Perhaps we'll all just be half as big.
Overpopulation in the "Paradise" Earth!
by Leolaia 61 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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ozziepost
Leo:
You've forgotten the roads!
In any community a certain amount of land is used for communal purposes e.g. roads etc and this has to be factored into the equation too.
Like Pole, I'm not too sure about your historical population figures. From what i studied at university, they seem to be be rather high.
Nevertheless, your point is well made - the dub view of the earth doesn't stack up!
Cheers, Ozzie
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ozziepost
As for a paradise earth - well, there may be but not as visioned by the WTS. Peter speaks of a "new heavens and a new earth", John speaks of New Jersualem coming down to earth - so there may be some earthly "paradise" but it's not in orthodox christian teaching. In short, the Bible doesn't say - just as leo is pointing out here.
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Leolaia
Pole....The source of the statistics was the same website you cited in your post, the Population Reference Bureau, which is a renowned clearinghouse on demographic data and analysis. The link again:
I agree that the entire Watchtower house of cards is all crap. In fact, if you start with just 6 people after the Flood in 2370 BC and apply the estimated growth rate, there would only be a population of 60 people about 200 years after the Flood and 116 people in Abraham's day. Yet by then we already have a great Tower of Babel, cities, whole nations of Canaanites, Egyptians, Babylonians, Elamites, etc. So much for the chronology. But I would guess a die-hard JW would argue that ppl just had a lot of babies after the Flood to repopulate the earth. Well, in order to squeeze out a population of even 200,000 people in 1990 BC, we would need a growth rate (mind you, not a birth rate, since there are things like infant mortality) that is 1,718 times that of normal for the period (an annual 0.0512, according to the article). If you do the math, the actual birth rate would have to have been so outrageously ridiculous that it would have made rats jealous for its productivity.
ozziepost....The figures only seem high because they factor in infant mortality, which required pre-modern societies to have a disproportionately large number of births to maintain population growth. So the estimated 12.8 billion people born between 1200 and 1650 were not 12.8 billion who largely lived to adulthood as people often do today. According to the Population Reference Bureau, 1 in every 10 children born in the United States in 1900 died before their first birthday. Today, the mortality rate is 7 out of every 1,000 births in the U.S. In pre-modern societies (and even today in a few places in the third world), the infant mortality rate was 1 out of 5, and in the very early days of the human race, the rate is thought to have been as high as 1 out of every 2 births. This is why the numbers seem so high. Because of childhood and infant mortality, the average life expectancy at birth was a brief 22 years during the Roman Empire, and by the Middle Ages it had risen only to 33 years in England, and even in the middle of the 19th century, it was only at 43 years -- as opposed to the current 75 years in the developed world in the modern age of medicine.
But remember, every human being who was born (aside from the "exceptions") should be eligible for a resurrection according to JW doctrine -- including babies. So they count.
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XQsThaiPoes
THe problem is this is a broken doctrine. THe wt does not know what to do with it. This doctrine gets them new converts and retains old ones. It has became the same as "all good people go to heaven" in the church except more liberal because absolutely evil people are allows a JW resurrection. For example Benito Musalini amd Adolf Hitler will be resurrected.
*** g89 10/8 p. 9 War?Coping With the Aftermath ***
All past victims of murderous war and violence, even the dead, will benefit from this war. (Psalm 72:4, 12-14; John 5:28, 29) Think of it?a restoration of the Paradise of peace that God originally purposed.
The problem is with earth people expect the laws of physics to remain the same. In heaven they assume no laws of physics.
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yucca
according to Matt 7:14 Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leads to life, and few there be that find it. Doesnt sound like an over population problem at all.
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XQsThaiPoes
(Matthew 7:13-14) 13 "Go in through the narrow gate; because broad and spacious is the road leading off into destruction, and many are the ones going in through it; 14 whereas narrow is the gate and cramped the road leading off into life, and few are the ones finding it.
Who said the paradise earth was the narrow gate? Anyone remember that second purging in the 1000 years?
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willyloman
attendants walking around the globe with signs that say "please be seated" and "no reserving of fig trees", and taping brown paper over all of the fields and streams.
Wow. When they said they were "preparing us now for life in the new order," I had no idea we were going to be THAT well prepared!
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ozziepost
(Matthew 7:13-14) 13 "Go in through the narrow gate; because broad and spacious is the road leading off into destruction, and many are the ones going in through it; 14 whereas narrow is the gate and cramped the road leading off into life, and few are the ones finding it.
Who said the paradise earth was the narrow gate?
This was NOT referring to the earthly paradise but the heavenly one! Remember that according to the WTS those to whom Jesus preached were to be of spiritual Israel i.e. the 144,000.
Please note I said "according to the WTS" - I don't believe it either! Jesus only spoke of one hope and I'll stick with that. As leo has pointed out, the Bible's "evidence" of a paradise earth is scanty indeed.
Cheers, Ozzie
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XQsThaiPoes
Um... did you miss the point or what.
Go in through the narrow gate; because broad and spacious is the road leading off into destruction, and many are the ones going in through it;
I assume every dead human in history is not supposed to fit though the narrow gate nor do they count as few.