Why animals die?

by EzroJP 35 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Inquisitor

  I very vaguely recall my father explaining to me about 50 yrs ago they died so that Adam would understand what death was and what would happen to him if he ate the forbidden fruit. - MeneMene

  I think it was the book, THE TRUTH THAT LEADS TO ETERNAL LIFE (circa 1968) that spun the idea that Adam and Eve knew what death meant by seeing animals die. - Terry

  That is a rather costly lesson for humans at the expense of the animal kingdom. Surely, with supposedly 6000 years of mortality, Adam's descendants should already have a superb understanding of what it means to get wrinkly and drop dead.

  So why do animals still die today? Is the Big Guy sleeping on the job yet again? lol

  INQ
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  james_woods

  Inquisitor, and Ezro, it is such thinking as this that leads many ex-JW away from the simplistic "1 2/3 acres of your own little paradise on an everlasting paradise". I always wondered how they thought that the Sun was going to keep shining forever. (I did have a few CO tell me that eventually man would blast off to populate other planets. I just thought, well that's no more than what Werner von Braun was doing in the 50s - so that is your view of "eternal paradise"?)

  Some have taken a more spiritual (by that I mean ethereal or heavenly) view of the bible teachings, others are content to just learn as much about the earth & its inhabitants as possible through science & logic, and leave questions of immortality as a speculation only.
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  undercover

  " but why animals die?"

  Maybe because no where does the Bible say that animals would live forever?

  Where exactly does it say the man was meant to live forever?
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  MeneMene

  "Where exactly does it say the man was meant to live forever?" -
  
  Even after Adam had eaten of the forbidden tree, if he had then eaten of the tree of life he could still have lived forever (Gen 3:22).
  
  That is why God drove Adam out of the garden and placed "a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life."
  
  Am I reading that correctly?
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  undercover

  Even after Adam had eaten of the forbidden tree, if he had then eaten of the tree of life he could still have lived forever (Gen 3:22).

  If he could already live forever before eating the forbidden fruit then why was the "tree of life" even needed? If all one needed to live forever was to eat of the "tree of life" why hadn't A&E already eaten from it since it wasn't forbidden?

  Genesis 3:22 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,—”

  According to how this reads to me, man did not already have eternal life and now God wanted to make sure he didn't obtain it.

  There's nothing in the Bible(that I remember anyway) that indicates that man was originally meant to live forever nor could acheive the ability to do so later.
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  Roger

  The doctrine that the "wages of sin is death" fails upon close examination, doesn't it?

  Pretty superficial examination even, Nathan

  It amazes me that this is a point the simplest child can pick up on, yet adults can accept these bizarre doctrine through some sort of orwellian doublethink and tortured theological reasoning. And ideas like 'animals have to die otherwise the earth will be over-run' is kind of circular, isn't it? Presuming everything alive is immortal by default. If bacteria die, worms die and dogs die then humans must die.