by goldensky 48 Replies latest jw friends
Hi dissed and Heaven, thanks for the welcome!
I was thinking about it, and I remember 'my first doubt' which I didn't get a satisfactory answer to was when I was 8 or 9 and I saw that picture in the Live Forever book of Adam and Jesus on the scales of justice. My question was, if Jesus as a perfect man pays for Adam's sin, who paid for Eve's sin? Or was a perfect woman not worth a corresponding ransom?
my biggest beef is: Ok, we grow old and get sick because of Adam's sin, but why are these poor children born with birth defects? to prove what?
that bad Satan made us sin, so let's make the innocent ones have suffering?
maybe satan is good, and God is the cruel liar
One of my many doubts was why does the light keep getting brighter into old light (which doesn't get brighter) into new light. Why all the changes in the first place when Jehovah doesn't change? Does he want to confuse us? Which isn't very loving at all esp as this is his cardinal quality. Why do people born into poverty illness and suffering who don`t receive a witness and subsequently die at armaggedon their suffering and existence is for nothing. I got told the stones would cry out. When was the last time you saw a stone talk! The elder who said this told me you questions are quite basic really you're spiritually weak and walked away. Ho help there then.
If a human did 1/100000th of the things Bible-God has allegedly done, he would go down in history as the greatest monster mankind has ever produced.
When God does things that are millions of times worse than my hypothetical human could ever do, people make excuses for him all over the place and say he is full of "love" and "compassion" for us.
I don't get it either.
Farkel
I don't have a problem with the teaching of the ransom. (It makes sense to me anyway)
God told Adam not to disobey him or he would die. If Adam didn't actually lose the right to life and die, God would be a liar. Adam couldn't pass on to his children what he didn't have (the right to life). Like an inheritance, you can't give your children what you don't have. Also, God already stated his purpose of Adam and Eve living forever on the earth, multiplying and filling the earth with their offspring who would also have the right to live forever. Was God's will going to be thwarted because Adam decided to sin?
To solve this dilemma, God provided another perfect human who also had the right to life (Jesus). But this time, the perfect man would have to die without sinning thus providing one unused 'right to life'. God took this extra unused 'right to life' that Jesus provided and used it to replace the one that Adam lost. It's as if Jesus adopted the whole human race and left them a great inheritance. The inheritance (the right to life) that we were supposed to get from our father Adam. This way, God is not a liar and his original purpose of an earth filled with Adam's descendents living forever becomes a reality.
The way I see it, God would be a liar if he gave us everlasting life without providing a human sacrifice. (As horrible and barbaric as it seems at first glance)
"A loving God would never have people tormented forever in a Fire Hell" we are taught.
Still the same loving God has allowed for -allegedly- 6,000+ years of all kinds of suffering. I'm not tlaking 'sickness and death'. I'm talking horible, inhumane, unbearable and never ending suffering.
I don't get it.
I fully agree with you, Winstonchurchill.
Sapphy, I'm so glad you posted! You sound sweet. I'm looking forward to hearing more from you.
Thank you, everybody, for your comments. They have really enlightened me as to the origin of sacrifices.
How I wish we had been allowed these open-hearted well-meaning debates at meetings!
Golden Sky... I am with you completely on this one. And you are so right... the "ransom sacrifice" of Jesus makes no sense, either. No sense at all! On so many levels... I could pontificate (or rant) about this one for hours.
You may want to explore the Gnostic myths. They believe the Creator was petty and blood-thirsty, and not the "most high" at all. Furthermore, they believe Jesus was murdered... pure and simple.
The Eden myth is a whole other subject. "Original sin" my eye.
Welcome, Sapphy!
Hi paul from cl.
Don't you find it strange that THE explanation which makes sense for you is not written down plainly and simply anywhere in the Bible? I mean, God is supposed to have directly inspired hundreds of pages including genealogies, ritual and dietary regulations, love songs and an apostle's request to bring him back his coat, but he forgot the two essential paragraphs you had to write?
Not only is the explanation missing: so are the concepts it presupposes, such as "perfection" (referring to Adam OR Jesus), "right to life" (especially "unused right to life"), "purpose", "living forever" (the last two missing in the Genesis stories at least).
Moreover, didn't Jesus' alleged "unused right to life" cease to be "unused" when he was resurrected from the dead? I know the WT avoids this problem (superficially) by claiming that Jesus was not resurrected as a man (contrary to most of the NT), still it is at odds with Pauline theology which connects salvation with Jesus' resurrection. And there is also the problem of "Eve" as has already been pointed out. Did "perfect Jesus" had one rib more than "perfect Adam" when he "sinned" so as to include "perfect Eve" perhaps? ;)
Narkissos, I don't know the answers to your questions. I know there is no such words as "right to life" and "unused right to life" I was just explaining, in my own words, the way it makes sense to me.
If Adam lost his life the day he sinned, he couldn't have any children. In a sense he did die that day (to Jehovah anyway). So, all Adams children are dead to him too. To me, it doesn't have to do with perfection but whether Jehovah gives us permission to live. Maybe we need a certain type of relationship with him to actually live forever. That type of relationship is impossible unless Jehovah wants it. He doesn't want it until certain requirements are met. (All speculation of course)
