jehovah witnesses,are they a cult?

[southernfinery]

Jehovah's Witnesses, also known as the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society with headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, was officially founded in 1884 as the Zion's Watch Tower and Tract Society ,originally the Zion's Watch Tower in 1879, officially adopting the name of Jehovah's Witnesses in 1931, by Charles Taze Russell (1852-1916). In 1870, Russell was exposed to the teachings of William Miller, one of the founders of the Second Adventist Movement and acquired an interest in end time prophecies. Russell originally denied the doctrine of Hell, and would go on to reject nearly every other Christian doctrine, as well as add many physically and spiritually dangerous doctrines of his own making. Many of these unique and bizarre teachings were to be found in his six volume series titled, Studies in the Scriptures.JW leadership claims its victims by asserting itself to be the sole Christian religion and authority on the earth today, as well as God's mouthpiece or prophet. The Watchtower further disrupts families through its harsh and unbiblical interpretation of "disfellowshipping" and the practice of "shunning." Family members who are former JWs are labeled by Watchtower adherents as "apostates" and prevented from even social contact. Disfellowshipped or disassociated children, parents, and grandparents are kept from any type of communication with active members of the organization. Divorces are common within the sect when one member becomes disillusioned with Watchtower teaching and mind-control.Not only has the name of this cult been changed time and again, but they also change their doctrines regularly; between 1917 and 1928, they changed their doctrines 148 times. Prior to 1931 Jehovah's Witnesses had also gone by the names of Millennial Dawn, People's Pulpit Association, The Brooklyn Tabernacle, and the International Bible Students Association. Russell died in 1916 and was replaced by the second president, Joseph F. Rutherford. A process of replacing Russells writings with Rutherfords began in 1921 with the publication of Rutherford's Harp of God. Between 1921 and 1941 Rutherford was to write twenty books and numerous pamphlets which would slowly revise the doctrine and structure left him by Russell. One of Rutherford's books that caused a great amount of controversy was the seventh volume of the Studies in the Scriptures.Russell adopted many of his doctrines from the Seventh-Day Adventists, but the JWs began to emphasize door-to-door evangelism and literature distribution after Russell's death and subsequent leadership assumption by Joseph Franklin Rutherford.Historically, the JWs are best known for their practices of refusing: to serve in the military, to salute the flag, to celebrate Christmas, birthdays, or other holidays and to give or to accept blood transfusions.... Below are the highlights of what JWs believe;Source of Authority. JWs claim the Bible as their final authority, but Russell's writings, especially Studies in the Scriptures, are considered the light of the Scriptures.JWs have their own translation of the Scriptures (New World Translation, published in 1961), which reflects the binding interpretations of the group's leaders. The JWs' New World Translation greatly perverts the Scriptures to avoid placing themselves under the judgment of God;Trinity. JWs believe that God is not a triune God, but only Jehovah God, they teach that Trinitarianism is a belief in three gods, and thereby, Satan-inspired polytheism. Rutherford wrote that sincere persons who want to know the true God and serve him find it a bit difficult to love and worship a complicated, freakish-looking, three-headed God. The clergy who inject such ideas will contradict themselves in the very next breath by stating that God made man in his own image for certainly no one has ever seen a three-headed human creature .God the Father. Known as Jehovah, the Watchtower considers Him to be the only true eternal God, the Almighty. They write There was, therefore, a time when Jehovah was all alone in universal space.Jesus Christ. Since JWs do not believe in the Trinity, they also do not believe that Jesus is God in the flesh. They add the word other four times to Colossians 1:16,17, teaching that Christ was God's first creation, the reincarnation of Michael the archangel created by Jehovah, rather than the Creator.JWs say that Since actual conception took place, it appears that Jehovah God caused an ovum or egg in Mary's womb to become fertile, accomplishing this by the transfer of the life of his first born son (Michael) from the spirit realm to the earth.JWs deny the bodily resurrection of Christ through their teaching that the body of Christ was annihilated by God, not risen, but rather a new one was created three days after His death. This they call the resurrection of Christ. Thus, Jesus was resurrected as a glorious spirit creature and does not now have a glorified physical body. Instead, they claim Jesus arose spiritually and only materialized at various times after His resurrection so He could be seen alive. JWs deny the deity of the third person of the Trinity, as either God or as a person. they claim that the Holy Spirit is only an impersonal active force of Almighty God which moves His servants to do His will.They have written, the holy spirit has no personal name. The reason for this is that the holy spirit is not an intelligent person. It is the impersonal, invisible active force that finds its source and reservoir in Jehovah God and that he uses to accomplish his will even at great distances, over light years of space.JWs believe that the first man, Adam, disobeyed Jehovah when tempted by the angel Lucifer, who was jealous of man. As a result of disobedience, Adam and all his descendants lost the right to life and so became liable to death. This liability is applied to temporal death only. JWs claim everlasting life is a reward for doing the will of God and carrying out one's dedication,in other words, salvation is a reward for good works.According to JW theology, a person has one of three possible destinies. The Anointed 144,000 will be in heaven to reign with Jehovah God. The rest of the faithful Jehovah's Witnesses (not of the 144,000) will live forever on a paradise Earth. Both of these classifications are determined to a great extent on membership in the Watchtower organization as well as going door-to-door spreading the message of the Watchtower. Those people who are not members of the Watchtower organization will be destroyed by Jehovah God and cease to exist.They also believe that men will have a second chance, after death, to be saved.JWs believe that the members of the spiritual Body of Christ, or Christian Congregation, number only 144,000. Most of those members of Christ's Body are now deceased and are reigning with Jesus in heaven since 1918. Anybody born after 1936 cannot be in that number. The remaining members still on earth, approximately 8,000 out of whom are selected the Governing Body, are known as the Remnant. They are collectively known as Jehovah God's "channel of communication" to men. They are the only ones born again and are the only ones who have a hope of going to Heaven. The rest of Jehovah's faithful witnesses only hope to be worthy enough to inherit the Earth, and will never see "Jesus/Michael," nor will they ever go to Heaven. All so called Christendom will be destroyed at Armageddon.JWs deny the immortality of the soul. They do not believe the soul can exist apart from the body, but that a corpse remains in an unconscious state in the grave waiting for the resurrection.JWs teach that the second death is annihilation and extinction,the wicked will cease to exist and will not suffer everlasting torment. They claim that a doctrine of a burning hell is wholly unscriptural,unreasonable,contrary to God's love and repugnant to justice.They claim that "hell" is the grave...Most cults are founded upon false prophecies, which, if pointed out, offer an effective way to open blind eyes and rescue cultists. Russell's false prophecies formed the basis for what became The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society and the Jehovah's Witnesses. Russell declared that the Second Coming had taken place invisibly in October 1874, and the Lord was truly present, and that in 1914 the faithful (the 144,000) would be translated to heaven and the wicked destroyed. Armageddon,which began in 1874,would culminate in 1914 with the complete overthrow of earth's rulers and the end of the world. C.T. Russell, still on earth, died in 1916.In the early 1920s, JWs zealously distributed on the streets and from door to door a book titled Millions Now Living Will Never Die. It was prophesied,The year 1925 is a date definitely and clearly marked in the Scriptures, even more clearly than that of 1914, we may confidently expect that 1925 will mark the return of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the faithful prophets of old.The JWs even built a house in San Diego where the patriarchs were to live and tried to deed it to King David.The house was quietly sold in 1954.All in all, the Watchtower has predicted the end of the world for 1914, 1918, 1925, 1975, and 1989....all I can add is that this is an example of no understanding and of being unlearned in scripture or truth.If these folks are holding fast to this way of thinking then how can one of them be trusted to do whats right ethically or morally?gbu

[clarkthompson (deleted)]

`yes it more important to know it has false teaching