#Jehovah's witnesses

[sky-daddy-hates-me]

How delusional do you have to be to think that the religion that has forcibly invaded and converted multiple countries throughout the centuries has preserved languages and cultures.

Old norse was only converted to the Latin alphabet because of Christianity, almost destroying the runic alphabet.

Christians forced indigenous children in North America and Canada to attend schools that stripped them of their culture and abuse them into Christianity. There are still Christian organisations who are dedicated to preaching to the native tribes on the North American continent.

How many mythological/folklore/fairytale figures have been diluted down to make it more christian friendly? How many have been demonised because they went against christian values?

How many historical artifacts or culturally significant items have been stolen or destroyed because of Christianity?

It genuinely breaks my heart to think of all the pain and suffering and death Christianity has caused to numerous countries, and the historical knowledge we might have lost in the process.

[nil-ma-aelnino]

i know we're used to seeing jehovah's witnesses as a doomsday cult but let me disagree and tell you they're a doomsday cult with very fuckable representations of jesus

[apenitentialprayer]

i've read that mormons and JWs are considered heretics because they don't affirm the trinity, so i was wondering what the sort-of 'cut off' point is. like would the ACOE be considered heretics because they say mary isn't the mother of God, only the mother of christ, for example

Alrighty, this is a big one. So, as far as the Jehovah's Witnesses and the (mainstream) Latter Day Saints movement go, things are.... a little more complicated in terms of whether their doctrine is "heresy" or if they are just plain non-Christian (and thus wouldn't count as heretical).

The crux of the argument that they are not Christian is that they do not affirm the Nicene Creed, which was articulated during the Councils of Nicaea (325 AD) and Constantinople (381 AD). While Mormons and JWs can affirm the most primitive of Christian creeds ("Christ is Lord"), the Nicene Creed very quickly took on the status of the σύμβολον, or symbolum in Latin; the "symbol of faith," the creed whose affirmation is itself a verification of one's Christian identity. That's why during the Council of Trent, for example, the Tridentine Fathers invited Protestants to participate in the Council on the condition that they could still affirm the Creed.

Of course, Mormons and JWs do not see it that way. They self-identify as Christians; and each group doesn't see themselves just as Christians, but as restorers of a purer, more original Christianity that had existed before the creation of that Creed.

But, anyway, if the conclusion of this argument is accepted, and members of the (mainstream) Latter Day Saints movement and Jehovah's Witnesses are not considered Christian, they by definition cannot be considered heretics; per the Baltimore Catechism, heretics are "baptized Christians, but do not believe all the articles of faith" (Q 1170).

The Assyrian Church of the East affirms the Nicene Creed, have Apostolic Succession, and have limited intercommunion with the Catholic Church. And, Christologically, they have an interesting situation going on. The Assyrian Church has not formally accepted the dogmatic Christological definitions of the Council of Ephesus (431). And, on that alone, the ACoE would seem to fit into the Baltimore Catechism's definition of heretic.

But over 1550 years after that split, the leaders of both the Assyrian Church of the East and the Catholic Church signed a document that affirmed that both Churches saw the other's Christological doctrines as valid, and that both theologies were expressions of the same Apostolic faith. You can read the full document, which is not very long, here.

But to abstract the discussion of heresy for a moment (bold of me to do, admittedly, after saying the last ask was a little vague); we need to make a distinction between formal heresy and material heresy. As Pope Benedict noted in 1993, which itself was an echo of the 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia's description of heresy, the defining characteristic of formal heresy is pertinacia, which can be translated as "stubbornness." What makes a person a "heretic" in a condemnable sense is this pertinacia, this holding fast to falsehoods in defiance of correction by proper authority.

So while the first generations of Protestants may be considered formal heretics, Pope Benedict noted that this does not reflect the actual social and religious conditions of Protestants living today, who are simply living out their Christian faith in the traditions that have arisen since the Reformation. They may be material heretics, and the doctrines of Protestantism may be considered heretical from the Catholic viewpoint, but being a Protestant does not automatically incur the guilt of heresy.

And, in all honesty, most Christians alive today (and most Christians in all ages) have in all probability been material heretics - i.e., they hold some wrong or incorrect opinions concerning the faith, but simply out of ignorance and not in defiance of proper authority. And that is not a sin.

[catgirltoes]

I just saw someone say that Mormonism and Scientology were the only two major US-originated religions. Which, like, how wrong can you be? Do you know how many Protestant movements originated in the States? Is the Great Awakening nothing to you?

[jw-horror-stories]

My mom will say that people are intolerant to her bc she is jw but has no problem being openly religiously intolerant to other religions.

Self-awareness has never been the strong suit of a cultist.

-Degurechaff

[rabbit-flaying]

Feel free to start fights about this. And if Christians want to go in the notes and argue about why they're the best, that's cool with me. Just no actual bullying please.

My very biased answer:

Personally, I'm going with Orthodox. Particularly Eastern Orthodox. My Russian-Eastern Orthodox Babooshka has good ideas of things. I like the art. I like the culture. You get it.

I was brought up in my mother's attempt to start an abusive protestant cult and through that I discovered protestants are boring as hell. (Apologies to Luther, you were based.)

Have you ever been in a boring cult? It sucks. Aside from coming up with prophecies and emotionally destroying everyone around her and listening to Pentatonix, she had no material. RIP no wonder you never got off the ground.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

[newyorkthegoldenage]

The Divine Will International Assembly of Jehovah's Witnesses baptized 7,136 people at Orchard Beach in 1958.

Photo: Granger Historical Picture Archive

[faithkyliee]

Day 5

🤍🤍

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

Relief Society Visiting Teacher Report Book, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, SLC, Utah, 1978

[sky-daddy-hates-me]

I'm not sure if I'll ever recover from believing that fearing someone is a crucial aspect of loving someone and I fully blame Christianity for that.

God-fearing is such a fucked up term especially since its viewed as a positive thing.

[lower-management]

I have found out humans made Jehovah's Witnesses cartoons. It's so fucking funny i swear I have been laughing uncontrollably just thinking about it. Do they really think God will be mad because the kid has got a wizard toy? I've just been laughing like a maniac for the past hour.

[high-quality-tiktoks]

they’re persistent with it😭

[jw-horror-stories]

So, I'm just now remembering this one time I saw (I'm assuming) a Jewish guy at the Kingdom Hall, presumably to have an open mind or to see what's going on. Investigative things.

In hindsight, I should've warned him about the rather sordid history of Jehovah's Witnesses. More specifically that one time Joe Rutherford tried to simp for Adolf Hitler.

-Mod Degurechaff, remembered this after hearing about yet another spike in anti-semitic hate crimes in recent times.

[galionne-vibin]

To the neatly dressed girl who strategically avoided all of my darker skinned coworkers and made a beeline for my pasty white ass in order to hand me a Jehovah's Witness business card wrong pick babydoll I'm a lesbian and I'm not about to give up titty for any god