Dear Terry, i read what your saying, but its mybelief that my rabbi Jesus teaches that if you know the Truth which the Truth my dear friend is the Word and the Word is rabbi Jesus, His teachings, it is then when you study and live it out in this world this Truth shall set you free, free from hardships that others go through just as you did before baptism- you must repent and be baptized to know this, and its not a one time repentance either, i am constantly in differant opinions with you and it is not good for me to feel these feelings about you. Im not interested in someone's opinions i replied to you only! I deal with what the Holy scriptures and living it out with ones daily life says, granted we are only human and we do make mistakes but thank God for Grace. Read in James 2:14-26 and in Colossions 3:17. Revelation 21:8  in short, sinners, unbelievers and the like if one does not overcome his demonds, vices, idols- thier place will be in the fiery lake of buning sulfer. This is the second death. Again if you have read my scriptures here, you must have the Holy bible dont you Terry? faith without deeds is dead. Goodnight Terry. God_bless you. Sorry Nick. My last post.

Thomas,

You ask do I have the Holy Bible after seeing all the scriptures I've posted trying to educate people about what it REALLY teaches?  How amusing! 

As a matter of fact, I have and use the most accurate Bible in the world!  The one that has not only restored and thus exalts and glorifies and gives honor to God's Holy name, Jehovah, to every one of the approximately 7,000 places it once was in the scriptures, which has sadly been stricken from most Bibles except just possibly at Ps. 83:18, if at all, but which Bible was published through years of exhaustive, painstaking research to make it just that, the most accurate, which is the New World Translation!  (more on this at the end of my post)

You might find this interesting:

Recently on Jeopardy on TV....One of the questions was.....What is the most accurate translation of the Holy Scriptures??  No one got the correct answer, so Alex Trebek said "New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, printed by Watchtower Bible Tract Society."

Thomas, I may be mistaken, but I think you use the King James Version of the Bible.  Regardless, I used to myself until I learned the truth, and I know many of the religions of christendom do use this "version."  The key word here is "version."  A version is someone's opinion, not a literal translation.  Thus, it can and most likely will reflect the publisher's opinion on certain beliefs.  This is true of the King James version.  King James himself commissioned this version to be produced in a very hurried fashion, and, as a result of this hurried production and his belief in the trinity doctrine, the resulting version expounded this belief by changing certain scriptures so as to accord therewith, and actually contains over 7,000 errors in translation!

In all the past religious forums here in Adland, Thomas, you have historically persecuted and opposed me and my efforts of bringing truth to people, even to the point of saying I'm not a Christian.  You have just said, "i am constantly in differant opinions with you and it is not good for me to feel these feelings about you." To which I say, Jesus himself said his true followers would be persecuted just as he was.  There is no need for you to feel this way, Thomas.  My motives are pure in trying to help everyone gain everlasting life.  I was for over 50 years unknowingly lost in one of christendom's religions.  Every religion has some elements of the truth, Thomas, but it's their false teachings and support of mixed worship with pagan-rooted rituals like those associated with x-mas, halloween, easter, etc., that Jehovah warns against, which nullify and make void their whole religion.  He rightfully demands purity in His worship.  

To illustrate, suppose someone is going to bake a cake and has the cake batter all mixed up and ready to put in the oven, but, before doing so, mixes in a tiny fragment of their dog's poop in that batter, then pops that baby in the oven until done.  When done, are you going to eat any of that cake?  Is just a tiny portion of that cake bad or is the whole cake bad?  Well, from Jehovah God's viewpoint, the same principle holds true with religion.  Any religion that embraces and supports these pagan-rooted holidays is impure and thus unacceptable to Him.  No matter if they do teach some elements of the truth found in the Bible, if they teach one single falsehood or mix in one single pagan ritual of old in their worship, which christendom's religions indisputably do, then their religion is "unclean" and is unacceptable to Jehovah.  He tells us to quit touching the unclean thing and He will take us in. 

2 Cor. 6:17, "'Therefore get out from among them, and separate yourselves,' says Jehovah, ‘and quit touching the unclean thing; and I will take YOU in.'"

Jehovah gives us countless examples of this lesson for our benefit in His dealings with the ancient Israelites.  Time and time again, He warned His people not to mix their pure form of worship with that of the people of the lands He handed over to them, yet time and time again they did just that, so that Jehovah ended up punishing them. 

Thomas, you're preaching to the choir when mention the scriptures in James 2, which I have myself pointed out to you and others here in the past, which tell us that faith without works is dead.  Many in christendom are taught that faith in Jesus alone guarantees them salvation, but that's not true as these scriptures explain. Even Satan and his demons believe in Jesus.  But one may ask, what are these works we must do?  Well, Jesus gave us the answer in the form of a commandment at Matt. 28: 19 & 20 and Matt. 24:14, where he told us to go and preach the good news.

"What's a billion" is the theme of this forum, and it's also the number of hours of this "works" James spoke about that Jesus' true footstep followers, Jehovah's Witnesses, spend in obedience to this command on a yearly basis.  Yes, we do the "works" worldwide over 3 million hours daily.  That over 342,000 years of service per day spent in "works."  Not yours, nor any one of self-proclaimed christian religions do this on any regular basis.  In fact, all of the over 37,000 self-proclaimed christian religions put together don't even come close to this amount of "works."

Thomas, in all your varied postings about your beliefs, you have always referred to "my rabbi Jesus teaches" and yet you fail to recognize a very important, in fact, paramount truth that Jesus taught, the importance of his Father's Holy name, which is Jehovah!  Jesus himself tells us in the model prayer at Matt. 6:9 that his Father's name is to be sanctified, considered holy, and in several other places in the scriptures Jesus said in talking to his Father, "I have made your name manifest." (John 17:6, 26)  The Christian apostle Paul shows that a deep love for Jehovah himself, the Person represented by the divine name, would move a Christian to "offer to God a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of lips which make public declaration to His name." (Heb. 13:15).  Now, I ask you, Thomas, can one do this if they refuse to use and glorify and proclaim His holy name, and instead strike it from their Bibles and only refer to Him as G-O-D or L-O-R-D, which are titles, not names?  Is that showing love and honor and respect for your Creator?  NO.  Just as someone who knows your name and refused to use it would not be showing you proper respect!  Yes, your rabbi Jesus taught us what his Father, Jehovah God, the Almighty God, the Most High, taught him, and Jesus came to do whose will?  Not his own, but that of his Father's! (John 5:30) 

Thomas, it is a requirement for salvation that we know and use God's name.  The Holy Scriptures say: "Everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will be saved." (Romans 10:13) Our salvation on the day of judgment will be related to our knowing the name of God. That includes knowing his attributes, works, and purposes as well as living in harmony with his high principles. For example, Abraham knew God’s name and called on that name. As a result, he enjoyed a good relationship with God, showed faith in him, relied on him, and obeyed him. He became God’s friend. Likewise, our knowing God’s name draws us close to him and helps us to develop a personal relationship with him, assuring us of his love. (Genesis 12:8; Psalm 9:10; Proverbs 18:10; John 17:26; James 2:23). The Holy Scriptures say that Jehovah God "kept paying attention and listening. And a book of remembrance began to be written up before him for those in fear of Jehovah and for those thinking upon his name." (Malachi 3:16)

As I stated at the beginning of this post, I have the most accurate Bible in the world.  Here's an article you might find interesting, written not by one of Jehovah's Witnesses, but by an unbiased professor of religious studies.

This is worth reading:

 Book: "TRUTH IN TRANSLATION: ACCURACY AND BIAS IN ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT"    

Author: Jason David BeDuhn is the Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.  He holds a B.A. in Religious Studies from the University of Illinois, Urbana, an M.T.S. in New Testament and Christian Origins form Harvard Divinity School, and a Ph.D. in Comparative Study of Religions form Indiana University, Bloomington.
The Nine English Translations Compared in BeDuhn's book are :


- The King James Version (KJV)
- The Amplified Bible (AB)
- The Living Bible (LB)

- The New American Bible (NAB)
- The New American Standard Bible (NASB)   

- The New International Version (NIV)

- The New World Translation (NW)

- The (New) Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

- Today's English Version (TEV)

Excerpts from his book :

Chapter Four :  Examples of translation of the Greek word "proskuneo", used 58 times in the New Testament.  The word is translated various ways as worship, do obeisance, fall down on one's knees, bow before.  Scriptures discussed include Matt. 18:26; Rev. 3:9; Mark 15:18,19; Matt 2:1, 2, 8,11; Matt 14:33; Matt 28:9, "... in our exploration of this issue, we can see how theological bias has been the determining context for the choices made by all of the translations except the NAB and NW... translators seem to feel the need to add to the New Testament support for the idea that Jesus was recognized to be God."  Regarding Matt. 28:16, 17, where all versions except the NW use "worship " where the NW uses "did obeisance": "Here all translations except the NW have recourse to "worship" -- a rendering which makes no sense in this context...  This contradiction seems to be missed by all the translators except those who prepared the NW."

Chapter Five :  A discussion of Philippians 2:5-11: "The NW translators... have understood "harpagmos" accurately as grasping at something one does not have, that is, a "seizure."  The literary context supports the NW translation (and refutes the KJV's "thought it not robbery to be equal)..."

Chapter Seven :  A discussion on Col. 1: 15-20: "It is a tricky passage where every translation must add words."  "The LB translator is guilty of all the doctrinal importation discussed above with reference to the NIV, NRSV, and TEV, and even surpasses them in this respect.  So it is the NIV, NRSV, TEV and LB -- the four Bibles that make no attempt to mark added words - that actually add the most significant tendentious material.  Yet in many  public forums on Bible translation, the practice of these four translations is rarely if ever pointed to or criticized, while the NW is attacked for adding the innocuous "other" in a way that clearly indicates its character as an addition of the translators... But the NW is correct. "Other" is implied in "all", and the NW simply makes what is implicit explicit... It is ironic that the translation of Col. 1:15-20 that has received the most criticism is the one where the "added words" are fully justified by what is implied in the Greek."

Chapter Eight :  A discussion on Titus 2:13; 2 Thess. 1:12; 2 Peter 1:1, 2: "... the position of those who insist "God" and "Savior" must refer to the same being... is decidedly weakened."

Chapter Nine :  A discussion of Hebrews 8:1: "so we must conclude that the more probable translation is "God is your throne..., " the translation found in the NW...  It seems likely that it is only because most translations were made by people who already believe that Jesus is God that the less probable way of translating this verse has been preferred."

Chapter Ten :  A discussion on John 8:58: "Both the LB and the NW offer translations that coordinate the two verbs in John 8:58 according to proper English syntax, and that accurately reflect the meaning of the Greek idiom.  The other translations fail to do this."  "There is absolutely nothing in the original Greek of John 8:58 to suggest that Jesus is quoting the Old Testament here, contrary to what the TEV tries to suggest by putting quotations marks around "I am.""

"The majority of translations recognize these idiomatic uses of "I am", and properly integrate the words into the context of the passages where they appear.  Yet when it comes to 8:58, they suddenly forget how to translate."  "All the translations except the LB and NW also ignore the true relation between the verbs of the sentence and produce a sentence that makes no sense in English.  These changes in the meaning of the Greek and in the normal procedure for translation point to a bias that has interfered with the work of the translators."  "No one listening to Jesus, and no one reading John in his own time would have picked up on a divine self-identification in the mere expression "I am," which, if you think about, is just about the most common pronoun-verb combination in any language."  "The NW... understands the re lation between the two verbs correctly...  The average Bible reader might never guess that there was something wrong with the other translations, and might even assume that the error was to be found in the... NW."

Chapter Eleven :  A discussion of John 1:1: "Surprisingly, only one, the NW, adheres to the literal meaning of the Greek, and translates "a god."  "Translators of the KJV, NRSV, NIV, NAB, NASB, AB, TEV and LB all approached the text at John 1:1 already believing certain things about the Word... and made sure that the translations came out in accordance with their beliefs. ... Ironically, some of these same scholars are quick to charge the NW translation with "doctrinal bias" for translating the verse literally, free of KJV influence, following the sense of the Greek.  It may very well be that the NW translators came to the task of translating John 1:1 with as much bia s as the other translators did.  It just so happens that their bias corresponds in this case to a more accurate translation of the Greek"  "Some early Christians maintained their monotheism by believing that the one God simply took on a human form and came to earth -- in effect, God the Father was born and crucified as Jesus.  They are entitled to their belief, but it cannot be derived legitimately from the Gospel according to John."

"John himself has not formulated a Trinity concept in his Gospel."  "All that we can ask is that a translation be an accurate starting point for exposition and interpretation.  Only the NW achieves that, as provocative as it sounds to the modern reader.  The other translations cut off the exploration of the verse's meaning before it has even begun."

Chapter Twelve :  A discussion of holy spirit:  "In Chapter Twelve, no translation emerged with a perfectly consistent and accurate handling of the many uses and nuances of "spirit" and "holy spirit."  The NW scored highest in using correct impersonal forms of the relative and demonstrative pronouns consistently with the neuter noun "holy spirit," and in adhering to the indefinite expression "holy spirit" in those few instances when it was used by the Biblical authors."

Summary :  "... it can be said that the NW emerges as the most accurate of the translations compared...the translators managed to produce works relatively more accurate and less biased than the translations produced by multi-denominational teams, as well as those produced by single individuals."  "Jehovah's Witnesses... really sought to re-invent Christianity from scratch... building their system of belief and practice from the raw material of the Bible without predetermining what was to be found there.  Some critics, of course, would say that the results of this practice can be naive.  But for Bible translation, at least, it has meant a fresh approach to the text, with far less presumption than that found in may of the Protestant translations."

"...Most of the differences are due to the greater accuracy of the NW as a literal, conservative translation of the original expressions of the New Testament."

Commenting on bias in translation :   "To me, it expresses a lack of courage, a fear that the Bible does not back up their "truth" enough.  To let the Bible have its say, regardless of how well or poorly that say conforms to expectations or accepted forms of modern Christianity is an exercise in courage or, to use another word for it, faith."

In closing, Thomas, I want to re-emphasize that I feel no animosity towards you, although I admit I did in the past, because I was once in your position, and I know you must have a good heart or you wouldn't be involved in these religious forums.  Most people today could care less about religion, but they will soon pay for that with their lives.  I only pray that you, too, will take my counsel to heart and come to know Jehovah God's will for you, "whose will is that all sorts of men should be saved and come to an accurate knowledge of truth." (1 Tim. 2: 3 & 4)

Terry

Nick,

Wonderful poem, and may it please you to know that soon Jehovah God will complete His original purpose for the earth and mankind, when all these good things you speak about in your poem will be accomplished!

On the subject of us not being alone, please consider the following:

Extraterrestrials - Finding the Answer

ON February 17, 1600, a man named Giordano Bruno was burned alive in a public square of Rome, Italy. Why? His writings had offended the church. Among other things, he taught that there were many inhabited worlds in the universe. Back in the 11th century, the church had declared that doctrine, the plurality of worlds, a heresy. To teach it was to die. Bruno died.

Until the 19th century, the debate over whether life exists on other worlds was carried on in the arena of religion. For centuries, religious leaders and scientists under their influence insisted that the earth was at the center of the universe; that the universe was created in 4004 B.C.E.; and so forth.

Small wonder, then, that many scientists and others have little respect for religion. In the process, though, many have lost their respect for the Bible as well, imagining that it was the source of all those misconceptions. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Bible does not purport to be a science textbook. However, it is never inaccurate when it touches on the subject of the universe or on any scientific matter. For example, the Bible never says that the earth and man are the center of the universe. On the contrary, its inspired writers showed a clear sense of how insignificant man is compared to the vast cosmos. Psalm 8:3, 4.

So, then, according to the Bible, is anyone out there?

The Bible Answers

According to the Bible, extraterrestrial life not only exists but exists in abundance. It is more complex, more interesting, and more believable than anything that evolutionists, science-fiction writers, and moviemakers have dreamed up. After all, an extraterrestrial is simply a being who originates outside this earth and its atmosphere.

Scientists wonder if there might be life-forms beyond our ability to detect. The Bible assures us that such beings do indeed exist. But they are not the products of evolution. Like all life in the universe, in whatever form, they came from the Source of life, Jehovah God. He is a spirit Being, and he has created myriads of other spirit beings of different types: angels, cherubs, and seraphs. They perform different work and functions in his intricate heavenly organization. Psalm 104:4; Hebrews 12:22; Revelation 19:14.

What About Life on Other Planets?

Some influential religious figures have insisted that God would not create any world without purpose and that all habitable worlds must therefore be inhabited. Is that what the Bible says? No. The Bible indicates that it is very unlikely that God at this point has created intelligent physical creatures on any planets other than our own. How so?

If God did create such beings, he did so before he created Adam and Eve. Such beings either remained faithful to their Creator, or like Adam and Eve, they sinned and fell into imperfection.

But if they became imperfect, they needed a redeemer. As one essayist put it: "One has this dreadful thought that on Friday [the day Jesus Christ was executed], every Friday, somewhere in the universe Jesus is being hanged high for someone’s sins." But that is not Scriptural. The Bible tells us that Jesus "died with reference to sin once for all time." Romans 6:10.

What if these beings had remained perfect? Well, when Adam and Eve sinned, they were, in effect, questioning God’s right to rule over a world of intelligent physical beings. If another planet existed at that time, a world full of intelligent physical beings who were living harmoniously and loyally under God’s rule, would they not have been called in as witnesses to testify that God’s rule does indeed work? This conclusion seems inescapable, since he has already used even imperfect humans as witnesses in his behalf on that very issue. Isaiah 43:10.

Does that mean, then, that God created all those countless millions of suns (and planets if they exist) for no purpose? Not at all. While we know, considering the uniqueness of Jesus Christ, that the earth is the only inhabited planet in the universe right now, and while we know, too, that it will forever stand unique as the planet where the Creator vindicated the rightfulness of his rulership, what the future holds we do not know.

We Are Not Alone

Day after day, year in and year out, SETI astronomers continue to comb the skies for signals from intelligent life. They feel that their search may take another decade, or it may take a century. How ironic! They are spending their lives, their hopes, and huge amounts of money looking for a signal that mankind received centuries ago. For the Bible itself is a message from an extraterrestrial Intelligence, and it is superior in every way to the signals that even the most optimistic scientists envision.

How has mankind responded to the only genuine extraterrestrial message? How do humans, by and large, respond to the Bible? They ignore it. They deliberately misapply it to their own ends. They insult its Sender with an appalling array of baseless and superstitious teachings. They even call it a fraud and deny the very existence of its Sender. Needless to say, our Creator has been far from pleased with humanity’s response. Still, he has continued to communicate. By means of his Word, he is educating millions of people today in the ways of peace. These people represent Jehovah and carry his communications to the world. But only a tiny minority of mankind listens to them. The world in general turns a deaf ear. Isaiah 2:2-4; Matthew 24:14.

Happily, though, each of us can communicate with the greatest Being in the universe, and this without expensive technology, without waiting ages for messages to cross the void of space. You can listen now by studying your Bible and proving for yourself whether it does indeed come from a superhuman Source. You can respond by prayer and by the way you live your life. We are not alone. Our Creator promises that "he is not far off from each one of us." Acts 17:27; see also 1 Chronicles 28:9.

He has not finished communicating with humanity either. He has promised to change drastically the course of world history, to end mankind’s headlong rush toward self-destruction by completely dismantling this unworkable system of things and replacing it with a government of his own making, one that will really work for the good of all. (Daniel 2:44; Isaiah 9:6, 7)  Yes, the next communication from the greatest extraterrestrial Intelligence, Jehovah God, promises to come in the form of action, not words, and all those not doing His will, which are the vast majority of humans, will at that time suffer eternal death. (2 Thessalonians 1:6-9).

Terry