31

The emphasis is on Jesus, even in the New World Translation

by JimmyPage in

this was a point from "in search of christian freedom" that i really appreciated.

in the new world translation the name "jesus" appears in the christian greek scriptures 912 times.

compare that to "jehovah" which appears (or has been inserted) 237 times.

thomas15

Narkissos, exactly right my friend, well said.

Jesus said wherever two or more are gathered in my name, I'm there in the midst of them. If you and your brother are gathered in Jesus name in Europe and my brother and I are gathered together in Jesus name in Pennsylvania, both at the same exact time, how can Jesus be in the midst of both of us unless he is God in the flesh?

Simple, because through him all things were created that were created.

Have a great day.

Tom

31

The emphasis is on Jesus, even in the New World Translation

by JimmyPage in

this was a point from "in search of christian freedom" that i really appreciated.

in the new world translation the name "jesus" appears in the christian greek scriptures 912 times.

compare that to "jehovah" which appears (or has been inserted) 237 times.

thomas15

Thank you for the kind words. Passwordprotected, I appreciate your firm stand for the Jesus of the Bible. Jimmy, I want you to know that there is a person out there of whom you have never met and don't know, but I remember you and that other strange dude oompah in my prayers all the time.

As I mentioned above, I have many Bibles. For what it is worth, When I'm really studying the word, I use the NIV and the NASB. For late night reading for enjoyment and my carry to church version is the NKJV. When I'm looking for a challange, I grab the KJV, the Tyndale New Testament or the Geneva Bible.

My reason for mentioning this and I'm again not trying to hijack this thread is the the NIV is very clear and quite accurate. The NASB is accurate but not as clear. One negative of the NIV is since it is a new translation from the orignial hebrew and greek into 20th century english, it looses some of it's ability for the reader to visualize expression, emotion, figures of speach, details of the language. But still, with the NIV (and I highly recommend it), you can tell the differences between the different styles of the human authors of the Bible although it is not as eloquent and expressive as say the NKJV.

However, the beauty and poetry of the Bible is lost in the NWT as well as the different styles of the writers. It's to me like there is only one human author Genesis to the maps. This alone makes reading the NWT a real chore, very boring.

I think the awkward style and poor word choices used in the NWT are actually on purpose to discourage JWs from really digging into the word.

Now, getting this thread back on track, I'm doing a study of the book of Philippians. I don't have the exact count handy, but ther are about 25 refrences to Jehovah in Philippians, and I think 52 refrences to Jesus, a 2 to 1 ratio. The book starts out in vs. 1: Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus That's what I do personally, I serve the Lord Jesus because that is what the Bible teaches.

You men are amazing to me. I don't know how you were able to remove yourselves from this organization and keep your sense of humor and balance.

Tom

31

The emphasis is on Jesus, even in the New World Translation

by JimmyPage in

this was a point from "in search of christian freedom" that i really appreciated.

in the new world translation the name "jesus" appears in the christian greek scriptures 912 times.

compare that to "jehovah" which appears (or has been inserted) 237 times.

thomas15

JimmyPage,

"To me, that all tells me the entire thrust of the Bible is about the importance of God's son".

You my friend, have spoken a great truth. I couldn't agree with you more.

As I have mentioned before and will continue to because I want to be totally honest with everyone on this board, I have never been a JW. Rather I'm an Evangelical Conservative Born Again Bible Believer. For some odd reason, I enjoy studying Protestant theology and comparative faith issues like Roman Catholic and WT theology. I find it very interesting and helpful in defining my personal theology.

So, for that reason I have some WT literature including a copy of the NWT. This volume literally gets lost in my collection of Bibles and New Testaments as I have over 100 different translations, versions, editions and so forth. When I think about the value of the NWT, a story comes to mind.

My wife and I moved into our first house in 1985. We had a small yard with no trees. Sue, my wife, planted a sapling willow tree. This species grows very fast and in a few years we had a large tree with a fat trunk. Our kids wanted a swimming pool and the only logical place to locate one was right by the tree so I had to cut it down.

Most of the tree fell to the saw very quickly. But the trunk, with it's spider-web root system, that was a project. With summer fast approaching I'm out there hacking away at the roots and thinking I would never get this tree out of the ground. It literally took me 4 weekends to get it out and I remember thinking that if all I had to chop this tree down with was a pocket knife, then it could be done, it just depended on how much effort and time I was willing to spend. When I finally severed the last of the attached roots, a simple shove pushed the whole trunk down onto it's side. Sucess came but only after much effort and patience.

And so it is with the NWT. The Gospel message is in there but it is like using a pocket knife to chop down a great tree. It's just not the best tool for the job. It has a small dull blade, a thin uncomfortable handle, a built in sense of hopelessness and it's not the real McCoy, rather it is a knock-off made by someone who doesn't really know carving tools.

I didn't mean to hijack this thread but I wanted you to know Jimmy that you have in my opinion spoken a great truth. Amazing how simple that truth is, isn't it?

6

Wanna bet?

by John Doe in

jw
friends

i'll wager $1,000,000 us dollars that you can not accurately predict the gender of the us president for the 2098 elections.

any takers?

.

thomas15

Presidental elections will be held 2096 and 2100.

4

Organized or unorganized?

by Wicaugen in

a little background.. i've been stumbling with religion over the past year, making a change from agnostic to quasi-christian during the time period, journeying with many jehovah's witnesses, a few baptists, and even two families of evangelicals.. anyway, one of the serious problems i have with the jw's is following the 'governing body'.

you understand, of course.

but i have a more urgent question.

thomas15

Wicaugen,

I could go into this long detailed expose on the different kinds of church governments and the various misconceptions of them. But that is not really what I think you are asking. I think you want to know how does the organized religious body relate to the belief or faith system?

I personally do not see membership in a church group as a requirement to be a servant of the Lord mentioned in the Bible. In my opinion, and I'm not trying to mock anyone's faith, but the Christianity of the New Testament is, to my understanding a personal faith. Yes, there are churches in the New Testament, but what is their stated purpose? A pooling of resources, a missionary device, a teaching resource among other things. But saving faith always seems to me to be between the believer and God through Jesus.

My older sister is a member of an old, very large very well organized church group of Christendom. If I say to her anything critical of the churches teaching, their leaders or their theology, all rational thinking stops. It doesn't matter how much Scripture I use to make my point, she is going to be insulted and totally convinced that I'm somehow misusing Scripture. In short, her faith is in the church she belongs to, not the actual word and teaching of God: The Bible.

Every Christian or Quasi-Christian group uses the Bible to back up their theology. The question is are they handling the Scriptures in the proper way and how do you determine if they are handling them properly? Good question, but the central focus should be on Christ and Him Crucified. If you find a teaching that troubles you after a personal study of the Bible on the subject and you cannot question it without suffering at the hand of the leadership then something is not right. In my opinion, based on a study of the Bible, rituals and ceremony do not save, nor does knowledge. However, faith and trust in the risen Christ does.