The idea of perfection and living forever

by JustTickledPink 16 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  JustTickledPink

  This past year I turned 30, my father in law is visiting and he's turning 62 tomorrow so I'm baking him a cake. I have been thinking about aging and how it seems very NORMAL to me.

  If Adam and Eve sinned and no longer were going to live forever, how come there aren't plants and animals that were also living forever. Their sins shouldn't have changed anything else. Yet, everything around us has a birth, life, death cycle. Water, rocks, plants, bugs, even germs all are born, are alive, and then die at some point. It seems unnatural to me to think of living forever. It seems more natural to think of life as a cycle.

  The idea of babies always being born, the idea of experiencing childhood and then experiencing grandparenthood, I can't imagine just stopping everything and life being in the same state day after day.

  Why do JWs love that idea so much? Why not look to science and see everything has it's time and accept it? Live the life cycle you were given and be grateful!
• 

  gumby

  TickledPink,

  Live the life cycle you were given and be grateful!

  It ain't that easy sis.

  The marvels of life itself and human consciousness gives many good reason to believe there is a purpose behind planet earth and it's inhabitants. To dismiss it's purpose is to close ones eyes IMHO.

  What is it's purpose? Dammed if I know...........but I'd sure like to find out before I start pushin up daisies.

  Gumby
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  link

  If you want an hilarious few minutes just ask a JW for their take of living forever on "paradise erf".

  I?m sure that there must have been past threads on this explaining their visions. Things like cars running on hydrogen, building materials (plus everything else) just materialising whenever it is needed and old men coming out of the "memorial tombs" dressed in top hats and spats!

  Every JW seems to have their own take on what it will be like and every one is different. The only thing that stops it being painfully funny is that they quite sincerely believe everything they are telling you. You then realise how pathetic it all is.

  link
• 

  Scully

  Just before we stopped going to meetings, I decided to read the Bible by itself. The account in Genesis seems to be where JWs get the idea that they can Live Forever In Paradise On Earth?, but on reading the story again, that concept is nowhere to be found:

  ***

  Rbi8 Genesis 2:15-3:24 ***

  15And Jehovah God proceeded to take the man and settle him in the garden of E´den to cultivate it and to take care of it. 16 And Jehovah God also laid this command upon the man: "From every tree of the garden you may eat to satisfaction. 17 But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die."

  18 And Jehovah God went on to say: "It is not good for the man to continue by himself. I am going to make a helper for him, as a complement of him." 19 Now Jehovah God was forming from the ground every wild beast of the field and every flying creature of the heavens, and he began bringing them to the man to see what he would call each one; and whatever the man would call it, each living soul, that was its name. 20 So the man was calling the names of all the domestic animals and of the flying creatures of the heavens and of every wild beast of the field, but for man there was found no helper as a complement of him. 21 Hence Jehovah God had a deep sleep fall upon the man and, while he was sleeping, he took one of his ribs and then closed up the flesh over its place. 22 And Jehovah God proceeded to build the rib that he had taken from the man into a woman and to bring her to the man.

  23 Then the man said:

  "This is at last bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh. This one will be called Woman, Because from man this one was taken."

  24

  That is why a man will leave his father and his mother and he must stick to his wife and they must become one flesh. 25 And both of them continued to be naked, the man and his wife, and yet they did not become ashamed.

  3

  Now the serpent proved to be the most cautious of all the wild beasts of the field that Jehovah God had made. So it began to say to the woman: "Is it really so that God said YOU must not eat from every tree of the garden?" 2 At this the woman said to the serpent: "Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat. 3 But as for [eating] of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ?YOU must not eat from it, no, YOU must not touch it that YOU do not die.?" 4 At this the serpent said to the woman: "YOU positively will not die. 5 For God knows that in the very day of YOUR eating from it YOUR eyes are bound to be opened and YOU are bound to be like God, KNOWING good and bad."

  6

  Consequently the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was something to be longed for to the eyes, yes, the tree was desirable to look upon. So she began taking of its fruit and eating it. Afterward she gave some also to her husband when with her and he began eating it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them became opened and they began to realize that they were naked. Hence they sewed fig leaves together and made loin coverings for themselves.

  8

  Later they heard the voice of Jehovah God walking in the garden about the breezy part of the day, and the man and his wife went into hiding from the face of Jehovah God in between the trees of the garden. 9 And Jehovah God kept calling to the man and saying to him: "Where are you?" 10 Finally he said: "Your voice I heard in the garden, but I was afraid because I was naked and so I hid myself." 11 At that he said: "Who told you that you were naked? From the tree from which I commanded you not to eat have you eaten?" 12 And the man went on to say: "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me [fruit] from the tree and so I ate." 13 With that Jehovah God said to the woman: "What is this you have done?" To this the woman replied: "The serpent?it deceived me and so I ate."

  14

  And Jehovah God proceeded to say to the serpent: "Because you have done this thing, you are the cursed one out of all the domestic animals and out of all the wild beasts of the field. Upon your belly you will go and dust is what you will eat all the days of your life. 15 And I shall put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He will bruise you in the head and you will bruise him in the heel."

  16

  To the woman he said: "I shall greatly increase the pain of your pregnancy; in birth pangs you will bring forth children, and your craving will be for your husband, and he will dominate you."

  17

  And to Adam he said: "Because you listened to your wife?s voice and took to eating from the tree concerning which I gave you this command, ?You must not eat from it,? cursed is the ground on your account. In pain you will eat its produce all the days of your life. 18 And thorns and thistles it will grow for you, and you must eat the vegetation of the field. 19 In the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return."

  20

  After this Adam called his wife?s name Eve, because she had to become the mother of everyone living. 21 And Jehovah God proceeded to make long garments of skin for Adam and for his wife and to clothe them. 22 And Jehovah God went on to say: "Here the man has become like one of us in knowing good and bad, and now in order that he may not put his hand out and actually take [fruit] also from the tree of life and eat and live to time indefinite,?" 23 With that Jehovah God put him out of the garden of E´den to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken. 24 And so he drove the man out and posted at the east of the garden of E´den the cherubs and the flaming blade of a sword that was turning itself continually to guard the way to the tree of life.

  There is nothing in that story that states that God created Adam and Eve with the capacity to live forever. It says is that God told them that if they ate from the tree of knowledge "in the day you eat from it you will positively die." It says that Eve believed that if she even touched the tree, she would die.

  But who gave Eve the idea that she would not die?

  4 At this the serpent said to the woman: "YOU positively will not die.

  And who was afraid that Adam and Eve would figure out that they could take fruit from the Tree of Life and Live "to time indefinite"?

  22 And Jehovah God went on to say: "Here the man has become like one of us in knowing good and bad, and now in order that he may not put his hand out and actually take [fruit] also from the tree of life and eat and live to time indefinite

  That's when the light bulb went off and I knew that

  1. People were never meant to live forever
  2. The serpent (aka: the devil in judeo-christian lore) made the promise of not dying
  3. That God did not want people to "live to time indefinite" and used death threats right from the start to control peoples' behaviour

  and that's when I realized I had been lied to by the WTS for years and years.
• 

  JustTickledPink

  Scully, I never thought about it that way before... thanks for giving me a new perspective on it. I always thought the idea was that if they remained faithful, maybe one day God would let them eat of the tree of life (the 2nd tree) and they would live forever. But I never believed they were automatically living forever. They ate of the tree of knowledge and then they were dying for sure.... but without partaking of the tree of life it seems like death would have come anyway.

  The idea of putting out 2 trees and then telling them not to touch them or eat from them also seems a bit bizarre. Have a child and tell them not to eat these cupcakes and leave them there day after day, I betcha they eat them and I don't think your child would be evil for doing so, just curious.

  As for Revelations, that whole book is cracked. Sprit beings might live forever but that's a whole different subject.
• 

  New Worldly Translation

  old men coming out of the "memorial tombs" dressed in top hats and spats!

  LOL!! Nice one, that gave me a good laugh.

  When I believed in the resurrection I always thought it would be weird to eventually be the same age as my grandma. I also had trouble figuring out where everyone was going to live once the earth was filled up cos no-one died.
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  Will Power

  Thanks for posting that Scully.

  They ate of the tree of knowledge and then they were dying for sure....

  isn't this what the WT pushes - you must take in knowledge? Isn't it the WT knowledge that ultimately destroys a person's spirituality? - by denying that it exists?

  war crimes - of the theocratic nature

  will
• 

  JustTickledPink

  Barney, where do you come up with this stuff?
• 

  AlmostAtheist

  Or do you know my brother, Zephod Beeblebrox?

  I met his left head at a party once. (He was using the right one to consume Pan-Galactic Gargleblasters)

  The Aid book asked, "Where will all the resurrected ones live?" It estimated some number, like 10 billion people that have ever lived. It assumed that the entire land surface of the earth would be paradisaic, set aside half of it for agriculture and community needs, and then left the other half for doling out to people as residential land. It came to 1/2 acre a piece, as I recall.

  1/2 an acre. That's your little piece of paradise. Enjoy.

  Dave
• 

  AlmostAtheist

  It estimated some number, like 10 billion people that have ever lived

  Oops, make that 20 billion. It was towards the end of the ressurrection article.