fukitol - "If Jehovah is our 'father', he would want humankind to independently govern itself..."
...unless he was an asshole, which - let's face it - some fathers are.
If Jehovah is our 'father', he would want humankind to independently govern itself
by fukitol 17 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Vidiot
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keyser soze
Nothing in the "biblical narrative" about god suggests a tolerant, live and let live attitude toward his subjects. The god of the Bible is a megalomaniacal control freak who uses fear to rule over them.
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Finkelstein
........and just think if mankind was left in a perfect state, not dying and multiplying offspring uninterrupted, this earth would be one crowded place by now.
ummm doggy !
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Saename
You forgot about one thing. In Jehovah's Witness theology, the analogy of a relationship between a father and a son extends only to the concept of free will and punishment. You cannot use the same analogy to justify other concepts. Sorry, Jehovah's Witnesses win.
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fukitol
Not so Saename. JW theology teaches that after the millennial reign and final test (further global genocidal culling), surviving mankind will be in a restored state as perfect sons of God again, like Adam was, with Jehovah as their direct heavenly father without a mediator and no 144k ruling over them. So it will be like a family relationship. This is what the JWS teach.
But what sort of family is it when the children are forever under their parents authority? Since no father wants to rule or govern over his grown up children and if perfect humans are in their father Jehovahs image, then we were created ultimately to govern ourselves.
The point I'm trying to make is that this means there is no need for God to ever intervene in human affairs because his original purpose was in fact for us to eventually govern ourselves independently anyway. He's left us to it because he knows we'll get there eventually.
Jehovah wanted humankind to get to that state of independence without experiencing suffering and death, but he knew it would be impossible without their experientially learning the difference between good and bad. His children had to suffer, to go through the school of hard knocks, to learn and grow and become like their heavenly father. Satan didn't really lie about that. The only way for us to truly learn the difference between good and bad is to be free to make our own choices and learn the consequences for ourselves. Jehovah knew it and had to let the 'rebellion' happen.
I'm just trying to get JW lurkers to stretch their minds in contemplating these inherent contradictions in the dogmas they've been taught by WBTS regarding free will, why God permits suffering, etc.
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scratchme1010
All parents want their children to grow up, mature, and become happily independent.
No normal father or parent would ever want to govern and rule over their children forever.
So if Jehovah exists and he is a heavenly 'Father' to his human progeny, and if we truly are in his image as his children, then humankind was always destined to govern itself.
If you believe in the Biblical narrative, Jehovah always intended to let go of his human children and let us rule ourselves when we were ready. This was as naturally a part of God's purpose as it is natural for all living beings to let go of their matured offspring.
Satan merely brought this plan forward. He always knew Jehovah intended mankind to govern itself eventually, but he forced Jehovah into giving mankind its independence prematurely through his interference in the garden of Eden. He claimed in the garden of Eden that mankind must learn morality and ethics by itself, the hard way, and in order to advance scientifically, so as to be fully self sufficient and ultimately govern itself successfully. Jehovah was forced to agree, despite knowing that his naive, inexperienced children would suffer terribly and hoping to mitigate that suffering.
The upshot of this? God will NEVER intervene in human affairs. There is no need of a thousand year reign or paradise earth, preceded by a global divine genocide at Armageddon.
As God's children in his image, it was always our inherent and divine destiny to govern ourselves, freely, without interference or being dictated to by some autocratic parent in heaven. This was always Jehovahs will; we have just been forced to get there the hard way, by ourselves. But we are and we will get there, slowly but surely, and painfully.
And that destiny includes advanced longevity (likely a thousand years maximum), through medical and and robotic science and innovation. In fact, the scientific foundation for this already exists and is being pursued.
...or there never was any Satan, there never was a garden of Eden, there never was a plan, there never was a Jehovah. In fact, the scientific foundation for that already exists and is being pursued.
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Cold Steel
Fukitol » All parents want their children to grow up, mature, and become happily independent. No normal father or parent would ever want to govern and rule over their children forever. So if Jehovah exists and he is a heavenly 'Father' to his human progeny, and if we truly are in his image as his children, then humankind was always destined to govern itself. If you believe in the Biblical narrative, Jehovah always intended to let go of his human children and let us rule ourselves when we were ready. This was as naturally a part of God's purpose as it is natural for all living beings to let go of their matured offspring.
This is essentially an issue of context.
First, what if we're not mature? What if, instead of being grown up, mature, we're still in the 9-year old category?
Many Christians don't hold to the notion that Jehovah is the Father, but rather, the Son. When Adam fell, man no longer could communicate directly with the Father (El, Eloah), but required a mediator, and that mediator was Yahweh, Jehovah, the great I AM. Not the Father, but the Son. Thus, when Jesus told the Jews, "...before Abraham was, I AM," they went out of their minds with rage and attempted to stone Him.
Yahweh also comes to judge both men and nations in the Old Testament, yet John, in the New, states that "the Father judges no man, but has committed all judgment to the Son." (John 5:22)
In an age today where there's an abundance of information, man has grown no wiser. We murder today much more efficiently, yet showing not a bit more wisdom than our ancestors did three thousand years ago. If we strictly held to God's commandments, based our laws on just the moral teachings we've been given, our governance would result in righteous societies all over the earth. But that hasn't happened. If anything, we've shown a complete tendency to self destruct, even to the point that if God didn't step in to cut things short that we would eradicate ourselves.
God has given us free agency, but He has to balance it against the rights and well being of others. When we about babies by the millions, we balance our free agency against the lives of others who deserve a time and place of their own. We rob them at the expense of our own convenience and well being. To further understand why we aren't left to govern ourselves, we must understand the reason why we're here. It's strange that in the Bible, no reason is ever given for man's existence. We read in Jeremiah 1:5 that Yahweh "knew," "ordained," and "sanctified" Jeremiah as a "prophet" to the nations. So He obviously knew that there would be nations and prophets well before Jeremiah was born. He also undoubtedly knew this before the fall of man.
Even during the Millennium, the thousand-year reign of peace, man's self-governance is unclear. At the end of this time, we read of a recurrence of the battle of Gog and Magog. When Satan is loosed in that day, he will find ample followers:
And when the thousand years are finished, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall come forth to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to the war: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up over the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down out of heaven, and devoured them. (Revelation 20:7-9 — ASV)
Think that for hundreds of years, Christ had ruled the earth in righteousness. Total peace on the planet had been achieved, even among the animals. No one went hungry or lacked in anything, yet when Satan was freed to spread his discontent, he wins over a large following, "the number of whom is as the sand of the sea." Instead of an assault on the old city as had occurred in Ezekiel 37-38, this new assault will be on the "beloved city." This may be another reference to old Jerusalem or it may refer to the New Jerusalem, which will then be on the earth. Unlike the first Gog/Magog, this war will end quickly and with no need to burn either bodies or weapons.
So what makes anyone think man is ready or able to govern himself, especially anyone who's seen the debates for the U.S. Presidential elections?
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fukitol
So you are defending the JWS stance then, Cold Steel, but from an orthodox Christian perspective?
If you don't believe humans are capable of ever ruling ourselves, then in what way are we in God's image? Humans are imbued with the same inherent faculties and qualities of God and Jesus to achieve more or less anything, as was admitted at the Tower of Babel, but it stops short of self determination? Why?
And how is it that all known offspring eventually matures and leaves it's parents and becomes independent of its parents authority, but not humans? How unnatural.
Contradiction upon contradiction.
Anyway, you missed the obvious orthodox Christian rebuttal of my thought experiment: sin and death.
God's intervention and the ransom sacrifice was needed to free the human race from Adamic sin and death...right?
