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Strange how throughout the OT god has Israel celebrate and recognize various ANNIVERSARIES and other ANNUAL events on a scheduled basis?
Why do you find it strange? The way to salvation in Hebrew times was via the Mosaic law, Jesus fulfilled that law, the contract of salvation then became through his death redeeming the sin of Adam. The Mosaic laws were then replaced with the teachings of Jesus, and not were they for Jews but were opened to everyone on earth who wished to see the difference and follow the ministry of Jesus and The Holy Word of his and our Heavenly Father.
Jesus left one ceremony for his Faithful and Discreet Slave Class to carry on with, and t hat was the celebration of Jesus in the breaking of the bread and the taking of wine after the passover supper of Nisan 14.
If you get down to it, Truth does not need pomp and ceremony, Truth is the simple truth, and is not full of mystery and ritual.
I'm not. My status was inactive for 27 years. Someone at the Watchtower had the bright idea to shun inactives. The offenses I was given for being shunned was smoking and celebrating holidays. They have nothing to buy my silence with now.
They never bought your silence, If you were inactive for 27 years, your were Missing in Action so to speak. "Faith without works is dead".
Most of Christendom's churches keep the never changing list of everyone that was ever Christened. The only way to get true numbers would for the government to charge a parishioner tax of say $10.00 a head for the numbers claimed....Then the 90 million Catholics would probably drop to a mere handful, as the church sought to collect the names and addresses of the non-goers, same would happen for all the Churches that claim tax exemptions by right of numbers.
The Jws only number Publishers, not students, and not just because you were once a JW. There are 8 million publishers,and growing, those that follow the rule of Jesus by going forth to all the nations....Once you are approved and go witnessing on a regular basis, You are then Witnessing to Jehovah.
Last edited by Marakorpa; 08-30-2016 at 10:16 PM..
Reason: spellin'
They claim all their beliefs are biblical, and I believe they very well may be, but their doctrines appear to be from hand picked traditions from scripture in order to create their own doctrine. I understand they also have a slightly different translation which they use. One of the versus that is different that really got me was John 1:1. I have always know for it to read " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"................The version JW use reads "in the beginning was the Word, and Word was with God, and the Word was a god."
I try not to be judgmental of folks, but these are important translations of who Jesus Christ was and is.
You can search th is small g god if you wish, and use secular translations, you will find that it is accurate.
Naturally, there are those t hat say this proves the trinity, and yet there are scriptures that clearly show differently.
I have asked this question before, but many do not see the forest for the trees:
John 1:1 starts...In the beginning....What was that beginning? it can't be the beginning of Jehovah as he had no beginning, is it the beginning of creation, Yes, exactly, it is the creation of the "First born of all creation", the son of God.
All Birthday celebrations mentioned in the Bible are by pagans and a person or persons were killed. It is possible that even the death of Job's children was during a birthday celebration and he never attended and prayed for them due to the potential for badness. The Bible paints a very negative view of such and even says the day of a man's death is better than his birth. Even Jesus' birthday is not given. Seems God is trying to get us to think ... and avoid what He shows us is ... not something He favors or wants done by His people.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TroutDude
Complete and utter superstitious nonsense.
You should be ashamed.
Amen! Benighted nonsense. What a bunch of sad losers JW's are.
You wont have too long to see if you are correct....Then what if you ain't?
The world ill go on for another 10,000 years at lest. Once we manage to kill everything with toxic trash, it will fight back and life will go on...This world will in no way PASS away....
Why do you find it strange? The way to salvation in Hebrew times was via the Mosaic law, Jesus fulfilled that law, the contract of salvation then became through his death redeeming the sin of Adam. The Mosaic laws were then replaced with the teachings of Jesus, and not were they for Jews but were opened to everyone on earth who wished to see the difference and follow the ministry of Jesus and The Holy Word of his and our Heavenly Father.
Jesus left one ceremony for his Faithful and Discreet Slave Class to carry on with, and t hat was the celebration of Jesus in the breaking of the bread and the taking of wine after the passover supper of Nisan 14.
If you get down to it, Truth does not need pomp and ceremony, Truth is the simple truth, and is not full of mystery and ritual.
Strange that god recognizes anniversaries and the Kingdom Hall is terrified of them...
Do not say anything bad about the the Watchtower Society to your family memeber. They are told that they are getting so close to the truth that Satan will try and pull them away. They will actually believe that Satan is using you. True story I was 5 or 6 when I was told Satan was using my dad(not a JW) If you are serious about helping them read Steve Hassan first. You can also check out Robert Lifton and Margaret Singer but that stuff is tougher to wade through (I think). You can also get a feel for it looking through the threads I posted.
To answer your question. They are told that Holidays are from Pagan sources and degrades pure worship. Winter solstice, trees, lights, Easter (fertility), even the Cross is considered a phallic symbol. Birthdays are a little different because is all they have to go on is the beheading of John the Baptist and the cake being of Pagan origin. Technically, if you don't have a cake they can't action against you except for following the rules.
I am an EXJW so I want to mention that I am not presenting myself as someone who agrees with them. Take it for what it is worth. I personally believe all the rules are to isolate the person from the rest of society. They create an Us vs Them mentality and until you hear about the good news you are a maybe(see circular reasoning). If you don't know they will try and share with you. rejecting what they say automatically makes you a them. I know that having to stand outside the classroom while the other kids ate cake or whatever happened in 70/80s made me feel different than my peers. Having to stay seated while other kids stood for the Pledge was humiliating too. I did it but i wasn't happy about it. The fact that I wasn't happy about it was shame producing. It's a win/win for them to break the child and build them into a loyal servant or when they grow up and leave many self destruct.
If you have any other questions you can check out the ExJw sub on Reddit. There are people that understand all this a lot better than me. I am a baby apostate.
Interesting. I am currently sharing an office with a JW. Nice young woman, from Ecuador. She has told me a few things about why they believe what they believe, and yesterday we were talking about the blood thing, as in why they don't do transfusions. Two other South Americans, a man and woman, whom I presume are Catholics, were going over the verses with her that supports that belief and giving their interpretation. What was most amusing was that many of our coworkers (and the owner) are Hasidic Jews, and a couple of them were listening and seemed pretty amused by the whole conversation.
I might add that last week this JW came to work sneezing and feeling unwell and went home sick. The day before yesterday I started sneezing and that's when I realized JW's don't say the customary "bless you" because that's evil in some way, too. Anyway, I'm home sick today.
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