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- AWAKEN ISSUE #2
-
- A JEHOVAH'S PRESENT THE WATCHTOWER BIBLE TRACT SOCIETY'S VIEWS
- OF ALL OTHER RELIGIONS.
-
- Copyright (c) 1991 by Vince Banial, Toronto Ontario Canada
- This text may be freely copied aslong as it kept intact and unchanged.
-
-
- Mark Cotherman is a Jehovah's Witness. The following are his remarks
- about Christianity. They are consistent with the views of all
- followers of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania,
- better known as Jehovah's Witnesses. Many people have asked me why
- I go to the trouble that I do to present facts about the Jehovah's
- Witnesses. I do this because they visit people door to door. The come
- uninvited. They all come trained to counter your objections. They
- come well versed in the perceived faults of any faith, but their own.
- They profess love of neighbor but on the other hand they privately
- despise all who are not followers of the Watchtower. It is unlikely
- that those who received their unwanted visits know their true feelings
- about other faiths. What Mr. Cotherman calls Christendom applies to
- all other faiths (Muslim, Hindi, Buddist etc).
-
- The following are Mr. Cotherman's words :
-
- Do you not agree that Christians should be awake in the time of the end.
- There are less JWs on welfare than RC also less in prison, on drugs,
- smoke, kill other "christians" in war, like in Ireland, WWI, WWII, Korea,
- Vietnam, Iraq, Central America (RC killing RC). Like Jesus said you will
- recognize his people by the fruit they produce- LOVE. Why don't you
- question your own beliefs about that? Your churches support of Hitler
- during WWII, while he was killing 10s of thousands. Including JW's for
- their LOVING their neighbors as themselves by not supporting him or any
- other WORLDLY nation.
-
- Or how about unity. Paul told the Corinthians to speak in UNITY.
- Where is your churches unity? Killing in wars is about the only thing
- their united in doing. A rotten tree can't produce fine fruit, show me
- your religions fine fruit compared to it's bloodguilt?
-
- Look at the fruits JW's ARE PRODUCING and compare them to the
- inquisition, Bible burnings, Wars, the history of Christendom.
- The JW's are a fine tree, christendom is going to be chopped down
- and thrown in the fire for it's worthless fruit.
-
- JW's also show their LOVE for people by warning them of the
- destruction of this system. We don't get paid for our door to door
- preaching. Show me where any other group preaches God's Kingdom as the
- only hope for mankind and then shows it by their actions. Christendom
- says that the U.N. is mankinds hope for peace. J.W.'s ACTIVELY preach
- that Jehovah's kingdom under his son Jesus Christ will soon destroy all
- false religion, governments and set up His own over the earth to mans
- eternal benefit. Jesus said you would recognize his followers by the
- fruit they produced. Show me YOUR religions fruit.
-
- A Christian is a person who wouldn't do to someone else what the
- would do to Jesus himself and they do what Jesus did and commanded. At
- Matthew 28:19,20 Jesus told ALL of his follower to go and make disciples
- if all of his disciples made disciples then all would be disciple
- makers. Kinda like taking a penny and doubling it each day. ALL WOULD
- BE PREACHERS.
-
- Jehovah's Witnesses produce the fruitage of God's holy spirit.
- Whether you or the Griese's want to recognise that is something that
- you'll have to answer for. But, JW's will continue to follow Jehovah
- God and his Son teaching other spiritual minded people to benefit
- themselves by being TRUE christians.
-
- Witnesses know the facts. We offer the solution to your faith and the
- fruitages of it...War, crime, immorality, abortions, drugs, broken
- families, child abuse, fear of Armageddon, enslavement to false
- doctrines, the burning anger of Jehovah.
-
- One of my best friend is 86. He's been a Witness longer than
- you've been alive. Who doesn't know JW history? The book your reading
- or someone who was there. He have EVERY Watchtower ever printed and
- almost all the books IN HIS HOME. The FACT is the Watchtower Bible and
- Tract Society (Jehovah's Witnesses) produce the FINE FRUIT of TRUE
- CHRISTIANITY as specified by Jesus Christ himself. LOVE AMOUNG
- THEMSELVES. CHRISTENDOM can't take a step toward saying that. Her
- HISTORY prevents it. Inquisition, burning people as heretics, crusades,
- corruption of the papacy, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Central America and
- the list goes on.
-
- Why don't you attack for our lack of love for each other and our
- neighbors since we refuse to murder in war for any cause. We spend
- MILLIONS of hours each year trying to teach people the Bible so they
- will love their neighbors. Or, attack our lack of morals. The Bible
- teaches the highest moral cleanness if we didn't follow this that would
- be a sign of not following the Bible. We would have priests molesting
- children in schools (insurance companies will not longer insure the
- Catholic schools against molestation cases), premarital sexual
- relations, homosexuality would be acceptable, drug dealers, drug users,
- crime bosses, corrupt politians, extramarital affairs would be ok,
- ABORTIONS, wars, just stating facts about what to look for when the
- Bible isn't followed. Spread this to your family and friends to help
- them see the truth about "THE TRUTH."
-
- I'm not a pioneer, yet. September 1, 1992.
-
- Selling? Jehovah's Witnesses don't sell. Selling implies making a
- profit we distribute our literature to people WHO WILL READ IT and if
- they CHOOSE they can donate for it.
-
- Publishers have no (as you put it) quota of hours. Pioneers also put in
- increased time because THEY WANT TO. Pioneering is a voluntary action
- by individual Witnesses which they can stop anytime they feel they must.
- They don't get paid either.
-
- VB>Watchtower claims that governments and their agencies are agents of
- VB>Satan,
-
- The BIBLE says that the worldly governments are controled by Satan (1
- John 5: 19)
-
- VB>but the Watchtower has no problems with many of it's
- VB>Pioneers sitting on Welfare. I guess that for Watchtower Pioneers,
- VB>it is no problem for an agency of Satan (welfare department which
- VB>is a governmental agency so must also be Satan's agency) to be
- VB>supporting the Watchtower.
-
- Your BIBLICAL logic escapes you.<g>
-
- ----------------- END ---------------------
-
- Please note that future issues of AWAKEN will touch on points
- discussed by Mr. Cotherman. The following is one of my replies
- to Mr. Cotherman's messages. I think that you find the facts
- to be of interest. If you are a member of CRS BBS (416)629-7020,
- then please download the file WAKEUP9.TXT which contains details
- about Watchtower predictions for 1975. Please upload this file
- to all other BBSs that you call. Please share this info with other
- members of your belief system.
-
- The following are some replies to Mr. Cotherman:
-
- MC> I didn't see 1975 in any of your comments. Only six millinum
- MC> were ending in the MID-70's.
-
- First of all I would like to thank you for taking the time to reply.
- You have brought up a number of points in your 3 messages to me. I
- would like to reply to each of your points. Please bear with me,
- while I prepare appropriate replies. Please also note that there
- are many beliefs that you and I share in common. I did not present
- my present belief system to you or to anyone else as the belief
- system to follow. I am sorry if I had not made myself clear on
- that point.
-
- From your statement quoted above, it seems that you did not receive
- the initial messages which I sent to you regarding 1975. The update
- message was just an addition to those messages. In the update
- message, you are very correct when you state that it does not speak
- of 1975 specificaly. This update message was drawing on info from
- the prior 3 messages on that topic. I will resend those three
- messages. I also believe that since you did not receive those
- messages you must have missed the two which discuss Ecclesiastes
- 9:5, which you had quoted from. I'll send that up to you aswell.
-
- From your quote you agree that the Watchtower did convey that
- 6 millennium was to end in the mid seventies. The Watchtower also
- conveyed that the millennial reign of Christ would "have" to follow
- the sixth millenium. Before Christ's millennial reign, the end of
- this system of things must occur.
-
- I'll quote from the Watchtower book called THINGS IN WHICH IT IS
- IMPOSSIBLE FOR GOD TO LIE, pg 360:
- "This trouble will result in destruction to that world empire of
- false religion, "Babylon the Great", and to the imperfect political
- governments of this earth".
-
- The Watchtower magazine of May, 01, 1968 on pg 272 states :
- "The immediate future is certain to be filled with climatic events,
- for this old system is nearing its complete end. Within a few years
- at most the final parts of Bible prophecy relative to these "last
- days" will undergo fulfillment, resulting in the liberation of
- surviving mankind into Christ's glorious 1,000 year reign. What
- difficult days, but, at the same time, what grand days are
- just ahead!"
-
- So we see that only the survivors of this great war will go into
- Christ's 1,000 year reign. Clearly, the Watchtower states that
- the end of this system of things must occur after the end of the
- sixth millenium and before the seventh millenium started. Since
- the sixth millenium ended in the mid-70s, therefore we are well
- into the seventh millenium.
-
- MC> Teachings? What teachings? Facts? What facts?
- MC> He have EVERY Watchtower ever printed and almost all the
- MC> books IN HIS HOME.
-
- You see I also have about 15 years worth of Watchtower publications
- on the shelf. I don't know if you lived thru 1975, but I did. I
- think that the Watchtower should be commended for the things that
- are Biblical, such their stand against the taking of life. I also
- feel that the Watchtower should be held accountable when it has made
- predictions, especially when said predictions have failed. Having
- a failed prediction has biblical consequences. Surely, if the
- Watchtower was GOD's prophet, as it had made claim to be, then the
- Watchtower should either not have made any predictions or the said
- predictions should have happened as predicted. The lesson of 1914
- was not learned.
-
- I'll now quote from the Watchtower book called MAN'S SALVATION
- OUT OF WORLD DISTRESS AT HAND!, see page 136:
- "Furthermore, the remnant of spiritual Israel had for decades,
- yes, since the year 1876, been looking forward to the ending of the
- Times of the Gentiles in the autumn of 1914. They were expressing
- God's Messianic kingdom to be fully established in the heavens
- by then and also for the remnant of spiritual Israel to be
- glorified with Jesus Christ in the heavenly kingdom at that time.
- All understanding of the Holy scriptures was slanted in that
- direction or adjusted to that idea. And when the year 1941 ended
- amid the flames of World War I and the remnant of spiritual Israel
- found themselves still here on earth, then they were inclined to
- think that they would be glorified in the year 1918, three and a
- half years after the end of the Gentile Times."
- NOTE: the book from which this quote was taken was printed in 1975.
-
- The fact is stated clearly by the Watchtower that these spiritual
- Israelites "SLANTED" their understanding of the Holy Scriptures or
- they "ADJUSTED" the Holy Scriptures to that idea. You and I both
- know that the title Spiritual Israelites is just another name for
- followers of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania.
- Is that any way for GOD's only channel of communication and GOD's
- prophet to behave ? What about the honesty about which you spoke.
- This is clear evidence that the Watchtower SLANTED and ADJUSTED
- the Holy Scriptures to their own ideas. If they did it in the past,
- how are you to know that they have stopped doing such things?
-
- Since you also did not get my message discussing the proven
- archealogical fact that the temple in Jerusalem was "NOT" destroyed
- by the Babylonians in 607 BCE. It is archealogical fact that it was
- destroyed in 587 BCE. The Watchtower adds 2520 years to 607 BCE to
- get their 1914 CE date. Since the temple was destroyed in 587 BCE,
- then the 2520 years should have been added to 587 BCE resulting
- in 1934 CE. This is provable fact, not conjecture. The Watchtower
- continues to claim that the temple was destroyed in 607 BCE.
-