Animals living forever

by exwhyzee 6 Replies latest jw friends

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  exwhyzee

  Did you ever wonder why, if God meant man to live forever, why animals would still grow old and die?

  It seems like if he wanted to, he could have created them to live forever and then stop reproducing once there were enough....like man was supposed to once the earth was filled. In the "new system" (assuming there is to be one) Man supposedly won't be eating meat and the animals wouldn't be eating eachother so they would die of old age and would suffer the effects of growing old as they do now. I can't imagine how many pets one might have over the span of eternity and how many one would loose as well. With our perfect minds, we'd remember each one of them "I sure miss Fluffy number 4,321 she was the best dog ever "

  Do you still believe in a "New System" and if so...what about the animals ?
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  wasblind

  "I sure miss Fluffy number 4,321 she was the best dog ever "

  Hahahaha, I really did have a dog named fluffy as a child
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  exwhyzee

  Hahahaha, I really did have a dog named fluffy as a child

  Maybe she'll be in the resurection ! ( evil grin )
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  Leolaia

  The idea that God intended humans to live forever is very different from that found in Job 14, which specifically refers to the limits to human life as intended by God and comparable to natural processes of decay and erosion in the world.

  "Man's days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed.... At least there is hope for a tree: If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail. Its roots may grow old in the ground and its stump die in the soil, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a plant. But man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last and is no more. As water disappears from the sea or a riverbed becomes parched and dry, so man lies down and does not rise .... As a mountain erodes and crumbles and as a rock is moved from its place, as water wears away stones and torrents wash away the soil, so you destroy man's hope".

  The same thought can be found in Sirach, which claims that mankind was created to be mortal like the animals:

  "The Lord himself made man in the beginning, and then left him free to make his own decisions....Man has life and death before him; whichever a man likes better will be given to him....The Lord fashioned man from the earth, in order to consign him back to it. He gave them so many days' determined time, he gave them authority over everything on the earth. He clothed them with strength like his own, and made them in his own image. He filled all living creatures with dread of man, making him master over beasts and birds. He shaped for them a mouth and tongue, eyes and ears, and gave them a heart to think with. He filled them with knowledge and understanding, and revealed to them good and evil....Man cannot have everything since the son of man is not immortal. What is brighter than the sun? Yet it suffers eclipse. Flesh and blood think of nothing but evil, God surveys the armies in the lofty sky while all men are nothing more than dust and ashes.... All that comes from the earth returns to the earth....Whether your life lasts ten or a hundred or a thousand years, its length will not be held against you in Sheol" (Sirach 15:14-17, 17:1-31, 41:3-4, 8-10).

  In short: Everything has its own time on the earth.
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  Heartofaboy

  The borg tells us humans grow old & suffer because of 'sin & imperfection', a falling short of God's perfect standards.

  However, haven't animals always grown old & suffered the effects of ageing even though they are without sin?

  It seems the concept of ageing & suffering the painful effects of ageing were not alien to the creator's mind before the 'sinning' of the first human pair.
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  jwfacts

  I always used to wonder why animals die since they did not sin. Even as a child that was a glaring contradiction of Watchtower doctrine and its application that "the wages sin pays is death".

  No, I do not believe man will live forever on earth.
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  Black Sheep

  If it wasn't for the bOrg, I would have taken up a career that had many conflicts with my dad's cult.

  I didn't an option at that age, "Nothing else is to believed under my roof!" was often expounded, along with many other cult mantras.

  I had managed to pick up enough from my schools to know that not all was kosher with WT doctrine, and that amimals not eating each other for dinner wasn't way up there with spacemen for Gods/leaders that must be OBEYED, but I was still a psychologist's dream for those psychologists that weren't victims of cults themselves.

  I am trying hard to be polite here.

  The country I live in is a testament to evolution and creation being normal. We have just had an earthquake. It pushed the Alps up higher

  Erosion steals 40mm off our alps every year. Without subduction our alps would erode every year and dissappear. 40mm sounds insignificant but the story doesn't end here. The Australian plate pushes our island higher every year as itslides beneath us and erosion washes the alps back into the sea where the nutrients mix with currents from the arctic and the tropics in an abyss that churnes it all into a nutrient rich environment with sperm whales at the top of that food chain.

  My mother rang tonight and, sure enough, earthquakes as a sign was a part of her agenda.

  Even though our family has moved to one of the most unstable pieces of earth on our planet, a bit of a shake is a sign of Christ's presence.

  I really don't expect amy better from them.

  Donald Duck flying off the handle when Hewey, Dewey and Louey pushed him beyond his boundaries is too close to Jehovah getting pissed off with the Juice for my reality TV Comfort Zone.