by JH 10 Replies latest jw friends
I remember when they said that wild animals wouldn't be wild anymore in paradise. We could be right next to these wild animals, and no harm would come to us.
I remember seeing magazines with pictures of young children and lions next to each other.
Is it realistic to believe that all animals would be nice to each other and peaceful, like shown in the magazines?
They claim that is an artistic representation. That animals will not harm humans (considering most animals are not that man hungry no duh). And that they were talking about animalistic personalities in humans becoming peaceful. The problem is it depends on the writer. THere seems to be some type of beast master/ tarzan doctrine that states things proceed normally in the animal kindgom until a human enters the picture and everthing becomes tamed.
Is it realistic to believe that all animals would be nice to each other and peaceful, like shown in the magazines?
Only if they are all equal on the food chain--and had full bellies.
Robyn
When the prophet Daniel was thrown into the lion?s pit, apparently an angel was sent to shut the mouths of the lions to prevent them from eating him. So, I guess in the new system?, there will just have to be one hell of a lot more of that mouth shutting. The angels will probably be assigned to also shut the mouths of any murmurers.
?SAHS
YES, and they still say it ... Awake Feb 22nd 2004,page 11,
"In Jehovahs new world people will be able to touch the furry mane of a lion, to stroke the striped coat of a tiger and yes, to sleep in the woods without the fear of any animal doing them harm. Notice this promise of God," then quote Ez 34.25, Hosea 2.18 & Isaiah 11.6-9
Personally this belief faded a long time before I really questioned the overall "Truth", I just held a private belief that the scriptures were not meant to be that literal . When I took my one and only progressive Bible Study, I told him to wait and see how it worked out. As time went by , the New World pictures became an embarrassment to me since they were plainly stupid . As a child I wanted to have a pet lion in the New World, but that is all it is , a childish Walt Disney view of wildlife
Some articles seem less specific on this point and I had thought that they were backing off from it, but then they printed the above....
IMHO it is TOTALLY unrealistic to imagine that animals will not eat each other, or harm us.
They wouldn't be the animals they are would they? What about the food chain? What about the whole ecosystem?
Sirona
In Jehovahs new world people will be able to touch the furry mane of a lion,
to stroke the striped coat of a tiger and yes, to sleep in the woods without
the fear of any animal doing them harm.
No it's not realistic at all.
Animals today eat just exactly what they are adapted (or "designed" for you creationists) to eat.
Cats for example cannot internally synthesize the essential amino acid, taurine and must therefore obtain it directly through their diet. The problem here is that taurine is not found in plant tissue, it is only found in meat. Ergo, cats are not naturally capable of being vegetarians.
If you carefully read JW publications, you may get the impression that some writers realize what a load of nonsense the idea of an all vegetarian ecology is. One of my best friends, a JW veternarian, actually wrote them a long letter after a series of particularly inane articles came out in the Awake! in the early 1980's, so this has been explained to them at great length.
However the JW's have never renounced this idea. It is still "official doctrine" as this picture from a recent Watchtower shows:
Straw (The biologically inactive, dried out stems of grass) is not a suitable food even for cattle and horses. Yet JW writers seem to feel that the lion is somehow capable of eating it.
i've always had an issue with this. interestingly my dad, still an active jw, doesn't believe it at all. he thinks that one day the WTS will have new light that shows them otherwise
I lump this in with most other stuff from the bible....not believable if you stand back and look at it rationally.
