Posts by Ireneus

33

Irrationality of in important teaching

by Ireneus in

jesus used illustration to make things clear.

hence imagine yourself in a situation which reminds you of an important teaching:.

you are in a super market, and you are told: “someone has already paid for whatever you have purchased”[as churches teach through their ransom sacrifice].

Ireneus

Perry,

STILLIN has already sufficiently refuted all your points.

If ransom teaching is from God, why is it irrational? Why didn't Jesus use his supernatural ability and skill to explain this teaching?

33

Irrationality of in important teaching

by Ireneus in

jesus used illustration to make things clear.

hence imagine yourself in a situation which reminds you of an important teaching:.

you are in a super market, and you are told: “someone has already paid for whatever you have purchased”[as churches teach through their ransom sacrifice].

You say all these because you were taught that way. What guarantee is there for those things to be true especially in view of the fact Jesus himself foretold truth will be overpowered by interpolators and false teachers who will be operating in “his name” (Mathew 13:24-30; 7:21-23).

Listen to Jesus directly what he says: “Unless a seed falls into earth and dies, it cannot produce any grains.” His taking the unmistakable principle behind the eternal seed-tree mechanism makes all the difference—physical apparatus of the seed dies but life continues (which he further reiterated, with absolute clarity, through the famous parable of Lazarus and Rich man). Thus for Jesus, death was an expression of life, the most critical defining feature of life. When you die, you are making the ultimate undeniable assertion that you have been alive. In fact, death is even a precondition to life. That means life is already eternal because we are all “God’s image”, no one loses it, hence no one has to regain it for us—a point which William Shakespeare indirectly hints at: “What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!”(Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2, Page 13) Yet this is what Bible put it with absolute clarity: “Eternity” resides in each one’s physical body. (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

You can find many people thinking in above lines:

“Surely God would not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day! No, no, man was made for immortality.” (Abraham Lincoln)

“I would love to believe that when I die …. some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue.” (Carl Sagan)

33

Irrationality of in important teaching

by Ireneus in

jesus used illustration to make things clear.

hence imagine yourself in a situation which reminds you of an important teaching:.

you are in a super market, and you are told: “someone has already paid for whatever you have purchased”[as churches teach through their ransom sacrifice].

Ireneus

Jesus used illustration to make things clear. Hence imagine yourself in a situation which reminds you of an important teaching:

You are in a Super Market, and you are told: “Someone has already paid for whatever you have purchased”[as Churches teach through their Ransom Sacrifice]

yet when you turn another side, someone else says: “You have to pay for whatever you buy from here”[as we learned in School ‘every action has equal and opposite reaction’which means effect of sin cannot be swapped (Deuteronomy 24:16), hence each one has to pay for his sin]

51

Without god what is the basis of morality?

by OneEyedJoe in

i'm sure most here who've questioned or left behind their belief in god have encountered this question - without god, what basis can there be for morality?

my exwife, when i admitted that i was an atheist, once asked me "if you don't believe in god, what's to stop you from going out and raping and murdering?

" previously, whenever i got this objection, i would tend to turn it around on the other person with a response along the lines of "if fear of god is the only thing that stops you from murdering, that makes me rather nervous to be around you.

Ireneus

Jesus did not say we have to be ethical because God exists, but implied when we are ethical we reflect God (Mathew 5:9)

13

The bread pan illustration is totally flawed

by purrpurr in

it just suddenly occured to me today.... you know the jws always say about adams sin being passed on to his descendants that its like you have a bread pan with a dent in it and that every loaf of bread will then have a dent?

well that's fine for bread, cos your using the same pan.

but that's not how genetics work?.

Ireneus

Good reasoning.

Bible writers are confused over this. In one place it would say 'the sins of the father will be poured out on the offspring to the third and fourth generations' and in another place it would contradict it, as given in Deut 24:16; Eze 18:20.

History too tells a different story. There are good children born to wicked parents and vice versa. There are geniuses born to ordinary parents and vice versa.

Individual experience too tells a different story. If one changes his thought, his destiny is changed accordingly for the good or bad. And it is very easy to change thought which is the starting point of something good or bad.

1

Great efforts to make something fake look real

by Fay Dehr in

great efforts to make something fake look real from r/exjw.

interesting videos at http://tinyurl.com/jwleakedvideos.

Ireneus

Interesting speech by Brian Martin who announced HO and all its branches would use new accounting procedure from 2019-29 with new culture of expense-cutting consciousness.

Thanks for sharing these videos, Fay Dehr

31

Jesus tempted by Satan, real or just a vision.

by pleaseresearch in

not with their shunning policy.

me and my brother seldom communicate sadly, but no way would we go anywhere for fear of being seen with an inactive jw for over 10 years.. https://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/watchtower-simplified-march-2016/questions-from-readers/.

from the website:.

Ireneus

Though Bible writers used poor imagination in creating a setting for the temptation for Jesus, in essence it conveys a profound thought. Just like sea-worthiness of a ship is known when it is placed in the sea and survives a storm (not when it is anchored on the shore), Jesus proved his worthiness through his second “baptism by fire” (Mathew 3:11) which means he was victorious over all the temptations he encountered throughout his life as implied by Mark 1:13 when he said: “He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him” which means he tasted the life as it is with its rough and soft aspects. All those temptations can broadly be categorized in to three:

1) Tendency to use skills and talents for own benefit rather than for others (changing the stones into bread).

2) Putting God into test taking extreme risk (jumping from the top of temple) with an eye on fame though short-cut.

3) Forgetting the main purpose of life getting sidetracked on to the splendour of world’s attractions (kingdoms of world in exchange for an act of worship of Satan, personification of bad qualities, which means enjoying worldly pleasures and powers through unjust means)

Thus, in details the account of temptation on Jesus carries wrong messages such as shape of earth is flat, Satan is a person, Jesus followed Satan to be tempted …etc. But in essence it conveys great truth that man can be victorious over any temptation by changing the thought as Jesus did—he did not dwell on any of them.

33

Child sacrifice and Jesus' sacrifice

by Whynot in

jeremiah 7:31 says, "they have built the high places of toʹpheth, which is in the valley of the son of hinʹnom, in order to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, something that i had not commanded and that had never even come into my heart.’".

according to this scripture it's unthinkable for jehovah to be pleased with child sacrifices.

but yet he sent his son to be killed as a sacrifice for all?.

Ireneus

Cofty,

Wonderful comment

9

Sells out of KHs

by asp59 in

i just wonder about the 3000 buildings that are gonna be sold out.

seems like a lot.

but how much is it in percentage of the buildings they own that are gonna be sold?.

Ireneus

This is a message that no one should claim direct appointment from God. If appointed by God, org should have go ne increasing.

20

"One drop of poison in a glass of water"

by stuckinarut2 in

time to revive this well known, and often used jw illustration!.

"if you are in desperate need of a drink of water, and the glass in front of you is 99% clean, but contains just 1% poison, would you drink it??".

how often we heard this trotted out from the platform.. recently though, i have heard many examples of still-in jws sharing their observations about things that don't seem quite right with the current activities, direction and culture of the organization.

Ireneus

Will JWs abandon the Bible if they find that Bible too contains pagan teachings (or poison) even more than 1%?

For example, to create a parallel to worldly kings trying to kill the anointed one of God and in desperation killing all the children at random to ensure the death of the anointed one [a feature found in pagan scriptures], Bible also creates a story in which Gospel writer Matthew claims shortly after the birth of Jesus, Mary, Joseph and Jesus went to Egypt to flee from King Herod who was allegedly killing all baby boys who were two-years old or younger (Matthew 2:1-21). However, according to Luke 2:39, the "holy" family did not go to Egypt shortly after the birth of Jesus, they went to Nazareth. Neither the Gospel of John or the Gospel of Mark mention this time of Jesus' life. And the same gospel ends with another teaching of trinity (Mathew 28:19) copied from pagan sources. Jeremiah says most of the OT portions that speak about sacrifices are ‘nothing but lies’ (Jeremiah 7:22, 31; 8:8)