Why make prophecies cryptic? (page 2)

AllTimeJeff

I don't wish to reduce the good news, but the believing in Jesus as the Son of God and having love for your fellow man seems to be plainly obvious. They are not hidden behind symbolism, and they are what it says is required for salvation. See 1 John or John 21.

I don't disagree with you here as to what the bible says is necesarry for salvation. (in the NT anyway) Unfortunately, there are many excellent and logical arguements that deserve a more fair hearing then what they typically receive. While reasonable thiests such as yourself layinglow are kind and good, the fact is that the same book where John 3:16 is found also has scary visions found throughout Revelation of Jesus as a scary judging king. It is hard to maintain an argument where part of your holy book contains information about how to attain salvation through mere belief, whereas in the Pauline letters or Revelation Jesus is portrayed differently. Reasonable people ask "Which is it?"

Any Christian religion that teaches Jesus attracts by "love" only to ultimately destroy those who don't believe in the end contradict themselves. Ultimately, it IS a "believe or die" proposition. The matter of when Christ chooses to pull the plug on your life or how he will do it is irrelevant to the fact that according to the bible, he will destroy you if you don't believe.

Therefore, I don't see God as offering salvation through a cartoon or other literary device but showing it plainly to all and allowing greater understanding for those who seek deeper things from his spirit through understanding of prophetic symbolism.

This statement backs up my point I believe. Should god hide anything through visions or literary devices that are at the interpretive mercy of man, and not the "god" who supposedly inspired the visions? You wrote it, you explain it. We hold our workers and family members to a higher standard. Being cryptic is the mark of a stuffy, self righteous person. Unless you are "god". It also has to be conceded that even if you or others don't believe god is offering salvation through the understanding of these visions doesn't mean that countless millions of people do, whether they believe that individually or if they belong to the many churches that do maintain this. There are many millions of Christians who believe precisely this. JW's are among them.

It sure would be a lot easier if "god" weren't so cryptic. What is gained? Nothing by this crypticness.

Btw Laying Low, I want to apologize to you if my response offends. I really mean that. In fact, I while being agnostic still have a great "spiritual" hunger if you will. I know that spirituality, ethics, being a good person and the like can result from religion, but it doesn't have to, and there are perhaps better ways. In any event, I only meant to address your thoughts and not you personally. I hope you are well.

JCanon

To YOU it is granted to understand the sacred secrets of the kingdom of the heavens, but to those people it is not granted
You really are special, aren't you, JCanon?

Yes. But I'm not the only one going to heaven. And maybe those who get to understand more are those who are ACTUALLY INTERESTED in the Bible. Wise virgins who bring along the "extra oil" rather than expecting to just get by with the minimum effort. Every man's salvation is in his own hands. You can be "special" too.... JC

JCanon

Because they are only for people who really love god. And are willing to spend the energy "seeking him out".
Yeah, thats how I parent my kids. I stay out of their sight and sent them a book of instructions through a mediator. I never speak to them, but they better worship and adore me or I'm gona squash them like bugs.
I'm the best parent ever, just ask me, that proves it.

It's not "exactly" like this, but your perception is addressed legally. Basically, it boils down to this. Suppose you simply reach old age and die? What account would you have against God?

Or let's say you don't survive Armageddon, though I'm hoping you would. Say you're 50 now. On Judgment Day you will be able to come back and live out the rest of your days to old age, say 80 years old. That way, Jehovah would not have taken anything away from you that you potentially have right now. Which is a chance to live into old age, hopefully without any major illnesses, but many do die younger due to sickness, which is the legacy from Adam. No one escapes. Everyone DIES. Even Jesus Christ.

The difference is, that theoretically, after everyone has had their temporary life, been born, lived and then died. Jehovah can then select from among everyone who has lived and grant them a second life. One which will last forever.

So God is not really out to squash people in desperation, but to see who appreciates life enough to be obedient.

But the basics still apply. If you're nice to Jehovah; he can be very generous and nice to you. If you want to flip him off, well... he did create the sun, so... the lake of fire awaits, sorry to say.

IT'S UP TO YOU.

JC

SPAZnik

For fun.

5go

God only knows?

Though, I believe it has to do with the fact if any one could easily translate and understand them, no one would need a shaman or spiritual guide to interpret them. Then how could the dumb, scam the dumber of their money? Or, the dumb keep their power in the face of better ideas?

Billy the Ex-Bethelite

Why all the symbolism? It just makes it harder to write, translate and understand.

True, but cryptic prophecies make it very easy for 'believers' to fit the symbolism to events that have either already occurred or are so imminent as to be inevitable. It made Nostradamus famous. The cryptic symbolism you describe produces "retroactive clarvoyance". As with Nostradamus, it's easy enough to look at one of his quatrains and say that it prophecied the attack on the twin towers. However, it's cryptic enough to have dozens of interpretations. And it's not genuinely prophetic since there is no evidence to suggest that any Nostradamus quatrain has ever been interpreted as predicting a specific event before it occurred. No Nostradamus reader stood up on September 10 and say, "evacuate the twin towers, close down the airports!" It's not prediction, it's postdiction.

Similarly with the symbolism in the Bible's cryptic prophecies. Just from the JW perpective, the application of Revelation's prophecies are totally different from Russell's Finished Mystery to the current Revelation Climax. In the Finished Mystery, everyone who read it saw Revelation as prophecying things that had already happened, and the readers thought they were blessed with special secret knowledge that assured their salvation. Currently, the Revelation Climax book changes the application to different events that had already happened, and the readers thought they were blessed with special secret knowledge that assured their salvation.

And of all those cryptic prophecies that haven't been fulfilled? Why, "they're just around the corner" of course. Trust US, our understanding of these cryptic prophecies assures your salvation.

It appears that we are left to decide for ourselves if there's enough in the Bible to base our faith and our lives on. It all gets further complicated when you look at the non-Christian religions which similarly have cryptic prophecies that would appear to be truth.

aSphereisnotaCircle

JCanon, you totally missed my point

IP_SEC

Lore, Some nonsense nursery rhymes may have been political satire. They couldnt just come out and say "The King is an idiot" So they may have encoded it in some nursery rhymes.

Thats how I see cryptic prophecy. Never was intended to be prophecy. It had a target audience that would understand the true meaning behind the symbology. To "the king" it would sound like gobbldy goop.

Now, that target audience is long gone, and we can only guess at the symbology. Some people turn their guesses into inspired prophecy.

TAaaDAAA!!

White Dove

The high and mighty depend and prey on the ignorance of the lowly so as to CONTROL them. If you keep someone in the dark about something they need to know, you have CONTROL over that person.

Forscher

One obvious answer to the question is that if everything were so explicitly spelled out,

It would make absolutely no sense to live a pious life with all it restrictions on conduct until right before the end date. Much of the WTBTS's eschatology is Freddy Franz's obsession with types and anti-types. While the Bible does mention a few "types" it does tell us what those are. Freddy just had to go overboard and see types hidden in just about everything. Or maybe he was just keeping the Rank-and-file from getting bored by always being able to generate a new book every year with some new type to be understood. Go figure!

Forscher

Why make prophecies cryptic?

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