Friday, May 15, 2009
Thinking about Jehovah’s witnessing
This morning while I was waiting for the bus I was approached (for the second day in a row) by a Jehovah’s witness. They have taken to driving around in the morning and offering reading material to people waiting at bus stops. Luckily, I think religions are fascinating, so I am always up for being convinced of just about anything.
Today’s lesson was especially interesting as a large part of it focused on woolly mammoths for some reason. Apparently some Jehovah’s witness was digging in or around the Colosseum in Rome (like you do) and discovered bones that he concluded were Elephas antiquus (“ancient elephant”). The witnesses provide a dramatic recreation of this beast and to my eye (which is expert in these matters) it looks awesome. Even more awesome is the fact that the ancient elephant was apparently carried to Italy by a flood. Hmm, I thought. Surfing elephant. This was sounding like a great religion.
Then the Jehovah’s witness left and Jane came, and I got to talking to Jane about the Jehovah’s witnesses. Jane told me that according to Jehovah’s witnesses only 144,000 people can go to heaven. I called crap because to me that sounded like a low number. But Jane was right. Here is a table I stole from Wikipedia which explains Christian views vs. the views of Jehovah’s witnesses.
| Traditional Christian teaching | Corresponding Jehovah’s Witnesses teaching[5] |
| 1) 12,000 and 144,000 are symbolic numbers representing all of God’s people; or 2) Literally 144,000 people (12,000 from each tribe) will be chosen from the tribes of Israel. | 12,000 is symbolic of the complete and balanced spiritual nation.[6] 144,000 is seen as literal.[7] It refers to “spiritual Israel,” not the physical nation [8] (i.e. the “anointed”).[9] Approximately 9,986 of the 144,000 anointed ones are alive on Earth today, according to the latest figures posted on the official Jehovah’s Witnesses website. [10] |
| All Christians are born again and will thus spend eternity with God. | Only 144,000 believers are born again. They will be raised up and spend eternity in heaven with God. [11] |
| One cannot see God’s Kingdom or enter into it without being born again. | Only the 144,000 can enter the heavenly kingdom. Those with an “earthly hope” will live on a paradise earth. [12] |
Now I have a question. Since only 9,986 living people get in, and since nobody knows who those 9,986 are, do the Jehovah’s witnesses come and talk to me thinking that it will help them get into the 9,986, or are they thinking that maybe I am in the 9,986? Wouldn’t they feel sour towards God if they did all the work and it was the schmuck at the bus stop that ended up getting in?
Side question: Will there be ancient elephants in heaven?
Overall the pamphlet they gave me is pretty cool, I give it a B-. It includes lots about creatures and it mentions the end of the world. There is also a part in there about ways to chat up Jehovah’s witness ladies (spoiler: It is against Jehovah’s witnessing to chat up ladies).
It is marked down because there is a story of a man switching from Buddhism to Jehovah’s witnessing. This man probably didn’t know loads about Buddhism because it is possible in Buddhism to go to heaven too, but you are supposed to be non-attached to the idea of heaven because heaven requires an ego, and ego is bad. This man is clever, though, in a way, because he is an example of hedging bets with your soul, which is probably not a bad idea, since it is his soul and all.
It also included a story about the killing fields of Cambodia as proof that Buddhism is not a nice religion. Hint: If you are Christian, don’t complain when other religions kill people.
Finally on the down side, there is a bunch of crap about thyroids which was stupid because who cares about thyroids?
I will be looking forward to the next installment from the witnesses, and if anything awesome comes up like a surfing elephant I will mention it. I will also try to get my question’s answered from one of the team members of the Jehovah’s witnesses in order to Increase My Understanding.