Noah, Jerusalem, and Divine Judgment. How would you answer this?

by neverendingjourney 13 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  neverendingjourney

  tidingsbearer,

  From your post, my impression is that you are a person of faith who’s trying to get me believe that although the Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t possess that elusive truth, such truth can be found somewhere else.
  
  I have nothing against faith. It’s an important part in the lives of millions of people. I’m no one to denigrate that. But it’s just that, faith. Even the book of Hebrews says that faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld. Faith and truth should not be equated. They are separate things.
  
  If someone tells me that placing my hand on an open flame will result in burns, I can test that. I can follow through on that and realize that what I was told was indeed truth. I can’t do that with faith. By definition, faith can’t be proven or it would cease to be faith and would become truth.
  
  I respect most of what’s written in the Bible and I think most Christians are moral, upstanding people. However, faith isn’t for me. I tried it and I refuse to live that way anymore. If God exists or has a plan for me, I’m going to need proof before I believe in him. Noah, Abraham, Moses, the Apostles, they all were given proof. Why should I expect anything less? Absent that proof, I have no way of discerning whether the truth is to be found in the Bible or in the Quran or in the Torah or in the writings of L. Ron Hubbard. I refuse to make life’s most important decisions based on what somebody else claims is truth.
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  BluesBrother

  I have made the same point in debates with family..Why would God start a preaching campaign to warn of impending destruction , over 130 years before that destruction was to come? When the life expectancy of the first hearers was that they would never see it fulfilled...

  The answer ? "Well the work was so much bigger than the campaigns of Noah and 1st Cent Jerusalem...In order for the world to get a thorough witness at the final end, it was necessary to start early to build up the number of preachers" .

  And what about those in the beginning who would not see the reward in their lifetime? " They will get a resurrection if not of the anointed, so they won't miss out"

  Yes it is the good old resurrection that is the cover all answer to any moral dilemma that you give them...
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  neverendingjourney

  That's an interesting response. Of course, that answer assumes that God was unwilling or incapable of rapidly multiplying the number of preachers in order to warn the world's population within a 40 or 50 year time period. It also assumes that God was unwilling or incapable of using radio or television to reach large masses of people with relative ease. Plus, the JWs teach that their preaching work isn't designed to reach every individual person, just "all nations." So, why would Jehovah need 100 years to raise up an army of JWs to reach "all nations?"

  Mental gymnastics of this kind drives me nuts. JWs dogmatically embrace whatever they are told and defend those positions however illogical they may be. Even when I was a zealous JW, having to come up with these silly responses to questions embarrassed me, especially when the difficult questions were posed by people I encountered in the door to door work.
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  Awakened07

  Well - in Jesus' day, there were approximately 250.000.000 people worldwide. Let's say there were about 3500 people who were Christian after 33AD, that would do the preaching. 250.000.000 / 3500 = 71428,6 people each. To do this, they had 37 years. However, they didn't have to preach world wide, so I would say that the estimate would be more like 15:1 (population of Jerusalem and its vicinity). 50.000 / 3500 = ~14. ~14 people each. 14 / 37 = 0,39 years pr. person pr. Christian in order to convert their allotted number (or try to convert).

  Fast forward to our day.

  6.600.000.000 people living world wide (minus 6.7 million, but that's so small a number I won't count it). Here, we have no set number of years. But this time, the whole world needs to hear the 'good news'. They should all get a fair chance at being converted.

  So how long would it take?

  6.600.000.000 / 6.700.000 = 985 people pr. JW to convert. If we use the above 'standard' and say that each person gets 0,39 years (142 days) each in order to get converted, we have 985 x 142 = 139870 days total pr. Witness = 383,2years total to preach for each Witness.

  Unfortunately, people don't live to be that old. And; more people - potential sucke... erm... Witnesses - are born every day.

  I think they'll need a few more pioneers... quickly!

  (math has never been my strong point, and this post is meant to be somewhat humorous, but you get my drift)