Paradise on Earth

[onewithhim]

When I learned that the Bible speaks of a restored Garden of Eden and the restoration of mankind to the perfection and endless life that Adam forfeited, I was thrilled. Who doesn't want to keep living on this beautiful earth, with our loved ones, and being able to do all the things we love to do---endlessly?

If God said to you today, "When do you want to die?" would you say "now!!"? I don't think very many people would say that.

We CAN live forever here on Earth. The Bible tells us that we can.

Matthew 5:5
Psalm 37:9-11,29

[onewithhim]

The glass, the rum, the refrigeration.....all of that will be told to us in the new system of things. There will have to be some kind of industry going on, only without pollution. I'm sure that we'll have the Internet and it will continue to advance.

Are you going to drink mai tai all day with your perfect relatives, or go work in the perfect glass making factories?

Well, at the moment I have no interest in forming things out of glass, but who knows? I might take it on someday down the road. There are enough people on the earth, I would imagine, that love to work with glass. We will have all the time in the world to learn new things. Maybe we'll take turns making things for others.

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 471 by onewithhim]

[center]

We can all switch to drinking Champagne, right?[/center]

Well, at the moment I have no interest in forming things out of glass, but who knows?

Humanity might run out of mai tai glasses.

I might take it on someday down the road.

Yes, you just might get so BORED of all of those mai tai parties that you might prefer a sweaty factory job, instead. We WILL need a lot of glasses and cars and toilets and that kind of thing in heaven, right?

Are there any septic tanks in your heaven?
What to do with all the heavenly poo?

[onewithhim]

[Replying to post 472 by Blastcat]

What you say is farcical. You can't be serious, after all that I have posted about Paradise.


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[onewithhim]

Can anyone envision anyone in their families or their friends in these words?

"The eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will shout for joy." (Isaiah 35:5,6, NASB)


"He who is blessed in the earth will be blessed by the God of truth; and he who swears in the earth will swear by the God of truth; because the former troubles are forgotten, and because they are hidden from My sight! For behold, I create a new heavens and a new earth; and the former things will not be remembered or come to mind....No longer will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his days....They will build houses and inhabit them; they will also plant vineyards and eat their fruit....For as the lifetime of a tree, so will be the days of My people, and My chosen ones will wear out the work of their hands. They will not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they are the offspring of those blessed by the LORD, and their descendants with them." (Isaiah 65:16,17,20-23, NASB)


We have this to look forward to. Can you imagine it?

Go to this link, about the new heavens and new earth:


https://www.jw.org/en/publications/jw-m ... t_index]=0


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[marco]

Can anyone envision anyone in their families or their friends in these words?

"The eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will shout for joy." (Isaiah 35:5,6, NASB)

We have this to look forward to. Can you imagine it?

There is gold at the end of the rainbow too. It is absurd that blind and deaf people struggle through this existence with the promise that in some future world they will see, like their neighbours. Are they being punished, then?

Of course if we subscribe to the idea that Adam somebody caused it all, then everything falls into place. Once God has exacted enough pain from a few, he will open the park again.

Is this a sensible theology?

[onewithhim]

Can anyone envision anyone in their families or their friends in these words?

"The eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will shout for joy." (Isaiah 35:5,6, NASB)

We have this to look forward to. Can you imagine it?

There is gold at the end of the rainbow too. It is absurd that blind and deaf people struggle through this existence with the promise that in some future world they will see, like their neighbours. Are they being punished, then?

Of course if we subscribe to the idea that Adam somebody caused it all, then everything falls into place. Once God has exacted enough pain from a few, he will open the park again.

Is this a sensible theology?

It is not God who has exacted any pain. Two intelligent entities challenged Him to leave them alone and let them do their own thing, to show that they didn't need Him. The first was Satan, and the second was Adam. Because they left Jehovah and went their own ways, we have pain and suffering today. Jehovah is giving both of those challengers and their progeny enough time to prove their points once and for all. When the time is up, everything will be straightened out. Jesus gave us all a sign....that when we saw all of the things he spoke about in Matthew chapter 24 taking place, we would know the end is near. 8 million on Earth today accept that sign seriously and understand what is taking place. It's pretty evident, too, that Satan can't run the world very well at all, and neither can humans.

[marco]

Can anyone envision anyone in their families or their friends in these words?

"The eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will shout for joy." (Isaiah 35:5,6, NASB)

We have this to look forward to. Can you imagine it?

There is gold at the end of the rainbow too. It is absurd that blind and deaf people struggle through this existence with the promise that in some future world they will see, like their neighbours. Are they being punished, then?

Of course if we subscribe to the idea that Adam somebody caused it all, then everything falls into place. Once God has exacted enough pain from a few, he will open the park again.

Is this a sensible theology?

It is not God who has exacted any pain. Two intelligent entities challenged Him to leave them alone and let them do their own thing, to show that they didn't need Him. The first was Satan, and the second was Adam. Because they left Jehovah and went their own ways, we have pain and suffering today. Jehovah is giving both of those challengers and their progeny enough time to prove their points once and for all. When the time is up, everything will be straightened out. Jesus gave us all a sign....that when we saw all of the things he spoke about in Matthew chapter 24 taking place, we would know the end is near. 8 million on Earth today accept that sign seriously and understand what is taking place. It's pretty evident, too, that Satan can't run the world very well at all, and neither can humans.

Eve played a part in the poem as well. If tsunamis, volcanos or hurricanes kill people it is the result of the temperamental planet we live on, not Adam's fault. It is an absurdity to conclude he caused them. But if we go along with the storyline, God is not impotent;he is the engineer, not Adam; his "waiting till the time is up" makes no sense. As for Matthew's wonderful "prophecy":

Wars and rumours of wars, famine and earthquakes - these are the signs. Nothing like green rain, flying oak tree s and fire-dragons that might be something out of the ordinary.

And the prelude? They shall deliver YOU up to be afflicted.... then skip forwards a few thousand years! The nonsense about the guy in the field or the lady with child might have come from the Brothers Grimm. It did not happen and it will not happen, for it is an imaginative account - like Eden - of an imagined event.

You are entitled to your own interpretation, of course, but let us not assign certainty to it.

[onewithhim]

Can anyone envision anyone in their families or their friends in these words?

"The eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will shout for joy." (Isaiah 35:5,6, NASB)

We have this to look forward to. Can you imagine it?

There is gold at the end of the rainbow too. It is absurd that blind and deaf people struggle through this existence with the promise that in some future world they will see, like their neighbours. Are they being punished, then?

Of course if we subscribe to the idea that Adam somebody caused it all, then everything falls into place. Once God has exacted enough pain from a few, he will open the park again.

Is this a sensible theology?

It is not God who has exacted any pain. Two intelligent entities challenged Him to leave them alone and let them do their own thing, to show that they didn't need Him. The first was Satan, and the second was Adam. Because they left Jehovah and went their own ways, we have pain and suffering today. Jehovah is giving both of those challengers and their progeny enough time to prove their points once and for all. When the time is up, everything will be straightened out. Jesus gave us all a sign....that when we saw all of the things he spoke about in Matthew chapter 24 taking place, we would know the end is near. 8 million on Earth today accept that sign seriously and understand what is taking place. It's pretty evident, too, that Satan can't run the world very well at all, and neither can humans.

Eve played a part in the poem as well. If tsunamis, volcanos or hurricanes kill people it is the result of the temperamental planet we live on, not Adam's fault. It is an absurdity to conclude he caused them. But if we go along with the storyline, God is not impotent;he is the engineer, not Adam; his "waiting till the time is up" makes no sense. As for Matthew's wonderful "prophecy":

Wars and rumours of wars, famine and earthquakes - these are the signs. Nothing like green rain, flying oak tree s and fire-dragons that might be something out of the ordinary.

And the prelude? They shall deliver YOU up to be afflicted.... then skip forwards a few thousand years! The nonsense about the guy in the field or the lady with child might have come from the Brothers Grimm. It did not happen and it will not happen, for it is an imaginative account - like Eden - of an imagined event.

You are entitled to your own interpretation, of course, but let us not assign certainty to it.

Yes, Eve played her part in the debacle, but it was Adam's responsibility as her head to make sure things were done appropriately (I Corinthians 11:3), plus the fact that he was not deceived as was she (I Timothy 2:14). (She believed Satan, thus showing her negligible affection for Jehovah, whereas Adam knew Satan was lying but went ahead anyway.)

It was Adam's fault that everything went awry after he rebelled. Jehovah allowed him to run his life and the life of his children as he pleased. A sure recipe for disaster. If we don't follow the manufacturer's instructions, we'll mess things up every time.

Because of Adam's selfish decision to run his life the way HE saw fit, and not having to do with God's loving instructions, many would suffer, right up to the time that Jehovah brings an end to it all.

You don't see anything special about Jesus' sign of his coming. Many of us do, and below is a link to a brief discussion of the subject. You are free to ignore it or not. Hopefully someone will gain some insight by going there.

https://www.jw.org/en/publications/book ... t_index]=0

[marco]

Because of Adam's selfish decision to run his life the way HE saw fit, and not having to do with God's loving instructions, many would suffer, right up to the time that Jehovah brings an end to it all.

You paint a horrendous picture of a cruel, vindictive God who punishes innocent people because some fool disobeyed him. You think God changed Adam's genes so that his descendants would be damaged. You also think that God allowed catastrophes to happen, just because he was angry with Adam. What a horrible picture you paint of Jehovah.

https://www.jw.org/en/publications/book ... t_index]=0

I suppose the text is aimed at infants, judging from the pictures. It is written in correct English, to the writer's credit, but then he says:

"Therefore, Jesus urged his disciples: “Keep awake, for you do not know when the appointed time is.�—Mark 13:33."

How could the disciples take note of things that have yet to happen? And the signs of those things are ordinary happenings that we see in clusters through the centuries. Some prophecy!

[onewithhim]

Because of Adam's selfish decision to run his life the way HE saw fit, and not having to do with God's loving instructions, many would suffer, right up to the time that Jehovah brings an end to it all.

You paint a horrendous picture of a cruel, vindictive God who punishes innocent people because some fool disobeyed him. You think God changed Adam's genes so that his descendants would be damaged. You also think that God allowed catastrophes to happen, just because he was angry with Adam. What a horrible picture you paint of Jehovah.

https://www.jw.org/en/publications/book ... t_index]=0

I suppose the text is aimed at infants, judging from the pictures. It is written in correct English, to the writer's credit, but then he says:

"Therefore, Jesus urged his disciples: “Keep awake, for you do not know when the appointed time is.�—Mark 13:33."

How could the disciples take note of things that have yet to happen? And the signs of those things are ordinary happenings that we see in clusters through the centuries. Some prophecy!

The "horrible picture" of Jehovah is in one's own mind. You are bound to decimate Jehovah's reputation, no matter what is said. You are presented this merciful purpose of Jehovah to get mankind OUT OF its inherited predicament, yet you continue to castigate Him. It is sad.

The disciples that Jesus addressed were those that would be alive in the time of the end. We would not know the exact day, but we could tell we were in the SEASON by what we would observe happening around us. You say the things he spoke about were "ordinary." What you failed to understand is that the "nation rising against nation" was not ordinary. Never before WWI was there any kind of "world war." WWI, started in 1914, was unique up to that time. That is the kind of war that Jesus was obviously talking about. Then you COMBINE that with all the other factors, and you get the composite sign. No one can argue that we are not seeing unprecedented levels of world-over famine, lawlessness, earthquakes and other natural disasters, not to mention pollution and strange diseases that kill millions. The world is definitely in the throes of unprecedented woes, and there's not much more damage that can be done. If one opens their eyes, they can see that it is obvious.