Posts by alfmel

20

Fear of being shunned

by alfmel in

for those who have been jws and left,.

1. how much did you delay your departure due to the fear of being shunned?.

2. what percentage of the congregation would you estimate remains active due to the fear of being shuned if they were to leave?.

alfmel

In posting my question I never thought I would receive such personal responses. Reading them makes my heart sink. Thank you for sharing your of your grief. I hope I didn't open any old wounds.

45

Do other religions change doctrine?

by serenitynow! in

after visiting with a couple of jws over the weekend; and for the first time talking about my true feelings about the org with active jws other than immediate fam, one of them mentioned something interesting.

when i talked about how with the constant changes to beliefs that i find it impossible to believe that the gb can be guided by the hs.

so one of the jws said, "other religions change doctrines around too.

alfmel

Blondie,

I was reading a paper (can't find the link at the moment) from a Mormon fellow at Brigham Young University. He wrote about his quest to find the origin of the doctrine prohibiting blacks from receiving the priesthood. He couldn't find any official statement that was the case. It appeared to him it was an idea held by most protestants of the 19th century that penetrated the Mormon movement. He also mentioned the statement from the leaders of the church when the doctrine changed never singled out blacks or asians or hispanics, but simply said all worthy men could be given the priesthood.

Putting the ideas of that paper together with what I've read here on other posts, it seems there are two sides to doctrines: what a religion officially states as its creed, and what people believe (an therefore teach) as the doctrine. Yes, there is confusion in any religion I've seen as to what the leaders say should be done and what the people actually do. Heck, most of the epistles in the New Testament contain some kind of correction as to what the belief or a practice should be! In fact, there are several cases where changes ocurred or corrections in the doctrine were made.

Looking more into the Bible, the change from the Law of Moses to the law of Christ after his coming was a huge change in doctrine: no more burnt sacrifices, no more stoning of disobedient children (darn it!), etc.

Let me conclude with what several have said here: if you believe in guidance from God himself in the affairs of the Church, then change can happen. If you believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible as the source of truth, then things shouldn't change.

20

Fear of being shunned

by alfmel in

for those who have been jws and left,.

1. how much did you delay your departure due to the fear of being shunned?.

2. what percentage of the congregation would you estimate remains active due to the fear of being shuned if they were to leave?.

alfmel

very broad range of answers, why dont you tell us what are your concerns then we can pitch in?

I'm just trying to understand JWs. I don't want to destroy them, I simply want to understand them. I like studying religions and I try to understand why people believe what they believe. I don't really have concerns, really. I do feel bad for those who may wish to leave but fear rejection of loved ones. That's just tough, really tough.

20

Fear of being shunned

by alfmel in

for those who have been jws and left,.

1. how much did you delay your departure due to the fear of being shunned?.

2. what percentage of the congregation would you estimate remains active due to the fear of being shuned if they were to leave?.

alfmel

For those who have been JWs and left,

1. How much did you delay your departure due to the fear of being shunned?

2. What percentage of the congregation would you estimate remains active due to the fear of being shuned if they were to leave?

93

The Bible, Why not Reliable?

by sayitsnotso in

okay here is my thread to discuss this.

i believe the bible is inspired by god and reliable.

many argue it's neither.

alfmel

The Bible is as reliable or unreliable as you want it be. It's a pretty flexible book. You can use it to prove or disprove your belief. You can use it to knock sense into your kids (figuretive or literally). So if you want it to be reliable, it's reliable. The problem is convincing others of your ideas. So let's discuss your points and see if you can discover your bias towards the reliability of the Bible.

1. 40 men wrote it and they all have a common theme. The common theme is God. That's what the compilation is about. I can take over 100 books written in the last 200 years on the topic of American History, and they'll all have a common theme! I can do that with science, psychology, etc. Whoever put the Bible together had the idea in his mind that it should contain writings where God was a common theme. If you pick up 100 books on Greek Mythology since the times of Aristotle to the present time, you could find 100 authors over a 3,000 year span and they would all have a common theme too, right?

2. Let me make a quick prophecy, Bible style: in less than 100 years this great country of the United States will cease to be a super power. Is this a real prophecy or just good analytical skills?

3. If everyone lived by my morals, I believe the world would be a better place too. The main values of not kiling, stealing, etc. are universal and not unique to the Bible.

4. The Chinese have long known much about the scientific truths of our universe. So have the mayas, the egyptians, etc. It is our western view of civilization and history that assumes man has only gotten smarter over time and that we are the only ones that have any accurate scientific knowledge. The truth is, knowledge has come in phases, with great periods of enlightenment and great periods of idiocy. We often assume everyone throughout the ages has been as dumb as the primates in the dark ages. But the dark ages only occurred in Europe and people during that time and place were the dubmest in recorded history. So don't assume that because 500 years ago people thought the world was flat that 2,500 years ago they believed the same thing.

5. It's hard to know whether a person is honest when you interact with a living person. So all of the sudden is possible to read 50 pages from a person who lived over 2,000 years ago and know they were completely honest? If that were the case, should we all write our 50 pages to establish our honesty once and for all?

One of the greatest lessons of history that's even included between the lines of the Bible, is the mistake of worshiping the past and irgnoring the present. Few respected Moses during his tenure, but future generations worshiped him as the greatest prophet ever. The same with Isaiah, Jeremiah, and all others in the Old Testament. Even when the Messiah came most people didn't recognize him. They were so caught up in the past and in the details of the law that they completly missed him. So let's take that lesson from the Bible and leave the details and specifics of the past and focus on the present. Let's look for God's miracles all around us today, instead of arguing if biblical miracle #73 is accurate or not.

Just my opinion.

4

Proverbs 3:6 Logically Impossible to Follow as a Jehovah's Witness

by sabastious in

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alfmel

Let me take a little tangent

The Catholic tradition in this regard is rather interesting. They believe Jesus gave Peter the keys of the kingdom, meaning the authority to act in his name. It seems the Faithful and Discrete Slave follows that tradition. Looking back, it seems Moses was seen as such a figure, where anything he said was considered to be the Word of Jehovah. Later, the Jews at the time of Jesus considered many of the words of the prophets to be the words of Jehovah. As far as I know, Catholics consider the words of the Pope to be the words of God. (According to the Catholic tradition, the Pope continues to hold the same keys to the ministry given to Peter by Jesus.) Mormons have a similar belief that their prophet speaks in the name of God. The 7th Day Adventists also have such a tradition with Ellen White.

What's interesting to me is that most denominations who claim to have the guidance of a person appointed by God to speak in his name make it very public who that person is. Even if they have a body of people to act as the head of their church, who they are is public knowledge. The JWs appear to be the only major denomination who are not public about who the leaders are. I wonder why? No, really, I wonder why that is. I'm not suggesting they have something to hide, although they are hiding it.

64

Twisting Scripture vs A Literal Reading

by AllTimeJeff in

knowing that passions run deep on this matter, i have what i believe to be a very simple premise for a discussion of how to read the bible.. terry has labored over the last couple of months to demonstrate (in my view, conclusively) that the bible is far from unaltered, and often mistranslated.

these facts, inconvenient as they might be for believers, are nonetheless, a problem for those who claim that the bible is the word of god.. this is not what i wish to discuss... rather..... jehovah's witnesses come from a tradition of "reading in" or "adding meaning" to the scriptures.

no one jw outside of the governing body is allowed to do this.. but why is it necesarry?.

alfmel

There are several things to consider. First, there is a lot of symbolism in the Bible whose context has been long lost to us, the common folk. Historians, Orthodox Jews and other scholars still know it, so it is very difficult to extract all meaning out of the Bible without some of that cultural foundation. The other aspect is the one given in 1 Cor. 2:14: "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned."

The big question we have to ask is: does a spiritual realm really exist? If there is such a spiritual plane (and most religions will claim there is) then we should find a way to get in touch with it to help us understand the spiritual. I believe I have received guidance from the Holy Spirit from time to time, and that guidance has come a long way to help me understand the Bible.

9

Who survives the big-A?

by Yan Bibiyan in

i've seen experiences shared that jws have a hard time admitting that they are the only ones to survive the big-a and everyone else, including innocent infants are to be slaughtered.. that should be an easy one-two punch rebuttal, i think.. q1: is there anyone practicing false religion and worshiping a false god going to survive armageddon?.

q2: does anyone else, except the jws have the true religion?.

jw answers: no,no.. .

alfmel

Somehow this seems a flat view of time. If only JWs will be saved, does that mean a JW? What about Isaiah, or Peter Paul? It seems it would be hard to be part of an organization that didn't exist until late 19th century when you lived in 800 B.C. Also, Revelation says the 144,000 will come from the 12 tribes of Israel, 12,000 from each tribe. So 12,000 Jews (or their decendents) will be taken up to heaven. So it seems those who are saved will be more than just JWs. But what do I know! I've never been annointed by the Watchtower Society, so I'm just an ignorant apostate deceived by the cunning of the devil.

15

A few questions about Adam and Eve, Death, and the Resurrection

by alfmel in

i am not a jw, but they often come to my door.

i listen to them, formulate questions, but they can never answer them to my satisfaction.

that's why i've never become a jw.

alfmel

Rufus:

Do the Witnesses place the blame for sin more on Eve? If so, that seems a bit misogynistic. The New Testament fixes the blame on both of our original parents

I don't think it's misogynistic. They blame Eve because she was the first to partake. As you mention, Adam is also guilty. But I often hear from the JWs that if Adam and Eve had not partaken of the fruit, we wouldn't be in this mess. In other words, we could all live in a paradise right now.

So here is another doctrinal question: if Adam and Eve had not partaken of the fruit, but 500 years later, one of the now 200,000 inhabitants of the Garden would have partaken of it, what would have happened to the 1 ate and to the other 199,999?

45

Honest Question..........

by thraxer68 in

well, first off, iam new to the forum here, i registered maybe a week ago???

sometime around there, but anyway, i do have an honest question.

i guess a little background about me might be helpful and if not, at least therapeutic.

alfmel

Maybe they want the certainty of being the only ones who have 'the truth'; whatever that is.

That's exactly it. Truth is universal. Nobody can claim a monopoly on it, and no organization or person can claim to possess it or understand it fully. I took a graduate class on learning psychology (heaven forbid) where we learned that even if there was an absolute truth, it would always be understood differently by different people.

This, to me, is an important lesson one has to learn when searching for "the truth." Even if an organization claims to posses part of it, people will have their own interpretation of it and can only explain it from their own understanding. Therefore, anything we find should be used as a compass to the truth, rather than the truth itself.

I hope that made sense.