Many people have come to believe that the churches, religions or the world today just use "punishment" as a form of scare tactic to get controll over people. I am beginning to think maybe these people are right. It is hard for me to believe that a "loving" God would destroy 6 billion people just to save a "few" people at Armaggeddon. Just where does all this come from? Why can't religions just believe that God is "loving" and will preserve mankind at the end.
Do you think that "Armaggeddon"/Hellfire damnation" is just scare tactics?
by booker-t 10 Replies latest jw friends
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OpenFireGlass
I believe that religion in it self is a scare tactic
Mike
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IP_SEC
I believe that religion in it self is a scare tactic
and a good opiate as well.
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atypical
I agree. Hell yeah.
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Brigid
I sometimes wonder if the human collective is a macro (or is it a micro) cosm of the human individual; growing through different stages. When the human individual is young, they are fed fairly tales and "scare tactics" to warn them of the "dangers" of the world (mostly other humans) around them. They cannot comprehend larger truths of these fairy tales until they are older and able to deconstruct them.
That's what I think different religions (simplistic answers to explain the vast complexity of our Universe), colored through the glasses of mythos. They serve their purpose but I feel (I hope) that we're evolving collectively past the need for the scary crapola.
Just my 2 cents,
~Brigid
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Narkissos
There is a sort of logical symmetry I guess.
Many ancient, ancestral religions seem to have been more focused on blessings and curses in this life. Living old, health and wealth vs. poverty, diseases and untimely death. The realm of the dead, whether sophisticated like the Egyptian one or minimal as the Near Eastern ones, was less appealing than "heaven" and less scary than "hell".
On the other hand the new "revealed" religions -- Zoroastrianism, post-exilic Judaism, Buddhism or Christianity -- which proclaimed some type of high-level salvation tended to invent a symmetrically scary counterpart.
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Reefton Jack
I heard of a case once where, when challenged about Hellfire, a Presbyterian minister volunteered that this was an idea developed " just to scare people into going to church."
In retrospect (remembering that Hindsight is always 20/20!) the JWs use a much more effective way of getting the R&F to toe the line than fear:
- i.e. Guilt.
Particularly when "survival of your children depends on your own survival" is waved around as a bludgeon to beat a person into submission.
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DanTheMan
The paradox is that the people who are the strongest believers in hellfire are always so bitter.
As I've said on this db time and again, it would seem to me that if you really believe that those bad people who don't share your religio-political outlook are headed for an eternity of unending misery, then why so much contempt for them in the present?
It's because they know it's not true, and it makes them mad when their scare tactics don't work.
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Double Edge
The paradox is that the people who are the strongest believers in hellfire are always so bitter
hehe.... ain't THAT the truth. I believe in a loving Creator, but I sure as h*ll don't believe in hell.
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lovelylil
Yes, these are scare tactics used by organized religions and are not biblical teachings at all.
Hell is simply the grave and can mean permament seperation from God's presence but not a place of eternal torment.
Armegeddon is a holy war between God and Satan only and the purpose of it is to break down all the repressive religions, political structures and social orders that dominate man and teach falsehoods about God and Christ. This total system is what makes up Babylon the Great.
The idea that most of mankind will be destroyed is NOT the gospel (which means good news) that the Apostles or early Christians taught. This idea would have been totally foreign to them. The Apostle Paul said we (Christians) were ministers of the Reconcilliation - which is God' s plan to restore all things lost thru Christ. Until this time comes Christ will remain in heaven.
No one is judged by God at this time even if they do not become Christians. God is only dealing with Christians which are the "Church" at this time. Upon the complete selection of this group - Christ will come to reign over the earth with righteousness and justice and all the rest of mankind will be helped spiritually to come into a relationship with Christ and accept his sacrifice on their behalf. The members chosen for the church will aid in this endeavor. This will be done with love and not fear when Christ removes all spiritual blindness, opens everyone's hearts to the truth and binds Satan the deciver and thrown him into the abyss.
For scriptural references for all this, please pm me. Lilly