How a Christmas song would lead me to believe that our 1914 teaching must be right after all.

[TrueTomHarley]

3 hours ago, Arauna said:

I was catching up today!  Thanks for missing me.  I gave you guys a little respite from my "sensure" - lol.

Yes. We need you. There’s no end to the outrageous things they’ve been saying in your absense.

[TrueTomHarley]

12 hours ago, Thinking said:

Probably because the rest of the world are still utterly deceived by those teachings….it’s trash to us…but to them..it’s their whole life…and who’s obsessing over it….but me finding out what was trash and what wasn’t…was nothing short of miraculous…

im hoping I misunderstood your post…

 

I think the way I should have put it is that the doctrines don’t change. Once you’ve dealt with them, you’ve dealt with them. Accordingly, in any given year, our publications will barely mention trinity and hellfire beyond a reference or two to how they are “trash’ that interfere with building a relationship with God. Very seldom are there specific paragraphs on trinity, let alone an entire article. Mostly they just refer people back to the Trinity brochure, or whatever has replaced it.

My own blog is the same way. In sixteen years I have maybe 5 or 6 posts specifically on the Trinity. In the Enjoy Life Forever interactive brochure there is almost nothing on trinity or hellfire. All I found was something in the Explore section of lesson 13, How False Religion Misrepresents God:

“For generations, religions have told lies that make God seem distant and cruel. Learn the truth about three of those lies.“Lies That Make God Seem Unlovable” (The Watchtower, November 1, 2013)”

It was even a little frustrating to me because I did have a Bible student from fundamentalist background, a very studious guy always wanting to ‘dig deeper.’ So I dug into how all renderings of hell stem from just 3 original language words—sheol, hades, Gehenna, (with a single exception of one ‘tartarus’), and that all renderings of hellfire come only from Gehenna. I didn’t see where that was specifically dealt with in depth and I ended up going off on my own tangents—Insight book material, and so forth. It is not part of the basic study guide.

Few people seriously believe these doctrines anymore—people have “moved on” from doctrines—and the ones who do, fundamentalists for the most part, are seldom persuaded no matter how much you quote scripture. They are the people who “accepted Jesus” in a flash. Some preacher said “come down and be saved” and in an instant they did, having had no intention of doing so before. They get their “truth” by revelation, not by Bible study. They thereafter cherry pick the Bible to find verses that back up what they believe. Where they find passages that don’t, they dismiss them as poor interpretation, corruption, bad translation, the Bible is too complicated to know, and so forth. Their minds were made up at their “conversion” that happened in an instant. “I’ve never convinced one” my favorite circuit overseer said, an old timer now deceased, on arguing with people over the trinity. 

If we are oldtimers ourselves, and we remember a time when these doctrines were important to people, we can easily fall into the mindset that they still are. But they rarely are. The approach of the Enjoy Life Forever is not to teach people doctrines they don’t believe in anyway only to thereafter tell them they are wrong. Instead, it just teaches Bible truth, and reserves the ‘Lies that Make God Seem Unlovable’ article for anyone still attached to those beliefs. 

Of course, if you happen to be surrounded by people who do love and cherish these doctrines, then lots of time spent disproving them may be just the ticket. But those people are becoming rare, they are rapidly dying out and being replaced by persons who don’t give a hoot. I think that’s way the Watchtower devotes relatively little space to the “false doctrines of Christendom.” They try to keep up, not with how people used to be, but how they are now. They focus on teaching the positive things of the Bible, rather than disproving the negative

 

[xero]

Speaking of hellfire. How many here wish that Jesus had never used the illustration of Lazarus and the rich man?

[TrueTomHarley]

8 minutes ago, xero said:

Speaking of hellfire. How many here wish that Jesus had never used the illustration of Lazarus and the rich man?

About as many who wish he’d never spoken of eating his flesh and drinking his blood.

[Pudgy]

7 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

About as many who wish he’d never spoken of eating his flesh and drinking his blood.

Not Lawyers.

[Srecko Sostar]

7 hours ago, Arauna said:

It does not matter if he was the slave or not. (With new light we know he was not - he was only the messenger before the faithful slave rendering service in the Parousia)  Mal 3: 1  “Look! I am sending my messenger, and he will clear up a way before me. And suddenly the true Lord, whom you are seeking, will come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant will come, in whom you take delight. Look! He will certainly come,” says Jehovah of armies. ). 

Russell did not die a martyr's death. No one beheaded him like that "real" messenger John the Baptist. Drawing parallels on the type-antitype model shows its shortcomings, again.

7 hours ago, Arauna said:

They already had most of the basic truths and were contemplating newer ones... and had discarded some wrong ones. 

JWs are very disgusted at the mere mention of the word "cross". You see this as a fundamental difference between true and bad worship of God. Russell had no problems with crosses. How is it possible that he saw the truth about “hell” and the “immortal soul” and his mind remained darkened about the “cross”?

How come he didn’t see that he wasn’t FDS or GB or whatever you want to call him? A true “messenger” in the first century said he was not worthy to untie the sandals of Jesus, and Russell allowed his followers to “untie his sandals” and call him titles.

You, as collective, create legends about your religious leaders, past and present, and attribute to them positions, that are in fact, empty and useless like hollow sacks.

[Srecko Sostar]

[TrueTomHarley]

1 hour ago, Pudgy said:

Not Lawyers.

You should get over your obsession on this. Unfortunately, lawyers are a byproduct of living in the modern world. 

You and I both remember when the premier sponsors for TV news programs were manufacturers or merchants. Now they are lawyers. With no exaggeration I can count over a dozen lawyers who regularly advertise on local media, some a dozen times a day. If you have pockets, someone will find a pretext to try to empty them. It Is a societal transfer of funds for every reason under the sun, with barristers netting a third.

Don’t misunderstand. There are wrongs to be righted. We live in a society that views money as the way to right wrongs. It’s not to say that every lawsuit is just a money grab. But when lawyers replace manufacturers and merchants as the premiere advertisers, well—it’s one crazy way to run a planet.

 

[Arauna]

33 minutes ago, Srecko Sostar said:

Drawing parallels on the type-antitype model shows its shortcomings, again.

John the Baptist was a messenger who prepared the way and so did Russel.  I did not say it was an anti-type did I?  You made that assumption.

[Arauna]

35 minutes ago, Srecko Sostar said:

No one beheaded him like that "real" messenger

Paul was a messenger to the gentiles and he was not baptized - so is it a requirement that a messenger must be beheaded?    Apostle means : sent out.   They all were sent out to be messengers.

[Arauna]

10 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

With no exaggeration I can count over a dozen lawyers who regularly advertise

and what about : this news item was brought to you by Pfizer! 

[TrueTomHarley]

7 minutes ago, Arauna said:

and what about : this news item was brought to you by Pfizer! 

They don’t have to advertise. The state does that for them.

(did you hear on account the country’s enthusiastic embrace, some are call Israel “Pfisrael?”)