There was definitely an earthquake nearby at 7pm (hour off, but hey with a thousands-year calculation I can be a little forgiving). It was a 3.6! One of our doors rattled a bit. Otherwise an uneventful day, catastrophe-wise.
Origins of life
- Thread starter Medsen Fey
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I'm pretty sure there's a passage in the bible somewhere that states quite clearly that the day is not knowable to man nor to Jesus.
Yeah it seems a whole lot more people know Matthew 24:36 today... Somebody should have told that to the guy who tried to predict the rapture.
What original number are you referring to?
What original number are you referring to?
Hm. I seem to recall having been told once of the JW belief in that there are only so many spaces in heaven, dunno about the reliability of the source though, also no idea where to look it up.
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Ah, that. Yes we believe 144,000 will go to heaven to rule alongside Jesus, while most will live forever on a paradise earth in a perfect state, as briefly discussed on our official site. We don't believe in the "rapture" teaching, I mostly wanted to make sure that was clear.
http://www.watchtower.org/e/20100201a/article_03.htm
Oh, OK. So 144,000 will make the ruling class, everyone else gets the economy seats
That's fair enough, I guess. Thanks for the link. I don't think they pointed us to the Book of Revelations in school too often ;D
That's a shame, the book of Revelation is such a positive one! And I'll take my "economy seat" thank you very much Given the choice between ruling in heaven or living on earth, I'll take earth every time. (I'm fairly sure spirits don't make and drink mead!)
Given the choice between ruling in heaven or living on earth, I'll take earth every time. (I'm fairly sure spirits don't make and drink mead!)
That's a shame, the book of Revelation is such a positive one! And I'll take my "economy seat" thank you very much
Unless of course when you get up there you find the Norse had it right, and Odin is waiting for you in a valhalla full of meadhalls with freeflowing mead of every type.
Thanks to you and the others for your kind words. Please make sure that you do not cling to your puppy so long that he suffers. With our dog, she was beginning to stumble and have trouble standing and eating from her bowl so it was really obvious that it was time for us to let go. But I hope that things go well for you and your puppy.
Interesting analogy. Please allow me to shape it a little more as to how I see it. Dog breeder (God) offers free food to all dogs (all of us) that has remarkable properties (eternal life being one). Some dogs choose to eat. Others choose not to eat, feeding on other things they find more to their liking, and eventually die. Who is at fault for the ones that die?
I see our free will as playing a big role in all of this. God could force us all to be good little soldiers and we would all be saved. He could make us all treat each other with love, end all wars, stop all hurt. I really do not want to be a puppet on a string though. Would any of us give up our right to choose and freedoms for Eutopia? There have been sci-fi films on that topic and the heroes are always those not willing to conform. So even if it would end all suffering, I believe that our human nature demands our freedom. All the way back to Adam and Eve...
The thing that gets missed, if I understand it correctly, is that God's standard is absolute. To be in His presence, heaven, eternally requires an absolute standard of holiness, one that NONE of us can achieve, no matter how loving, caring, compassionate, giving, sharing, and so on that we are. One sin disqualifies us and EVERYONE sins, even Mary, even the Pope. Only One has never sinned...
And unlike us, God does not consider our white lies (however good intentioned) to be any different than Hitler's hideous actions. And yes, a part of me wants to and does often make this comparison because there is ALWAYS someone I can point to that is worse than me. So I must be good enough to deserve to go to heaven. Right? I am not as bad as Hitler so yeh, while God may have a right to send Hitler to hell, surely not me...
Anyway, that's the way I think about those things...
Please allow me to talk a bit about my understanding of predestination.
God is timeless. We are not. Can someone that is not timeless understand what it is like to be timeless? Maybe a tiny bit but not really. So how should a creature of time (us) look upon the fact that we are involved with a timeless creature? Let me tell my analogy that helps me...
We are about to run a race. God knows in advance what the outcome will be. But we do not. So how would the fact that God knows the outcome affect us as we lined up to start the race? Will we try harder? Try less hard? Do our best? Not do our best? Not run and quit the race because God already has seen the finish?
Maybe a bit more light-hearted. God already knows whether the Detroit Lions will EVER win a Superbowl. I don't. But God being present in the situation and knowing the answer does not change my cheering for them in the future...
Jehovah's Winesses aren't universalist, are they? Not everyone goes to pardise or the eternal earthly kingdom, right?
I really like that analogy!
That aside, the timelessness is something I'd not thought of... another good point.
Right. I'm about to go to the dentist and am starting to feel the stuff they gave to take before hand, so I don't think I can go into a whole lot of detail right now, but basically some go to paradise, the majority will be destroyed. (Not suffer eternally, just dead and gone.) It all depends on the individual's heart condition. The person they are on the inside and the kind of person they would be without the influence of sin and imperfection, or Satan. Everybody gets a chance.
Just to clarify, their ability to get into either this paradise or heaven is independant of their religion, in your religion's beliefs?
On another note, I'm with you: if it's a paradise earth vs heaven I'll take that awesome earth any day. I always thought heaven sounded pretty mediocre frankly.
I'd be interested to know where you guys are getting this dual-afterlife and the numbers from though, 144K people is an odd number to say the least. This is from scripture? (we've already been over how "accurate" numbers in the bible can be, 1 "day" could mean all sorts of different timeframes. Another good example would be the number "40" in the bible - my understanding is that "40" just means "lots" in the old testament. 40 years in the desert? Meaningless, just means "long time", and there are a bunch of other "40" references that are taken to be random amounts of time if I recall correctly).
Oh I see what you mean. I hope you don't mind a long write up. Guess I should add another disclaimer to be safe that these are the beliefs held by me, and I am not judging anyone else for whatever they want to believe. Well, I wrote about the resurrection of the righteous and the unrighteous earlier. There have been many people that were ignorant of God's will, such as the criminal hanged next to Jesus, whom Jesus told "Truly I tell you today, You will be with me in Paradise." (Luke 23:39-43) (On a side note, Jesus won't be right here on earth with this former criminal, he will be ruling in heaven as king over the earthly paradise. So Jesus will be with that man in the sense that he will raise him from the dead and care for his physical and spiritual needs.)
This man is an example of someone who was unrighteous, a man ignorant of God's will. But would he have been a criminal if he had known about God's purposes? To find out, Jesus will resurrect him along with countless others who died in ignorance. Then, in the paradise earth, they will be taught God's will and have the opportunity to show they love god by doing his will.
That doesn't mean everyone will get a resurrection though. An example is Judas Iscariot, the man that betrayed Jesus. He willfully did something terrible with full knowledge it was wrong, and went to the sembolic Gehenna, which nobody is resurrected from. (Matthew 23:33) People who willfully do what is bad after knowing God's will may be sinning against the holy spirit, and God will not resurrect those who sin against his holy spirit. (Matthew 12:32, Hebrews 10:26,27) I can't really say who will and will not be resurrected, though, as God is judge and knows who is in Hades and who is in Gehenna.
The Bible does give God's view on religion and what is acceptable. Many do believe that as long as they are serving God in some way, they are giving him acceptable service. There are three Bible passages that show this to be untrue, though. Judges 10:6,7 shows that if one worships idols or any God other than the true God, they will will not have his approval. Mark 7:6,7 shows that, if people claiming to worship God teach their own ideas instead of what the Bible teaches, their worship is in vain and unacceptable. Finally, John 4:24 shows that ones worship must be in harmony with the truth of God's word.
The Bible also tells us how we can know if a religion is pleasing to God or not. From the words of Jesus recorded at Matthew 7:15-20, we know that we can look to the fruits of a religion to get the answer. True religion produces people who have love among themselves, and show love to others. This is because Jehovah himself is a loving God. Jesus said: "By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love among yourselves." (John 13:35; Luke 10:27; 1 John 4:8 ) The early Christians had such love for one another. Godly love overcomes racial, social, and national barriers and draws people together in an unbreakable bond of true brotherhood. How many religions claim to be Christian and have that? How many instead kill one another over national or ethnic differences? There are other identifying marks, but that's a good example.
The Bible reveals what God thinks about false religion in the book of Revelation. It describes false religion as a symbolic woman, "Babylon the Great. (Revelation 17:5) Revelation 17:1,2 describes her as meddling in politics, frequently telling other governments what to do. Revelation 18:24 describes her as having persecuted and killed faithful servants of God and being responsible for the deaths of countless persons in warfare. Revelation 18:7 describes her as having great wealth, which her leaders use to live in luxury. Revelation 18:23 shows by her unscriptural teaching that the soul doesn't die, false religion opens the door to all kinds of spiritism and sorcery and has promoted fear of the dead and ancestor worship. We believe that, in the near future, all false religion will be totally destroyed, as shown in Revelation 18:8.
So to summarize, we believe that God does have standards for worship, and that only by worshipping him by those standards can one into paradise, and though many ignorant people will be brought back to be educated and able to make an informed choice to serve him or not, many will be destroyed at armageddon too, with false religion being destroyed beforehand. This is partly why we have our worldwide preaching campaign, following Jesus' example and fulfilling his command at Matthew 28:18-20.
I guess that's all I can say about that. There's some deeper subjects there that I just can't really go into all the necessary detail of in one post, but I hope it makes some kind of sense... If it was convoluted and didn't make sense, I blame the fact that it's 6am and I had a terrible root canal experience today. Or, yesterday now...
As far as the 144,000, yes, it's from scripture. All of our beliefs are. Revelation 7:1-4 gives the number. Some have asked if it is symbolic, but after mentioning the definite number 144,000, Revelation 7:9 refers to "a great crowd, which no man was able to number." If the number 144,000 were not literal, it wouldn't have meaning as a contrast to the "great crowd", the ones living on the paradise earth. Viewing the number as literal agrees with Jesus's statement at Matthew 22:14 about the Kingdom of the heavens: "There are many invited, but few chosen."
Great info, thanks for that. In that context I agree, dispite 144,000 being a very odd number, it's clearly meant to be literal if it's immediately followed by a completely non-literal number to describe paradise.
So basically the JW belief as to whether people who are not Christian can get into heaven is a little indeterminate?
These quotes pretty much rule out for sure any non-Christian religion other than the possible exceptions of Judaism and Islam, because they're worshipping the same God.
This one suggests other religions can be valid, or at least pleasing to God.
And then this one pretty much rules out 99% of the planet, because pretty much every religion meddles in politics, has wealthy leaders, and has caused extreme warfare. Even most Christians sects promote the belief that the soul doesn't die, actually very few religions that I'm aware of other than Buddhism (and now I know JW) teach that the soul can die (but Buddhism also has no personified God, so they're out). And then ancestor worship, that's pretty much all of the very early religions on the entire planet.
Am I right to say the JW belief regarding specific other religions, and specific people within them, is that whether or not they are getting into the afterlife is something we cannot be sure of in many cases? Reading the quotes, what I get is that basically everybody on the planet isn't doing so good in all likelihood, but God may be making judgements that are allowing people from all over into the afterlife, potentially at least?
Someone like myself is pretty clearly "out" because at best I worship God in my own way, but even that's a stretch.
I appreciate the JW belief that I'll just be snuffed out though, rather than tormented or sent to heaven. Snuffed out is the choice I'd make if I had the option (or at least I hope that faced with death I'd have the guts to stick by my principals and choose true-death rather than paradise or heaven, who knows though, fear does odd things to the mind... it is the mind killer after all
(sorry, SF joke)).
So basically the JW belief as to whether people who are not Christian can get into heaven is a little indeterminate?
These quotes pretty much rule out for sure any non-Christian religion other than the possible exceptions of Judaism and Islam, because they're worshipping the same God.
This one suggests other religions can be valid, or at least pleasing to God.
And then this one pretty much rules out 99% of the planet, because pretty much every religion meddles in politics, has wealthy leaders, and has caused extreme warfare. Even most Christians sects promote the belief that the soul doesn't die, actually very few religions that I'm aware of other than Buddhism (and now I know JW) teach that the soul can die (but Buddhism also has no personified God, so they're out). And then ancestor worship, that's pretty much all of the very early religions on the entire planet.
Am I right to say the JW belief regarding specific other religions, and specific people within them, is that whether or not they are getting into the afterlife is something we cannot be sure of in many cases? Reading the quotes, what I get is that basically everybody on the planet isn't doing so good in all likelihood, but God may be making judgements that are allowing people from all over into the afterlife, potentially at least?
Someone like myself is pretty clearly "out" because at best I worship God in my own way, but even that's a stretch.
I appreciate the JW belief that I'll just be snuffed out though, rather than tormented or sent to heaven. Snuffed out is the choice I'd make if I had the option (or at least I hope that faced with death I'd have the guts to stick by my principals and choose true-death rather than paradise or heaven, who knows though, fear does odd things to the mind... it is the mind killer after all
(sorry, SF joke)).Pretty much. I cannot, along with any other person, look at anyone and say they will or will not make it. I'm at work and don't remember the scripture exactly, but the Bible explains that man can only see what is on the outside, but God can read hearts. As a God of perfect justice, we believe his decisions to be fair, whatever they come to be. Sounds like you pretty much got it. You're right about everyone not doing too good, the earth today pretty much reflects the condition of the world back in Noah's day. If God didn't hold back from destroying that world, it stands to reason that he will do the same for this one. The only reason he hasn't yet is so that as many as possible can turn around and serve him now. Seeing how fast our religion is growing, people are listening. We don't expect most people will, but we gladly teach all who are willing without letting anything get in the way of our preaching work.
I have to admit, I was previously fairly ignorant of JW beliefs, I've known a few members over the years, and I've had a few chats with whoever stopped by my door to give me the Watchtower or whatever it is, but there was a lot about specific interpretations I had no idea about. I'm not about to convert or anything (not possible really, my mind just isn't made for it), but I'll say most of what you've said so far in the conversation are interpretations of the scripture that I think make more sense than the average interpretations.
Were you guys the ones who also don't do blood transfusions?
Also, I've always wondered this, why pronounce YHWY as Jehova? Please don't take this as an insult, but I heard that pronunciation was essentially a mistake, but by the time people figured out it was incorrect it'd been in place long enough that they figured they'd just stick with it, which makes sense, pretty sure God's not going to care if someone mispronounces God's name!
I'm going to go do some reading on JW later so I can stop bugging you with so many questions. I didn't know so many of your beliefs differed so much from mainstream Christianity, so I honestly just never invested the time to learn about you folks. I will attempt to rectify that now...
Were you guys the ones who also don't do blood transfusions?
Also, I've always wondered this, why pronounce YHWY as Jehova? Please don't take this as an insult, but I heard that pronunciation was essentially a mistake, but by the time people figured out it was incorrect it'd been in place long enough that they figured they'd just stick with it, which makes sense, pretty sure God's not going to care if someone mispronounces God's name!
I'm going to go do some reading on JW later so I can stop bugging you with so many questions. I didn't know so many of your beliefs differed so much from mainstream Christianity, so I honestly just never invested the time to learn about you folks. I will attempt to rectify that now...
