Jehovah's Witnesses...

Yo, Ellie here. Here's a bit of something, even though it's not related to science. It's a paper I wrote for school, so yeah...

Christianity Vs. The Watchtower

Jehovah's Witnesses and Christians; what's the difference? Many people don't know enough about one or both to look at the differences. Others simply don't care.

The Jehovah's Witnesses or “Russelites” were formed in 1870 by Charles Taze Russel. He decided he didn't like some of the ideas and doctrines taught in the Bible, so he removed them from his new religion and his own false translation of the Bible, the New World Translation. He started with the concept of hell, which he thought was unfair, even though Jesus mentioned hell more times than he mentioned heaven.

On July 1, 1879, Charles started a publication called the Watchtower, and later the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, which is now the head of their religion. They believe that the Watchtower is the “only channel through which truth can come”, whereas Christians believe that the Bible is the sole basis of truth.

The Jehovah's Witnesses believe that “God” (The Father) created Jesus Christ in the form of Michael the Archangel. Their “Jesus Christ” is not the all-powerful Jesus of the Bible, and they believe that their “Jesus” is not an equal with God. They believe that “Jesus” or Michael existed in heaven as a spirit, then came to earth and became fully and only a man, with no supernatural divinity. This “Jesus” lived for 33 years and then died and was returned to heaven in spirit form. They do not believe in the Holy Spirit.

Christians, on the other hand, believe that Jesus, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit exist together in equality as the Holy Trinity, three persons in one. Michael is just another angel created by God to serve him. Christians believe that Jesus Christ came to earth and became a man, retaining his full and absolute power and divinity, while being fully human. He lived on earth and died, then rose, body and spirit, from the grave and walked on earth a while longer before ascending to heaven.

Jehovah's Witnesses believe that men have no souls, and there is only an afterlife for the most religious of their group: only the 144,000 chosen can attain an earthly “paradise”. And no one can know whether they will go to this “paradise”. The best they can do is to obey the Watchtower society and try to witness to others. Heaven is only inhabited by God and there is no hell or punishment for unbelievers. Those not “chosen” cease to exist when they die. The “chosen” get to live in the new earth or “paradise”. They have the ability to sin there, and if any one of them does an evil deed, he will immediately cease to exist.

Christians believe that all men have an eternal soul, and all men have sinned and are therefore damned and deserving an eternity in hell. But if a person places their faith in Jesus, God will “legally” consider you not only sinless but righteous! When a person dies, they either go to heaven or hell, depending on whether they accepted Jesus as their savior. Hell is a place of eternal torture. Heaven is a place of perfect, sinless happiness.

New blog format

Hey everyone!

Now that Ellie's on board with me, I think I'm going to slightly change the way I post. I'll still do the occasional tag or "personal" item, but I'm going to try to be more consistent about posting serious posts... maybe a short weekly post on current events and a few (still-irregular) "articles". Perhaps Ellie can be induced to post a weekly science review or something.

Tell me what y'all think. =)

Yo...

Hey!!! Most of you already know me. My name's Ellie and my blog's over at http://cherokeland.blogspot.com/. Recently I started a new blog about the creation/evolution debate. Today Paradox suggested we combine the blogs, so now I'll be here on The Food Dish posting bits about science and creation/evolution. So there ya have it... :)

Also, I want to say, HAPPY BIRTHDAY PARADOX!!! Yes, it is her birthday, but she doesn't want me to say how old she is, so there... :P


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LOL thanks Ellie. I can edit your posts now... XD

Some housekeeping...

First of all, Bleah, I haven't forgotten about your music tag. Unfortunately, my iPod has been kaput for the past two and a half months or so, and I haven't yet taken the time to charge it. I'll try to do that soon. =P

Ellie, I have Phillies Phan's copy of Writing Magic sitting next to me on the sofa... I'll post the gist of the Chapter 3 (it is Chapter 3, right?) and the writing prompts soon (probably Wednesday, because I have an exam tomorrow and I'll have to be studying for it). I'm also going to be sending a piece of my short story to you because (again) I think it might be a little too weird for general consumption. (Yes, I know, I really need to get rid of the creepiness that's been finding its way into my writing lately. Sorry.)

To everyone... I'll try ASAP to find a bit of time to write a post with some redeeming value to it. =P

De Mortalis

What words does one say when one comes face to face with death?

For once, I am at a loss. As you all know, I have an opinion on most things. Now... well, I guess the cold, rational side of me has been taken over by my lesser-known emotional side. My rational side says that death is a part of life and therefore inevitable. My emotional side is screaming "NO!!"

You see, I just learned that my great-grandmother passed away. I wasn't super-close to her, but I was close enough to care about her. My family has known for a while that her body was slowly shutting down, but that doesn't make the actual death any easier to swallow. It would be one thing if we knew she was a Christian, but we don't.

(I keep saying "we." I mean "I." When I talk about touchy subjects, I tend to revert to collective pronouns.)

Oh, I'm not used to this. Typically, I'm so unemotional that I could pass for a Vulcan. "Pain is weakness leaving the body..." yada, yada, yada. (Yeah, I know that's not a Vulcan quote.) But now, my emotions are all over the place. Grief, like physical pain, comes in waves, I suppose.

I was going to make this a pseudo-deep musing on the brevity of human life--hence the Latin title, which is a somewhat morbid play on the Roman expression, "Di Immortales" (lit. "Immortal Gods"--kind of like "Oh my goodness"). But now that I'm writing (attempting to write), my thoughts are more like a pit of quicksand than a clear well. Obviously, I'm in no state to be writing anything, least of all "articles" with any sort of depth or lucidity. So I'll leave depth to David and Solomon.

Psalm 23
The Lord is my Shepherd;
I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
For you are with me.
Your rod and your staff comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil.
My cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

And finally, from a good friend of mine...
Psalm 73:28
But it is good for me to draw near to God;
I have put my trust in the Lord GOD,
That I may declare all Your works.

So with that, I'll put my trust in God and stop yapping.



(P.S. Forgive me if I sounded gothic. I'm not obsessed with death [although I did go through a slightly questionable phase during junior high/early high school]. I've just never seen "Azrael" this close before.)

I got tagged by Ellie at The Random Saga of an Author and her Books!

The way I like to say hello:
Hi, Hello, or Hola! Como esta usted?

Once Upon A Time...(finish the sentence):
...in a land far away, there was an old, rusted-out Cadillac sitting in a field of solid-gold poppies.

When I was five my favorite item was:
Paper and pens... they count as one item IMO.

What I like between two pieces of bread best is:
Anything but peanut butter.

When I grow up I want to be a/an:
International human rights lawyer (and author on the side, perhaps).

I like:
Books. And the occasional action movie (of The Matrix or Bourne variety). And rock music. And... well, why don't you just read my profile page...?

I really, really want:
My room to magically clean itself...

I desperately need:
Jesus

If I could color my hair any color I would color it:
It's already colored the color I want it... brown with blond streaks.

People often call me:
Not really. They usually text me. (You didn't think I was going to tell you my name, did you?)

I'm terrified of:
Terrified? Nothing. I mean, I don't like spiders and I'd rather not run into someone who's been in the slammer for assault or what have you, but I'm not terrified of stuff.

The way I like to say goodbye:
Bye, See ya, or Adios

The only rule for this tag (which is originally Bleah's) is that you have to make your own tag and slap it on the end. So I guess I'll give it a shot...

I'm currently reading:
Stylized: A Slightly Obsessive History of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style by Mark Garvey

My favorite website (other than Blogger, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) is:
I Can Has Cheezburger?

My favorite word and its definition are:
exiguous, meaning scanty

My favorite quote is:
"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." ~Jim Elliot

The reason I blog is...
I thought there weren't enough youngish bloggers. *sarcasm* Actually, I got invited to the Jabberings blog, so my reason was posting fiction. Now... I blog because I want to encourage other people to search for truth through nonfiction articles and various fiction. And it's fun. =D

If I could live in any other time period and place, it would be:
Ancient Athens. Other than present-day America, Athens was the best time/place to be a woman.

My least favorite food item is:
Sushi. Hands down.

My main goals in life are:
To go into other countries--mainly Eastern European, since I've got a lot of Eastern European in me--and work with international human rights organizations to crack down on human traffickers and the like. After that, I want to become President. (Like that'll happen. =P)

The weather outside is:
Too cold for me. I want to live in California.

Other than blogging, my three favorite things to do are:
1. Read
2. Write
3. Draw/paint

It took me ______ to make this tag.
All day. Admittedly, I did homework and some other stuff, but I'm really bad at thinking of this type of questions.

So... I hope that worked. =P

I tag anybody who feels like doing this. =D

Obviously, I've made a few changes...

So... I was goofing around with Blogger in Draft today and got into the template designer.

That was pretty much one of the best moments of my day.

Since the only computer language I've ever learned--or, more accurately, tried to learn--was for Blender, I stink at HTML. So whenever I would try to play with making my own templates in Blogger, I ended up getting error messages all the time, which definitely put a damper on my creativity.

So now that I use Oxi-Clean... wait, wrong sales spiel. (I don't actually use Oxi-Clean. And it's completely unrelated to blogging. Sorry.) Yeah, I know, I sound like one of those TV testimonials. "Blogger in Draft has changed my life..." or not. But it is cool! =D

If you don't mind, I'd like some feedback... I'm not sure how well the text color and the background image like each other. Other sets of perhaps less burned-out eyes than mine could probably make a better assessment at this point. =P