I was taught that only those in remote areas where the witlesses did not reach had a chance to survive, and then it depended on their obedience to secular law. And, if I had the chance to preach to someone but did not for whatever reason, I was contributing to their destruction and would be held responsible--even those in my work place.
Did you expect all non-Witnesses to die at Armageddon?
by Apognophos 20 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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sparrowdown
No, I never ever believed that God would destroy someone based on a technicality of registration.
Or conversely, save someone based on the same criteria.
I secretly felt JWs were mistaken about this. But there was plenty of JW interprtation of scripture I secretly disagreed with.
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EndofMysteries
From a kid I was taught everyone who is not a JW would die at armageddon, only JW's would be alive. Everybody who was killed at Armageddon would be gone forever, those who died prior would be resurrected for a 2nd chance since they didn't have an opportunity to read the WT or Awake and learn 'the truth'. But those alive while witnessing if they rejected the WT or Awake were rejecting God and should have clearly known that they were rejecting him.
As a teen, it bothered me that in field circus we were offering magazines that had nothing to do with God or the end, and if somebody rejects the offer for the Awake magazine talking about genital herpes or something, how were they to know they were rejecting God? So if the WT or Awake weren't about the last days, etc, I offered the "Will this World Survive" tract.
In my young adult years I rebelled a bit and got to know some worldly people and other Christian and was further bothered that many of them seemed to be better association then other JW's and couldn't understand what made the JW's better on a 'technicality' of having the truth when others were just as and many times even more sincere and moral.
All of those contributed to my learning TTATT.
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Phizzy
Nope, and I often said so to fellow JW's, I found the idea incompatible with the concept of a God of Love.
My reasoning was that God could read "hearts" and knew if someone was incorrigibly wicked, hence he would destroy such a person, but no one else.
Nobody attempted to change my view.
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Apognophos
I wanted to wait before giving my own answer, just to keep my OP more neutral, but I was in the same boat as you, Phizzy. I didn't believe that the God I worshipped was one who would destroy all those reasonably good people. The adult JWs I grew up around would sometimes say about a teaching, "Well, maybe there'll be some new light on that some day" as code for "We agree this doesn't make sense so let's assume that God will fix it in due time and just focus on the beliefs that we do agree with". So I figured this was one of those teachings that would probably be subject to "new light" eventually and didn't think much about it.
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life is to short
It really, really brothered me but I was like jwfacts that it was what we were taught so it had to be true. That is why it brothered me so much doing the pioneer shuffle, and driving around aimlessly and sitting in the car for hours, and hours, and hours while my elder husband was on calls that I was not allowed to join him in becuase I was just a stupid women who COULD NOT KNOW the important elder stuff that was going on. If it truly ment these peopoles lives we needed to tell them not drag our feet and waste time. But I got shot down and ridiculed by most of the JW's that I pioneered with for wanting to truly talk to people, which in turn made me so crazy.
LITS
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BelleStar
As a child it really was pushed into me that ONLY JW's would survive, but I wondered about people like my dear Father, who never joined the cult, but never stopped my mother from going and dragging us children with her, and providing bus fare for her to go on Field sevice, and provided food for the many free loading pioneers that we were 'encouraged' to support with meals.. SO why should he be wiped out ?
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BluesBrother
Like many of us now here , the teaching greatly bothered me but since the Org. taught it clearly - I figured that it had to be true... Then in later years I wondered if it was a rule to keep "us" on the straight and narrow but God could make exceptions at the end if he wanted (like Jesus made exceptions to The Law)
I find today that dubs do have 'personal views' about it. There are those hard cases who are sure that it is a black & white , issue- dubs only .. Others feel that God will judge hearts ( but don't say that too loudly) I know others who say that ,yes , Witnesses only but, by the time of the final end the World will be in such a shocking state of anarchy and violence that the only decent ones will have "come in".
So human conscience prevails often as individuals try and live with a teaching that is otherwise totally inhumane.
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sowhatnow
i never accepted that ,
im better than that, id never condemn someone to die for ignorance or imperfection.
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Vidiot
That's what I was taught growing up.
The older I got, the less I believed it, though.