Ignorance of Watchtower doctrine among young JW's

by nicolaou 42 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  dozy

  The doctrine that all non-JWs ( and even some JWs who aren't pulling their weight - the so-called "Kevinly class" ) will be killed at Armageddon was very much promoted when I was young ( in the 60's / 70's ) with many graphic illustrations of babies and children being killed ( such as in the old "Paradise book"). . But in more recent times , the Society has ( understandably ) been much less vocal about it. They tend to focus on the concept of "the wicked being destroyed" , whatever that actually means in practice.

  The Societies reticence to openly discuss it enables many JWs to either deny it or mentally make some kind of formulation ( eg "Jehovah can see into their hearts" etc ) to try to reconcile the cognitive dissonance.
  
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  alanv

  JWs these days have the mentality not to debate with anyone about JW beliefs. They constantly point toward jwdotorg for people to get answers to their questions. Most witnesses know very little about the orgs past and they just want people to believe what they are told, rather than question it.
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  Ultimate Axiom

  some resurrected people would be allowed to practice vile things during Christ's 1000 year reign

  TFG, I've only heard that said about the period at the end of the 1000 years after Satan is released. I would be keen to have a reference in JW literature that says it will happen during the 1000 years. Do you have one?
  
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  nowwhat?

  It has turned into a "way of life" religion. The yung wans really have no deep knowledge of the scriptures and the hard core doctrines.
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  eyeuse2badub

  Not a news flash but...............It ain't only the young ones that are ignorant of watchtower doctrines. I know dozens and dozens of life long jw's that can't tell you what the latest "new light" is regarding doctrine. You don't need to know doctrine or teachings, you just need to 'go along' to be a good jw.

  just saying!
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  breakfast of champions

  Yeah I wouldn't claim that it's just the yaaang waaaans. . . . it's most JWs.

  Another good one to try on them is "Did you know Jesus is not your mediator?"
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  truth_b_known

  Ask: "How many innocent children and babies were spared during the flood of Noah's day?"
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  Earnest

  nicolau : Anyway the upshot is that this JW, and many like her, believe that only truly wicked people will be killed at Armageddon

  She is not being specific not only because she does not like the idea of "innocents" dying at Armageddon, but because the Watchtower itself is not specific.

  Addressing the question whether Jehovah's Witnesses believe that they are the only ones who will be saved, The Watchtower of November 1, 2008 says :

  However, they also believe that it is not their job to judge who will be saved. Ultimately, God is the Judge. He decides.​

  Similarly, The Watchtower of November 2017 says :

  God wants as many as possible to survive Armageddon. He destroys the wicked only as a last resort.​ Ezekiel 18:32
  
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  Phizzy

  The problem is that as a JW you have to take on board the whole horrific Armageddon scenario and square that with the Bible's statement that " God is Love".

  A huge problem of Cognitive Dissonance arises, and the JW has to ignore some of what the Org has said on the subject. At this stage they are building for themselves a religion within a religion, and are on the way out even if they don't know it.
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  days of future passed

  From my own experience, and maybe because I wasn't among the "power" witnesses, I would say that many witnesses wanted to believe that God wouldn't just kill everyone. I myself thought about that quite a bit. But after awhile of trying to figure it out, you just shrug your shoulders because of course, God would never do something unrighteous.

  There were also articles from the WT that gave wiggle room about who was to be killed during Armageddon. Like how it isn't up to us to read others hearts and that although the preaching work has reached many lands - the places where there are isolated indigenous people - well probably God wouldn't kill them because they may have good hearts. The biggest "get out of killing innocents" card is WE DON'T KNOW. This is very different from what was preached from the WT in the early days. They had that fire and brimstone attitude from the podium. Like anyone that dared not listen to us - Down They Go into Gehenna!

  As they gradually realized that translated into regular JW's looking down on anyone that didn't take a magazine and not making an effort to convert them, it changed to "it's not up to us to say a person is a Goat!" Cause some did go around talking about how many "goats' were in the territory.