When you grow up and look back on childhood belief you have to laugh at how
non-analytical you were.
Easter bunnies and Santa were all too plausible for children because trusted adults who were otherwise unimpeachable sources of truth and reality assured and reassured kids. Why wouldn't they accept it?
Jehovah's Witness kids didn't have Santa, we had Armageddon.
Only this morning I suddenly asked myself why I ever accepted the idea of a
WAR IN HEAVEN as even remotely sane. The answer is because my adult mind had never stepped back away from the "received truth" and skeptically vetted the preposterous premises one by one.
Let's do it now--shall we?
There are layers upon layers of false ideas we have to peel away.
The final layer, Jesus on a white horse battling Satan, is the last layer.
Let's take a look in chronological order.
Historically, humans started out ignorant of how the world works, how the Cosmos was configured, how Nature functioned. Naturally, mankind made guesses.
Of course, those guesses were primitive. It's like asking your Preschool child for an opinion on something complicated; the answer will make silly sense while also being laughable.
Thunder and lightning bolts were Zeus.
Tidal waves were Poseidon.
Earthquakes were Antaeus. Etc, etc.
That sort of personification required imagination to explain "invisible presence."
Death? Careful observation of people as they died provided a good guess.
The final act before dying was a long EXHALE. What just left the body?
Respiration-breath--'spirit'?
An invisible "THING" left the body. Surely THAT THING is what LIFE is!
Child-like observation and hypothesis are charming but flawed.
There must be a place--a destination--for human spirits, right?
So...?
Various places could have trees with spirits. Some of our ancestors worshipped trees. Poor saps.
The top of Mount Olympus was asserted by Ancient Greeks to be the home of the Gods! Male gods, female goddesses--all remarkably flawed but powerful!
These gods warred, certainly--humans warred...that's called "projection."
And so? So, the idea of a BATTLE IN HEAVEN is an old, old idea brought forward through human history.
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That was Stage One.
Stage Two becomes centered on our BIBLE.
You and I have noticed the Bible is divided into two main parts. Dubs contrarily refuse to use mainstream terminology. Hebrew and Christian Greek are the terms they teach, but O.T. (Old Testament) and N.T. (New Testament) should suffice.
In the O.T. the Creator seemed to accept Satan's presence in heaven during roll call. Job 1:7: “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them”
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Teaching his Apostles to cast out demons, Jesus is quoted by Luke with this cryptic utterance: Luke 10:17 He says “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven”
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In Revelation 12 John sees a vision: “Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven” (7-8).
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So there we have it.
Cast of characters: Satan, Michael, angels, God, Dragon
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It certainly sounds objectively like a child's bedtime tale of Lord of the Rings.
Let's move on, shall we?
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1. Human beings battle with armies on battlefields historically only because they are at cross purposes and have roughly equal chances at getting their way through violence.
2. During our Cold War with the Russians, America and the U.S.S.R. fought proxy battles in Korea and Vietnam, Asia, South America, etc.
3. Modern wars in the Middle East are nasty matchups using Russian and American made technology which drags on and on and on.
Is THIS HOW WE VISUALIZE a WAR in HEAVEN between God and demons?
Why doesn't this strike anybody as silly?
Jehovah is either ALL POWERFUL or He is not. Right?
The Bible gives us IMHO a weird depiction of Jehovah's use of power.
First off, it is very unimaginative and utterly analog.
Sending she bears to maul children who ridicule his prophet for bald headedness is one example.
Turning Lot's wife into a pillar of salt is comic book stuff.
The plagues of Egypt? Crude and inefficient at best--after all--it took TEN F-ing TRIES to persuade Pharoah to let go.
Noah's flood?
Noah's flood was Armageddon if you stop and think about it.
That should have been it. Period. Exclamation point !!!
But nooooo...
It has to start all over again and lead to just another version of the same.
Why is Jehovah so Rube Goldberg if He has any problem-solving skills?
Finally, Jesus, Michael, Jehovah, and heavenly "good" angels should have ALL THE POWER on their side. Right?
Think of how easily the Nazis rounded up the Jews in Germany and Poland.
That sort of thing.
There never was a MASADA in Hitler's Germany for a good reason. Technology.
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Jehovah's Witnesses teach a peculiar End Times scenario which really morphs again and again and again into a quagmire of "reasoning."
The BATTLE of ARMAGEDDON is just silly, senseless, impossible and unnecessary. It's more comic book superhero Avenger's spectacle for the dim-witted than a description of any future reality.
Why?
It makes no sense.
If I were God and if you were God, we could snap our insuperable fingers and all evil beings would vanish. Snap. All done.
How did we ever believe this craziness?
I'll tell you how: we never really THOUGHT about it.
Armageddon is a big stick of fear used to beat people into cowering submission of their intellect to bullying. Period.