don't feel bad for not having answers like they do, you just left and its not reasonable to expect you to have a full jigsaw!
The end is not close..................so prove it !
by vitty 37 Replies latest jw friends
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proplog2
Jehovah's Witnesses use "the end is near" both ways. You can find plenty of quotes in their publications showing this.
They say:
A: " The end is near"----THEREFORE--- you ought to stay close to the congregation.
B: You aren't supposed to be serving Jehovah because "The end is near". THEREFORE-- the nearness of the end is not significant.
Ask your relatives which is the correct attitude.
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anewme
Just wait, this new bird flu will be so devastating it will spark renewed interest in the end times theory.
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Leolaia
It's a matter of burden of proof, vitty.
Why are you accepting their burden for you to prove a negative....that Armageddon won't come in our time. It's like asking you to prove that the NASDAQ won't hit 3,000 on July 20, 2007, or that President Clinton didn't have a nightmare on the evening of January 3, 1986 about green Xorneg monsters eating his brain. The burden should be instead on those to prove that the NASDAQ will hit 3,000 on that date, or that Clinton did have that dream. Similarly, it is the burden of the Watchtower to prove that Armageddon will come in our time. So... you can ask them whether the Society has really met this burden. Indeed, we have seen that they have failed by the the simple fact that they have been predicting that Armageddon is "right around the corner" for 125 years. Imagine if you had been living in the 1920s and planned your life according to the Watchtower's promises, to their 100% certainty that Armageddon was looming just a few years away, if not months off! And so you deferred all your life's hopes and dreams and ambitions because you were convinced that the New World was at hand. Where would you be now? You'd either be dead or very, very old.
If they try to use the synoptic apocalypse of Matthew, Luke, Mark to try to prove that OUR time, OUR generation, OUR past century is the one referred to in Bible prophecy, then ask them to really prove factually that this past century better fits the text than prior centuries. The problem is that most people have only a faint knowledge of the misery of prior centuries, and only view their own time in the rose-colored spectacles of "the good old days" and how things are just getting worse and worse. Every generation thinks that since time immemorial. In some ways, things are (every generation has new threats and problems of its own), and other ways things are better. In most of the things mentioned in the synoptic apocalypse (i.e. earthquakes, famine, pestilence, violence, etc.), the 20th century has actually been far better than previous centuries. This can be demonstrated factually. The book Sign of the Last Days -- When? (from Commentary Press) will set forth many of these facts.
The fatal problem to the Society's 100% certainty that THIS is the actual time referred to in the Bible is the fact that they declare this certainty and say that "the time is at hand". Luckily for you, you don't have to prove a negative....all you need to do is point to Luke 21:8-9:
"Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am he,' and, 'The time is near. ' Do not follow them. When you hear of wars and revolutions, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away" (Luke 21:8-9).
Does the Society claim for itself a unique role of God's representative on earth? Do they claim that the time is near? Of course, they have always claimed that. Do Witnesses get excited at every report of a war or other possible "sign"? Of course they do. But "the end will not come right away". The whole point of the discourse is that there won't be any visible precursor sign, in advance of Judgment Day. The only sign will be the coming of Jesus in judgment, which will happen suddenly and quickly. The text condemns BOTH lack of wakefulness and presumptuousness. Since the Society claims that "the time is near", should one follow them or follow Jesus' advice (as construed, of course, by the author of Luke, who was addressing a very similar situation in the late first century).
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greendawn
But the GB have admitted it with the change in the generation understanding that it may well be very far away, so why argue that it is near the generation can go on indefinitely.
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EC
I actually do better writing things down....I hate talking face to face. And what is weird is that I know the exact answers they are about to say and I still freeze up. Matt 24 is a big thing that they keep showing me and my friend just explained something to me that I am going to use...
When Jesus went "two by two" and "house to house" they knew the people they were going to visit. They were not strangers...When they went into cities where they knew no one, Jesus would do sermons, usually in public places, not go knocking on strangers doors. It was very different from our day. Not the same at all and to compare it makes no sense.
It made me think a lot and I am doing more research on this. There is no way we can take everything so literal and make it black and white for our day.
But, what it all boils down to, is no matter if you have the perfect speech and know exactly what you are going to say, 9.9 times out of 10 they will not listen to you and say you are being mislead. I was joking the other day and told my husband I might as well take a magic marker and write 666 across my forehead and walk into my family's house. They obviously do not consider me to be an intelligent human being that can make logical decisions for myself..... I just try to drop in little things every now and then. -
Scully
Every day that the end does not come, proves that it is not close. And every day they waited and watched for the end, is another day they've pissed into the wind, when they could have really lived it.
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bennyk
Vitty,
According to the QfR in the 01. April 1986 WT, disbelieving the end is "near" (whatever THAT means...) is a Disfellowshiping Offense. So don't actually say you don't believe it.
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Elsewhere
An old quote:
Throughout history countless numbers of people have predicted the end of the world and they all have one thing in common: They were ALL wrong.
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