Catholic Info
Traditional Catholic Faith => General Discussion => Topic started by: Phyllo on March 04, 2015, 11:24:08 AM
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Hi,
I am in a discussion with a JW who tells me that in EX 3: 13-15 JB :
Then Moses said to God, I am to go,then, to the sons of Israel and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you. But if they ask me what his name is, what am I to tell them? And God said to Moses. I am who I am. This he added is what you must say to the sons of Israel: I am has sent me to you. And God also said to Moses, you are to say to the sons of Israel: Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name for all time: by this name I shall be invoked for all generations.,
She is telling me that I am who I am is not a name and that his name was known in Gen 4:1 JB:
The man had intercourse with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. I have aquired a man with the help of Yahweh.
Other bibles have the Lord instead of Yahweh.
Naturally the NWT has Jehovah.
Lord in the Hebrew text is # H3068 in the Strongs concordance which means the proper name of the True God.
So when God says his name is I am who I am what does he mean?
Thanks
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Actually the name "Jehovah" does not exist.
It's a combination of the consonants of "Yahweh" with the vowels of "Adonai" mixed in. Jews did this because they would replace "Yahweh" in the Scriptures with "Adonai", so they added Adonai vowel points as a reminder and also because they were not allowed to alter the main text itself (which in Hebrew consisted primarily of the consonants).
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I believe in the rule that you do not engage in any discussion with any non Catholic without establishing authority. One should not discuss / debate doctrine without establishing this prior to the discussion. The big picture defines Truth. I've been using this approach since my novus ordo days, and it usually knocks the legs out from under them.
"What's Your Authority?" (http://www.catholic.com/tracts/whats-your-authority)
from another site:
http://recoveredcatholic.com/2012/07/30/jehovahswitnessesauthority/
excerpt:
<Catholic to JW> " ...the Catholic Church is the only Christian body that has the God-given authority to define anything related to our faith. If you can prove otherwise, we’ll consider converting. In the meantime, all other doctrinal issues are secondary. We must agree on authority before we can even discuss anything else.”
Don't fall into JW traps. YOU set the discussion parameters, if you engage at all.
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I appreciate all the advice. She and I are friends and do discuss religion. She is the reason why I have a wonderful little Catholic library. She is the reason I have a lot more knowledge about my faith. You see, I don't believe what she says so I look it up. If I can't find it I come here for some insight.
So having said that, is there any one who can answer my original question?
Thanks
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Actually the name "Jehovah" does not exist.
It's a combination of the consonants of "Yahweh" with the vowels of "Adonai" mixed in. Jews did this because they would replace "Yahweh" in the Scriptures with "Adonai", so they added Adonai vowel points as a reminder and also because they were not allowed to alter the main text itself (which in Hebrew consisted primarily of the consonants).
Yes, I know that name doesn't exist. The KJ and the NWT use it though and it was the NWT I was talking about.
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Very good question. I cannot say I can answer that, but when Jesus was asked if He was the Son of God, He answered, "I Am."
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What an interesting question. These quoted verses do not appear so in the Catholic bible, though. From the Douay Rheims:
[1] And Adam knew Eve his wife: who conceived and brought forth Cain, saying: I have gotten a man through God.
[13] Moses said to God: Lo, I shall go to the children of Israel, and say to them: The God of your fathers hath sent me to you. If they should say to me: What is his name? what shall I say to them? [14] God said to Moses: I AM WHO AM. He said: Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel: HE WHO IS, hath sent me to you. [15] And God said again to Moses: Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel: The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me to you: This is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.
It follows that the proper name of God is HE WHICH IS, QUI EST; because it determines all manners of being: He is "being itself, eternal, self-existent, independent, infinite; without beginning, end, or change; and the source of all other beings".
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Yes, and always present, no past, no future. Timeless. The Eternal I AM. We are not - we are becoming. He IS.
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As stated above, "Jehovah" is a wholesale corruption of the Tetragrammaton (for one thing, the Hebrew letter yodh is certainly not pronounced like the modern English letter "J"). The Divine Name, being composed of the Hebrew letters Yodh-He-Wav-He, is best transcribed in Latin characters as "YHWH." As all but the High Priest were forbidden from speaking the Divine Name, the vowels (which in Hebrew are represented by small punctuation marks rather than discrete characters) were never added to the Teragrammaton (unless it was the vowels of "Adonai" as noted by Ladislaus). YHWH might have been pronounced "Yahuweh," "Yohuwah," or one of any number of combinations. "Yahweh" is really nothing more than a scholarly best guess, based on the pronunciation of Hebrew personal names which contain portions of the Divine Name (much like Our Lord's own Blessed Name - Yehoshua).
But there's really no question that the Name refers to Almighty God's self-declaration ("I AM WHO AM"). It is almost certainly the third person form of that declaration rendered in an ancient form of Hebrew. We can even see cognates of it in modern Semitic languages. For example, in Arabic (and my own mother tongue, Maltese) the word for "he is" is "huwa" (note the consonants - HW).
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The "JW's" are Arian heretics. A simple refutation of Arianism used by St. Augustine, St. Athanasius etc that the heretics could never answer was that the Son of God told us to be baptized in the "Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost" (Mat 28:19). Now, since He says Name, He teaches that the Three are One. This is the Name of the Trinity, the one Name of the Triune God. Arianism is a detestable heresy, condemned by all of Sacred Scripture. Were it not for the Protestant revolution and the disastrous principle of private interpretation it introduced, Arianism would never have reappeared. St. Peter, St. Paul, St. John, St. Thomas etc all teach Jesus is God and Creator, (2 Pet 1:1; Acts 20:28) Phil 2:6; Rom 9:5; Col 1:16-17; Jn 1:1;3; Jn 20:28), it was not a mere man, but God who redeemed us in His own blood, as these verses teach, and whoever does not know and believe that, and moreover is not baptized properly is not by any means a Christian, is a heretic, is yet in his sins, and is on the way to hell.
JW's assert an absurdity when they say that Jesus didn't create, contrary to these passages, or when they say He was supposedly a creature but was still instrumental in the creation of others. That is impossible and senseless, because no creature can create anything, nor be an intermediary in the act of creation, which only the Creator can accomplish and requires infinite power, since God brings a being into existence from non-being without a material cause. And Genesis clearly shows us God alone creates all things by His Word and His Spirit, just as St. John says. God's Word is in Him, and is inseparable from Him, just as is His Spirit. When God decides to create, He creates through His own intellect and will alone, His Word and His Spirit. When God says "Let Us make man", there is the plurality of the Godhead revealed right there in Gen 1:26. God conceives the object He wishes to create, and merely wills it into existence, He speaks the Word and they are called into being, He breathes His Spirit and they have life, as Psa 33:6 says.
The Name YHWH, as other posters have mentioned, describes God's eternal and self-subsistent nature. Jesus uses the same Name to describe Himself (Jn 8:24;8:58) and also declares faith in His divinity to be absolutely necessary for salvation. We know this by divine revelation, and we are bound to believe it to be saved. But although it is above reason, since no one can comprehend the Godhead, it is not opposed to reason, the Church who is infallibly guided by the Holy Spirit, and those whom She has approved can help us gain some understanding, as Vatican I declares, "Now reason, does indeed when it seeks persistently, piously and soberly, achieve by God's gift some understanding, and that most profitable, of the mysteries, whether by analogy from what it knows naturally, or from the connection of these mysteries with one another and with the final end of humanity; but reason is never rendered capable of penetrating these mysteries in the way in which it penetrates those truths which form its proper object." We believe in divine revelation because we are taught by the authority of Christ and His only true Church, not on what we judge or prefer to be true.
God is a Trinity, because He is eternal and self-subsistent. In a Being who is self-subsistent, St. Thomas proves at length, there can be no potentiality, nothing that God can become that He is already not. But if His intellect were not His Essence, His Intellect would be related to Him as act to potency. Therefore, His Intellect or His Word is His own Essence. And likewise, His Will or His Spirit is also His own Essence. God, His Word and His Spirit are One Being. The Word begotten of the Father alone, the Spirit proceeding from the Father and Son. A distinction of Person within the unity of Essence. The Holy Trinity. An analogy used by some of the Fathers was the light and heat proceeding from the sun, but in a way one with and inseparable from it.
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I always think "I AM WHO AM" is far more meaningful than "I AM WHO I AM." Anyone can say "I am who I am." Plus, it reminds me of that "gαy" anthem.
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Hi,
I am in a discussion with a JW who tells me that in EX 3: 13-15 JB :
Then Moses said to God, I am to go,then, to the sons of Israel and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you. But if they ask me what his name is, what am I to tell them? And God said to Moses. I am who I am. This he added is what you must say to the sons of Israel: I am has sent me to you. And God also said to Moses, you are to say to the sons of Israel: Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name for all time: by this name I shall be invoked for all generations.,
She is telling me that I am who I am is not a name and that his name was known in Gen 4:1 JB:
The man had intercourse with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. I have aquired a man with the help of Yahweh.
Other bibles have the Lord instead of Yahweh.
Naturally the NWT has Jehovah.
Lord in the Hebrew text is # H3068 in the Strongs concordance which means the proper name of the True God.
So when God says his name is I am who I am what does he mean?
Thanks
It seems like you are trying to talk reason with a JW, but to do so, you would need to convince them that their bible came from our bible, after it was adulterated and corrupted and that they place their faith and salvation in a corrupted bible. Their very name, "Jehova Witness" states they witness for a false god, even if this Jehova is in their bible - it's not in the bible.
Could be the best thing you can do is to insist that they study from the Douay Rheims (Haydock version) for a few months before you can discuss it further. At least then your discussion would be about the same thing.
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What an interesting question. These quoted verses do not appear so in the Catholic bible, though. From the Douay Rheims:
[1] And Adam knew Eve his wife: who conceived and brought forth Cain, saying: I have gotten a man through God.
[13] Moses said to God: Lo, I shall go to the children of Israel, and say to them: The God of your fathers hath sent me to you. If they should say to me: What is his name? what shall I say to them? [14] God said to Moses: I AM WHO AM. He said: Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel: HE WHO IS, hath sent me to you. [15] And God said again to Moses: Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel: The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me to you: This is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.
It follows that the proper name of God is HE WHICH IS, QUI EST; because it determines all manners of being: He is "being itself, eternal, self-existent, independent, infinite; without beginning, end, or change; and the source of all other beings".
My original quotes of Gen and EX came from the JB which is a Catholic bible.
also the Didache bible has Gen 4:1 saying...I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.
Ex reads the same as the JB I am Who I am.
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Hi,
I am in a discussion with a JW who tells me that in EX 3: 13-15 JB :
Then Moses said to God, I am to go,then, to the sons of Israel and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you. But if they ask me what his name is, what am I to tell them? And God said to Moses. I am who I am. This he added is what you must say to the sons of Israel: I am has sent me to you. And God also said to Moses, you are to say to the sons of Israel: Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name for all time: by this name I shall be invoked for all generations.,
She is telling me that I am who I am is not a name and that his name was known in Gen 4:1 JB:
The man had intercourse with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. I have aquired a man with the help of Yahweh.
Other bibles have the Lord instead of Yahweh.
Naturally the NWT has Jehovah.
Lord in the Hebrew text is # H3068 in the Strongs concordance which means the proper name of the True God.
So when God says his name is I am who I am what does he mean?
Thanks
It seems like you are trying to talk reason with a JW, but to do so, you would need to convince them that their bible came from our bible, after it was adulterated and corrupted and that they place their faith and salvation in a corrupted bible. Their very name, "Jehova Witness" states they witness for a false god, even if this Jehova is in their bible - it's not in the bible.
Could be the best thing you can do is to insist that they study from the Douay Rheims (Haydock version) for a few months before you can discuss it further. At least then your discussion would be about the same thing.
That would be wonderful but she would never use the DR even for a few months.
According to her they have the ONLY true bible.. God help them all
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Yes, Jehovah's Witnessism is nothjing more than warmed over, Protestantized Arianism. And I find it most interesting that, like the original Arians, the JWs reject the Trinity out of some supposedly rigorous defense of monotheism, but in so doing, necessarily lapse immediately into polytheism. Just look at the way they render St. John 1:1 ("The Word was with God, and the Word was a god"). With this rendering, they abuse the grammar of the original Greek (Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεός ἦν ὁ λόγος.), in which the second instance of "God" ("θεός") refers to the Nature, as distinct from the first instance of "God" ("θεόν") which refers to Person (a distinction lost in English and many other languages).
But simple common sense will tell the English reader that the sense in which Our Lord is "with God," and the sense in which he "is God" are different - Our Lord is with God the Father and the Holy Ghost, but He is God the Son. While a translation that renders the verse "The Word was with God, and the Word was Divine" might have made that distinction a bit clearer, one is hard pressed to explain translating the verse as "the Word was a god." Well, then what was the Word if it was "a god," but not The God? Zeus? Thor? Crom Cruach? Utter nonsense. If the Word's Nature is "θεός" then the Word is God; not God the Father, but God the Son. Our Lord could be no clearer: "Before Abraham was, I AM."
The only rational form of Monotheism is Trinitarianism. All other attempts at "rigorous" monotheism necessarily revert to polytheism. Greater and holier minds than ours established this at Nicaea.
I'd recommend presenting this inescapable fact to your JW friend, OP.
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The "JW's" are Arian heretics. A simple refutation of Arianism used by St. Augustine, St. Athanasius etc that the heretics could never answer was that the Son of God told us to be baptized in the "Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost" (Mat 28:19). Now, since He says Name, He teaches that the Three are One. This is the Name of the Trinity, the one Name of the Triune God. Arianism is a detestable heresy, condemned by all of Sacred Scripture. Were it not for the Protestant revolution and the disastrous principle of private interpretation it introduced, Arianism would never have reappeared. St. Peter, St. Paul, St. John, St. Thomas etc all teach Jesus is God and Creator, (2 Pet 1:1; Acts 20:28) Phil 2:6; Rom 9:5; Col 1:16-17; Jn 1:1;3; Jn 20:28), it was not a mere man, but God who redeemed us in His own blood, as these verses teach, and whoever does not know and believe that, and moreover is not baptized properly is not by any means a Christian, is a heretic, is yet in his sins, and is on the way to hell.
JW's assert an absurdity when they say that Jesus didn't create, contrary to these passages, or when they say He was supposedly a creature but was still instrumental in the creation of others. That is impossible and senseless, because no creature can create anything, nor be an intermediary in the act of creation, which only the Creator can accomplish and requires infinite power, since God brings a being into existence from non-being without a material cause. And Genesis clearly shows us God alone creates all things by His Word and His Spirit, just as St. John says. God's Word is in Him, and is inseparable from Him, just as is His Spirit. When God decides to create, He creates through His own intellect and will alone, His Word and His Spirit. When God says "Let Us make man", there is the plurality of the Godhead revealed right there in Gen 1:26. God conceives the object He wishes to create, and merely wills it into existence, He speaks the Word and they are called into being, He breathes His Spirit and they have life, as Psa 33:6 says.
The Name YHWH, as other posters have mentioned, describes God's eternal and self-subsistent nature. Jesus uses the same Name to describe Himself (Jn 8:24;8:58) and also declares faith in His divinity to be absolutely necessary for salvation. We know this by divine revelation, and we are bound to believe it to be saved. But although it is above reason, since no one can comprehend the Godhead, it is not opposed to reason, the Church who is infallibly guided by the Holy Spirit, and those whom She has approved can help us gain some understanding, as Vatican I declares, "Now reason, does indeed when it seeks persistently, piously and soberly, achieve by God's gift some understanding, and that most profitable, of the mysteries, whether by analogy from what it knows naturally, or from the connection of these mysteries with one another and with the final end of humanity; but reason is never rendered capable of penetrating these mysteries in the way in which it penetrates those truths which form its proper object." We believe in divine revelation because we are taught by the authority of Christ and His only true Church, not on what we judge or prefer to be true.
God is a Trinity, because He is eternal and self-subsistent. In a Being who is self-subsistent, St. Thomas proves at length, there can be no potentiality, nothing that God can become that He is already not. But if His intellect were not His Essence, His Intellect would be related to Him as act to potency. Therefore, His Intellect or His Word is His own Essence. And likewise, His Will or His Spirit is also His own Essence. God, His Word and His Spirit are One Being. The Word begotten of the Father alone, the Spirit proceeding from the Father and Son. A distinction of Person within the unity of Essence. The Holy Trinity. An analogy used by some of the Fathers was the light and heat proceeding from the sun, but in a way one with and inseparable from it.
Thank you for this. I printed it out so I can read it and look of the verses at leisure. I did look up 2 of them
2 Pet1:1 their bible the NWT has that verse translated...of our God and THE savior Jesus Christ.
So they add "the" implying that Jesus isn't God.
Acts 20:28 The NWT has...the blood of His own son . Again, Jesus is not God.
Their bible is a fiction but the only one that has any meaning for them.
It is a shame she is a wonderful person and a former Catholic who prayed the rosary every night with her family when she was a child. I wonder what happened to her for the drastic change from the truth to a gigantic lie that she believes now.
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That would be wonderful but she would never use the DR even for a few months.
According to her they have the ONLY true bible.. God help them all
Maybe you could quote some Scripture from some of the books they took out.
Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus/Sirach, Baruch, I Maccabees, and II Maccabees, not to mention 3 chapters of Daniel and 6 chapters of Esther were removed.
I am particularly fond of quoting them from the book of Ecclesiasticus, particularly from 24:24-31 as per many saints, it relates to Our Blessed Mother.
They won't have a clue if you do not venture away from quoting from any of those books.
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Jehovah's Witnesses go so far as to teach that Jesus is actually St. Michael the Archangel himself! They maintain that Our Lord was Michael the archangel prior to his coming to earth. They assert: "Scriptural evidence indicates that the name Michael applied to God's Son before he left heaven to become Jesus Christ and also after his return" (Aid to Bible Understanding, Watchtower Bible & Tract Society, 1971, 1152).
http://www.jw.org/en/publications/books/bible-teach/who-is-michael-the-archangel/
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God bless you for trying to bring your friend back to the faith.
However, I still hold that you are allowing her to dictate the debate by arguing her points from her heretical reference book (I refuse to call it a bible).
I would prove to her the error of this reference, upon which she is risking her salvation.
The New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scripture is a fumbling translation of the New Testament that no reputable Greek scholar will endorse. The Translation has been altered to fit the heresy. For instance, the Greek word for "other," allos, does not appear in the Greek text of Colossians 1:16, 17 but it is inserted four times in their translation to make Christ appear as part of the creation, and therefore fit their doctrine that He is a created son, another god. "...because by means of Him all other things were created." This and dozens of other passages make the New World Translation a travesty of God's Word.
Does your friend know the truth about the founder of this diabolical cult?
In 1847, a Brooklyn haberdasher, Charles Taze Russel, announced that he possessed all the truth. In his many volumes, Russel "left scarcely one great truth or fundamental doctrine untouched with his unholy and unwarranted conclusions," (Dr. William E. Biederwolf). As a careful study will reveal, Russel's writings serve as a broad base upon which the Jehovah's Witness structure is built. Presently the Jehovah's Witnesses are following the fallen conclusions of a rascal who was divorced by his wife, was in trouble with the courts, and who fleeced his followers with "miracle wheat" sold at an exorbitant price, which he claimed would produce 15 times as much wheat as an ordinary bushel.
Does she know the direct connection of JW's to Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ? Your friend is serving satan.
Direct ties to Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ (http://www.sixscreensofthewatchtower.com/2charlestazerussell.html)
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God bless you for trying to bring your friend back to the faith.
However, I still hold that you are allowing her to dictate the debate by arguing her points from her heretical reference book (I refuse to call it a bible).
I would prove to her the error of this reference, upon which she is risking her salvation.
The New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scripture is a fumbling translation of the New Testament that no reputable Greek scholar will endorse. The Translation has been altered to fit the heresy. For instance, the Greek word for "other," allos, does not appear in the Greek text of Colossians 1:16, 17 but it is inserted four times in their translation to make Christ appear as part of the creation, and therefore fit their doctrine that He is a created son, another god. "...because by means of Him all other things were created." This and dozens of other passages make the New World Translation a travesty of God's Word.
Does your friend know the truth about the founder of this diabolical cult?
In 1847, a Brooklyn haberdasher, Charles Taze Russel, announced that he possessed all the truth. In his many volumes, Russel "left scarcely one great truth or fundamental doctrine untouched with his unholy and unwarranted conclusions," (Dr. William E. Biederwolf). As a careful study will reveal, Russel's writings serve as a broad base upon which the Jehovah's Witness structure is built. Presently the Jehovah's Witnesses are following the fallen conclusions of a rascal who was divorced by his wife, was in trouble with the courts, and who fleeced his followers with "miracle wheat" sold at an exorbitant price, which he claimed would produce 15 times as much wheat as an ordinary bushel.
Does she know the direct connection of JW's to Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ? Your friend is serving satan.
Direct ties to Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ (http://www.sixscreensofthewatchtower.com/2charlestazerussell.html)
She knows some of it but the Watchtower has a way of hiding every thing and they change their doctrine about every 10 years. If she would read the site you linked she wouldn't believe it. If she gave it any credence at all I think she would say that mistakes were made in the past and corrected. She would praise them for admitting the errors and correcting them.
She is in for the long haul unless the Holy Spirit enlightens her.
I would hope that I can and have planted some seeds of truth.
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Jehovah's Witnesses go so far as to teach that Jesus is actually St. Michael the Archangel himself! They maintain that Our Lord was Michael the archangel prior to his coming to earth. They assert: "Scriptural evidence indicates that the name Michael applied to God's Son before he left heaven to become Jesus Christ and also after his return" (Aid to Bible Understanding, Watchtower Bible & Tract Society, 1971, 1152).
http://www.jw.org/en/publications/books/bible-teach/who-is-michael-the-archangel/
I am pretty well versed on their teachings. I have been in conversation with my friend the JW for years. What really blows my mind is the nonsense about 1914 and how they arrive at that date. I don't know how reasonably intelligent people get sucked into such a disastrous teaching if you can call it that.
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They also don't celebrate holidays and birthdays at all, Easter and Our Lord's Nativity included, on the basis that they're "pagan" or something. How can one claim the moniker of "Christian" but dismiss those days? I don't get it.
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I would hope that I can and have planted some seeds of truth.
Keep doing what you're doing Phyllo. He speaks to her through you.
I'm sure you've reminded her of her magnificent birthright, since you say she's a baptized Catholic. It's tragic how many badly catechized Catholics gravitate toward JW's and, as you have pointed out, prying them away and back to the faith is very difficult. More fruits of the modernist Church. I'd wager few trad Catholics are tempted by this cult.
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Does she know the direct connection of JW's to Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ? Your friend is serving satan.
Direct ties to Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ
Oh yes! The same as the Mormons. Freemasons are behind many heretic sects.