Article about the JW's in Israel.

[Thomas Walker]

A very interesting article about a rather specific group of brother's. It covers topics like doctrine, national service, and the ministry in Israel today. It also gives a fairly good witness from a secular source.

 

I thought it might interest everyone here.

[ChocoBro]

3 hours ago, Thomas Walker said:

A very interesting article

 

Quote

They don’t call for blind faith, but base themselves on evidence and on asking questions.”

 

Ngghhhaaaaah YES!! EXACTLY!! That's EXACTLY how it is!! I wish people would actually be willing to see that.

 

EDIT:

Quote

Kaplan elaborates: “In the past, we were more stringent with regard to blood transfusions. Today we understand that in some cases, this is a life-or-death matter, so we will not take formal action [such as expulsion from the community] against someone who has chosen to accept a transfusion.

Is this correct? I've never heard that before.

Edited February 16, 2017 by ChocoBro

[carlos]

39 minutes ago, ChocoBro said:

Is this correct? I've never heard that before.

I wouldn't think so. The overall tone of the article is positive, but some of their info is not very accurate. Like that strange comment about Witnesses eating everythign except very rare meat.

[jwhess]

2 hours ago, ChocoBro said:

Is this correct? I've never heard that before. (accepting blood transfusion)

 

This may be the non-witness understanding of our accepting "blood-fractions" or "cell-salvage" procedures.  They may not differentiate between them and whole blood transfusions. 

[Thomas Walker]

6 hours ago, jwhess said:

This may be the non-witness understanding of our accepting "blood-fractions" or "cell-salvage" procedures.  They may not differentiate between them and whole blood transfusions. 

That was how I took it too.

 

Or it may be that a brother accepted a transfusion, and sorted it out with the elders after the fact.

 

I saw a medical show once (can't remember which one), where they had a plotline involving a JW getting blood. The doctors gave it to him anyway, and the JW in question was cast out by the family, shunned from the cong, and the boy's father got mad enough to smash up the blood bank in the hospital. A matter of semantics in a researched news article is no large thing in my book. Not compared to some of the blatant lies or flat out cluelessness we get most of the time.

[Thomas Walker]

8 hours ago, ChocoBro said:

 

Ngghhhaaaaah YES!! EXACTLY!! That's EXACTLY how it is!! I wish people would actually be willing to see that.

 

 

My thing is the line before it:

 

Quote

“One thing that bothered me in most religions is that at a certain stage, you are requested to stop asking questions – and I had plenty of concrete questions."

 

I was raised a JW.

I can't imagine the Elders or the Pioneers telling someone to stop asking.

Is this accurate? Is that how it was for you guys who started out in other churches?

[GoldenAge]

22 hours ago, Thomas Walker said:

 

I was raised a JW.

I can't imagine the Elders or the Pioneers telling someone to stop asking.

Is this accurate? Is that how it was for you guys who started out in other churches?

certainly correct about Judaism

Edited February 17, 2017 by GoldenAge

[ChocoBro]

23 hours ago, Thomas Walker said:

 

My thing is the line before it:

 

 

I was raised a JW.

I can't imagine the Elders or the Pioneers telling someone to stop asking.

Is this accurate? Is that how it was for you guys who started out in other churches?

I used to have intense theological discussions with my martial arts instructor who was a muslim. I could tell that at some point my many questions were starting to bother him. He expressed to me that at some point, you reach the point where it takes a leap of faith is all that is required to understand the rest, that basically all you need to do is understand there is only one god and Muhammad is his apostle and to recite the Shahada, which he then recited to me in Arabic. Somehow I was keenly disinterested for some reason it just was zero convincing to me despite his highly spiritually convicted manner of expressing himself. During a later discussion he added that there is a Hadith according to which the worst muslim is still more valuable in Allah's eyes than the best unbeliever. I guess it was my understanding of Jehovah's justice I grew up with that shielded me from believing such nonsense. Anyways, I shook my head and said that reminds me of the "once-saved-always-saved" mentality fake Christians claim, and said I was sure God judged us by our deeds and not whether we recited some arabic phrase once in our lives. He'd lost his patience with me by then. We'd been talking about God and religion for about a year or so after classes, but that was the last time I hung around afterwards.

 

Yup, the more you think about the truth, the more it makes sense. With fake religions, they just get more confusing and make less and less  sense.

Edited February 17, 2017 by ChocoBro

[GoldenAge]

On 2/16/2017 at 8:51 AM, carlos said:

I wouldn't think so. The overall tone of the article is positive, but some of their info is not very accurate. Like that strange comment about Witnesses eating everythign except very rare meat.

you need to take things in proportions.

this article is about Jehovah's Witnesses with Jewish background and was written for people with Jewish background. Even if readers are not practicing Judaism as their religion, they still follow Jewish tradition and big part of it is something called "kashrut". Many limitations of what they can't eat, hence the idea of Witnesses eating pretty much everything except for raw meet. As an example, eating meat and then having a cake with milk products is prohibited from the point of view of Judaism. However, our brothers in Israel can do that. For us, living in other parts of the world it is not a big deal, in Israel IT IS a big deal.

[carlos]

On 22/2/2017 at 5:51 PM, GoldenAge said:

you need to take things in proportions.

this article is about Jehovah's Witnesses with Jewish background and was written for people with Jewish background. Even if readers are not practicing Judaism as their religion, they still follow Jewish tradition and big part of it is something called "kashrut". Many limitations of what they can't eat, hence the idea of Witnesses eating pretty much everything except for raw meet. As an example, eating meat and then having a cake with milk products is prohibited from the point of view of Judaism. However, our brothers in Israel can do that. For us, living in other parts of the world it is not a big deal, in Israel IT IS a big deal.

Thank you for that informative post, Mike. You are right that it's important to take into account the target audience. And it makes a lot of sense that Jews find it interesting that we eat almost everything since they have so many restrictions.

 

The point that surprised me, and maybe I didn't express it clearly, is the part about not eating rare meat. Where did the journalist take that from? We can eat rare meat, or raw meat if we wish, as long as it is bled. I understand that the point about not eating blood may not attract their attention since Jews don't eat blood either, so they might take it for granted. But rare meat?

[tekmantwo]

On 2/17/2017 at 1:36 PM, ChocoBro said:

Yup, the more you think about the truth, the more it makes sense. With fake religions, they just get more confusing and make less and less  sense.

 

And that's exactly how it is supposed to be....if a person actually thinks about it and doesn't just succumb to the 'feel good' ploy of some mainstream religions then it/we/Jehovah makes perfect sense....

[Miss Bea]

Interesting. Thanks.