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TJO5 -> RE: jehovas witness update (3/31/2008 11:08:47 PM)
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Hello Jfaye, You ask Conrack50 the following questions. quote:
Can you tell us about what they believe about Jesus? I know what I was told but would love to hear from someone else about what they believe. They told me, that Jesus' death on the cross, only opened the door for them to work their way into His kingdom! As a person who has spent countless hours on discussion boards debating with JWs I can answer many questions about their beliefs. What they believe about Jesus is that he is a divine being ("a" god) but not The GOD . As a matter of fact I was just reading a post on another discussion board where a JW Elder presents a case for interpreting John 1:1 that Jesus was the divine spokesman for God. I'm not sure posting a link to another discussion board is permissible or you could find out quite a bit about what they believe yourself. They do not believe Jesus died on a "cross" ,but rather a torture stake- a pole set in the ground -although the greek "stauros" could be either-usually a torture stake has a sharpened tip where the person was impaled,but their pictures show Jesus suspended from a pole from the top with ropes holding his hands over his head. It is true that JWs have to perform a certain number of evangelism hours-which some "opposers" (those who debate JW doctrine)[ not me,as you don't win souls by antagonism] occasionally refer to as punching their time card. JWs do not celebrate holidays like Easter or Christmas as they consider them the result of Pagan influence. The real issue with the attempt to portray Easter as a pagan holiday is an attempt to discredit the church. They can present no credible evidence for their position-all the ancient cults that they mention as pagan precursors are simply ancient cults with dieties with some of the letters of easter in their names.like Astarte, Oestre,and other nonsense. The only christian uses of the term Easter are the KJV english translation of the word Pascha from the greek-which is the Pesach/Passover of the hebrew;and one instance from medieval times where the Bede (noted catholic figure) uses the term used in germany to denote the month in which the passover occurs (month named after deity,but nothing to do with christian observance of Easter. As far as I am concerned christians are well able to distinguish between the celebration of the resurrection and the secular easter bunny stuff. There is much more that JWs differ from christians in- but the basic thing is that they do not believe in the same Jesus as we do,and they believe that everyone is damned who does not believe their doctrine. (although their doctrine about 144,000 leaves out many anyways. That is the main difference between a denomination and a cult-a denomination believes they have the truth,but that others may as well-a cult has a lock on the truth. Hope this helps out. There are plenty more doctrinal differences, as well as some things you might find incredible. No blood transfusions because the soul of a person is in the blood and there is evidence of people having transfusions and then displaying foreign behavior (I kid you not) The one major objection that 'opposers' have is that JWs insist that the Watchtower org. is the sole prophetic voice of Jehovah for the world-despite the fact that it sometimes changes or contradicts itself -Jws refer to these instances as "new light". I gotta stop. Yours in Christ, T.J.
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