Do jehovas witnesses try to decieve u at your door?

I wonder why the JW's never come to your door and explain that they believe that jesus christ isnt god the father. This should be the first words to come from their mouths before we shut the door in their face isnt it?

Trhey also believe that jesus is michael the arch angel. Excuse me while i go off and laugh, but no where in the bible does it say this . even in the new world translation which is incomplete witghout teh old world translations which were in greek and latin translated from hewbrew and aramiac.

The officials in Brooklyn value anonymity highly. The Jehovah’s Witnesses publish their own translation of the Bible—the so-called New World Translation (NWT)—which was produced by committee, but the names of the committee members have not been revealed by the WTS. Not reveealing teh names of the translation committee? Again this is called secrecy. Jesus lives in the light not in secrecy.

Distinctive Beliefs of the Jehovah's Witnesses



The Jehovah’s Witnesses are quite forthcoming about their religious beliefs. Their religion, unlike Mormonism, isn’t an esoteric one with secret doctrines known only to an initiated few.

When Mormons come to your door, they don’t tell you that they believe in many gods, that Jesus and Lucifer were "spirit brothers," and that dark skin (in the case of blacks, Indians, and Hispanics) is
supposedly a curse from God in punishment for wickedness. If they told you such things up front, you’d close the door immediately. Such teachings are saved for initiates. Thus, Mormonism is an esoteric religion (Webster: "esoteric: designed for or understood by the specially initiated alone").

The religion of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, on the other hand, is exoteric (Webster: "suitable to be imparted to the public"). They’re happy to tell you up front exactly what they believe, and they tell you not just when at your door, but in their publications.

In their booklet entitled Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Twentieth Century, for example, may be found a chart titled "What Jehovah’s Witnesses Believe." This chart list beliefs and the supposed scriptural authority for them.

Let’s examine some of the beliefs, which are peculiar to the Jehovah’s Witnesses. (In this tract we give scriptural passages from the Revised Standard Version, a sound Bible translation that is recognized by Catholics and Protestants alike as one of the most accurate and dignified English translations of Scripture. Bear in mind that the Witnesses’ use their own "in-house" Bible called the New World Translation (NWT), though it is regarded by Greek and Hebrew scholars as an extraordinarily poor and highly inaccurate translation. There are many places where it is not faithful to the Hebrew and Greek, especially where the text fails to support and often openly contradicts the Witnesses’ peculiar doctrines. In addition, the five members of the translation committee for the NWT completely lack credentials as Bible scholars. Four of them never studied the biblical languages, and the fifth studied non-biblical Greek for a short period.)


Is Christ God?


1. "Christ is God’s Son and is inferior to him." Given in support of this position are these verses: "And lo, a voice from heaven, saying, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased’" (Matt. 3:17). "I proceeded and came forth from God" (John 8:42). "If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I go to the Father; for the Father is greater than I" (John 14:28). "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God" (John 20:17). "The head of every man is Christ, the head of a woman is her husband, and the head of Christ is God" (1 Cor. 11:3). "When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things under him, that God may be everything to every one" (1 Cor. 15:28).

At first glance these citations seem imposing. It does seem that Christ is inferior to God the Father in some sense. But the New Testament also has verses which clearly show Christ and the Father to be equals. For example, there is John 10:30: "I and the Father are one." Or, "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). Or, "All that the Father has is mine" (John 16:15). Or, "The Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath but also called God his Father, making himself equal with God" (John 5:18). Or, "[Jesus], though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped" (Phil. 2:6). These seem to contradict the other verses.

How do we make sense of all this? By keeping in mind that Jesus is both God and man. Some verses, such as these last five, refer exclusively to his Godhead. Others refer to his humanity. So far as he is God, Jesus is equal to the Father. Christ’s human nature, though, is created and is therefore inferior to the Father. But to focus on this aspect of Christ to the exclusion of his divine nature is a gross misunderstanding of who and what the Bible says Jesus Christ is. Other verses cited by the Witnesses, such as Matthew 3:17, show merely that Christ is God’s Son, not that he is inferior (in fact, John 5:18 shows that being God’s Son is being equal to God).


Was Christ Created?


2. "Christ was the first of God’s creations." Verses cited by Witnesses in support of this claim include: "He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation" (Col. 1:15). "And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: ‘The words of the Amen [Christ], the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation’" (Rev. 3:14).

In the first of the two verses, Witnesses think that "first-born" implies succession and inferiority. But the title "first-born" refers to Christ’s place as the chief and unique Son of God (cf. Rom. 8:29).
Further, the Greek of this verse can also be translated as "the first-born over all creation," as in the New International Version of the Bible.

Regarding the second verse from Revelation, it’s hard to see how it helps the Witnesses at all. It merely says Christ was the source of creation. This implies Christ is divine, since God created everything.

The fact that there was no time when the Son did not exist is indicated in John 1:1–3: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made." This passage also shows that the Son is not a creature because all created things were made through him, and no created things were made except through him.


Hell No, We Won’t Go?


3. "Wicked will be eternally destroyed" (that is, no hell, just annihilation). Verses given in support: "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels . . . And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life" (Matt. 25:41, 46). (The NWT renders Matthew 25:46 as "And these will depart into everlasting cutting-off, but the righteous ones into everlasting life." This is one example of many where the NWT distorts the text to suit the Witnesses’ beliefs.) "They shall suffer the punishment of eternal destruction and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might" (2 Thess. 1:9).

You can see for yourself that these verses actually prove the opposite of what the Witnesses teach that is, they prove the existence of hell. This is compounded when Revelation says of the damned: "And the smoke of their torment goes up for ever and ever; and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name" (Rev. 14:11). If they are not given any rest, day or night, then obviously they are still around to experience torment.


No Blood Transfusions!


4. "Taking blood into the body through mouth or veins violates God’s laws." The Jehovah’s Witnesses are perhaps best known to other Americans as people who won’t allow themselves or their children to have blood transfusions. In fact, they will go so far as to allow a loved one to die rather than accept a transfusion, as they believe transfusions are a gross violation of God’s law. They support this notion with these verses: "Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood" (Gen. 9:4). "You shall not eat the blood of any creature, for the life of every creature is its blood" (Lev. 17:14). "For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity" (Acts 15:28, 29).

There are several problems with interpreting these verses to mean that transfusions are forbidden, not the least of which is the fact that the context is referring to animal blood, not human blood. Moreover, there is a great difference between eating blood and receiving a life-giving blood transfusion. Eating blood was wrong because it profaned the life of the animal. But for a person to willingly share his blood intravenously in order to share life with someone does not profane anything. Indeed, even ultra-Orthodox Jews, who strictly observe the Old Testament kosher laws, recognize that blood transfusions are not prohibited by the command not to eat blood.

The Witnesses must avoid other problematic passages that deal with God’s prohibition of eating blood because these passages include a prohibition against eating fat. Witnesses do not believe eating fat is wrong, and would see no problem at all with someone munching on fried pork rinds (i.e., deep-fried pieces of pig fat) or sitting down to dinner and enjoying a nice fatty cut of prime rib. But their vehement opposition to eating blood, when contrasted with their approval of eating fat, presents a serious problem for them. Why? Because Leviticus, the book they go to in order to substantiate their prohibition of eating (and receiving transfusions of) blood, contains, in the same passages, prohibitions against eating fat.

Consider these examples: "It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations, in all your dwelling places, that you eat neither fat nor blood" (Lev. 3:17). "The Lord said to Moses, ‘Say to the people of Israel, You shall eat no fat, of ox, or sheep, or goat. The fat of an animal that dies of itself, and the fat of one that is torn by beasts, may be put to any other use, but on no account shall you eat it. For every person who eats of the fat of an animal of which an offering by fire is made to the Lord shall be cut off from his people. Moreover you shall eat no blood whatever, whether of fowl or of animal, in any of your dwellings. Whoever eats any blood, that person shall be cut off from his people’" (Lev 7:22–27).

These verses and others like them are difficult for Witnesses to explain, given that they lean heavily on the prohibitions against eating blood. It’s totally inconsistent to maintain that God’s "perpetual statute" against eating blood must be observed, while his "perpetual statute" (that appears in the very same context) against eating fat can be safely ignored. On this subject, as on many others, the Witnesses are highly selective and must ignore much of the Bible in order to make their beliefs seem "biblical."

Also, the Old Testament dietary laws simply don’t apply to Christians today (cf. Col. 2:16–17, 22), and the ones given at the Council of Jerusalem passed into disuse as Jewish conversions to Christianity became uncommon toward the end of the first century and the Church became mainly Gentile. They weren’t immutable doctrines, but disciplinary rules.


Jesus Only an Archangel??????????(this is a laugher)


Still, he’s only a creature. The miracles he performed attested not to his own divinity, but to approval of him by God. In heaven, Jesus is now known as Michael. (This identification of Jesus and Michael the Archangel relies on Jude 9, Daniel 10:13 and 12:1, and Revelation 12:7-8. Read them for yourself and see how far-fetched this is.)

Privacy at All Costs


The officials in Brooklyn value anonymity highly. The Jehovah’s Witnesses publish their own translation of the Bible—the so-called New World Translation (NWT)—which was produced by committee, but the names of the committee members have not been revealed by the WTS. This version is used routinely—but not exclusively—in their publications. It should be noted that JWs will use other Bible translations, but only when it suits their purposes to do so.

The NWT is universally rejected by non-Witnesses, including secular Greek and Hebrew scholars. These scholars, and informed critics of the Watchtower, speculate that few of the members who served on the committee were experienced as translators or even knew the rudiments of Hebrew or Greek; the NWT appears to be little more than a modification of already-existing English versions. It was by means of two former Witnesses, Bill Cetnar (who worked in the Brooklyn headquarters) and Raymond Franz (a former member of the WTS’s Governing Body) that the identity of the committee members became known and therefore that the scholars’ suspicions were confirmed. According to Cetnar and Franz, only one member of the committee (Frederick Franz, fourth WTS president and Raymond Franz’s uncle) studied biblical languages at all, and he studied non-biblical Greek for only two years.

Also, with the exception of some personal testimony stories, readers of both magazines will fail to find the names of people who authored the various articles contained in them. The WTS does this partly because it supresses individuality within the organization and partly because it prevents the reader from examining an author’s requisite credentials to teach on the given subject matter. Witnesses are taught to submit to the WTS, not to question its publications. Consequently, the anonymity is understandable.

 

When Mormons come to your door, they don’t tell you that they believe in many gods, that Jesus and Lucifer were "spirit brothers," and that dark skin (in the case of blacks, Indians, and Hispanics) is
supposedly a curse from God in punishment for wickedness. If they told you such things up front, you’d close the door immediately. Such teachings are saved for initiates. Thus, Mormonism is an esoteric religion (Webster: "esoteric: designed for or understood by the specially initiated alone").


Hmmmmm, very interesting thread, yea maybe if they did that we wouldn't even bother opening the door before we got to shut it. If I heard anyone say that my faith would immediately diminish.

 

Do Mormons really believe that people without white skin are supposed to have been punished by God? I have never heard of that. Is there a link to prove that?

 

if that true, that it is very funny...
because jesus is not white....

 

pingpong,

You have to be insane to believe what you have been told about us. Most of the stuff you wrote (not the literature cited (although I would have to check you did not alter anything)) is false, misleading and nothing short of slander. You purport yourself to be a Christian and look at your behaviour with these slanderous and outrageous attacks. You should be ashamed of yourself.

The problem I see here is that you refuse to get to know any of our people. Instead, you make up lies about what we do and say. Yes! Lies! You know you are lying about the NWT and how it is published. Anyone with half a brain can do a background check on that if they desired to do so.

So here it is pingpong. What's your aim? You gotta have some fear of Witnesses to try your hardest to discredit us? What is it you fear exactly? What is your objective? I know what my objective is. To show people truth, but get this point....you listening closely???........IF...THEY....WANT....TO...LISTEN....did you get that?? You sure??
Anyone who does not want to know can simply say no thanks...Not interested...or even go away...We will be obedient to householders requests....

So again...what is it you want exactly??

 

Here's a simple religious litmus test:

If it (the religion) doesn't threaten my family, my country, myself or my way of life, then believe in whatever you want to believe in.

There's only one religion that matches that litmus test, for me.

If JW's or Mormans ever start flying planes into our buildings, blowing up subways, trains, cars, hotels, buildings, buses, cities and/or anything that has a lung, I'll take issue with them.

 

What if the JW's wear out your doorbell and cause it to break, could that be considered an act of terrorism?

 

That seems about on the money as far as I can see

 

Agreed, Gtech.

 

Joseph Smith, the founder, ordained blacks. His successors followed the above racist line, and it wasn't until 1978 that blacks were admitted to the Mormon priesthood. An abomination, to be sure, and unfortunately I don't know of any sect free from its own version of such un-humanistic creeds.

Other things posted:

Polytheists? News to me.

"Jesus and Lucifer": I am not Mormon, but I believe this is derived from the Bible. Lucifer was not Satan. In fact, Lucifer was the "Shining One," the most beloved angel of Jehovah, until his pride and desire to overthrow led to his becoming the Fallen One, Satan. In this sense, Lucifer and Jesus "were" very much "spirit brothers," from the standpoint of theology.

 

ROFL!!! Never thought of it that way! I'll have to press them more lightly from now on!!...HAHAHAHAHA!!

 

You doorbell breaker!

 

Nicely put. You obviously have done thorough research to arrive at that thought. Get ready for some ridicule though. There's plenty of DP members who think very differently to that thought.

I would feel terrible if I did break someone's doorbell...LOL I would certainly pay to have it fixed

Col

 

I've never had it happen, actually. I've only had door tappers stop by a few times in my life. Once was LDS, the other was a few years ago; a Baptist teen preparing for missionary work.

What's really ironic about it, is we live in a JW capital of some sort. Don't know the full story, but every year, our quaint mid-size town is invaded by JWs from around the US for a yearly convention. Never been any problems that I'm aware of.

I'm a pretty open guy. Just don't blow my shit up or the shit of my country. That's not too much to ask

 

Problem with the JW's is they have no sense of humour. I know a couple of them that train at my gym. I told them this thing that happened. I thought it was funny but they didn't smile. I still think it was funny.
Two missionaries of the Church of Latter-Day Saints were walking down my street when they ran into two Jehovah's Witnesses coming directly at them from the opposite direction. The elders stopped, and one of the Jehovah's Witnesses said, "We don't move for false witnesses." One of the Mormons said, "We do," and they went around them.

 

Are you saying i have no sense of humour?? I laughed at that even though I know it would not happened like that. Mainly because it is not a Christian thing to do to your fellow man.

Col

 

Funny, I've been a Mormon for 32 years and to this day nobody has taught me any of this. Then again, they never taught me about green jello salad but I sure have eaten plenty of it, some of it with grated carrots in it, for some reason.

When I lived in Los Angeles the JW's would come by my house on Saturday mornings. They were always really nice, although I never let them in because I was 10 years old and my parents told me not to let strangers in. But sometimes I would talk with them on the front porch and they always seemed like nice people, just sharing what they believed in.

 

I like anyone who gives out free books.

 

This is completely unrelated, but I wanted to tell you that your icon creeps me out incredibly, something about a 3D version of Bender just doesn't work. It haunts my dreams.

 

Hmmmmmm this looks like a rather juicy, tasty morsel of a conversation, discussion to be involved in.

I've actually studied your outfit at massive length, indeed I'm considered an expert in this particular field of study.

So you accuse another of slanderous speech of a libelious nature but can you handle this truth for yourself, if I show you irrefutable evidence from your own publications, your views towards everyone else as an organisation.

Which publication would you like me to use first, perhaps Charles Taze Russel, we could start with him maybe and The Divine Plan of the Ages along with the winged sun disk on the front cover. Or how about his successor, Judge Rutherford, the JW's second president, changing the topic slightly, did you ever read the comparison between Al Capone and Judge Rutherford, I'd be delighted to share this with you at some point, well along in our discussion, if you would so wish me to? The choice is completely yours, I mind not where you go with this subject, by the time I've finished with you, I'll tie every argument of yours up in knots of your own making.

Or how about we breeze on past those two characters for now, how about we talk over the Laodician Messenger, I know, what about Beth Sarim in San Diego, or the connection with the Rothchild's, nahhhhhh, that's all too easy. I know, let's start with the hypocritical stance of the brothers in Malawi compared to the brothers in Mexico on the issue of the party political card and government bribery, or how about the UN debacle disaster when the borganisation at Crooklyn signed up personally for the access to the United Nations library, that was a classic, do you remember?

Then there's the pyramid in Rosemont Cemetary that old Charlie boy owned, you know the one, it's got the Cross and the Crown symbols on the sides of it, or we could discuss Enochian Magik if you would prefer and why The Watchtower is actually called The Watchtower, would that make for a truly riveting, captivating discussion?

Or we could talk about the Rand Corporation and deals with the US State of Defence; that was a beauty too, another WT classic, and never mind mentioning the incredible number of deaths due to the blood issue, or the incredibly high suicide rate within the witnesses or the families totally split up because of disfellowshipping, total excommunication etc.

Be my guest, come hither, let us discuss this at length in reasonable terms.

Please, pray, be my guest. Sit, let's share a discussion.

What a lovely day.

Isn't it?

Greetings.

Mark Magawr