: The current Watchtower leadership IMO has engaged in manipulation of words on this teaching to keep the rank and file in line, WITHOUT actually teaching that non-JWs will be exterminated.
That's not the point, Derrick and you know it. The point IS that WTS leaders have not repudiated the teaching that 99.99% of the human race (including many dubs) will be massacred by Watchtower God in writing.
The question is, Farkel, WHY does the Watchtower pathologically imply that a large portion of mankind will perish in the great tribulation and Armageddon?
- They interpret certain scriptures in the Bible in the book of Revelation and other books in both the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures as prophesying this outcome and someone in the writing department in Brooklyn evidently was bold enough to throw out this infamous and long-maligned percentage.
- Their teachings strongly indicate they believe that if God executed 99.999% of the population in the days of Noah then subtracting 0.009 for a death toll of approximately 99.99% of Earth's present-day population is giving a generous estimate (and pardon my facetiousness).
- I don't have my WT CD handy right now but I believe that if I did could quote many instances where they have stated or strongly implied that there will be casualties of innocent people due to the various geological and celetial disasters that will occur during Armageddon. In other words, unlike some born again Christians they don't teach that God will necessarily shield ALL faithful JWs from death, but they DO emphasize that innocent casualties will have the hope of a resurrection based on Christ's ransom sacrifice.
- Due to conflicting quotations from various years it's debatable whether they do or don't believe that non-JWs who die during Armageddon will receive a resurrection to judgment (deferring to the long-term debate by ex-JWs on whether they believe, for instance, whether all who died in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah will receive a resurrection and the admitted flip-flops in various publications over the years). HOWEVER, IT IS SAFE TO CONCLUDE THEY BELIEVE ALL WHO ARE EXECUTED BY AVENGING ANGELS DURING ARMAGEDDON WILL NOT RECEIVE A RESURRECTION. Again, I stress the murkiness of this teaching in exactly who is literally divinely executed and who is an innocent "casualty of war" entitled to resurrection dying as a consequence of epi-plague or disaster (i.e., tidal waves, mega-earthquakes, meteor showers, volcanic activities and manmade disasters from nuclear detonations and chemical/bio-warfare etc. interpreted to be prophesied in the book of Revelation).
Now we're getting down to the real target of your anger, Farkel, and that is your personal angst about the Holy Bible's teachings and your apparent feeling the Watchtower's literal interpretations are perhaps the s**t frosting on the cake from your standpoint. I won't get into a lecture of why I believe that this anger is born out of a total lack of trust that we humans do not have the bigger picture, or lack of faith that God can resurrect everyone who is not out-and-out evil and even make them forget the horror show mankind has endured since the beginning days in Eden. I won't go into why I believe the critics of the Bible are like "back seat drivers" who haven't a clue in the world as to the real reasons why God does what he does, or why their reasonings about letting people die and suffer as proving God is a "monster" and comparisons to the love of human parents is irrelevant because human parents DO NOT have the supernatural power to raise the dead and control the very laws of space/time to where of God wanted to he could snatch good people from any point in time and then destroy those timelines as if they never existed in the first place. (If you think I'm insanely rambling read this month's Scentific American and take a look at its cover -- you'll have to call scientists insane as well, which knowing you wouldn't surprise me.)
No, I won't even delve into any of these areas because your fundamental problem is this belief that goes something like this: "Derrick, what you say would be well and good except it is FANTASY and I would be insane to even consider it." In other words, if any argument is presented that you have pre-supposed as based on the impossible, then you discard the argument immediately rather than risk considering it. You do this, IMO, because you believe it would open you to the risk of going "insane." If you pre-suppose that God cannot possibly exist, then it's impossible to rationally argue God's existence with you because you refuse to "go there" in the first place. Of course, you won't admit this because it would make you seem bias to this vast audience on this site, so you instead dismiss it with personal insults and sarcasm.
Getting back to the basis which the Watchtower teaches these things -- their (mis-) INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE -- it stands and remains JW doctrine. I do not wish that doctrine away, but I can claim that things are different now BECAUSE A NEW GENERATION OF JWS IS ABOUT TO TAKE THE HELM. These younger JWs are more open-minded because they were born in times of post-war prosperity where basic education was in far greater abundance. Believe it or not they recognize the inconsistencies and the death of their seemingly all-wise leaders will empower them to face these obvious discrepancies between party-line teachings and reality.
but the plain truth is it is STILL official WT doctrine. Dedalus and JT and others have quoted what those same leaders DO teach, and all your excusogetics cannot explain away actual JW doctrine.
True, but I can give breadth on WHY and insight into the (misguided) BASIS for the present GB's and Writing Dept.'s teachings. You don't like this, because evidently you don't think CORRECT INTERPETATIONS of the Bible are better. Misguided or correct you seem to believe it really doesn't matter because you have judged God as portrayed in the Bible as evil.
Case in point, you think God committed "genocide" by killing all humans except for Noah and his family. Therefore, the whole argument about what the Watchtower interprets about everything else is really moot, isn't it, Farkel?
Any doctrine not explicity changed by WT idiots on the GB stands until they change it. That's a fact, and all your whining doesn't change that.
However, you fail to either recognize or admit that it's because they believe their interpretation of the Bible is exactly correct, and until they are convinced they are wrong, they will not change it. Of course, admitting this really torpedoes your whole concept of a wicked and manipulative GB because it implies they really are too good for their own britches in their uncompromisingly sticking to what they personal KNOW is right (whether or not it is in fact truly right) until proven otherwise. Because what else are those willing to uncompromisingly stick to what they personally believe is right supposed to do? Are they supposed to say, "I might not be right so let's just do whatever we each feel is right"? You'll have to admit that is not exactly what Christ taught.
Farkel, you would have to show that after the GB each realized that any given teaching was wrong, they continued to demand JWs believe it for a period of time until they were good and ready to officially change it. That's tough because you can make a very strong case that my belief is wrong, for instance, but my value system might mean I'm determined to proceed with caution and not admit you're right until I positively believe beyond a shadow of doubt that you are in fact right (after which time I make the change).
The WT religion is based upon hate and mass-genocide on nearly all humans (regardless of age) on the entire planet and that is STILL a fact.
Yes, that is the crux of your belief in the Bible itself. Unfortunately you fail to realize that authentic truth in any matter is not often apparent on the surface. You also refuse to admit even though someone as bright as you must know deep down in your heart that sometimes we cannot explain our actions and convince everyone we are right, and at least for a time we may suffer condemnation from others on our actions until they one day learn all the things they didn't know about at the time they judged us. It's the old "after the fact" scenario where, after the fact, we might say "Gee, now I understand why God did what he did over time,l and appreciate the fact that everyone who ever lived was saved -- but how could I have possibly known that at the time? I am so sorry, I just had no idea at the time."
This is the subtle point where you'll eventually discover one day in the future, whether it is in a distant time who can guess, that God will perfectly understand your bitter anger at Him due to a complete lack of understanding. That is, unless (and only you know this in your own mind and heart) you just simply hate the concept of God no matter how righteous and just he is, or no matter how good things turn out in the end? I don't know you and you certainly don't know me, but I'm willing to guess this isn't the real problem with you. I'm willing to guess you simply are terrified to even "go there" and give yourself the luxury of even considering these possibilities. Because you're terrified of the possibility of being taken to the cleaners by a God that is truly monstrous or worse that space and time is a mindless and spiritually dead place where we just happened to accidently come into existence and where "good" and "bad" are simply constructions of intelligent life. I think that somehow you're afraid to consider the possibilities I have mentioned and that you must ridicule my faith in the factuality of these possibilities to make your denial of these possibilities feel like grasping "reality." You once looked at the possibilities of God being real through Watchtower glasses and discovered this was illusion, so you're afraid to look through anything that resembles looking-glasses even if it's a real "electron microscope" to examine all possibilities. Obviously those willing to consider possibilities instead of simply having a closed static worldview run the risk of seeing truth in possibilities that respected peers might ridicule.
It takes courage to simply stand alone with a proverbial "telescope" and aim it into the darkness, because peers who will refuse to look into that telescope might deride you as "crazy" for seeing something that isn't supposed to be there.
Derrick
