by monkeyshine 37 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Does anyone know the current thought on what happened before the flood? I remember being taught that it never rained before the flood but now they are telling me that was never taught.
I thought I remembered a quote somewhere saying something to the effect of "Can you imagine how the outsiders must have felt feeling those first drops of rain?"
I remember that too monkeyshine!
I wonder what new light has emerged from the old codgers backsides on this particular subject!
Hi Monkeyshine
Last year I mentioned to a sister about the people in Noah's day just thinking what a lot of rain they'd been having lately not realising that God's wrath had come upon them.
She said it was a ridiculous idea as they would have never experienced rain before, so the terror would have been instant instead of gradual.
This sister was quite new in the 'truth' so it must have been the teaching up until recently, although I do remember someone on these forums saying that there maybe a new light expressed about it as there is a scripture before Noah of someone mentioning what sounded like rain.
When I ask about it they'll sidetrack and look at ME like I'm crazy.
Now being older I can see how impossible that is. I also kind of remembering being kind of steered away from science in any real detail. I've noticed my father never watches documentaries and if I am he comments on how it is a waste of time to study dinosaurs, space exploration, etc.
Good point on the rain.
That was one of my logical arguments against the teaching when I was doubtful before leaving. How did all everything get water without rain? And now the doublespeak. Too much bs IMO.
I also kind of remembering being kind of steered away from science in any real detail. I've noticed my father never watches documentaries and if I am he comments on how it is a waste of time to study dinosaurs, space exploration, etc.
This is a great point. Most JWs have gotten all of their knowledge of archeology, evolution, and "flood geology" from WTS publications. I never knew of any Witnesses who did their own research into geology, evolution, or archeology.
Here is a example that totally sums this argument up quite well. I was talking to a Witness relative about all of the overwhelming archeological evidence that humans have been on earth much longer than 6,000 years. Do you know what the first thing out of their mouth was? They said: "Well, those are worldly books. Those are worldly ideas."
And so, beyond that, to the average JW, there is no debate. If they didn't read it in a WTS publication, it can be dismissed as "worldly ideas." The absurdity of such blatant closed-mindedness is astounding.
It's been reported that an announcement was made at the District assembly this summer that God's rain on Noah wasn't the first rain. When God told Noah it was going to rain, Noah didn't ask God what rain was, that MUST mean he knew already because he'd seen it.
I'd have hated to have driven 500 miles to hear that.
Next thing they're gonna say is there was no firmament. Outrageous I say!
I'd have hated to have driven 500 miles to hear that.
Next thing they're gonna say is there was no firmament. Outrageous I say!
LOL Yes, and perhaps they are going to say something really unnerving like there were animals before Adam and Eve that really didn't eat straw and grass!
The Insight book says that the Genesis verse saying it did not rain, applied to a time PRIOR to the creation of vegetable life:
"There was as yet no vegetation on the face of the earth, because God had not yet made it rain upon the earth. But a mist would rise up and water the ground".
This of course contradicts where Genesis says:
"There was as yet no vegetation because there was no man to till the ground."
There are two geographical facts to account for these statements. Both prove they are not of Mosaic (ie Egyptian) origin.
1: In some parts of the Arabian peninsula, where the air from the sea carries water vapor inland, there are places watered only by the mist this produces.
2: Even in Akkadian times the Iran/ Iraq area was very arid, and until men organized cultivation using irrigation the land was desert.
Just more WTBTS terrorism to make you "OBEY OR DIE".
There is another contradiction here:
The "Creation" book cites the nitrogen cycle as proof of a loving creator. This depends on thunder storms washing nitrogen into the soil. Thunder storms are made by ions rising into the atmosphere as a result of direct sunlight on water.
They teach that :
1: there was no direct sunlight pre-flood (because the vapor canopy blocked it.
2: it did not rain before the flood.
So under 1 there could be no thunder storms.
Under 2 the nitrogen could not be washed into the soil by rain.
Hence the Nitrogen cycle is not proof of a loving creator, because the soil would have been so degraded under conditions 1 & 2 that by the time of Noah the animals dependent on it would all have died of starvation.
Of course the JW apologist will say this has been superceded by "new light", or in desperation - "Jah moves in mysterious ways".
Yet how many expert scientific "GOATS" were condemned to everlasting death in the 1950s 1960s and 1970s because they "stubbornly rejected" the truth (HAHAHAHAHAHHA) as revealed to the Borg at that time.
(Of course those seeing how science agrees with "new light" may now get a resurrection.(!)
HB (of the "Hates the Borg" class)
Guys, you've been out too long. This was the "New light" on the rain thing back in 1998 and it was actually in the Insight book before that. It wasn't new this year at the DC. trust me. w98 1/15 p. 9 "Walking by Faith, Not by Sight"
6
Had there been rain prior to this? The Bible does not say. Genesis 2:5 says: "Jehovah God had not made it rain." But this is how Moses, who lived centuries later, expressed matters in discussing not Noah’s day but a time long before that. As shown at Genesis 7:4, Jehovah referred to rain when speaking to Noah, and evidently Noah understood what he meant. Yet, Noah’s faith was not in what he could see. The apostle Paul wrote that Noah was "given divine warning of things not yet beheld." God told Noah that He was going to bring upon the earth "the deluge of waters," or "the heavenly ocean," as a footnote in the New World Translation expresses it at Genesis 6:17.
This is not a defence of the teaching, just an update so we can be current in our criticisms.
W.Once
