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Post by danb6177 on Jan 30, 2014 14:33:42 GMT -5
Finally got around to reading this today Rey. This is one of those things that can go back and forth. I see you are looking for your answers directly from JW literature as you have copy pasted it verbadem. Do you agree with all the works of Mr Joseph Fitzmyer? Im sure that you do not. You will find that his views are not widely accepted. Jesus calls himself and the father one and phillipians is pretty clear on the the Kenosis of Christ as he took on the form of a man from the form of God. There are many many scriptures pertaining to Christ divine nature. You say to look at scriptures in the context of the text. The text in revelation reads that the 144,000 (12,000 from each 12 tribes of israel) are jewish male virgins. I will ask for your own belief on this as I already know what your preachers say. Well I'm not going to go off my own opinion on ancient Greek, since obviously I know nothing of it's grammatical structure and such. Jesus sometimes refers to himself and the Father as "one" because he reflects his Father's qualities to perfection. The 144,000 are the anointed. A select few apart that will go to live in Heaven and rule with Christ for 1000 years after Armageddon. The rest of the faithful (and resurrected) will reside on Earth. but the text states that they are male-jewish-virgins. I havent met any JW that meet that criteria yet.
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Post by danb6177 on Jan 30, 2014 14:36:00 GMT -5
Well I'm not going to go off my own opinion on ancient Greek, since obviously I know nothing of it's grammatical structure and such. Jesus sometimes refers to himself and the Father as "one" because he reflects his Father's qualities to perfection. The 144,000 are the anointed. A select few apart that will go to live in Heaven and rule with Christ for 1000 years after Armageddon. The rest of the faithful (and resurrected) will reside on Earth. This response can be directed at danb6177 as well. Do you know who specifically translated your holy books? Yes God did....specifically
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Post by saskabronco on Jan 30, 2014 14:41:38 GMT -5
This response can be directed at danb6177 as well. Do you know who specifically translated your holy books? Yes God did....specifically God translated them, from Hebrew or Greek or whatever the original language was, to English? I guess that makes sense if you have the faith to believe he wrote the initial books, you can also have the faith to believe he translated it to other languages. But given all the different versions of the English bible, how do you know which one God translated, or did he translate them all in different ways to serve different purposes?
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Post by danb6177 on Jan 30, 2014 15:25:12 GMT -5
Yes God did....specifically God translated them, from Hebrew or Greek or whatever the original language was, to English? I guess that makes sense if you have the faith to believe he wrote the initial books, you can also have the faith to believe he translated it to other languages. But given all the different versions of the English bible, how do you know which one God translated, or did he translate them all in different ways to serve different purposes? God gave us his word but men have translated it. Some for the purpose of God and some for the purpose of doctrine. Obviously(for example)the king james and the niv are different in textual content in various places.They were both translated from the same manuscripts. The job as i see it of a student of Gods word is to study and to understand-to be able to tell the difference. God gives us the spirit of discernment to accomplish this feat. What i did was read as many as i have found. An interlinear bible is the best as long as you have a source to translate Aramaic and hebrew. Greek is easier. Using the manuscripts and time a student can learn to separate the grain from the chaff. Its actually very clear once you get into it. Ill add that (IMO) one cannot read the bible (any of them) through from front to back (without the assistance of a preacher or affiliated person of the cloth) and come to the conclusions that main stream religion has come to. Doctrines have destroyed Gods word and made it even more ridiculous to those who dont believe. A student of Gods word should have no other teacher than God himself to understand the basics of scripture(now that Gods word is complete). So man has translated what we read now its our job to put the effort into learning what is right. Remember also that God gives free will not only to man but to the devil as well. It my opinion that certain translations of the new testament are from the devil himself
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Post by saskabronco on Jan 30, 2014 15:40:19 GMT -5
God translated them, from Hebrew or Greek or whatever the original language was, to English? I guess that makes sense if you have the faith to believe he wrote the initial books, you can also have the faith to believe he translated it to other languages. But given all the different versions of the English bible, how do you know which one God translated, or did he translate them all in different ways to serve different purposes? God gave us his word but men have translated it. Some for the purpose of God and some for the purpose of doctrine. Obviously(for example)the king james and the niv are different in textual content in various places.They were both translated from the same manuscripts. The job as i see it of a student of Gods word is to study and to understand-to be able to tell the difference. God gives us the spirit of discernment to accomplish this feat. What i did was read as many as i have found. An interlinear bible is the best as long as you have a source to translate Aramaic and hebrew. Greek is easier. Using the manuscripts and time a student can learn to separate the grain from the chaff. Its actually very clear once you get into it. Ill add that (IMO) one cannot read the bible (any of them) through from front to back (without the assistance of a preacher or affiliated person of the cloth) and come to the conclusions that main stream religion has come to. Doctrines have destroyed Gods word and made it even more ridiculous to those who dont believe. A student of Gods word should have no other teacher than God himself to understand the basics of scripture(now that Gods word is complete). So man has translated what we read now its our job to put the effort into learning what is right. Remember also that God gives free will not only to man but to the devil as well. It my opinion that certain translations of the new testament are from the devil himself I respect that attitude. For something that means that much to a person, I think it is important to do the work yourself to ask the questions and find the answers. I see many people who take the bible as a list of rules, but they refuse to question where that came from... not just the origin but the path the book followed to be what it is today. Considering faith is such a personal thing, the fact that people base their entire belief system purely on a book that has been translated multiple times by multiple people baffles me a little bit, especially when people don't even know who it was that did the translating. As I stated before, I really respect the desire to better understand the words you hold to be the ultimate truth, though I doubt the majority of holy book worshippers (namely Christians) follow the same rules you do for understanding the book you live your life by.
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xdeadlyxmirage
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Post by xdeadlyxmirage on Jan 30, 2014 16:00:37 GMT -5
God gave us his word but men have translated it. Some for the purpose of God and some for the purpose of doctrine. Obviously(for example)the king james and the niv are different in textual content in various places.They were both translated from the same manuscripts. The job as i see it of a student of Gods word is to study and to understand-to be able to tell the difference. God gives us the spirit of discernment to accomplish this feat. What i did was read as many as i have found. An interlinear bible is the best as long as you have a source to translate Aramaic and hebrew. Greek is easier. Using the manuscripts and time a student can learn to separate the grain from the chaff. Its actually very clear once you get into it. Ill add that (IMO) one cannot read the bible (any of them) through from front to back (without the assistance of a preacher or affiliated person of the cloth) and come to the conclusions that main stream religion has come to. Doctrines have destroyed Gods word and made it even more ridiculous to those who dont believe. A student of Gods word should have no other teacher than God himself to understand the basics of scripture(now that Gods word is complete). So man has translated what we read now its our job to put the effort into learning what is right. Remember also that God gives free will not only to man but to the devil as well. It my opinion that certain translations of the new testament are from the devil himself I respect that attitude. For something that means that much to a person, I think it is important to do the work yourself to ask the questions and find the answers. I see many people who take the bible as a list of rules, but they refuse to question where that came from... not just the origin but the path the book followed to be what it is today. Considering faith is such a personal thing, the fact that people base their entire belief system purely on a book that has been translated multiple times by multiple people baffles me a little bit, especially when people don't even know who it was that did the translating. As I stated before, I really respect the desire to better understand the words you hold to be the ultimate truth, though I doubt the majority of holy book worshippers (namely Christians) follow the same rules you do for understanding the book you live your life by. Dan should go into the lengths he does for his faith. Its what he believes he should do according to his faith and it is what he does. That is respectable. However, the people who profess faith but do little in practice of it, even if it is full faith in a book that they have not read, often have reasons, many of which, compelling as to why they do not. From my experience, Christians of the same denomination even those who have attended the same church together their whole lives often have entirely different conceptualizations and beliefs about God. They have entirely different religious practices, different ways to reach out to, hang onto, find, rediscover, talk to, and/or leave it to God. You may be right that holy book worshippers (I'll use this term because of what it is intended to mean but for the most part people do not actually worship the books) do not put the same kind of practice that Dan does but I strongly believe that for some people (very likely Dan) it is a positive but for others it is far from necessarily and quite possibly harmful. To be clear, I do not mean it as to say some people need their religion dumbed down or anything of the like. Its hard to take the people's faith that involves seeing scripture as rules or ignoring the translations and say that it does not make sense becuase often it makes sense within their entire belief system. Of course there will be exceptions but someone who has a belief for a illogical or idiotic reason does not diminish those who hold the same beliefs for sound reasons.
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Post by danb6177 on Jan 30, 2014 16:35:53 GMT -5
God gave us his word but men have translated it. Some for the purpose of God and some for the purpose of doctrine. Obviously(for example)the king james and the niv are different in textual content in various places.They were both translated from the same manuscripts. The job as i see it of a student of Gods word is to study and to understand-to be able to tell the difference. God gives us the spirit of discernment to accomplish this feat. What i did was read as many as i have found. An interlinear bible is the best as long as you have a source to translate Aramaic and hebrew. Greek is easier. Using the manuscripts and time a student can learn to separate the grain from the chaff. Its actually very clear once you get into it. Ill add that (IMO) one cannot read the bible (any of them) through from front to back (without the assistance of a preacher or affiliated person of the cloth) and come to the conclusions that main stream religion has come to. Doctrines have destroyed Gods word and made it even more ridiculous to those who dont believe. A student of Gods word should have no other teacher than God himself to understand the basics of scripture(now that Gods word is complete). So man has translated what we read now its our job to put the effort into learning what is right. Remember also that God gives free will not only to man but to the devil as well. It my opinion that certain translations of the new testament are from the devil himself I respect that attitude. For something that means that much to a person, I think it is important to do the work yourself to ask the questions and find the answers. I see many people who take the bible as a list of rules, but they refuse to question where that came from... not just the origin but the path the book followed to be what it is today. Considering faith is such a personal thing, the fact that people base their entire belief system purely on a book that has been translated multiple times by multiple people baffles me a little bit, especially when people don't even know who it was that did the translating. As I stated before, I really respect the desire to better understand the words you hold to be the ultimate truth, though I doubt the majority of holy book worshippers (namely Christians) follow the same rules you do for understanding the book you live your life by. Its unfortunate that alot of people I dare say the vast majority of professed Christians know very little about their savior beyond what they hear from their specifics church doctrines on Sunday. But some people are happy with just that. They are happy to know Jesus in a very limited way with hope of going to heaven when they die. Not that i am better than them because i am not. I think God calls some for this and some for that. I am a John adams fan. Not because he was a federalist or a president-statesmen-diplomat etc but because he had a work ethic that i respect beyond measure. John adams said that "above all things in life he just wanted to be useful". I feel that to be a Christian you must know Christ but to be a useful Christian you must know his word. [/quote]
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Post by danb6177 on Jan 30, 2014 16:41:00 GMT -5
I respect that attitude. For something that means that much to a person, I think it is important to do the work yourself to ask the questions and find the answers. I see many people who take the bible as a list of rules, but they refuse to question where that came from... not just the origin but the path the book followed to be what it is today. Considering faith is such a personal thing, the fact that people base their entire belief system purely on a book that has been translated multiple times by multiple people baffles me a little bit, especially when people don't even know who it was that did the translating. As I stated before, I really respect the desire to better understand the words you hold to be the ultimate truth, though I doubt the majority of holy book worshippers (namely Christians) follow the same rules you do for understanding the book you live your life by. Dan should go into the lengths he does for his faith. Its what he believes he should do according to his faith and it is what he does. That is respectable. However, the people who profess faith but do little in practice of it, even if it is full faith in a book that they have not read, often have reasons, many of which, compelling as to why they do not. From my experience, Christians of the same denomination even those who have attended the same church together their whole lives often have entirely different conceptualizations and beliefs about God. They have entirely different religious practices, different ways to reach out to, hang onto, find, rediscover, talk to, and/or leave it to God. You may be right that holy book worshippers (I'll use this term because of what it is intended to mean but for the most part people do not actually worship the books) do not put the same kind of practice that Dan does but I strongly believe that for some people (very likely Dan) it is a positive but for others it is far from necessarily and quite possibly harmful. To be clear, I do not mean it as to say some people need their religion dumbed down or anything of the like. Its hard to take the people's faith that involves seeing scripture as rules or ignoring the translations and say that it does not make sense becuase often it makes sense within their entire belief system. Of course there will be exceptions but someone who has a belief for a illogical or idiotic reason does not diminish those who hold the same beliefs for sound reasons. alot of people put the lump of their faith in their pastor or priest. They never read the bible on a personal level and like i said above they are perfectly content with that. The problem to me arises when pressed. I knew a man who was a pentecostal. He believed in many things that i do not. But he did not read he just believed what he was taught by his pastor and what he saw in his church. He had faith and he had passion but his foundation was weak in that it was contingent on another. When hard times hit him and everything was not going his way and his pastor could not help him-he turned away from God. This happens to alot of people
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xdeadlyxmirage
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Post by xdeadlyxmirage on Jan 30, 2014 16:55:41 GMT -5
Dan should go into the lengths he does for his faith. Its what he believes he should do according to his faith and it is what he does. That is respectable. However, the people who profess faith but do little in practice of it, even if it is full faith in a book that they have not read, often have reasons, many of which, compelling as to why they do not. From my experience, Christians of the same denomination even those who have attended the same church together their whole lives often have entirely different conceptualizations and beliefs about God. They have entirely different religious practices, different ways to reach out to, hang onto, find, rediscover, talk to, and/or leave it to God. You may be right that holy book worshippers (I'll use this term because of what it is intended to mean but for the most part people do not actually worship the books) do not put the same kind of practice that Dan does but I strongly believe that for some people (very likely Dan) it is a positive but for others it is far from necessarily and quite possibly harmful. To be clear, I do not mean it as to say some people need their religion dumbed down or anything of the like. Its hard to take the people's faith that involves seeing scripture as rules or ignoring the translations and say that it does not make sense becuase often it makes sense within their entire belief system. Of course there will be exceptions but someone who has a belief for a illogical or idiotic reason does not diminish those who hold the same beliefs for sound reasons. alot of people put the lump of their faith in their pastor or priest. They never read the bible on a personal level and like i said above they are perfectly content with that. The problem to me arises when pressed. I knew a man who was a pentecostal. He believed in many things that i do not. But he did not read he just believed what he was taught by his pastor and what he saw in his church. He had faith and he had passion but his foundation was weak in that it was contingent on another. When hard times hit him and everything was not going his way and his pastor could not help him-he turned away from God. This happens to alot of people Presumably he would be in the category of exceptions (perhaps not) but I will admit that there could be significantly more "exceptions" than what I currently believe. However, I will maintain that those who are exceptions cannot be discerned from those who are not in quick glance. The person has to be known extremely well.
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Post by saskabronco on Jan 30, 2014 17:19:29 GMT -5
I respect that attitude. For something that means that much to a person, I think it is important to do the work yourself to ask the questions and find the answers. I see many people who take the bible as a list of rules, but they refuse to question where that came from... not just the origin but the path the book followed to be what it is today. Considering faith is such a personal thing, the fact that people base their entire belief system purely on a book that has been translated multiple times by multiple people baffles me a little bit, especially when people don't even know who it was that did the translating. As I stated before, I really respect the desire to better understand the words you hold to be the ultimate truth, though I doubt the majority of holy book worshippers (namely Christians) follow the same rules you do for understanding the book you live your life by. Dan should go into the lengths he does for his faith. Its what he believes he should do according to his faith and it is what he does. That is respectable. However, the people who profess faith but do little in practice of it, even if it is full faith in a book that they have not read, often have reasons, many of which, compelling as to why they do not. From my experience, Christians of the same denomination even those who have attended the same church together their whole lives often have entirely different conceptualizations and beliefs about God. They have entirely different religious practices, different ways to reach out to, hang onto, find, rediscover, talk to, and/or leave it to God. You may be right that holy book worshippers (I'll use this term because of what it is intended to mean but for the most part people do not actually worship the books) do not put the same kind of practice that Dan does but I strongly believe that for some people (very likely Dan) it is a positive but for others it is far from necessarily and quite possibly harmful. To be clear, I do not mean it as to say some people need their religion dumbed down or anything of the like. Its hard to take the people's faith that involves seeing scripture as rules or ignoring the translations and say that it does not make sense becuase often it makes sense within their entire belief system. Of course there will be exceptions but someone who has a belief for a illogical or idiotic reason does not diminish those who hold the same beliefs for sound reasons. First of all, you are correct that the term I used 'holy book worshippers' is incorrect. I did not mean to call them worshippers of holy books, but rather worshippers of gods based on holy books, such as the bible, quran, etc. I said it baffles me that people are willing to believe the words to be true without looking into the source, not that it doesn't make sense. Maybe I could say that I don't personally understand it, because I like to look into the source of my information before I believe it to be a universal truth, but I get that not everyone thinks the way I do. Mostly, people that believe blindly, without looking into the sources, just scare me. I am sure that, for the most part, they are likely harmless, but those can be the most easily manipulated people out there. Those are the people who march around with signs trying to destroy gay rights. They read a couple lines in a book and they now think they have a right to destroy the rights of an entire group of people. It is one thing to disagree with homosexuality, people have a right to not like something, but to openly spew hate and attack other people's rights because of a couple lines in a book (a book that preaches the overall message 'love thy neighbor as thyself' above all else) is the result of that blind faith. I know a lot of people that just don't like discussing or even thinking about religion. I get that it is a scary topic because of all of the uncertainty surrounding the answers. I have no issue with people who choose to not dive into the big questions of the world. But the people who think they have the answers neatly printed for them in a book, which require no level of understanding, simply an ability to read, are potentially the most dangerous people out there (given they read too many of the wrong passages or get lumped in with the wrong preacher).
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