Posts by Island Man

38

Types and anti types

by Deltawave in

according the watchtower study of may 10th, it has been made clear no prophetic meaning should be given to a a scripture or passage unless the bible itself gives clear interpretation of it.

therefore daniel 7 especially gives it's fulfillment to nebuchadnezzar only.

no future kingdom or 2520year wait til 1914. no gentile times or "this generation".

Island Man

Here's a challenge to all the posters:

Quote me the phrase in this week's Watchtower study where they clearly admit that their type-antitype teachings were false. lol.

Be very careful how you read Watchtower literature, lest they should continue to deceive you even after you're awake.

It seems to me that Watchtower played a game of double-speak with this week's Watchtower study. The study article was carefully worded to on the one hand give the impression that they're humbly admitting that their type-antitype teachings were false ( But nowhere do they actually say this.) This impression appears to be targeted at those who might be disillusioned with the organization's past ridiculous antitype teachings. They're trying to placate these ones by giving them the impression that the org is correcting its mistakes. But on the other hand, for those who weren't disturbed by the type-antitype rubbish they're giving the impression that they're merely changing their teaching method and focus. They're not actually saying that their type antitype interpretations were false. All they're saying is that that method of instruction is a bit too deep and intellectual and is less preferable than the practical application approach.

So should any awake JW raise the issue of the 1914 teaching still being valid despite the type-antitype method being abandoned as false, the elders can always say:

"Where did you read that the type antitype teaching method is false? What I read is the society has moved away from that method of teaching for the sake of simplicity and emphasizing the practical benefit of bible accounts. I don't recall ever reading that those teachings were false. I also remember reading where they said we should be reluctant to - not that we should not ever - assign antitypical assignments to bible accounts when the bible does not clearly indicate that one exists. So the tree dream is one of those that are the exception . but we have indication in the bible that trees represent rulerships and that Jesus is the lowliest of mankind so the bible does indirectly point to the tree dream in Daniel having a greater antitypical fulfilmment"

Behold the craftiness of Watchtower!

160

"The organisation is imperfect, but it doesn't affect my relationship with Jehovah"

by Alive! in

i've noted active, devoted jw's state the above.. and, it's not a problem for me to remain trusting of god, i just don't trust religions or men.. recently, a member of this forum stated that he remains an active jw, in the family of god's people, wanting to encourage and do good - whilst recognising that the pastoral leaders (the gb) have shipwrecked the faith of many, being unsound scripturally etc, etc.. stop and think about this - the bible says to not follow after those who lie and hurt the faith of "little ones".. the pharisees were accused of traversing over lands and expending much energy to make a single convert - only for that convert to end up worse of than he started off with.. it's one thing to not believe this is the 'truth' and feeling the awful pressure of managing ones life, trying not to lose ones family.. it's quite another thing to declare oneself to be a christian believer of god's jw household, and somehow believe the god of love would use corrupt liars to parade as jesus' brothers in the urgency of last days.

really?

and, to then visibly promote faith in corrupt men, and try to bring converts into a place where the rulership is wrong.. some of us are dying from hurt here.......give me a break..

Island Man

Brother Jeramy, a Catholic can use similar reasoning as you to defend being a Catholic. But of course we all know that JWs will say the Catholic church is false. How is it that JWs always use special pleading to defend their religion as true despite its obvious failings, but are quick to indict all other religions as false even for the most minor errors? JWs are hypocrites!

23

Are the writers in the writing department purposely misquoting people?

by paulmolark in

after reading that great post about the june 1 article on science i got to thinking.

although it is great to believe there is this huge group of guys in the jw writing department that are constantly looking to mislead us by twisting the words of scientist etc... i really think it is more likely they are google researchers that do not have the ability to grasp the thoughts that are being expressed in the scientific article they quote mine from.. i honestly believe the reason that this happens is because of the individuals they use to write these magazines.

these are not college educated men.

Island Man

They have been misquoting people since long before Google and the Internet, so yes, I would say it is deliberate.

54

The Divine Name in the NT: Some Reflections

by Let go of fear in

i've been fascinated with this topic for some time now, almost to the point of obsession.

after researching the issue for several years, i have come to a conclusion/theory that i would love to receive some feedback on.

this theory of mine is one that will be somewhat unsettling to both those who believe the divine name was used in the original nt scripts as well as those who believe it wasn't.

Island Man

"I know I'm going to sound like a cheerleader for "The Society," but how does the NWT in any way minimize the role of Jesus? I have copies of many translations and I fail to see how the NWT does what you are suggesting."

Here's a blatant example of Watchtower replacing "kyrios" with "Jehovah" even though the writer was not quoting from the OT. Worse yet, the replacement corrupts the true meaning of the text for the text is using "kyrios" to refer to Jesus. But Watchtower's Jehovarization of the text changes it to refer to Jehovah and makes it illogical. The text is Romans 14:8, which in the NWT, reads (NWT):

"None of us, in fact, lives with regard to himself only, and no one dies with regard to himself only; 8 for both if we live, we live to Jehovah, and if we die, we die to Jehovah. Therefore both if we live and if we die, we belong to Jehovah. 9 For to this end Christ died and came to life again, that he might be Lord over both the dead and the living."

The use of Jehovah in Romans 14:8 is inconsistent with the context of Romans 14:9 which clearly identifies the "kyrios" of Romans 14:8 as being Christ. You see, Romans 14:9 gives the justification for why we belong to kyrios whether we live or die - because that kyrios became kyrios of dead and the living by dying a sacrificial death. Romans 14:8 is supposed to flow logically into Romans 14:9 where the kyrios is identified as being Christ. But in the NWT this definite logical flow is shattered by replacing kyrios with Jehovah thereby corrupting Romans 14:9 in the NWT to being an illogical non-sequitur.

Now notice how the text makes more logical sense in KJ21 when "kyrios" is consistently and accurately rendered as "Lord":

7 For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. 8 For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Whether we live therefore or die, we are the Lord’s. 9 For to this end Christ both died, and arose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living."

160

"The organisation is imperfect, but it doesn't affect my relationship with Jehovah"

by Alive! in

i've noted active, devoted jw's state the above.. and, it's not a problem for me to remain trusting of god, i just don't trust religions or men.. recently, a member of this forum stated that he remains an active jw, in the family of god's people, wanting to encourage and do good - whilst recognising that the pastoral leaders (the gb) have shipwrecked the faith of many, being unsound scripturally etc, etc.. stop and think about this - the bible says to not follow after those who lie and hurt the faith of "little ones".. the pharisees were accused of traversing over lands and expending much energy to make a single convert - only for that convert to end up worse of than he started off with.. it's one thing to not believe this is the 'truth' and feeling the awful pressure of managing ones life, trying not to lose ones family.. it's quite another thing to declare oneself to be a christian believer of god's jw household, and somehow believe the god of love would use corrupt liars to parade as jesus' brothers in the urgency of last days.

really?

and, to then visibly promote faith in corrupt men, and try to bring converts into a place where the rulership is wrong.. some of us are dying from hurt here.......give me a break..

Island Man

When a JW says:

"The organisation is imperfect, but it doesn't affect my relationship with Jehovah"

You simply respond by saying:

"Exactly! The organization is imperfect and it doesn't affect my relationship with Jehovah. I'm glad to see that you finally understand where I'm coming from!"

The idiotic reasoning behind the original JW quote is that one should continue "serving Jehovah" even if the organization fails to live up to what is expected of it. But get this: by "serving Jehovah", what they really mean is blindly serving the corrupt organization that doesn't measure up to what it professes to be, because they equate "serving Jehovah" with being in the organization. So in reality, the JW quote is actually a ridiculous self-contradiction where they simultaneously separate Jehovah from the organization while also equating the two ... all in one sentence! It's as if they're really saying:

"The organization is imperfect, but it doesn't affect my relationship with the organization. So even if the organization should fail you, you should not let that stop you from being loyal to the organization because surely the organization will not fail you even if the organization fails you."

Their thinking is so twisted. They're nuts and they're too indoctrinated to see it!

54

The Divine Name in the NT: Some Reflections

by Let go of fear in

i've been fascinated with this topic for some time now, almost to the point of obsession.

after researching the issue for several years, i have come to a conclusion/theory that i would love to receive some feedback on.

this theory of mine is one that will be somewhat unsettling to both those who believe the divine name was used in the original nt scripts as well as those who believe it wasn't.

Island Man

Here's something to think about:

We know the name existed in the OT even though there are manuscripts with it removed and replaced with the Hebrew version of Lord. But the OT is a lot older than the NT. There was thus a lot more opportunity to thoroughly remove YHWH from the OT copies without leaving a trace . . . and yet we have OT manuscripts containing YHWH!

Is it reasonable to believe that copyists of the NT succeeded in thoroughly removing YHWH from the NT while failing to do the same for the much older OT? How likely is it that copyists would succeed in totally removing all occurrences of YHWH from all NT copies without so much as one surviving with YHWH? That seems highly improbable. It is far more reasonable to conclude that the name was never in the NT to begin with.

By the time of the NT's writing, it was already the culturally accepted norm to substitute YHWH with Lord. All of the Jewish culture was doing it and all the early christians who initially came from a Jewish background grew up doing it. Even the copies of the septuagint in use at that time had already replaced YHWH with kyrios - never mind the fact that there may have been a minority of copies with YHWH. It certainly was not the norm. So even the argument about NT writers quoting the OT where YHWH is mentioned, is flawed! Why? Because the NT writers were likely quoting from later copies of the septuagint which already had the name replaced with kyrios! It is only natural then, to expect that early Jewish christians - the writers of the NT - would continue the tradition they grew up knowing and practicing, in their NT writings. Remember too that it was considered blasphemous to use the name.

Why would christians go out of their way to use the name and bring persecution on themselves when the bible does not mandate the use of the name? Consider too that the majority of the books of the NT are letters that were read out loud at church meetings. Do you think the authors would write YHWH in them and have the reader at the church meeting accused of blasphemy by some unbelieving Jew who happened to be visiting the meeting?

I think the most logical and objective conclusion that one can arrive at in view of the total absence of any NT manuscripts with YHWH, is that the name was never in the NT to begin with. It is only because of theological bias - their over-fixation on the need to use "Jehovah" - that JWs want to believe that it must have been there. They cannot believe that early christians did not share their unhinged fixation on the name "Jehovah".

19

Since man is unable to create life does this mean

by Crazyguy in

jw
friends

does this mean possible a creator did or does exist.

there is plenty of evidence of a slow evolutionary changes over millions of years and i do not disagree with this.

but again that fact that mankind can not create a living creature from scratch mean there must be a creator?

Island Man

Man cannot create life ... yet. But that has no bearing on whether or not a creator exists.

The processes involved in life sustenance happen at the microscopic scale and this is one of the biggest reasons why we are ignorant of all the factors involved and required to create life. The very small scale at which life's "pixels" exist make it very difficult to study and understand it sufficiently enough to replicate it. We do know a lot about it. But we don't yet know all there is to know about it. But that day will probably come and then we would be able to replicate it. Although I think it is more likely that we would create our own artificial form of life that is less complex and more elegant than what we see in nature.

13

Anyone Know what happened to the Video that's brought down many JWs to Ex-JW land?

by PokerPlayerPhil in

i've been looking for a video done by someone who shows the warning by jesus saying "if anyone comes to you and say's "the appointed time is near" you are to run from them!

two people who left the watchtower said this has been one of the most powerful videos to get inside the heads of really smart elders and witnesses that don't come the regular way.. the gist of the video is the watchtower wrote a book called "the appointed time is near" and this goes against everything jesus christ warned people.

the problem with the watchtower's followers is they need "omens", "portents", "signs" to keep their followers following along their path lead by that dried up old carrot (the end) or (the appointed time).

Island Man

I'm not sure if this is the video you're referring to, but this one is also based on Jesus warning at Luke 21:8 but gives details of Russel's false end time predictions in the book "The time is at hand" before finally revealing the title of the book and the scripture at Luke 21:8. It's done in a powerful way:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSYBUifr7Y0

99

Golden Rule: Pure Garbage?

by willmarite in

on another thread a poster made the comment that the golden rule was garbage.

she said it was arrogant and made assumptions.. i didn't want to derail that thread so i started another wondering if this is a common thought about this belief on this forum.

i guess i naively thought the value of doing to others as you want them to do to you was generally accepted as positive.. i understand people have different opinions of jesus as a person but i don't want to get into that here.

Island Man

"The Diamond Rule also has its own set of shortcomings. For example, what if someone's wish is detrimental to his own well-being? Should we treat that person as he/she wants to be treated despite said treatment poses an unquestionable threat to her well-being? it may be a difficult call sometimes.
One rule doesn't fit all, I'd say.
Eden"

I agree. But the same can be said for the golden rule: what if my desire of how to be treated is detrimental to my own well-being? Should I treat others as I want to be treated despite said treatment posing an unquestionable threat to their well-being? The advantage of the Diamond rule over the golden rule, is that of showing personal interest in wishes of others without presuming. But they both have the caveat of harmful wants.

99

Golden Rule: Pure Garbage?

by willmarite in

on another thread a poster made the comment that the golden rule was garbage.

she said it was arrogant and made assumptions.. i didn't want to derail that thread so i started another wondering if this is a common thought about this belief on this forum.

i guess i naively thought the value of doing to others as you want them to do to you was generally accepted as positive.. i understand people have different opinions of jesus as a person but i don't want to get into that here.

Island Man

"Island Man, "treat others the way they would want to be treated."
What if they want to be worshipped as gods?"

That's a fair point that applies equally to the golden rule - what if I want to be worshipped as a god? Should I then go around worshipping others? And then that would also mean that God does not follow the golden rule because he wants worship but refuses to worship others.