Something that always bothered me about JW doctrine, perhaps the thing that bothered me the most about it actually, was the notion that people who die before Armaggedon are, for the most part, entitled to a resurrection, regardless of their religious inclinations or crimes, while the vast majority of those same people, if they happened just by chance to be living at the time of the end, would be destroyed eternally.
I mean some JWs were actually debating over whether infamous deceased mass-murderers and genocidal maniacs(Hitler, Stalin,Pol Pot,etc) would have any chance of resurrection, whilst at the same time almost casually accepting that basically most non-jws alive at Armaggedon were to be for the chop! So I was given the distinct impression of the Armaggedon scenario that while the bodies of average, decent, everyday people littered the streets, seriously nasty and despicable individuals who had formerly committed henious crimes would be being brought back to at least 1000 yrs of extra life, if not eternal life. It didnt seem just. I was told on at least one occasion that I needed to examine what 'true justice' was in this situation. My conscience told me clearly that this was many things but was not justice.
So bearing this in mind, assuming this teaching hasnt changed(?) in the past 10 yrs or so, let's consider a make-believe scenario:
Two very old man are lying in a hospital bed, they havent got long to live at all.
The first man, is a complete scumball, waste of space. Let's say he's a serial killer. Think Dexter, but without the 'code' and likeability. So, he's lying there, dying, and Armageddon comes. The shock of all the earthquakes, lightning, people screaming, etc, is too much for his old ticker and he corks it out of shock alone within the first few seconds. Then the angels come and get stuck into all the non-jws and slaughter everyone in about 5 seconds flat. The old man hasnt actually been destroyed by Jehovah, he really died of natural causes. Does he get a resurrection and a chance of eternal life?
The second man hasnt been particularly pious all his life, let's say he's an occasional church goer, but he's a decent man, he raised his kids right, was faithful to his wife, never harmed anyone, etc. He didnt smoke and drink as much as the scumball serial killer, so his heart is a bit stronger. He doesnt die of shock, but is still lying there when an angel flies in the window. Does his extra strength(due to taking better care of his body than the dead scumball) mean that he is now scheduled for eternal destruction, as he's living at the time of the end?
I'm not entirely sure what I'm trying to say with this, maybe my example could be made better, but I hope you get my general point about the injustice of it all. Of course any just, all-knowing god would be able to look at the situation and see that the bad guy stays dead and the decent guy is spared and given another chance. The problem with the way the WT portrayed the J-Meister at Armaggedon was that he seemed not too concerned with the details, he was portrayed as having a George W Bush attitude: you're with us or you're with the enemy. I often thought that a God that could give such little consideration to individual cases, when eternal life and destruction were at stake, was a God that I couldnt have any love for...
Thoughts anyone?