(wt 11/15/88).
" wt 5/15/84 p. 17. .
" wt 7/15/86, p.14.
Wow, Randy! I haven't found that on your site yet. Those quotes had me laughing so hard. It's so friggin obvious! I'm marking this, might come in handy. Thanks for posting and look forward to the book.
My favorite:
What, then, is Christ's role in this program of salvation? Paul proceeds to say: "There is one God, and one mediator between God and men [not, all men], a man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a corresponding ransom for all." 1 Tim.2:5,6. WT 11/15/79 p. 26
i know this is a couple years old but i found it referenced on another site and had to share it--assuming it hasn't already been shared.. www.time.com.
They mean 2.5 million magazine circulation. Clever wording there.
i've read here that if the wt admits 607 is wrong or if 1914 is wrong, the logical result is that god did not choose them as his org.
can someone explain to me how that logically follows?.
couldn't they just say, "we have received new light on that, have learned that we cannot give a specific date (like how they abandoned 1935), but look, we adhere to the bible more strictly than anyone else, we strive to 'keep the cong clean' more than any other group, etc., so therefore, we must be chosen by god as his only org.
"Under the direction of this religious corporation the great world-wide campaign to announce the 1914 end of the "times of the nations" was undertaken, as mentioned earlier. The Watch Tower witnesses of Jehovah proved to be awake spiritual watchmen. But the Scriptures describe them as having unclean garments because of their long association with Christian apostasy. (Zech. 3:3, 4) They had many practices, characteristics and beliefs similar to the weedlike sects of Christendom. So from 1914 to 1918 a period of fiery testing came upon them, not unlike the ancient period of Babylonish captivity of the Jews back in 607-537 B.C. ...
... As we now know, this watchman class of the "faithful and discreet slave" was being cleansed for still greater watchman service in the turbulent years to follow their restoration in 1919. Previously, in the spring of 1918, Jehovah came to his temple of earthly Christian servants for inspection and cleansing. (Mal. 3:1-3) The many bad ones were disfellowshiped by Him and sent away. A loyal remnant were permitted to go through the fiery test where Jehovah and his Messenger, Christ Jesus, (1) tested them by organization arrangements on their loyalty to Jehovah's organization rather than to human leaders, (2) tested them by service instructions and provisions as to their zeal and devotion to Jehovah's worship and witness work, and (3) tested them by revealed truth as to their love of it. What a fiery time it was!-See You May Survive Armageddon into God's New World, pp. 303 to 305.
Wow. I've never seen this before. That's quite a statement. You'd think during all this cleansing and testing, they would have stopped celebrating Christmas, using the cross, or worshipping Jesus? Hopefully God or Jesus would've let them know that the prophets of old were not going to be resurrected. But no, they just got them better organized, gave them instructions for service, let them be persecuted, and kicked out the ones who didn't agree with Rutherford. The pagan practices and wrong doctrines weren't that important or dirty apparently.
jehovah's witnesses love to claim that they are a true religion because they are the most loving people on earth.
they rant and rave about how they apply john 13:35 to themselves.. in a recent conversation with djeggnog, i was shocked at some of the hateful things that he was saying to me.
now i know that i have been in some pretty heated debates with others, but i try to never make it personal.
I don't see anger in Eggnog. I see him as self-righteous and extremely judgemental. That's what happens when you believe you have the only "truth".
That said, I love that he posts here. It's a big reminder of the attitude and thinking that turns so many off. I'm sorry for some of the members that get the brunt of it though. I don't engage him anymore because I despise being called a Satan worshiper plus I have a hard time understanding what he's actually saying. It's not my reading comprehension (as he would say), he doesn't communicate clearly. Run-on sentences drive me nuts.
SBC is right on. Religious prejudice. It's encouraged and justified. Society doesn't like prejudice anymore.
if you've seen it what did you think of it?
does it seem like we might be missing something?.
.
What do you mean by missing something? Tax dollars from legalizing and regulating?
there was once a christian that was attending seminary that felt unusually bold one sunday morning.
he decided to go to a random church that he had never attended before.
he went to the service and sat in one of the pews.
ETA what I was replying to:
If muslims choose not to obey then are they really muslims? If a Christian chooses to not obey the command of Christ to "love your neighbor", then are they really a Christian?
I don't know, I'm neither. I don't know how they rationalize it. Maybe the good commandments take precedent over the others. Maybe they understand that the commandments to kill unbelievers or beat women violate their good commandments. Maybe some are older and others are newer and they believe the new ones replace the old ones. You'd really have to ask a moderate or liberal muslim.
But still, not all Muslims take the Q'uran as a literal follow-to-the-letter book. So it's really not fair to take verses like that out of context and then condemn the whole religion as if they do.
there was once a christian that was attending seminary that felt unusually bold one sunday morning.
he decided to go to a random church that he had never attended before.
he went to the service and sat in one of the pews.
The fact that I know muslims who don't beat their wives or kill infidels is proof. Much as there are commandments in the Bible that Christians don't follow today, there are commandments in the Q'uran that are not followed. Ask a muslim or an imam about those verses. There are liberal and progressive movements in Islam, just like Christianity. Our problem is we tend to think of Islam as one religion when it's almost as diverse as Christianity.
Look, I don't like Islam. I think the all the prayer and chanting is brainwashing. Combine that with what's been going on in the Middle East for decades and it scares the s__t out of me. But for the same reasons you reject Islam as not being true, I reject Christianity.
http://www.unc.edu/~kurzman/LiberalIslamLinks.htm
http://muslimsagainstsharia.blogspot.com/2008/01/what-is-moderate-muslim.html
there was once a christian that was attending seminary that felt unusually bold one sunday morning.
he decided to go to a random church that he had never attended before.
he went to the service and sat in one of the pews.
Dan,
If that were the case, there would be NO moderate muslims.
there was once a christian that was attending seminary that felt unusually bold one sunday morning.
he decided to go to a random church that he had never attended before.
he went to the service and sat in one of the pews.
No, but the bloodshed in the OT, specifically genocide, was commanded of the Israelites by God, was it not? If you're going to excuse what's in the Bible for certain reasons, you have to do the same with the Q'uran. Cheating scales.
As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them, forsake them in beds apart, and beat them. Then if they obey you, take no further action against them. surely Allah is high, supreme. (4:34)
Stoning disobediant children. Nuff said.
in my late teens and very early twenties, i was active in jw activities (heaps of service time, ms, etc.
) to most people who knew me, i'm sure i appeared to be a full believer, but with hindsight, my faith was spotty.
i had all of the usual and fairly obvious questions about the organization buried in my mind.
I sometimes wonder if people who are born into the religion are more susceptible to doubt.
I think this is true. Your faith is handed to you, you're told what to believe, what's wrong or right, without the freedom to figure it out yourself. I think JWs in general have a very fragile faith. Think of all the information they avoid. Now if you can read something that argues against what you believe and test it and think about it, and you come away with your beliefs intact (or maybe changed to accommodate that new information) then you naturally have a stronger faith. JWs don't really get to do that. And I think I was suspicious deep down, I knew there was all this information I couldn't see; what was God afraid of?
FTR, I have no religious faith at all. But the above is what I've observed of some Christians who have a very strong faith and can defend it. I respect that.
