Posts by garyneal

34

My first time in the Kingdom Hall

by leslieUsry in

jw
friends

i am going for the first time to a local kingdom hall.

i seem to have the same ideas as the jehovah's witnesses.

i was raised southern baptist, but i never could get into it.

garyneal

Hi leslie,

Welcome to the board. I can relate to the frustration you have with the Baptists. I wasn't raised in any religion but have been attending Baptist churches (Southern Baptist and Independent Fundamental Baptist) for a while. My wife was 'around the truth' all her life, meaning that she was raised a witness and believed in the religion but is not currently baptized. I started studying with her and attending meetings with them over the last six years of our marraige. I have to admit that I was fascinated with their unique view of the Bible and its teaching. I even liked how they stated that a lot of the traditions of 'christendom' came original from Constantine. I had already learned this in my philosophy class I took while in college. That and the fact that they were right on with the idea that Jesus was not born on 12-25 made me believe that these people are truly on to something. I also like how their meetings were interracial, being in an interracial marraige myself made me appreciate this aspect of them. Also, who can argue with the fact that all of their meetings all over the world went in the same fashion, teaching the same thing everywhere, etc.. They even don't make a big deal out of making their Kingdom Halls look all glamoruous with murials and crosses, etc.. Keeping it simple is something I truly found fascinating. I was beginning to think that perhaps these people really did have the truth.

But something in my mind keep telling me that something wasn't quite right. They would claim that they alone had the truth and dogmatically proclaimed that no other religion had the truth. Something about that did not sit well with me. You see, by the time I started studying, I learned that basically all christian religions were off from one another to a greater or lesser degree and all translations of the Bible were different from one another to a greater or lesser degree. Considering that the christian religion is 2000 years old and has come under the influence of a lot of people over those years, it was difficult for me to accept that any one group had all of the truths about the Bible. Besides, even if the witnesses were right if another group believed similarly to them, their whole basis for them alone having the 'truth' falls apart. I believe this is called the Black Swan problem. The truth is, indeed there are other religions that believe as the witnesses do and some are even more careful about how they apply the Bible than the witnesses are.

Needless to say, when my wife decided to go full throttle into become a witness I found myself trying to determine what the truth really is. What I found was startling. I learned that their translation of the Bible was off a great deal when compared to other accepted translations of the Bible, and in fact, when I compared their new testament to the original greek I learned that their Bible translation was VERY off. Concerning the deity of Jesus Christ especially. I knew then something was very wrong with this religion and upon further research I discovered that they have a rather interesting history of false predictions for Armagheddon and a lot of covering up of their old beliefs.

I implore you to do your research on this religion before you get too deep into it. The witness who you are studying will may try to tell you that Satan is trying to stop you from learning the truth and becoming a jehovah's witness. But since you have been associated with Southern Baptist churches I can assume that you believe in God and want to find the right way to follow Him. The one thing you have to remember is the one thing I realized when I found myself not know what religion is right, your everlasting life is at stake. Best you do what the Bible says and make sure of all things before you dive into this religion, eternity is a long time to be wrong.

For more information, go to http://www.4jehovah.org and http://www.gotquestions.org. Then go to http://www.freeminds.org to learn more about how this religion has hurt so many people. May God bless you and help you discover the real truth about Him.

28

The 607 / 587 / 586 B.C.E. Research

by garyneal in

for anyone who read through my previous thread concerning the conflict my wife and i had over my coming to this forum will recall that my wife agreed to go with me to the library to research 607 b.c.e.. well, unfornately my daughter and i got sick over the weekend so we could not make that trip.

however, my wife did do some research in her wt publications and on the internet!

frankly, i was surprised she even went to the internet but i told her that to 'stay away' from 'apostate' sites all she had to do was google 'babylonian captivity' and see what comes up.

garyneal

No feedback? Oh well, I will still continue my own research.

95

For those who researched 607...

by AwSnap in

jw
friends

did you use wt dates as well as things found from a secular perspective?

if a witness was researching the 607 dates strictly from watchtower info, would it still become clear they are wrong?

or does the wtbs *make* the dates add up...?

garyneal

Interesting. I am in the middle of finding the truth about this myself.

http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/185863/1/The-607-587-586-B-C-E-Research

28

The 607 / 587 / 586 B.C.E. Research

by garyneal in

for anyone who read through my previous thread concerning the conflict my wife and i had over my coming to this forum will recall that my wife agreed to go with me to the library to research 607 b.c.e.. well, unfornately my daughter and i got sick over the weekend so we could not make that trip.

however, my wife did do some research in her wt publications and on the internet!

frankly, i was surprised she even went to the internet but i told her that to 'stay away' from 'apostate' sites all she had to do was google 'babylonian captivity' and see what comes up.

garyneal

Okay, she and I finally went to the library together and researched this. Every encyclopedia we pulled off the shelf clearly pointed Nebuchadnezzar's reign as starting in 605 B.C.E. and the destruction of Jerusalem at 586/7 B.C.E.. She could not understand this so she took me to her mom's house so we can see what the WT had to say because her mom has an extensive library of WT literature.

As we were looking at the literature, her mom asked if she could join in what we were researching and asked if she could help. I said, "You sure can." As I felt that the truth would shine through on this research. Then her dad joined in. They wanted to pull out additional WT literature (namely the Insite books) and tried to show us the WT chronology. My wife, by herself, told her parents that the events in these books paralleled the events in the library's encyclopedias with the exception of the dates. I asked how did the WT get the date off by twenty years? Her father and mother asked did I account for no year zero. This doesn't apply since none of the dates cross 1 B.C.E. and 1 C.E.. Her father tried to be clever stating that the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign and the 11th year of Zedekiah's reign is like my wife and I being married for 6 years and they being married for 28 years. I told him, yeah Zedekiah began his rule on 597 B.C.E. and Nebuchadnezzar began his on 605 B.C.E. so you add 19 years to 605 B.C.E. and 11 years to 597 B.C.E. you get 586 B.C.E.. Where does the WT get 607 B.C.E. from? I then stated, "Because if 607 B.C.E. is wrong...." and they both immediately and matter of factly said, "No, it is not." Then I asked, "Well how come no encyclopedia agree with this chronology?" They started questioning what encyclopedias did we use. Well let's see, a Bible interpreters dictionary, Catholic encyclopedia, and the Encyclopedia Brittanica to name a few, among others.

At this point, they gave up and called in 'reinforcements' by directing us to one of the elder's who apparently 'researched' this information and apparently had the answer. We talked on the phone for a few minutes and he agreed to meet with us the next day. Had to admit that I had a certain level of apprehension about it as I did not know what to expect. Was he going to tell my wife or her parents that I am under the influence of Satan and trying to pry her from the 'truth?'

Well, we met with him and he turned to, of all things, the Insite book and began explaining how 539 B.C.E. was arrived at and how the WT and secular historians agree with this. I showed him the kings list and the number of years they had each reigned totalling 66 years and did the math. The inescapable 586 B.C.E. came back. Not to be detered, he began his long winded discussion concerning how the kings list could be suspect and how the Bible speaks on another king besides Nabonidus (and not in the list) to have reigned in 539 B.C.E. saying that secular historians were not taking the Bible into account because no evidence was found to prove the Bible. I have to admit, this kind of threw me since I wasn't expecting this and I told him that I need to look into this some more.

As the conversation was winding down, he and I started talking about other theologies that apparently we do not agree on. The deity of Jesus Christ especially. I asked him, "How can Thomas refer to Jesus as 'My Lord and My God' if Jesus wasn't God just like His Father?" In the original greek, this passage of scripture even has the definite article to use the JW's favorite argument to support their translation of John 1:1. Can you believe that this man actually suggest that Thomas was startled and was saying it as if we say "Oh My God!" because it had the exclamation point? I thought the WT had abandoned this argument? My response, "I cannot even bring myself to say, 'Oh My God' in front of my pastor. I cannot imagine Thomas, a devout Jew, saying this in front of Christ Himself." Of course, he tried to argue that how we define the phrase "Oh My God" is not the same as how they may have done it back then. Hmmmmmmmm.... The original greek has no punctuation, I wonder how the translators saw fit to make it an exclamation?

Anyway, back to the topic, there are some questions I have and I see now that I need to dig deeper to find the answer. I could not help but to think that this man is may be scholar who posts here on the network. But I find myself with a few perplexing questions.

If there is a king mentioned in the Bible that is not a part of the King's list but should be, why is it that Christian churches also accept 586/7 B.C.E. for the destruction of Jerusalem? I am not buying the notion that the churches of Christendom are okay with the idea that secular historians are discounting the Bible in helping to determine this year. There's got to be an explanation for the discrepency.
According to the elder, the WT took 539 B.C.E. and subtracted 70 years from this date to arrive at 607 B.C.E. by taking into account that it took the Jews 2 years to return home from Babylon? How can they be certain about the 2 years? Is this mentioned in the Bible?
When I first told him about 586 B.C.E. he naturally said that the time between 586 and 539 is only about 50 years, how can 586 be correct if the Bible states that 70 years is suppose to pass? My response was that if you take into account the destruction of the temple in 586 and it's being rebuilt in 516 (515 according to one encyclopedia) that easily accounts for the 70 years. He then states that the prophecy did not make mention of the destruction and rebuilding of the temple. But if that is so, why are the encyclopedias saying this while the WT insists on its own chronology?
I personally believe that truth is objective as long as you're being objective in searching for it. When I first heard that Christ was not born on 12-25, I researched it and found that no respected source would teach that 12-25 is Christ's birthday. Therefore I had to adjust my beliefs accordingly as the facts overwhelmingly show that 12-25 is not His birthday and that the celebration did indeed come from pagan customs. In other words, the WT got this fact right. Why is it that the WT insists on sticking with 607 B.C.E. when it appears that no respected source outside of the WT concurs? It is hard for me to accept that they alone have it right and everyone else has it wrong. After all, what motive would secular sources have for publishing 586 B.C.E.?

The elder stated that 'some guys in Europe' were calculating 1914 based on 607 B.C.E. and the 2520 years of the gentiles times at about the same time as Charles Russell. Since he said that he read the proclaimers book I did not bring up the subject of pyramidology as I did not want to make too many waves and if he did read it thoroughly, he should have at least seen where it was mentioned in that book. I did ask him, though, what exactly was Charles Russell expecting to happen in 1914. He appeared to have dodged the question and stated that Russell did not know exactly what to expect that year. Interesting since my research showed that Russell clearly expected Armagheddon to happen that year. Appears to me that there is a strong motive on the WT's part to hold on to 607 B.C.E.. I wonder if he is aware of what Raymond Franz said concerning the time when the governing body was considering moving the date from 1914 to 1957 to correspond with Sputnik? I did not ask him this.

In conclusion, something is not adding up and I truly believe that the WTS will quietly drop the 1914 teaching entirely. It is not a question of IF, it is a question of WHEN.

27

How to keep a Jehovahs Witness busy...

by Quirky1 in

www.biglongnow.com

garyneal

LOL

Don't forget to close the door(s) b4 you leave

Darn, I forgot to do that.

31

Goodbye, Lois.....you were a good JW

by journey-on in

jw
friends

the woman was on her deathbed.

she was painfully aware that her days were coming to a close and she was feeling so many conflicting emotions that she found herself wishing it would just hurry up and be over with.

you see, she had been a jehovahs witness for her entire life.

garyneal

Is this a true story? At any rate, it is indeed a powerful message. I am copying it and using it to plant seeds at the next assembly my wife and I are going to.

18

Is 'truth' a red herring?

by bulgogiboy in

this is a question for all, but especially ex-jws who may have transferred their piety over to another religion, and come to believe in another faith:.

is 'truth' regarding the meaning of life something that can ever realistically be obtained by human beings?

what is your idea of what 'truth' is?

garyneal

How can any jw who has broken free from the brainwashing of 'the truth' ever be so niave as to believe they have found 100% truth in another religion?

Good question indeed. Christians, such as myself, accept the idea that the truth is not found in a religion but only in an individual, Christ. I've realized about a decade ago that no religion has a monopoly on the truth but I do believe that truth is objective. But then again, notice that I said, I BELIEVE truth is objective but I do take some comfort in knowing that many scholars share this point of view. Frankly, when I encountered the Jehovah's Witnesses belief that they alone have the TRUTH, I immediately saw the fallacy.

So what is truth? Well, if you discard that Bible's account of truth being in Jesus Christ, what are you left with? It would seem that there are some things that all religions and philosophies seem the share. Things like everything operates in a state of balance and what you sow you will also reap. We readily observe this in nature as natural forces seek to balance one another and we also see it in our lives. I'll add one more thing, what you believe you can and cannot do, you're right.

Anyway, belief in anything beyond the natural requires faith for obviously there is no way we can prove it naturally. I was in a fundamentalist church during the early years of my christian life and they, much like the WT, taught that they had the only true interpretations of the Bible. They would speak out against other religions and even against other denominations of christianity that did not quite agree with them. It left me with a bitter taste in my mouth in regards to christianity but I later learned that only that type of church was that dogmatic (not counting the WTS). Fortunately, I found a group of christians in college who truly showed what true christian love was all about. Things such as tolerance and compassion and the freedom of knowing that God loves us so much that He did everything for us and requires nothing more than our faith in His Son to receive the free gift of everlasting life. I was never a JW but there are former witnesses on this board who share this point of view.

There is also a Jew (Moshe) and a Muslim on this board, I'd be interested to see what they would have to say in regards to your inquiry.

4

Birthday party

by Luisin in

jw
friends

look people,.

i'm not follower of jehovah's witnesses, but i have a serious question, and i expect serious answers to the following:.

i have a co-worker who is a jehovah's witness.

garyneal

How Squared-headed can things become? How many hard religious lines (including birthday celebrations) have to be drawn before we wind up in World War between religions because they all claim to have the key to the truth and incomprehensible positions and attitudes?

I would like to respond to your questions concerning birthdays and hard religious lines. I too am experiencing resistance from my wife who is a JW because she did not want to partake in the Christmas celebrations with my daughter and I. I go with her to some of the meetings, assemblies, and even went to a KH wedding with her to show my support but she will not come with my daughter and I to my mom's house to show her support for me for one day out of a whole year. Her reasoning borders on insanity and I think the poor girl is too far gone in the cult to be reached so I am basically just leaving her alone right now.

What you've pointed out is something I've always said in that "religion divides us all." It's ironic too that the second president of the watchtower society (the organization that the jehovah's witnesses follow) went on record proclaiming religion to be "a snare and a racket" only to wind up organizing another dogmatic religion. "Pastor" Russell (the founder and first president of the watch tower society) by the way was opposed to organized religion.

Needless to say, I'm not so pleased by that "we-stay-away-from-birthday-celebrations" attitude.

You're not alone as I too don't like their attitudes to things most people see as harmless and lots of fun. We can thank "Judge" Rutherford (the second president of the society) for a lot of these wierd teachings. Concerning birthdays, they say it is because two ungodly men are recorded in the Bible as having celebrated birthdays. They reason that since bad things happened in the recordings of these birthdays within the Bible then "true Christians" should abstain from birthdays. That reasoning is flawed because bad things can happen in all sorts of situations which are by themselves harmless. They also reason that on some obscure time frame long long ago, people (pagans) used to beleive that blowing out a birthday candle would summon some fairy to grant them their wish (well something along those lines anyway). That too falls apart when you examine that in context with their January 8, 2000 Awake publication "A Balanced View of Popular Customs." I'll send you a pdf copy of this to view for yourself.

The point is no one associates birthday celebrations to fairies, demons, or chopping off people's heads, etc..

If you read the article while thinking about the point I just made, you will see that the reasoning of a Jehovah's Witness is extremely flawed. Yet, they MUST follow the "Faithful and Discreet Slave" (the teachings of the Watchtower) in order to insure that they can earn their salvation.

By the way, welcome to the board.

26

JESUS BORN ON CHRISTMAS

by lgadsden in

jw
friends

does anyone have the scripture that proves christ was born 12-25 and the admonition to celebrate it?.

garyneal

OTWO nailed it in my opinion. Late in the night last night, my daughter and niece woke us up. While we were trying to get them back to sleep, my wife sung a song from the song book that she knew by heart. After she finished and before she could start another song, I asked her, "What if your beliefs are wrong? What if 1914 really is not the date the WT makes it out to be? You rail against christians for celebrating Christ's first coming on December 25 yet excuse the WT for proclaiming his second coming in 1914. If that date turns out to be false, how are you any different from Christians who still believe 12-25 is His birthday? At least I, thanks largely to JW's, know that it is not. Would you be willing to consider that 1914 could also be wrong?"

She then went on about new light and how of all teachings this one (1914) hasn't changed. Therefore, there must be something to it and we must believe that Jehovah will reveal it. Still looking for a way out, she is trying so desperately to find a way out, it is really sad.

16

It's not due to bitterness, I have not left "the truth.

by OnTheWayOut in

jw
friends

garyneal

Since I never joined 'the truth' I can't say that I am 'bitter' for leaving it. I tell my wife all the time that I am not a truth detecter and if she is to be honest and to really look for truth she would have to agree. For as long as she is willing to bury her head in the sand and deny the truth that 607 B.C.E. is an errorneous date (and therefore so is 1914 C.E.), she will always be trapped living in a lie.