Posts by gravedancer

Prisca,

So you never read the other board? Is that why you too have posted links to it and referred to it? Using your logic one might ask: Were you trying to stir things up, Prisca?

Quantum,

My font is bigger than yours!!

By the way you only have one way to escape the logic I just used....

What is it?

That Jehovah will not destroy non-witnesses at Armageddon.

My comeback is a rhetorical question:.....so why be one then?!!!!!

This is an old favorite argument put forth by Witnesses to justify WHY God has not brought Armageddon sooner.

Well it is flawed and I will show you why.

Assumptions and facts

1. JW assumption/interperetation: God is patient and wants everyone to become JW's so he lets the system carry on.
2. Fact: there are 6 million JW's
3. Fact: there are 6 billion people on planet earth
4. Fact: Ratio of JWs to overall poulation equals 1 in 1000. Or phrased another way for every 1000 people on the earth one is a JW.

Conclusions:

1. JW Organizational Growth: If the "system of things" carries on for any length of time then the Organization will grow (maybe although it appears to be slowing dramatically).
2. World Population Growth: If the "system of thing" carries on for any length of time the world population will grow. This occurs by having more babies added to the planet through childbirth - this is a very important point.
3. So bearing in mind that way the world population is increasing and if the end of the system is indeed close (lets say 5 years - I know its a guess) and the JW ranks manage to swell to 10 million and then Jehovah in his loving kindness brings Armageddon and destroys everyone who is not a baptised witness or the minor child of a baptised witness. AHHH...what about the ratio? If the JW ranks by that time have swollen to 10 million and the raio of JWs to other miscreants is 1 in 1000 that means an additional 4 billion plus children will be destroyed by God because he was patient and loving and did not desire for any to be destroyed.

See the hole in the teaching yet? Would a loving God remain patient to have 4 million JWs added to the ranks at the expense of 4 billion children? Judging by the way childrens rights are treated with regard to molestation cases I guess it is fair to say that at least JW thinking remains consistent.

PS - I understand the number for growth used in my argument were just numbers one could pick....but pick any number and the raitio of JWs to "OTHERS" remains fairly constant. The more JWs you get added to the organization...the more kids of the "OTHERS" Jehovah will have to destroy.

Frank,

Thanks for the honest reply. I can totally respect an answer put forth with such candour and not a load of tap dancing around just to stay in a debate. I have more respect for your answer than I do for most of the answers submitted by "regular believers" and I do not doubt your sincerity.

Perhaps I am at some stage....everyone is always at some stage (it's almost become cliched to say that). As I stated in the past at no pint of my life (even as a kid growing up as a JW) have I ever "felt God". While growing up it became very popular to be "born again" by the Chriistians in my community. I would listen to them and see them and they seemed so emotionally involved with God and Jesus. While we were always taught that we were superior because we had the "truth" I felt so hollow in comparison to the "born-agains" around me. Even if they were worshipping a false God he was so real to them and here I was supposedly worshipping the true God, Jehovah, and I felt absolutely nothing inside. Then I would hear talks and others claiming this deep love for Jehovah and how Jehovah can read the heart and I would just sink....."If he can read my heart I am toast".

I was once told by an elder that one of the most disrespectful things we can do is to fall asleep while we are praying. OH NO.....I was guilty of that so many times.

So where is all this drivel about me leading? Heck I don't know....but I have never felt so free - free from guilt, as I did once I read the work of Robert Cialdini and once I understood from his work how cults work (Istrongly encourage everyone to read his book). Then I read the "Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins and I knew that I was an atheist and an evolutionist. Here was someone who could take the argument from Romans 1:20 and turn it on its ear. No longer did I need to believe that "if their is design that there is a designer". This was further confirmed in person when I spoke with Janh and found out that we shared so many views in common (although he had held and understood them for longer so was more articulate with them).

Janh and I chatted again a couple of days ago and I brought up how the toughest part of being an atheist is the "loss of hope" and the finality one feels at knowing that life is so fragile and there is truly only one chance. If one of my loved ones dies thats it....its over between us. I am still not strong enough to deal with that reality. I still wish I could believe in a paradise and a resurrection but I can not go on any longer feeling like I am deceiving myself. When I was a believer I never felt like I was a believer, there was not emotiuon to it.....and if we profess this deep love for God and he for us there has to be emotional attachment or else it is just a chore.

Perhaps I just have a lousy imagination. Perhaps I am being too academic about it and requiring too much proof, but if one is to invest in something one needs to understand what one is investing in, otherwise one is speculating and I have the hardest time putting loads of time into an endeavour based on speculation.