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[EarthStormFire]

JW don't beleive in medicine. They think only god can heal them. I remember reading about how a boy had 50 wasp stings on him, and his JW parents refused to take him to the hospital. They beleived god would heal their child. He died. This is typical of JW.

 

[El Papa]

I have no problems with JWs or Mormons on a personal level, in fact, I've been friends with some, they're really nice people, it's many of their teachings I have a problem with since they are in error with the Bible.

 

[Dujour]

You just have to keep the sabbath holy, the Word doesn't require you to go to a place where people dress pretty to show off and hear how bad they are. Some people just need more guidance, but there's nothing wrong when many people get together to worship, it's just that nowadays, people treat the sabbath like it's a ball and chain. For me, it's a quiet private day between me and him.

 

[fart]

now that was unexpected

 

[Dujour]

Sorry, I didn't read many of the replies, just the initial question.

 

[Saturnman]

You're deflecting blame and denying any sort of corruption, as if it were impossible. Are you sure you just have first-hand experience with witnesses and not a little more?

But let's look at it logically. If you have an organization that pretends to be the most righteous, with members who trusts one another with similar high regard. That organization is also strict, secretive and generally hostile to the outside world. Now, supposed one of the rotten apples abuses someone in a congregation, who does the victim turn to? They will turn to the elders. Why? For spiritual guidance, I guess, but also because they don't trust the authorities. For them, anything outisde their religion is either evil or misguided (by Satan) so they limit contact as much possible (except for proselytizing, of course) and only obey laws when they have to, as long as it doesn't conflict with their faiths. To be fair, this is logical in their faith's POV.

Now with that said, the matter will be dealt with internally. What happens next? The edlers will likely call the alledged abuser and ask him about it. since he is already rotten, it's very possible he will lie about it. But who to believe? At this point, this is when the issue may be shoved under the carpet, especially when the victim is a child or someone of lower rank. But let's pretend they don't believe the abuser, there lies the ultimate conflict of interest in most abuse cases involving JW: they can report the abuser to the authorities, but by doing so, they will hurt their image and considering they think they do God's work in a world misled by evil, that damage to their image may be seen as helping Satan. While some elders on the local level may still want to do the right thing, someone higher in the WatchTower hierarchy will likely oppose it for the said reasons.

Now as I said, this is not unique to Jehovah's Witnesses, but to have a secretive, isolated, righteous and authoritarian organization like this, it will invariably breed corruption at some point. Denying that is denying the obvious. You can not seriously use the excuse that JW follows God's word or they are in God's favor so this would never, ever happen. This is simply sheepish. Wake up.

 

[Boogie]

I'm drunk, and have nothing to add except to say that it was hilarious to see Loki reference realultimatepower.net to a religious thread discussing Jesus. Carry on.

 

[Hitokage]

Contrast that with the catholic assitance of Hitler's rise to power and all the blooshed that resulted from religious crusades centuries prior and even the systematic child abuse. Is all this forgiven? What have the witneseses done that is unforgivable?

So a single action taken in the 1930s vindicates everything about a group? I wonder if L. Ron Hubbard supported the Nazis.

You won't ever find one of Jehovah's witnesses shooting at you or blowing up your children and workplaces. You don't want more of these people in the world? Too bad. There are over 6 million worldwide and over 15 million people attended their only annual religious observance: the memorial of Jesus Christ's death. Therefore, despite the hatred and opposition that is often (mis)directed at them there are millions of interested non-witnesses.

Broken logic. There's more to be evaluated than incidence of random violent crime. You won't find Heaven's Gate members shooting up people either. Furthermore, "millions" of people are clamoring for mormonism as well. Does that give it any more merit?

I have a suggestion for you norinrad, continue your study with the Witnesses. You'll probably know more about them than half the people who are telling you to avoid them (most of whom likely derive their impression from propaganda websites). You can judge for yourself what they stand for.

True, lately i`ve been feeling like the dude is trying to push stuff down my throat, and i have Watchtower all over the place even though i never read them.

 

[Drinky Crow]

What he did say is that He "comes not to bring peace, but a sword, cleaving brother from sister and father from son", or something to that effect.

That's the one I meant. Been awhile since I've been to church.

 

[Dice]

In response to the original poster, going to church isn't going to change you. Church can be nice, but just going to church isn't going to make you a different person anymore than sitting in a garage is going to make you a car. Now the relationships you start there, the message that you hear, and most importantly the God you come to know, those will change you if you let them. I'd say church doesn't give me a sense of joy or peace, but I have actual joy and peace because of my understanding and acceptance of Christ's supremacy in the whole world, and His love for me in His role as my Lord and Savior. Does that make any sense?

Scripture says you are transformed by the renewing of your mind (Romans 12:2). You hear the truth in the world of God, then you choose either to let it change how you see and respond to God and others and eveything else in the world, or you don't. If you don't change your worldview you'll never change your attitude and actions, and if you don't change those... well you'll never get a different result from doing the same things. And this is where most people get tripped up, they don't want to be honest about whats going on in their heart, they don't want to submit to what God says, they don't want to accept the challenge to live to a different standard and so they go to church and it becomes just another source of problems.

My advice on picking a church, you want two things. First of all you want a church that is God-centered, this may sound weird at first, but if you look at the real message that people speak, you'll find there are a lot of churches that are really man-centered in their mindset. They talk about God, but when it comes to who they are looking to please it's always themself, when it comes to who is serving who it's about God serving them, when it comes to our attitude and plan of action it's always man and in most things they do they are really only glorifying man. You definitely don't want that, you want a church that seeks, preaches, and serves the Lord, otherwise why even go? A paticular enjoyment in the gospel and all of what Christ came and did is also of interest.

The second thing you want is when it comes to our part, you want an emphasis on love. Love doesn't just pretend everything is ok and tells people what they want. Love looks at the word of God, sees what it says about our hearts and lives, and is honest about being a broken and hurting people each with their share of problems and in need of God, but accepting each one as they are and in love helping each other find God and obey Him. Trust me, you do NOT want to go to a church where everyone is expected to be perfect. The fact is that nobody is perfect and we all have our faults, you want a church that readily admits that so that everyone can be honest and show each other a genuine love, a love that looks past the faults and encourages a person to live up to their potential.

If you are sitting there reading my advice and wondering what kind of a church I go to, you can get somewhat of an idea by checking out some of my pastors sermons here if you want, provided in MP3 format.

http://www.christchurchpca.org/Sermons_2004.htm

He reads from the NIV translation of the bible because thats just the bibles that my church got in bulk to put under the seats for visitors. I personally use NIV, NASB, ESV, NKJV and NLT all for different reasons. Here is a neat site that gives a decent idea of what the different translations are like and what methods were used for translation...

http://www.zondervanbibles.com/translations.htm

And then this is a site that you can actually read the whole bible in many different translations (I use this site all the time)

http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/bible/

I don't say this to boast, but just as matter-of-fact. I think I may be the most involved christian on the board in that I was raised in the church, I've been active in ministry for over 5 years and I'm headed to become a missionary. You may think that is a good thing or a bad thing, but I'm just saying it to let you know I'm available and if you have any questions you can send me a PM and maybe we could talk on AIM if you want. I've centered my life around this, so it's no trouble at all. I have a good understanding of christianity not just in general but the many distinctions of belief between different sects and denominations, so I'd be glad to help.

You just have to keep the sabbath holy, the Word doesn't require you to go to a place where people dress pretty to show off and hear how bad they are. Some people just need more guidance, but there's nothing wrong when many people get together to worship, it's just that nowadays, people treat the sabbath like it's a ball and chain. For me, it's a quiet private day between me and him.

How do you say this? All through scripture we have God ordaining specific means of gathering together for corporate worship. In the New Testament we see the Apostles (hand picked and trained to be leaders of the church by Jesus) founding churches, giving instruction on the gathering of the saints, instructions of office and ordainment of ministers, details of the worship service and the whole point of why we gather together in the first place, etc.

Christianity is a relationship with God but it is also a religion with an ecclesiastical structure that God set out. Now the whole realm of possibilities of what it could look like within the guidelines scripture gives us is fairly big, and typical american churches certainly aren't the definitive picture of what it should be, but it's just not true to say all the word says is keep the sabbath holy.

 

[Diffense]

But let's look at it logically. If you have an organization that pretends to be the most righteous, with members who trusts one another with similar high regard. That organization is also strict, secretive and generally hostile to the outside world.

Once again, you are misguided. An organization that goes actively to people homes telling them about what they do and distributing literature explaining what they believe from the bible is not at all secretive. Furthermore, anyone is invited to the meetings they have at their kingdom halls. The doors are always open and visitors are welcome. Anything that all witnesses should know is either printed in their publications or said at the meetings or both. Such information is open to public consumption if they wish to avail themselves of it.

Now, supposed one of the rotten apples abuses someone in a congregation, who does the victim turn to? They will turn to the elders. Why? For spiritual guidance, I guess, but also because they don't trust the authorities. For them, anything outisde their religion is either evil or misguided (by Satan) so they limit contact as much possible (except for proselytizing, of course) and only obey laws when they have to, as long as it doesn't conflict with their faiths. To be fair, this is logical in their faith's POV.

Jehovah's witnesses don't necessarily have the adversarial relationship with the authorities that you suggest. They show proper respect and pay their taxes. In fact many municipalities like the witnesses alot. Since they concientiously pay their taxes they are quite happy to make use of social services. They is no policy of discouraging people from reporting to the police. However they won't worship the flag or join the military to kill people for nationalistic reasons.

It is also ridiculous that they don't believe in medicine and expect God to heal them. They'll be the first to tell you that faith healings are not for this age. However, they don't accept blood transfusions on scriptural grounds but they have reaped medical benefits and avoided many infection risks as a result. They have also pushed the development of bloodless medical techniques.

Now as I said, this is not unique to Jehovah's Witnesses, but to have a secretive, isolated, righteous and authoritarian organization like this, it will invariably breed corruption at some point. Denying that is denying the obvious. You can not seriously use the excuse that JW follows God's word or they are in God's favor so this would never, ever happen. This is simply sheepish. Wake up.

With all due respect Saturnman, the above is all speculation. Furthermore, Jehovah's Witnesses go out of their way to tell people about themselves so I don't see how they can be considered secretive.

 

[Diffense]

If norinrad wishes to discontinue his study becuase he is no longer interested he can. Jehovah's Witnesses work or go to school in addition to doing their Christian duty of preaching. They don't really need to have their time wasted. However, I didn't want him to stop based on advice from misguided people.

Their actions during Nazi oppression was just and example Hitokage. In other situations since then (for example, the massacres in Rwanda) Jehovah's Witnesses caught in the turmoil have resisted the evil around them.

On your other point, I'm not speaking about random violence. If you can't recognize systematic acts of violence perpertrated by people adhering to various religions you must be blind. However, as their behavior in Germany/Rwanda attests, Jehovah's witnesses will not commit violence even when severely pressured to do so. How much less will they, as a group, do so as a matter of policy/doctrine.

 

[Saturnman]

Jehovah's witnesses don't necessarily have the adversarial relationship with the authorities that you suggest. They show proper respect and pay their taxes. In fact many municipalities like the witnesses alot. Since they concientiously pay their taxes they are quite happy to make use of social services. They is no policy of discouraging people from reporting to the police. However they won't worship the flag or join the military to kill people for nationalistic reasons.

Not adversarial, but non-commital as much as possible. Remember, their image matters so they will not attract bad attention for not paying taxes and such. It would be self-destructive to do so. But matters of abuse are handled internally at first. Always. Since Witnesses look up to elders above anybody else, they're the ones who have the final say on whom reports what to authorities. The matter can be simply covered up, elders can be satisfied that the abuser or the wife beater is repentant and not report him for that reason or when it comes to the word of one member against another, they can choose to believe the abuser and the matter stops there. Period.

With all due respect Saturnman, the above is all speculation. Furthermore, Jehovah's Witnesses go out of their way to tell people about themselves so I don't see how they can be considered secretive.

The theology is no secret, that's not the point, since they are proselytizing.

But that's all that is open about them. If you wanted to counter-check allegations of abuse at the Watchtower, you could not or would be treated to the official line that abuse rarely happens and when it does, it is always reported to the appropriate authorities, with no real details. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary in the media, the same free press you use to prove the Catholic Church has a policy of covering up abuse. You can't have it both ways, buddy.

Those internal tribunals are secret, members could be told that x member has been expelled for whatever reason, but you will basically never get more than that. No transparency and no accountability. Just total trust that the elders do what's right.

And it is generally adviced to limit contact with the outisde world, except for proselytizing. That's why families of non-believers generally see their loved ones disappear once they convert. It's not like the Kingdom Hall keeps those people prisoners, it doesn't have to anyway, it just warns them of temptation and to protect their faith by avoiding contact with people, often loved ones, who might try to convince them to renounce their faith.

 

[Dice]

Jehovah's Witnesses work or go to school in addition to doing their Christian duty of preaching.

Jehovah's Witnesses are not Christians. They are not recognized as brethren by the great majority of Christian denominations and do not adhere to the Nicene Creed, the most foundational and widely accepted confession of orthodox Christianity. They deny Christ's deity and have a very different definition of the Holy Spirit. I won't get into details of their bible and teachings, but they are definitely not Christians.

 

[Ar_]

Sorry I have no time to read everything throught, anyway...

I would like to know what going to church every sunday has done to your life?

Does it bring you a sense of peace, joy, happiness or do you just fellow the crowd because everyone in your surroundings does?

True religion is the science of soul development. And the treasures buried within it go beyond what a common man can even imagine.

I don't, however, go to church. Neither I follow what most people around me believe into.

I have and read countless books about it, i some how can't seem to be able to grasp the concept.

I can PM you a link to an easy and free book that is good for starting, if you are seriously interested.

Not everyone is brain washed from birth to worship something that does not exsist. Science can explain everything with evidence, the Bible explains nothing and just makes you believe based on faith.

...

Religion is the reason 9/11 happened. There will never be world peace because of religion, sadly.

...

Religion is a pretty selfish concept. It turns people ugly.

No, no, no.

First of all, science doesn't negate religion. Actually, many of the greatest minds ever were deeply religious.

Another common mistake, is to consider Religion to be equivalent to the catholic interpretation of the bible.
Some religious paths are based on personal sperimentation and experience, not just faith.
"Faith" ultimately becomes, from an intellectual idea, an objective perception throught developed intuition.

True religion isn't the reason 9/11 happened, if you ask me. Selfish desires, intolerance, ignorance, are its roots. Religion is only a superficial mask like any other.

And religion turns people beautiful if anything, when properly understood and applicated.
Joyfulness, kindness, brightness, are some of the qualities that it develops.

 

[teh_pwn]

You don't need organized religion to be religious.

If you find a church or something that you like, that's great, but there's so many crazy people out there that are 100% determined that they are right on everything. There's people that'll use as a means to corruption.

 

[evil solrac v3.0]

i cant believe there are that many people that so grossly misinformed about religion and in particular JW's....... that's all i have to say.