M
mwok
Guest
Why did they ask you to stop coming? I’m extremely curious!
- Status
T
T_More
Guest
+1. I’d love to hear the story on this.
M
Miriam1947
Guest
Me too!
N
noobio
Guest
A
arius325
Guest
Reply,
This is totally false and has no basis in fact, as anyone can attend a KH! If you were asked not to go to the kingdom hall, there must have been a very serious and valid reading, as the elders would have sensed or known about some danger to the members of the congregation! In my own congregation, I have only ever known someone ( a non baptised Witness) to leave the hall and that was moral grounds, as he was pestering a single mother with three children, who just happened to be exquiaitely beautiful in form and countenance! I have heard these sort of half baked truths before and my gut feeling is, you are not telling the readers everything, which is more like it!
And the bit about not using the bible is utter tosh and our libraries have selections of different bible where possible! The problem was with you and not the people at the kingdom hall!
Arius
A
arius325
Guest
My brother ‘happyhippo’ has asked me to come over into this forum and have done so and what I’ve seen of the ingrained teachings reflected on this forum, the sentimentality and lack of knowledge of both classical, koine Greek and history in general, except for parroting church history, it is appalling and an example is to be seen below! I took a page from ‘Letusreason’s’ blog, which my brother put on about the question, “is Jesus God” and the replies are just standard Trinitarian replies, waffle and no substance!
I won’t comment on every thing “noobio” has said, but will comment on just a few points to prove the point, where logic and reason are ignored and the texts of scripture are put to one side, because of this ingrained Trinitarian theology!
“The trinity consists of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. You are only paying attention to the verses which reveal God the Father. How do you explain John 20: 28, when Thomas calls Jesus “My Lord and My God”. Thomas, called Jesus (who is the Son) God. So, the Son is God. If Thomas was wrong for calling Jesus God, then Jesus would surly correct Thomas.”
Re: John 20 28
Thomas here was using the ‘vocative’ form of address, which koine took over from classical Greek, thus giving the term more work to do in koine, some classical Greek words went into disuse or changed, whilst others, (like the vocative “Lord”) were kept in use and was used by koine… and lay and uninformed Trinitarians focus on this single verse (John 20:28) whilst ignoring the context of the previous parts of John, as well as other scriptures!
The term “God” in English is treated as a proper noun, when such a term is used with an upper case “G” (“G”od) and such is treated as though a name that belongs to just one person, not two or three etc! When the NT writers use (as an example her) the term “ho theos” (the God” they were always referring to “God the Father” and no one else, not the Son or the “pneuma hagion” (holy spirit or your Trinitarian “Holy Spirit”) but only and only the “Father”
Jesus called “God the Father” in his model prayer, as He was the One he was addressing in front of the other Jews, he called Him “Our Father” and it was the same “Our Father” who was being addressed by the prophet Isaiah, as there is only one “Our Father” and not more than one!
The scriptures from the Trinitarian bibles (ASV, DT, and YLT) at Isa 63:16; 64:8, clearly show that the one spoken of as, “our Father” is called “Jehovah”, so that the Jehovah is One person in one “Being”!
“For thou art our Father, though Abraham knoweth us not, and Israel doth not acknowledge us: thou, O Jehovah, art our Father; our Redeemer from everlasting is thy name….But now, O Jehovah, thou art our Father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.”
Clearly you are ignoring the word of God and you are putting the traditions of men i.e. your Church in place of such word and therefore, you have (your Church dogma) made the word of God invalid, because of such manmade tradition (now, where have I read that before, I ask myself, Hmmm!)
You can clearly see, why Jesus cannot be Jehovah, because Jehovah is the “Father”, and to persist in such a belief, no matter how it is disguised or what get out clauses are used as an excuse, it is Modalism, with a capital “M”, which is rank apostasy!
“Christians believe that Jehovah is God the Father, and God the Son. But, I don’t understand how God being a Father, eliminates Jesus from being God?”
I have just shown you from Trinitarian bible that that is not the case and such is not to be found in scripture, no matter what your belief system may dictate to you!
“Jehovah is Jesus, the Father, and Holy Spirit. It seems to me you’re only focusing on the Father.”
This is Modalism
“Jehovah is the Son and Holy Spirit too.”
This too is also Modalism!
The teaching of the Trinity is taken from pagan Greek metaphysics, taken over by church apologists and fathers and then blended in a special way, so as to produce the abstract Trinity, the exact same is to be seen in Chinese Buddhism! Church fathers took over the Neo-Platonic idea/concept of “substance” and developed the Triune god dogma! How many of you Catholics on here, are even slightly aware (if you are honest with yourselves) of the metaphysics of Parmenides (the father of Greek metaphysics) Plato, all the way up to Plotinus and Porphyry etc and the ideas/concepts such men were embraced whole heartedly by Catholic theologians and re-worked, re-developed and re-interpreted, so as to accommodate their personal understandings of their belief system!
The Catholics took over some of the metaphysical re-workings of (example) Origen and Tertullian, where you get your metaphysical “of one substance” with the Father and the Son’s “eternality” with the Father and Catholics in general haven’t a clue that this has happened behind the scenes and for centuries were kept in deliberate ignorance of such matters! The blind leading the blind!
Your call!
Arius
I won’t comment on every thing “noobio” has said, but will comment on just a few points to prove the point, where logic and reason are ignored and the texts of scripture are put to one side, because of this ingrained Trinitarian theology!
“The trinity consists of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. You are only paying attention to the verses which reveal God the Father. How do you explain John 20: 28, when Thomas calls Jesus “My Lord and My God”. Thomas, called Jesus (who is the Son) God. So, the Son is God. If Thomas was wrong for calling Jesus God, then Jesus would surly correct Thomas.”
Re: John 20 28
Thomas here was using the ‘vocative’ form of address, which koine took over from classical Greek, thus giving the term more work to do in koine, some classical Greek words went into disuse or changed, whilst others, (like the vocative “Lord”) were kept in use and was used by koine… and lay and uninformed Trinitarians focus on this single verse (John 20:28) whilst ignoring the context of the previous parts of John, as well as other scriptures!
The term “God” in English is treated as a proper noun, when such a term is used with an upper case “G” (“G”od) and such is treated as though a name that belongs to just one person, not two or three etc! When the NT writers use (as an example her) the term “ho theos” (the God” they were always referring to “God the Father” and no one else, not the Son or the “pneuma hagion” (holy spirit or your Trinitarian “Holy Spirit”) but only and only the “Father”
Jesus called “God the Father” in his model prayer, as He was the One he was addressing in front of the other Jews, he called Him “Our Father” and it was the same “Our Father” who was being addressed by the prophet Isaiah, as there is only one “Our Father” and not more than one!
The scriptures from the Trinitarian bibles (ASV, DT, and YLT) at Isa 63:16; 64:8, clearly show that the one spoken of as, “our Father” is called “Jehovah”, so that the Jehovah is One person in one “Being”!
“For thou art our Father, though Abraham knoweth us not, and Israel doth not acknowledge us: thou, O Jehovah, art our Father; our Redeemer from everlasting is thy name….But now, O Jehovah, thou art our Father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.”
Clearly you are ignoring the word of God and you are putting the traditions of men i.e. your Church in place of such word and therefore, you have (your Church dogma) made the word of God invalid, because of such manmade tradition (now, where have I read that before, I ask myself, Hmmm!)
You can clearly see, why Jesus cannot be Jehovah, because Jehovah is the “Father”, and to persist in such a belief, no matter how it is disguised or what get out clauses are used as an excuse, it is Modalism, with a capital “M”, which is rank apostasy!
“Christians believe that Jehovah is God the Father, and God the Son. But, I don’t understand how God being a Father, eliminates Jesus from being God?”
I have just shown you from Trinitarian bible that that is not the case and such is not to be found in scripture, no matter what your belief system may dictate to you!
“Jehovah is Jesus, the Father, and Holy Spirit. It seems to me you’re only focusing on the Father.”
This is Modalism
“Jehovah is the Son and Holy Spirit too.”
This too is also Modalism!
The teaching of the Trinity is taken from pagan Greek metaphysics, taken over by church apologists and fathers and then blended in a special way, so as to produce the abstract Trinity, the exact same is to be seen in Chinese Buddhism! Church fathers took over the Neo-Platonic idea/concept of “substance” and developed the Triune god dogma! How many of you Catholics on here, are even slightly aware (if you are honest with yourselves) of the metaphysics of Parmenides (the father of Greek metaphysics) Plato, all the way up to Plotinus and Porphyry etc and the ideas/concepts such men were embraced whole heartedly by Catholic theologians and re-worked, re-developed and re-interpreted, so as to accommodate their personal understandings of their belief system!
The Catholics took over some of the metaphysical re-workings of (example) Origen and Tertullian, where you get your metaphysical “of one substance” with the Father and the Son’s “eternality” with the Father and Catholics in general haven’t a clue that this has happened behind the scenes and for centuries were kept in deliberate ignorance of such matters! The blind leading the blind!
Your call!
Arius
T
T_More
Guest
“Arius”, a few questions.
From where did you or the WTBS receive the authority to interpret scripture?
Christ promised His Congregation/Church would never fail, so before Russell came along, who were the JW’s that give your religion an unbroken line all the way back to the Apostles?
I give you this article from your governing body:
“Beginning with Pentecost, 33 C.E., and continuing through the 19 centuries since then, this slavelike congregation has been feeding its members spiritually.”-Watchtower 1981 Mar 1 p.24
So before Russell, who has been this slavelike congregation?
BTW, you obviously have reason for using Arius as you forum handle. Do you profess to believe everything that Arius believed?
P
PRmerger
Guest
Arius, thank you for visiting our forum. And I appreciate the apologia you provided.
I’m not going to get into a Scripture war with you in which Catholics quote verses and then you quote other verses.
What I am going to tell you is this: each and every time you quote the Scriptures you are giving tacit approval to the authority of the Catholic Church.
Thus, there is great irony in the fact that you are vociferously objecting to Catholicism, yet each and every time you quote the Scriptures** you are obeying the Catholic Church** and her decision to declare that particular book* theopneustos*.
What say you to this, Arius?
T
T_More
Guest
Well said, PR. Not to mention the fact the JW’s very own name is taken from a Catholic monk’s attempt to “Latinize” YHWH.
In order for JW’s to slap the Church in Her face, they must first sit on Her lap. When JW’s attack Her authority, they saw off the very branch they’re sitting on.
P
PRmerger
Guest
With all due respect to the JWs here on this thread, this comment made me snicker out loud.
It is quite the perfect metaphor.
T
T_More
Guest
Thanks, PR, but I cannot take credit for it. I heard Scott Hahn use the this term before and I never forgot it.With all due respect to the JWs here on this thread, this comment made me snicker out loud.
It is quite the perfect metaphor.
But I’m glad I provided a laugh!
A
arius325
Guest
Reply,
This is an old time served and oft repeated get out clause by lay Trinitarians; rather than stick to and answer what is written, they often digress and ask an unrelated question!
Re: Arius,
If you had written certain works, that challenged the works of others and as it turned out the others won the day, with the help of others, and those who won, set about to destroy all that you had written, and then portray you from their point of view, do you think they would write the truth about you, especially after destroying your own written works, which actually portrayed what you actually wrote and believed? I don’t think so, as it is the winners, who write history and in their own favour, so too with Arius, the student of Lucian of Antioch, we know next to nothing about Arius, only that which his bitterest enemies chose to write about him; trying to unravel the bias and bad press Arius has received is nigh on impossible and all we have are a few short works of his, which don’t tell us much! Arius was a product of his day, he discerned at least some truth about the relationship between the Father and Son, but he was under the influence of Platonism, Stoicism and Neo-Platonism, as were the rest, his supporters, as well as his opposers and Athanasius, himself (et al) was a Greek philosopher in his own right, as many of them were, but things are changing, as new documents over time are being uncovered, which reveal a little more about the man (Arius)!
The mistake that JW opposers make, is the outright and ignorant charge that we are Arians, though we do share one similarity, as others have through time, and that was that the Son was created and some of the misconceptions about Arius’s belief, are taken from the interpretations of the German historian Adolf Von Harnack, which are based on his own personal assumptions, which people take as gospel, but they are not and this situation has lead to Arius’s bad press…! The interesting thing about Harnack, if any of you people have read any of his works, is that this historian reveals how “the pure soil of primitive biblical Christianity” was corrupted by the church apologists and church fathers, who embraced Greek philosophy and thus thrust the Apostle Paul’s council to keep away from such man made and corrupting philosophy and the result was the emergence of the dominant party/group (among many such) called Catholic (Universalist) Church, which began to write history in its favour and began to beat down the other groups, as this now dominant party had the most pagan converts and curried favour with the political state and began to compromise and water down biblical doctrines, such as the acceptance of an immaterial immortal soul, straight from the pages of Plato, which began to be accepted as true in the 3rd century CE with Origen and may of the Greek and Latin Fathers accepted the believe in the pre-existence of the soul…!
Why is it you people are unaware or are not taught these empirical facts, why our children know more for their ages and are well taught from their youth up!
You have not addressed the issue! If you wish to ask about “interpretation” start a new post!
Letusreason
A
arius325
Guest
Reply,
A gross mistake by many is that they assume that the bible is of the Catholic Church! The bible belongs to God and he is the one who inspired it and that at the hands of Jews! The bible is of Jewish origin and not Catholic, as the Catholics did not exist when the bible was written!
N
noobio
Guest
How does this refute me ? Thas called Jesus God, and there is absolutly nothing to refute this. Thomas said Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God". Yes God is the the Father who is a person, but it can also refere to Jesus. Also, if God only referst to one person how do you explain the first chapter of John ? Why do the authoers of the NT show Jesus as God. In Romans 9:5 it says Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised!Amen. God also referst to Christ.
I never said there was more then one Father. I said there was more then one person. God is the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.
Trinitarians have no problem with the Father bieng called God., How does this refute that Jesus is God and The Holy Spirit are God ?
First of all, Tradition comes from the Church, which was funded by Christ upon Peter. The Church has the authority to interepret scripture correctly. Im not ignoring the word of God. Im following the Church’s interpretation of scripture. In addition to this, why should I listen to JW. Im pretty sure there religion was created by a man in the 1800s. So, you are telling me that for 2000 years Christians have been worshiping Christ, and in the 1800’s Christ should not be worshipped any more ?
You don’t provide any good reasons to why the trinity is wrong. It seems to me you are only focusing on the nature of the Father and not the Son. Modalism is saying that the the Father, the Son, they Holy Spirit are modes or each of them are roles rather then a person. I have been presenting them as Persons so how is anything I said releated to Modalism ?
Actually you have not, you have been just showing your interpretation of scripture which is incorrect.
Well since, I am showing that they are persons, and not just roles, it is actually not modalism.
N
noobio
Guest
I don’t know how to respond to this so, I will let someone else.
But, the very fist Christians sang hyms to Christ as God. So, the belief in Christ diety was always believed.
Pliny the Younger wrote " “[The Christians] were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god…”
Ignatius wrote in his epistle to the Ephesians
For our God, Jesus the Christ, was conceived in the womb by Mary according to a dispensation, of the seed of David but also of the Holy Ghost; and He was born and was baptized that by His passion He might cleanse water.
Tatian to the Syrians
"We are not playing the fool, you Greeks, nor do we talk nonsense, when we report that God was born in the form of a man."
The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians
12:2 “Now may the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the eternal High-priest Himself the Son of God Jesus Christ, build you up in faith and truth, and in all gentleness and in all avoidance of wrath and in forbearance and long suffering and in patient endurance and in purity; and may He grant unto you a lot and portion among His saints, and to us with you, and to all that are under heaven, who shall believe on our Lord and God Jesus Christ and on His Father that raised him from the dead.”.
These writtings where written within the first century. So The Christians believed Christ was God from the very beggining which was after 33 AD.
N
noobio
Guest
arius325, you may notice that I have not included everything you said when I qoute you. Im not doing that to ignore your point, its that I can not write over 6000 characters, so I had to take out some stuff.
T
T_More
Guest
P
PRmerger
Guest
Can you tell us who it was that God used to discern for you that the Gospel of John is theopneustos and that the Gospel of Thomas is not?
IOW: how is it that you know that one is inspired and not the other? Did God use a group of men in the 4th century, called Catholic bishops?
If your position is no, it was not Catholic bishops, then please provide your explanation as to how, out of the 400 ancient “Christian” texts in existence, you understand that one is inspired and not the other.
N
noobio
Guest
There was no bible for the first 300 years of Christianity. The Church knew which books belonged in the bible and chose them in the year 382. I think it was Pope Damusas set the bible. The books of the bible where written by Jews, and gentiles and those who believed in Christ. But, there was a lot of other writings which were not of God. So, the church provided us with the bible which show us the the inspired writings.
T
T_More
Guest
Quite so, noobio. This comment of Arius just goes to show how little he knows of the writings of the early Christians/Church Fathers, many of which knew the Apostles and were ordained by them.
- Status