How Would you Interpret the Sign of the Last Days?

by Mr. Falcon 99 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Mr. Falcon

  Harold Camping. 2012. WTBS doomsday prophecy. Maze's ramblings. Etc.

  I'm curious about something, and I would like your opinions on it. Religious groups and others have been making doomsday prophecies for a long while now. Nowadays, when they utter such apocalyptic predictions, they point to "worsening" conditions world-wide. Are things bad today? Yes, nobody is refuting that. There are serious problems that were barely an issue 100 years ago. Yet, to be fair, there were problems 100 years ago that have been solved in our day and age.

  But it must be acknowledged too that in many respects, human perception of suffering is also relative to one's own applicable situation. For example, we are in the midst of a bad economy. However, a rich person may be having the time of their life right now, completly untouched by the recession. So if you were to ask him how he feels about the economical problems, there's a higher chance that he's not going to be as concerned as say a laid-off factory worker with 4 small children.

  We may feel sadness and pity for people starving in the Sudan, but realistically, we don't suffer their pain 24 hours like they do. I'm not entirely sure what I'm trying to say here, but I guess it just seems to me that as I look through history, there were peoples on this planet who were suffering HORRIFIC conditions. Irish peasants enduring Cromwell's persecution. Native Americans being massacred off of their land. Chinese farmers under constant threat of famine and Mongol invasion. London residents dying in droves from Plague. Unfortunate civilians living in cities and towns that were attacked during the Crusades. I can't help but wonder if all these unfortunate people believed that thier plight (which in the context of their individual situations, was much worse than anything experienced by anyone proclaiming Doomsday right now) was the Last Days or End of Days or whatever you want to call it.

  I'm not making any damn sense. Does anyone know what I'm trying to ask here?
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  LostGeneration

  There are serious problems that were barely an issue 100 years ago. Yet, to be fair, there were problems 100 years ago that have been solved in our day and age

  True on both counts, my conclusion is that the first time we play the lottery is when we are born. If you are born in the USA, Canada, Europe, Australia, or a few other places you are already a big winner. The luck of the draw my friend.

  as I look through history, there were peoples on this planet who were suffering HORRIFIC conditions.

  Yep, much worse than today in many cases. Would any of us want to live in centuries past with the diseases and starvation that used to affect nearly EVERYONE on earth? No thanks. Today is the best time ever to be alive for the most people, and the same will be true 100 years from now.

  People want to feel like they are special. Part of the population (especially JWs) equate the time they are living in with their own specialness. JWs are also not very good students of history, as the WT spoon-feeds them the facts and opinions that they want programmed into their brains. One such opinion is that these are the "last days" because it works so well in keeping them tied into the org. Fear is a powerful motivator, and if people are in fear of everlasting death at Armageddon, they will simply ask "How high?" everytime the WT says "Jump"
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  JeffT

  I'm waiting for some JW to go into his spiel about the end is near, and then I'm going to ask a simple question:

  What difference does it make?

  When he's done stammering about great blessings coming blah blah blah, I'm going to point out that as a Christian I'm doing what I think is the right thing, because, well, its the right thing. Should I change if I thought the end was a thousand years in the future? I'd hope not. And of what benefit is it, if I'm only doing what I'm doing to get God off my back?
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  stuckinamovement

  It's all perspective. People who gravitate towards groups like the Witnesses and Harold Camping are already convinced that life can't get any worse. For example if you lived in Sendai this last winter you were convinced that it was the end of the world. Or if you were a person in Rwanda in the 1990's it must hav seemed like it was the end. I think about the Spanish flu or the Black death, people then must have thought that the signs of the end were fulfilled and the end was at hand.

  If you are personally suffering it becomes easy to swallow that Armageddon is near. If you are living in a state of good health,an area of low crime, disease, and unemployment it becomes a lot harder to convince you that the signs of the end apply to you and the time and place you are living in. Like lostgeneration said, we all want to feel like we are special. Truth is we are not. Bad things have been happening for melleniums and the will continue to happen for melleniums.

  SIAM
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  Mr. Falcon

  If you are born in the USA, Canada, Europe, Australia, or a few other places you are already a big winner.

  Agreed. And this applies not only to socioeconomic problems, but also to one's entire faith. As leavingwt once told me, "Do you really think you are that priviliged to be 'chosen' or do you think your religion has more to do with WHERE you are born?"

  Fear is a powerful motivator, and if people are in fear of everlasting death at Armageddon, they will simply ask "How high?" everytime the WT says "Jump"

  I see your point, LG. And that same fear generates hatred and suspicion against anyone who tries to ask even the most innocent of questions regarding all this wacky Armageddon doctrine. Such fear completely shuts down any kind of discussion or idea-sharing. So you can't even respectfully debate this topic with a JW.
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  Dune

  This reminds me of the influx of fervor within my congregation after the september 11th attacks.

  I have to admit, that i was caught up in it too. I know an elder that went as far as to say that the "religion ban prophecy" would start with muslims and trickle down to the JW's in time. But then came the 2003 Iraq War, and then came the 2004 Southeast asia earthquake, and then Katrina in 2005. Couple these major events with the occasional stories about mothers throwing newborns into trash cans and teenagers killing their parents over video games and you can see why the pereception is that things are getting worse.

  It reminds me of a talk an elder gave after 9/11 where he said "It used to be, here today, gone tommorow....now it's, here today, gone today" to the sound of MMMMMMMHMMMMMMMMM's all over the kingdom hall.

  My take on it is that with the advancement of technology bad news is more readily available giving way to the perception of an ever increasing, dangerous world, when in reality people have been killing, raping, tortuing, starving and dying since the dawn of man.
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  sabastious

  The Gospel's "last days" prophecies are one of the reasons the Bible is such a powerful tool. When I read this Biblical passage without fear I see a basic message. As far as I can tell it's actually designed to be a source of encouragement and not a message of doom. It's basically telling us that times will be rough in the end and it's a message for those people. There is no need to calculate the end times because, as we see from history, it just stirs up fear and emotion. We have eyes and ears and can put two and two together. The message of the Last Days is merely to hold tight.

  The end is coming we can be sure of that and by The End I mean our life. Since our start 100% of all human life has died. Only within interpretation and hypotheticals is someone born that does not die. It is DEATH that comes like a theif in the night. It is death that we must be watchful of because of it's random nature. We are no good to the living when dead; it's really as simple as that.

  The "signs of the last days" are a reminder that if things get really bad we can extract hope from the Bible by remembering that someone is watching and everything is for a purpose. Although, that doesn't licence us to crawl up into the fetal position and die nor does it licence us to act unjustly and call it "God's purpose."

  Mathew 24's message is "if you see all these signs, be ready." It doesn't actually say that there is only a SINGLE span of time in human history that has all these signs. There have been other spans of time with strife comparable to how it is now and those people should have been "ready" as well, but it didn't come for them. Were the writers of the Bible liars? Not really, the Bible is not the overtly specific about these things. It's actually the Bible's followers that have gotten so specific.

  The Bible has been used as a medium to set up kingdoms for human gods. That's what happens when the "signs of the last days" are treated as a fundamental tenent of a religion; I have learned this from listening to, and living within, history. Maybe the Bible's wisdom has been squandered, but in the end all of us have the power of applying love in our lives.

  -Sab
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  Mr. Falcon

  JeffT - You make a very interesting point. That's one thing I've never understood amidst all the JW doctrine pumped into my skull. We are told to serve Jehovah out of love, not out of reward. According to JW teachings, that was Satan's whole argument in that Job debacle. So, if in fact we are supposed to selflessly serve God out of love, not gain, then what is the point of dangling the Paradise carrot in front of people? Oh wait....

  ..... recruitment propaganda.
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  unshackled

  A few years back when there were the SARS and avian flu outbreaks my father-in-law (an elder) stated something like "there's never been a time like this with so much disease and deadly viruses". He of course was alluding to how bad the times are and we're so close to the end.

  I was still a JW but held my tongue because all I thought of was the Bubonic plague. The Black Death wiped out 75 million people. That's insane when you really think about it.

  Times are better than ever. Life expectancy alone has doubled in the past 100 years.

  So it's a matter of perspective. If one constantly fills their head with how bad things are, that's all you'll see. Of course that is exactly what the WTBS needs to do to keep people in the Borg. Fill them with fear, then place the carrot in front of them. In fact, that's not a tactic exclusive to the Dubs....most religions are based on that model.
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  Snoozy

  My brother and I just got in a discussion on this..he said (to my reply of always having earthquakes etc) that all these things will happen at one time..not scattered over time..Then he told me to look up www.endtime.com and read.

  I told him the bible speaks in so many parables how can anyone know what is true..they can twist the parable to suit their teachings..He led me to read Matt 24 and Mark 13 and 14 and Luke 17..so far I haven't even opened my Bible..told him I had enough of that stuff..

  He also told me that Martin Luther King had rejected the book of Revelation..first time I heard of that.

  He then went on to tell me of how Isreal became the "generation" of a fig tree in 1948...

  After he started telling me again how Jesus was coming in a airplane or spaceship I told him I had to hang up as I had things to do..

  Snoozy..not holding her breath for "the end" to come.