The lure of paradise earth?

by little witch 30 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  little witch

  Sphere,

  But perfection denotes a know all state of being.

  art is a form of questioning, of interpretation.

  If one knows all, then questions are eliminated. Poetry and art die.

  All sense of wonder and mystery is gone.....

  Have you ever wondered what makes fiction novels and movies interesting?

  It is peeking into another persons view.

  According to the dubs, we will all think alike (necessary for peace they say)

  If that is so, then there is no room for imagination at all. All our questions are answered. Curiousity is dead and out of memory. Individual expression need not exist in any form.
• 

  Elsewhere

  Everyone wants to go to heaven... but no one wants die to get there. The WTS got around this problem by saying that you would never die and would inherit a paradise earth.

  It's a pretty good scam when you think about it.
• 

  little witch

  Expounding on what Else said

  Wouldnt that lose its luster after a generation or two?

  Hoping that you will be the "generation" to not have to die at all?

  Ahhhhh.....

  And believing such, how disappointed the living ones must be with the recent generation definition change!

  Not much of a comfort.
• 

  gitasatsangha

  You're right. It is loosing its luster, quickly. That's why young people are abandoning the Org or just putting in token time to make their parents happy. When the old generation and baby-boomer witnesses die out iin North america, the JW machine will run out of fuel, as it is rapidly doing already in Europe. They may get big results in third world countries, but that won't pay the bills.

  All they can hope for is the occaional 9-11 type crisis to get scaredy cats back to the meetings for a little while at a time. They are probably salivating over the odds that North Korea will go ballistic.
• 

  little witch

  So true Gita, so true.

  It seems the "pay off" is unappealing.

  They seem to want too much for such a little return.

  In light of it, it seems amazing there are any adhearents at all.

  So paradise is of no value that leaves fear and......

  tradition? (raised that way)?
• 

  ThiChi

  Fray Franz talks about this in his book, ISOCF. Ray calls it "Spiritual Materialism."
• 

  cyber-sista

  Of couse I wanted it. I don't think most JWs would have hung around for the abuse and boredom if it wasn't for that paradise promise (carrot). In the end, though, when I looked around I realized that according to WT teachings all the people I loved the most would be killed and I would have to spend the rest of my days--an eternity with a bunch of people who I didn't care a whole lot for and they didn't care a whole lot for me either. It also bothered me about the ones who would be ruling over us in the new world "the princes" who the WT translated for us as being the "elders." So the thought of being ruled over by the elders was another thing that made paradise seem a not so paradisical in my book. Also when I looked at the paradise pictures as pictured in the WT the people in them still looked at bit stiff as they were still wearing their casual dress clothes and the women a lot of time were prancing about in a field,but still wearing high heels--very weird...
• 

  gitasatsangha

  Tradition might work. Religions tend to have amazing longevity once they get started. (for instance liturgical langauages like Latin, Slavonic, Ge'ez, Parsi, Sanskrit, Pali, Aramaic, typically continue in use long after the languages and nations that used them have dissapeared) Most people don't like to question things too much.

  So Jehovah's Witnesses, as a sort of offshoot of Russellism, are well over 100 years old. Not bad for a doomsday cult founded by a looney tune. To survive they might need to get their adherants into localized communities, like the Amish, Parsees, or Hassidics, because the more modern method of community, the Internet, can only harm them unless they change radically.
• 

  Nosferatu

  Poetry and art die.

  No they don't!!!

  I see trees
  I like Jehovah
  The birds are flying
  I made a pinata
  Grass is green
  I pet a lion
  I am so happy
  I'm not e'en dyin'

  Okay, so pinata doesn't rhyme with Jehovah very well, but this is a dub poem.
• 

  willyloman

  Paradise earth = Heaven

  Armageddon = Hell

  It's just a rewrite of what you learned in Sunday School.