Talking to a Jehovah's Witness

[PaulSacramento]

Being part of a JW recovery website, I know that it is very hard to reach JW's and even those that leave have been so scarred that many become agnostic at best and Atheists at "worse".
When they leave they get disfellowshipped (shunned) and even their families don't want anything to do with them.
Christ is not a "dividing force", and yet that is how He is "used" by this organization, they instill and "US VS Them" mentality that even applies to family members and I mean a son or a daughter even.
Its a horrific thing to see and I have know of people that were disfellowed because they went against the organization because of sexual abuse, others because of their "no blood" policy , others because they dared to challenge one of their key doctrines ( Jesus is Michael, only 144K will be in heaven, salvation is ONLY available through the organization, etc).
It was heart breaking to see how many have been turned away for Christ because the only Christ they knew was the Christ of the JW's.

I guess I got kind of lucky. My entire immediate family left the witnesses when my brother and I were still fairly young (4th grade for me). however many of the friends i had in the kingdom hall have given me the silent treatment once I told them why we left. One of those friends, a girl i liked alot, even told me about how her dad and brother had left so they dont associate with them much anymore until they come back to "the truth". That whole family is wonderful people and it angers me that the ideas of a single institution could blind them all and drive them apart.

Its a very sad thing indeed, but they feel that by doing this they are doing what Christ commanded ( Throw out the evil doer and have no contact as per Paul) and what he predicited ( Keeping His word would make families go against each other, drive father against son and so forth).

but they are throwing people out for the wrong reason. If the institution is wrong, it's wrong and going against it is not evil. The Bible lists all kinds of things that are evil and proving a religious train of thought wrong is not one of them. thats what makes me mad...they have too much pride to listen and they just think they are right because they want to

Well, lets put a critical eye towards religion in general and Christianity in particular and we will see that they are NOT alone in that regard.
What We see as the wrong reason they see as the correct and biblical reason and can even cite passages for you.

[secretfire6]

yeah i suppose you are right there Paul. There are a few examples i can think of where an organization is doing something way wrong and uses the scripture that tells them its wrong as support for doing it. it's like somewhere in between the eyes reading the scripture and the brain's final understanding of it, they change it to whatever they need it to say so that they can keep doing what they are doing.

[PaulSacramento]

yeah i suppose you are right there Paul. There are a few examples i can think of where an organization is doing something way wrong and uses the scripture that tells them its wrong as support for doing it. it's like somewhere in between the eyes reading the scripture and the brain's final understanding of it, they change it to whatever they need it to say so that they can keep doing what they are doing.

AS Paul said, TEST EVERYTHING.
It falls on the individual to test and evaluate what they are being taught by their "church" and to post questions when they have doubts.
Some say, "How can I do that, what qualifies me?" and to that I answer this:
When it comes to your salvation, to your life, to being one with God, how can you leave that up to someone else ???
We may get things wrong, but God knows our intentions, which is far better than "going along" when deep down we know "something is not right".'

[Zionist]

yeah i suppose you are right there Paul. There are a few examples i can think of where an organization is doing something way wrong and uses the scripture that tells them its wrong as support for doing it. it's like somewhere in between the eyes reading the scripture and the brain's final understanding of it, they change it to whatever they need it to say so that they can keep doing what they are doing.

AS Paul said, TEST EVERYTHING.
It falls on the individual to test and evaluate what they are being taught by their "church" and to post questions when they have doubts.
Some say, "How can I do that, what qualifies me?" and to that I answer this:
When it comes to your salvation, to your life, to being one with God, how can you leave that up to someone else ???
We may get things wrong, but God knows our intentions, which is far better than "going along" when deep down we know "something is not right".'

Well said Paul well said. 1st Thessalonians 5:21 amen brother!

[secretfire6]

im currently looking into 5 points calvinism for another thread on here. It's all new to me, but i have already found a couple mistakes in their interpretations of scripture.

[PaulSacramento]

im currently looking into 5 points calvinism for another thread on here. It's all new to me, but i have already found a couple mistakes in their interpretations of scripture.

I would advice caution when countering an interpretation of scripture with another interpretation of scripture.

[secretfire6]

oh I am being pretty careful. when I say I've found mistakes, I can say it because there are verses elsewhere in the Bible that undeniably refute their interpretation of former verses. Atheists would read them and call them contradictions, then have nothing to do with the Bible from then on. What I do is find which of the verses is translated/interpreted wrong, then find support for that and THEN i can say which is right or wrong. So far The Calvinist view of original sin is not holding up and since that view is a corner stone of the whole institution.....it's not looking good. I still have 4 more points to study, so we will see.