Hmmmm. So from your perspective, you're in a time crunch to get more people doing good before God pulls the plug again? I wish you luck, it's a hard sell. It's so much easier to be lazy than good.
Origins of life
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Hmmmm. So from your perspective, you're in a time crunch to get more people doing good before God pulls the plug again? I wish you luck, it's a hard sell. It's so much easier to be lazy than good.
Ah yes, the Cubs and a World Series often gets discussed. Our general conclusion is that there are some things that even God cannot do...
With a huge grin,
Pewter
Yeah, we follow the command given at Acts 15:28,29 to abstain from blood. Some have said that just applies to eating it, but I heard an effective and amusing illustration in response to that. Suppose a man goes to a doctor, and the doctor tells the man that it is absolutely essential for his health that he abstain from alcohol. Would it be reasonable, then, for the man to interpret that as meaning he could simply not take it through his mouth but could inject it directly into his veins? Abstaining from blood would mean to not take it at all. We do take non-blood alternatives, such as blood expanders and other treatments. In fact, our stance on blood use has led to the development of a lot of alternatives that are proving safer than using blood.
Also, I've always wondered this, why pronounce YHWY as Jehova? Please don't take this as an insult, but I heard that pronunciation was essentially a mistake, but by the time people figured out it was incorrect it'd been in place long enough that they figured they'd just stick with it, which makes sense, pretty sure God's not going to care if someone mispronounces God's name!
Oh don't worry about insulting me. I don't think you could do that. Remember, we have to deal with the possibility of having people yell at us for bothering them or having doors slammed in our faces on a regular basis
(And we have it waaaaaay easier than those in other parts of the world!) Honestly, this article answers that question better than I ever could. http://www.watchtower.org/e/na/article_02.htmIt goes over the meaning and pronunciation of God's name.
I'm always up for a discussion, but the watchtower.org website will be very informative if you want to learn more about the religion. I will warn you that there are a *lot* of websites out there that tell a lot of nasty lies and half-truths to make us look bad. (I learned this the hard way in my gullible teens. Fortunately I was able to see how blatantly wrong they were with time. We have a whole lot of enemies out there.)
Yeah, pretty much. God has his armageddon date set. The scriptures show his mercy, too, at 2 Peter 3:9. "Jehovah is not slow respecting his promise, as some people consider slowness, but he is patient with YOU because he does not desire any to be destroyed but desires all to attain to repentance" So the scriptures state the reason he hasn't acted yet because he wants as many to repent as are willing. But one day the time will run out, and I suppose that will be that. We go out and preach because we don't want anyone to be destroyed either, and although as so many people know today that none of us can know the day or the hour, Bible prophecy does show that we are very near that time, the beginning of which is to be marked with the destruction of false religion by political powers.
Sorry, no. Interesting read? I once read most of a really horrible book called something like "God doesn't believe in Atheists", it was all about how there's really no such thing as someone who doesn't believe in a creator... it was so poorly done I was torn between laughing the whole time and being very offended and appalled...
It doesn't change the way you cheer, however it does impact how we would think of a deity in regards to good or evil when compared with my first analogy.
Your dog food analogy isn't right either, the food would be the salvation provided by Christ/Christianity. God at the same time has allowed thousands of other bowls of food to be put out that are completely impossible to tell from the one he put out. If the dog eats out of any bowl but the one He set out, then He picks the dog up and throws it into the fire as punishment.
This goes back to the quote, You might be rooting for the Lions, but if you get that answer wrong you're going to hell. Being all-knowing and timeless, God already knew if the lions would win as he knew that 90% of the dogs aren't going to eat out of the right bowl. Him not stopping the other bowls being put out would be unethical. Punishing the dogs for eating out of the wrong one even though all the bowls (symbolic of religion) claim to offer the same salvation and look alike is unethical.
Mind you I'm not technically saying all religions look alike, but every religion claims to have the answer. Depending on the base, each religious base has their own book claiming to be the one true word of God. Each promises the path to salvation in some incarnation or another. Being able to tell which one is right, is truly impossible from my perspective.
I would like to add the caveat of, this is only my best ability to explain why I believe the way I do. Incongruities like this are why my belief in the very nature of God is drastically different than most organized religions.
Very interesting in many ways too. So much of many religions revolves around what happens after our death, to our eternal souls.
It's interesting to have a religious take that doesn't dwell on it as much instead recognizing their souls will simply be gone. It removes a particular dimension of the faith that I think would be liberating.
His explanation around that verse of the bible, was that in the original greek version, "The Son" was not capitalized so the whole verse is Nullified
Interesting you mention that. I was thinking of the Mormon belief in baptisms for the dead.
Their reasoning behind this isn't spirit worship at all, as they would see spirit worship as worshiping an idol or false God. Rather, it's that the new testament clearly spells out that no one can make it to heaven without being baptized. It's a second requirement of the salvation of Christ. They therefore baptize the dead so that they will be offered the chance at salvation in the afterlife.
How does JW explain the passage requiring baptism? (I'm trying to find it)
EDIT: John 3:5
Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. (John 3:5)
I have basically the same opinion about the ethics involved in only rewarding people for picking the right religion out of nearly countless religions, but I also know the usual answer to that kind of statement - God has God's reasons, and God's ethics are higher than ours and incomprehensible to us (the usual ant trying to understand a human analogy would be inserted here). I dissagree of course, but for someone who believes totally my very dissagreement with a policy of their God is ridiculous, not valid.
This is a big part of why I prefer the religions that don't claim that their way is the only way.
BUT I'm also not out to flame or insult people who do believe that only their religion gets you salvation, and that this is perfectly justified for God to impose upon humanity. I personally don't understand how someone can wrap their mind around that idea (I know, the scriptures seem to say so, but there are thousands of scriptures out there, and many ways to interpret each - if I found something in my religion that so fundamentally seemed wrong to me, my first step would be to start taking a look at some other ones. Of course, I can say that because I don't believe in any of them. Someone who does believe in one wouldn't have such an easy time with that obviously).
This is a big part of why I prefer the religions that don't claim that their way is the only way.
BUT I'm also not out to flame or insult people who do believe that only their religion gets you salvation, and that this is perfectly justified for God to impose upon humanity. I personally don't understand how someone can wrap their mind around that idea (I know, the scriptures seem to say so, but there are thousands of scriptures out there, and many ways to interpret each - if I found something in my religion that so fundamentally seemed wrong to me, my first step would be to start taking a look at some other ones. Of course, I can say that because I don't believe in any of them. Someone who does believe in one wouldn't have such an easy time with that obviously).
Speaking of baptism, that's another thing that makes me prefer some religions over others. Sikhs for example absolutely do not "baptize" their children into their religion, nor consider it necessary. When they come of age, they are allowed to chose whether they will be "baptized" (more of a process than a ritual) and become Khalsa.
Makes more sense (to me) than baptizing children who can't fully understand what's going on and can't really make a choice for themselves. But that's just me.
Makes more sense (to me) than baptizing children who can't fully understand what's going on and can't really make a choice for themselves. But that's just me.
Speaking of baptism, that's another thing that makes me prefer some religions over others. Sikhs for example absolutely do not "baptize" their children into their religion, nor consider it necessary. When they come of age, they are allowed to chose whether they will be "baptized" (more of a process than a ritual) and become Khalsa.
Makes more sense (to me) than baptizing children who can't fully understand what's going on and can't really make a choice for themselves. But that's just me.
I've seen what some other religions do and most of it seems to be some form of "do" once a child is old enough that they figure it's gonna make it, you know, sort of acknowledge its existence, a welcome to the herd... holding up baby Simba for everyone to see, that sort of thing... (Baptism for Christians, do Jews do it too? I'll have to check on Muslim traditions, but I've been to a baby's Wiccaning ceremony too and there are countless Native rites to welcome a new baby and show the gods that it's viable)... then there's another "do" at an age where the child should be able to understand what's going on and accept or decline, I know the Jews, Catholics, Muslims and the Wiccans (at least the Wiccans I've hung around with anyway) do have a rite of passage (Confirmation, Bar/Bat Mitzvah, etc) around age 13 or so to welcome the child into the adult ranks of the community... stands to reason other religions do too.
Just to be clear, while we do believe that the soul is the living person, and simply ceases to be upon death, as I have said before we don't believe that it simply ends with that. As Genesis describes, God's original purpose for the earth was for it to be filled with perefct humans that would never see death. That purpose hasn't changed simply because Adam and Eve screwed up. Both James 1:17 and Malachi 3:6 both show that God does not change. Isaiah 45:18 further explains that God did not create the earth simply for nothing, but formed it to be inhabited. We believe the earth and humanity will be returned to that former, pristine state after the wicked are destroyed at armageddon, and many who died will be brought back to life. The future a person has after they die is still very important.
Well that still wouldn't make much sense to me, as to why that would be nullified.
Early in human history, God spoke of his purpose to use a special "seed", a coming ruler, to crush the head of the original serpent, Satan the devil. (Genesis 3:15; Revelation 12:9) This "seed" is progressively identified in the scriptures as Jesus Christ, who reigns with corulers in the Messianic Kingdom. (Daniel 7:27; 1*Corinthians 6:2; Revelation 3:21; 20:6) This is the Kingdom spoken of in John 3:5, a government in the heavens that will vindicate Jehovah's sovereignty and rescue mankind from bondage to sin and death. These men and women put faith in Jesus, who said that they would be "born again" there in John 3:5-7. The apostle Peter described their rebirth at 1 Peter 1:3,4. This new life in heaven becomes possible for them because God resurrects them as he resurected Jesus. (1 Corinthians 15:42-49)
So that verse speaks of those who would be serving in heaven, which we believe is made up of 144,000 individuals. The vast majority will not be included in that group. I have a link to a chapter of a book we publish that discusses our view of baptism and its requirements. (Yes, baptism has requirements! This is why we don't baptize infants, or anyone without sufficient understanding of the Bible.) I do hope this is an adequate explanation.
http://www.watchtower.org/e/bh/article_18.htm
You covered both of the common trains of thought here.
Mormons and as pointed out by Echo, JW's believe that the person must be able to understand the choice that they're making to be properly baptized.
As was explained to me by a Catholic priest before my daughter's baptism, the ceremony is mostly symbolic welcoming the child into the community, and it's at the confirmation where the child makes the conscious decision to reaffirm the baptismal vows.
Interesting, so if I'm understanding correctly, the people born before Jesus will be resurrected, judged and given a chance for baptism & salvation. Again, I applaud, this is a question oft missed by many Christian faiths.
From what I can tell, JW's also share with the Mormons a view that childhood baptism is irrelevant at best.
The Jews have a bris for boys. For girls that are born to a Gentile mom but to be raised Jewish, there's another ceremony, forget what it's called, where the dad takes her into a water bath...
Ha! Vicky's messin' with us. Just got that banner add for "Date Christian Singles." You getting that, too?
There's a Baptist doctrine. I think it's called The Priesthood of the Believer. I had hoped that we'd hear more from mesquite (I think it was him) about it because it's his doctrine, not mine, and I don't want to get it wrong.
I believe it's a doctrine that evolved during the Reformation, at a time when The Catholic Church asserted that only a Catholic Priest could read and interpret the Bible. The Anabaptist movement took issue with this doctrine and said basically that if you can read then you can read the Bible, and if you can think then you can think for yourself about what the Bible means.
Interesting that present day Baptists have well-defined interpretations of their own for what the Bible says and what it means.
I'm with you on the "God is Timeless" bit.
The "We are Not" however, not so much.
Certainly there are numberless Technologies of the Sacred (the firewalk, ayahusca, shamanic journeywork, rosary or mala bead meditations, sensory deprivation tank floating, the sweat lodge, Simon's daturahoney metheglyn, amantia muscaria, Eleusinian ergotamine Mysteries, silence and darkness retreats, to name just a few) that can easily give the human a glimpse of timelessness.
Myself, I've never timetraveled far enough to discern a Cubs World Series Win, unfortunately...
Sorry, I'm confused as to how that pertains to some religions saying "our way or burn" (burn can be replaced with cease to exist, other options too) and some religions saying "our religion is just one of many, go your own way". Not trying to be obtuse, just not quite following you!
Sikhs for example obviously think they are right (sorry I go on about Sikhs so much, I got kinda hooked on their religion and culture, it's all just so interesting) about the nature of the afterlife and God, but aren't going to tell anyone to become a Sikh unless that person is already expressing that they would like to. If they meet a Christian, they'll tell them to get baptized (by baptized here we mean swear vows that your life is now dedicated to God, not just a ritual (so any Christian adult baptism should be fine)) as a Christian, and to just go on being the best Christian possible. (Jews are basically the same, you have to try HARD to convert to Judaism, they're not interested in converting you, and they're not at all worried about your immortal soul just because you're not Jewish)
Now, I've met a lot of Christians who will say that they DO believe people from other religions can get into heaven/worldhearafter, but I've only met a small handful that would actively encourage someone from another religion to stick with their own religion and just do it as best as is possible. (I have indeed met a few though, but they're rare)
