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General discussion

Using logic in violent versus non-violent situations

Aug 17, 2017 6:09AM PDT

If someone is coming at you with a hammer, would it not be a help to pick up a larger hammer?
If someone is coming at you with a mouthful of hate, does it help to combat them with a bigger mouthful of hate?

Why do we use the same logic in either situation? It was written in the news that some counter-protesters went to Charlottesville because they wanted to end hate. If true, I'd say their choice of weapons was no better, if not worse, then what they went to fight against. Just my opinion.

Discussion is locked

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During the Rodney King riots in LA,
Aug 17, 2017 2:27PM PDT

one of our elders [in a nearby town] drove over to look at the action from a safe distance. The local overseers had advised against that for two reasons. He came back and discussed it with his son, who reacted as in Mt 18:15. Happy to say that the discussion ended at v.16. The elder was disciplined.
Step outside the Charlottesville box for a moment. What were the two reasons, do you think?

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I won't venture a guess
Aug 17, 2017 2:42PM PDT

as it really doesn't fit the subject of my post. Had this elder you mentioned gone to the site to make his own personal statement, it just might matter. I had already stated my position concerning Charlottesville in an earlier post. That position is that the counter-protesters (and media should) have been no-shows. As I recall, you claimed the event to be legitimate news so I'll take that as a rebuke.

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It was legitimate news. If the press
Aug 19, 2017 8:19PM PDT

covers High School soccer then it should have covered the rally. Agreeing with Kees. I saw many cameras on the sidewalks, not in the hands of the Fourth Estate.

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Cryptic
Aug 17, 2017 4:42PM PDT

Doesn't match the passage quoted, unless you are admitting your group "sinned against" the elder who actually followed the teaching of the passage.

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Thank you both for the thoughtful replies.
Aug 19, 2017 8:07PM PDT

Two reasons for the advisory. Which BTW was the same given by Caesar for different reasons.
1) The rioting was a political action insofar as it was part of race relations in America. Jehovah is "judge of the whole earth", and doesn't take sides. He is neutral, therefore so are we. Even being seen observing could be mistaken for taking sides; brings reproach on Jehovah when his worshipers are hypocritical. Gen 18:25; John 17:14-16; 6:14,15
2) There is plenty of badness to see in the world. Why should we get so involved in it that we drive ~40 miles to see it?
>2a) We can't do anything about it, because
>2b only Jehovah can do it properly: one time only, drop the hammer on all bad people w/o collateral damage, AND undo the past badness by restoring to life victims of previous collateral damage. Rev 16:14,16; Ps 37:28; 1John 3:8; 1Cor 15:26: Ps 37:29; Rev 21:3,4
These are principles, not rules. They apply to any situation and to all of us. As to our elder*, there is a third reason [no extra charge]. An elder is one because he proved his maturity by being an example to the flock. Pr 27;23 How many less experienced ones might follow his bad example, to their detriment? Ps 1:32; Pr 22:23
Now the rules come in. 1Tim 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9.
What I hope you notice is a) this sounds somewhat strict [fanatical?], and b) it's a protection for us. I saw some of the damage later, in scattered areas. There was no guaranteed safe area where he was that evening.
No doubt you're aware we avoid the world's national and religious holidays. No JWs were in the crowd at Nice that evening. We won't likely be found at any future such occasions when [not if] they are attacked. Not 100% safe these days [viz. Barcelona], but the best we can do, and better than others. Ec 9:11,12
Do you see how this applies to the OP?

* Gk episcopos = overseer; presbyteros = older man [mature, here]. They're used interchangeably in the Greek scriptures. The usual equivalent in the churches is Bishop.

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Question...related to
Aug 20, 2017 2:15AM PDT

disciplinary action against the elder with a compare/contrast of my own. I'll begin with the preface that I would recommend media and counter-demonstration abstinence from such things. As for the media, it's because, IMO, they won't represent the event properly but will sensationalize it. Any argument with that? I could argue that there's a lot of "false witness" activity that comes out of news reporting and such things affect the mental states and actions of a lot of other people who weren't actually there.
As for your elder...I'll presume that had he'd already planned a visit to Charlottesville for other reasons and stumbled upon the event taking place, it would have been no sin at that point. However, I'll guess that about the only reason he'd be justified in remaining would be to assist an injured person had he reasonable opportunity to do so. OK with that so far?
As for the rally and media coverage of it being legitimate, would this mean that your elder could have stumbled up the event while watching television and permitted to remain in front of the set throughout the broadcast? Is that handled differently from one of physical presence?
My own church spends a lot of time discussing what is sin and what is not but the advice is always to avoid what is sometimes called "the near occasion of sin". I'd say this is just a fancy way to describe the act of putting oneself in a position of being tempted to commit actual sin. Examples are too numerous to mention. Movie themes abound with such examples. Right, Benjamin? Happy

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(NT) James 1:13-15.
Aug 20, 2017 2:55AM PDT
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Is that where Paul
Aug 20, 2017 6:40AM PDT

was in the Roman temple to all the false gods on a sight seeing tour?

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I think you mean Acts 17.
Aug 20, 2017 11:17AM PDT

Got interrupted. Look it up, ya lazy bum, ya!
It's about Steven's first ¶.

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Mars Hill
Aug 20, 2017 11:50AM PDT

I knew where it was at. I just wanted to make YOU look it up for a change, the way you do to everyone else.

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Didn't have to.
Aug 20, 2017 12:36PM PDT

Acts 17 sticks in the mind because it's maybe the only passage that's addressed to non-believers; not Jews, not Christians. It's also an example of what we call informal witnessing.
30 scriptures in today's Watchtower.

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Your discussions must be very short
Aug 20, 2017 12:13PM PDT

if the answer to every questions is simply to hurl biblical references at them. No need to bother with those nasty thought processes that just lead to traps. Happy

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On a forum it's different.
Aug 20, 2017 12:48PM PDT

At the door we comment on a current event or a common problem, offer an apposite scripture, ask a question or explain a/r. Could be 30 seconds or 5 minutes. Next time, look at the magazine. Almost all have a question on the cover.
Bible study aims for at least 15 minutes, usually a half hour or more.
Ask the survivors of Jonestown or Waco how it goes when you don't get to read for yourself.

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My problem with folks citing scripture by
Aug 20, 2017 1:52PM PDT

author/chapter/verse is that these are offered out of context and often not meaningful within the current topic of discussion. Words were chosen to address certain people and specific situations that might not be relevant to all. We need to consider the whole of each writer's offering, his audience and his purpose...in the very least. Certainly there are some expressions that are self explanatory and useful beyond the context of the writing but, if you cite snippets of scripture from some epistle, etc., your intended audience is wise to not start at the point you provided to them but at the very beginning.

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Steven, that sounds like the canned RCC
Aug 21, 2017 6:59AM PDT

responses I've heard to discourage people from reading the Bible on their own. 'Only Magisterium can be trusted to interpret.'
When the first Christians went door-to-door teaching the gospel, they did just what we do, and just what you imply is a problem, but NOT out of context:
'Not in a good mood. I'm sad right now. My mother just died.'
'Sorry to hear that, sir. My mom died a few years ago, after a long illness, and it was very hard on the family. [True story.] I imagine you folks have trouble with it, too.'
'Yes, we do. One problem is we hear so many different ideas about death and the afterlife. What should we believe?'
'Thats a common thought. This magazine discusses that very subject. But it doesn't teach people's opinions, it tells us what the Bible says.' [Offers the actual current public Watchtower. https://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/watchtower-no4-2017-july/question-about-life-after-death/ Note actual RCC-type person in the cover.]
This is your copy. I'd like to come back in a couple of days to see what you thought of it. In the meantime, can you read this verse from my bible? I think you'll find it comforting. [Proffers Bible open to John 5:28.]'
Your mission, Steve, should you choose to accept it, is to read that verse and tell me what part of it, or the conversation, was "out of context".
This is what we do. It's not what the churches say we do.
Let me know when you've done it, and I'll give you one take on what might happen on the return visit. You'll get a kick out of it. Or not.

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I won't be taking up your challengs
Aug 21, 2017 12:53PM PDT

or any that begins with criticism of my church or attitude towards it. As for the apostles going door to door, what sort of books or pamphlets do you think they carried with them and how did they approach prospective "converts"? My guess is that, other traveling on foot, not much was the same. They were, of course, doing the work of providing the necessary labor to establish a new church and its traditions from the directions they were given orally. Having first hand information from their teacher offered significant advantage as there was no need to argue over the meanings in the written word which was compiled later.

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... and that is the mainstream response.
Aug 22, 2017 7:04AM PDT
Happy
I didn't think of it as a challenge, any more than your chem prof challenges you to learn anions and cations.
It was a direct response to your statements about 'out of context' scriptures. Without investigating for yourself, you will continue carry incorrect beliefs about us. Is that logical? [OP] Does it solve your "problem"? [Your post.]
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(NT) Stupid phone. More coming.
Aug 22, 2017 7:17AM PDT
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"Criticsm of the Church"?
Aug 22, 2017 7:45AM PDT

I mentioned the cover pic, which is designed to attract interest. A disrespectful one would be counterproductive. [We do our own work; the woman is a Witness.]
"door-to-door". No 'guessing' required there: Matthew ch. 10; Acts 5:42. And Mt 10:8 - no collections, no tithing, no pledge cards; not then, not now.
Pamphlets? No guessing there, either. 2Tim 4:13. And in that place and time they were encountering people who knew scripture, having learned it orally.
"They were, of course, doing the work of providing the necessary labor to establish a new church and its traditions from the directions they were given orally." Your Bible says no such thing, your Magisterium does, in just that way. Christians were acting on the command of their leader, just as we do now: 'Go, preach this good news of the kingdom.' Mt 27:18,20. What good news? John 5:28.
You ask good questions and refuse the answers.

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Catholics do encourage Bible reading and publish a version.
Aug 21, 2017 6:08PM PDT

It's not like the Dark Ages before printing presses and the Bible was chained to a pulpit, and many couldn't read it.

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James, they will tell you as they've told me,
Aug 22, 2017 8:32AM PDT

'You wouldn't have the Bible if we Catholics hadn't given it to you!' Your colleague Steven believes that; it's Church teaching.
And there's more to the story than a quick citation of Henry's chained pulpit Bible. It was long after Gutenberg before the RCC encouraged Bible reading. Their reasoning was ... Well, see Steven's canned response earlier.
https://www.jw.org/en/publications/videos/#en/mediaitems/VODOrgTours/docid-502015505_1_VIDEO
https://www.jw.org/en/publications/videos/#en/mediaitems/VODOrgTours/docid-502016501_1_VIDEO
https://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/watchtower-no4-2016-july/
Or should I have quoted all this, and the video transcripts as you always do?
To my knowledge the Vatican doesn't print Bibles itself. Do you know how Catholics determine if a Bible is "Catholic"? You could ask the THE USCCB; I did. http://www.usccb.org/ They sent me a nice reply.

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DP
Aug 22, 2017 9:49AM PDT

You should not be making such quoted statements and telling others it's my (verbatim) belief or thinking. I cannot appreciate that at all. You won't hear me bashing your church as a way to promote mine either. Certainly you can find people who say they are Catholic who don't express themselves in an appropriate manner. Once again I'll say that, if you're truly interested in changing the minds of people, you don't approach them with sly innuendo that their thinking is all wrong and their mentors unworthy. You'll often end up with them responding in kind and ending any kind of dialog you might want to begin. You get nowhere in discipleship this way...at least with me. BTW, I reject your remarks that my responses are "canned". I don't keep a copy of any kind of "Catholic Talking Points" in my pocket.

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Steven, I have done the reading.
Aug 22, 2017 5:40PM PDT

You are indeed expected to believe what your church teaches, else why bother with it?
Your last two sentences about the "work" of the early Church were from Magisterium. You were told those things by priests or others, and they're part of your knowledge base. To be specific, they are found in your CCC. Read it and you'll come across your words about the Bible and its 'approved' teaching.
I show you your catechism, and you say I'm "bashing" your religion? No comment.
I carry my JW talking points in my hand. My Bible won't fit in my pocket.
What is your church's thinking about death? What is the Bible's? By your own admission you [may] know the one and refused to have anything to do with the other, 'the book you Catholics gave the world'. What do we call something of great importance? "It's a matter of life and death."
There are hard times coming for all religions. You should "make sure of all things, [then] hold fast to what is fine." 1Thess 5:21.

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those are dead and gone
Aug 22, 2017 10:22AM PDT

get over it. You are trying to fight with ghosts of those long gone. That's like those complaining about statues of dead heroes. They are DEAD. Also like complaining about what one's great great grandparents lived under when the times they are living in now have no relationship to then. Also, JW's weren't even around back then. That happened after Russell gave birth to them.

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Who is dead and gone?
Aug 22, 2017 11:07AM PDT

Certainly Henry VIII of the chained Bible is gone. I don't get your point.
Time once again to trace the history of the witnesses of Jehovah, using the Bible as history, which of course you are willing to do:
Of humans, back to Abel: Mt 23:35; Heb 11:4.
Of the Jews, everyone born into Israel: Isa 43:10, which also explains why.
Of spirit creatures: Jesus, the first one. Rev 1:5; Pro ch. 8.
Of present-day humans, those who follow the first ones in witnessing to Jehovah, "the only true God", and the God of Jesus himself. John 17:3; Rev 3:12.
It's clear you disagree with my post, but what? The magazine? The videos? My shirt? But your statements have much more heat than light. Don't just hurl them at me. You won't get many disciples that way. Happy

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[my shirt: because I just spilled coffee on it.
Aug 22, 2017 11:10AM PDT

Really grasping at straws here, James, trying to understand you.]

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many errors in your post
Aug 22, 2017 1:04PM PDT

Henry wasn't Catholic, he started the Church of England. First humans were Adam and Eve, not Abel, and nobody it seems descended from him, so if you are claiming to, that's an error. Everyone has a spirit, but Jesus described himself as Son of Man, a human like you and me. Jehovah comes from YHWH using English alphabet, but was more likely pronounced Yahuvah, or Yehsuwah, and the latter is the Hebrew name that translates as Yeshuah aka Jesus. The only acceptable way to honor the Father today is through his Son. The Father has put all things under Jesus. In the military you don't bypass the chain of command and neither do you bypass Jesus, the Way, the one by whom all must answer to FIRST. "No man comes unto the Father except by me" he said.

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Point by point.
Aug 22, 2017 4:58PM PDT

1) Henry's rupture was over his Catholic marriage to Catherine of Aragon. He had been a zealous Catholic, commended by the Pope as Defender of the Faith.
2) Adam and Eve denied Jehovah's authority, Abel upheld it. We "descend" from him as Methodists descend from the Wesleys.
3) "I am from the realms above." John 8:23. At which time Jesus was already a witness to his Father's authority.
4) JHVH becomes Jehovah [Protestant] or Yahweh [Catholic]. The former has the longest usage in English, and from a Catholic scholar at that. Yeshuah and its derivatives means salvation OF Jehovah, as does Isaiah. There are no "correct" pronunciations of any biblical names - no tape recordings then. A red herring.
All this is in Strong's.
5) At last, a correct statement. THROUGH the son; BY the son; son OF God; MY God. Possessives and prepositions, James. Don't just write them, understand them. My third graders did. Rev 3:12.
6), at no extra charge. Your colleague Steven believes that Mary is also a 'mediator between God and man'. I ascribe this to him with confidence because CCC says so. What it says, Catholics are accountable for. You and he [or your "ancestors"] used to persecute each other over it. History.

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Teach this to your 3rd graders
Aug 22, 2017 9:39PM PDT

Maybe they will understand it, even if you don't. If you refuse to believe the words of Christ that makes him equal and in agreement with the Father, and do not accept Christ as the Savior and honor HIM, the only Mediator between Man and the Father, then you dishonor and reject THEM both. You therefore are not a witness of either.

John chapter 5 - Showing that Christ is God. He is also Man. He is Both, that's what makes HIM our Savior.


18 Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God. Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will. For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son, that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.


“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation. I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.

“If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not true. There is another who bears witness of Me, and I know that the witness which He witnesses of Me is true. You have sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth. Yet I do not receive testimony from man, but I say these things that you may be saved. He was the burning and shining lamp, and you were willing for a time to rejoice in his light. But I have a greater witness than John’s; for the works which the Father has given Me to finish—the very works that I do—bear witness of Me, that the Father has sent Me. And the Father Himself, who sent Me, has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form. But you do not have His word abiding in you, because whom He sent, Him you do not believe. You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.

“I do not receive honor from men. But I know you, that you do not have the love of God in you. I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive. How can you believe, who receive honor from one another, and do not seek the honor that comes from the only God? Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; there is one who accuses you—Moses, in whom you trust. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”

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Time for class, kids. Put away your spinners.
Aug 22, 2017 11:41PM PDT

Ok, kids. Who said Jesus is equal to God, the good guys or the bad guys?
"The bad guys!"
Do we believe bad guys?
"Nooo!!!"
Kids, here are some sentences. How many people in each one?
>He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.
"Two people! Father and son!"
Good. Now this one.
>I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.
"Two people! The sender and the sent one!"
High five! Now this.
>The Father Himself, who sent Me, has testified of Me.
"Two people! Same reason!"
Good job! Another one.
>Whom He sent, Him you do not believe.
"Two people! Same reason! Teacher, we're getting bored!"
Me, too, kids. Let's all go for cookies and milk. Except you, little Jimmy. You stay and work on your prepositions and possessives.