This is a scripture that should really jolt any true critical thinker wide awake if he or she is interested.
Acts 3:13 says:
"The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus."
Okay, first note how the "God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers" is distinguished from Yeshua as a separate being, succintly and irrefutably. Next, a serious question that must be answered:
If the "God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers" is a triune homoousios, how can He "glorify his servant Jesus" if Yeshua is that same "God of Abraham?" Yes, Acts 3:13 proves with zero doubt who the God of Deuteronomy 6:4 really is! If that God is supposed to be a trinity, then one would have to say "the trinity glorified his servant Jesus." I can hear the trinitarians now telling me that sometimes that One God is identified as just the father, and I would agree in a more consistent manner, but I think it's preposterous and desperate to make up whoever you want him to be at any given time to suit your own presuppositions and desires. If you're going to say it's just the father in Acts 3:13, then you should be consistent with that. Where's the holy spirit here? Is the "God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers" one, two, or three people in Acts 3:13, and why would it ever be okay to be inconsistent with that interpretation? As a trinitarian, how comfortable are you saying that the One God of our fathers from Deuteronomy 6:4 glorified his "servant" Yeshua? What common sense impression should be gathered from such a statement?
The video says "Question number 1" because it was originally more than one question. This may be a series..not sure. It isn't that I don't know the typical trinitarian responses to such questions. It is that they don't seem honest, reliable, or reasonable. So when I ask such questions it is to plant seeds as opposed to gathering trinitarian responses unless those responses are going to help them see that they are abusing scripture. That they are defining God however they like whenever they like instead of just taking the explicit texts to tell them who he is without their added inference when they desire it.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Monday, October 22, 2012
James White: Helping America nip critical thinking right in the bud!
I mistakenly said in this video that the caller wanted to know how Christ could be 100 percent man if he was also 100 percent God. But he was really inquiring how he could be 100 percent God if he was 100 percent man, essentially anyway. Sorry about that! Talk of a trinity always scrambles the brain.
This is a "Dear Christians against the Watchtower" special edition. When you hear the White clip (turn up your speakers!), you will think Jehovah's Witness elders are pussycats. No doubt many trinitarians will think and say White gave a good defense of his faith. But if they heard this same kind of intellectual intimidation, judgment, and condescension from Jehovah's Witness elders toward conscientious objectors, they would use it for proof that the Watchtower is evil. Hypocrisy.
This is a "Dear Christians against the Watchtower" special edition. When you hear the White clip (turn up your speakers!), you will think Jehovah's Witness elders are pussycats. No doubt many trinitarians will think and say White gave a good defense of his faith. But if they heard this same kind of intellectual intimidation, judgment, and condescension from Jehovah's Witness elders toward conscientious objectors, they would use it for proof that the Watchtower is evil. Hypocrisy.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
The Watchtower's "new light" on the faithful and discreet slave
The following is a link to explain.
http://jwsurvey.org/cedars-blog/governing-body-says-we-are-the-faithful-and-discreet-slave
Wow. Just, wow. How I ever bought anything the Watchtower sells is beyond me at this point. Mind-boggling. I almost feel like calling the sole anointed brother in my former congregation up and consoling him on his demotion. But he'd just tell me the same thing he told me when I disassociated. Namely, that we must "change with the organization and trust Jehovah." Which translated means that we must obey fallible men no matter what and link the organization so inextricably with Jehovah that it becomes an idol.
http://jwsurvey.org/cedars-blog/governing-body-says-we-are-the-faithful-and-discreet-slave
Wow. Just, wow. How I ever bought anything the Watchtower sells is beyond me at this point. Mind-boggling. I almost feel like calling the sole anointed brother in my former congregation up and consoling him on his demotion. But he'd just tell me the same thing he told me when I disassociated. Namely, that we must "change with the organization and trust Jehovah." Which translated means that we must obey fallible men no matter what and link the organization so inextricably with Jehovah that it becomes an idol.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Do you believe in hell? 5 simple questions for ya!
I believe in gehenna (hell) too! I believe gehenna consumes and destroys. So what I mean in the title of this blog is "do you believe in the traditionalist misuse and misinterpretation of gehenna, namely as a fire that never ever consumes?" This is my laziest shortest blog entry ever.
Answer me these 5 kindergarten questions (scriptures are even there to help out):
1. In the bible, does unquenchable fire preserve or consume? (Ezekial 20:47, Amos 5:6, Matthew 3:12)
2. In the bible, do worms that don't die preserve souls or consume corpses? (Isaiah 66:24)
3. In the bible, does the lake of fire perform a different function for death than it does the wicked, which are both thrown there in the same passage? (1 Corinthians 15:26, Revelation 20:14)
4 .In the bible, is eternal fire said to reduce to ashes or to infinitely preserve? (Jude 1:7, 2 Peter 2:6)
5. In the bible, are the wicked said to become ashes or to never be reduced to ashes? (Malachi 4:3)
Thanks and God bless!
Answer me these 5 kindergarten questions (scriptures are even there to help out):
1. In the bible, does unquenchable fire preserve or consume? (Ezekial 20:47, Amos 5:6, Matthew 3:12)
2. In the bible, do worms that don't die preserve souls or consume corpses? (Isaiah 66:24)
3. In the bible, does the lake of fire perform a different function for death than it does the wicked, which are both thrown there in the same passage? (1 Corinthians 15:26, Revelation 20:14)
4 .In the bible, is eternal fire said to reduce to ashes or to infinitely preserve? (Jude 1:7, 2 Peter 2:6)
5. In the bible, are the wicked said to become ashes or to never be reduced to ashes? (Malachi 4:3)
Thanks and God bless!
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Trinitarians deny the true humanity of Christ
Brief excerpt from Greg Deuble's book "They Never Told Me This in Church!" p. 163
"So the order of appearance is quite clear: Adam first, Christ second. Christ is the last Adam. Adam precedes Christ. Adam was not a copy of a heavenly, preexistent Christ, but “a type of him who was to come” (Rom. 5: 17). As a true man Jesus was patterned after the likeness of Adam! In contrast to this biblical model, however, it will no doubt be a huge surprise for most who read this and believe that Jesus was born the Infant-God (as cited above in Swindoll, Packer, et al) that official Incarnational theology teaches that Jesus was not “a man” but was rather in fact impersonal “man.” That is official Trinitarian teaching. It proposes that Jesus the Son of God has human nature, but is not a human person! At the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD) orthodoxy officially taught that God the Son united himself to a personless human nature. The “ego” of Jesus (i.e. his true centre of personality) is his Godhood because he is the second Person of the blessed Trinity. Because the Son of God had no beginning but simply came through Mary, he merely assumed impersonal human nature; therefore Jesus does not have a true human personal ego or centre. One commentator puts it this way:
"Now the doctrine of the Incarnation is that in Christ the place of a human personality is replaced by the Divine Personality of God the Son, the second Person of the Most Holy Trinity. Christ possesses a complete human nature without a human personality. Uncreated and eternal Divine Personality replaces a created personality in Him."(Leslie Simmonds "What Ye Think of Christ?" quoted in "Focus on the Kingdom".ed. Anthony buzzard,vol. 7,no. 3,p.5)
Thus, the shocking truth of the official doctrine of the Incarnation is that Jesus is de-humanized. It turns out he really is not like the first man Adam, not like us after all, not a man, but “man” in a nebulous, generic sense. According to the Bible model this disqualifies Jesus from being the “seed of the woman,” the genuine descendant of David, and means he cannot be our Saviour!
my thoughts:
Many trinitarians don't even know this and would probably, secretly at least, be appalled in their conscience. Those who do know will justify it in some of the most inventive and imaginative ways one could ever fathom. To me, the fact that the true humanity of Christ is chalked up to nothing but some nebulous indefinable "nature" instead of actual personhood is easily spotted to be one of the most unbiblical and preposterous things one could ever fancy. There is NO way trinitarians don't have secret problems with this in their conscience if they ever read their bible. Perhaps the more defensive they get about it, the more it might secretly bother them. For those who don't have conscientious issues with such nonsense, I am sad for you. Truly. No one can stop you from redefining terms to fit your dogma(words like "man" and "God"), but when the time comes, you WILL know the truth, and you'll be like me after I left the Watchtower. Wondering how you ever could have believed all the lies you're being fed. That's the nature of deception when one wakes up from it's powerful slumber. The typical trinitarian will always run first to John 1:1 to desperately try and justify what they believe is God coming through a womb with flesh,but what they should do is take the plain, unambiguous statements throughout the totality of scripture and believe them. Then when something seems to contradict or give you seeming justification for severe and jolting qualification of the entire bible's easy revelations and sentiments, examine the texts you think do from new eyes, with an open mind. Then, be honest. This can only be accomplished when you remember the milk and the words of Christ first before your misuse of those few-and-far-between less easily understood(at first and on the surface through modern day eyes, at least) texts. Instead of taking those few texts to butcher, rearrange, redefine, rework, and/or slaughter the simply stated unambiguous truth in the vast majority of kindergarten passages. You HAVE to know what I mean if you've ever listened to Christ. Please do so without presupposing anything!
"So the order of appearance is quite clear: Adam first, Christ second. Christ is the last Adam. Adam precedes Christ. Adam was not a copy of a heavenly, preexistent Christ, but “a type of him who was to come” (Rom. 5: 17). As a true man Jesus was patterned after the likeness of Adam! In contrast to this biblical model, however, it will no doubt be a huge surprise for most who read this and believe that Jesus was born the Infant-God (as cited above in Swindoll, Packer, et al) that official Incarnational theology teaches that Jesus was not “a man” but was rather in fact impersonal “man.” That is official Trinitarian teaching. It proposes that Jesus the Son of God has human nature, but is not a human person! At the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD) orthodoxy officially taught that God the Son united himself to a personless human nature. The “ego” of Jesus (i.e. his true centre of personality) is his Godhood because he is the second Person of the blessed Trinity. Because the Son of God had no beginning but simply came through Mary, he merely assumed impersonal human nature; therefore Jesus does not have a true human personal ego or centre. One commentator puts it this way:
"Now the doctrine of the Incarnation is that in Christ the place of a human personality is replaced by the Divine Personality of God the Son, the second Person of the Most Holy Trinity. Christ possesses a complete human nature without a human personality. Uncreated and eternal Divine Personality replaces a created personality in Him."(Leslie Simmonds "What Ye Think of Christ?" quoted in "Focus on the Kingdom".ed. Anthony buzzard,vol. 7,no. 3,p.5)
Thus, the shocking truth of the official doctrine of the Incarnation is that Jesus is de-humanized. It turns out he really is not like the first man Adam, not like us after all, not a man, but “man” in a nebulous, generic sense. According to the Bible model this disqualifies Jesus from being the “seed of the woman,” the genuine descendant of David, and means he cannot be our Saviour!
my thoughts:
Many trinitarians don't even know this and would probably, secretly at least, be appalled in their conscience. Those who do know will justify it in some of the most inventive and imaginative ways one could ever fathom. To me, the fact that the true humanity of Christ is chalked up to nothing but some nebulous indefinable "nature" instead of actual personhood is easily spotted to be one of the most unbiblical and preposterous things one could ever fancy. There is NO way trinitarians don't have secret problems with this in their conscience if they ever read their bible. Perhaps the more defensive they get about it, the more it might secretly bother them. For those who don't have conscientious issues with such nonsense, I am sad for you. Truly. No one can stop you from redefining terms to fit your dogma(words like "man" and "God"), but when the time comes, you WILL know the truth, and you'll be like me after I left the Watchtower. Wondering how you ever could have believed all the lies you're being fed. That's the nature of deception when one wakes up from it's powerful slumber. The typical trinitarian will always run first to John 1:1 to desperately try and justify what they believe is God coming through a womb with flesh,but what they should do is take the plain, unambiguous statements throughout the totality of scripture and believe them. Then when something seems to contradict or give you seeming justification for severe and jolting qualification of the entire bible's easy revelations and sentiments, examine the texts you think do from new eyes, with an open mind. Then, be honest. This can only be accomplished when you remember the milk and the words of Christ first before your misuse of those few-and-far-between less easily understood(at first and on the surface through modern day eyes, at least) texts. Instead of taking those few texts to butcher, rearrange, redefine, rework, and/or slaughter the simply stated unambiguous truth in the vast majority of kindergarten passages. You HAVE to know what I mean if you've ever listened to Christ. Please do so without presupposing anything!
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Apostate on Trial
Videos like this are always fascinating. This guy handled himself very admirably in this "proceeding." Much better than I could have. This is from youtube user JWStruggle. So much could be said with so many highlights, so much reverence for & loyalty to a fallible organization, coupled with a healthy dose of cognitive dissonance(on the part of the elders of course), but I'll let the proceeding speak for itself.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Does the Unquenchable Fire of Hell keep the wicked alive?
In the bible, fire sometimes goes unquenched until it does & finishes it's job..which is to consume or devour what it touches ending in utter irreversible annihilation. Proof:
Ezekial 20:47:Say to the southern forest: 'Hear the word of the LORD. This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am about to set fire to you, and it will consume all your trees, both green and dry. The blazing flame will not be quenched, and every face from south to north will be scorched by it.
We have here an "unquenchable flame" that "consumes" all the trees of a forest. So if scripture uses this phrase, namely "unquenchable fire", in such a way, why is it apropos for Christians to assign it the opposite meaning from the one scripture truly does? According to scripture, a fire that cannot be quenched "consumes". It doesn't preserve infinitely whatever it touches. Unless you somehow inexplicably and unreasonably believe the consumed and destroyed forest is still burning alive and intact in those unquenchable flames, trees proudly standing tall forever as they burn perpetually any way but down..If one were to go there right after such an event, would the trees still be standing up burning and never being consumed, or would the forest be destroyed and quite literally devoured?
Let's examine another text wherein scripture will again define it's own phrases and terms for you (in this case "unquenchable fire" is the widely misused phrase and concept in question) so that you won't have to rely upon tradition or fallible uninspired preachers to do so.
Amos 5:6:Seek the LORD and live, or he will sweep through the house of Joseph like a fire; it will devour, and Bethel will have no one to quench it.
So,yet again,we have a fire that cannot be quenched "devouring" as opposed to "preserving infinitely." Yet typically,Christian traditionalists wouldn't hesitate, due to deceptive tradition and powerful indoctrination, to assign this phrase with the opposite meaning from the one scripture deliberately and explicitly articulates. It's neither sound nor remotely okay to do so considering the doctrines that result from such unfathomable and egregious misuse. If you don't want to believe the Old Testament inspired writers, how about the New? Do they use the phrase as the OT writers do or do they make up a new meaning like Christian traditionalists do who have listened to their uninspired money-making preachers for too long? We shall see:
Matthew 3:12:His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
I doubt anyone would dare to argue that the chaff doesn't represent the wicked here. Katakaio is the Greek word for "burn up" in Matt. 3:12 and it literally means to "consume wholly" or "burn up utterly"..
So what it sounds like is John the Baptist using a phrase he borrowed from OT writers & proceeding to use it in the exact same way they did. If it consumes and destroys whatever it touches, why suggest it doesn't? And John didn't mean an eternal consumption whereby nothing was ever literally ever destroyed by a bona fide devouring..for that would be an alarming & absurd attempt to assign the phrases he borrows from OT writers with the opposite meaning they've already aptly assigned them yet again. Kind of desperate and definitely unwarranted.
Simple questions, in summary?
1. What does unquenchable fire do to the southern forests in Ez. 20:47?
2. What would the unquenchable fire do to the house of Joseph in Amos 5:6?
3. What would unquenchable fire do to the wicked in Matthew 3:12?
4. Do you believe it?Or have you assigned this phrase a new meaning to preserve a teaching and philosophy of men?
This isn't me looking to scholars or preachers or books other than scripture to make arguments. This is a simplistic kindergarten reading of obvious texts to come to an easy and sound conclusion that disagrees with the majority of Christians. Those who inexplicably believe unquenchable fire never consumes or devours in quite the way scripture says it does, explicitly. This to me is not only concerning but downright easily resolved to any unblinded eyes. It really is as simple as reading the texts where this concept is used and proceeding to believe scripture's usage instead of a manmade misuse of it. If one desperately attempts to assign "consume" or "devour" a meaning as anything but what those terms naturally mean and inevitably lead to, it will ultimately become an exercise in futility considering that there is simply no arguing with the fact that forests don't get "infinitely consumed and destroyed" in fire wherein they don't burn up literally in an act of irreversible destruction. When Christians try to assign that desperate meaning(that fire preserves instead of consumes,keeps alive instead of destroying) of these terms in relation to the wicked, they are apparently making the decision to define scripture by their own ideas instead of letting it define its own phrases and terms. Not cool.
God doesn't take too kindly to potentially stumbling ideas. If I was convinced as most Christians are of the reality of most of mankind suffering sadistically ceaselessly in flames that never ever go out, not only could I not stand the idea, but I couldn't fathomably live peacefully, righteously, and blissfully in a kingdom where this atrocity is occurring to most everyone I've ever known and loved. That wouldn't even be possible because there is simply no such thing as righteous sadism. That's why we crave and need the kingdom in the first place. Because of the suffering in this world. So if you propagate suffering immeasurably worse than what we've ever conceived even in this wicked world forever even after the kingdom has come, you're deceived and deceiving.It isn't supported either by scripture or the most basic instincts of common sense, righteousness, and compassion. Even the basest of human beings would be appalled by infinite widespread sadism of the sort hellfire would be, yet some Christians act as if it's sensical. Disturbing.
Ezekial 20:47:Say to the southern forest: 'Hear the word of the LORD. This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am about to set fire to you, and it will consume all your trees, both green and dry. The blazing flame will not be quenched, and every face from south to north will be scorched by it.
We have here an "unquenchable flame" that "consumes" all the trees of a forest. So if scripture uses this phrase, namely "unquenchable fire", in such a way, why is it apropos for Christians to assign it the opposite meaning from the one scripture truly does? According to scripture, a fire that cannot be quenched "consumes". It doesn't preserve infinitely whatever it touches. Unless you somehow inexplicably and unreasonably believe the consumed and destroyed forest is still burning alive and intact in those unquenchable flames, trees proudly standing tall forever as they burn perpetually any way but down..If one were to go there right after such an event, would the trees still be standing up burning and never being consumed, or would the forest be destroyed and quite literally devoured?
Let's examine another text wherein scripture will again define it's own phrases and terms for you (in this case "unquenchable fire" is the widely misused phrase and concept in question) so that you won't have to rely upon tradition or fallible uninspired preachers to do so.
Amos 5:6:Seek the LORD and live, or he will sweep through the house of Joseph like a fire; it will devour, and Bethel will have no one to quench it.
So,yet again,we have a fire that cannot be quenched "devouring" as opposed to "preserving infinitely." Yet typically,Christian traditionalists wouldn't hesitate, due to deceptive tradition and powerful indoctrination, to assign this phrase with the opposite meaning from the one scripture deliberately and explicitly articulates. It's neither sound nor remotely okay to do so considering the doctrines that result from such unfathomable and egregious misuse. If you don't want to believe the Old Testament inspired writers, how about the New? Do they use the phrase as the OT writers do or do they make up a new meaning like Christian traditionalists do who have listened to their uninspired money-making preachers for too long? We shall see:
Matthew 3:12:His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
I doubt anyone would dare to argue that the chaff doesn't represent the wicked here. Katakaio is the Greek word for "burn up" in Matt. 3:12 and it literally means to "consume wholly" or "burn up utterly"..
So what it sounds like is John the Baptist using a phrase he borrowed from OT writers & proceeding to use it in the exact same way they did. If it consumes and destroys whatever it touches, why suggest it doesn't? And John didn't mean an eternal consumption whereby nothing was ever literally ever destroyed by a bona fide devouring..for that would be an alarming & absurd attempt to assign the phrases he borrows from OT writers with the opposite meaning they've already aptly assigned them yet again. Kind of desperate and definitely unwarranted.
Simple questions, in summary?
1. What does unquenchable fire do to the southern forests in Ez. 20:47?
2. What would the unquenchable fire do to the house of Joseph in Amos 5:6?
3. What would unquenchable fire do to the wicked in Matthew 3:12?
4. Do you believe it?Or have you assigned this phrase a new meaning to preserve a teaching and philosophy of men?
This isn't me looking to scholars or preachers or books other than scripture to make arguments. This is a simplistic kindergarten reading of obvious texts to come to an easy and sound conclusion that disagrees with the majority of Christians. Those who inexplicably believe unquenchable fire never consumes or devours in quite the way scripture says it does, explicitly. This to me is not only concerning but downright easily resolved to any unblinded eyes. It really is as simple as reading the texts where this concept is used and proceeding to believe scripture's usage instead of a manmade misuse of it. If one desperately attempts to assign "consume" or "devour" a meaning as anything but what those terms naturally mean and inevitably lead to, it will ultimately become an exercise in futility considering that there is simply no arguing with the fact that forests don't get "infinitely consumed and destroyed" in fire wherein they don't burn up literally in an act of irreversible destruction. When Christians try to assign that desperate meaning(that fire preserves instead of consumes,keeps alive instead of destroying) of these terms in relation to the wicked, they are apparently making the decision to define scripture by their own ideas instead of letting it define its own phrases and terms. Not cool.
God doesn't take too kindly to potentially stumbling ideas. If I was convinced as most Christians are of the reality of most of mankind suffering sadistically ceaselessly in flames that never ever go out, not only could I not stand the idea, but I couldn't fathomably live peacefully, righteously, and blissfully in a kingdom where this atrocity is occurring to most everyone I've ever known and loved. That wouldn't even be possible because there is simply no such thing as righteous sadism. That's why we crave and need the kingdom in the first place. Because of the suffering in this world. So if you propagate suffering immeasurably worse than what we've ever conceived even in this wicked world forever even after the kingdom has come, you're deceived and deceiving.It isn't supported either by scripture or the most basic instincts of common sense, righteousness, and compassion. Even the basest of human beings would be appalled by infinite widespread sadism of the sort hellfire would be, yet some Christians act as if it's sensical. Disturbing.
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