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I need answers only from Jehovah's Witnesses.

I have a report on Jehovah's witnesses due the first day back from thanksgiving break, November 30th. I need your answers to some questions. PM is best, but post if you would like.

Your name and age:

What things should we know about Jehovah's Witnesses?

Are Jehovah's Witnesses Christian?

What "source of Authority" or word of God like the Bible do you guys use?

What do Jehovah's Witnesses teach?

What do they teach about Jesus, baptism, preaching, modesty, morals, etc?

How did you become a Jehovah's Witness?

What are things you guys can do, what are things you can't do as Jehovah's Witnesses?

Anything else you would like to add?

If throughout this post I said anything rude, please notify me.

I'm not a Jehovah's Witness, but I am an ex-Jehovah's Witness and I have some family members who are still Witnesses, so I can try to answer some of your questions.

Your name and age: Howdy, I'm Julia, and I'm seventeen.

What things should we know about Jehovah's Witnesses? Uh... See below.

Are Jehovah's Witnesses Christian? Yes, definitely. They are fundamentalists, meaning that they follow the Bible as literally as possible. This means that they have some ideas that don't really coincide with mainstream Christianity, like how JWs don't believe in the Trinity because the Trinity is never mentioned in the Bible, but despite these differences they are still Christians.

What "source of Authority" or word of God like the Bible do you guys use? They use the Bible just like most Christian groups do, but most use The New World Translation. The NWT is pretty much just like every other Bible except it uses "you" instead of "thou" (like in the King James) and it includes God's name (Jehovah) hundreds of times (the King James, Living Bible, and other translations usually only include the name "Jehovah" four times in the entire book, and more recent translations emit it entirely).

What do Jehovah's Witnesses teach? That Jesus was the son of God (whose name is Jehovah, Yaweh in Hebrew), and he died to atone for our sins. That it is up to mankind to follow God to the best of their ability and our reward will be to live forever in a paradise earth (they believe in resurrection, not in souls going to heaven and hell). That's pretty much the gist of it.

What do they teach about Jesus, baptism, preaching, modesty, morals, etc? Jesus: They teach that Jesus was the son of God, but not God himself, as they don't believe in the Trinity; basically, Jesus was God's first angel, making him important but not as powerful as God. Baptism: They practice baptisms and all JWs are expected to get baptized once they are ready; they don't baptize babies because they believe baptism should be a personal decision that a person makes on their own, not something their parents decide. Preaching: JWs are big on preaching; they believe that Jesus commanded his followers to keep spreading his word, which is why they preach from door to door and hand out magazines and pamphlets to anyone who will take them. Modesty: JWs are also big on modesty; followers are expected to dress modestly and to live modestly. Morals: They have a basically Christian sense of morality (no killing, no stealing, no adultery) along with a few extra beliefs (no consuming blood [even in the case of a blood transfusion], no masturbation, no celebrating holidays with Pagan origins, and so on).

How did you become a Jehovah's Witness? My mother converted when I was two years old, so I guess I became one by default. She converted because she liked how Jehovah's Witnesses don't believe in Hell; she always hated the idea of people suffering for eternity, even if they were bad people. I left when I was fourteen, and my mother and sister left with me, though my one of my aunts and her family are still JWs.

What are things you guys can do, what are things you can't do as Jehovah's Witnesses? You can't get a blood transfusion, you can't celebrate holidays with Pagan origins (no Christmas, Easter, Halloween... but I think something really inoffensive like Earth Day might be allowed), you can't be gay (well, technically you can, but you can't act on it, so if you are gay and a JW you're expected to remain celibate or just marry someone of the opposite sex anyway), you can't look at pornography or masturbate (they're very strict on this, even for young teenage boys...), you can't use bad language, you can't smoke or do any drugs, you can't wear "immodest" clothing or clothing that does nor conform to your gender, you can't wear a cross necklace (because the cross was originally a Pagan symbol), you can't get an abortion under any circumstance, you can't vote or be involved in politics in anyway (part of Jesus' idea of keeping religion and politics separate, but to an extreme), and if you are a woman you can't hold any position in the church (men can become Elders and Ministerial Servants; all jobs are closed to women except for being a Pioneer [a JW who knocks on people's doors and hands out religious literature]). If any of these is broken, there is a chance that the JW in question might be disfellowshipped, meaning that no other JW can speak to them until they are reinstated. Okay, now some things they can do... Married couples can use birth control if they'd like, young people can date so long as they don't do anything and they only date someone they would consider marrying, and they can do a lot of other fairly normal things, like having parties (just not wild ones) and watching TV (so long as it's not inappropriate) and all that good stuff.

Anything else you would like to add I hope my biases didn't show up too much in my responses; as an ex-JW, I can be a little judgmental towards Jehovah's Witnesses, but I don't mean to be intolerant. If you have any other questions or want me to clarify anything, feel free to send me a message.

Good idea!!!

I'll give it a whirl 3nodding