ever since i came out of the witnesses, i've become very political.. i've heard lots of arguments back and forth for many things.. in the u.s. there is the argument that it is "racist" to want to deny entry to muslims.
while there is freedom of religion, there is also the very valid concern of maintaining democracy and a justice system that is based on modern values.we as exjw's constantly quote the pew center for statistics on jw's such as: they are last place in the us for members of a religion that go to university, and second-last for poverty levels of members of a religion.
we accept those statistics and mention them as proof of how damaging the jw's are.now, let's use the same center for some very scary statistics on islam:http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/22/muslims-and-islam-key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/.
I don't know of any Christian religion that wishes to follow the following Bible texts literally:
That's because both Christianity and Judaism experienced this thing called the enlightenment during roughly the 17th through 19th centuries.
Concepts such as the primacy of reason, liberty, progress, toleration, fraternity, constitutional government and separation of church and state emerged and crystallized.
Islam did not get that memo
this topic is to focus on status updates & advice (no opinion or politics please).. status.
latest status is that it's serious, probably isn't going to be contained and most large companies are making contingency plans, cancelling large events etc... which i don't think would happen if it was just people being alarmist.
the incubation period means it may have already spread further and infected many more people than are currently known, so expect jumps in the numbers over the coming days and weeks.. tracking.
The Stanford seroprevalence study is very good news. In the interest of accuracy though, influenza burden is not modeled in this fashion. Cases not requiring medical attention are almost entirely a matter of self-diagnosis via questionnaire. Asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic cases would similarly fly under the radar and not be included in mortality estimates.
i was just watching this on you tube, about the growth of the lds church.
i think these numbers may support a number of theories that have been discussed on here.
(1) the jws are bigger as a religious organisation.. (2) jw membership is more engaged, as well as, more ethnically diverse.. (3) wt is been honest with its counting.
Ex Mormons and Ex JW's both look at each other's religions a little wistfully sometimes and neither seem to understand the differences that make comparisons difficult.
The grass is always greener I suppose.....
a little background first.
my first father- in-law, levi peterson was born in 1889. he personally knew rutherford.
he started the newark, ny congregation.
Russell plagiarized his belief in 1914 from John Aquila Brown, a Seventh Day Adventist.
Brown died 20 years before the Seventh Day Adventists were founded and the 1914 date actually came from Barbour.
He was however one of the first known expositors to claim that the 7 times of Nebuchadnezzer were a 2520 year prophetic period.
jws or mormons.
from a public point of view not from people within the religion as that would be obvious.. examples of extreme beliefs or behaviour would be useful..
Nothing with caffeine.
Nothing with alcohol
Also pretty sure the DoC speaks negatively of corn. (Wheat for the man and corn for the ox...)
jws or mormons.
from a public point of view not from people within the religion as that would be obvious.. examples of extreme beliefs or behaviour would be useful..
Anyway - I always understood it was magic spectacles and not a hat, but the hat seem to be the focus and underpants!.
I believe it was what they call a "Seer stone."
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/seer-stones?lang=eng
The person puts the stone in a hat or a large bowl and then puts their face in it, (Think Harry Potter and the Pensieve...)
The stone then allegedly reveals to the practitioner the location of lost objects, buried treasure, yada, yada, yada.
jws or mormons.
from a public point of view not from people within the religion as that would be obvious.. examples of extreme beliefs or behaviour would be useful..
Depends on how well you know the two groups. Mormons appear more mainstream from a distance, but they are every bit as odd as the JWs
The belief in ancient American civilizations rivaling Greece or Rome at the height of their power is a good example.
so, if you expect to find 'saints' with halos, you will never find real christians.. after over 30 years of being a jw, there are many things about the org that disturb me- yet no one else even acknowledges the only true god, as jesus referred to him.. not a 'they' or 'them' ('trinity')- but him!and he has always had the name jehovah (yehovah in hebrew)- even though the koine greek had no version of it when the nt was written.. so among the many things real christians have to endure- is often each other!
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Koine Greek had no version of God's Name- until later.
Just a minor clarification that hopefully does not detract from your point.
Foreign names are adopted into new languages via simple phonetic transliteration.
In other words, Greek speakers would have simply repeated what they heard Hebrew speakers saying in a manner not unlike an English speaker saying "Vladimir Putin" when he hears "Владимир Путин" or "Xi Jinping" when he hears "习近平"
So it's really not a question of whether Ancient Greek had a version of the name. It's a question of whether Greek speakers ever heard it spoken
i have a trove of old watchtower literature.
i know of course, and for example, to keep the three first volumes of the watchtower (bound) and a bunch of other items.
(and i handle them delicately.).
I guess it really depends on the genre you're interested in
Failed predictions?
Quack medicine?
Bad science?
Environmental alarmism?
Political views?
all scripture is inspired of god and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight, for disciplining in righteousness, that the man of god may be fully competent, completely equipped for every good work.. most scholars don't think paul wrote 2 timothy.. every time i here a witness quote this verse, i will be reminded of the irony.. -undisputed-.
1 thessalonians.
galatians.
The only scriptures were the OLD TESTAMENT..
To echo what Half banana said above:
Why not The Book of Jubilees? Or The Assumption of Moses, which is a likely source for Jude 1:9?
How about The Book of Enoch or the Book of Jasher or The Epistle to the Laodiceans or The Life of Adam and Eve, or The Martyrdom of Isaiah or Paul's original letter to the Corinthians. (Referenced in 1 Corinthians)
The point is that we have no way of knowing what writings the early Christians considered authoritative. All the writings I mentioned above are either quoted or referenced in what we call the New Testament today.
