Posts by David

30

May 21, 2016 TO ALL CONGREGATIONS Re: Annual Items for 2017

by wifibandit in

may 21, 2016 to all congregations re: annual items for 2017.

David_Jay

This means, in my book, that we are witnessing the end of the Watchtower and Jehovah's Witnesses. And I have never really believed I would see or say such a thing.

E-book sales and use have declined. They haven't gone away, they are not going anywhere, but they also were never the death knoll some predicted they were going to be for the printed word.

Religious book sales have soared, especially Bible study editions. The Catholic world market has boomed, for example, with non-Catholic publishing houses (like the evangelical Tyndale) developing officially approved new Bible translations for this previously untapped market. Their New Living Translation has just been expanded in a Catholic edition and received an imprimatur, now released in India and to be released in the USA in April of 2017. Five major new Bible translations in English alone, and a plethora of study materials have been released for Catholics since 2001. The main sales are in print, and the Catholic NABRE (the official US text) is a best seller in various editions since its 2011 release.

Judaism too, especially Reform, is experiencing a publishing and sales bloom. And nothing is decreasing in hard copy publishing in the rest of the religious world. The United Bible societies are printing more and more hard copy books, Bibles and tracts in a multitude of languages, with numbers and demand still up and growing.

Oh, and paper calendar sales are still healthy.

The JWs aren't printing becuase they can't do it anymore. It's not because e-books are the wave of the future. Religious people still prefer books and scrolls, hymnals, missals, and tracts that have been printed and can be touched and felt.

Despte selling property, despite anything else they say, they are printing less because it is over. This is just denial now for those left behind.

It's over. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Not next year. It's over now.

Those who are left are ghosts. The Watchtower is now going the way of the Worldwide Church of God. It will take a little more time like it did in the WCG after Armstrong did, but the flock of folly will soon scatter.

The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society has fallen! A Bible and tract society that doesn't print anything is dead. It's death is a symptom of the dead body that clings to it.

42

Did Jesus really suffer? Really?

by purrpurr in

jw
friends

so over the course of three days he had a trial which doesn't seem to have bothered him much.

he got whipped ok that would have been agony and then put on a torture stake/ cross/ whatever yes that would have been hell.

but he was on it for a day and the whole thing lasted for three days.

David_Jay

You just can't stand to be wrong, can you? Am I so powerful and my words so important that you have to keep fighting? Look at how I can control you! I can keep you going on and on, can't I?

42

Did Jesus really suffer? Really?

by purrpurr in

jw
friends

so over the course of three days he had a trial which doesn't seem to have bothered him much.

he got whipped ok that would have been agony and then put on a torture stake/ cross/ whatever yes that would have been hell.

but he was on it for a day and the whole thing lasted for three days.

David_Jay

Yes, "healed." Ransoms don't heal people. They get paid to get those held captive free.

God didn't demand a ransom of any kind, becuase sin was holding humanity hostage. By healing people through what Christ sacrificed, people are offered a share in the divine life. That is the Gospel.

You are arguing with me to defend a view you reject. The you don't want to admit that the view you reject is wrong or that there is anything like divinization being a historical doctrine, because that will mean you rejected the wrong thing.

If you reject something that was never the belief in the first place, your current convictions might be wrong and need to be changed. And the thought of that moves you to keep arguing and debating.

If there is no God, then what you are defending is wrong anyway. Why are you defending something that is irrelevant? Is it not all nonsense anyway?

42

Did Jesus really suffer? Really?

by purrpurr in

jw
friends

so over the course of three days he had a trial which doesn't seem to have bothered him much.

he got whipped ok that would have been agony and then put on a torture stake/ cross/ whatever yes that would have been hell.

but he was on it for a day and the whole thing lasted for three days.

David_Jay

You are just arguing with me because you are proud. I thought you were atheist. Why would an atheist argue in favor of any type of theology or interpretation? If there is no God, then all the interpretations are wrong, including what you wrote.

And yes, I read it a while back, not recently however.

42

Did Jesus really suffer? Really?

by purrpurr in

jw
friends

so over the course of three days he had a trial which doesn't seem to have bothered him much.

he got whipped ok that would have been agony and then put on a torture stake/ cross/ whatever yes that would have been hell.

but he was on it for a day and the whole thing lasted for three days.

David_Jay

Memory fails me, but I believe Russell explained in this in a letter supplement in either the "Herald" or first "Watch Tower."

But though the JWs may not realize it, yes their theology is solidly based and founded on it.

Again, it isn't me you should be arguing with about this. I wasn't the one who invented this ignorant theology.

42

Did Jesus really suffer? Really?

by purrpurr in

jw
friends

so over the course of three days he had a trial which doesn't seem to have bothered him much.

he got whipped ok that would have been agony and then put on a torture stake/ cross/ whatever yes that would have been hell.

but he was on it for a day and the whole thing lasted for three days.

David_Jay

And as to the principle of vicarious punishment and atonement, it has been the touchstone of JWs since 1879 when Russell separated from those who published "Herald of the Morning" and began to publish the first editions of the Watchtower. It has been understood that way of the Old Testament sacrifices and applied to Christ in that fashion ever since. You can probably Google Russell's comments about it easily.

42

Did Jesus really suffer? Really?

by purrpurr in

jw
friends

so over the course of three days he had a trial which doesn't seem to have bothered him much.

he got whipped ok that would have been agony and then put on a torture stake/ cross/ whatever yes that would have been hell.

but he was on it for a day and the whole thing lasted for three days.

David_Jay

Yes, I did. And it is the Watchtower view, not Judaism's or Christianity's.

For instance, the Jewish view is described here at http://www.jewfaq.org/m/qorbanot.htm and other places on the Internet and in written Jewish sources.

Being a Sephardic Jew myself I can testify that Jews did not see the sacrifices according to what you wrote, but the JWs did, and they influenced your reading. You just don't realize it yet.

So yes, it is the Watchtower view, even what you wrote.

42

Did Jesus really suffer? Really?

by purrpurr in

jw
friends

so over the course of three days he had a trial which doesn't seem to have bothered him much.

he got whipped ok that would have been agony and then put on a torture stake/ cross/ whatever yes that would have been hell.

but he was on it for a day and the whole thing lasted for three days.

David_Jay

Again, even the idea that you present of the Old Testament is shared basically by the religious traditions that contributed to Watchtower-ism. It is the JW idea that I am saying is completely wrong.

They say God demanded sacrifices in the Temple to cover over sins, and they still have you convinced that this is so. Is it not written: "Do I eat the blood of bulls or drink the blood of he -goats?"--Psalm 50.13.

If the "wrath of a vengeful god" was satisfied by blood sacrifice, it was not the God of the Old or New Testament , as the JWs teach. Have you never read the Scriptire that says: "It is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats take away sins." And again the Scriptures say: "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire."--Hebrews 10.1-7.

If Scripture teaches that God does not eat the blood of sacrifices nor even desires these, then why the sacrifice of Christ? Again the Scriptures answer, that "you may come to share in the divine life." (2 Peter 1.4) If God offers a life that grants "divine life," what other source can it have but God?

The death of a perfect man cannot offer a share in God's life. Only that of God can do so. And God does not need his own life. He offers it for humanity for humans "to share in the divine life." That is the Good News, not what the Witnesses have sadly taught you.

Besides, why would you defend the Watchtower view? And what is better news than being offered a "share in the divine life"? If the Gospel the JWs preach is less than that, how is that the Good News? It is not. It is another, accursed gospel.

11

Adam buried at the foot of Christ's cross. Are you kidding me.

by James Mixon in

i heard this on "the story of god".

his blood trickle down through the rocks into adam giving.

him life.

David_Jay

It may seem that way, but the idea of Adam being buried there and everything else I explained is older than the New Testament, at least until you get to the part of Jesus being put to death at Skull Place.

The fact that it is post-Biblical even in Judaism shows that it is an independent view as well. Golgotha is a real location, and things just worked out that way as history unfolded (or allegedly did).

Remember, this stuff is discussed even in the Talmud and Church Fathers, often in passing. So it wasn't as if they were trying to make things fit the Bible as we know it today. The Church Fathers had yet to canonize the Christian Scriptures and the Jews did not even believe in Jesus as the Messiah, so no one (especially the Jews) was trying to agree with the Christian Scriptural record. Some parts of the Bible were not even written before this tradition began.

42

Did Jesus really suffer? Really?

by purrpurr in

jw
friends

so over the course of three days he had a trial which doesn't seem to have bothered him much.

he got whipped ok that would have been agony and then put on a torture stake/ cross/ whatever yes that would have been hell.

but he was on it for a day and the whole thing lasted for three days.

David_Jay

All the Scriptures you quote are correct, but none of them, not one says that they are payment to God for sins, as if God is demanding shed blood or needs blood.

What the texts are talking about is that the shedding of blood, or offering of life (remember that blood represents life in the Bible) of Jesus is in order to heal people from the effects of sin.

Remember, all these things are to ransom us from the effects of sin, not from God. God was not holding us in exchange for ransom, sin was. It is written: "God bestowed on us the precious and very great promises, so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature."--2 Peter 1.4.

The Gospel is that people are saved from a mortal nature to share in a divine, incorruptible immortal nature.

Again, I am only stating that the Watchtower view of God demanding blood to release us from sin is not the same message Chrsitianity has taught since the beginning. The Gospel is about sharing in God's very eternal life, not about settling an argument between God and the Devil.

David_Jay

Posts by David_Jay