First Jehovah's witnesses to knock at my door

[Miriam1947]

adf417 and Porknpie - thank you very much for your kind words… I hope that God will restore my faith, He well knows I can’t do it on my own.
And I will check the link. Thanks again.

Here is a youtube interview with a former JW on the Journey Home

youtube.com/watch?v=HKJPOncjgv8

 

[Logically]

Well, since you are offering, can you explain your understanding of why you do not believe there is a hell. … I would really like to only hear answers from the New Testament, since even JWs know that a fuller understanding of God’s Kingdom only came since Jesus Christ was born.

Hi Pacloc.

Sorry, it has been days I know. But finally I’ve sat down to answer your question.

Hell?

I’m not sure how much the catholic church still believes in hell these days.

But we all know the traditional teaching of a place of fire and horror where evildoers are tortured forever. Pretty horrible stuff.
I have heard Atheists use the teaching of hell to rubbish belief in God since the belief is so horrible. So it has actually done God a great dis-service.

I think the churches have realised this and now try to tone the story down. I hear recent Popes have changed the tune and talk more of a “separation from God” rather than unending torture. (please correct me if I’m wrong) From my experience it is more Pentecostal Christians who still insist on a fiery hell.

But the Witnesses could see from the start that the traditional hell of Christendom and Dante’s inferno was incompatible with the loving God of the Bible. (Some of the protestant churches even added the idea of predestination to the mix.) Imagine a God who predestined people to be bad and then punished them forever for it! Charles taze Russell reasoned such a God would be worse than any man.

However, being repulsed by something doesn’t make it false. The early JW’s had decided to go with what the Bible said, and happily we see that contradicts the traditional teaching of hell.

Hell requires the teaching of an immortal soul to support it. And from the beginning we see the Bible does not teach that.

Adam was told the consequence of sin was death. (Gen 2:17) Nothing more.
At genesis 3:19 Adam was sentenced to “return to dust.” (The only person who assured him he wouldn’t really die was Satan at Gen 3:4)

So Adam sinned and died. Fullstop. - No mention of eternal suffering. he didn’t go to hell.

Does it make sense that the one who brought sin into the world would get off with death and non-existence, but later sinners would be punished further after death?

Of course not and the Bible agrees. Romans 5:12 says “death spread to all men because they had all sinned” the same penalty for them. Romans 6:23 adds: “The wages of sin is death.” No mention of worse after death.

So where does the word “Hell” come into it? In the Hebrew the word that described where the dead goes is “Sheol.”and the Greek equivalent is “Hades”.
The King James Translation usually (but not always) translated Sheol and Hades as “Hell”. of course “hell” in English has developed the meaning of concious suffering, not the silent condition of the dead.

But Sheol and Hades is a place where all go, not just the bad. And Ecclesiastes 9 shows it is a place of unconsciousness. Some Bibles have realised this now and translate it “the grave”.

Rather than going somewhere else after death the pre-Christian servants of Jehovah believed in a future resurrection. (Daniel 12:13)

This was still believed by Jesus followers.
At the resurrection of Lazarus Martha said “I know he will rise in the resurrection on the last day” (John 11:24) But this resurrection was to be of both the good and the bad! Jesus said so at John 5:28,29. And Paul taught the same at Acts 24:15. “A resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous.”

In contrast to the Biblical teaching of a resurrection; Hell teaches the unrighteous are in hell forever. Not according to the inspired Bible writers. (though the pagan egyptians and greek philosophers taught something similar and the church picked it up later)

This is directly contradicted by the Bible again in Revelation 20:13 where “death and Hell delivered up those dead in them” (KJV)
The NWT leaves untranslated the greek word “Hades” here, and most modern translations have followed suit and ditched the word “Hell” in favour of “Hades” or “the grave”.

Some, in a last ditch effort to save the un-scriptural, illogical and God-dishonoring teaching of hell, site “the lake of fire” in Revelation 20:10 where the devil is cast to be “tormented forever” – but this is not hell, because in verse 14 “hell” is thrown in there too!
The “lake of fire” isn’t hell. It is a symbol of destruction. (that is how symbolic things like the false prophet, the wild beast and hades are sent there too)

JW’s find that realizing what the Bible teaches about hell is a huge relief to a lot of people.

But as I said at the beginning, I get the feeling the churches are realizing the same and are distancing themselves from the Church tradition’s teaching anyway.

Have others noticed the same?

 

[Logically]

I used to be a JW… they destroyed my faith in God, the Scriptures, and enybody who claims to teach anything about God. I’m now in the process of picking up the pieces and trying to rebuild my faith and my trust…
JWs are just another man-made religion…

I’m sorry to hear that.

I notice you still call yourself “Christian” - so do I assume you haven’t given up on God and his son. (Maybe just those imperfect people who try to follow them)

Anyway, you may not want to discuss that on a public forum. I will private message you if you don’t mind?

 

[dronald]

I’m sorry to hear that.

I notice you still call yourself “Christian” - so do I assume you haven’t given up on God and his son. (Maybe just those imperfect people who try to follow them)

Anyway, you may not want to discuss that on a public forum. I will private message you if you don’t mind?

Can you please, please answer my two questions?

 

[PRmerger]

But we all know the traditional teaching of a place of fire and horror where evildoers are tortured forever. Pretty horrible stuff.
I have heard Atheists use the teaching of hell to rubbish belief in God since the belief is so horrible. So it has actually done God a great dis-service.

If we use your logic, then we have to deny that the Holocaust took place because atheists use this “to rubbish belief in God” since the belief that God permitted such a horrific atrocity is so “horrible”.

See how that doesn’t make sense?

Whether atheists use something as an argument for how horrible God is ought not distract us from the truth of its existence.

 

[DelsonJacobs]

*Logically: I’m not sure how much the catholic church still believes in hell these days.

But we all know the traditional teaching of a place of fire and horror where evildoers are tortured forever. Pretty horrible stuff. *

Actually, this “traditional teaching” is anti-catholic propaganda. (meaning prejudice and malicious bigotry against Catholic people and their belief system). It’s always confused me how a people who claim to stand up for truth always enjoy repeating this lie about Catholicism.

Case in point: from antiquity, the Catholic Church has cherished and recited the Apostle’s Creed. In it says about Jesus…

I believe…
in Jesus Christ, the only Son, our Lord
who was…
crucified under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died and was buried;
he descended into hell;
on the third day he rose again from the dead…

Catholics believe Jesus went to hell. Most of us say the Creed at least once a day. This has gone on for 2000 years. If we ever believed in some invented “traditional teaching” of anti-catholic propaganda, we would have some strange beliefs about Jesus, wouldn’t you say?

The teaching of hell being a literal place of fire and torment is, as you said, “pretty horrible stuff.” Especially when you consider it is not a teaching from the Church. It didn’t come from the Catholic Church.

What about “Dante’s Inferno?”

I have heard many Jehovah’s Witnesses, too many, in fact, ask me this question. When I asked them what they have been taught “Dante’s Inferno” is, here are the varied responses.

• The official teaching from the Catholic Church.
• A famous painting of hell that hangs in the Vatican.
• Some detailed theology about what Catholics believe hell is really like.

Actually, Dante’s “inferno” is the first part of an epic poem entitled the Divine Comedy, written by Dante Alighieri in the 14th century. It’s a work of fiction. As Wikipedia accurately reports that the “inferno”

…is an allegory telling of the journey of Dante through Hell, guided by the Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine circles of suffering located within the Earth. Allegorically, the Divine Comedy represents the journey of the soul towards God, with the Inferno describing the recognition and rejection of sin.

While Catholic theologians have debated over the centuries on whether or not the “fire” of Gehenna spoken of in Scripture by Jesus is in any way literal, the Church has no such dogmatic interpretation beyond the centuries-old teaching that the punishments of hell are that of the greatest loss, namely love due to being cut-off from the presence of God and any reflection thereof.

*Logically: I said at the beginning, I get the feeling the churches are realizing the same and are distancing themselves from the Church tradition’s teaching anyway.

Have others noticed the same?*

The Church has not distanced itself from its original teaching. I am sure you see that by now, as you seem like a very reasonable person. Why don’t you do something positive, like change the official understanding about the Catholic teaching regarding hell amongst the Witnesses.

Instead of attributing to us something that doesn’t apply, why not work to spread the truth about us among your own people and apologize to the Church and her members for publicly attributing to us such false ideas.

Concerning the detailed specific nature of hell … the Catholic Church has defined nothing. … It is useless to speculate about its true nature, and more sensible to confess our ignorance in a question that evidently exceeds human understanding. --John Anthony O’Brien, The Faith of Millions: The Credentials of the Catholic Religion, pp. 19-20.

That the truth about Catholicism and hell. Will it change what you do as a Witness? Will you “love your neighbor as yourself” enough to clear us of this incorrect understanding?

Perhaps if the Witnesses were open to official dialogue with the Catholic Church such misunderstandings will fail to continue.

 

[Logically]

Can you please, please answer my two questions?

Hey, sorry friend.

Was that the one on “Who created?” and “First and last?”

Sorry, trying to keep up. I’m about 10 posts behind!

Gotta fly now, but will reply later today.

Sorry.

 

[DelsonJacobs]

The NWT leaves untranslated the greek word “Hades” here, and most modern translations have followed suit and ditched the word “Hell” in favour of “Hades” or “the grave”.

The revised 2013 edition of the New World Translation no longer leaves the words “Sheol” or “Hades” untranslated.

In fact, this new edition of the NWT has ditched these words in favor of the practice found in the previous New American Bible (NAB) edition, the official Catholic liturgical translation.

Prior to its current 2011 revision, the NAB used words like “grave” and the “netherworld” for Sheol and Hades. The new 2013 NWT revision now does the same, no longer using “Sheol” or “Hades,” explaining in Appendix A2:

Both terms were replaced with what was meant by the Bible writers, “the Grave.” The terms “Sheol” and “Hades” are now given in footnotes.

This is the same process followed by the NAB until 2011. Since the words “sheol” and “hades” don’t always mean “the grave,” most especially in light of comparing Deuterocanonical books in Greek with the Hebrew versions of these same books found in the Qumran scrolls, the *New American Bible Revised Edition *(NABRE) has often left these terms untranslated in the Old Testament, with the footnotes explaining when something besides the norm was meant.

The New Testament version, however, generally uses “netherworld” or “grave,” with Hades in the footnotes. The New Testament revision was released in 1986, so if anything the NWT 2013 revision is following the Catholic version.

No translations have “followed suit” to anything found in the NWT. In fact, the new 2013 NWT now translated expressions verbatim to the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), including adopting many of its unique “inclusive language” choices.

The 2013 NWT revision also now accepts the rendering of John 17:3 found in all Christendom’s BIbles. In the past, Witnesses use to boast how their rendering was more correct than ours and now you translate like we do.

I feel sorry for this Witness who wrote this blog since the new 2013 NWT made his arguments moot: Defending the New World Translation–John 17:3, Taking in Knowledge.

 

[DelsonJacobs]

But Sheol and Hades is a place where all go, not just the bad. And Ecclesiastes 9 shows it is a place of unconsciousness. Some Bibles have realised this now and translate it “the grave”.

This is not true. The revised New World Translation of 2013 no longer supports this long-held belief of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

The New World Translation, 2013 revision, now reads:

Whatever your hand finds to do, do with all your might, for there is no work nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom in the Grave, where you are going.–Ecclesiastes 9:10.

The footnote on “Grave” in this new edition explains:

It is described in the Bible as a symbolic place or condition wherein all activity and consciousness cease.

But is it always a place or condition where there is no activity? No. Those who go to the Grave or Sheol can do things like cry out to Jehovah. Jonah 2:2 in this same new edition of the NWT supports this:

Out of the depths of the Grave I cried for help.

How can Jonah cry out from “the depths of the Grave”? Can the living be in Sheol or the “Grave”? If the Grave is supposed to be a place of inactivity, how can Jonah be there and cry out to God?

Some Jehovah’s Witnesses say this is not contradictory since the belly of the fish could have become Jonah’s personal grave, his final resting place. But that is ***not ***what the New World Translation 2013 revised edition says. The above footnote to “Grave” also explained:

When lowercased, referring to an individual grave; when capitalized, the common grave of mankind, equivalent to the Hebrew “Sheol” and the Greek “Hades.”

So here the New World Translation, revision of 2013, says that Jonah was in the “Grave,” the common grave of mankind, with the rest of the dead.

And from here, Jonah “cried for help” to God. This agrees with the Catholic teaching, namely that the soul can survive death, and as this Scripture shows, those in the common grave of mankind can cry out to God for mercy.

So your current beliefs are no longer in line with the Governing Body’s teachings found in the New World Translation, 2013 revised edition. There is indeed activity in the Grave.

 

[dronald]

Hey, sorry friend.

Was that the one on “Who created?” and “First and last?”

Sorry, trying to keep up. I’m about 10 posts behind!

Gotta fly now, but will reply later today.

Sorry.

Yes, that’s it.

I’m wondering who created the Heavens and the Earth and also, who is “the first and the last”?

 

[in_servitude]

When you pray, do you always go to your room and shut the door? Jesus’ says to do this and he does not give any exceptions. Maybe JW do do this and I don’t know?

Logically, as long as you’re going back to answer previous questions, can you also take a shot at Porknpie’s question? I’m curious to hear the answer. (An easy way to get to his/her complete post is to click the little arrow after Porknpie’s user name in this post.

Thanks,

 

[Logically]

Yes, that’s it.

I’m wondering who created the Heavens and the Earth and also, who is “the first and the last”?

Ooh heck.
I can see this is going to be a knotty one.

Well, Revelation 4:11 says God (Jehovah) created all things. Genesis 1:1 of course says “God created the heavens and the earth.”

But you will no doubt immediately point out Jesus is described in Col. 1:16 as creating “all things in heaven and earth”. (except himself of course since he is called the firstborn of all creation. In the verse before.)

JW’s therefore conclude Jesus was used as a master worker by God to do this.

How do you understand those verses? That Jesus is therefore the same person as God? or his cheif agent in carrying out his purpose?

The First and the Last?

Both uses of this term are in Revelation I think. (correct me if there are other references.)

First, in Rev 1:17 , one who is obviously the resurrected Jesus says: “I am the first and the last, and the living one.”

Also in Rev 22:13, after again referring to himself as the Alpha and the Omega (First and last letters in Greek) Jehovah God adds the expression “The first and the last”.

So do you conclude that both Jehovah and Jesus using the same expression makes them the same person?

 

[Logically]

Logically, as long as you’re going back to answer previous questions, can you also take a shot at Porknpie’s question? I’m curious to hear the answer. (An easy way to get to his/her complete post is to click the little arrow after Porknpie’s user name in this post.

Thanks,

The question was: When you pray do you go into your room and shut the door like Jesus said in Matthew 6?

Well, no not always.

What is your point?

 

[PRmerger]

JW’s therefore conclude Jesus was used as a master worker by God to do this.

I have never seen this in the Bible. Can you cite where the Scriptures say Jesus was used as a master worker by God?

How do you understand those verses? That Jesus is therefore the same person as God?

No. Jesus is not the same Person as God. God is 3 Persons. One God.

 

[PRmerger]

The question was: When you pray do you go into your room and shut the door like Jesus said in Matthew 6?

Well, no not always.

What is your point?

The point is that you seem to take one part of Matthew 6 and say, “This is what God commands!” (that we pray to God the Father only)…

but you don’t take the other part of Matthew 6 and say, “This is what God commands!” (that we pray in our room with the door shut only).

Why the inconsistency?

Who in your church gets to decide which part of Matthew we have to do but not the other part?

 

[pacloc]

I like you Logically! It seems you got your cogs working, a few years from now, when you’re Catholic, you will cherish these conversations. You should look up the real undersunderstanding of the trinity in the catechism. Jw have a pretty similar view as to the trinity, the difference is that they say they were together a really really long time, we say eternally.

 

[Logically]

If we use your logic, then we have to deny that the Holocaust took place because atheists use this “to rubbish belief in God” since the belief that God permitted such a horrific atrocity is so “horrible”.

See how that doesn’t make sense?

The fact Atheists use it to dishonor God does not prove it doesn’t exist. It simply shows what a repugnant teaching it is to many people.
God didn’t cause the holocaust (though many who claimed to be Christians participated)
But if Hell exists as a place of torment, it follows that since God created all things, he created it too and it is part of God’s divine justice. That he created it!
That’s why Atheists use it to argue against God.

But the real proof that Hellfire doesn’t exist (and therefore Atheists arguments are baseless) is that the Bible teaches something else.

Whether atheists use something as an argument for how horrible God is ought not distract us from the truth of its existence.

“the truth of its existance.”
So do you believe hell exists as a place of torment?

 

[PRmerger]

The fact Atheists use it to dishonor God does not prove it doesn’t exist. It simply shows what a repugnant teaching it is to many people.

Egg-zactly.

And let’s just apply it to your argument regarding hell: The fact Atheists use it to dishonor God does not prove it doesn’t exist. It simply shows what a repugnant teaching it is to many people

the proof Hellfire doesn’t exist is that the Bible teaches something else.

Your fallible interpretation of the Bible is what you mean.

Remember, unless you claim to be infallible, this means that, BY DEFINITION, your interpretations of the Bible are going to be wrong at some point.

Going. To. Be. Wrong.

That ought to be a terrifying thought to you, Logically.

If you don’t claim infallibility, your interpretations are going to be wrong at some point.

 

[Logically]

I like you Logically! It seems you got your cogs working, a few years from now, when you’re Catholic, you will cherish these conversations. You should look up the real undersunderstanding of the trinity in the catechism. Jw have a pretty similar view as to the trinity, the difference is that they say they were together a really really long time, we say eternally.

Ha. I think I will take that as a complement.

Do you have a link to this “Catechism”, or can you quote it for me? I’d better check I’m not argueing against something I agree with eh?

Sorry for all the tricky questions I haven’t confronted yet. (i am outnumbered)

But I have to log off now.

Good night all.

 

[Porknpie]

The point is that you seem to take one part of Matthew 6 and say, “This is what God commands!” (that we pray to God the Father only)…

but you don’t take the other part of Matthew 6 and say, “This is what God commands!” (that we pray in our room with the door shut only).

Why the inconsistency?

Who in your church gets to decide which part of Matthew we have to do but not the other part?

[SIGN]Yes, this is inconsistent Logically. It’s not logical.[/SIGN]

Speaking of signs, do JWs say to one another…

[SIGN]God Bless You[/SIGN] ??