Ding What I Believe
You asked what I believe so I'll tell you.
No, I don't agree with the Mormons that a person can progress to godhood. I have spent hours talking with Mormons to show them from both the Bible and their Book of Mormon that such an idea is satanic heresy, part of the lie the serpent told to Adam.
I believe that when a Christian dies, his body dies, but his soul and spirit go to be with Christ in heaven. This is why Paul says he would rather "become absent from the body and to make our home with the Lord." (2 Cor. 5:8, NWT). I would ask you, how can a person "become absent from the body"? According to Watchtower teaching, there is NO separate part of a man that COULD be "absent from the body" and "home with the Lord."
In Philippians 1:21-24, Paul writes that for him to die is gain! He says would rather release and be with Christ, that that is far better. What part of a man "releases" at death and ends up "with Christ"?
Moses appeared with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration (Luke 9:30). He even talked with Jesus about Jesus' upcoming death. How could this happen? How could Moses carry on a conversation with Jesus if at Moses' death Moses went completely out of existence and won't come to life again until the resurrection of his body, which still hasn't taken place?
Jesus told the religious leaders they should listen to Moses and the prophets.
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob's bodies had been long dead when Moses encounted Jehovah at the burning bush. Yet Jehovah told Moses, "I AM the God of Abraham and God of Isaac and God of Jacob." He didn't say, "I was..." or "I will be..." He said, "I am" their God.
Jesus said this very statement of Jehovah about his relationship to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob proved that"He is the God, not of the dead, but of the living, for they are all living to them." (Luke 20:38). All living [present tense]. That can't just mean that Jehovah remembers them. We remember a lot of people who have died but by no means can it be said that these people are "all living to us."
With regard to unbelievers who die, I believe that they are conscious and separated from Jehovah's paradise forever. Knowing their fate is the torment Jesus spoke of in the story of the rich man and Lazarus. He adopted that very teaching of the Pharisees and used it. On the issue of life after death, he sided with the Pharisees against the Sadducees.
Ezekiel 18
You mentioned Ezekiel 18. Just as Ezekiel 18:4 and 18:20 talk about a soul that sins dying, so Ezekiel 18:27-28 says that a person who turns from his wickedness will "save his soul alive" and "not die." Clearly, this does not mean that a person who turns from wickedness will never physically die. What is this soul that will stay alive and not die?
Ecclesiastes 9:5
I don't remember you citing this verse, but I know the Watchtower uses it frequently, so I'll mention it in order to tell you what I believe.
I think we need to be extremely careful not to take everything that's stated in Ecclesiastes by the king as being Jehovah's revelation of reality. If we did, we'd believe that Jehovah is telling us that everything is meaningless (1:2) and a striving after wind (4:4). Obviously, that's not the correct way to understand this book.
Let's look all of Ecclesiates 9:5-6. If this passage is Jehovah's revelation that the "dead are conscious of nothing at all," then Jehovah is also telling us that the once a person is dead he has "no more reward [wages]" and "no portion any more to time indefinite in anything that has to be done under the sun." So much for a resurrection to a paradise earth! This cannot be Jehovah's declaration of the effect of death.
We see nothing about a resurrection in Ecclesiastes. Why not? I believe it's because the book is written from the perspective of a man who is only looking at this life, at life "under the sun," a phrase he uses 29 times in the book. The book is a wisdom book which shows us the utter bankruptcy of the humanistic view that this life is all there is and that when we die it is all over.
Great post!
Blessings,
Stephen