funeralxempire wrote:
kraftiekortie wrote:
How about the Jehovah Witnesses' belief (if I'm correct)----that only 144,000 people will make it to their version of "heaven" following the "Second Coming."
My understanding is that that's not limited to JWs, but instead is a common belief among a number of minor fundamentalist Christian sects.
I’ve not heard other groups mention the number 144,000 although they could because it’s mentioned twice in the book of Revelation.
Probably Bible Students, who are a branch off of JWs, believe in something similar.
Fundamental religious groups, certainly, love the idea of being “God’s chosen people.” Otherwise, who would want to live such a strict lifestyle? It doesn’t feel great when you are a kid and have been taught to believe that your school friends will die in Armageddon unless they convert. We were actually taught that we shouldn’t call school playmates “friends” and got talked to when we did so. “They aren’t your friends. Do they love Jehovah?” (I didn’t love him, but that’s another matter entirely.) The overall goal seemed to be to make us as weird as possible.
JWs believe 144,000 will be in heaven ruling as kings and priests with all the other spiritual dudes and that there will be a “great crowd” of JWs in the Paradise on Earth. I’m not exactly sure why God will need the extra help in Heaven...
It’s very silly. I never wanted to be in either place except when I was really young.
They regularly attack other religions in their publications and during talks at their Kingdom Halls which sets the tone for individual JWs. They especially like to pick on Catholics. Anyway, all religions, apart from JWs, are part of “Babylon the Great - the World Empire of False Religion that is run by Satan” (That’s a conspiracy theory on its own!

)
It’s hysterical to think about now because it often came down to disagreement over minor doctrinal stuff which shouldn’t be that big of a deal and, thus, shouldn’t bother a reasonable deity all that much. Of course, from a sociological perspective, this judgmental stuff served the purpose of promoting group solidarity. Lots of groups do it.
They also used to talk about the Catholic Church’s problems with child abuse regularly until their own problems became known to the public and the typical JW. (It was well known to the writers of the publications and to the many people running and overseeing the scheme...business...cult...whatever.) JWs problems with it might be worse per capita but there aren’t nearly as many JWs around as Catholics.
Whew! I got off track here. Maybe I’m just trying to demonstrate why I don’t mind picking on their group as a whole.
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“Les grandes personnes ne comprennent jamais rien toutes seules, et c'est fatigant, pour les enfants, de toujours et toujours leur donner des explications.”
— Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince