What are the best and worst things about heaven?

[Jimmy]

Best: dessert
Worst: diarrhea

 

[Hockeycowboy]

This gets back to my comment above. Not much of a teacher if in your opinion most Christians didn't take Jesus' points.

Hello IANS.

Let me ask you: didn’t Jesus say His disciples would be hated by the world?
Who wants to be hated, really?

That doesn’t make him a bad teacher, at all (for the most part, people loved his teachings) …. It’s just that this world being full of divisive nationalism, condoning anything-goes promiscuity, and supporting selfish & materialistic behaviors, makes it difficult to live by his & his Father’s standards.

And, Jesus indicated there would be significant forces working against him —
At Matthew 7:23 Jesus said,
“Many will say to me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and expel demons in your name and perform many powerful works in your name? And yet I will say to them: ‘Away from me, you workers of evil’.”

Obviously, these ones did not have Jesus’ (or His Father’s) power backing them, yet they were performing “many powerful works.”

Where were they getting the power? From what source?

The same source that is “misleading the entire inhabited earth” (Revelation 12:9); the same source that imposters dead relatives, making the living think they can talk with them.

They’ve even influenced Christendom to think they can represent Christ, while at the same time kill their enemies and their brothers! (Matthew 5:44; John 13:34,35; John 15:12,14,17-19)
Christendom has been disobedient since its inception in the 4th Cent. AD, despite Christ’s clear commands.
If Christendom is hated, it’s due to their hypocrisy (also by design - 2Corinthians 11:13-15). Not their obedience to Christ.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Another poster wrote, "I believe when confronted with the truth JWs flee." I described my relatively recent experiences with a couple of JWs who gave up on me in less than five minutes when I disagreed with them about the world and life, which they saw as very negative even though I'll bet their lives were pretty good as was mine.

Yes, their lives may have sufficient necessities, and maybe even some wants. Mine too.

But what about the 1/10th of the world that’s starving?

We may have food in our fridge, clothes on our backs, a roof over our heads and a place to sleep, but what about the 75% of the world’s population that don’t?

What about the increase of Heart disease, and cancer? Much of this could be prevented, if human greed didn’t play such a huge part in both the food industry, and other ventures preying on human addictions.

(BTW, we are comparing the world we live in now, with the world prior to 1914. With the outbreak of the Great War (WWI), society has deteriorated big time! That was when the Biblical Last Days began. I will post the evidence supporting this conclusion later.)

Advancing technologies from science are wonderful, but I think they help to mask just how bad people are hurting.

I’m sorry, but your view seems to be a tad selfish, and looking only at trees and not the forest.

I wouldn't describe that as fleeing, although one might make a case that they were afraid of the truth.

I think I just stated the truth, above.

You're a JW because that's what you chose to believe.

Actually, it’s not. I was and still am convinced that the Bible supports what I was taught; not because it’s ‘what I want to believe.’

For instance, I don’t want to believe that my dead loved ones - my Dad, grandparents, aunts & uncles, some friends, etc. - are completely gone… I’d rather believe that they were living in another realm.

But that doesn’t agree with what Scripture tells us.

“The dead do not praise the Lord; Nor do any who go down into the silence of death.” Psalm 115:17

To Adam, Jehovah said: “You will return to the ground… For dust you are, and to dust you will return.” Genesis 3:19

Have a good day.)

 

[Hockeycowboy]

I think that is a false accusation. I see no difference between the JWs and the other Christians in that regard.

Oh my goodness!

Our neutrality is one of the things we are known for! It identifies us.

No, but that does not mean that the JWs are the only ones in the world that have the Truth

I didn’t say that.
But it does show that God worked through only one group. Not several.
Just like the one nation of Israel, the only one that had His mark of approval.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

didn’t Jesus say His disciples would be hated by the world?

Hey HJ

I was referring to his followers and their failure to learn his lesson according to you.

Yes, their lives may have sufficient necessities, and maybe even some wants. Mine too. But what about the 1/10th of the world that’s starving?

That's a different topic. These JWs were speaking to me. They told me how bad the world is, I told them that my life was good, and they left. It seemed like they expected me to be ungrateful for that and were surprised when I wasn't. You can't normalize that attitude. It's abnormal to expect people with safe and happy lives to be unhappy about that because others have worse lives.

 

[Martin]

The worst thing about heaven is that it implies hell.

 

[Trailblazer]

I didn’t say that.
But it does show that God worked through only one group. Not several.
Just like the one nation of Israel, the only one that had His mark of approval.

What makes you think that the JWs are that one group?
Where is the evidence?

 

[Trailblazer]

The worst thing about heaven is that it implies hell.

Heaven does not have to imply hell. That is only a Christian belief.

 

[Muffled]

I wouldn't say all JWs, because, as I mentioned in my previous post, my evangelism team and I were able to persuade a few of them to convert to evangelical Christianity once they stopped heckling and arguing with us. I taught and mentored some of them as they trained to be street preachers.

THe only converts I have met were turned off of relgion because of the things they experienced as JW's.

 

[Muffled]

I've always found JWs polite and respectful, but religiously obstinate.

I believe they try to be civil but that is the difference betweeen a born again Christian and one based on works.

 

[Muffled]

The best thing about heaven is that it doesn't exist.

The worst thing about heaven is that enough people believe it exists and behave abysmally in a vain hope to be there.

I am sure that you can't prove that it doesn't exist and the testimony of Jesus who is God in the flesh and therefore knows all things , is that it does exist.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I am sure that you can't prove that it doesn't exist and the testimony of Jesus who is God in the flesh and therefore knows all things , is that it does exist.

And likewise, I'm sure that you can't prove flying horses don't exist, and yet the Buraq is said, in Muslim Hadith to have flown Mohammed to Jerusalem.

Of course, I don't believe in the Hadiths anymore than I do the Bible.

 

[YoursTrue]

The worst thing about heaven is that it implies hell.

It is definitely a particular conundrum, since I have learned from my study of the Bible that hell is not the opposite of heaven. Neither is purgatory an in-between state. I'll just say that the Bible says there are to be new heavens and .. a new earth. You can find this for starters at Revelation 21:1-5. Thanks for mentioning what you did.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

​

What makes you think that the JWs are that one group?
Where is the evidence?

To put it plainly, 1) our obedience to Christ in following his commands.

What are his commands?

• John 13:34,35… “ I am giving you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, that you also loved one another. By this, all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love among yourselves.”
• John 15:12…”This is my commandment, that you love one another just as I have loved you.”
• John 15:14… “You are my friends, if you do what I tell you.”

Doesn’t it make sense that those who follow the “Prince of Peace”, would be peaceable themselves? It certainly wouldn’t allow for joining the world in its conflicts!

We have defied governments in support of Jesus’ commands to ‘love our enemies’ (Matt.5:44) and ‘our brothers’.
Hitler tried to exterminate Jehovah’s Witnesses because we wouldn’t “heil Hitler” & support his war machine. (And yet after WWII, there were more of us in Germany than when the war began.)

• Another command from Jesus was ”As you go, preach ‘The kingdom of the heavens is drawn near’.” — Matt.10:7
• At Matthew 28:19,20, Jesus told His disciples, “Go, therefore, make disciples of people of all the nations… teaching them to observe all the things I have commanded you.”
• And His apostles continued preaching…”Also, he ordered us to preach to the people and to give a thorough witness that this is the one decreed by God to be judge of the living and the dead.”
• Jesus further stated regarding the Last Days: “ and this good news of the Kingdom will be preached and all the inhabited for a witness to all the nations; and then the end will come.” — Matthew 24:14

2) Our striving to adhere to procedures & counsel outlined by His Apostles…

• All of the first-Cent. Christians spoke “in agreement”; they followed the guidance of one central body, the Apostles. —Acts 2:42; 1 Corinthians 1:10
• Just as the Apostles outlined the need to “remove” unrepentant wrongdoers in 1Corinthians 5, so we follow that guidance. — 1 Corinthians 6:9,10;
• 2 John 1: 9,10…”Everyone who pushes ahead and does not remain in the teaching of the Christ….do not receive him into your homes or say a greeting to him.”

And first and foremost, we worship only the One Whom Jesus worshipped: his Father, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Israel, David, and others. (John 20:17) As Exodus 20:5 tells us, He is a Jealous God: IOW, He requires exclusive devotion.
Verses 2-6 (especially verse 6) informs us that Yahweh / Jehovah, His name, favors those who obey Him.
Having His blessing & His spirit engenders qualities such as “love…peace…kindness …mildness.” (Galatians 5:22,23) Such genuine qualities are in abundance among Jehovah’s people!
— 1 Peter 1:22.

Take care.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Hey HJ

Hello, IANS, Hope you had a good day.

(I think you meant “HC”? No problem.)

I was referring to his followers and their failure to learn his lesson according to you.

Actually, since these one are Jesus’ followers, wouldn’t it be best to find out how they failed according to Jesus?

That’s why I posted Matthew 7:23, where Jesus would say to them, “I never knew you! Away from me, you evildoers.”

Think of this scenario:

You start out working for a Man you never met. You’re given a promotion. An opportunity arises to steal from people that this Man represents, and you think He won’t notice. So you take the chance.

And here, at payday, you get a bonus! You got your normal check in the envelope, but there’s some extra cash from Someone (the Boss?) along with a note, “You’re doing a good job, keep it up”!

So another opportunity comes along, and you take it. You’re stealing more. And you get more cash in the envelope! You think it’s coming from the Boss. (I mean, who else, right?)

So you get more and more brazen.

But secretly, this extra cash is actually from your Boss’s main Enemy.

All the while, more & more of your employees are finding out that you’re getting rewarded for stealing. So they start doing bad things, thinking the Boss doesn’t really care.

Can you make the analogy? I know you can.

That's a different topic. These JWs were speaking to me. They told me how bad the world is,

Is it (what I said) really a different topic?

You acknowledged that these JW’s were telling telling how bad “the world is.” They didn’t say ‘your world.’
Hey, I’m glad that things are good for you.

But such is not the case for the majority of mankind.

It seemed like they expected me to be ungrateful for that and were surprised when I wasn't. You can't normalize that attitude. It's abnormal to expect people with safe and happy lives to be unhappy about that because others have worse lives.

“Ungrateful”? I don’t think that’s the right word, is it?

Not to be “unhappy” - and not to feel guilty, either - that your life is better.

But just to be aware and have some fellow-feeling for others, those that are not given any opportunities to enrich their lives.

Due to a great degree of ‘man dominating man to his harm’ (Ecclesiastes 8:9); it’s been especially evident since 1914, the beginning of the Last Days

How secular authorities and historians view 1914:



“Ever since 1914, everybody conscious of trends in the world has been deeply troubled by what has seemed like a fated and predetermined march toward ever greater disaster. Many serious people have come to feel that nothing can be done to avert the plunge towards ruin.”—Bertrand Russell, The New York Times Magazine, September 27, 1953.



The London Evening Star commented that the conflict “tore the whole world’s political setup apart. Nothing could ever be the same again. If we all get the nuclear madness out of our systems and the human race survives, some historian in the next century may well conclude that the day the world went mad was August 4, 1914.”–London Evening Star, quoted in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, August 5, 1960, and The Seattle Times, August 4, 1960, p. 5.



“Half a century has gone by, yet the mark that the tragedy of the Great War left on the body and soul of the nations has not faded . . . The physical and moral magnitude of this ordeal was such that nothing left was the same as before. Society in its entirety: systems of government, national borders, laws, armed forces, interstate relations, but also ideologies, family life, fortunes, positions, personal relations—everything was changed from top to bottom. . . . Humanity finally lost its balance, never to recover it to this day.” (General Charles de Gaulle, Le Monde, Nov. 12, 1968, p. 9)



“Everyone agrees in recognizing that in the whole history of mankind, few dates have had the importance of August 2, 1914.” (Maurice Genevoix, Promise of Greatness)



“Those who lived through the war could never rid themselves of the belief that one world had ended and another begun in August 1914.” (The Generation of 1914, Robert Wohl, Professor of History)



“The whole world really blew up about World War I and we still don’t know why. Before then, men thought that utopia was in sight. There was peace and prosperity. Then everything blew up. We’ve been in a state of suspended animation ever since . . . More people have been killed in this century than in all of history.” (Dr. Walker Percy, American Medical News, November 21, 1977)



“Everything would get better and better. This was the world I was born in. . . . Suddenly, unexpectedly, one morning in 1914 the whole thing came to an end.” (British statesman Harold Macmillan, The New York Times, November 23, 1980)



“The last completely ‘normal’ year in history was 1913, the year before World War I began.” (Times-Herald, Washington, D.C., March 13, 1949)



“In 1914 the world lost a coherence which it has not managed to recapture since. . . . This has been a time of extraordinary disorder and violence, both across national frontiers and within them.” (The Economist)



“The Great War of 1914-18 lies like a band of scorched earth dividing that time from ours. In wiping out so many lives which would have been operative on the years that followed, in destroying beliefs, changing ideas, and leaving incurable wounds of disillusion, it created a physical as well as psychological gulf between two epochs.” (Foreword to The Proud Tower, by Barbara W. Tuchman)



“Neither the old nor the young had any suspicion that what they were witnessing, during that incomparable season of 1914, was, in fact, the end of an era.” (Before the Lamps Went Out, by Geoffrey Marcus)



“[There was] little or no evidence of a steady rise or a ‘snowballing’ of conflicts and tensions leading directly to the outbreak of war.” On the contrary, “by late 1913 and early 1914 . . . relations among the major powers appeared to be more settled than they had been for many years.” (International Crisis, by Eugenia Nomikos and Robert C. North, 1976)



“The effects of World War I were literally revolutionary and struck deep in the lives of almost all peoples, economically as well as socially and politically.” (Meyers Enzyklopädisches Lexikon)



“The year 1913 marked the close of an era.” (1913 - An End and a Beginning, Virginia Cowles)



“Before 1914 the monetary and the financial systems were compatible. . . . If one takes August 1914 as marking the dividing line between them, the contrasts between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries are striking. In many aspects of human affairs there has been a complete reversal of trend. . . . One major reason was the severance of the linkage between the financial system and money with intrinsic value that began in 1914. . . . The breaking of the linkage was a momentous event. . . . 1914 marked a radical, and in the end catastrophic, transformation of that system.” (Ashby Bladen, senior vice president The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America)



“By all contemporaneous accounts, the world prior to 1914 seemed to be moving irreversibly toward higher levels of civility and civilization; human society seemed perfectible. The nineteenth century had brought an end to the wretched slave trade. Dehumanizing violence seemed on the decline. . . . The pace of global invention had advanced throughout the nineteenth century, bringing railroads, the telephone, the electric light, cinema, the motor car, and household conveniences too numerous to mention. Medical science, improved nutrition, and the mass distribution of potable water had elevated life expectancy . . . The sense of the irreversibility of such progress was universal.
World War I was more devastating to civility and civilization than the physically far more destructive World War II: the earlier conflict destroyed an idea. I cannot erase the thought of those pre-World War I years, when the future of mankind appeared unencumbered and without limit. Today our outlook is starkly different from a century ago but perhaps a bit more consonant with reality. Will terror, global warming, or resurgent populism do to the current era of life-advancing globalization what World War I did to the previous one? No one can be confident of the answer.” (Alan Greenspan, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, 2007)

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

wouldn’t it be best to find out how they failed according to Jesus?

You had said somewhere something about Christendom failing to heed the words of Jesus leading to problems in the world, which is why I wrote, "I was referring to his followers and their failure to learn his lesson according to you." It's your judgment I referred to. The words in the Gospels attributed to Jesus are often ambiguous, and since Jesus isn't here to clarify what he meant, anybody's opinion is just as valid as anybody else's who understands those words differently including you, so if you want to explain how Christendom misses the mark, it will need to be your interpretation of those words.

Think of this scenario:

You start out working for a Man you never met. You’re given a promotion. An opportunity arises to steal from people that this Man represents, and you think He won’t notice. So you take the chance.

And here, at payday, you get a bonus! You got your normal check in the envelope, but there’s some extra cash from Someone (the Boss?) along with a note, “You’re doing a good job, keep it up”!

So another opportunity comes along, and you take it. You’re stealing more. And you get more cash in the envelope! You think it’s coming from the Boss. (I mean, who else, right?)

So you get more and more brazen.

But secretly, this extra cash is actually from your Boss’s main Enemy.

All the while, more & more of your employees are finding out that you’re getting rewarded for stealing. So they start doing bad things, thinking the Boss doesn’t really care.

Can you make the analogy? I know you can.

No, I can't see the relevance of that story to our discussion. It's about theft and somebody not only not getting caught but being found out by coworkers who then emulate him.

You acknowledged that these JW’s were telling telling how bad “the world is.” They didn’t say ‘your world.’

Their purpose seemed to be to recruit new members. They became discouraged when I told them that I disagreed with their pessimistic assessment of a world going **** in a handbasket and that most of the people I knew including myself were relatively safe and comfortable. I can only guess what would have followed had I agreed with them or why my words were conversation killers for them.

But I did mention to you that I had a very similar RF discussion with a JW on the other side of the world, who made the same argument and got the same answer from me but had a stronger reaction than the two JWs at my door. She was angry that I was so selfish that I could enjoy life when others did not and chastised me for what she called indifference.

Not to be “unhappy” - and not to feel guilty, either - that your life is better. But just to be aware and have some fellow-feeling for others

OK, but why would they come to my door to deliver that message? Do they assume that there is no compassion or empathy in the world, too, and that they should spend the morning knocking on doors to tell strangers to have feelings for others? If so, they never got to that part before departing.

Apparently, there were unstated assumptions in play there that would make all of that make sense if I knew them. I think that you could probably explain what actually transpired that morning, but I can't. I don't understand JW culture like you do.

Can you explain why two JW women might come to my door and leave so quickly when I told them that life was good for many? I was quite respectful and friendly as were they for the few minutes the encounter lasted. What was their purpose, and can you explain their reaction?

 

[Trailblazer]

​

To put it plainly, 1) our obedience to Christ in following his commands.

What are his commands?

• John 13:34,35… “ I am giving you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, that you also loved one another. By this, all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love among yourselves.”
• John 15:12…”This is my commandment, that you love one another just as I have loved you.”
• John 15:14… “You are my friends, if you do what I tell you.”

Doesn’t it make sense that those who follow the “Prince of Peace”, would be peaceable themselves? It certainly wouldn’t allow for joining the world in its conflicts!

We have defied governments in support of Jesus’ commands to ‘love our enemies’ (Matt.5:44) and ‘our brothers’.
Hitler tried to exterminate Jehovah’s Witnesses because we wouldn’t “heil Hitler” & support his war machine. (And yet after WWII, there were more of us in Germany than when the war began.)

• Another command from Jesus was ”As you go, preach ‘The kingdom of the heavens is drawn near’.” — Matt.10:7
• At Matthew 28:19,20, Jesus told His disciples, “Go, therefore, make disciples of people of all the nations… teaching them to observe all the things I have commanded you.”
• And His apostles continued preaching…”Also, he ordered us to preach to the people and to give a thorough witness that this is the one decreed by God to be judge of the living and the dead.”
• Jesus further stated regarding the Last Days: “ and this good news of the Kingdom will be preached and all the inhabited for a witness to all the nations; and then the end will come.” — Matthew 24:14

2) Our striving to adhere to procedures & counsel outlined by His Apostles…

• All of the first-Cent. Christians spoke “in agreement”; they followed the guidance of one central body, the Apostles. —Acts 2:42; 1 Corinthians 1:10
• Just as the Apostles outlined the need to “remove” unrepentant wrongdoers in 1Corinthians 5, so we follow that guidance. — 1 Corinthians 6:9,10;
• 2 John 1: 9,10…”Everyone who pushes ahead and does not remain in the teaching of the Christ….do not receive him into your homes or say a greeting to him.”

And first and foremost, we worship only the One Whom Jesus worshipped: his Father, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Israel, David, and others. (John 20:17) As Exodus 20:5 tells us, He is a Jealous God: IOW, He requires exclusive devotion.
Verses 2-6 (especially verse 6) informs us that Yahweh / Jehovah, His name, favors those who obey Him.
Having His blessing & His spirit engenders qualities such as “love…peace…kindness …mildness.” (Galatians 5:22,23) Such genuine qualities are in abundance among Jehovah’s people!
— 1 Peter 1:22.

Take care.

Are you claiming that only the JWs do what you cited above?

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Are you claiming that only the JWs do what you cited above?

Who else? Please, let me know.

Who else worships Jehovah? Or Yahweh? (Isaiah 2:2-4) Who else has beaten “their swords into plowshares And their spears into pruning shears”?

Who else preaches the “good news of the Kingdom”? - Matthew 24:14

Who else has a “united” brotherhood, worldwide?
-1 Corinthians 1:10

Being “taught by Jehovah”, the only true God, has its advantages. Isaiah 54:13….

“And all thy sons shall be taught by Jehovah; and great shall be the peace of thy sons.”

Isaiah 48:17,18 ASV….
17Thus saith Jehovah, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am Jehovah thy God, who teacheth thee to profit, who leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go.

18Oh that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea:”

 

[viole]

What are the best and worst things about heaven?
I’ll start. There are a lot more things but these are my top 5.

Best things about heaven:

1. No more cars or traffic.
2. No more houses to take care of.
3. No more physical ailments or physical pain.
4. No more grief when loved ones die.
5. Seeing loved ones again.

Worst things about heaven:

1. There is no way of knowing what it will be like.
2. There is no itinerary.
3. There is no return ticket if we don’t like it.
4. Eternity is a long time.
5. There might be no animals there.

Worst thing: it seems to promise infinite boredom. All my heroes are in hell. Einstein, Dirac. Feynman, and so on. So what am I going to discuss all eternity with intellectual dwarfs like Mother Teresa, and Pat Robertson? Pure torture. And everlasting. I cannot imagine anything worse.

Best thing: it does not exist.

So, I fully agree that the advantages of heaven vastly outperform its disadvantages.

ciao

- viole

 

[Muffled]

And likewise, I'm sure that you can't prove flying horses don't exist, and yet the Buraq is said, in Muslim Hadith to have flown Mohammed to Jerusalem.

Of course, I don't believe in the Hadiths anymore than I do the Bible.

Hadiths have very little credence as opposed to the Bible which is the Word of God.