Posted by jimmyjames on March 21, 1999 at 11:32:45 {MWOuU2yvobPRY}:
In Reply to: Realization posted by Rick on March 20, 1999 at 22:33:05:
That realization is, that even though the Watchtower Society is wrong that only Jehovah's Witnesses will be spared through Armageddon, that there are people in our government, in corporations, or acting on their own today who are corrupt and evil beyond our comprehension. God must destroy them. Until they are all dead, the world will never be a safe place to life
Rick,
It's been shown that people are mostly a product of their enviornments. For example, a person who was born into a mafia family will likely grow up to be involved himself. If that same person, however, had been born into an honest, law-abiding family with good parents, he would likely not get involved in crime or become a "corrupt" and "evil" person. This is just one example. The enviornment a person is born into and grows up in plays a huge role on what kind of a person he/she grows up to be.
So how can God judge a person worthy of death when that same person, given different circumstances, could have grown up to be something entirely different? Why should a just God judge someone on the basis of something that is beyond their control?
Of course, this doesn't relieve them of responsibility, but it does, I think, relieve them of a judgement of death. There are others who, despite having a good enviornment, decide to become "evil" and "corrupt". But how can you know who these people are enough so that you can say that a specific individual is definitely worthy of death? Didn't Jesus teach not to judge?
Every single day I see people who I think don't really deserve to be parents. I see people cussing at their kids, smacking the
hell out of them, screaming at them, verbally abusing them, playing cruel tricks on them to "teach" them, etc. How can you expect a person growing up in an enviornment like this to become exactly what you think they should?
One of my strongest beliefs (and it differs from a lot of people), is that everyone who becomes a father or mother should be required by law to take parenting classes from skilled professional parenting experts. Most of the problems with "bad parents" is that they usually follow the example of their parents, whether it was bad or good. Something needs to break the chain.
I think a lot of the problems in America can be traced to the way people were raised. A lot of the money being poured into drug rehab, prisons, counseling, etc. could do much more being spent on the cause rather than the symptoms. I think if this one problem could be dealt with, most of these others would dwindle.
I think you
are misplacing where the evil really lies, Rick. People can become evil, no doubt about that. But I think it's the enviornment, not necessarily the people, that is evil and needs to be concentrated on.