@Lied2NoMore:
Here's hoping that you can find a way to fade. ... ooo, and here's hoping that the elder you were talking to doesn't lurk around JWN (since your thread doesn't seem to be in the members section)
MeanMrMustard
MeanMrMustard
JoinedPosts by MeanMrMustard
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79
JW's week after week trying to convert me
by HBJ inthis is my first post.
i have been a protestant christian my entire life, but over the past few months ive been conversing with two jehovahs witnesses on a weekly basis.
as they quickly learned that i was biblically versed, they replaced what i would call a trainee, with someone i believe to be an elder.
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MeanMrMustard
@blondie:
They are on to us. We better back off sneaking into the KH libraries for a while. I mean, we all know that every KH's alarm code is 4310 .... :)
MeanMrMustard
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79
JW's week after week trying to convert me
by HBJ inthis is my first post.
i have been a protestant christian my entire life, but over the past few months ive been conversing with two jehovahs witnesses on a weekly basis.
as they quickly learned that i was biblically versed, they replaced what i would call a trainee, with someone i believe to be an elder.
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MeanMrMustard
@HBJ:
Do these visiting JWs have a set time each week they are supposed to call?
I also agree with some of the other posters: These JWs are not Bible students, they are Watchtower students. If you are a believing Christian (which is sounds like you are), then it might be hard to accept that the Bible might not be the right tool to get through to these individuals. In my opinion, you'll just end up playing Bible ping-pong with them. True, you might shake one of them up a bit, temporarily. But it won't matter. They'll just go back to the WT library, or the meeting, or the next door, and be re-inforced with the WT doctrine.
In my opinion, and you are free to disagree, the most damaging thing you can do to a JW (damanging from the WT perspective, but good from a non-JW perspective), is to show them plain and simple that the WT is not God's organization. They claim to be prophets by any reasonable definition, have failed predictions, and the chronological calculations they use as evidence for divine support are flawed from 607 all the way to 1914. Once they start to see the WT is a scam, then the Bible might help. Right now they aren't Bible students, they are WT students.... just waiting for the GB to get more enlightenment.
MeanMrMustard
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224
When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed? Why It Matters - What the Evidence Shows
by wannabefree inobviously 607 is a problem, watchower coming out full forces on this one in the latest public edition.. http://download.jw.org/files/media_magazines/wp_e_20111001.pdf.
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MeanMrMustard
@Kensho, you wrote:
I posted this on another thread, but I think it fits here better!
70 yrs. exiled-586 or 607, Babvlonian Kings,1914,1975, overlapping generations..........
These type of debates and arguments about dates, time tables,prophecies, and when the end will come etc. etc. whether they are promoted the WT religion or any other man made religion is all a waste of time.
WHO CARES? The GB just uses this stuff to make the R&F think they are spirit-directed and because they have all the time (and your money) in the world to sit around and conjure up this crap they get away with it! The R&F are to busy trying to make a living,preaching and going to all the meetings, so whatever the GB says is just dandy with them.
The Bible and all the other “holy books” claim their source is from God and that we should pattern our lives after them and then command us to convert other people to do likewise.
The very fact that the “truth” is not plain and understandable by everyone proves these books are not from the Creator of the universe.
This is evident from the order in the universe, the Creator would never give his creation a jigsaw puzzle with several key pieces missing and then tell us to just figure it out especially if it meant your life. The Creator would certainly not expect us to let the likes of Russell, Rutherford, Franz and the gang hand the missing pieces out either, just look at how many WRONG pieces they have handed out over the last 100+ yrs.
These books are fairy tales from superstitious people who lived thousands of years ago to give them some sort of direction in their miserable lives. I mean come on goat herders, nomads,and tent dwelling tribal butchers are the ones chosen to record the word of God..give me a break.
Today in the 21 st century Christian’s, Muslims, Hindus etc.….... and especially JW's have locked up their God given gift of REASON and are trying to live in a fairytale in a modern day that easily dispels fairy-tales and at the point of human evolution that these things defy reason
I for one choose to watch my fairy-tales on the movie screen and deal with the reality of this life we have been given, we are in the here and now let's make the best of it and leave the rest to the Creator, and unite our belief in God with our gift of reason.
Peace
Kensho Satori
I think SweetBabyCheezits summarized your entire paragraph with:
I remember when I discovered the Bible was bullshit. That was a real time-saver.
MeanMrMustard
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79
JW's week after week trying to convert me
by HBJ inthis is my first post.
i have been a protestant christian my entire life, but over the past few months ive been conversing with two jehovahs witnesses on a weekly basis.
as they quickly learned that i was biblically versed, they replaced what i would call a trainee, with someone i believe to be an elder.
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MeanMrMustard
@james_woods and @Ding:
james_woods wrote:
You know, the clarity of that point had never even occurred to me before. I always thought that the Michael = Jesus notion was just a religious quirk of the JWs - never that it might have been deliberately generated to help them deny the deity of christ.
But I think it is clear that you are absolutely right about this.
and Ding wrote:
MeanMrMustard, I've never understood why they feel they have to equate Jesus and Michael. Why couldn't they just claim that Jesus is unique as the first and greatest creation of Jehovah and that Michael is a separate being who is subject to him?
The reason why I stated this is that I've seen several debates between JWs and non-JWs disintegrate into a Michael/Jesus debate. It didn't surprise me at all that HBJ has discussed this topic with his visiting JWs. I could be wrong, and maybe HBJ brought it up, but it is probable that a discussion started about the Trinity and one of the JWs brought up that Jesus is really an angel, an archangel. And if that is the case, then all this nonsense about Jesus having the nature of God should be thrown away.
References:
*** w58 9/15 p. 559 Who Is the Archangel Michael? ***
Further, note his title “archangel.” This term occurs only twice in the Scriptures (AV), at 1 Thessalonians 4:16 and Jude 9. The prefix “arch” means “chief, principal, great.” Certainly both before his coming to earth as a man and since his return to heaven he is the chief or principal one of all God’s spirit creatures or angels. Trinitarians may consider this a downgrading of the “Second Person of the Trinity,” but if we accept the Scriptural testimony that Jesus was “the beginning of the creation by God,” and “the firstborn of all creation,” we will have no diffidence about applying to him the term archangel.—Rev. 3:19; Col. 1:15.
*** w84 12/15 p. 29 ‘Michael the Great Prince’—Who Is He? ***
Jesus an Angel?
Some object to identifying Jesus with the angel of Jehovah mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures. For Trinitarians, of course, such an identification poses a problem since it shows conclusively that he is not equal to Jehovah God. But even some who do not accept the Trinity doctrine feel that Jesus’ identity with an angel somehow detracts from his dignity
Ding, I suppose the WTB&TS doesn't *have* to identify Jesus with Michael. Like you have been pointing out, its not like their entire theology would collapse. But in any argument/debate, both sides are trying to bring about defensive and offensive points. If I were a JW and just got hit with John 8:58, I would go on the defensive and say, "Well, it really says 'I have been', at least in my Bible." And then I would hit right back with something like, "But Jesus says he's not equal to the Father." or "Jesus is really Michael the archangel." It's just something else they can use to hammer away at the Trinity, as the above references show. That's what Bible ping-pong is all about anyway, right? :)
Ding continued:
The WT really doesn't believe that Jesus and Michael are the same person anyway. In WT theology, all they shared was the same impersonal life force. They don't believe Jesus was an archangel incarnate as a man. They believe Jesus was a perfect man like Adam, no more and no less. And they don't believe the man Jesus rose as Michael. They believe the human being died and stayed dead and that he had no separate soul or personality that survived physical death.
You are, of course, correct. And I am not debating this. I would say its another place where their theology suffers because they don't take the time to truly nail down what they mean by "person" and "nature" and "life force", etc. The WTB&TS loves to swim in a sea of ambiguity, IMHO. They find the best refuge there. Once you start to really get into the details, well, that's when it all breaks down. I think that's what HBJ is trying to do, I suppose. (if they stick around much longer)
Let's use an analogy for the Jesus -- Michael impersonal life force teaching.
Let's say you (Jehovah) have a flashlight (Michael) powered by batteries (impersonal active force). At some point, you take the batteries out of the flashlight and use them to power a transistor radio (deactiviting Michael and giving life to the man Jesus). Then someone breaks the radio (Jesus is killed), so you take the batteries and put them back into the flashlight (empowering Michael again). That's how the WT views what happened with Michael and Jesus.
LOL. I swear I've heard that illustration at a district convention before. Yes, that's how they see it. And I bet if this illustration was read at a DC, all the JWs would "ooooooo" and "ahhhhhhh" ... but try to nail anyone of them down on the specifics of what a "life force" really means or implies about personhood ....
Now, in that analogy, would you say that the flashlight (Michael) became the radio (Jesus) and went back to being the flashlight (Michael) again? Not at all! There's no continuity of identity between the flashlight and the radio (Michael and Jesus). In WT teaching, they were two totally separate entities who happened to share the same impersonal power source.
If you said this to a JW, his/her head might explode....
So in what sense does the WT really teach that Jesus = Michael?
*shrugs*, I don't think it matters. They want to smash the Trinity. It's totally illogical, but it doesn't matter. The ends justifies the means.
MeanMrMustard
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79
JW's week after week trying to convert me
by HBJ inthis is my first post.
i have been a protestant christian my entire life, but over the past few months ive been conversing with two jehovahs witnesses on a weekly basis.
as they quickly learned that i was biblically versed, they replaced what i would call a trainee, with someone i believe to be an elder.
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MeanMrMustard
@james_woods:
Blondie, that is an excellent example of JW doctrine by whole cloth of imagination instead of anything scriptural. And like you say, what real difference does it make to their so-called "christian" doctrine? Would Jesus somehow not be the Christ (like the NT actually says he was) if he was not Michael the Archangel???
An excellent, proveable point, that HBJ could use with his "JW bible instructors".
Just as a side point to this - do you know how long the witnesses have taught this Michael = Jesus doctrine? Does it go all the way back to Russell, and did they copy it from somebody else like so much of the chronology and the "torture stake" notion?
That is true. However, if the WTB&TS were to give up the Micheal = Jesus doctrine, then they would lose an important tool agaist the Trinity. They point to Jesus being an archangel and from there they can claim that his nature is not Theos.
MeanMrMustard
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Pregnant Jehovah Witness in bikini protest
by sizemik ini know this is a bit old .
but wtf?
how nuts is this?.
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MeanMrMustard
LMAO... wait ... wait.... so there is a 39 year old annointed JW (I guess she either replaced an unfaithful one, or she is insane, according to the WT), ticked off that a school next to her home cut down her hedge, and she is protesting by walking around in a bikini and leaving underwear out on a clothes line... lol...
That's a little too funny.... oh wait, this was back in 2009. Was this real?
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"PRINTING" in 3D?
by sizemik incheck this out .
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.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zboxmssz5aw&feature=player_embedded.
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MeanMrMustard
That's actually pretty cool... going to pass this around. Thanks!
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Is the Watchtower stubbornly holding onto the 70 year exile figure within the Old Testament?
by sabastious ini read outlaw's post about how he has watched people make an online career out of debating for and against arguments regarding 607 and 586 being the date of jerusalem's fall.
he's right that this has happened and it's had the nasty side effect of "mudding up the waters" so-to-speak in regards to anyone wishing to glean wisdom from these debates.. i am not a historian and when posts start getting overtly historical my reading of them seems to slow down and i find myself having to reread posts.. i am going to try to simply state each argument to see if i have put it together (correct me if i am wrong):.
the watchtower says that they default to the bible's figure of 70 years of jewish exile which is used more than once in the old testament.
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MeanMrMustard
@sabastious:
You wrote:
The Watchtower says that they default to the Bible's figure of 70 years of Jewish exile which is used more than once in the Old Testament. They use 539 b. c. e. as a cornerstone date because they agree with our current archaeological data, because it doesn't confict with the Bible, as the date of the destruction of Babylon by the Persians. I'm still not sure how they get 607 out of the numbers 539 and 70 maybe someone can enlighten me as to why this is?
They take 539 BC date as the fall of Babylon. Then they figure that Cyrus released the Jews by 538 BC. Then they figure it probably took them a year to get back to their land, and get started rebuilding. So they end up with 537 BC, when they got back to Jerusalem and the land was no longer "desolate without an inhabitant". So according to them, the 70 years is over at that point. They subtract 70 years from 537 and get 607 as the start.
But you have to keep in mind that to the WTS, the 70 years is that of "desolation without an inhabitant". The Bible doesn't say that at all. Witness My Fury was pointing that out. Just a simple read of Jeremiah 25 and you'll see its not about "desolation without an inhabitant". Rather, the 70 years is that of servitude to Babylon for many nations. When Carl Olof Jonsson wrote his book, he dedicated most of it to outlining the archelogical lines of evidence against 607 and for 587. But a good portion of his book considers the scriptures that mention the 70 years. These, IMHO, are the most powerful chapters because JWs need to see that its not a battle against archeology and the Bible. They actually agree. It's only the WTS interpretation of the scriptures (which they use to justify their power, so they have a vested interest) that are out of line with the Bible and historical evidence.
MeanMrMustard
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224
When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed? Why It Matters - What the Evidence Shows
by wannabefree inobviously 607 is a problem, watchower coming out full forces on this one in the latest public edition.. http://download.jw.org/files/media_magazines/wp_e_20111001.pdf.
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MeanMrMustard
@VM44: Thanks for the link to the book! Very much appreciated!
MeanMrMustard