I am a Catholic....?

Question

I am a Catholic and I believe in God, I believe in Jesus.
Jehova's witnesses been coming by to my house a lot and teaching me about the bible... they believe in Jehova.
So now my mind is confused. Should I stop talking to them and just keep what I believe in?

Oh I believe in Jesus that's for sure. It's just that how do I tell Jehova's witnesses that I don't want to learn about their bible no more because I let them in my house 'cuz I don't like being rude...I am a nice person. How do I tell them in a nice way?
It's nice to listen and talk about other religion but I just don't like the fact that they try to change what you believe in.
By the way, thanks to all your answers...it helps me a lot.

Answer 1

do yourself a favor and just don't talk to them.
they are trying to confuse you to convert you.
just don't let them in.....

Answer 2

I am an ex-Jehovah's Witness. I am now Catholic. I can tell you without a doubt the Jehovah's Witnesses are wrong. Do not study with them anymore. They are a cult and you have no idea of the evil things in store should you join. Evil may sound like a strong word but I've been through the ringer and I know what I'm talking about. I'll give you an example.

Myself and my immediate family are Catholic. However, my relatives on my father's side - grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins - are JW's. They regard me and my family as though we have joined the Devil. Jehovah's Witnesses have a special disdain for Catholics, and their sole mission is to convert you. To them, the Catholic Church is the whore of the Devil. That being said, because I'm Catholic, my JW family will have nothing to do with me. My grandparents shun me. They have done this since I was 12 years old. So have my aunts and uncles. The only way I would be able to have a relationship with them is if I became a JW. Period. I have cried many prayers to God over this pain, and slowly He is healing me.

The same would apply to you. If you would join them, you would be "encouraged" if not outright told to no longer have anything to do with your family or friends that are not JW's. They would tell you this because your family would be considered "bad association".

Later, if you would recruit your family into the JW's, the same would apply to them. I'll add another twist - if you would leave the JW's AFTER you brought your family to them, you would be considered an apostate (someone who has left Christ). You would then be shunned by all JW's, including any of your JW family members.

The Jehovah's Witnesses are a cult because they use shunning to control their members. You end up remaining a Witness out of fear of losing your family and not because you genuinely believe in the JW's. They also use subtle methods of brainwashing. If you think going to church once a week is bad in the Catholic Church, try 4 days a week with the JW's. The reason they have you in church, or "meetings" as they call them, so much is to indoctrinate and brainwash you. I didn't fully understand this until I left the Jehovah's Witnesses and had to relearn everything with the Catholic Church.

Your best defense is to know your faith. Study and know your catechism. Pray daily, and read your bible. Go to Mass every Sunday. The Jehovah's Witnesses typically prey on people who aren't well versed in their own faith or in scripture. Those people are easy targets.

Again, study your faith. Immersing yourself in God's truth is the best way to strengthen your bond with God, and get you stronger when situations like these arise.

Here are some great websites:

www.catholic.com
www.scripturecatholic.com
www.catholic.org
www.catholicxjw.com

Do your own research; there's tons of great information.

Email anytime if you need help. God bless, and take care.

Answer 3

Don't worry, we won't pull a gun out and force you to do anything.

We can't change your religion, that is between you and Jehovah.

Learning what the bible says is never a mistake.

If you feel uncomfortable, make sure what they are saying is in the bible.

Get your bible, if you want, we don't care what bible you use.

As to the trinity, notice what the NAB a catholic bible says in the footnote at John 1:1.

2 [1] In the beginning: also the first words of the Old Testament (Genesis 1:1). Was: this verb is used three times with different meanings in this verse: existence, relationship, and predication. The Word (Greek logos): this term combines God's dynamic, creative word (Genesis), personified preexistent Wisdom as the instrument of God's creative activity (Proverbs),

and the ultimate intelligibility of reality (Hellenistic philosophy). With God: the Greek preposition here connotes communication with another.

Was God: lack of a definite article with "God" in Greek signifies predication rather than identification.

---------

did you notice: The Word and Wisdom from Prov 8:22 are the same.

"The LORD begot me, the first-born of his ways, the forerunner of his prodigies of long ago

Jesus is the first-born (oldest) of God's creation. Col 1:15

That the church believes in Hellenistic philosophy (Col 2:8)

and that God(2) is a quality and not an identification.

This is why The New Catholic Encyclopedia states:

“The formulation ‘one God in three Persons’ was not solidly established, certainly not fully assimilated into Christian life and its profession of faith, prior to the end of the 4th century. But it is precisely this formulation that has first claim to the title the Trinitarian dogma. Among the Apostolic Fathers, there had been nothing even remotely approaching such a mentality or perspective.”—(1967), Vol. XIV, p. 299.

Pray to Jehovah thru his Son for the answers you need.

Answer 4

There is nothing wrong with talking to them. I'm not saying that you have to believe every word that comes from their mouths, but it's polite to listen, and if you learn things that are important to you-why not? But don't believe in something just because someone tells you to, be they Catholic, a Jehova's Witness, or otherwise. You are capable of making your own decision, and make sure you've put a lot of thought into things.

Answer 5

You know Jehova is their name for God. They just dont believe in the Holy Trinity. It cant hurt to learn about other religions, but maybe you need to bone up a bit on the Catholic religion and the Catholic bible. Listening to them can confuse you unless you know a lot more about your own religion and debating the bible can be exhausting.
Tell them you've appreciated their visits, but you're going to do a little research on the faith you have been practising for your whole life. You may have to be very firm with them, but-it's your home and your mind.

Answer 6

Jehova's witnesses don't belive anywhere nere the same stuff as Catholic's or Prodestants. They don't belive in the divinity of Jesus. They don't belive he is the Son of God. They belive that the star over Bethleham was sent by Satan. There is a lot of conflicting facts that don't correspond with christian beliefs. If you are intrested in bible studies email me. I have a lot of great resources. [e-mail] or [e-mail]

Answer 7

Jehova's Witnesses regard Catholic Doctrine with a special disdain. The JW's who go door-to-door are well-trained in the art of debunking Catholic Doctrine, and they can be especially convincing to the casual Catholic.

They want you to be confused. They want you to lose confidence in Catholicism, so that you will entertain their doctrine instead.

It would help you if you knew something about their beliefs, their tactics, and why Catholic Doctrine is far more reasonable than their's.

Here are links to Catholic Tracts that will help you make sense of JW's true agenda:

"Are they awake at the Watchtower?"
http://www.catholic.com/library/Are_They_Awake_on_the_Watchtower.asp

"Distinctive Beliefs of the Jehovah's Witnesses"
http://www.catholic.com/library/Distinctive_Beliefs_of_Jehovahs.asp

"The God of the Jehovah's Witnesses"
http://www.catholic.com/library/God_of_the_Jehovah_Witnesses.asp

"History of the Jehovah's Witnesses"
http://www.catholic.com/library/History_of_the_Jehovah_Witnesesses.asp

All of Catholic.com is a great place to learn about the Catholic Faith. And the more you know, the easier it will be for you to refute types like the door-to-door JW's.

Answer 8

I'm not going to say to stop talking to them, because whether or not you do so is your own personal choice. However, you should know that they're anti-Catholic in outlook (they might say they're not, but just read their material, or even their posts on this site, and see what they really think of the Roman Catholic Church). I have friends who are JWs and as individuals, they're fine. But their theology is openly anti-Catholic, and that's something you need to consider when deciding whether or not to allow them to enter your Catholic home. They leave reading material at my gate sometimes, but I personally never allow them inside. Once you do so, they'll keep coming back. As I'll tell them to their faces, they have a right to believe whatever they want, but when they come around cutting down my church, their welcome is permanently worn out.

Right on their own official website (I'm sitting here looking at it right now), they call the Catholic Church a "hybrid, apostate church, far removed from the teachings of true Christianity".

Answer 9

Read Father Richard McBrien's book on Catholicism.. The Vatican website has quite a few good documents http://www.vatican.va.. You might consider signing up for MI and reading about St. Kolbe's Marian movement on http://www.consecration.com..

You are very nice to be polite to people who ring your doorbell but you don't need to open your door to strangers - that can be very risky.. You can also yell through the door - "no Thank you!"

It will all depend on how you will want to spend your time during the day really..

Answer 10

If you already have the truth, and you do if you are Catholic, then why invite falsehood into your home? Just say "no thanks". It sounds like you are not very well versed in your own faith though. Perhaps you should do some reading to help you better understand the holy Catholic faith. Once you do understand the truth, arguments by such false churches are extremely easy to expose for what they are.

Answer 11

yes keep believing as you do ---- they are very wrong!

there is NO name of Jehovah in the Bible:

here is a large clipping from one of thousands available on the net:
There is a common belief in modern Christendom that the divine name of God in the OT is "Jehovah." The most influential group advocating this pronunciation of God's name today is the Jehovah's Witnesses. This study is intended to demonstrate that the name "Jehovah" is not, and never was the name of God in the OT, but is an accidental, fabricated pronunciation of the divine name. Those who came up with this spelling/pronunciation did so from a misunderstanding of the Hebrew tetragrammaton "YHWH," as it appears in the OT text. The rendering of YHWH as "Yahweh" is much closer to the actual Hebrew name of God.

The way in which God’s name came to be spelled and pronounced as "Jehovah" is detailed with a lot of history and study of phonetics, but a few comments are in order here to help make some sense of the issue.

The Hebrew tetragrammaton, YHWH, is the way the name of God appears in the Hebrew Bible. The Hebrew language is a consonantal language, possessing no vowels. Vowels were pronounced, but not written. They were transmitted orally from generation to generation. This may like a difficult system, and quite strange to us, but it is not that difficult. Just as you can decipher that THS S TH WY TH HBRW PPL WRT BCK THN, means "this is the way Hebrew people wrote back then," so could they easily pronounce words without vowels.

By about 200 B.C., after the time of the Exile, and due to superstition, Jews would no longer pronounce God’s name for fear that they would take it in vain by not saying it properly. Instead of pronouncing the tetragrammaton, they would say Adonai, which is the Hebrew word meaning Lord. Because of this superstition, no one today knows exactly how it was pronounced. This was also true of the Masoretic scribes who copied the Hebrew Scriptures. When the Masoretic scribes, in the 9th to 10th ceturies, invented a system of vowels to preserve the pronunciation of the Hebrew Bible, they also inserted some vowels into the tetragrammaton. Because they too, did not know exactly how to pronounce God’s name, and did not believe one should attempt to, they did not try to insert the correct vowels into the tetragrammaton. Instead, they inserted the vowels from the Hebrew word Adonai, which are the sounds of the short a, long o, and another a with the sound of the word awesome. The insertions of these vowels were not for the purpose of pronunciation, but to remind the reader to say Adonai when they came to God’s name instead of pronouncing God’s name. If it was to be spelled out, however, it would read "Yehowah" (the vocalic change to the first vowel is due to the fact that yod, the first letter of the tetragrammaton is a non-gutteral, and thus turns the a sound [compound shewa] to a shortened, short e sound [simple shewa]).

Later on, in the days of the Renaissance, people were discovering the ancient languages all over again. The Hebrew Scriptures were being learned and read. When people came to the tetragrammaton, they simply pronounced it with the inserted vowels, not realizing that the vowels did not belong to YHWH, but were intended as indicators to say Adonai. As a result, they pronounced God’s name as Yehowah.

The spelling of "Iehovah" entered the English language through William Tyndale’s translation of the Bible completed in 1537. He transliterated the tetragrammaton into the English language with the Masoretic vowel markings as had those in the Renaissance. The letter and sound of the English "J" was a later development of the English language, and so this spelling and pronunciation would not change to "Jehovah" until the late 17th century. Since this time many English speakers have pronounced God’s name as Jehovah.

So how exactly should we pronounce the Hebrew YHWH? Because of the fact that the vocalic tradition for the pronunciation of YHWH has not been preserved, we cannot be absolutely sure about its pronunciation. We can be fairly certain, however. Here is a brief examination of the divine name of God.

YHWH is the third person singular form, most likely coming from the Hebrew word hayah, which has the meaning of "to be." In Exodus 3:14, when Moses asked God for His name, God said His name was ehyeh. This is the first person form of hayah, meaning "I am." YHWH is the third person form meaning "He is."

The original pronunciation was probably YaHWeH. This seems to be the case by examining Jewish names. Many names contain part of the divine name, i.e. yah, and by examing the vowels that they used to construct their names with the divine abbreviation attached, we can get a feel for how YWHW was originally pronounced. We conclude from the examining names such as Joshua, Jehoshaphat, Elijah, and even the word hallelujah (hallel=praise; yah=Yahweh), that YH was pronounced as yah. We also have evidence that Yahweh is probably the correct pronunciation from examining the Greek’s tranliteration of the divine name as iaoue or iabe.

In conclusion, although it is not necessarily wrong to say God’s name as Jehovah, by no means can it be claimed that Jehovah is the name of God that has only been restored to us in these recent times. At best Jehovah can only be claimed to be an acceptable way of pronouncing God’s name in the English language, and at worst it could be said to be a phonetic corruption of God’s name. The probable pronunciation of God’s revealed name is Yahweh.