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1) Can some one outline in some small bullet point sentences or something, what the key differences are between protestants and Jehovah's Witnesses.
2) Does the Bible mention blood mixing/transfusions( doubtful). If not, which is more probable as Christians have no problem with blood transfusions, why do Jehovah's Witnesses refuse blood transfusions?( also is this always the case)
any helps?:)
Question #1 Can some one outline in some small bullet point sentences or something, what the key differences are between protestants and Jehovah's Witnesses.
Jehovahs witnesses beleive they are the true Christianity because they feel they have revived 1st century christianity and they beleive all other forms of Christianity are misguided let alone other relegions!
However according to some source i read in the 1st Century Christianity wasn't a unified relegion as some presume and was actually quite diverse so who is to say which element of 1st century christianity they have "revived".
Everything i just wrote is from memory so i don't expect it to be very accurate though.
Question #2 Does the Bible mention blood mixing/transfusions( doubtful). If not, which is more probable as Christians have no problem with blood transfusions, why do Jehovah's Witnesses refuse blood transfusions?( also is this always the case)
They are fundamentalists don't expect their relegion to make sense but i tried my best with what i know.
I know a fair bit about the Jehovah's Witnesses (JW's), so I'll try to answer any questions you may have.
I'll address the transfusion issue first. There are several passages in the bible that forbid the ingestion of blood (Genesis 9:3, Leviticus 17:10, Acts 15:29) and the JW's take this to apply to transfusions as well. They will not take blood transfusions and will be ostricized by their religion if they do.
Some main points on their beliefs
They believe the bible is literal and that they are the only christian sect that follows it accurately
They do not celebrate holidays or birthdays because they view them as pagan rituals. (which most of them are). They do, however, have a memorial service on the anniversary of the death of Christ.
They do not believe that all people go to heaven. In revelations it is said that 144,000 sit at the right hand of Jesus in heaven, and they believe that these 144,000 chosen righteous individuals are the only humans to enter heaven. Everyone else goes into the ground (translation of Sheol; jewish word that is taken to mean hell actually means ground or garbage pit) and the righteous (only JW's according to them) will be resurrected to create heaven on earth after the apocalypse.
They do not believe in Hell. the wicked simply die and are not resurrected after the second coming of Christ.
There are a few more points on which they differ from most christians but the specifics escape me right now. If you were to ask a specific question though, I'm fairly confident I would be able to answer it.
Xaqaria Are you an ex JW?
I would also point you here if you didn't see my thread on JWs:
http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...ad.php?t=52776
No, I just dated one for 3 years.Quote:
Originally Posted by dragonoverlord
How come they don't believe in hell? They they view it in the Jewish way?
Well, the bible is jewish. They take everything in the bible as literal (although they have their own 'correct' translation, of course; just like everybody else). In the context of the language, they argue, sheol was never supposed to mean a fiery underworld. They do not follow all the bible bashing buzz words from Leviticus though, obviously since most of them are illegal, so they are actually cherry pickers just like most christians; they just don't admit it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreamworld
In Judaism they don't beleive in hell if im not mistaken. Apparently "Hell" is not a concept found in Judaism atleast not in the Christian sense. I heard jews say that atleast..EDIT.Here read here for a more accurate description of Judaism's view on Hell. Its more complicated then i make it out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreamworld
ahh ok thats a good way to get aqainted with their beleifs.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xaqaria
Primarily JWs focus on literal translation of the Bible directly from the greek scriptures. They go door to door because they believe that is what Jesus was trying to teach the Apostles and first century Christians to do.
One of the things they get ragged on the most about is their process of disfellowshiping. For most folks that sounds awful because they hear it much like "if you have sex outside of marriage then you will get shunned". But its slightly less strict than what gets tossed around. You can't get disfellowshiped unless you have "dedicated yourself in baptism", and you usually only get disfellowshiped if your attitude is unrepentant. And even then, you can get reinstated.
If I could describe it as anything, they are trying to keep standards from centuries ago in today's age, which to most people makes them look weird. Kind of like in the movie Idiocracy when the main guy "spoke in a normal dialect the people thought he sounded pompous and fag-like". But, I guess I understand, because the Bible does say (somewhere, lol) "he who loves the world does not have the love of the father in him." Or something like that.
I typically ask them alot of questions when they come around. If you got questions, just ask them. Usually when I ask a question that is too hard for the dude will tell me that he will do some research, two weeks later he is back and has usually got a pretty good answer.
They do have one thing right though. God's name is Jehovah (or Yahweh as it is written in Hebrew.) Here is an interesting fact: The Old King James vesion of the Bible says Jehovah in it four times, but doesn't say it once in the new version. If you look at the dead sea scrolls you can actually see the tetragrammaton on it. So yeah, I think the Bible has been changed. Most people already know that though. Back in the middle ages where the Bible was tampered with at will for political reasons, and you would get killed for owning one. The Bible was changed drastically which is exactly where the Protestants came from because they knew that the Catholic church had made alterations.
All-in-all though they really arn't that weird. I grew up hearing that they were a cult and yada yada yada, but I'm just the type of person that likes to hear both sides of the arguement, I guess.