Jehovah's Witnesses
 

This thread is being made for Kyeruu. I will not flame and I will not name-call. I will post things from their ideology that I remember to the best of my ability. I will also post a little bit about translations. This will be short, mind you, so please bear with me. I am rusty in terms of other religions since I'm no longer a Catholic apologist, so I will point out if I don't remember something clearly and you are more than welcome to correct me.

First thing I'd like to bring up: The creation of the Jehovah's Witnesses. The JWs were originally created by a man named Charles Taze Russell. He was originally a Presbyterian, but joined the Seventh Day Adventists when he went back to religion, leading many Bible studies. Eventually he split from them with his own ideas and would later go on to found his own group, the Zion's Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. Later on he'd go on to reinterpret the Bible, following closely to the Catholic version of the Bible with is own additions and revisions. He eventually died in 1916. His position was taken over by "Judge" Joseph Franklin Rutherford (the "Judge" bit given to him by people because of his background in Law). Eventually under Rutherford's reign as president there'd be a split and the group loyal to him would reform themselves as the Jehovah's Witnesses (circa 1931). Personal points I'd like to bring up was that many saw Russell as a con artist and were distrustful of him and how he would handle things with the Zion's Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.

Next thing I want to bring up is translation: Russell claimed to be able to translate ancient Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. In reality all he did was take the Bible and make some changes and additions and revisions as he saw fit, but even to this very day the JWs will claim that he was able to truly translate things the way they are written. The biggest mistake they make is in the Greek word "logos," which means "the word." I can't recall everything about how it's mistranslated and defended, but they take it to be multiple "words."

Prophecies: Russell predicted there'd be a cataclysmic and celestial war in 1914 that would signify the end of the world. After waiting for the end to occur in that time, it never did, so they had to change their story and continually change the end time date.

Other miscellaneous things I'd like to bring up: They believe that Jesus and Satan are actually brothers. They deny the Trinity, a belief held dear by much of mainstream Christianity. As for salvation, well, they believe only 144,000 will truly be allowed into heaven and as far as that goes, the first 144,000 would technically already have been saved and in heaven now.

For other things, I can only refer you to these sites: http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/Cults/jw.htm and http://www.apologeticsindex.org/j02.html

It's better informed and has more information than I have. I'm quite rusty in my knowledge of the JWs, but I hope this was still a bit interesting and informing.

As for my personal opinion of them (since this is Debate AND Opinion): I simply believe they are a cult. They don't allow blood transfusions, regardless of the consequences and circumstances, they hold far-out beliefs as far as Trinity and Jesus goes, and they are very cruel with their disfellowshipping.

Just a note, Logos means more than just "the word." It DOES mean lots of things.

According to my Philosophy book, it means "the word," "intelligence," "speech," "discourse," "thought," "reason," "meaning," "study of," "the record of," "the science of," "the fundamental principles of," "the basic principles and procedures of a particular discipline," "those features of a thing that make it intelligible to us," and "the rationale for a thing."

The sense in that it was being used, however, is "the word." They try to interpret it as "the words." Otherwise I'm aware of the fact that there's multiple translations/definitions for logos.

Instead of refering to books that potheads wrote you should go to Greece and ask them I am pretty damned sure a Greek knows his own language.

Probably just as well as the average American knows his language.

There is a difference between Ancient Greek and modern Greek, hotdog.

I'm trying to think up something witty and I'm just drawing a blank, hooker.

That's nice and all, but what are your opinions about Jehovah's Witnesses? Do you know something I don't and wish to correct me?

Kyeruu, post here. I'm not gonna bash you or call you names or anything.

I'm friends with some. They're good guys. I don't think they got to celebrate birthdays or anything, but he told me this in like elementary school so I may be wrong.

They don't get to celebrate any holiday or birthdays. I'm not saying they can't be good people or anything, but I've never had positive experiences with them.

We've got a couple of JW neighbours, and they don't even put up a Christmas tree. Sad, really. :(

Like I said, they don't celebrate any holiday. I forget why, though.

Because Charlie's everywhere.

um kagom, where you got that info about us, well, why don't you go to watchtower.org, that's the official site of us JW, you'll get more info (accurate for that matter) about us, our beliefs, and everything.

Why don't we celebrate holidays? well, that depends on which holiday your turning to, we have reasons for each one, and i can't answer them ALL cause it'll take too much of my prescious time ( that's right i do other things, helpfull things in my life, as much as a lie as that sounds)

i'll start with birthdays, since you probably all know, we JW base our beliefs completely in the bible, has in from gen, 1.1 to the end of revelations.

Our beliefs state that the bible is jehova's words, and so we must follow them. The bible only mentions 2 birth days, in those 2 births days, assassinations occured, so basic logic says, that if god wanted us to celebrate birthdays, then he would've put good things about b days in the bible instead of assassinations, i know, some of you might think: "but what does 2 assassinations have to do with you guys?" well we know it's a little vague, but we want to be in clean with Jehova, and if he mentions bad things about b days, then we wont' celebrate, to be on the safe side.

Great dodging skills there. Thank you at least for answering the birthday matter. And no, the information I received is rather accurate.

regardless, feel free to ask about anything else.

I want you to address the points I've already brought up. The only one you bothered to touch was birthdays. Dodging won't make it go away.

I've actually always wondered why birthdays were celebrated, and especially with gifts, since it seems it would be blasphemous to put your child's day of birth on par with that of Christ.

Christ can suck mah bawls, I want gifts.

I agree, but it does feel backwards for the Christians.