Quote:
Originally Posted by milt
No, I'm serious. People like Witnesses portray heaven as souls fluttering around in paradise with all the animals getting along; no one eating anyone else. The opposite has to be what they think of for heathens.
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I was raised a JW and I am not a total expert but here is goes as simple as possible, for my sake.
Adam and Eve were created along with a small paradise on earth. It was Gods intension for them to reproduce, and expand paradise throughout the earth.
Satan turned Adam and Eve causing them to sin, God handed over the Earth to Satan until a time when God will take it back and begin to restore paradise again and wife out death pain and suffering.
Through Christs sacrifice God gave man this hope. JW's do not believe they are going to heaven, but they do believe in heaven, a small group of the faithful will join God in heaven and help to rule mankind taking on an angelic form. 144,000 is the number the bible gives us.
The rest, called the great crowd, will be from all walks of life, no matter the religion, or if they believe in god. All will be forgiven and a second chance, per say, will be given.
For 1000 years God will resurrect the dead and restore the Earth to a Paradise once again, death will be no more. Man will live in a paradise as God initially intended.
Once the 1000 years is up Satan, who God had but into a Abyss will be released and set to roam the earth. At this time any who turn on god will be destroyed, no more chances.
Details like what food will be eaten, reproduction, and (most important to me) attire or lack thereof is not very clear and any guess would be a guess
That is sort of it in a nutshell.
Each person gets from their respective religion something different. I get that we are not here to judge, to say my religion is 100% perfect would be wrong, its run by men, they are not perfect and they make mistakes. Our religion has made "adjustments" over the years that I have been associated with it. Some were huge changes or mistakes but at least they are honest enough to say, Hey we messed up here and this is the corrected interpretation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by milt
Hey Jim, wait a minute, I did not mean to offend or misinterpret what a JW might believe. I worked several weeks on a job with a JW and listened to him and his thoughts on the subject very closely. I have had encounters with others and read some of the literature that included images of what I described above. If I am way off base, then it wasn't me alone that got me there.
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I was not offended at all, I was just pointing out that your statement was pretty off, I knew you did not mean it in a malicious fashion.
Todd, I will admit I know nothing about Buddhists and their teaching. My apologies for lumping them in with those Christians.
