Do people 'mix up' their mortality with Apocalypse?

by Gill 3 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Gill

  Do people mix up 'mentally' their own subconscious knowledge of their mortality, with apolcalyptic ideas?

  Do they subconsciously muddle, the fact that they know they will die, with a belief that the whole world is at threat?

  Does this make them susceptible to apocalyptic ideas from cults such as the JWs?

  It seems that throughout history someone somewhere, and some groups everywhere have been preaching and proclaiming imminent destruction of all and sundry from a vengeful deity.

  Why are they susceptible and willing to believe such a ridiculous notion?

  Even after the recent Indonesian Tsunami, ordinary people preferred to believe that such desolation was caused by an angry and vengeful God rather than the real scientific reasons.

  So, if everyone on the planet became 'good' would planetary problems ie climate change, earthquakes and Tsunamis suddenly cease?
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  Narkissos

  Fascinating question.

  Perhaps the idea of an absolute, or at least collective, end, eases (in a twisted, selfish way?) the scariest aspect of death, its being radically individual: I am dying and life goes on, an unbearable thought if you are not really inter-ested in anything beside yourself: aut intereo aut intersum, either I utterly perish in a completely alien and indifferent world, or my provisional difference vanishes into something to which I am already related -- in a sense it's the contrast between picturing death as "dark nothingness" (oxymoron intended) or "being back home".

  Apocalyptic ideas come to the fore when the social ties of traditional societies are loosened or lost -- when you don't think of death anymore as "lying down with your fathers," when you don't see your children, grandchildren, younger friends and acquaintances as your post-mortem future.

  One of the most dreadful things I can think of is old JWs envisioning their future in Paradise beyond the expected destruction of their unbelieving children at Armaggedon...

  A similar question from a different perspective: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/99779/1.ashx
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  Nathan Natas

  I think they do.

  Certainly in a subjective sense, when an individual dies, the world ends -- as far as they are concerned.
• 

  Gill

  Narkissos - Perhaps the reason why people absorbed in apolcalyptic scenarios are in a way 'survivalists'. They are either armed to the teeth in preparation for society to collapse or absorbed in their supposed 'personal salvation', even to the point of obsessive evangelising to reach that point of salvation. Really 'apocalypse' is a scenario that suits the absolutely selfish and they are all seeking their own preservation above others.

  Nathan - Every bodys own personal 'Armageddon' always arrives sooner or later. Some want everyone else to 'go down' with them, in a sense 'holding their hands.' How many people fear dying alone? Not a few.