A previous topic discussed Isaiah 65:17 regarding remembering the past and applied it to the things before wickedness is wiped out at Armageddon and that survivors will not call the past to mind. Yet at the end of the article after this article, the WTS reference: Isaiah 65:17, saying just the opposite, that the past will not be remembered. What do some other statements made by the WTS as to what Isaiah 65:17 means. This is one recent example of how the WTS speaks out of both sides of their mouth.
https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/202017051#h=11:0-13:105
CLAM—Meeting Workbook February 2017
How will the former things not be called to mind?
· The causes of hurtful memories—physical, mental, and emotional suffering—will no longer exist
· Faithful humans will enjoy life to the full and will treasure the pleasant memories of each passing day
August 8, 1998 Awake pages, 3-11.
And in time “the former things will not be called to mind, neither will they come up into the heart.”—Isaiah 65:17.(NWT)
For look! I am creating new heavens and a new earth;
And the former things will not be called to mind,
Nor will they come up into the heart.
Is that the WTS position when writing an article in the Awake, designed for public consumption? Look at this article, published in the August 8, 1998, issue on pages 3-5 and 8-11. Or is this an example of the WTS talking out of both sides of their mouth?
https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/pc/r1/lp-e/1200272730/1/0
Should We Remember the Past?
“CAN the Jews forget the Holocaust?” This question was raised by Virgil Elizondo, president of the Mexican American Cultural Center in San Antonio, Texas. It reminds us that the atrocities seen in this century can leave an indelible imprint on the collective memory…
In an attempt to foster reconciliation between victims and their tormentors, religious and political leaders have on occasion invited people to forget atrocities suffered…
Forgetting by Decree?
It can be relatively easy (?) to try to cancel by decree the memory of atrocities perpetrated on the innocent. Rulers can decide to do this for political expediency, as happened in ancient Greece and in various European countries at the end of World War II. In Italy, for example, in 1946 a decree declared an amnesty to over 200,000 citizens “guilty of participating, in more or less relevant ways, in the misdeeds of the Fascist regime,” said the newspaper La Repubblica…However, the decisions of governments or public institutions are one thing. The sentiments of the individual members of a community are quite another. It is not possible by decree to compel individual citizens—perhaps the defenseless victims of brutal conflicts, massacres, or other barbarities—to forget past sufferings…
Those Who Would Like to Cancel the Memory
Those who urge victims of atrocities or their descendants to forgive and forget often assert that remembering the past is only a source of division, especially if decades have passed. They say that forgetting unites, whereas remembering cannot turn back the pages of history, however tragic the sufferings were.
But in trying to make people forget, some have gone to the point of denying the reality of the most horrendous crimes committed against humanity…
They Do Not Forget
It is obviously very difficult for survivors to forget loved ones lost in war or in atrocities. However, most of those who want to remember massacres and genocides do so because they hope that the lessons drawn from their own suffering and the suffering of their loved ones will be useful in avoiding any repetition of such brutality…
In order that new generations may also draw lessons and warnings from the genocides of this and other centuries, a number of museums—such as the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Beit Hashoah Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles—have been established. For the same reason, emotionally moving documentaries and other films on this subject have been produced. All of this is an attempt to prevent humanity from losing its memory of people suffering at the hands of other people.
Why Remember?
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” wrote the Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana. Sadly, it seems that over the course of millenniums, mankind quickly forgets its own past, thus condemning itself to commit the same bitter errors over and over…
--The followup article though uses Isaiah 65: 17 negating the statements made in the first article.