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| Thread: Jehova's Witnesses |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · «PREV |
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Disturbed-Gnu
Supreme Hero
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posted October 12, 2010 04:27 PM |
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I've tried for some years ago when i was home alone, my parents had a weekend trip. I just sat and watched Batman Begins when the doorbell rang. So I went out and opened and there stood an old lady with some books and magazines in her hand, and asked me if she could take 5 minutes of my time.
I said that i was kinda busy and i don't wanted to buy some crappy books or flyers.
She said It is just 5 minutes, let me just quickly tell you what you miss. Then i thought of the Cure Cancer people walking from door to door which i really want to help, and i thought that maybe she was somekind og cure a disease woman too. So stupid as i was i told her to wait for me to get my wallet.
She said, that there was no need for that, she just wanted me to invite her inside and let her tell me about Jehovas witnesses!!
And i really do hate Jehovas witnesses, i do hate every single kind of religion.. Stupid stupid stupid..
So i anwsered: "Nice, i'm out of toilet paper, and i got a huuuge meatloaf commin, so please for the love of satan, hand me one of your crappy books".. and ive never seen them since..
And the best part is, that my mum thanked me for it when i told them.
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Elodin
Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
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posted October 18, 2010 01:57 AM |
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@ Elodin
They ARE, however, elitist in every word sense as a religious group:
The fact that the JWs believe they have been chosen by God to serve the world in delivering a certain message to it does not make them elitist. Elitist carries the connotation of snobbishness. Reread the dictionary definition I posted.
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They just "adapt". They have made all kinds of prophecies and explain the errors with the fact that people would have been to keen on witnessing the coming of Armageddon and therefore dated things too "optimistic".
The word "prophet" does not mean the same to JWs as it does to Christians. JWs say their prophets speak not through divine revealation but by careful reasonings and deductions. They do not hold their prophets to be infallible therefore.
And there is nothing wrong with challenging "science." As I have shown, "science" is often wrong. "Science" is a religion to many people and they believe without question whatever "science" says, sadly.
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About making viewpoints heard:
I don't disagree with you, that everyone has the right to try and make their viewpoints heard. However, that doesn't mean I cannot applaud when religious people abandon their right to try and force society to teach something as truth that is a very special translation and interpretation of an old book that is supposed to be all kinds of things and to try and base the workings of society on it, and no matter what their actual reasons are.
Instead they try and win members. I think that for a religion that is the right way, and so I applaud them.
This means of course that I disagree with the other posters here who feel bugged by them.
In your opinion the Bible is just an old book. But it is the Word of God. 
Non-atheists have just as much right to "force" society to teach their beliefs as atheists have to try to "force" society to teach theirs.
The Bible says one is first of all to speak the truth, not that one is to try to win members for a church.
As a Christian, I have a Christian worldview. Materialistic atheists have a materialistic atheist worldview. A Christian will vote according to his faith and atheists will vote according to theirs. Both have an equal right to influence society in a democracy.
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On their Bible interpretation:
I think, that a discussion of this is not helpful. I'm no Bible researcher nor do I have any knowledge in the old languages. Whether this or that Bible interpretation is right or wrong, is in the end beyond me, and I have to accept what I read. The fact that there ARE different interpretations isn't too positive in general for the credibility of the Bible all in all, in my opinion.
Oh really? There are lots of different interpretation of various poems and classical literature.
People have different understaindings for many reasons.
1) Spiritually dead people simply can't understand most spiritual things.
2) Spiritual things in the Bible are learned by spiritual means. Revealation.
3) Some people WANT to misunderstand. Not everyone wants to know the truth.
4) Spiritual hunger and diligence in seeking is generally required for God to reveal things to a person.
5) Some people pick a verse here and another one several books away to read. In other words they don't read through an entire book and thus are clueless about the context of the verse.
As a sidenote, the Bible was not even written in chapters and verses. The books of the Bible were broken up into chapters and verses for ease of reference and study.
6) Some people have not read the Bible enough to know that the New Covenant is now the Covenant that is in force, not the Old Covenant and that the Old Covenant dealth with the nation of Israel and the New Covenant deals with a people, the church, not a nation.
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I, too, would say that there can't be a hell - it would be incongrous with how god is descriobed.
Sorry, but you simply do not have a good understanding of the way the Bible describes God. God is a god of love. But he is a god of justice and wrath too.
Justice and mercy kissed at the cross. God began to exist as the man Jesus Christ for the express purpose of dying in our place to satisy justice as well as mercy.
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Rom 3:24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
Rom 3:25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
Rom 3:26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
If you would like I will quote a number of verses that show that hell is a place of everlasting torment, not the grave.
So I can not commend the JWs for rejecting what Jesus himself taught directly and what the Bible elsewhere teaches.
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They actually come up with the Bible and underline their points with it, and THEIR interpretation of the Bible is quite tangible. You can nail them, they have no fear to take their stance.
They address what YOU ask them, not what THEY want to tell you.
Quoting the Bible is nothing uniqe to JWs. I do it all the time. I think pretty much most non-liberal "Christians" will quote the Bible when speaking about what it teaches.
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About medical treatment and killing of children:
This is a sensitive topic. My opinion is, if you let your child die without medical necessity, you are willingly killing it.
I can't agree with either your previous statement that they are trying to kill their children or that they willingly kill the child (and certainly not with the word "it" being used to refer to a child either.
I'm quite sure that it is quite painful for a JW parent to reject a blood transfusion on behalf of his child. The JW parent considers the physical AND spiritual ramifications of his decision.
Materialistic atheists don't believe in spiritual things but that does not mean that everyone else should be forced to live by what atheists believe.
Let each person practice his own religion (including atheism) and let each person teach his own beliefs to his children. Atheists do not have the right nor are they qualified to be the parent of children of religious people.
I disagree with JW teachings about blood transfusions but I would never dare to say that I have a right to deny them the right to parent their children and to practice their religion.
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Generally, the more convinced parents are that they are right about something, the more they will be inclined to make their children believe the same thing, and the more they do that the greater is the danger that they do not teach but indoctrinate.
I assume that you include atheists in this statement. That atheists who are "certain" God does not exist indoctrinate thier children with that dogma. Personally, I have strong beliefs and I TAUGHT my children many things that were important for them to know, including who Jesus Christ is.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 18, 2010 08:10 AM |
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About Elitism:
No matter the definition, they ARE elitist, as elitist as the Jews, The believe to be chosen by higher beings qualifies for being elitist.
About JWs and science:
For the sake of this thread, I think that, again, JWs have the correct stance. That means others are not, in my opinion. Why is that so? It's a question of whether a "truth" is contested and how it is contested. Science doesn't work via revelation or faith. If a scientifical conclusion is wrong, it is because of wrong or missing data, rarely because of wrong conclusions. With religion this point is irrelevant. There is a plethora of different religions, and everything any religion teaches is part of said religion.
As a human it doesn't matter what beliefs and convictions I have to be a scientist and to accept scientific results.
That is not true for religion, because here the question is, what religion I am part of, if any.
Which means, science is taught in the science class, for everyone. Religion, if at all taught in school, is taught in the PERTAINING Religion class. Which means, the different Religion classes will teach different things.
About JWs and making viewpoints heard:
WSith regard to this thread it looks like I would applaud the JWs's way, while you have a different point of view. Further discussion would be too general and therefore off-topic, that's why you may want to take your stance to a separate thread, if you want to discuss them further.
About Bible interpretation:
In this context, Elodin, we are not talking about how the average person or even atheist is interpreting the Bible, we are talking about the understanding of a specific religious grouping whose founder(s) studied the Bible extensively, so basically your points do not apply here. And when I speak of different Bible interpretations that make things all in all less believable, I don't mean the interpretation of John Smith or Mary Brown, but the interpretations of different "churches", "sects" and groupings. After all, the Bible is NOT a poem, at least that's what you would be the first to point out; it is supposed to be the word of God, and you would think that God would have found a way to make His Word perfectly clear and unambiguous, which would have been EXACTLY the proof needed that it WAS in fact God's Word. The answer, that it works via revelation, that in fact it IS that way, but only for those who prepared ro face the truth, is a perfect example for what is wrong with religious logic.
But this is just off-topic; if you want to discuss that, we'll have to move to another thread. Fact is, JWs have their special interpretation of the Bible, and fact is that I can understand their starting point.
About the Bible description of God:
That's off-topic as well.
About blood transfusions and killing children:
If a child dies because the blood transfusion was rejected, the parents killed it - it was their decision. They have been doing this, because they believe that God has forbidden to meddle with blood. An unconscious child can't do anything, so if the parents allow the meddling, it's the parents who are sinning. Sacrificing the child for their own spritual well-being isn't any better than doing it for their physical well-being. Moreover they should trust in a loving not to punish their love to their children.
However, for the OUTSIDE view this is irrelevant. The fact is, a child is dead, and someone is responsible. In this case, in every civilzed, lawful society, an investigation has to take place to determine whether someone is to blame and who. Logically, DOCTORS are the experts here and are heard. If a doc says, everything has been done to save the life of child, fine. If a doc says, it has NOT everything been done, BUT the suggested treatment may or may not have worked, fine. But if a doc says, it has NOT everything been done AND the suggested treatment would HAVE worked, then we deal with a crime, and that crime has to be punished.
There is no discussion about what is the best interest of the child.
As opposed to you I would very well deny everyone the right to let a person die they are supposed to protect.
About calling children it:
I just transfer GERMAN grammar here, since IT is simpler than HE OR SHE. In German "Child" is neuter. That has a structural language reason (a child can have two sexes, and in German we have different articles, that is, not a uniformly "the", but either "der", "die" oder "das", depending on the gender) as well as a historical reason (children are supposed to be asexual, that is, clean).
About teaching and indoctrination:
This is off-topic, since it's not specific. I would rather prefer to discuss this in a separate thread.
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Shyranis
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted October 29, 2010 03:17 AM |
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I have an uncle in-law who is a Jehova's witness. I haven't met him though, he does not seem to go to the family functions of the rest of my husband's dad's side of the family, except for either said uncle's parents funerals.
There is a JW temple near the main street where I live. I haven't been bothered b them yet. They probably have different denominations, like there are different types of Anglican, Baptists, Penticostal, etc.
I let them do what they want on their own land and show them proper respect unless they earn otherwise just like everybody else. They are no different from you and me.
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angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
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posted October 29, 2010 01:41 PM |
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Jehova's wittnessess are the most warm hearted and friendliest religious group I have met so far in my live.
And I have met a lot....
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Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.
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