David_Jay

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Posts by David_Jay

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  4

  Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

  by rebel8 in

  1. social
  2. entertainment

  anyone here watching this on netflix?.

  it's funny, kind of silly at times, but somewhat relatable.. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ellie-kemper-kimmy-schmidt-character-798166.

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  David_Jay

  I saw it. Perfect show to watch if you've been in a cult. Hilarious and brilliant.

  New season begins this Spring.
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  15

  We are living in the 21st Century , When , Are We Going to Bury Religious Superstition ? Once and for all ?

  by smiddy in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the christian bible / cannon is different , depending on what religion you profess ,around the world.. russian orthodox ,greek orthodox ,christian gnostics ,roman catholics , polish national catholics ,c.of e , etc,etc,.

  the very many christian bible translations that exist today differ according to different interpretations of the translators.. the jewish translators of the hebrew scriptures add a whole new concept to the traditional interpretation by christian translators of the old testament... throw in the mix all of the fundamentalist religions that have sprung up these past couple of centuries including the j.w.`s , s.d.a.`s , mormons , t.v.

  evangelists , etc, etc,.

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  David_Jay

  I hear where you are coming from, Smiddy.

  But obviously you are looking at everything from a bit of a closed prospective. Only Christianity deals in "faith." Other religions don't use the concept, at least not in the same manner.

  Buddhism doesn't require any type of faith or belief in a deity.

  Judaism sees faith or belief in concepts and creeds as irrelevant to their theology.

  Shinto is about ritual, not much else.

  Only Christianity makes a big deal about what one mentally accepts or mentally acknowledges, making faith a requisite to membership or acceptance. That is why Christian religions have a hierarchy and others often don't have a central authority (the three I mentioned don't have such a thing or an official set of beliefs). Christian leaders keep the membership in check based on claimants to a creed of some sort, and those that don't make such a claim get the boot.

  Other religions are not like that. Many Christians and former Christians have had little to no exposure to non-Christian thought and make broad judgments that are neither accurate nor show any critical thinking based on study or evidence of other religious movements.

  Forms of Buddhism and Reform Judaism, for instance, do not allow for people to make religious choices on the basis of credulity, superstition, or against reason and science. And since faith does not play a role in these theologies, it is hard to apply some of your views universally to all religions.

  This is not to say you don't have a good point. Those movements where faith replaces reason or logic show how many people are willing to jump to conclusions without first fully studying all the options and ensuring their conclusions are accurate, and that is indeed sad.
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  96

  Is the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses really an inferior form of Christianity?

  by nicolaou in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  seems to be quite a few posters recently pulling down the beliefs of jw's as not biblical or truly christian.

  maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, i really don't care.. in some important ways though mainstream christians often behave better than jehovah's witnesses; most don't practice shunning or impose lethal medical prohibitions on their members.

  many are far more tolerant of the lgbt community and a few even make the awkward attempt to square the fact of evolution with their faith.. please note that i'm saying some, not all.. so i suppose it's fair to say that differing forms of christianity can be better or worse for individuals, families and the wider community.

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  David_Jay

  Paul,

  Mr. Campos had a lot more in his email to say, but I shortened it. He mentioned, however, the anti-Jewish proselytizing that the JWs have been doing among his people.

  It was rather lengthy, and we discussed that the part should probably be cut for brevity, but reading your comment makes me think I should have included it.

  What you are likely unaware of is that Witnesses demand Jews who show interest to leave behind their culture, dress, and customs in exchange for the western-Gentile ones. None of the Jewish customs are pagan, and the first century Jewish Christians like the apostle Paul observed Jewish traditions and law. (Acts 21.17-26) JWs do not transcend cultural barriers but demand people's to abandon anything and everything that is not Watchtower, telling people that their own customs are evil. What you call transcending is actually destruction.
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  96

  Is the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses really an inferior form of Christianity?

  by nicolaou in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  seems to be quite a few posters recently pulling down the beliefs of jw's as not biblical or truly christian.

  maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, i really don't care.. in some important ways though mainstream christians often behave better than jehovah's witnesses; most don't practice shunning or impose lethal medical prohibitions on their members.

  many are far more tolerant of the lgbt community and a few even make the awkward attempt to square the fact of evolution with their faith.. please note that i'm saying some, not all.. so i suppose it's fair to say that differing forms of christianity can be better or worse for individuals, families and the wider community.

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  David_Jay

  In interest of my discussion with Slimboyfat, I searched for help from a couple of friends. The following is an excerpt from an email sent by a Jewish teacher of religion, Carlos Campos, who having read the post and discussion and hearing my question, has allowed me to post the following:

  "We Jews are technically-speaking an 'ethnoreligion,' or a tribe. We do not share one single line of DNA, and traditionally we have included non-Hebrews in the tribe since the time of Abraham. Today there are Semitic Jews, Asian Jews, African (Black) Jews, and Latino Jews. I myself am Sephardic.

  It is not accurate to say that Jews who were victims of the Shoah were chosen solely on the basis of race. That was the Nazi argument, but science has since proven that their ideas regarding race were unscientific. Some anthropologists today feel that all discussion of 'race differences' are without scientific basis.

  Jews cannot be totally separated from their religion, even if they are secular Jews. We are Jews because of a religion as well as being members of a tribe connected in one way another with the line of Abraham. They are inseparable elements of our identity. We are a people of a particular faith because we are defined by a religion, even if we claim to be non-religious.

  ...Lastly, in reference to the Bible Students who suffered along with us and others in the concentration camps, their choice was not based on solidarity with the Jews or even a disagreement with the Nazi state in particular but due to a hatred of all the world, all its governments, and due to a belief that all other religions are not of God. They neither saw us [Jews] as fellow servants of God then during the Shoah nor do they now.

  To illustrate my point: A Witness fellow by the name of Larry Alford once told me, some twenty or so years ago, that the reason the Muslims now occupy the Temple Mount is a sign from God that we, the Jews, have been rejected by God. We rejected Jesus and killed him and thus as a whole we have been rejected as a people. The Islamic shrine is a way of God letting us Jews know that we are no longer God's covenant people. We are rejects. The Muslim dome is meant to be an insult from Heaven and constant reminder of this.

  While those Bible Students who suffered in the Shoah were nevertheless courageous to take their stand, the pacifism may not be genuine. There seems to be an underlying hatred for non-Witnesses at the basis of it. It isn't even referred to as 'pacifism' by their own choice but instead as 'neutrality' to secular issues. The same religion teaches that God is destined to slaughter all non-Witnesses is the upcoming war of Armageddon. Looking forward to the slaughter of people in an upcoming war is not pacifism by any definition.

  To insist that the Jews in the concentration camps were not a people of a faith is view of equal hatred, in my opinion. Were it not for the Jews, the Gentiles would not have their monotheistic religions they claim have superseded our own. Sadly I have grown old in a world that has still not halted Hitler's decision to define us by standards we did not invent."
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  96

  Is the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses really an inferior form of Christianity?

  by nicolaou in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  seems to be quite a few posters recently pulling down the beliefs of jw's as not biblical or truly christian.

  maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, i really don't care.. in some important ways though mainstream christians often behave better than jehovah's witnesses; most don't practice shunning or impose lethal medical prohibitions on their members.

  many are far more tolerant of the lgbt community and a few even make the awkward attempt to square the fact of evolution with their faith.. please note that i'm saying some, not all.. so i suppose it's fair to say that differing forms of christianity can be better or worse for individuals, families and the wider community.

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  David_Jay

  One good point, if you can prove it even is that (and you haven't) doesn't make the Witnesses a good religion of any kind.

  For the sake of argument, let’s say it is just a bunch of legends, that the Bible is just completely made up mythology.

  Even as a bunch of false stories, you cannot convince me that the Jehovah’s Witnesses and their stuffy, self-righteous Governing Body compose the spiritual inheritors of the Holy Scriptures.

  And what a mythology it is! Miracles, seas parting, mountains burning and shaking, the dead being brought back to life!

  What does the Watchtower have? Some story about coal being delivered to one of the buildings in Brooklyn Heights, once seen as a miraculous sign from Jehovah on where to put the world headquarters, buildings now being sold off and abandoned? Another story on how anti-Semitic, oft drunken Judge Rutherford and his colleagues get released from jail in 1919? That’s it? Boy, those who make a movie of those miracles are sure going to have a time making those scenes come to life, right? Not!

  What about the grand throngs of worship in the Temples? Herod’s Temple was one of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World! You want me to believe that the inheritors of true worship are now blessed to be building on a plot of land that has been poisoned with toxic waste? Have you seen the size of those stones on the Western Wall? The “great building work of Jehovah’s Witnesses” is a wannabe by comparison!

  And the marvelous culture and tradition of the people of the Bible, the many holy days and rituals associated with them: you’re telling me that JWs are the modern-day representation of this religion, the group that won’t celebrate even Arbor Day?

  This group that shuns former members, even if they are blood relations, is not of the same cloth as those who recorded Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son, the one where the father watches each day for the return of his sinful child and, when the boy does return, embraces him with love even before he begs forgiveness. The JW religion claims this beautiful, heart-warming and rich mythology as their heritage?

  They wish. They aren’t worth the spit of the people and culture these tales came from, even if they are just legends and myths.

  Inferior? The JWs are an insult to this rich tradition, even if it’s just a mythology.
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  96

  Is the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses really an inferior form of Christianity?

  by nicolaou in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  seems to be quite a few posters recently pulling down the beliefs of jw's as not biblical or truly christian.

  maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, i really don't care.. in some important ways though mainstream christians often behave better than jehovah's witnesses; most don't practice shunning or impose lethal medical prohibitions on their members.

  many are far more tolerant of the lgbt community and a few even make the awkward attempt to square the fact of evolution with their faith.. please note that i'm saying some, not all.. so i suppose it's fair to say that differing forms of christianity can be better or worse for individuals, families and the wider community.

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  David_Jay

  That's a classic example of what is known in forensics as a "red herring."

  Slim: "Only a handful of other faiths [were] in the concentration camps."

  So Jews are not a people of a certain faith?

  Besides, the real issue is whether Jehovah's Witnesses are an inferior form of Christianity. Was being neutral to the persecution of the Nazis something God wanted the Witnesses to do? What about the JWs who did not end up in the camps? What about those free JWs who did nothing to stop them?

  If being victims makes Jehovah's Witnesses a superior religion, then Jews are superior to JWs because five to six millions Jews perished in the Holocaust.

  And forgetting that Jews are people of a certain faith and made up the majority of people in the camps just didn't sit right with me, so I mentioned it.
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  96

  Is the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses really an inferior form of Christianity?

  by nicolaou in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  seems to be quite a few posters recently pulling down the beliefs of jw's as not biblical or truly christian.

  maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, i really don't care.. in some important ways though mainstream christians often behave better than jehovah's witnesses; most don't practice shunning or impose lethal medical prohibitions on their members.

  many are far more tolerant of the lgbt community and a few even make the awkward attempt to square the fact of evolution with their faith.. please note that i'm saying some, not all.. so i suppose it's fair to say that differing forms of christianity can be better or worse for individuals, families and the wider community.

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  David_Jay

  Slimboyfat, there were not only a handful of other faiths in the concentration camps of the Nazis. There were millions of Jews there too.
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  96

  Is the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses really an inferior form of Christianity?

  by nicolaou in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  seems to be quite a few posters recently pulling down the beliefs of jw's as not biblical or truly christian.

  maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, i really don't care.. in some important ways though mainstream christians often behave better than jehovah's witnesses; most don't practice shunning or impose lethal medical prohibitions on their members.

  many are far more tolerant of the lgbt community and a few even make the awkward attempt to square the fact of evolution with their faith.. please note that i'm saying some, not all.. so i suppose it's fair to say that differing forms of christianity can be better or worse for individuals, families and the wider community.

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  David_Jay

  If my literal, spiritual, or otherwise “brother” and I lived during the time of World War II, and this brother of mine was a Nazi gathering up Jews into concentration camps and slaughtering them, and my brother would not stop and listen to reason, yes, I would fight him. I will do whatever it took to save the life of innocents.

  Just last year Catholics and Protestants in Austria formally apologized to Jews for the part they played in NOT standing up to the Nazis and stopping the transportation of Jews across their borders to be placed into concentration camps. These were religious people who did not fight in the war, and they were apologizing for their lack of action. For whatever it was worth, regardless of the fact that many Jews did or did not accept such an apology, these people and their organizations realized that doing nothing could be just as bad as fighting.

  Sometimes defending oneself requires a fight. Sometimes wars are more than just battles with bombs and guns, sometimes they are merely debates and arguments with words. Sometimes there have to be disagreements, and sometimes there are battles that have to be fought, obstacles that have to be overcome.

  And yes, sometimes the violence engaged by some religious people is totally beyond the pale. But just as often standing by and doing nothing can make you just as guilty.

  Jehovah’s Witnesses often praise their “neutrality” because they praise everything about themselves, not because it is the right thing to do. One smooth, reflective facet does not a jewel make.
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  96

  Is the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses really an inferior form of Christianity?

  by nicolaou in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  seems to be quite a few posters recently pulling down the beliefs of jw's as not biblical or truly christian.

  maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, i really don't care.. in some important ways though mainstream christians often behave better than jehovah's witnesses; most don't practice shunning or impose lethal medical prohibitions on their members.

  many are far more tolerant of the lgbt community and a few even make the awkward attempt to square the fact of evolution with their faith.. please note that i'm saying some, not all.. so i suppose it's fair to say that differing forms of christianity can be better or worse for individuals, families and the wider community.

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  David_Jay

  I've asked this question myself.

  Whereas I can't offer a definitive answer, I can say that I've noticed it to be what people often call "a poor cousin" of traditional religion.

  Historically religions defend ancient traditions as unchangeable truths, but Jehovah’s Witnesses seemingly create their theology ad-hoc to protect their central belief that they are the one-true religion approved by the Creator. It often appears that all that really mattes to them is that they have found the truth, and that what they believe is true without any possible room for mistake. The have and will continue to change their definition of the last days and the final generation "as-needed" to protect this, even though what they now teach would have disfellowshipped each and every member of the Governing Body for proclaiming it in, say, as recent as 1985.

  Tradition, ritual, spirituality, and a sense that there is something more transcendent and mysterious, greater than ourselves dominates religion. But the tableau offered by the Witnesses is a dry wasteland by comparison. There are no list of heroes or saints who defended the faith from changing or altering course. There are no other-worldly epiphanies or theophanies or miracles that they claim ownership of. There is no meditation or contemplation. They use the Bible like the Gnostics of the past and the Mormons of the present, advocating that divine revelation is limited to a written text instead of from the mouth of a deity.

  Most Christians I know do not consider Jehovah's Witnesses fellow members of the Christian faith. The central tradition of Christianity is rooted in the belief that the Creator appeared incarnate, becoming human in order to be more relate-able to the humanity he created. The belief that Jesus is not this ultimate revelation of God really puts up a wall between the Christians I've known and the Witnesses. But some do feel as you mentioned.

  I would put my money down on the Jehovah's Witnesses being more of an ideological movement than merely a religion. Like ISIS, Nazism, Imperial Japan, and other similar movements of the past, the Witnesses have religious overtones mixed in with a world-domination theme, looking forward to an end of present society and all its institutions, propagandizing a new world order to come in its place with them on the top and in the middle. The present society is worthless and less-human than they are, and it's an "us-against-the-world" philosophy that fires up the zeal of their adherents more than anything else.
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  38

  Your Jehovah’s Witness Is Showing

  by David_Jay in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  since i just signed up and posted a few times without doing this yet, here is my story..

  i think that i became a jehovahs witness because of my immaturity.

  i had some quirky personality traits, and i joined finding that i fit in because, as i said to myself: these people get me.

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  David_Jay

  Thanks, everyone.

  And thumbs-up to Saintberholdt: if you got the guts and that's your thing, go for it. Like I said in my post, my convictions have indeed changed, and if that wasn't clear enough that means I'm no longer an atheist.

  You shout and be proud for who you are. I think it high-time society got more comfortable with atheists being as vocal as theists have been allowed to be through the ages, and if you can't accept it, too bad. They deserve to speak and be heard.

  As for me, I packed my past away with its "these are my beliefs" or set of convictions I live by. Who cares what I mentally acknowledge to be real or true? It's what I am and how I live that defines me, not a creed or philosophy or ideology that I claim allegiance to that spells out who I am.

  I try to live what I am and be nothing less or more. With my track record of the past, I'm the last person who should be acting and feeling like I can be 100% sure that there is no way I could possibly be wrong about my current path. I have felt that way before, and the more convinced I was that I had the truth, the more wrong I always was.

  But I will print out your banners and wave your flags if I believe in the person. I am always there for my friends and what they believe.