The scriptures tell us that God made everything out of Himself. Why would you think that God will lose or destroy any part of Himself? Don't be misled. No one is going to be lost. The way home may be long and painful, but eventually we will all get there.
Questioning Armageddon. How can wife hang onto the Bible? (If she wants to)
by Open mind 58 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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DanTheMan
I agree that the focusing on the JW belief that Jesus-Michael and the angelic hordes will, very soon now, slaughter 99.99% of humans can be a powerful wedge to get JW's questioning, if they have any shred of their humanity & reasoning left. The problem is, is that I'm not sure how many JW's really grasp, in a real-world sense, just what their beliefs are.
You have to get past the euphemisms that the WTS uses to keep these beliefs at a fantasy world level. Words and phrases such as "destroy", "destruction", "Satan's system of things" serve to obscure the real-world implications JW eschatology.
"False religions", "governments", "big businesses", these are not entities that exist in and of themselves. They are just words that point to groups of living, breathing humans. And this is something that I don't think is really clear in the minds of most JW's.
I know when I joined, the idea of "False Religion" being "destroyed" was appealing to me, as I was bitter at the time over my Catholic upbringing. But the way I understood this wasn't a real-world understanding, it was more like a Platonic understanding, where "false religion" was something akin to "love" or "hate" or "jealousy" - an idea, not something tangible.
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TopHat
Dawg said: god reminds me of a drunken redneck coming home and finding his wife cheating./..he kills everyone in the trailer including his wife..., and what did the kids do to desreve this? Nothing!
I am sorry dawg BUT that statement tells me more about YOU, rather than what the words of the Bible say to me in regards to God. Don't forget, rednecks are subhuman, at least to some who have posted such comments, I won't say who but one poster stands out like a sore thumb.. LOL, are you above God?
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TopHat
Rarely does anyone venture far beyond what someone else has said and actually look for themselves without the tainting influence of prior beliefs, beliefs that others in good faith have themselves accepted as true ............. Do you see the point? What I'm am pointing to is the examination of the most fundamental belief of one's life:
By your logic....WE are ALL trapped by the influence of others...even you!
I would disagree that People rarely go beyond what they were brought to believe...I have looked at a few other religions different from what I have I come to believe. At present I do NOT belong to any religion... the JWs are far removed from what I grew up knowing...so there is one exsample for you. Are you here to be my Judge?
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avidbiblereader
Jehovah wiping out 99.99% of humanity, babies included, is a "problem" or "question" that I think can be very powerful to use with JW family.
That has always bothered me and when I left I thought how can this be true with Armageddon coming and the Bible says various things that doesn' fit into the JW philosophy of almost complete annihilation
First we are not the judges, those that do judge will be judge accordingly
Second Is 55:7,8 His thoughts are higher than ours
Third His judgements are unsearchable Romm 11:33,34, we also cant know his mind, 1 Cor 2:16
Genesis 18:25 He is going to do what is right and I leave it at that. VSS 25It is unthinkable of you that you are acting in this manner to put to death the righteous man with the wicked one so that it has to occur with the righteous man as it does with the wicked! It is unthinkable of you. Is the Judge of all the earth not going to do what is right?”
None of us deserve life including JW, but the thought of wiping all mankind out is their thinking and not scriptural, I think as Paul said we are all going to be surprise at what God has in store for the future but I will not base it off man made thinking, rather leave it to God who knows best and will do what is right.
abr
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zack
The "Armageddon" that JW's teach, and many other religions as well, IS NOT in the Bible. The JW's have taken a symbolic event in a symbolic book of the
Bible which many of the Bishops at the Council of Nicea had doubts about, and have cherry picked what events to deem "literal" . Much like the 144k. One word
in one book of the Bible given as a "vision" and these guys had us all scared to death.
Easy on the wife, though. Good luck. -
Open mind
Armageddon Update:
If you don't feel like re-reading this fairly long thread, in a nutshell, I was worried about revealing my disbelief in the soon-to-come slaughter of 6 billion humans to my wife.
We recently had an in-depth discussion about it.
SHE DOESN'T BELIEVE IT EITHER!!!!
Wooo-----Hoooooo!!!!!
Are you ready to hear the Armageddon Doctrine as taught by The Church of Mrs. Open Mind?
Hold on, here we go.
There's no way a loving God is going to hold people eternally responsible for not becoming JWs. Plenty of "unrighteous" people will be resurrected into paradise and given a fair, honest shot at deciding whether or not they want to play by God's rules. According to my wife, the same will apply to the vast majority of the world's population at Armageddon. Only the really, really, bad people who Jehovah can tell are going to flip him the bird in Paradise will be destroyed at Armageddon.
The source of this doctrine? As far as I can tell, it comes from her ever-lovin' human heart. It sure isn't in any WT litterature!!!
I informed her that she needs to be very careful about who she shares this opinion with because if she reveals this in front of the wrong "ears" she could find herself in front of a Judicial Committee for Apostasy.
This was an excellent springboard for me to be able to commisserate with her again how difficult it is for me to not be able to have open "spiritual" conversations as a JW for fear of being branded "apostate".
Towards the end of our conversation she reiterated the importance of not speaking overly negatively about the Org in front of the kids. Big picture. Gotta stay in the truth. Blah, blah. I'm sure most of this is her natural desire to want to protect the family structure. Also, she probably is still at the point of equating loyalty to God with loyalty to the Org. At least officially.
The best part of this conversation was that it was not a confrontational blow-up. It was a "heart to heart".
I'm counting it a small victory on a very long road.
Open Mind
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Open mind
One last thing. I think I may have found out where Mrs. Open Mind got her new-found doctrine:
Reneeisorym!! (I think you're Bad Association)
Renee said:
What's wrong with saying -- "Maybe its just people who love and believe in Jehovah and Jesus are the ones that are going to be saved in armageddon. The ones who choose not to love God will be annialated. Maybe its not about being a JW that saves you. Maybe its just loving and believing in God. That would make more sense."
That's what my wife believes about Armageddon now. This raises so many contradictory dead-ends with the rest of WT doctrine it boggles my mind. But I'm just gonna let this simmer for a while and revisit it later.
Open Mind
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franzy
really glad to hear it, open mind!
that brings the percentages down a bit, but what percentage of the
the world is not christian??....one step at a time, though.
(in case you missed it on the piano thread, the avatar is of
my nine year old son, taken when he was seven)