to jehovah's witness'....a soul related question?

Question

i know that your religion says that it's a blasphamy to say "bless you" after someone sneezes because it apparently derives from the soul trying to escape the body and blessing it will try to drive it back inside you. but since witness do not believe in a "soul" (even though thier bible is full of the word soul) then, that is a restricted phrase. but what about in a spanish culture where they say "salud" wich literally translates to "health" so they would be wishing them health. now, is this a restricted phrase in the spanish culture of jehovahs witness too? it may be different words but the meaning behind it is the same. can a witness explain?

im sorry, but my question was not answered. the ultimate thing here is to know wether or not it would be ok to say 'salud" to someone even though it is on par with "god bless you" ( in a jw point of view)

Answer 1

Jehovah's Witnesses do not consider the phrase "God bless you" to be blasphemous, and in fact many or most Witnesses use the expression in their conversation.

However, customs based on pagan superstition are understood to dishonor God and Christ. When the expression "salud" implies a nod to superstition, then its use is avoided by Jehovah's Witnesses.

Learn more:
http://watchtower.org/e/20020801/article_01.htm

Answer 2

Spanish speaking Jehovah's witnesses don't use the phrase "salud" for the same reasons English speaking Jehovah's witnesses don't say "God bless you" after someone sneezes.

The wording may be different , but the purpose and back round are the same.

Answer 3

The German response to the sneeze of others is "Gesundheit", which also translates as "health".

Believing that it is simply common courtesy rooted in social etiquette, many may have given little thought to why people give an automatic response to anothers sneeze. Yet, responses to sneezing is rooted in superstition.

It comes from the idea that you are sneezing out your soul.

To say “God bless” (or indeed any OTHER EXPRESSION)is, in effect, asking God to restore it.

Of course, most people would probably agree that to believe that the soul escapes your body during a sneeze is irrational. Not surprisingly, therefore, Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary defines superstition as “a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation.”

The point is, that while not all traditional things in a society are bad, when one looks at the root cause and the similar behaviours of other cultures, one has to use insight and recognise a common link in the responses to a sneeze.

As has been mentioned, Jehovah's wittnesses do not believe a person has an immaterial or spirit part that survives the death of the physical body.
The scriptures are clear on this, the soul IS the life that we enjoy AS a HUMAN.

All the same, the reason a Witness would want to refrain from using traditional phrases would be because such does not gain the approval of God.
Even the possession of such admirable qualities as zeal and sincerity are not themselves sufficient to gain God’s goodwill. In the days of the apostle Paul, there were doubtless many devout and sincere persons among those of his own nation, yet he showed a great concern for them because of what they lacked: “...they have a zeal for God; but not according to accurate knowledge; for, because of not knowing the righteousness of God but seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.” (Rom. 10:2-3)

Answer 4

Of course we believe in a soul. Again misinformation. We believe in the Bible's view of a soul.

Genesis 2:9 shows what it takes to make a soul. God formed Adam out of the dust of the ground and breathed into him the breath of life and he came to be a living soul. Those two parts, dust and breath of life = a live soul. Take one away = dead soul.

Animals have a soul. (Numbers 31:28) That soul can die, (Lev. 24:17,18) whether it is man or animal.

Ezekiel 18:4 says, "The soul that is sinning, it itself will die.", bringing home that point.

So the idea of the soul escapes if you sneeze or it is immortal are ridiculous according to the Bible. They are just more spooky beliefs dreamed up by men. We should never put daydreams of men on a par level with truth from the Bible.

Answer 5

Who said Jehovah's Witnesses dont believe in the soul?

Now regarding saying "salud" in spanish i personally do not say it. It has to do with superstition. If you sneeze and you do not say "salud" the person will get sick or something of that matter. so i personally do not say it.

I hope this answers your Question

Answer 6

IT is not blasphemy to say "bless you" after someone sneezes. Since the origin was that people thought that sneezes were from demons and 'bless you' is warding off the demons, it is superstitious.

You need a Bible study.

We do believe in a soul. But the soul is the whole person.

Answer 7

Well, I sneeze and I say excuse me,same as if I burped, that gets me an answer of certainly. I have said Salute more than once to my family who is Italian.
But as for the idea of soul, Soul means the breath of life,
So when a living creature dies his or Its
' soul dies also. The breath of life leaves the soul.
The Greek word for soul is Phy-khes' Life .

In Hebrew the word is ru' ach...meaning spirit, or breath of living.
No one cares about blasphemy in our religion.
We care about an accurate translation of Jehovah Gods word from HIS Bible.
we are constantly accused of Blasphemy because we worship Jesus as Gods son instead of God the Father. So blasphemy is not an issue here, BUT correct bible teaching is a huge issue, no matter how we are persecuted for teaching the Bible as Gods word

Answer 8

“Bless You!” In many lands it is a custom for those standing nearby to say “bless you” to the person who sneezes. Where did such a custom originate? According to the book How Did It Begin? by R. Brasch, some ancients believed that when a man sneezed, he was nearest to death. Brasch adds: “The fear was based on an erroneous but widely held notion. Man’s soul was considered to be the essence of life. The fact that dead men never breathed led to the fallacious deduction that his soul must be breath. . . . It is thus not surprising that from the earliest days people learned to respond to a sneeze with apprehension and the fervent wish to the sneezer that God may help and bless him and preserve his life. Somehow in medieval times this early origin of the custom must have been forgotten because it was Pope Gregory the Great who was credited with having introduced the saying ‘God bless you,’ to anyone who sneezed.”

Soul: In the Bible, “soul” is translated from the Hebrew ne′phesh and the Greek psy·khe′. Bible usage shows the soul to be a person or an animal or the life that a person or an animal enjoys. To many persons, however, “soul” means the immaterial or spirit part of a human being that survives the death of the physical body. Others understand it to be the principle of life. But these latter views are not Bible teachings.

What does the Bible say that helps us to understand what the soul is? Gen. 2:7: “Jehovah God proceeded to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man came to be a living soul.” (Notice that this does not say that man was given a soul but that he became a soul, a living person.) (The part of the Hebrew word here rendered “soul” is ne′phesh. KJ, AS, and Dy agree with that rendering. RS, JB, NAB read “being.” NE says “creature.” Kx reads “person.”) 1 Cor. 15:45: “It is even so written: ‘The first man Adam became a living soul.’ The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” (So the Christian Greek Scriptures agree with the Hebrew Scriptures as to what the soul is.) (The Greek word here translated “soul” is the accusative case of psy·khe′. KJ, AS, Dy, JB, NAB, and Kx also read “soul.” RS, NE, and TEV say “being.”) 1 Pet. 3:20: “In Noah’s days . . . a few people, that is, eight souls, were carried safely through the water.” (The Greek word here translated “souls” is psy·khai′, the plural form of psy·khe′. KJ, AS, Dy, and Kx also read “souls.” JB and TEV say “people”; RS, NE, and NAB use “persons.”)

Gen. 9:5: “Besides that, your blood of your souls [or, “lives”; Hebrew, from ne′phesh] shall I ask back.” (Here the soul is said to have blood.) Josh. 11:11: “They went striking every soul [Hebrew, ne′phesh] that was in it with the edge of the sword.” (The soul is here shown to be something that can be touched by the sword, so these souls could not have been spirits.)
Do other scholars who are not Jehovah’s Witnesses acknowledge that this is what the Bible says the soul is?

“There is no dichotomy [division] of body and soul in the O[ld] T[estament]. The Israelite saw things concretely, in their totality, and thus he considered men as persons and not as composites. The term nepeÅ¡ [ne′phesh], though translated by our word soul, never means soul as distinct from the body or the individual person. . . . The term [psy·khe′] is the N[ew] T[estament] word corresponding with nepeÅ¡. It can mean the principle of life, life itself, or the living being.”—New Catholic Encyclopedia (1967), Vol. XIII, pp. 449, 450.

“The Hebrew term for ‘soul’ (nefesh, that which breathes) was used by Moses . . . , signifying an ‘animated being’ and applicable equally to nonhuman beings. . . . New Testament usage of psychē (‘soul’) was comparable to nefesh.”—The New Encyclopædia Britannica (1976), Macropædia, Vol. 15, p. 152.

“The belief that the soul continues its existence after the dissolution of the body is a matter of philosophical or theological speculation rather than of simple faith, and is accordingly nowhere expressly taught in Holy Scripture.”—The Jewish Encyclopedia (1910), Vol. VI, p. 564.