Jehovah's Witnesses Quotes

Gay people don’t actually try to convert people. That’s Jehovah’s Witnesses you’re thinking of.

Paul valued his life, but the doing of God's will was his highest priority.Jehovah's Witnesses worldwide feel the smae. Although, as Jesus foretold, they are 'objects of hatred by all the nations'.

The wish of death had been palpably hanging over this otherwise idyllic paradise for a good many years. All business and politics is personal in the Philippines. If it wasn't for the cheap beer and lovely girls one of us would spend an hour in this dump. They [Jehovah's Witnesses] get some kind of frequent flyer points for each person who signs on. I'm not lazy. I'm just motivationally challenged. I'm not fat. I just have lots of stored energy. You don't get it do you? What people think of you matters more than the reality. Marilyn. Despite standing firm at the final hurdle Marilyn was always ready to run the race. After answering the question the woman bent down behind the stand out of sight of all, and crossed herself. It is amazing what you can learn in prison. Merely through casual conversation Rick had acquired the fundamentals of embezzlement, fraud and armed hold up. He wondered at the price of honesty in a grey world whose half tones changed faster than the weather. The banality of truth somehow always surprises the news media before they tart it up. You've ridden jeepneys in peak hour. Where else can you feel up a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl without even trying? [Ralph Winton on the Philippines finer points] Life has no bottom. No matter how bad things are or how far one has sunk things can always get worse. You could call the Oval Office an information rain shadow. In the Philippines, a whole layer of criminals exists who consider that it is their right to rob you unhindered. If you thwart their wicked desires, to their way of thinking you have stolen from them and are evil. There's honest and dishonest corruption in this country. Don't enjoy it too much for it's what we love that usually kills us. The good guys don't always win wars but the winners always make sure that they go down in history as the good guys. The Philippines is like a woman. You love her and hate her at the same time. I never believed in all my born days that ideas of truth and justice were only pretty words to brighten a much darker and more ubiquitous reality. The girl was experiencing the first flushes of love while Rick was at least feeling the methadone equivalent. Although selfishness and greed are more ephemeral than the real values of life their effects on the world often outlive their origins. Miriam's a meteor job. Somewhere out there in space there must be a meteor with her name on it. Tsismis or rumours grow in this land like tropical weeds. Surprises are so common here that nothing is surprising. A crooked leader who can lead is better than a crooked one who can't. Although I always followed the politics of Hitler I emulate the drinking habits of Churchill. It [Australia] is the country that does the least with the most. Rereading the brief lines that told the story in the manner of Fox News reporting the death of a leftist Rick's dark imagination took hold. Didn't your mother ever tell you never to trust a man who doesn't drink? She must have been around twenty years old, was tall for a Filipina and possessed long black hair framing her smooth olive face. This specter of loveliness walked with the assurance of the knowingly beautiful. Her crisp and starched white uniform dazzled in the late-afternoon light and highlighted the natural tan of her skin. Everything about her was in perfect order. In short, she was dressed up like a pox doctor’s clerk. Suddenly, she stopped, turned her head to one side and spat comprehensively into the street. The tiny putrescent puddle contrasted strongly with the studied aplomb of its all-too-recent owner, suggesting all manner of disease and decay.

Those who fight against God's people are fighting against God, and fighters against God will not prevail.

… she gave me a look that deftly combined tenderness with revulsion. To this day the memory of that look still visits me like a Jehovah’s Witness: uninvited and tireless.

Jehovah's Witness are welcomed into my home...You gotta respect anybody who gets all dressed up in Sunday clothes and goes door-to-door on days so hot their high heels sink a half-inch into the pavement. The trick is to do all the talking yourself. Pretty soon, they'll look at their watches and say, 'Speaking of end times, wouldja look at what time it is now!

The reason to have a home is to keep certain people in and everyone else out. A home has a perimeter. But sometimes our perimeter was breached by neighbors, by Girl Scouts, by Jehovah’s Witnesses. I never liked to hear the doorbell ring. None of the people I liked ever turned up that way.

Remember that summer you liked that girl who worked at the boardwalk? Angie?” “No,” he said, but I knew he was lying. “What about her?” “Did you ever hook up with her?” Conrad finally lifted his head up from the couch. “No,” he said. “I don’t believe you.” “I tried, once. But she socked me in the head and said she wasn’t that kind of girl.I think she was a Jehovah’s Witness or something.

Jehovah’s Witness? Don’t sweat it. I’m going to hell, already booked my ticket. Bright side? I’m pagan. Your hell is my heaven... if for no other reason than you won’t be there.

Admittedly, given the Dreamland's tendency towards the dramatic, should any ship come to the island it would probably be full of cannibalistic pirates, piratical cannibals, Jehovah's witnesses or similar. That was acceptable, however. He was sure they could come to some arrangement that didn't involve any unpleasantness. Any unpleasantness to himself,at any rate.

Gay people don’t actually try to convert people. That’s Jehovah’s Witnesses you’re thinking of. No

As soon as Nicholas was born, my mother swore she'd rather see her daughters become Jehovah's Witnesses or pole dancers before she saw her first grandchild in daycare when my sister went back to work. I don't think it was originally the idea of daycare that didn't sit well with her but the fact that there, in a bassinet, was a fresh slate, a lump of clay that could be worked on and molded into the perfect child who had eluded her the first time around with her own daughters.

Irrevocable commitment to any religion is not only intellectual suicide; it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world. Faith is, above all, open-ness—an act of trust in the unknown. An ardent Jehovah’s Witness once tried to convince me that if there were a God of love, he would certainly provide mankind with a reliable and infallible textbook for the guidance of conduct. I replied that no considerate God would destroy the human mind by making it so rigid and unadaptable as to depend upon one book, the Bible, for all the answers. For the use of words, and thus of a book, is to point beyond themselves to a world of life and experience that is not mere words or even ideas. Just as money is not real, consumable wealth, books are not life. To idolize scriptures is like eating paper currency.

She isn’t simply unafraid of a good fight, she lives for it, and will often actively go looking for a fight. This is what differentiates your run-of-the-mill fighter from a crusader. The Warrior Princess Submissive is no shrinking violet. She is that dyed-in-the-wool Republican who attends the Democratic National Convention wearing a Rand Paul t-shirt. She is the African-American woman who invites herself to a Ku Klux Klan rally without a hood... and hands out business cards to everyone there. She is the woman who invites the Jehovah's Witnesses into her home and feeds them dinner, just for the opportunity to defend Christmas - even though she may be a Pagan. When the other girls in high school or college were trying out for the pep squad or cheerleading, she set her sights on the debate team. While her friends agonize over how to “fit in” socially, she is war gaming ideas on how to change society to fit her ideals and principles. Are you someone she considers to be immoral or evil? Run. She will eviscerate you.

There were spells on opening doors and closing them, spells to ward your door, and even one to discourage Jehovah’s Witnesses from your door,

So the J isn't for Jew. What could it be? Jehovah's Witness? Jesuit?Whatever it meant, he's just as dead.

She inhaled deeply—and sneezed. Stupid allergies. “Gods bless you,” Rishi said. Dimple arched an eyebrow. “Gods?” He nodded sagely. “As a Hindu, I’m a polytheist, as you well know.” Dimple laughed. “Yes, and I also know we still only say ‘God,’ not ‘gods.’ We still believe Brahma is the supreme creator.” Rishi smiled, a sneaky little thing that darted out before he could stop it. “You got me. It’s my version of microaggressing back on people.” “Explain.” “So, okay. This is how it works in the US: In the spring we’re constantly subjected to bunnies and eggs wherever we go, signifying Christ’s resurrection. Then right around October we begin to see pine trees and nativity scenes and laughing fat white men everywhere. Christian iconography is all over the place, constantly in our faces, even in casual conversation. This is the bible of comic book artists . . . He had a come to Jesus moment, all of that stuff. So this is my way of saying, Hey, maybe I believe something a little different. And every time someone asks me why ‘gods,’ I get to explain Hinduism.” Dimple chewed on this, impressed in spite of herself. He actually had a valid point. Why was Christianity always the default? “Ah.” She nodded, pushing her glasses up on her nose. “So what you’re saying is, you’re like a Jehovah’s Witness for our people.” Rishi’s mouth twitched, but he nodded seriously. “Yes. I’m Ganesha’s Witness. Has a bit of a ring to it, don’t you think?

Good, then you can help me cook. Andrew, you keep watch. You see anything come over the fence, shoot it.' 'Yes ma'am.' She is joking right? 'And don't yes ma'am me. The only people to call me ma'am were telemarketers and Jehovah's Witnesses.

Have you heard of the Children of Mae?” “The cult?” She knew of a religious group whose members went door to door, preaching the benefits of self-discipline—abstinence, celibacy or monogamy, vegetarianism—pretty much anything fun was prohibited. They had never come to Vesper’s house because her father was a butcher and probably pretty low on their list of possible converts.

This was something new. Or something old. I didn’t think of what it might be until after I had let Aubrey go back to the clinic to bed down next to her child. Bankole had given him something to help him sleep. He did the same for her, so I won’t be able to ask her anything more until she wakes up later this morning. I couldn’t help wondering, though, whether these people, with their crosses, had some connection with my current least favorite presidential candidate, Texas Senator Andrew Steele Jarret. It sounds like the sort of thing his people might do—a revival of something nasty out of the past. Did the Ku Klux Klan wear crosses—as well as burn them? The Nazis wore the swastika, which is a kind of cross, but I don’t think they wore it on their chests. There were crosses all over the place during the Inquisition and before that, during the Crusades. So now we have another group that uses crosses and slaughters people. Jarret’s people could be behind it. Jarret insists on being a throwback to some earlier, “simpler” time. Now does not suit him. Religious tolerance does not suit him. The current state of the country does not suit him. He wants to take us all back to some magical time when everyone believed in the same God, worshipped him in the same way, and understood that their safety in the universe depended on completing the same religious rituals and stomping anyone who was different. There was never such a time in this country. But these days when more than half the people in the country can’t read at all, history is just one more vast unknown to them. Jarret supporters have been known, now and then, to form mobs and burn people at the stake for being witches. Witches! In 2032! A witch, in their view, tends to be a Moslem, a Jew, a Hindu, a Buddhist, or, in some parts of the country, a Mormon, a Jehovah’s Witness, or even a Catholic. A witch may also be an atheist, a “cultist,” or a well-to-do eccentric. Well-to-do eccentrics often have no protectors or much that’s worth stealing. And “cultist” is a great catchall term for anyone who fits into no other large category, and yet doesn’t quite match Jarret’s version of Christianity. Jarret’s people have been known to beat or drive out Unitarians, for goodness’ sake. Jarret condemns the burnings, but does so in such mild language that his people are free to hear what they want to hear. As for the beatings, the tarring and feathering, and the destruction of “heathen houses of devil-worship,” he has a simple answer: “Join us! Our doors are open to every nationality, every race! Leave your sinful past behind, and become one of us. Help us to make America great again.

Days after the elections of 2016, asha sent me a link to a talk by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. We have to have hope, she says to me across 3,000 miles, she in Brooklyn, me in Los Angeles. We listen together as Dr. deGrasse Tyson explains that the very atoms and molecules in our bodies are traceable to the crucibles in the centers of stars that once upon a time exploded into gas clouds. And those gas clouds formed other stars and those stars possessed the divine-right mix of properties needed to create not only planets, including our own, but also people, including us, me and her. He is saying that not only are we in the universe, but that the universe is in us. He is saying that we, human beings, are literally made out of stardust. And I know when I hear Dr. deGrasse Tyson say this that he is telling the truth because I have seen it since I was a child, the magic, the stardust we are, in the lives of the people I come from. I watched it in the labor of my mother, a Jehovah's Witness and a woman who worked two and sometimes three jobs at a time, keeping other people's children, working the reception desks at gyms, telemarketing, doing anything and everything for 16 hours a day the whole of my childhood in the Van Nuys barrio where we lived. My mother, cocoa brown and smooth, disowned by her family for the children she had as a very young and unmarried woman. My mother, never giving up despite never making a living wage. I saw it in the thin, brown face of my father, a boy out of Cajun country, a wounded healer, whose addictions were borne of a world that did not love him and told him so not once but constantly. My father, who always came back, who never stopped trying to be a version of himself there were no mirrors for. And I knew it because I am the thirteenth-generation progeny of a people who survived the hulls of slave ships, survived the chains, the whips, the months laying in their own shit and piss. The human beings legislated as not human beings who watched their names, their languages, their Goddesses and Gods, the arc of their dances and beats of their songs, the majesty of their dreams, their very families snatched up and stolen, disassembled and discarded, and despite this built language and honored God and created movement and upheld love. What could they be but stardust, these people who refused to die, who refused to accept the idea that their lives did not matter, that their children's lives did not matter?

If Satan can't break your integrity, he'll try to break your heart

If we want to work, I’m gonna have to go knock on a few doors. I need to be like Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Amway lady. Who would have thought I’d have to go sell myself and my dog?

They could not see the sprawling Sachsenhausen concentration camp under construction that summer just north of Berlin, where before long more than two hundred thousand Jews, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Gypsies, and eventually Soviet prisoners of war, Polish civilians, and Czech university students would be held, and where tens of thousands of them would die.

Plimpton’s gaze swept across the obvious Time Police officer, Tucker and the rest. Max took a moment to be grateful for anonymous blue jumpsuits. If anyone asked, she could be a Jehovah’s Witness.

Do you know when Jehovah’s Witnesses were commanded to refuse blood transfusions?” “It’s set down in Genesis. It dates from the Creation.” “It dates from 1945, Mr. Henry. Before then it was perfectly acceptable.

But then it also speaks of a group of people preaching about the righteous kingdom of God, a war of God against all wickedness, followed by a paradise earth without death - all to be realized in the twentieth century.

He rubbed his hand over his brow. He was stark naked except for his gun, and now some woman was standing on his deck? He hoped to hell she wasn’t a Jehovah’s Witness because she was about to have a come-to-Jesus moment.

It was the morning rush hour. The crowd was coming up the stairs of Penn Station like ants on the 7th Avenue side, and a Jehovah Witness was having a hell of a time selling religion. — Christ Belongs To The Whole World.

My mum and dad were Jehovah’s Witnesses, which I know sounds crazy but it’s the truth. Mum used to go round the island, distributing copies of The Watchtower, door to door.’ He paused. ‘Do you know what her biggest tragedy was? She ran out of doors.

Jarret supporters have been known, now and then, to form mobs and burn people at the stake for being witches. Witches! In 2032! A witch, in their view, tends to be a Moslem, a Jew, a Hindu, a Buddhist, or, in some parts of the country, a Mormon, a Jehovah’s Witness, or even a Catholic. A witch may also be an atheist, a “cultist,” or a well-to-do eccentric. Well-to-do eccentrics often have no protectors or much that’s worth stealing. And “cultist” is a great catchall term for anyone who fits into no other large category, and yet doesn’t quite match Jarret’s version of Christianity. Jarret’s people have been known to beat or drive out Unitarians, for goodness’ sake. Jarret condemns the burnings, but does so in such mild language that his people are free to hear what they want to hear. As for the beatings, the tarring and feathering, and the destruction of “heathen houses of devil-worship,” he has a simple answer: “Join us! Our doors are open to every nationality, every race! Leave your sinful past behind, and become one of us. Help us to make America great again.” He’s had notable success with this carrot-and-stick approach. Join us and thrive, or whatever happens to you as a result of your own sinful stubbornness is your problem.

However, once the freedom of private judgment was enshrined in the American Constitution, nothing could stop the avalanche of new denominations: Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Theosophists, Spiritualists, Christian Scientists, Seventh-Day Adventists, and a host of others rapidly emerged.

And all the worlds you are - Ohio and Greenville Woodson and Irby Gunnar’s Child and Jack’s daughter Jehovah’s Witness and nonbeliever listener and writer Jackie and Jacqueline - gather into one world called You where You decide what each world and each story and each ending will finally be.

When you try to talk about the Dream House afterward, some people listen. Others politely nod while slowly closing the door behind their eyes; you might as well be a proselytizing Jehovah's Witness or an encyclopedia peddler. Kind to you in person, what they say to others makes its way back to you: We don't know for certain that it's as bad as she says. The woman from the Dream House seems perfectly fine, even nice. Maybe things were bad, but it's changed? Relationships are like that, right? Love is complicated. Maybe it was rough, but was it really abusive? What does that mean, anyway? Is that even possible?

Isn’t it the case that Jehovah’s Witness patients are regularly treated now by what’s called bloodless surgery? No transfusions are necessary. Allow me to quote to you from the American Journal of Otolaryngology: ‘Bloodless surgery has come to represent good practice, and in the future it may well be the accepted standard of care.’ 

So what actually goes on with all this religion business? Does it really matter whether you’re a Gnostic, a Christian, a Muslim, a Shi’ite, a Hindu, a Taoist, a Rosicrucian, a Jew, a Witch or a Jehovah’s Witness? Not in the slightest. (Well, it might matter if you’re a Jehovah’s Witness). Does it matter if you follow the teachings of Confucius, Buddha, Ramakrishna or Mary Baker Eddy? Of course not. Does it matter if your ritual object or talisman is a cup, an amulet, a tabernacle, a horseshoe, holy water, a wishbone, a Sanctus bell, a St. Christopher, a baptismal font, a rabbit’s foot, rosary beads, a broomstick or a seven-branched candlestick? No, it’s just something to focus your mind on. The real power is within you. Just as long as it doesn’t become a cop-out. Which it so often does. Why? I’ll tell you. Because Rag, Tag & Bobtail are not willing to take responsibility for their own lives. They need someone to tell them what to do and what to believe. But in reality you don’t need anyone. It’s all there inside you. You grant your own absolution. Hey, it’s your life! You certainly have more control over your ultimate destiny than a priest.

There were two things Southerners hated to see knocking on their door. Jehovah Witnesses, because the majority of us were Baptist, and the undertaker. It was understandable that when Terk Rhinehammer opened the door, his face turned white as all the blood was drained from it after he looked past me and saw my hearse. "What's wrong?" He used his hands to pat down his chest. "I'm not dead, am I?

Of course, no one’s immune to these biases; I’ve caught myself cherry-picking data on more than one occasion. To that extent we all live in glass houses. But there are ways of error-checking yourself, if you care to use them. The scientific method, at its heart, is a set of tools explicitly designed to break through bias and shine a light on the empirical information underneath. Recognizing our prejudices, we can overcome them. But one thing we cannot do—and it has taken me so very long to realize this—is reason successfully with those who reject such tools. Logic doesn’t matter to a Jehovah’s Witness. Fossils mean nothing to a creationist. All the data in the world will not change the mind of a true climate-change denier.4 You cannot reason with these people. You cannot take them seriously. It is a waste of energy to even try.

I review her back on the ward in the evening and on leafing through her notes I see that her birthday is in two days’ time and she’ll most likely still be in hospital. I commiserate, despite the fact that I, too, will very likely be in a hospital for every single one of my birthdays until I’m too weak to blow out the candles, but she tells me that Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t celebrate birthdays or even receive presents.

I didn’t know much about God, ’cept that if you pissed Him off, He’d getcha one day. My momma knew God—she was raised a Methodist. In fact, her daddy was a Methodist preacher. Still, Momma said she wanted more from God, so for the past couple of years she’d been searching for more. I got to go with her on some of those searches. First, we tried the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They were cool, till I learned they didn’t celebrate Christmas. God or no God, I wasn’t giving up Christmas! Then we tried the Muslims (or the “Black Muslims,” as Momma called them). I didn’t like them because when we got to their church (which they called a mosque), they made us change our clothes and put on some of their clothes: floor-length dresses and material to wrap our heads in so our hair wouldn’t show. And they searched us too, which pissed me off. But Momma seemed to understand; she said it was because white folks thought the Muslims were militant, so white folks was always messing with ’em—you know, harassing them, arresting them, threatening them. Momma said the Muslims had to be careful so that’s why they were searching folks. uring Momma’s God search, we tried a few other religions. I never really did care one way or the other. I never really seriously thought about God because, no matter what the religion, they all wanted you to be perfect. And I knew I was far from perfect. So I figured God wouldn’t wanna mess with me. I don’t know which religion Momma finally decided on. Maybe she realized she didn’t need a particular religion to know and love God or for God to know and love her. Whatever she decided, she also decided that she wasn’t going to choose for me. She wanted to wait until I was old enough and then let me decide my religion.

Almost no one tolerates the exclusivity and supremacy of Christ these days, even some who profess to be Christians. The message of the cross is not politically correct—it’s the singularity of the gospel, on top of everything else, that bothers people. Can you imagine for a moment what might happen if a celebrity or political leader just said, “I’m a Christian and if you’re not, you’re going to hell”? Yikes! And then imagine if he said, “All the Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and all the people who believe they can earn salvation, whether liberal Protestants or Roman Catholics, and all the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses—you’re all going to eternal hell. But I care about you so much, I want to give you the gospel of Jesus Christ, because it is far more important than wars in the Middle East, terrorism, or any domestic policy.” You can’t be faithful and popular, so take your pick.

Hearing this, the woman skooched her legs around each other, jingled her bells, leaned toward Everett till their shoulders touched, and laughed and squirmed the sorts of laughs and squirms that Jehovah may have witnessed on the day He created misogyny. The Cosmos kept its balance, though, because Everett was meanwhile leering the sort of testicular leer that Kali may well have had in mind when She inspired Man to create asbestos, carcinogenic beer, and the trenches in World War I.

The substitution of the Names of Yahweh and Yahshua, by the names of pagan gods (elohim), has brought immeasurable harm. Such names as Lord, God, Jesus, and Christ in no way represent the meaning of the NAME revealed by Yahweh our Heavenly Father to Mosheh, and to the ancient Hebrews. By employing these names, the people unknowingly turn the worship of Yahweh into that of gods (elohim), and actually ascribe the loving and merciful characteristics of the Father of Israyl, to the pagan gods (elohim)! Hosheyah 2:8--''For she did not realize that it was I Who gave her grain, wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold--which they sacrificed to Baal; thinking it was the Lord that gave these blessings!'' In their The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures (the Jehovah's Witnesses), The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc., admit in their Foreword (Page 23) that: "While inclined to view the pronunciation 'Yahweh' as the more correct way, we have retained the form 'Jehovah' because

The greatest and the most oppressive empire on earth is the Anglo-American empire. By that is meant the British Empire, of which the United States of America forms a part. It has been the commercial Jews of the British-American empire that have built up and carried on Big Business as a means of exploiting and oppressing the peoples of many nations. This fact particularly applies to the cities of London and New York, the stronghold of Big Business. This fact is so manifest in America that there is a proverb concerning the city of New York which says: 'The Jews own it, the Irish Catholics rule it, and the Americans pay the bills.

Of course, no one’s immune to these biases; I’ve caught myself cherry-picking data on more than one occasion. To that extent we all live in glass houses. But there are ways of error-checking yourself, if you care to use them. The scientific method, at its heart, is a set of tools explicitly designed to break through bias and shine a light on the empirical information underneath. Recognizing our prejudices, we can overcome them. But one thing we cannot do—and it has taken me so very long to realize this—is reason successfully with those who reject such tools. Logic doesn’t matter to a Jehovah’s Witness. Fossils mean nothing to a creationist. All the data in the world will not change the mind of a true climate-change denier. You cannot reason with these people. You cannot take them seriously. It is a waste of energy to even try.

Last night I decided that it is totally nuts to believe in Christ, that it is every bit as crazy as being a Scientologist or a Jehovah’s Witness. But a priest friend said solemnly, “Scientologists and Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses are crazier than they have to be.” Then something truly amazing happened. A man from church showed up at our front door, smiling and waving to me and Sam, and I went to let him in. He is a white man named Gordon, fiftyish, married to our associate pastor, and after exchanging pleasantries he said, “Margaret and I wanted to do something for you and the baby. So what I want to ask is, What if a fairy appeared on your doorstep and said that he or she would do any favor for you at all, anything you wanted around the house that you felt too exhausted to do by yourself and too ashamed to ask anyone else to help you with?” “I can’t even say,” I said. “It’s too horrible.” But he finally convinced me to tell him, and I said it would be to clean the bathroom, and he ended up spending an hour scrubbing the bathtub and toilet and sink with Ajax and lots of hot water. I sat on the couch while he worked, watching TV, feeling vaguely guilty and nursing Sam to sleep. But it made me feel sure of Christ again, of that kind of love. This, a man scrubbing a new mother’s bathtub, is what Jesus means to me. As Bill Rankin, my priest friend, once said, spare me the earnest Christians.

Then one evening he reached the last chapter, and then the last page, the last verse. And there it was! That unforgivable and unfathomable misprint that had caused the owner of the books to order them to be pulped. Now Bosse handed a copy to each of them sitting round the table, and they thumbed through to the very last verse, and one by one burst out laughing. Bosse was happy enough to find the misprint. He had no interest in finding out how it got there. He had satisfied his curiosity, and in the process had read his first book since his schooldays, and even got a bit religious while he was at it. Not that Bosse allowed God to have any opinion about Bellringer Farm’s business enterprise, nor did he allow the Lord to be present when he filed his tax return, but – in other respects – Bosse now placed his life in the hands of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And surely none of them would worry about the fact that he set up his stall at markets on Saturdays and sold bibles with a tiny misprint in them? (‘Only ninety-nine crowns each! Jesus! What a bargain!’) But if Bosse had cared, and if, against all odds, he had managed to get to the bottom of it, then after what he had told his friends, he would have continued: A typesetter in a Rotterdam suburb had been through a personal crisis. Several years earlier, he had been recruited by Jehovah’s Witnesses but they had thrown him out when he discovered, and questioned rather too loudly, the fact that the congregation had predicted the return of Jesus on no less than fourteen occasions between 1799 and 1980 – and sensationally managed to get it wrong all fourteen times. Upon which, the typesetter had joined the Pentecostal Church; he liked their teachings about the Last Judgment, he could embrace the idea of God’s final victory over evil, the return of Jesus (without their actually naming a date) and how most of the people from the typesetter’s childhood including his own father, would burn in hell. But this new congregation sent him packing too. A whole month’s collections had gone astray while in the care of the typesetter. He had sworn by all that was holy that the disappearance had nothing to do with him. Besides, shouldn’t Christians forgive? And what choice did he have when his car broke down and he needed a new one to keep his job? As bitter as bile, the typesetter started the layout for that day’s jobs, which ironically happened to consist of printing two thousand bibles! And besides, it was an order from Sweden where as far as the typesetter knew, his father still lived after having abandoned his family when the typesetter was six years old. With tears in his eyes, the typesetter set the text of chapter upon chapter. When he came to the very last chapter – the Book of Revelation – he just lost it. How could Jesus ever want to come back to Earth? Here where Evil had once and for all conquered Good, so what was the point of anything? And the Bible… It was just a joke! So it came about that the typesetter with the shattered nerves made a little addition to the very last verse in the very last chapter in the Swedish bible that was just about to be printed. The typesetter didn’t remember much of his father’s tongue, but he could at least recall a nursery rhyme that was well suited in the context. Thus the bible’s last two verses plus the typesetter’s extra verse were printed as: 20. He who testifies to these things says, Surely I am coming quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!21. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.22. And they all lived happily ever after.

That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, (Eph 3:16-17) I pray for you as a special child of a loving God. May every storm that has been raging in your life be abated today! May you experience calmness in every area of your life! May calmness come into your marriage, business, finances and health! May Jehovah grant you according to the riches of his glory, strength in the inner man by His Spirit! The riches of his glory are never run down; they are never depleted and never valueless. As this touches you, may intelligence be your portion, wisdom to confound the world. May knowledge become a part of your life as a member of the family of God here on earth! May you become conscious of the indwelling Christ! He lives in you; He is in every fibre of your being. He is in your bones, hair, muscles, gluttons, nerves and blood. I banish everything that is trying to invade these areas. May Christ sit as king in you, not pain, not cancer, not diabetes or any other evil disease known to man and not known to man! I command victories without number in your life. As Christ is crowned king in your life, the world will know whose you are. I pray that every place you were mocked be eradicated today. Every place were voices have been raised to mock you and to pull you down be exterminated today as you walk strengthened by His Spirit in the inner man. As the word says, He will give His angels charge over you. May angels come into battle on your behalf! I pray for the release of warring angels to fight for you, prosperity angels to gather wealth for you, angels of peace to enforce order in all the storms in your life. I pray that you be granted VIP access into secret treasures. May your prayers overcome huddles and may answers to your requests be quick and immediate. I put lines of demarcation against the devil in your life. No demon will come near your house. There is no weapon, no magic charm and no sorcery that is manufactured against you that will prosper. May your fear factor be replaced with a faith factor as you overcome every obstacle in Jesus’ name! Declaration I declare, you will not die but live to proclaim the might works of God. Your life will be a testimony for the world to witness the glory of the Lord.

It's all right that there are things that you do not get over, not really. You just go on, knowing that the things you love could be stripped from you at any moment, remembering to love them now. It makes you human. You try to be decent and treat people gently, knowing that they, too, have their scars and madness that, like yours, do not show.

Corinthians 8:6—“One God, the Father…One Lord, Jesus Christ

Does the fact that Jesus is called the “one Lord” in this verse mean that the Father (Jehovah) is not Lord? (He will say no. Share the above verses with him.)

As we seek to interpret the meaning of this phrase, it is critical to keep in mind what other scriptures have to say about the distinction between the Father and the Son. For example, the New Testament calls Jesus “the Son” over 200 times. Moreover, the Father is considered by Jesus as someone other than Himself over 200 times in the New Testament. And over 50 times in the New Testament the Father and Son are seen to be distinct within the same verse (see, for example, Romans 15:6; 2 Corinthians 1:4; Galatians 1:2-3; Philippians 2:10-11; 1 John 2:1; 2 John 3).52

The prophecies of seers still resonate even today, influencing the lives of tens of millions of people worldwide. In the United States, William Miller declared that Doomsday would arrive on April 3, 1843. As news of his prophecy spread thoughout the United States, a spectacular meteor shower by chance lit up the night sky in 1833, one of the largest of its kind, further enhancing the influence of Miller’s prophecy. Tens of thousands of devout followers, called Millerites, awaited the coming of Armageddon. When 1843 came and went without the arrival of the End of Days, the Millerite movement split into several large groups. Because of the huge following amassed by the Millerites, each of these splinter groups would have a major impact on religion even today. One large piece of the Millerite movement regrouped in 1863 and changed their name to the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, which today has about 14 million baptized members. Central to their belief is the imminent Second Coming of Christ. Another splinter group of Millerites later drifted toward the work of Charles Taze Russell, who pushed back the date of Doomsday to 1874. When that date also passed, he revised his prediction, based on analyses of the Great Pyramids of Egypt, this time to 1914. This group would later be called Jehovah’s Witnesses, with a membership of over 6 million.

Do you know why Italians don’t like Jehovah’s Witnesses?” “No… why?” “Italians don’t like any witnesses.

The question to ask is this: Are all the “interpretations” listed here, not least the mutually contradictory ones, equally acceptable to God? An atheist will be uncomfortable with such a question; a Christian must ask it. Is it enough simply to hold the beliefs of one’s “Christian” community? How about the interpretive community of Jehovah’s Witnesses? Mormons? Or how about, say, Muslims? Buddhists? Materialist Marxists? I do not know how Smith would respond to such questions. If he draws the line somewhere, then of course I will ask him how he knows that is the place to draw it. At the very least he has then admitted the existence of objective truth, the denial of which is dangerous. If, in line with the central heritage of the Christian church, he ties that truth to the Bible, then one must push hard and ask which of the other interpretations can properly be justified and which must be ruled out by what the Bible says—or will he retreat again to some vague notion of equivalent value in all interpretations? If he denies that there is any way we can know that we are pleasing God, and that the best we can do is live in line with our interpretive communities, what possible excuse could he make for Luther breaking out of one community to start another? Was Luther right? How do we decide? If Smith hides behind the community in the face of such questions, then his interlocutor is basically right. And I would review with him the points I have already tried to make in this chapter and the previous one. In short, I agree that all our understanding is interpretive, and that the interpretive communities in which we find ourselves are extremely influential. But this does not mean, on the one hand, that we cannot articulate objective truth, and on the other that our interpretive communities bind us utterly.

We must obey God rather than orders from men. Jehovah has raised Jesus from the dead and declared him the Messiah, to bring Israel to repentance. We are witnesses of all this, as is the Holy Spirit, the one God has given to those who obey.

The Son of God The New Testament recounts few instances when God was heard speaking from heaven. When He did, it was normally to announce something startling. God was zealous to announce that Jesus Christ was His Son. At Jesus' baptism, the heavens opened and God's voice was heard, saying, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased" (Matt. 3:17). Elsewhere, the Father declared from heaven, "This is my beloved Son; listen to him" (Mark 9:7). Thus, the title conferred from on high to Jesus is Son of God. This title has engendered a great deal of controversy in the history of the church, particularly in the fourth century, when the Arian movement, taking its cue from its leader, Arius, denied the Trinity by arguing that Jesus was a created being. References to Jesus as "the firstborn of all creation" (Col. 1:15) and "the only begotten of the Father" (John 1:14, KJV) led Arius to argue that Jesus had a beginning in time and was thus a creature. In Arias' mind, if Jesus was begotten, it could only mean that He was not eternal, and if He was not eternal, then He was a creature. Thus, to ascribe deity to Jesus was to be guilty of blasphemy, because it involved the idolatrous worship of a created being. The same controversy exists today between Christian believers and the Mormons and Jehovahs Witnesses, both of whom acknowledge a lofty view of Jesus over angels and other creatures but deny His full deity. This controversy precipitated in the great ecumenical Council of Nicea. The Nicene Creed provides an interesting answer to the charges of Arianism. The answer is found in the strange statement that Jesus is "begotten, not made." To the Greek, such a statement was a contradiction in terms. In normal terms, begotten implies a beginning, but when applied to Jesus, there is a uniqueness to the way in which He is begotten that separates Him from all other creatures. Jesus is called the monogenes, the "only begotten" of the Father. There is a sense in which Jesus and Jesus alone is begotten of the Father. This is what the church was getting at when it spoke of Jesus being eternally begotten-that He was begotten, not made.

For decades (really centuries), the Roman Catholic Church, the Jehovah's Witnesses, and the ultra-Orthodox Jews, among others, have handled reports of clergy abuse as though the public good were not their problem and have insisted on silence as they refused to report the crimes to authorities.

This has been a repetitive pattern in the United States, where the Roman Catholic Church, the Jehovah's Witnesses, Orthodox Jews, and other denominations have had evidence that one of their own was a predatory pedophile, yet they responded by ignoring the problem, ultimately endangering thousands of children.

it says: “In no case did he appeal to the rabbinic schools of teaching with their traditions and precepts of men. He faithfully referred his

Where did that remark come from? Mormonism, as anyone can easily find out, is one of a number of Christian sects which came into being in the USA in the nineteenth century. It differs from mainstream Christianity on certain technical points which Dawkins would at least pretend not to understand. So why write "four if you count Mormonism"? Why not "five if you count Mormonism and Christian Science"? Or "ten if you include Mormonism, Christian Science, Christedelphians, Jehovah's Witnesses, Reformed Judaism, Shi'ite Islam, Strict Baptists, Celtic Orthodox, Unitarians and Quakers?" Does Dawkins think that the Mormons' adoptionist Christology is so far removed from the mainstream as to constitute a separate faith (while the Jehovah's Witnesses' arianism is not?) Or is he playing a numbers game, saying that the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-day Saints is so numerous as to count as a religion in its own right, distinct from "Christianity". (But then, why not "Four if you include Catholicism"?) We never find out. Like Melchizidec, it comes from nowhere and it goes nowhere. It popped into Dawkins head and he wrote it down. It makes me doubt whether our author is fully in command of his brief."Four if you include Mormons". Honestly, you might just as well say "Britain consists of three countries: England, Scotland and Wales – or four if you include Tooting Bec.

God likes to appear to us in this way. He does not come in the form of God but in the form of man, without making any declaration that He is Jehovah God.

With the neatness of a Euclidean demonstration, the energy of the sun was now united with the smaller concentrations of energy at man's command: thus the Sun God had in effect undergone a human incarnation, and his priests at last commanded a commensurate authority. Theirs is a Calvinist theology, only slightly revised, in which the mass of men are predestined to awful damnation, and only the elect-that is, the technocratic elite-will be saved. In short, the eschatology of Jehovah's Witnesses, brought up to date.

As a Christian, I am not the least bit offended by the beliefs of Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and so forth. In fact, I am delighted to know that they believe in something that is more likely to make them into a reasonable human being, as long as they don’t allow the religion to be distorted by those seeking power and wealth.

They were very devout, I don’t mean silly like the Hare Krishnas or deadly dull like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, they had a sense of humour, but they really believed our destiny lies out among the stars.

More than 10,000 prisoners from other ethnic groups were also imprisoned in Auschwitz. These included Czechs, most of whom were members of the patriotic organization Sokol; Frenchmen and women who were political prisoners; Germans and Austrians, who were mostly political prisoners or imprisoned for common crimes; Slovenes and prisoners from virtually all European countries. There were even Jehovah’s Witnesses who were imprisoned at Auschwitz for their religious convictions, as well as homosexuals.

The types of prisoners at the camp were distinguished using triangles sewn on their clothing. Jews had a yellow triangle, Jehovah’s Witnesses a purple one, homosexuals pink and common criminals, green.

Indeed, days are coming, / Declares Jehovah, / When I will raise up to David a righteous Shoot… / And this is His name by which He will be called: / Jehovah our righteousness” (23:5-6; cf. 33:16).

But now in our 20th century, we have come to the time for harvest, "a conclusion of a system of things, and the reapers are angels"!

For one thing, the end of six thousand years of human existence on earth and the beginning of mankind's seventh millennium of existence may come many years sooner than the year 2000 C.E. It is well that this is so. Today, with the world of mankind in such a deplorable condition and being threatened with destruction from so many angles, there are many students and investigators of these threats to human existence who express substantial doubts that mankind will be able to survive till the year 2000 C.E.

A situation approaching global ruin has existed only in the 20th century. All the more reason, then, to believe that soon Jehovah will take action to protect his property, his creation.

That now-operating kingdom in heaven will, within the twentieth century, cleanse the entire earth of wickedness.

Revelation 16:16 calls it the "war of the great day of God the Almighty," Armageddon. This war will come in the twentieth century. It will come right on schedule, as have the wars, food shortages, earthquakes and other events foretold. This generation will see its fulfillment.

A GUIDE TO DIFFERENT RELIGIONS Taoism: Shit happens. Zen: What is the sound of shit happening? Hinduism: This shit's happened before. Buddhism: If shit happens, it isn't really shit. Islam: If shit happens, it's the will of Allah. Protestantism: Shit happens because we don't work hard enough. Catholicism: Shit happens because we are bad. Christian Fundamentalism: Shit happens because the Bible says so. Jehovah's Witness: Knock, knock. 'Shit happens." Judaism: Why does shit always happen to us? Agnosticism: We don't know shit. Atheism: No shit. Hare Krishna: Shit happens - rama rama ding ding. Rastafarianism: Let's smoke this shit.

Religious beliefs aren’t pernicious in themselves, but intolerant dogmas are.

Are you the ‘supreme court’ of your decision-making process, or is that power to be given to someone else? If you decide to pass that responsibility onto someone else, then do so knowingly.

Since Watchtower logic states that “Jehovah is patient and doesn’t want any to be destroyed,” can it really be said that we are closer to Armageddon now, when there are nearly eight billion people who would lose their lives if Armageddon happened now, when there were only seven billion a few years ago?

I went up to the open front door, knocked, and said, "Jehovah's Witness. Do you have time for me to talk to you about our lord and savior, baby Yoda?

The fundamental difference between an ordinary person and a Jehovah’s Witness is that the life of a Witness is effectively micromanaged by a religious hierarchy based in America.

Seventh-Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and a growing number of evangelical Christians are teaching a doctrine called conditional immortality, which jettisons the concept of hell. They assert that the wicked will be destroyed. This belief contradicts biblical teaching, which says that everyone who has ever lived will be resurrected and judged, and those who are condemned will suffer torment forever (Luke 16:19–31). The

I swung my legs out of bed, pulled jeans and a sweatshirt over my pyjamas, jammed my feet into trainers, and had a quick look at what he’d left me. Night visor, blaster, handgun, stun gun. It would seem something fairly dangerous threatened. Jehovah’s Witnesses, perhaps.

Richard began going to Jehovah’s Witnesses meetings on Sapian Street with his friend Eddie. At the meetings, he heard about the treacherous, terrible power of Satan—how if a man wasn’t careful, he’d be in the grip of Satan before he knew it, destined to all kinds of pains in hell. Richard often had thoughts of violence fused with sex that were far from Christian. He knew they were diametrically opposed to the teachings of the Church.

Pentecostals, Mormons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses have come in for particular attack.

David knew how to pray. He often inquired of Jehovah (1 Sam. 30:8; 2 Sam. 5:19, 23; Psa. 27:4). The best prayer is to inquire of the Lord step by step, according to the sense within. By inquiring in this way, we can easily receive God’s leading, and we can work according to the leading.

Our first point of inspection should always be ourselves.

The Bible teaches that God provides, even for the birds of the air, but the birds have to leave the nest and fly around to find the mosquitoes or the seeds God provides! There is some activity required on their part. "Lady, if you don't want to marry the FedEx man or a Jehovah's Witness, you had better go outside!

If a person can accept fair and judicious analysis of other prophecies but not those of their own faith, then all they have is dogma.

Science is, in its ideal state, the ceaseless process of attempting to disprove everything.

You can’t say you aren’t inspired, as the Governing Body alleges for itself, and still claim to be God’s channel of communication.123 If you aren’t inspired, then you’re not God’s channel. However, if you’re speaking as and claiming to be God’s channel, then you are, by definition, inspired. What the Governing Body wants is to have its cake and eat it too. If the Governing Body truly wants to be called the channel of God for communicating to his flock on earth today, then their new light had better be new revelations from God that enhance the current light, and not replace it. If it is replaced, then the old light wasn’t from God after all. It was the utterance of a false prophet. If old teachings are replaced, then how can we have confidence that the new teachings aren’t just more falsehood?

You might think Cult Girls would have a rather limited readership (ex-Jehovah's Witnesses) but I, who never bothered to learn anything about those strange people who rang my doorbell with "good news" loved it. Jehovah's Witnesses aside, this beautifully illustrated graphic novel pertains to any cult. Nicely and clearly written, it's a good harrowing story.

As they embraced the Nicene faith, Arianism disappeared until revived by Charles Russell and the Jehovah's Witnesses in the early 20th century.

I am Jezebel. I am a strong, independent critical thinker who doesn’t get coerced into anything anymore. I formulate my own opinions and make my own decisions. I love and respect myself. I also foster a deep respect and appreciation for Nature. I no longer fear death, but accept it as part of the natural cycle.

Remember: in the jungle, the lion doesn’t defend its actions to the gazelle. Just walk out the door and don’t look back.

A GUIDE TO DIFFERENT RELIGIONS Taoism: Shit happens. Zen: What is the sound of shit happening? Hinduism: This shit's happened before. Buddhism: If shit happens, it isn't really shit. Islam: If shit happens, it's the will of Allah. Protestantism: Shit happens because we don't work hard enough. Catholicism: Shit happens because we are bad. Christian Fundamentalism: Shit happens because the Bible says so. Jehovah's Witness: Knock, knock. 'Shit happens." Judaism: Why does shit always happen to us? Agnosticism: We don't know shit. Atheism: No shit. Hare Krishna: Shit happens - rama rama ding ding. Rastafarianism: Let's smoke this shit. - Mitchell Symons

I moved and felt like a zombie, only without the flesh-eating joy that seems to drive zombies around neighborhoods like Jehovah’s Witnesses.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses play the long game and unless you expressly say you aren’t interested and never will be, you will never be done with them.

like to think that my brother and sister were just some less than satisfactory practice runs that led up to me,

The muezzin’s call to prayer punctuated the days, weddings and funerals followed the faith’s prescribed rituals, activities slowed down during fasting months, and pork might be hard to find on a restaurant’s menu. Otherwise, people lived their lives, with women riding Vespas in short skirts and high heels on their way to office jobs, boys and girls chasing kites, and long-haired youths dancing to the Beatles and the Jackson 5 at the local disco. Muslims were largely indistinguishable from the Christians, Hindus, or college-educated nonbelievers, like my stepfather, as they crammed onto Jakarta’s overcrowded buses, filled theater seats at the latest kung-fu movie, smoked outside roadside taverns, or strolled down the cacophonous streets. The overtly pious were scarce in those days, if not the object of derision then at least set apart, like Jehovah’s Witnesses handing out pamphlets in a Chicago neighborhood.

It was as if he said: "I know it is no light matter to call any one, even Thee, Son of God, of the One living eternal Jehovah. But I shrink not from the assertion, however bold, startling, or even blasphemous it may seem. I cannot by any other expression do justice to all I know and feel concerning Thee, or convey the impression left on my mind by what I have witnessed during the time I have followed Thee as a disciple." In this way was the disciple urged on, in spite of his Jewish monotheism, to the recognition of his Lord's divinity.

In a similar manner, all major world religions reject the deity of Christ: Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Muslims believe Jesus was just a great prophet, whereas Orthodox Judaism sees Jesus as a false prophet. It’s not only the world’s major religions that deny the deity of Christ, but so do all major cultic groups: Mormons, Oneness Pentecostals, Unitarians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Inglesia ni Cristo, and Christadelphians. These cultic groups “claim” the Bible as their authority but each in their own way teach that Jesus is a created being.