Being in a hopeless state is a recipe for being miserable. What hope do atheists have? All they have is today, right now, this minute....today or tomorrow your life might end and then there is nothing more. If I felt that this life was all there was, my life would indeed be miserable. Imagine someone born with a severe disability or who developed a terminal illness in childhood and they never got to live a 'normal' life,to enjoy the things that many of us take for granted....if this life is all they get, then Jehovah would indeed be a cruel and heartless God.
He has asked us to bear with him whilst he deals with rebellion and eradicates it forever. I am willing to wait for what he promises because he is the only one who can actually deliver on his promises. Who do you depend on?
My heart knows that life on this planet should be the opposite of what it is now. It is the collective desire of most humans to live a way different life....why is that? Why do we long for peace and security for ourselves and our loved ones? Why are we drawn to paradise locations? This life with all its uncertainty and tragedy might be enough for you...but it isn't enough for me. I know something better is coming because I have faith in my Creator. Not everyone has it but it can be nurtured if you feed it. Nature teaches us so much about the one who made it. Open your eyes.
The Bible explains why we all seek something better. It's programmed into us...
This life is a pathetic fake created by God's adversary in the hope that it will make people give up on belief in a benevolent Creator.....has he succeeded? Looks that way to me. But many have come to see through his deception.
What is really sad is putting your life on hold while waiting for that "something better" and devoting the life you've been given to serving as a slave to a religious publishing company. There are so many comments from JWs fantasizing about what they will do "in the New System" while they spend their time and resources enriching a group of charlatans who care nothing about them at all.
It is sad to "wait" and never live because of what men have told you God wants. They certainly are living their lives to the fullest while YOU wait.
How do you know it isn't? In every culture in different parts of the world there is a flood story. How did that happen when there was no communication between nations thousands of years ago. They didn't know other cultures even existed, for the most part. That can only happen if the event impacted on the world to such an extent that it created legends in their history. Genesis explains how that happened.
Floods have occurred almost everywhere, but not all cultures have a flood story. Japan, for instance, has no myths about a global flood. I guess God preferred them over everyone else, right?
Why is God a terrible person for executing those who were committing capital crimes? He executed those who were offending him by their licentious and violent ways. So invasive was their influence, that only one family was seen to care anything about God and his laws. These were the only ones NOT breaking his laws. God didn't save them, but gave them instructions on how to save themselves...it was a monumental task and if they had faltered on any of God's instructions, no one would have survived that event.
There is no way that you could ever prove that every person on the face of the earth other than Noah and his family were guilty of anything whatsoever, and the animals were entirely innocent, yet they, too, according to this myth, were sentenced to death.
An executioner is not a murderer. Who has a better right to execute those who commit capital crimes than the Creator of life?
Since Flood believers have to believe that God micro-managed pretty much every detail in order to pull off this "Flood," it would have made much more sense for God to have simply executed the "evil" people rather than destroying everything (animals, plants, etc.) on the entire face of the earth.
You also forget that the one thing that God has that we do not, is the ability to restore life to those who merit his mercy. A God who means what he says, and does not just slap offenders on the wrist IS a God worth following. Don't we all wish he would come right now and rid the earth of those who are committing violence and immorality wantonly believing that they have a right to do whatever they like? Do you love this world? I don't...I am sickened by what humans are doing to this planet and to each other.....but its all unbelievers have. Its not all I have.
I learned just recently about the death of a serial child molester from my home congregation. His victims were abused by him and ignored by the "shepherds" in the congregation who were supposedly put there by means of God's Holy Spirit. The child molester remained a JW (in good standing, no less) but his victims left the JW organization due not only to the abuse they endured but also because their pleas to the elders were ignored.
In the Guest Book portion of his obituary, a JW wrote about how she was looking forward to seeing him again in the New System after he was resurrected. I thought about how JWs would also consider his victims to be those who deserve to die at God's hand simply because they left the JW organization...but their abuser deserves eternal life in Paradise.
