What is the value of suffering?

by jabberwock 23 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  jabberwock

  In a recent talk the speaker asked the question, "How will God destroy the wicked at Armageddon?" The first and most efficient means will be to confuse them into killing one another. Second there are the forces of nature at his disposal. Lastly angelic forces will be used to mop up what remains of humanity alienated from Jehovah.

  In some of the older publications, and in one recent Watchtower article, there are some horrific pictures of Armageddon featuring an assortment of rebellious faces twisted in fear and agony.

  When destroying the wicked at Armageddon why does Jehovah have to make them suffer at all? Why confuse them into slaughtering one another? Why collapse buildings on their heads with earthquakes or zap them with lightning? Why should the angels have to be involved at all? Why can't he just painlessly take their lives?

  Jehovah's Witnesses scorn belief in hellfire claiming that a loving God would never eternally torture people even for the worst sins of an entire lifetime. I always believed that God was above torturing them at all. As a Witness what was I supposed to believe?

  And why did Jesus have to suffer? I understand why he had to die, but why was suffering a necessary part of that? Couldn't the ransom be had without a torturous death involved?

  What is the value of suffering?

  jabberwock
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  WTWizard

  Suffering is necessary only because Jehovah is an Almighty Lowlife Scumbag.
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  Narkissos

  Imo the actual experience of suffering is rather a destroyer of all and any "value," from a subjective angle. But even this may be construed paradoxically as a value (cf. Hebrews 5:8, emathen aph'ôn epathen, he learnt from that which he suffered).

  Anyway the representation, depiction, imaginarisation, dramatisation or theatralisation of "objective" suffering is definitely a dark, obscure, but basic cultural "value," especially in the Western world (Artaud's "theatre of cruelty" comes to mind). And although the (especially Western) Christian emphasis on the "cross" has certainly contributed to it as much as it has expressed it, it certainly can be traced earlier than Christianity: think of the evolution of Greek tragedy or the Roman games for instance. All Jewish and Christian pictures of retribution (either "vicarious" in the case of the redeemer, or "deserved" for the reprobate) imply an audience watching, in an ambiguous mix of repulsion and attraction, the "show" of conscious suffering -- as if a painless and above all consciousless "annihilation" wouldn't be "satisfying". It is interesting indeed that the gruesome depictions of "hell" which JW reject as needlessly cruel resurface in their own popular imaginations of Armageddon. More generally the "economy of suffering" in the modern Western world which denies the "value" and represses the very idea of suffering while producing and watching a considerable amount of it in "fiction" and "news" -- "screening" it in more than one sense.
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  Lady Lee

  The Old Testament is filled with examples of a vengeful God who destroys people in painful and horrific ways. The WTS tends to place much more emphasis on the OT rather than the lessons of Christ so it stands to reason that they would take those older examples of destruction to demonstrate what Armageddon will be like.

  I think in those cases it was important for the people being destroyed to know their deaths came at the hand of God

  The more I learn the less I like the Bible and its God
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  OUTLAW

  Suffering lets you know,your not dead yet........................................LOL!!...OUTLAW
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  Heaven

  I think it depends. If one is capable of overcoming suffering, then one tends to learn, act, and grow. It also gives the rest of us something to learn from as well as a reason and impetus to help others and improve things. However, if the suffering is insurmountable, I believe it can be counter-productive and ultimately destructive. There are many examples on this Forum where people have suffered, however, they have learned, acted, and grown because of it and their lives have become better.
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  BabaYaga

  Lady Lee said: The WTS tends to place much more emphasis on the OT rather than the lessons of Christ

  You said a mouthful there! I have wondered why they even make a pretense of accepting the "New" Testament, their dogma is so Mosaic, and Christ really has no say at all in their philosophy.
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  Narkissos

  Well we must not have read the same book. I tend to think that the "value" of suffering -- both punitive and redemptive -- is way higher in the NT as a whole (including the sayings ascribed to Jesus, especially in the Synoptic Gospels) than in the OT (which has remarkable exceptions to cruelty, e.g. Jonah). To Christianity (and late, post-OT Judaism) gruesome destruction is not enough, it has to be eternal torment, fire and worms, darkness and gnashing of teeth. I find it amazing that the myth of the "kind NT Jesus" as opposed to the "mean OT Yahweh" survives the reading of the texts...
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  BabaYaga

  Interesting point, Narkissos... perhaps it is because Jesus himself did not mention much of that "gnashing of teeth" in his parables... or am I deluding myself? The dark crazy stuff seems to be Revelation... please correct me as I am only reading the Gnostic gospels these days (and calling all of it mythology, regardless!)
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  Vachi 8 He Is

  Suffering is the icing on the BS cake. If god just made us disappear you probably wouldn't be THAT afraid of armegeddon. Armegeddon has to hurt and badly. Check it, I have a knife, aimed right for your body and my arm is closing in fast. Would you cringe or guard yourself if you knew the blade was retractable?