by zack 14 Replies latest jw friends
Many of the dubs I know don't really want the end to come. Sure, they like the idea of youth in perpetuity, good health, no death, peace.... Who doesn't? They want those things to end.
But in their heart of hearts, do you really think they actually long for the destruction of other human beings that are so graphically depicted in the pubs?
Many of the dubs I know don't really want the end to come.
That's odd to me Zack. The ones I know certainly do. In fact not wanting to see the kingdom is odd in itself unless like you say it's a desire not to see the mass slaughter, which is of course commendable. As a Dub I was always fearful of what the tribulation may bring, but that didn't put me off hoping for it. Maybe hoping that Armageddon isn't going to come should be a disfellowshipping offence? :O)
Clam - glad the end's not near anymore.
Witnesses who don't want the end to come...too soon:
In other words, anyone with a stake and a future here, now. And they have to feel guilty about wanting it, too.
If I put those two together, I'd say the Watchtower society is seriously in trouble in the Western world. Boomers are hitting retirement age. They will hang on and on, and they will stick with the society. They made no future for themselves on this earth. Their income and health will steadily decline, and their dependence on others steadily increase.
Young people, what can the society offer them? If the society is right, they have no future here on earth. If the society is wrong and they follow them, they face the same future the boomers have. Yuk.
Good points, many JWs think they have their paradise now, "spiritual," that is, or at least are told that.
But few want it when they really think of the creature comforts they will lose.
1) Transportation
Who wants to walk everywhere except poor JWs in countries who have no choice now?
Who wants to give up their cushy cars; but how long will the cars today last even with careful care, who will make the new parts or the new cars;
Who will drill for oil, ship it, and process it?
Who will repair or build the roads?
For those who think they will ride horses or use buggies, when is the last time they used this mode for 10 or more miles every day?
2) Food production
Who has ever had a garden that was meant to provide enough food for their family until the next harvest season? Will there be Krogers and Waldbaums to visit in the "new system"?
Who knows how much work that is; who knows how to preseve food? Who wants to do; who will end up doing it, the men?
3) Clothing
Who knows how to shear wool off a sheep, clean up, card it, spin it, weave it? How long will clothing today last into the new system? 50 years, then what, naked days and nights?
Who knows how to grow flax, ret it, clean, it weave it to make linen?
Who knows how to process cotton, build the machines, the parts, maintain it?
Who knows how to clean wool, flax, cotton without the fancy cleaning products and cleaning businesses?
Who knows how to do hand sewing or use a peddle sewing machine? After all
4) Energy sources
Who will run the power plants? Who will replace the thousands of non-JWs who died at Armageddon? Will any suriving JWs be able to run these? Where will the coal and other fuel come from?
Who knows how to build and set up solar panels?
etc, etc.
Do women want to wash their clothes heating water on a wood fire and using kettles, making their own soap, laying out the wet clothes and making sure the birds don't poop on them?
Currently, the WTS builds all their buildings according to current codes and fashions. Except for some "primitive" areas today, who knows how to live this way...what JWs long to live this way; without electricity, running water, indoor toilets, supermarkets, long-ranging transportation, etc.
And, and, to live with all the JWs that have ignored and refused to talk to them for the last 25 years for some long forgotten shun, offense, jealousy.
Blondie (No Paradise)
Blondie in the New World you describe, only the Amish would be prepared for it. Maybe Jehovah could keep them on as consultants?
I used to think about these matters a lot when I expected it to be my future, and I satisfied myself that there would be a lot of 'extra terrestrial' assistance which we could have no knowledge of in this time. I expected a perfect climate, no disease or pests, so growing stuff would be easy, probably with fruit and veg being huge, a la Woody Allen's Sleeper. Clothes? Well maybe we'd get a uniform of some kind which would never wear out: possibly in the style of our country or culture. :0)
As far as travel was concerned, horses would be fine and my loved ones would all be relatively close in a local community. Travel however could (I imagined) be facilitated by teleportation. Yep, Jehovah would sort it all out as he'd promised a paradise, not a journey back to the stone age.
Clam
Do women want to wash their clothes heating water on a wood fire and using kettles, making their own soap, laying out the wet clothes and making sure the birds don't poop on them?
I saw an episode of "dirtiest jobs", and laundry was one of them. The ladies in the middle ages did not have access to the mild detergents and soaps we have today. They boiled a foul soup of wood ash and fat. The lye would burn and roughen their hands. http://www.chagrinvalleysoapandcraft.com/history.htm
My JW husband bypasses all this messy stuff by saying that "Jehovah will take care of it." He went off again yesterday about how we won't need doctors in the new system. This is a sore point for me, because my sister has dedicated her entire career as a family physician, and loves it. So I finally retorted, "And we won't need brains either, because Jehovah will do all our thinking for us". We'd be more like animals in a zoo than thinking, building, creating human beings.
So either way, the paradise described would be a living hell. Either civilization and all it's conveniences would collapse, the remaining population unable to maintain it, or Jehovah waves his magic wand and we all wander aimlessly on the lawn like drooling sheep.
"And we won't need brains either, because Jehovah will do all our thinking for us".
Unfortunately, jgnat, that is what attracts many people to the WTS, or other cults.
Blondie
or