How can you be Catholic? Questioning of JWs

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Steve,
I went to the link.
I noticed immediately that the site operators flippantly use the term “Apostates” to describe people who have left the Society due to their lack of faith in it’s date-setting.

Any site which starts out with inflammatory labels is not a site which I would trust to quote in context.

Do you know of any other sites which defend the 607 BC date and which do not start out by labelling those who disagree with the evil label of “Apostate”???

If you do, I’d be happy to look at it.

And I’m not dumping on anyone. What I said about the Society’s failed predictions was all 100% true and easily verifiable.
And I might add that many devout JWs were disfellowshiped and shunned - treated as less than dogs - because they expressed the fact that these predictions would likely fail beforehand.
And the Society has never ever not even once apologized to the people whom they treated so wickedly (though the failure of those dates vindicated them 100%) and whom they dared to libel
as “apostates.” An apostate is someone who has REJECTED GOD, not rejected the prophetic speculation of the guys in Brooklyn.

God bless,
Jaypeeto4
 
One more thing. And I don’t mean to insult BibleSteve.
But one thing that began to bother me as a convinced JW was something I noticed in scripture about the Gentile Times being 2,520 years long, and that is that Scripture nowhere, nowhere, nowhere states this.

The prophecy in Daniel that the Watchtower Society uses to claim that the gentile times are a period of 2,520 years beginning in 607 BC, is not a prophecy about Jerusalem AT ALL,
but a prophecy specifically directed at, and ONLY specifically directed at, King Nebuchadnezzar. NOWHERE in any book of the Old Testament or the New Testament is there any statement which even HINTS that the prophecy about Nebuchadnezzars
7 “times” or 7 years of madness, has any application whatsoever to how long Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles.
The prophecy is about Nebuchadnezzar and how long he would be crazy, namely, 7 times. At the end of which time God would restore Nebuchadnezzar to sanity and to his Throne, a prophecy made beforehand so that when it happened, Nebuchadnezzar once he was restored would be forced by circumstances to acknowledge the Glory and supremacy of Yahweh the God of Israel.

Look high and low in every verse of the bible for even a HINT that the prophecy about Nebuchadnezzar’s 7 times of madness also had an application to Jerusalem. You will not find it. It’s not there. Anywhere. It is pure, unadulterated GUESSWORK on the part of the Watchtower Society and nothing more than that.

God bless,
Jaypeeto4
+JMJ+
 
Jaypeeto4 said:
Steve,
I went to the link.
I noticed immediately that the site operators flippantly use the term “Apostates” to describe people who have left the Society due to their lack of faith in it’s date-setting.
Click to expand...
A few points on the 607 BC vs. 587BC debate.

I mentioned at the outset, I wasn’t interested in debating this topic. This is because I see this topic bring out the worst in people.

I personally don’t care if Jerusalem fell in 607, 587, or any other date. I am far more interested in learning about what other groups think about the topic rather than fight with others, insisting I’m right and their wrong.

I have read the evidence for 587 BC, and I understand why some people believe that. I’ve also read the evidence for 607 BC and find that is rational also.

I see far too many people who just want to fight, insisting they are right and others are wrong…. All over a lousy 20 years, some 2600 years ago.

If JW’s value internal Bible Chronology over other evidence Secular Historians like, who cares? Frankly, trusting in the truthfulness of the Bible shows good character in my book.

Here are two very good sites that lay out the argument for 607 vs. 587. If you want to understand the topic, then read away….

Article One
Article Two
  1. Article One is a comprehensive review of the 607BC vs. 587BC debate. It does refers to those who attack JW beliefs from multiple angles as “apostate JW’s and other opposers” I call these people anti-JW’s, JW-critics, etc.
  2. The article is filled with specific detailed facts from the Bible and other archeological sources. Anyone who feels emotionally compelled to fight and argue with others over Bible chronology would do well to understand the “other side’s” reasoning points.
    If you don’t want to read this article, then don’t. I really don’t care. But temper your argument that your right and others are wrong if you don’t want to read it.
  3. If seeing the word “Apostate” hurts your feelings (while approving calling others who believe differently than you “cult members”), then consider reading Article Two. It is a very good article also and I don’t think it uses the word apostate.
I don’t have anything more to say on this topic.

Since I haven’t seen any evidence that my salvation is dependent on figuring out when Jerusalem fell 2600 years ago, I think I’ll focus on other things that Jesus say were important.

Happy Reading,

Steve
 
BibleSteve said:
  1. If seeing the word “Apostate” hurts your feelings (while approving calling others who believe differently than you “cult members”)
    …Steve
Click to expand...
an apostate is someone who has turned away from God not the WTBS. JWs however do fit the definition of a cult:

PART 1 (post too long-continued in part 2 below)

the following is a Cult Test- JWs are a positive on each and every point! I explained some of them that the average person would not necessarily be aware of, the underlined parts are my explanations–the points not elaborated upon are obvious to even outsiders.
Ravyn

womenofsubstance.org/Culttest.htm

The Cult Test:
If You Are In Doubt
Identifying Traits of Abusive Groups

We offer a shorthand list followed by a longer list of cultic traits compiled from: Recovery From Cults, by Michael D. Langone, Captive Hearts, Captive Minds, by Madeleine Tobias and Janja Lalich, “Crazy” Therapies, by Margaret Singer and Janja Lalich, Combating Cult Mind Control, by Steven Hassan

Michael Langone, in his article “Cults, Violence, and the Millennium,” suggests the following three characteristics as essential in the definition of a cultic group:

A. centralized control by a charismatic leader

or group such as ‘the Organization’ of WTBS of Jehovah’s Witnesses run by the ‘Governing Body’ who claims to be of ‘the Faithful and Discreet Slave class’ mentioned in St. Matthew 24:45

B. an us-versus-them mentality that isolates

C. a lack of tolerance for dissent

Compiled list:
  1. Control-oriented leadership – leader claims to be an all-knowing, liberated being.
see “A” above
  1. Hierarchical structure with an elite inner circle – including leader’s assistants.
see “A” above - ditto
  1. Group leader not accountable to any authorities, as are, for example: military commanders, and ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream denominations.
"we must obey God as Ruler rather than men"
  1. Polarized us-versus-them, black-or-white mentality causing conflict with wider society.
"un-believers", “worldly”, “apostates”, etc. JW-speak turning normal terminology into the complete opposite connotations-eg "Christendom"
  1. Manipulation of members by alternating guilt/anxiety/fear/ostracism and attention.
  2. Group perception of being spiritually unique/elite and separate from normal culture.
  3. Denunciation of other spiritual/religious leaders and groups.
  4. Mind-numbing techniques (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, and debilitating work routines) are used to suppress doubts about group and leader.
5 meetings a week that all need preparation and study, required participation in both meetings and “field service”, constant studying of proscribed reading material and mandatory attendance of assemblies and conventions annually and bi-annually many at a distance requiring time off from work and school.
 
Part 2 continued:
  1. Spiritual practices emphasize experience rather than rationality.
  2. Sexual abuse - leader uses power to sexually exploit members.
the abuse is usually more of excessive control of sexuality of members, dictating specifics beyond morals, eg what is and is not allowed in the “marriage bed”, however there is sexual abuse and it goes unreported to secular authorities and most of the time unpunished since JWs require “two witnesses” to every offense and usually in sexual abuse cases there is only the victim coming forward.
  1. Economic exploitation of members by leader and assistants.
encouragement to pursue jobs performing menial labor rather than college-educated or careers that require degrees (unless the Organization NEEDS someone to work for them, then they pay for college.) JWs expect discounts for “brothers” and when work is not satisfactory it is not allowed to settle it in court.
  1. Confidentiality of members private affairs (legal, medical) violated by leader and assistants.
among elders and heirarchy there is much gossip and political black-balling.
  1. Members’ subservience to group causes them to cut or weaken ties with family, friends, and personal goals and activities that were of interest before joining group.
  2. Reliance on outside professional help, doctors, therapists, etc., discouraged.
  3. Leader poses as self-sacrificing divine agent who only promotes members’ well-being.
see “A” above
  1. Service is inner directed toward the group not the surrounding community.
JWs claim to be charitable and helpful to neighbors and communities when in reality they support no chairities and only give to other than themselves if there is an advantage to themselves in doing it.
  1. Revamping of members’ cultural/moral values to suit leader’s lifestyle and program.
  2. Conformity to group’s/leader’s values, life style, mode of dress, diet, esthetics, and so on.
  3. Promotion of dependence on group/leader – often disguised.
ONLY the “faithful and discreet slave class” can “dispense the food from God at the proper time” no one else
  1. Important personal decisions must be approved by leader – members seek his blessing.
  2. Phobia induction vis-à-vis leaving the group/leader.
how about eternal destruction after graphic and gruesome death?
  1. Painful exit process – ex-members ridiculed, threatened, and dumped.
complete and total shunning-families ruined, lives destroyed, many suicides

Note: If you check any of these items as characteristics of the group you are concerned about, and particularly if you check many of them, you should reexamine the group and your relationship to it. Such reexamination usually runs against the dictates of the group leaders and will be difficult for the member to do. Begin by speaking to outside health and legal professionals and ex-members. If your group is indeed healthy and non-abusive, there is nothing to fear from taking these cautionary steps.
 
This Cult questionaire could easily be rewritten targeting Catholics, Protestants, Jews, or frankly any group someone was negatively motivated against.

It’s a silly exercise that proves nothing but bad intention and negative agenda.

Steve
 
BibleSteve said:
This Cult questionaire could easily be rewritten targeting Catholics, Protestants, Jews, or frankly any group someone was negatively motivated against.

It’s a silly exercise that proves nothing but bad intention and negative agenda.

Steve
Click to expand...
this is where you are wrong Steve. As a JW I too believed what they told me that everyone was the same as JWs in these respects. But it isn’t true. The Catholic Church believes all Christians are saved, not all have the fullness of truth, but all can be saved. JWs do not believe anyone but JWs or potential JWs will be saved. I am sure many Protestants also believe that way. I am not sure about Jews, so I can’t speak for them, but it would be hard to prove God’s original chosen people were a cult.
I never said JWs were the ONLY cult out there. I feel many fundies in the Protestant category are also cults. But no, not every religion can claim those characteristics. JWs can.
Ravyn
 
yessisan said:
Already did that. gave him a bunch of apologetic links. You are right about the sending a bunch of questions but he has answered mine in great detail.
Click to expand...
Hi Yessisan,
As a fellow Catholic, I would recomend that you ask your JW friend to pick one topic at a time, then do some research yourself and pray before you discuss this topic that it be productive and in charity with humility, and ‘sow the seeds’. The Holy Spirit will make them grow, when the time is right. do not get distressed over the arguments he or she presents, I am sure he/she is well trained, better than us probably since they spend (exemplary for us) long periods of time stuying their faith. Be not afraid friend, your are not alone, God and this community is with you.
 
It is true that there were many topics and maybe I should’ve picked one and started a thread, but I just wanted to see what Catholics had to say over all.

I live w/a JW at home so when I do this is to understand him a little better. After meeting ex-JWs here, I am more than convinced my husband’s soul is in danger, so I come to see what they too have to say so I know how to approach my husband if and when things like these were to come up.
 
607bc is impossible for the destruction of jerusalem because it means adjusting the reign of Nebuchadnezzar by 20 years. This is a major problem because if you move his reign 20 back years you have to move the reign of every ruler that preceeded his back 20 years, furthermore you then have to move the reign of almost every middle eastern monarch the babylonians came into recorded contact with as well or they wont match up. You even have to move the creation of the babylonian empire back 20 years for 607bc to be real.

All the logic behind 607bc date is circular logic. This was demonstrated when the blithering idiot Russle claimed 606bc was the date jerusalem fell, this doesn’t actually line up as he was too stupid to realize there was no year 0. He originally claimed the date of jerusalems fall was 606bc and that 2520 years from this date is 1914, how ever this is incorrect as there is no year 0 606bc + 2520 years actually equals 1915. After decades the JW org apparently gained the ability to perform basic math. Now you would think that due to fact the 606bc prophecy was so accurate (HAHAHA) they would have to change the date of Jesus invisible return to 1915. Did they do this? No. Instead they simply moved the date of the fall of Jerusalem back one year, because they had invested to much in 1914 doctrine.

Their logic basically consists of this: We know 1914 is the date Jesus returned because 606bc + 2520 = 1914 → We know 606bc is wrong and 607bc is correct because Jesus returned in 1914 and 1914 - 2520 = 607bc.

Furthermore there is absolutely no biblical evidence to support 607bc in the bible. The only way the JWs can come to 607 is by picking and choosing parts of secular history while ignoring the parts which clearly put the date of Jerusalems destructions in the 580sBC
 
yessisan said:
One more thing, does anyone have texts available that say why JWs are not considered Christians? It seems that just the fact that they don’t believe in the Trinity is not enough reason for the JWs.
  • Thanks!!
Click to expand...

For them, God = Jehovah God ( i.e. God the Father)​

  • God the Son = God, but not as fully as Jehovah God
  • The Holy Spirit = an impersonal force, not God at all.
    IOW, they are Arians & Binitarians.
Let them renounce their errors & profess the true faith regarding the Blessed Trinity; until they do, they do not believe as Christians.

They have repeatedly every religion on earth (including the CC) as the great whore of Rev. 17
 
JW_Annihilator said:
Neither of these rebut what I just said. Are you claiming all of babylonian, egyption and assyrian history is out by 20 years? How do you reconcile the fact that the bible does not give the 607 or 536 date and that you are relying on the same secular history that you claim is false to arrive at 536bc?
Click to expand...
The links cover everything you said. And they cover everything I have to say on the topic.

If this really is an interest for you, please ensure you read everything there. There’s alot of detailed information.

If you still want to argue over this, you’ll have to find someone else.
 
If you still want to argue over this, you’ll have to find someone else.
Click to expand...
The reason why most JWs do not want to get into an argument over the date for the destruction of Jerusalem as to whether it was 607 BC or 586/587 BC is because this is at the center of where the leaders of the Watchtower Society claim their religious authority as God’s official “channel of communication”. If 607 BC is wrong, then 1914 A.D. is wrong and the appointment of the leaders of the Watchtower Society as God’s channel is wrong…it all falls like a house of cards.

I talk about this is some detail in the thread on Religious Authority and 1914 here:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=160118

Jeff S.
www.catholicxjw.com
 
BibleSteve said:
The links cover everything you said. And they cover everything I have to say on the topic.

If this really is an interest for you, please ensure you read everything there. There’s alot of detailed information.

If you still want to argue over this, you’ll have to find someone else.
Click to expand...
Thats great except it doesn’t cover everything I just said.
Why did the Jehovahs witness organization change 606 to 607 when they realized there was no year zero?

Are you claiming that ALL secular history regarding babylon, assyria and egypt is out by 20 years? You can’t just move Nebuchadnezzars life around by 20 years and not move everything else.

How can you use the same “inaccurate” secular history to arrive at 536/7 when it points to 587 as the destruction of Jerusalem?
 
  1. Pick up a rosary and use it to pray (although the practice of using a rosary is not supported at all in the Bible and is openly acknowledged to be a practice that was absorbed by the Catholic Church from non-Christian religions.)
Click to expand...
  1. Actively use that rosary to pray to Mary, Jesus mother, while the Bible provides no instruction on praying to anyone besides God the Father in the name of Jesus Christ.
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We aren’t worshipping Her, but asking her to pray for and with us. Also, when praying the Rosary, we reflect on Jesus and what he did. And Hail Mary isn’t the only prayer in the Rosary. Also, the words of Hail Mary were taken FROM THE BIBLE.
  1. You attend a church that demands that priests are not allowed to be married, in direct violation of the scriptural point found at…
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(1 Timothy 4:1-3) However, the inspired utterance says definitely that in later periods of time some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to misleading inspired utterances and teachings of demons, 2 by the hypocrisy of men who speak lies, marked in their conscience as with a branding iron; 3 forbidding to marry, commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be partaken of with thanksgiving by those who have faith and accurately know the truth.
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There are rare cases of married priests. It is just the issue of being able to support their children when they marry. Single fathers with grown up children and some other cases, are allowed.
  1. The Catholic Church has previously forbidden their members to eat meat on Fridays in direct violation of the scripture found at… 1Tim 4:1-3
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Fasting for spirituality a bad thing. It’s not to say I"M AWESOME BECAUSE I FAST, it is a personally thing that helps us get closer to God. And it isn’t everyday you’re a member of the Church. Also, Jesus fasted too.

I believe Catholicism is the true faith because St. Peter was the first pope and Jesus said Himself "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this Rock, I will built My Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it, I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loose in heaven. (Matthew 16:18).
🙂 God is great!!!
 
I am a Catholic convert and I was fooled by the JWs. Initially I was really put off by the whole Michael the Archangel thing but talked a really slick biblical argument that was really hard for me to resist. My discomfort with them never failed me though and I finally broke away totally when I learned I could only read what they told me I could read. After a time, I wasn’t even allowed to use my Bible I was told I had to use the NWT for unity’s sake.
Johannah
 
Hi johannahw,
I too am a Catholic convert. I was raised on JW “theology” and all that goes with it. I wasn’t “baptized” by them until I was 21, though.

They not only tell you not to read anything other than the Watchtower Society’s leaders, no, but they also high-pressure you into breaking off all your friendships with people who are not Jehovah’s Witness members. This leaves you with no social life at all except the 5 meetings each week and no friends other than JWs to socialize with. Then when you begin to discover their errors, and after you have burned all your bridges with your nonJW friends, you realize - too late - that you are totally dependent on this sect. It is enough to cause nervous breakdowns.

I had a nervous breakdown when I was a JW, though it wasn’t directly related to being a JW.
Still, it IS interesting to mention that Dr. Jerry Bergman, Ph.D. has demonstrated that the Schizophrenia rate among Jehovah’s Witnesses is more than FOUR TIMES HIGHER than the National Average. That is something to seriously think about.
The Society’s teaching PRODUCE paranoia in the individual JW.
They even claimed in their literature for years that the WHOLE PURPOSE of the Nazi Regime in Germany was to make war against the Jehovah’s Witnesses !! Never mind that the Nazi’s main thrust was to exterminate the Jewish people of Europe, no, the WHOLE purpose of the Nazi regime was for Satan to be able to get at the Jehovah’s Witnesses !!

Jaypeeto4
+JMJ+
 
yessisan said:
I wanted to see if anyone can help me answer these questions for a fellow JW who is questioning why Catholics can be Catholics. I wanted to answer in detail, but I don’t think I can speak to well for all Catholics since I’m not an apologist, plus, I don’t really want to just give this person links since obviously, JWs want the straight facts… Hope you guys can help.
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Ask him which Church is the most hated in the world.

Who do the Mormons hate?
Who do the SDA hate?
Who do the atheists hate?
Who do the communists hate?
Who do the Muslims hate?
Who do the JW’s hate?
Who do the Orthodox hate?
Who do the fundamentalist Christians hate?
Who do the Evangelical Christians hate?

The only agreement among these groups, as different as they are, is they all hate the Catholic Church. That should tell him something.

Satan loves it when Christian and quasi-Christians argue so divisively over worship “style”.

Ask him to point out the flaws in the Catholic Church’s moral teachings.

Ask him why JW’s are allowed to use artificial birth control, including birth control pills which can be abortificients.

And if he tells you life begins at implantation, not conception. . . .
 
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