Did you ever actually believe the JW fantasy version of "Paradise"?

by Darth Fader The Sequel 38 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  LongHairGal

  Darth fader:

  I'm not so sure.

  When I began my "fade" from the JW religion the first thing I did was rid myself of their paradise/everlasting life fantasy because I felt it was not healthy to tease myself with this. I decided to make peace with the idea of death. It has been happening to people since the beginning of time and I did not think it was mentally wise to dwell on a fantasy that says otherwise.

  It has never been a problem for me and I truly wonder if I really believed this teaching deep down inside. I feel it is just a "carrot" to attract and keep people trapped inside the JW religion.
• 

  clarity

  Richard ....ha ha I am sniggering about that

  statement .....do you know how many years

  wt has been teaching that one!!!!! From away

  baaaccckkkkk!!!

  " "will have to wait on J and see." lol

  *

  Omg, aren't we glad we woke up!

  clarity
• 

  OneEyedJoe

  Vidiot -

  Yep, that's the conclusion I came to.

  Meanwhile I know some JWs (elders even) who think we're going to colonize other planets once we have the use of the 90% of our brain that's currently sitting idle.
• 

  Vidiot

  OneEyedJoe - "Meanwhile I know some JWs (elders even) who think we're going to colonize other planets once we have the use of the 90% of our brain that's currently sitting idle."

  I remember one or two of those guys.

  I've come to the conclusion that that idea was how they would keep their geek-love of sci-fi intact whilst still subscribing to WT theology; sort of "having their cake and eating it, too".

  I never bothered to try and "justify" my geek-love of sci-fi growing up as a JW; I simply liked it and made no apologies.

  Reminds me...

  ...I once told a JW loyalist that I wouldn't want to use 100% of my brain. When he asked, dumbfounded, "why?", I told him that I'd constantly have to remember to keep breathing, keep my heart beating, and I'd never get neccessary sleep because I'd never be able to lose consciousness...

  ...that the so-called 90% we don't "use" is actually used in keeping the human body's automatic systems functioning without having to be conscious about it (I don't actually know if that's true, but it made sense to me at the time).

  He never brought up the prospect of using 100% of our brains in the "New System" again.
• 

  cofty

  Of course I did. Why would anybody waste another minute in the borg if they didn't?
• 

  Band on the Run

  As a small child, I could not understand why any god would hate himself and his destruction so much as to have Armageddon. NonJW infants -dead. Puppies-dead. Kittens-dead. Teachers-dead. NonJW Relatives - dead. Me-dead b/c I am human. If I knew how to walk out, I woulld have. All the sex talk was too much information for a young child.

  I would cry about the meetings as I walked around the neighborhood. PreVatican II nuns were extremely abusive to the Catholic kids. I cried for them. When they spoke about Jesus, a frequent topic during catechism, I learned about this loving figure. The Virgin Mary was caring, too.

  My sister had to be pulled out of the Newark, NJ schools on an emergency basis. Her doctor threatened to have my mother arrested. The nuns were Vatican II nuns. They were so kind and loving.
• 

  DesirousOfChange

  Regrettably I did.

  Really believed that I would never get old or die.

  I'm at least the 3rd generation (or the 3rd part of one overlapping generation) that believed it.

  I'm also waiting for my title to the London Bridge.

  "There's a sucker born every minute." ~ P.T. Barnum (not really, but most people believe he said it)

  Doc
• 

  Apognophos

  Well, sure, I believed it. As I got older I started to doubt the part about vegetarian lions and sharks (and spiders would eat seeds, I suppose?). But I also knew that there were no clear statements in the Bible that this would be the case. The verses about predators lying with prey seemed like possible metaphors, and in fact that Society has also interpreted them that way, besides the occasional literal take on them. So I just shrugged and figured that this was something we might have "new light" on eventually, but it didn't take away from the believability of the overall paradise.

  I suppose I avoided thinking about the question of why God would have made animals to prey on each other. The real answer from the Bible is, "Of course they do, why shouldn't they? Who cares?" because the concept of compassion towards animals did not exist in those harder times.
• 

  Mum

  Like marmot, I was first introduced to the concept of the JW paradise as a child, and was greatly enamored by it. But I love to read, go to restaurants, and do a lot of things that I never saw depicted in the Paradise drawings. I was also a drama queen, and, at some point, had to face the fact that life would be pretty bland in that food-and-festivity paradise. There weren't even any gourmet chefs. Everything grew on trees and induced goofy grins.

  There was a TV commercial (perhaps a public service message) that started out with a picture of someone relaxing in a natural setting while a voice in the background was narrating an account of how peaceful and serene this place was. Then, a more strident voice chimed in with "but REAL worlds are different!" Then there was a spiel about some kind of health problem or other problem that needed to be solved. This TV blurb set me to thinking. I was a closet reader, and I read The Women's Room, which I call "The Feminist Manifesto" by Marilyn French. There was a group of college women in this book who would get together and try to imagine perfect worlds. In the end, there was always a hidden flaw that they uncovered, so they gave up on the idea of a perfect world. Wow! The book that helped me to muster the courage to just leave was Your Erroneous Zones, by Dr. Wayne Dyer. I was struck especially be a description of a scene from the Russian book, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (sp?) in which Ivan is asking himself whether his whole life might be a lie, and musing on what he needed to do to get a real, authentic life. Powerful!
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  tidalblitz

  Unfortunately, I wholeheartedly believed in the paradise up until recently. Always thought that I would have a pet tiger. Nowadays, it seems like JW don't think about the practical daily life in "Paradise". For example, there would not be any electricity and no running water. Where would the food come from? Not very many know how to farm. I guess Jah would have to provide mana again, at least in the beginning. I'm not so sure that many JW would be ready to live a subsistence living life style. Are people really ready for this? It's all just romanticized.