If there was a resurrection in paradise

by Sour Grapes 30 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Drearyweather

  Would the resurrected person really be me or just a copy of me?

  That won't matter. A prosthetic arm or leg can never replace the original, but can work wonders. Even a heart transplant, liver transplant, etc are not originals, but people still go for it for continuing their lives. After a blood transfusion, how many people balk at the idea that someone else's (in many cases you don't know whose) blood is running through their veins? Heck with that. Life continues, the fact that you are alive is what matters.

  So if living is all that matters, people won't have issues whether their bodies are clones, originals or a recreation of their old selves. The concept of meeting your loved ones and being alive and kicking is what attracts people.
  
  
• 

  Bad_Wolf

  Sour Grapes - the cloning makes no sense at all.

  Let's say you are resurrected RIGHT NOW. You are alive and here, and suddenly a resurrected copy of you is made. They have all of your memories, traits, etc, but they would essentially be an identical twin to you with the same memories as you. If you then died, you'd be plain dead, and that early resurrected copy of you is just another life form.

  Movies like Dark City, 6th Day, etc all kind of show it.

  Even teleportation, if a person was broken down, pretty much destroyed and reassembled is that really them or just a clone.

  Only thing I can think is if an actual soul or something that would not die or be the original.
• 

  EverApostate

  Jah willing, if I am resurrected, it would be pretty scary for me to see the dead (Pre me) break their tombs and rise.

  Would only roam around with Body guards.
• 

  Sour Grapes

  Bad Wolf....I really appreciate your post and it got me to think. I am always thinking of things that should make a JW use what little thinking ability they have left.

  Here is the story. Let's say that I am a faithful JW and one day God says to me, "Brother Sour Grapes to strengthen your faith in the resurrection let's say you died 10 years ago, were cremated and your ashes were spread on the ocean. Since you were a faithful drone I am going to recreate you like in the resurrection.

  Five minutes later sitting directly across from me is the recreated me. He looks exactly how I do and has every memory that I have, the same personality, height, weight, warts, and wrinkles. I am in complete awe being impressed by God's work and my faith in the resurrection is now stronger.

  Now God tells me, "Sour Grapes, now we can't have two of you being around because that would be very confusing to everyone. Are you ready to die right now? The recreated you will now take over."

  Would you want to die and let the other guy take over? Of course not because the recreated you is not you, it is just a clone of what you were.

  Sour Grapes
• 

  Bad_Wolf

  Exactly Sour Grapes.

  The ONLY way a resurrection would have some type of validity is if it was just like some things said, "sleeping". But when you sleep at night you are not dead, but in a dreamworld, etc. Consciousness and self awareness are the key. Still not fully understood.
• 

  inbetween09

  nice thoughts, it always bothered me as well.

  The general problem, as was also adressed by previous posters, is the lack of continuity.
  

  Just for arguments sake (as Im not sure anyway what to believe): God, as described as all powerful , rules over space AND time. What if he, just a second before you die, travels back to this time, so to say fetches you and transport you over into the future, where you will be resurrected, while leaving behind a copy of you behind to decay?

  It would solve the problem of not being the same, its not a recreation of you, its really you being transferred to the future. Of course, its not a real resurrection, as you were not really dead, but it would, to you and others, feel like one.

  just a crazy idea ;-)
  
• 

  Sour Grapes

  The only proof of any resurrections taking place is found in the Bible. The Bible is so filled with fairy tales that it detracts from anything that may have been factual. There were nine examples of resurrections and every one of them had the original body to work with. The bodies would have been decayed so some heavy restoration on the bodies would have been required.

  Dieing and going to heaven I could believe in since your life continues without interruption, your life just continues in a different body form.
• 

  Crazyguy

  Well here’s is the problem JWs stopped doing what the Egyptians did which was mummify their dead. With out this very important step , not having a body, the JWs are doomed to roam about in spirit form only on the earth, provided their judged worthy. Otherwise their heart is going to be eaten and they’ll be cast off in to the lake of fire, the second death.
• 

  LongHairGal

  VW.org:

  You are absolutely right that the soul would HAVE to be immortal if the Witness teaching of the resurrection on a paradise earth were to be true!!!

  The Witnesses teach that when a person dies their consciousness or soul dissipates like energy and disappears. Poof!...well if there's a resurrection then where does the soul/consciousness/memory of the original person come from???? If you accept the Witnesses half-assed explanation that it is supposedly in Jehovah's memory well that implies immortality of a sort. It's stored somehow.

  I was never really deep down a believer of the paradise earth teaching and considered it nothing more than a nice story, so I never really gave this any thought.

  So what is it JW lurkers? Do you really accept the JW teaching of the earthly resurrection but yet reject the idea of an immortal soul? You can't have one without the other.
• 

  Drearyweather

  Do you really accept the JW teaching of the earthly resurrection but yet reject the idea of an immortal soul? You can't have one without the other.

  Well, To begin with, JW teaching doesn't allow for a soul in the human body. Adam was not infused with a soul, but just with a breath of life. Since soul was not necessary for creating man, it won't be necessary to re-create or resurrect that man. All what is needed is the recreation of the human body, the restarting of human life and the restoration of consciousness and memory, all which is possible for the creator, who is not bound by the human limitation of the understanding of science.

  Call it a copy, clone or whatever. Those who were fine with this idea got baptized into the JW religion. That's it.