Jehovah's Witness

[boatsnguitars]

I just learned a fun fact.

There are 8.7 million Jehovah Witnesses in the world.

Do each one of them believe they are going to Heaven?

JW teach that only 144,000 make it to Heaven to rule over the rest of us.

That's quite the Eternal Life Lotto! Less than 2% will make it!

Can someone weigh in on this? Why join JW when other religions offer better odds? It seems ot have made sense whent he JW's were inventing their religion, since there were only a few of them, but now it seems peculiar. Thoughts?

[Miles]

I just learned a fun fact.

There are 8.7 million Jehovah Witnesses in the world.

Do each one of them believe they are going to Heaven?

If they have any reasoning skills they wouldn't, but who knows what they have?

JW teach that only 144,000 make it to Heaven to rule over the rest of us.

That's quite the Eternal Life Lotto! Less than 2% will make it!

And considering that

"demographers estimate that 109 billion people have lived and died over the course of 192,000 years. If we add the number of people alive today, we get 117 billion humans that have ever lived."
source

and the vast majority, approx 105 billion, lived since 1 AD, means that the odds of making it were 0.000137142%. But according to Revelation 7:4–8 the allotment of the 144,000 has already been made.

Revelation 7:4-8
4 Then I heard how many people had God’s mark on their foreheads. There were 144,000. They were from every tribe of the people of Israel:

5 from the tribe of Judah 12,000

from the tribe of Reuben 12,000

from the tribe of Gad 12,000

6 from the tribe of Asher 12,000

from the tribe of Naphtali 12,000

from the tribe of Manasseh 12,000

7 from the tribe of Simeon 12,000

from the tribe of Levi 12,000

from the tribe of Issachar 12,000

8 from the tribe of Zebulun 12,000

from the tribe of Joseph 12,000

from the tribe of Benjamin 12,000

And how many JWs do you think have an ancestry that goes back to any of these tribes? My guess is 7 or 8 at best. HOWEVER, some JWs have singled themselves out as deserving membership whether they were from any of the 12 tribes or not. At least that's how they tell their story.

"The members of the Governing Body who exercise teaching authority over Jehovah's Witnesses worldwide claim to be among the anointed 144,000, and also consider themselves as a group to be the faithful and discreet slave of Matthew 24:45 and Luke 12:42
Sources:

1. Annual Meeting Report". Watch Tower Society. Retrieved April 21, 2018.

2. "The Faithful Steward and Its Governing Body". The Watchtower. Watch Tower Society. June 15, 2009. pp. 23–24.

3. 2011 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses. Watch Tower Society. 2012. p. 51.

source

And with more being anointed and becoming members of the 144,000 as the Governing Body changes membership. Must be nice to become one of the 144,000 just because you belong to an organization that claims it can grant you such a privilege.

.

[boatsnguitars]

I just learned a fun fact.

There are 8.7 million Jehovah Witnesses in the world.

Do each one of them believe they are going to Heaven?

If they have any reasoning skills they wouldn't, but who knows what they have?

JW teach that only 144,000 make it to Heaven to rule over the rest of us.

That's quite the Eternal Life Lotto! Less than 2% will make it!

And considering that

"demographers estimate that 109 billion people have lived and died over the course of 192,000 years. If we add the number of people alive today, we get 117 billion humans that have ever lived."
source

and the vast majority, approx 105 billion, lived since 1 AD, means that the odds of making it were 0.000137142%. But according to Revelation 7:4–8 the allotment of the 144,000 has already been made.

Revelation 7:4-8
4 Then I heard how many people had God’s mark on their foreheads. There were 144,000. They were from every tribe of the people of Israel:

5 from the tribe of Judah 12,000

from the tribe of Reuben 12,000

from the tribe of Gad 12,000

6 from the tribe of Asher 12,000

from the tribe of Naphtali 12,000

from the tribe of Manasseh 12,000

7 from the tribe of Simeon 12,000

from the tribe of Levi 12,000

from the tribe of Issachar 12,000

8 from the tribe of Zebulun 12,000

from the tribe of Joseph 12,000

from the tribe of Benjamin 12,000

And how many JWs do you think have an ancestry that goes back to any of these tribes? My guess is 7 or 8 at best. HOWEVER, some JWs have singled themselves out as deserving membership whether they were from any of the 12 tribes or not. At least that's how they tell their story.

"The members of the Governing Body who exercise teaching authority over Jehovah's Witnesses worldwide claim to be among the anointed 144,000, and also consider themselves as a group to be the faithful and discreet slave of Matthew 24:45 and Luke 12:42
Sources:

1. Annual Meeting Report". Watch Tower Society. Retrieved April 21, 2018.

2. "The Faithful Steward and Its Governing Body". The Watchtower. Watch Tower Society. June 15, 2009. pp. 23–24.

3. 2011 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses. Watch Tower Society. 2012. p. 51.

source

And with more being anointed and becoming members of the 144,000 as the Governing Body changes membership. Must be nice to become one of the 144,000 just because you belong to an organization that claims it can grant you such a privilege.

.

Sounds like a cult that didn't plan on scaling up it's operation if it got big. Classic Business 101 stuff.

I'd be remiss to not mention the recent shooting of a JW Church in Germany. My heart goes out to the families of those who were killed or injured.