We had several Bethelites join our congregation. They were always appointed to either MS or Elder immediately based upon age. Younger than 30, MS. 30 or older, Elder.
Pronger1
JoinedPosts by Pronger1
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JW Ranking System
by NotFormer init's fairly evident to little old outsider me that the organisation has a class system, perhaps even a caste system.. from what i've read, there seems to not only be an official ranking system (m.s., elder, c.o.
) but an unofficial one.
has anyone ever sat down to figure out what the unofficial ranks are and how they affect the pecking order?
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New instructions on not using sisters to manage KH computer ?
by fifth.column insince covid in france, especially in the countryside with lack of brothers, it was quite common that some sisters were using the computer at the back of the kingdom hall to manage zoom session.. i heard a rumor that new instructions, maybe a july letter, stated that this was reserved for male only, even unbaptised publishers, but no sister if there is at least a male available.
that would be a steps back and disappointment for these sisters.
last week i heard at my mom’s house how they were happy that this service was available for them, a proof that the org was moving forward.
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Pronger1
@blondie
You brought back some memories I had long forgotten. In the early 1990s, I was a young teen who had just gotten baptized. My mother forced me to go in field service with her during the summer months.
So I’d end up having to lead the service meetings and pray during the week because it was only women who were going out in field service. It was a complete joke because here were JW women, including pioneers, who had known JW doctrine far more deeply than I (I daydreamed during meetings), and had decades of life experience over me.
They were far more qualified than I, but because I had a penis and was baptized, I had higher authority over them in such matters. So ridiculous.
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The Rapture
by Sea Breeze inwhen i was pioneering, i don't remember ever addressing the rapture question.
does anyone know how a jw would respond to this verse?
for the lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of god.
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Pronger1
@peacefulpete
2 Corinthians 5:1 is not speaking of a place.. earth vs heaven. Paul is using the word tent to represent the body. He restates this by changing tent to clothing.
Keep reading. Paul is comparing the mortal human body with the future immortal body. Not becoming disembodied, but re-embodied.
For in this tent we groan, longing to be further clothed with our heavenly dwelling, 3 for surely when we have been clothed in it we will not be found naked. 4 For while we are in this tent, we groan under our burden because we wish not to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.
Paul uses earthly vs heavenly not as location but corruptible vs incorruptible. See 1 Corinthians 15:47-53. Earth isn’t speaking of the planet earth, but dust.
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The Rapture
by Sea Breeze inwhen i was pioneering, i don't remember ever addressing the rapture question.
does anyone know how a jw would respond to this verse?
for the lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of god.
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Pronger1
@Rattigan350
What the heck are you talking about with the 144,000?
Go back and read Revelation and pay attention to what it says, not what some preacher told you.
Look At Revelation 5. So this John guy is chatting with an angel. John hears the angel him to look and behold the Lion of Judah. John turns and what does he see? A lamb as if slaughtered covered in blood. He hears the Lion of Judah and sees the slaughtered lamb. Who is the Lion of Judah? Jesus. Who is the slaughtered lamb? Jesus.
So now you’ve seen the pattern. The motif of hearing something and when actually seeing the fulfillment, it isn’t what is expected. Jews thought their Messiah was going to be a warrior king, who would overthrow the oppressive empire. Yet the fulfillment was far different than they thought.
Now look at Revelation 7. Again this John guy HEARS the number 144,000.. 12,000 out of each tribe of Israel. But when he looks, what does he see. A great multitude out of every nation that he could not number. The 144,000 is the great multitude fulfilled in an unexpected way for the Jews. The nations, another way of saying gentiles, is included in their numbers.
This hears then looks for pattern of unexpected fulfillment repeats several times in Revelation.
Your ideas on the 144,000 are way off.
Your Idea that Jesus was not bodily resurrected is way off too. When Jesus appeared to Thomas, you paint Jesus as a deceiver creating fake wounds to convince Thomas of who he is. You make Jesus into a liar.
John 2
19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he was speaking of the temple of his body.
Jesus spoke of his body being raised.
Luke 24
39 Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see, for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”
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The Rapture
by Sea Breeze inwhen i was pioneering, i don't remember ever addressing the rapture question.
does anyone know how a jw would respond to this verse?
for the lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of god.
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Pronger1
@Sea Breeze
I never said that New Jerusalem descending out of heaven to Earth is literal. Your reading comprehension is abysmal.
The writers of these texts were Jewish men. Jews did not believe in going off to heaven. Every bit of Hebrew scripture points to God’s kingdom being on Earth. Paul used the symbolism of the Roman adventus in having Jesus return to Earth. It was a statement of Jesus’ kingship. The Gospel writers used the same imagery of the Roman adventus in Jesus’ entering Jerusalem. Any reader of the time would have known exactly what this imagery meant. Any modern reader who understands historical Roman practices would understand.
JWs and fundamentalist Christians don’t because they don’t pay attention to history. JWs and fundamentalist Christians think the Bible was written to them and try to find signs in modern events to interpret the texts because the rapture/Armageddon is imminent to them.
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The Greatest Christian Doctrine
by Sea Breeze inthe wt likes to quote ad infinitum that the central doctrine of the christian faith is the trinity.
they quote some catholic sources, yadda, yadda, yadda.
it is a great misdirection.
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Pronger1
Sorry, but John MacArthur is trash. He’s just as bad about JWs in bringing his own presuppositions to the text, devoid of historical and culture references of the time periods the texts were written in.
it’s better to read actual Biblical scholars, not some multi-millionaire mega church preacher.
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The Rapture
by Sea Breeze inwhen i was pioneering, i don't remember ever addressing the rapture question.
does anyone know how a jw would respond to this verse?
for the lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of god.
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Pronger1
JWs are illiterate (as are fundie Christians) to historical references.
1 Thessalonians 4 is using imagery of the Roman adventus practice that was around in the 1st century. It was first seen as Jesus approached Jerusalem with the crowds around him as he entered Jerusalem, and words in Acts that Jesus would return from the same way he left at the ascension.
In the Roman adventus, the people from the town would leave the city to approach the emperor or his dignitaries and escort them back into the city. The gospel images of this happening were a political statement about Jesus. Around that time of Jesus entering Jerusalem, Pilate would also be entering the city, setting up the imagery of a conflict between God’s kingdom and that of the Roman Empire.
1 Thessalonians 4, Jesus descending from heaven is greeted and escorted by his followers. The verses never say that they are all then whisked away to heaven. The understanding was always that the kingdom of God would be restored on Earth. Revelation shows that imagery of New Jerusalem descending from heaven to Earth where God and Jesus will dwell.
JWs and the rapture fundies are just ignorant.
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God, one person, or three?
by slimboyfat inthe trinity doctrine says god is three persons in one being.. yet the bible says god is one.. gal 3.20 a mediator, however, implies more than one party; but god is one.
niv.
gal 3.20 now a mediator is not for just one person, but god is one.
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Pronger1
“At every turn the NT text demonstrates that the Trinity was a later development that the Bible writers knew nothing about.”
If you ignore the verses that call the Father God, Jesus God and the Holy Spirit God.
Polycarp (AD 69-155)
Now may the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the eternal high priest himself, the Son of God Jesus Christ, build you up in faith and truth...and to us with you, and to all those under heaven who will yet believe in our Lord and God Jesus Christ and in his Father who raised him from the dead.(1)
Ignatius of Antioch (AD 50-117)
Ignatius, who is also Theophorus, unto her which hath been blessed in greatness through the plentitude of God the Father; which hath been foreordained before the ages to be for ever unto abiding and unchangeable glory, united and elect in a true passion, by the will of the Father and of Jesus Christ our God; even unto the church which is in Ephesus [of Asia], worthy of all felicitation: abundant greeting in Christ Jesus and in blameless joy.(2)
Being as you are imitators of God, once you took on new life through the blood of God you completed perfectly the task so natural to you.(3)
There is only one physician, who is both flesh and spirit, born and unborn, God in man, true life in death, both from Mary and from God, first subject to suffering and then beyond it, Jesus Christ our Lord.(4)
For our God, Jesus the Christ, was conceived by Mary according to God’s plan, both from the seed of David and of the Holy Spirit.(5)
Consequently all magic and every kind of spell were dissolved, the ignorance so characteristic of wickedness vanished, and the ancient kingdom was abolished when God appeared in human form to bring the newness of eternal life.(6)
For our God Jesus Christ is more visible now that he is in the Father.(7)
I glorify Jesus Christ, the God who made you so wise, for I observed that you are established in an unshakable faith, having been nailed, as it were, to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.(8)
Wait expectantly for the one who is above time: the Eternal, the Invisible, who for our sake became visible; the Intangible, the Unsuffering, who for our sake suffered, who for our sake endured in every way.(9)
Justin Martyr (AD 100-165)
And that Christ being Lord, and God the Son of God, and appearing formerly in power as Man, and Angel, and in the glory of fire as at the bush, so also was manifested at the judgment executed on Sodom, has been demonstrated fully by what has been said.(10)
Permit me first to recount the prophecies, which I wish to do in order to prove that Christ is called both God and Lord of hosts.(11)
Therefore these words testify explicitly that He [Jesus] is witnessed to by Him [the Father] who established these things, as deserving to be worshiped, as God and as Christ.(12)
The Father of the universe has a Son; who also, being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God. And of old He appeared in the shape of fire and in the likeness of an angel to Moses and to the other prophets; but now in the times of your reign, having, as we before said, become Man by a virgin...(13)
For if you had understood what has been written by the prophets, you would not have denied that He was God, Son of the only, unbegotten, unutterable God.(14)
Melito of Sardis (AD ?-180)
He that hung up the earth in space was Himself hanged up; He that fixed the heavens was fixed with nails; He that bore up the earth was born up on a tree; the Lord of all was subjected to ignominy in a naked body—God put to death!.... [I]n order that He might not be seen, the luminaries turned away, and the day became darkened—because they slew God, who hung naked on the tree.... This is He who made the heaven and the earth, and in the beginning, together with the Father, fashioned man; who was announced by means of the law and the prophets; who put on a bodily form in the Virgin; who was hanged upon the tree; who was buried in the earth; who rose from the place of the dead, and ascended to the height of heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father.(15)
Irenaeus of Lyons (AD 130-202)
For I have shown from the Scriptures, that no one of the sons of Adam is as to everything, and absolutely, called God, or named Lord. But that He is Himself in His own right, beyond all men who ever lived, God, and Lord, and King Eternal, and the Incarnate Word, proclaimed by all the prophets, the apostles, and by the Spirit Himself, may be seen by all who have attained to even a small portion of the truth. Now, the Scriptures would not have testified these things of Him, if, like others, He had been a mere man.... He is the holy Lord, the Wonderful, the Counselor, the Beautiful in appearance, and the Mighty God, coming on the clouds as the Judge of all men;—all these things did the Scriptures prophesy of Him.(16)
He received testimony from all that He was very man, and that He was very God, from the Father, from the Spirit, from angels, from the creation itself, from men, from apostate spirits and demons.(17)
Christ Jesus [is] our Lord, and God, and Savior, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father.(18)
Christ Himself, therefore, together with the Father, is the God of the living, who spoke to Moses, and who was also manifested to the fathers.(19)
Carefully, then, has the Holy Ghost pointed out, by what has been said, His birth from a virgin, and His essence, that He is God (for the name Emmanuel indicates this). And He shows that He is a man.... [W]e should not understand that He is a mere man only, nor, on the other hand, from the name Emmanuel, should suspect Him to be God without flesh.(20)
Clement of Alexandria (AD 150-215)
This Word, then, the Christ, the cause of both our being at first (for He was in God) and of our well-being, this very Word has now appeared as man, He alone being both, both God and man—the Author of all blessings to us; by whom we, being taught to live well, are sent on our way to life eternal.... The Word, who in the beginning bestowed on us life as Creator when He formed us, taught us to live well when He appeared as our Teacher that as God He might afterwards conduct us to the life which never ends(21)
For it was not without divine care that so great a work was accomplished in so brief a space by the Lord, who, though despised as to appearance, was in reality adored, the expiator of sin, the Savior, the clement, the Divine Word, He that is truly most manifest Deity, He that is made equal to the Lord of the universe; because He was His Son, and the Word was in God...(22)
Tertullian (AD 150-225)
For God alone is without sin; and the only man without sin is Christ, since Christ is also God.(23)
Thus Christ is Spirit of Spirit, and God of God, as light of light is kindled.... That which has come forth out of God is at once God and the Son of God, and the two are one. In this way also, as He is Spirit of Spirit and God of God, He is made a second in manner of existence—in position, not in nature; and He did not withdraw from the original source, but went forth. This ray of God, then, as it was always foretold in ancient times, descending into a certain virgin, and made flesh in her womb, is in His birth God and man united.(24)
Bear always in mind that this is the rule of faith which I profess; by it I testify that the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit are inseparable from each other , and so will you know in what sense this is said. Now, observe, my assertion is that the Father is one, and the Son one, and the Spirit one, and that they are distinct from each other. This statement is taken in a wrong sense by every uneducated as well as every perversely disposed person, as if it predicated a diversity, in such a sense as to imply a separation among the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit. I am, moreover, obliged to say this, when they contend for the identity of the Father and Son and Spirit, that it is not by way of diversity that the Son differs from the Father, but by distribution: it is not by division that He is different, but by distinction; because the Father is not the same as the Son, since they differ one from the other in the mode of their being. For the Father is the entire substance, but the Son is a derivation and portion of the whole, as He Himself acknowledges: “My Father is greater than I.” In the Psalm His inferiority is described as being “a little lower than the angels.” Thus the Father is distinct from the Son, being greater than the Son, inasmuch as He who begets is one, and He who is begotten is another; He, too, who sends is one, and He who is sent is another; and He, again, who makes is one, and He through whom the thing is made is another. Happily the Lord Himself employs this expression of the person of the Paraclete, so as to signify not a division or severance, but a disposition (of mutual relations in the Godhead); for He says, “I will pray the Father, and He shall send you another Comforter...even the Spirit of truth,” thus making the Paraclete distinct from Himself, even as we say that the Son is also distinct from the Father; so that He showed a third degree in the Paraclete, as we believe the second degree is in the Son, by reason of the order observed in the Economy. Besides, does not the very fact that they have the distinct names of Father and Son amount to a declaration that they are distinct in personality?(25)
As if in this way also one were not All, in that All are of One, by unity (that is) of substance; while the mystery of the dispensation is still guarded, which distributes the Unity into a Trinity, placing in their order the three Persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: three, however, not in condition, but in degree; not in substance, but in form; not in power, but in aspect; yet of one substance, and of one condition, and of one power, inasmuch as He is one God, from whom these degrees and forms and aspects are reckoned, under the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.(26)
Hippolytus of Rome (AD 170-235)
The Logos alone of this God is from God himself; wherefore also the Logos is God, being the substance of God.(27)
For, lo, the Only-begotten entered, a soul among souls, God the Word with a (human) soul. For His body lay in the tomb, not emptied of divinity; but as, while in Hades, He was in essential being with His Father, so was He also in the body and in Hades. For the Son is not contained in space, just as the Father; and He comprehends all things in Himself.(28)
For all, the righteous and the unrighteous alike, shall be brought before God the Word.(29)
Let us believe then, dear brethren, according to the tradition of the apostles, that God the Word came down from heaven, (and entered) into the holy Virgin Mary, in order that, taking the flesh from her, and assuming also a human, by which I mean a rational soul, and becoming thus all that man is with the exception of sin, He might save fallen man, and confer immortality on men who believe on His name.... He now, coming forth into the world, was manifested as God in a body, coming forth too as a perfect man. For it was not in mere appearance or by conversion, but in truth, that He became man. Thus then, too, though demonstrated as God, He does not refuse the conditions proper to Him as man, since He hungers and toils and thirsts in weariness, and flees in fear, and prays in trouble. And He who as God has a sleepless nature, slumbers on a pillow.(30)
Origen (AD 185-254)
Jesus Christ...in the last times, divesting Himself (of His glory), became a man, and was incarnate although God, and while made a man remained the God which He was.(31)
Seeing God the Father is invisible and inseparable from the Son, the Son is not generated from Him by “prolation,” as some suppose. For if the Son be a “prolation” of the Father (the term “prolation” being used to signify such a generation as that of animals or men usually is), then, of necessity, both He who “prolated” and He who was “prolated” are corporeal. For we do not say, as the heretics suppose, that some part of the substance of God was converted into the Son, or that the Son was procreated by the Father out of things non-existent, i.e., beyond His own substance, so that there once was a time when He did not exist.... How, then, can it be asserted that there once was a time when He was not the Son? For that is nothing else than to say that there was once a time when He was not the Truth, nor the Wisdom, nor the Life, although in all these He is judged to be the perfect essence of God the Father; for these things cannot be severed from Him, or even be separated from His essence.(32)
For we who say that the visible world is under the government to Him who created all things, do thereby declare that the Son is not mightier than the Father, but inferior to Him. And this belief we ground on the saying of Jesus Himself, “The Father who sent Me is greater than I.” And none of us is so insane as to affirm that the Son of man is Lord over God. But when we regard the Savior as God the Word, and Wisdom, and Righteousness, and Truth, we certainly do say that He has dominion over all things which have been subjected to Him in this capacity, but not that His dominion extends over the God and Father who is Ruler over all.(33)
Wherefore we have always held that God is the Father of His only-begotten Son, who was born indeed of Him, and derives from Him what He is, but without any beginning, not only such as may be measured by any divisions of time, but even that which the mind alone can contemplate within itself, or behold, so to speak, with the naked powers of the understanding.(34)
But it is monstrous and unlawful to compare God the Father, in the generation of His only-begotten Son, and in the substance of the same, to any man or other living thing engaged in such an act; for we must of necessity hold that there is something exceptional and worthy of God which does not admit of any comparison at all, not merely in things, but which cannot even be conceived by thought or discovered by perception, so that a human mind should be able to apprehend how the unbegotten God is made the Father of the only-begotten Son. Because His generation is as eternal and everlasting as the brilliancy which is produced from the sun. For it is not by receiving the breath of life that He is made a Son, by any outward act, but by His own nature.(35)
And that you may understand that the omnipotence of Father and Son is one and the same, as God and the Lord are one and the same with the Father, listen to the manner in which John speaks in the Apocalypse: “Thus saith the Lord God, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.” For who else was “He which is to come” than Christ? And as no one ought to be offended, seeing God is the Father, that the Savior is also God; so also, since the Father is called omnipotent, no one ought to be offended that the Son of God is also called omnipotent.(36)
The majority of these were taken from Early Christian Writings
1. Polycarp, Philippians, 12:2. ↩ 2. Ignatius, Letter to the Ephesians, 0.0. (This is the Greeting.) ↩ 3. Ignatius, Letter to the Ephesians, 1.1. ↩ 4. Ignatius, Letter to the Ephesians, 7.2. ↩ 5. Ignatius, Letter to the Ephesians, 18.2. ↩ 6. Ignatius, Letter to the Ephesians, 19.3. ↩ 7. Ignatius, Letter to the Romans, 3.3. Holmes, AF, 229. ↩ 8. Ignatius, Letter to the Smyrnaeans, 1.1. Holmes, AF, 249. ↩ 9. Ignatius, Letter to Polycarp, 3.2. Holmes, AF, 265. ↩ 10. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 128. Translation from Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, Ante-Nicene Fathers, I:264. ↩ 11. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 36. ANF, I:212. ↩ 12. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 63. ANF, I:229. ↩ 13. Justin Martyr, First Apology, 63. ANF, I:184. ↩ 14. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 126. ANF, I:263. ↩ 15. Melito, 5. ↩ 16. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3.19.2. ↩ 17. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4.6.7. ↩ 18. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 1.10.1. ↩ 19. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4.5.2. ↩ 20. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3.21.4. ↩ 21. Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Heathen, 1. ↩ 22. Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Heathen, 10. ↩ 23. Tertullian, Treatise on the Soul, 41. ↩ 24. Tertullian, Apology, 21. ↩ 25. Tertullian, Against Praxeas, chapter 9. ↩ 26. Tertullian, Against Praxeas, chapter 2. ↩ 27. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 10.29. ↩ 28. Hippolytus, Exegetical Fragments from Commentaries, On Luke, Chapter 23. ↩ 29. Hippolytus, Against Plato, Section 3. ↩ 30. Hippolytus, Against the Heresy of one Noetus, Section 17. ↩ 31. Origen, De Principiis, Preface, 4. ↩ 32. Origen. Contra Celsus, Book 5, Chapter 11. ↩ 33. Origen, Contra Celsus Book 8, Chapter 15. ↩ 34. Origen, De Principiis, Book 1, Chapter 2, Section 2. ↩ 35. Origen, De Principiis, Book 1, Chapt -
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Progress on the NWT Study Bible
by slimboyfat inthe society has been working on the nwt study bible since the revised nwt was released in 2013. so far they done the nt up to philemon.
that makes about 17% of the entire bible including the hebrew/aramaic scriptures.
at that rate the study edition of the whole nwt will be completed sometime around the year 2077. .
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Pronger1
“ JW dogma places Jesus’ presence before the great tribulation, but Matthew 24:21, 29 clearly places it after the great tribulation. ”
That is not how Matthew 24 works. Matthew 24 starts off with Jesus telling his disciples about the destruction of the temple.
Jesus is then asked three question. When will this be (destruction of the temple), what will be the sign of your coming and the end of this age.
Jesus then answers. Their generation will not pass away before the temple is destroyed.
Jesus borrows apocalyptic judgement imagery from Daniel 7 of the son of man coming on the clouds. The same imagery he tells Caiaphas he will see in Matthew 26.
Only starting in Matthew 24:36 does Jesus then answer about the end of the age. It will be unexpected.
The great tribulation Jesus speaks of is the events leading up to the destruction of the temple.
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The Sickening Sadism of Christianity
by cofty inburning heretics alive was a common practice in medieval europe.
i cannot begin to imagine the depravity of the mind that invented this cruelty, let alone the inhumanity and callousness of those who carried out the act.
sometimes an individual would take pity on the victim and hide gunpowder among the wood faggots to hasten their death.. there is only one way to make this scenario even more depraved, infinitely depraved in fact; and that would require magic powers.
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Pronger1
Where Judaism has it right, and much of Christianity has it wrong, is most of Judaism is not afraid to explore different interpretations. Their rabbinical commentaries are full of diversity of thought.
Even within the Bible, where an Old Testament author or even a New Testament author is quoting or alluding to another Old Testament writing, their use of scripture is far outside the original context.
Within Christianity many denominations go so far as to even condemn ecumenism.