Here's a short article from their official website: Who Is Michael the Archangel? It's a pretty absurd position to hold since the few Biblical passages that speak of Michael have to be really stretched to make them support this idea, and furthermore, there are rather clear indications to the contrary. Daniel refers to Michael as "one of the princes", implying that he has several equals in the angelic realm. Jude mentions that Michael didn't dare to rebuke satan, while other texts tell that Jesus did in effect do that - even during his earthly ministry. If the JW logic in interpreting the passage in 1. Thessalonians 4 would be valid, one could equally well prove with the same passage that Jesus is God, which is what they want to deny. And something a bit similar can be done with their argument based on the book of Revelation.
Fascinating. There is so much of the bible they'd have to ignore in order to get to that point. It really is astounding. I've always thought they were just more evangelical than most Christians but they were basically the same thing, but in reality denying the divinity of Christ pretty much puts them in a different religion.
I've never heard of this definition. Can you provide me a credible source? Also, regarding the "True" representation of Christianity, can you provide me a non-religious credible source for that definition? As an agnostic, I just got through setting up my Christmas tree in my house. I do it because I think tradition is a good thing and my kids like it. I can also appreciate its less than Christian origins(Pegan). On the winter solstice, my family, and most other families in America, open our presents. We tell our kids the story of a magic man who wears a big red suit and flys around in a magic sleigh with flying reindeer. What has any of this crap got to do with "true" Christianity? Not a thing. I would say it is one of the things the JWs have figured out, though they take it a bit too far. All these "true" christian holidays are complete bullshit, and most of them have non christian roots, like bunnies(fertility symbol) at Easter time. What I'm getting at is to call one religion a cult specifically because they don't interpret some holy book the same way as some other religion just sounds like the same old religious bigotry. According to the dictionary definitions 1-5, they are all cults. Definition 6 is a matter of who you ask. cult   /kʌlt/ [kuhlt] –noun 1. a particular system of religious worship, esp. with reference to its rites and ceremonies. 2. an instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, esp. as manifested by a body of admirers: the physical fitness cult. 3. the object of such devotion. 4. a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc. 5. Sociology. a group having a sacred ideology and a set of rites centering around their sacred symbols. 6. a religion or sect considered to be false, unorthodox, or extremist, with members often living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader. 7. the members of such a religion or sect. 8. any system for treating human sickness that originated by a person usually claiming to have sole insight into the nature of disease, and that employs methods regarded as unorthodox or unscientific.
Why would it have to be a non-religious source when it is a theological definition? In my opinion, these are in-house matters for specific religious traditions. In other words, it is primarily up to Islam as a whole to decide what is true and normative representation of the Islamic faith, and similarly, it's up to Christianity to define what are the essential tenets of Christian belief. The definition that I had in mind was the one provided by Walter Martin: “any religious group which differs significantly in some one or more respects as to belief or practice, from those religious groups which are regarded as the normative expression of religion in our total culture." So it isn't exactly what I remembered it would be (it's been a few years since I read him), but it is very close, once we clear up certain ambiguities: - Obviously the part about "our total culture" can't refer to the general perception of the general population that may be largely ignorant of the religion. - It should go without saying that this kind of a definition is focused on the essentials of the faith rather than the totality - for else there wouldn't be a definable "normative expression" at all. - Also, the part about "normative expression of religion" must mean a particular religion rather than religion in general. It has one small and rather incidental thing to do with Christianity, which is the historical person of the bishop St. Nicholas, around whom certain legends developed, which in turn have evolved to stories about that magic man with a red suit and white beard. I don't think that very many thinking people within Christianity would object to the claim that most of the stuff that goes on around Christmas has very little to do with Christianity. So it doesn't take the JWs to figure that one out.
Its not just Christmas. It is quite literally every "Christian" holiday. Every last one of them is littered with Pegan rituals and symbols, though not all of them take from Christian rituals and symbols. By your definition, if the majority of Christians drank the blood of infants on new years, they would not be a cult because that would be the " normative expression". Because it would have to be based in fact, not bullshit. Lets be honest, faith is about belief, and religion is about control(mostly). You quote me your religious source who is always going to frame his belief system in the best light. Like the Sunnis and the Shia. I'm picking up what your putting down. All that needs to be done is to slander and butcher the opposing belief set enough, until your beliefs are considered the "normative expression" and the opposing beliefs are considered a "cult". I got news for you. Our "total culture" cant agree on diddly squat, whether it be health care, when life begins, or how to fix a broken economy. Over 20% of Americans don't believe in god at all. The remainder are not all Christians. Of those who call themselves "christian", there are no less than 38,000 denominations who all believe slightly differently, including the "essentials of the faith" such as the Trinity. How is it that any one group of people can have the arrogance to think they speak to the "normative expression of religion in our total culture". The statement itself is laughable. My normative expression of a proper human being is a white anglo saxon protestant male . How does that suit you? Its what we call bigotry. Sorry if I sound heated, I just hate it when people from my culture start sounding like the extremist Muslim idiots on this forum(Polite Teen, New, Imad, and Gworld(Yes you are a Muslim, quit denying it)).
I largely agree with this. I'm not sure what your point is though. They would be a cult under many definitions of the word, but not under the theological definition. So what? You are entitled to thinking that theology as a whole is bullshit and thus anything theological isn't of any importance to you, but that does nothing to change the fact that it's absurd to demand a non-religious definition for a theological term. It would be more logical to just accept that such terms are by their very nature religious and ignore them since they are therefore "bullshit". Please note that I never said that there are no other valid definitions of a cult (in fact, I mentioned at least one). So it's not like we are arguing over the legitimacy of defining a cult in a non-religious manner. We are arguing over defining the theological sence of a cult in a non-religious manner. So what? It looks like you're arguing against some point that I've never made in this discussion. There are more sophisticated ways to settle the issue of normativity, though undoubtedly those aren't always used. That hardly makes the definition itself a part of the problem. This contains nothing that I haven't addressed in my previous posts. Please note that I did acknowledge that Martin's definition as it stands is ambiguous and needs some clarification, partly because of some of the issues you've touched on here. Would it also be bigotry to say that a normative expression of a proper human being is a biological creature that belongs to the subspecies Homo Sapiens Sapiens? If not, then surely you do admit that there is such a thing as normativity in defining the meaning of terms. Then the point is just to find the conceptual framework within which one can define normative content to whatever happens to be the subject matter. Just as it isn't bigotry to point out that cats don't fit within the normative definition of being a dog, it shouldn't be bigotry to point out that Jehovah's Witnesses don't fit within the normative historic orthodox definition of a Christian - at least not under certain moderately plausible reconstructions of what constitutes historical orthodoxy. Yes, you do sound heated. I'm not particularly offended by that, but it might make progress in our dialogue easier if you calmed down just a little bit. I do get the feeling that you are arguing against something that you perceive me to be saying rather than what I'm actually trying to say. Not that it's necessarily your fault rather than mine or anyone else's. It's just what tends to happens from time to time in any exchange of ideas.
You do know where the "Christian" part got mixed with the pagan stuff right? As a Christian I can celebrate the birth of Christ anytime I want to and in any way. There is no set way to celebrate His birth (or not to at all.) I feel I celebrate His birth all year round. We do a tree only as a tradition that is fun, we see the symbolism differently than from were some of it came from. We don't tell the story of a santa claus to our kids, we tell them what the Bible says happened. Just adding my 2 cents, it actually looks like people are having a fairly civil discussion during the last half of this thread, but now I need to go back to the first half, I somehow clicked a page in.
I'll boil it down as much as possible. The word cult as applied to the religious carries a negative connotation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult No this is not the definition from the dictionary, but it is the "normative" understanding of the word in our culture today. I don't have a problem with this word being applied to JWs for a variety of reasons, but when you presented your reasoning for applying the word, it comes across as bigotry. It comes directly from the talking points of several church organizations who would have you believe their beliefs are the norm, and therefore correct when, as I pointed out, there can be no "correct" in this area. If you had wanted to apply the word, even according to your definition, in a scientific manner, you would provide some statistical evidence that of the 38,000 Christian denominations, the JW's beliefs are sufficiently distinictly non-normative to classify them as a cult. So what? Making up new definitions for derogatory words so they can be applied to people who disagree with you is bigotry, whether you call your made up definition of the word the "theological" definition or otherwise. If I were to say that my family defines the word "Shitbag" as anyone outside of our immediate family, and then vocalize our categorization of you as a "shitbag", it doesn't change the effect. I never said that. I have no issue with theology, or theologians. I would say that the conclusions drawn by these people are not based on fact, and I am certainly not interested in accepting the labels they might want to apply to me or anyone else. Newsflash. Cult is not a theological term. For centuries, religions and politicians have been working to control the meaning of language. Our current administration works hard at this on a daily basis. One can easily find the meaning of a word in the dictionary. Beyond that, one can also find generally accepted definitions and connotations of a word in an encyclopedia. Sorry if I don't count religious scholars or politicians as acceptable sources. I don't accept decisions by referees who are betting on the game either. What does the word "niggardly" mean to you? How about the word "colored"? Perhaps to the devout. Of course they will usually accept whatever bullshit is fed to them, even if that includes strapping a bomb to their chest and running into a crowded building. All that is fine, until you use the word cult define the non-normative. As you pointed out, Mary worship is unique to certain denominations of Catholics and is not found almost anywhere else. Shall we use the word Cult? After all, it is non-normative. Do you think the catholics would be pissed off? Would they be right to be pissed off? You bet. No I'm arguing against how you apply the word cult. The theologian provided definition you quoted has a parallel in Islam. Its called a Fatwa.
Oh, but that seems to me to be just patently false. Of course there CAN be "correct" in this area. The Trinitarian doctrine of God is correct if there exists one God in three persons. Unitarian doctrine of God is correct if there exists a God that is a single person. And Atheism is correct if there exists no God at all. We could add varieties of Polytheism, Pantheism, etc. to get a jointly exhaustive & mutually exclusive list of options. One of these would be "correct", which is in direct contradiction to your claim. The same can be done with regard to the claim about the deity of Christ. Either it is true that Jesus is fully God, or it is true that he is god in some partial/lesser sense, else it is false that he is God at all. So again, something can be (indeed, must be) "correct" in such matters. I don't feel obliged to prove with statistics that which is general knowledge. You can add the numbers within the Orthodox, Catholic and major Protestant churches - who are all united in their affirmation of the Trinity and the deity of Christ in their official doctrine - and get close enough to the estimated total number of adherents in Christianity to figure that the denial of these doctrines is a minority position. And I've already made the point that it isn't just about counting noses. One can study church history and see that Christology in particular has been the major line of demarcation from the early centuries onward. Well, according to my admittedly limited knowledge, many of the people who use the term "cult" in theological circles in the sense that I mentioned above are very careful to point out that it isn't intended to carry the negative connotations that are commonly associated with when used in some other (such as sociological) sense. But if your beef is primarily with the term, rather than with the idea behind it (that one can make meaningful judgements about religious traditions and their varying degrees of faithfulness to what can be taken as the historic orthodox epression of the faith that they self-identify with), then I'd suggest that we simply drop the term "cult" in this discussion. We can agree on some other term as signifying the same thing without carrying the same amount of negative connotations. It can be. Like I said, there are many definitions of the term. And I've made it very clear that what I've been talking about was the theological definition. But whatever. We may refer to the same concept with some different word. So I'll sign out of the part of our discussion that's simply about the use of that word. Wow. And YOU call people bigoted just for using a term that may carry negative connotations.
In regard to calling them "Unitarian" or "Trinitarian", you would be right. I completely disagree in regard to the term "Christian". I would cite again the example of Catholics and worship of Mary as an example. For that matter, I find it quite likely that I can single out beliefs held by almost any given denomination that are outside of the norm. One could look at it statistically by categorizing every belief held by every denomination and determining which of those beliefs were held by more than 50% of those denominations. What you would end up with is a large number of shared beliefs across many permutations of the denominations, leaving any number of denominations as "cults" depending on how you look at it. And the worship of Mary? Cult? Fair enough. I believe Sect is the term used today, as in "Sectarian violence" being violence against those who believe slightly different than you. You are right, that is an over generalization and I apologize. That said, there can be no denying the people strapping bombs to their chests are devout. One can look at the history of Christianity and see atrocity after atrocity committed by the devout. Looking at it logically, that leaves me a few choices: A) God exists and is desires such atrocities to be performed on his behalf B) The many people who committed such atrocities were fundamentally evil. C) The many people who committed such atrocities were gullible and were manipulated by a few people who used their belief system in search of wealth and power. There is no scientific evidence of A, and I refuse to believe B. I have nothing against the religious, but the devout scare the living fuck out of me. That goes for politics as well.
Hey. I have a friend of this religion / cult / or whatever it is and she doesn't celebrate her birthday, she doesn't have a boyfriend, she doesn't celebrate ANY holidays... Is this all because of her faith? ( if I'm doubling something, please don't be mad, I didn't read the whole debate ) Love her, Misa Misa