Just because I didn’t believe that the soul was immortal, I still had some related questions that bothered me. Instead of having a soul that lived on after I died, the WT-Society taught that I would be stored in “God’s memory” until He decided to resurrect me or not. If I qualified, then when the time came, God would just recreate me according to the information stored in His memory. The mechanics of that concept was a challenge for me to explain to myself. How did God update His memory with my very last thoughts? Does that imply that we are directly connected to God’s memory somehow and that everything we experience is immediately recorded in His memory, too? Do I take up any space in God’s memory? Was I assigned a specific location along with everyone else? Were the wicked stored in another place away from the righteous and those in between? What type of data is used to record all the information needed to reconstruct both me and the record of all my past thoughts and experiences, as well as my body?
As the title says, this is my second installment wherein I continue to critique the JW-Origin of Life video (JWOL). Here is a link to the video if you haven’t already seen it. (http://www.nils4.info/b/ov.htm ) My reason for this review is not to support the WT-Society, but to challenge the JWOL video’s response, in which atheistic arguments are often used to ridicule the WT-Society’s theistic views. Additionally, in my opinion, many of the JWOL video arguments are spurious and display an apparent lack of familiarity with the disputed topics. In this blog, I am going to proceed in considering whether the video’s assessments are accurate both in principle and in fact.
We will continue our discussion starting where the Narrator examines what is again characterized as a humorous quote on page 5, which says:
“Life always comes from preexisting life. However, if we go back far enough in time, is it really possible that this fundamental law was broken? . . . All scientific evidence to date indicates that life can come only from previously existing life. To believe that even a “simple” living cell arose by chance from nonliving chemicals requires a huge leap of faith.”
This blog is about a YouTube video that was posted awhile back critiquing the Watchtower Society’s latest pamphlet concerning the Origin of Life. Here is a link to the video if you haven’t already viewed it: http://www.nils4.info/b/ov.htm. I found the video very interesting. I especially liked the way it was presented. I often seek to make informative videos myself and so admire those I see done well. Though the subject was presented well, I have to say that the content was very disappointing.
Ray and Cynthia were already at Bethel when Sherry and I arrived in May of 1966. Although Ray and I didn't work together, we "lived" together because we both had rooms on the 10th floor of the 107 Columbia Heights building. Riding in the elevator and walking to the dining room through the tunnel to the 124 building for breakfast were occasions to become acquainted. However, it really wasn't until after leaving Bethel that I got to know Ray better. When he first published Crisis of Conscience, I wrote to him several times to obtain written confirmation of some of the statements he made in the book. He sent everything I asked for promptly. What a contrast to the Society! When I wrote them asking for written proof of some of their claims, they ignored me completely.
Since leaving the Organization, Sherry and I crossed paths with Ray on numerous occasions at some of the early ex-Witness gatherings. Ray and I always had fond memories of Bethel to talk about. We both looked back on them as a tremendous learning experience and did not feel our time there was wasted. Because of our occasional interchanges, Ray included Sherry and me on his annual e-mail list. Ironically, in his last correspondence to us, Ray had some interesting things to say about "death." I am sure that he wouldn't mind our sharing his words with this audience:
Why does God require "faith?" Why doesn't he just stop all the apparent game playing and talk to all of us directly, as the Bible says he did to Adam? This has been a puzzle to me for as long as I can remember. What is the big deal with faith? From a practical point of view, faith in something is not always good because senseless, ungodly fanaticism can also be the result, as demonstrated by the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001. So faith by itself is not virtuous.
Therefore, it seems that you also need to have faith in the right thing. Finding the right thing requires research and experience. In this essay, we are going to see if there is Biblical evidence that God's requirement for faith is the "right thing." We will be looking to see if the faith-requirement associated with belief has a constructive purpose, or whether it is evidence that God is just having fun with us, as if we were engaged in some sort of cat-and-mouse play.
