Tarxus

I recently asked another question that was similar to this regarding the LDS belief of a pre-existent life. And the answer that I got was that our consciousness didn't exist prior to our birth and it ceases to exist upon death.

But this brings up an interesting question. If death is defined as being in a state of non-existence does that mean we were actually dead prior to our birth. Think about it. The answers that I've gotten on this topic up to this point has been exactly that ie when we die we cease to exist. But you also say that we didn't exist prior to our birth. So if death is defined as being in a state of non-existence does that mean we were actually dead before we were alive? I'd really like to get your comments on this one.

I suppose this question can actually be directed at any religion but I did especially want to hear your comments. Anyway, in the Mormon Church we teach a belief that we all had a pre-existent life prior to coming here to Earth. I'm not talking about reincarnation or that we lived as another person in the past but just as you accept that Jesus had a pre-existent life prior to being born we believe we all did as well. Few Christian religions accept this belief and will regularly dismiss any scriptural references we might give on the topic. But I did want to show you one of those verses that we use and get your opinion on it.

In John 9:2 it reads (and I'll quote from the New World Translation):

And his disciples asked him:"Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, so that he was born blind"

Did you catch that part where they said "this man"? How could "this man" have sinned prior to his birth if he was in a non-existent state? We know, of course, in the following verse Jesus answers them by telling them that neither of them sinned but I think it's interesting that Jesus did not rebuke them for making such a suggestion (that the man sinned prior to his birth, that is). As Mormons, we take that to mean that both Jesus and his disciples had a clear understanding of the pre-existence. What are your thoughts on this?

Okay, I admit that I'm a member of the Mormon Church. In times past I admit I've offended some with some of my questions and I've made a resolve to "tone it down" (plus apologize to those I've offended). But I did have an honest question this time. That question is: do you ever pray for inspiration from God if what your governing body is teaching is the truth?

Like you our missionaries regularly get doors slammed in their faces. And most who do let us in (and listen to us) will simply tell us "Thanks for the info. I'll think about it". And then we never hear back from them. But for those who do listen and might have misgivings about our beliefs we almost always encourage them to pray about it. What we're saying in essence is "Don't take our word for it. Ask God". And yes, we do encourage them to examine the scriptures as well, whether it be the Bible or the Book of Mormon. What I wanted to ask is do you do the same? Do you ever encourage your investigators to pray for inspiration that what you're teaching is the truth? If I were investigating your religion would you make that suggestion to me? I was just wondering.

I hope you won't find this question offensive or insulting.

Now that Jesus has died and his body turned into gases, will I ever have the privilege of getting to meet him in person? As I understand it, only if you're one of the 144,000 will you actually get to have that privilege. But gee, that's a shame. It would seem to me that only those who were alive during Christ's ministry were lucky enough to have been able to see, feel, and talk to him while he was a living, breathing, human being. Are we, who were born 2000 years later be forever denied that joy? I have heard it said that Jesus has the power to materialize a body whenever it was convenient. Do you think he would do that for me or anyone else for all that matters?

Whenever the Governing Body prepares talks or articles (or spiritual food) for the members of the Jehovah Witness religion, how do they make sure that what is printed is actually approved by Jehovah himself? I ask this because I can't help but think of the thousands of "faithful" JW's who allowed themselves to die rather than get a blood transfusion simply because the Governing Body said it would make Jehovah sad. Now today because of "new light" you've changed your stance somewhat and have allowed blood fractions. What happened? Did Jehovah change his mind? Or was it Jehovah's will that thousands of members die first before he decided to reveal that blood fractions were okay? I mean if blood fractions were acceptable all along why didn't God correct the Governing Body before that doctrine was actually delivered? And please don't give me that spill about blood substitutes.

There are other examples I could give on this topic but once again I ask how does the Governing Body determine that what they are delivering as spiritual food is actually approved by Jehovah himself?

I admit I asked this question once before but I ask it again to get feedback from those who didn't see it the first time. First of all I want to say that for every verse you show me that supposedly speaks about spiritual annihilation I could show you a verse that says that we do continue to exist after death. But it seems like it's the Watchtower's stance that we, as Christians, should only consider those verses that support spiritual annihilation and then trash or find some alternate explanation to explain any verse that says otherwise.

Anyway, it still baffles me how God can bring a completely extinct consciousness and magically bring it back into existence and I might add from absolute nothing. But whenever I've asked for details as to how God does this the only answers I get is either "nothing is too hard for Jehovah" or "God created you from nothing. He can bring you back from nothing" and I have to say that these answers are not informative. I want details. If someone were to ask me how Jesus healed the sick I could easily explain that Jesus had the power to command the various cells within the person's body to return to their pre-disease condition. But when I've asked how God can bring a person's consciousness back into existence completely intact with the original memories from a state of absolute nothingness you seem to offer the same excuse you accuse other Christian faiths are guilty of ie "it's a mystery".

So I ask once again: If I cease to exist when I die how does God make me re-exist again. Please give details.

Some time ago I asked a question about your belief in spiritual annihilation upon death. I asked how would God bring me (or anyone else) back into existence after they have ceased to exist. I admit that I sarcastically asked if God used magic to bring souls back into existence. The answers that I got back for this was that God used his holy spirit to accomplish his miracles and never magic. But this leads me to ask: What's the difference? Supposing someone told you a lie and then after realizing that you had been lied to went back to that person and confronted him/her that you had been lied to. That person defends himself/herself by saying that they only exaggerated. Would that satisfy you? What's the difference between lying and simply exaggerating? Well this is the same dilemna I face when I'm told that God doesn't use magic he uses the holy spirit. Does God have a "holy spirit" wand?

I admit I only ask this because I have a lot of difficulty believing in spiritual annihilation without having a satisfactory explanation as to how God is going to bring it all back (without the concept of spontaneous creation). But the main question I would like answered is what is the difference between the holy spirit and magic?

Imagine for a moment a restaurant where the head chef hires an assistant. The assistant is not completely experienced but nonetheless the head chef lets him try on his own. One day the inexperienced assistant makes an omelet out of rotten eggs to be served to a customer. The head chef always inspects whatever food is going to be served and discovers the mistake made by his assistant. Now at this point what do you think the head chef is going to do? Will he correct his assistant's mistake or will he just laugh at the mistake and let the omelet be served anyway giving the assistant an opportunity to learn on his own by watching the customer get sick? If the chef is a responsible person I think the answer to this would be obvious.

I have heard it said that the Governing Body of your church is Jehovah's sole channel of communication between him and mankind (please correct me if I'm wrong on this one). I have also heard you say that the faithful slaves are fallible men prone to human error. I would liken them to that inexperienced assistant I just described. I can almost accept the notion that Jehovah is using these fallible men to provide us with spiritual food. What I find hard to accept is that if God is a responsible person he would inspect the spiritual food before it is actually served. To me the spiritual food being served for the past century has been badly tainted with errors and misconceptions but yet Jehovah supposedly allows it to be served anyway. Yes, I know the light keeps getting brighter and brighter and that certain spiritual truths are sometimes withheld but I still find it hard to believe that Jehovah would, in the meantime, allow these spiritual truths to be substituted with personal opinions and misconceptions. It would be different if the Governing Body were to say "We don't have that information yet" or "Such things have not yet been revealed" but I have never known that to happen. Can you offer an explanation.

I know the universe is expanding and I also know that sometime in the future the Andromeda Galaxy will merge with the Milky Way. But in general, what would the universe look like to an ordinary astronomer at that time. Would it just consist of a single super galaxy with all other galaxies too far away to be even visible except maybe through a very powerful telescope? Would there still be star formations? I've heard that the last stars to be found in the far,far, future would be just the simple, low mass red dwarfs but since they're only visible in telescopes I would think the night sky would look very dark and empty.

What are your comments?

From time to time I have heard of cases where children have literally been stolen out of hospitals by people wanting children of their own but being unable to either become pregnant on their own and/or unable to adopt children for various reasons. This is nothing new. It's been going on since Biblical times.

What I can't figure out is even if someone were successful in stealing a child (and not getting caught) how could they continue a charade of being the child's parents? They can't produce a birth certificate (which they would need eventually for various reasons) nor could they produce any medical records such as where the child was born, what hospital were they born at. And they certainly couldn't produce any adoption records. True, DNA testing would definitely prove the child wasn't theirs but aside from that it would seem to me that their attempts would all be in vain eventually.

Does anybody have any info they could share with me on this? I'm just curious.

I heard there were talks about it. Does anyone know of any developments on this?

I had heard that a remake of the movie "When Worlds Collide" was due to be released near the end of 2012 but I haven't heard anything yet. Does anyone know anything about this?

In the NWT it reads "And he said to him: Truly I tell you today, you will be with me in Paradise". I will go ahead and give you the benefit of a doubt and accept that the comma comes after the "today" in that verse. But that brings up an interesting question. If what you're saying is true then I would have to assume that when Jesus told the thief he would be with him in Paradise he actually meant Paradise Earth (which won't come until after Armageddon). What I can't figure out is this: according to the Watchtower Jesus WON'T be on Paradise Earth. He will be in Heaven with the 144,000. So why did Jesus tell the thief that he would be with him in Paradise?

I have more than once heard you say that if Jesus had been physically resurrected then the sacrifice for sin would have been voided (since you believe that Jesus' body was the sacrifice for sin). But here's where I run into trouble: As you well know Jesus appeared to his disciples shortly after his resurrection and when he did he appeared to them with a physical body. He even invited them to touch and examine him. And he even continued to have that physical body for 40 days before his ascension into heaven. Now I know what you're going to say ie he only materialized a body so his disciples could see him but here's what puzzles me: If Jesus materialized a body then does that mean that the sacrifice for sin was temporarily voided since he had obviously taken back his body. There's likewise the time when he appeared to John the beloved on the island of Patmos WITH a body. Would that have been another time when the sacrifice was voided (albeit temporarily)? Could you explain this. I'm really confused.

I have read that neutrinos are produced by supernovas and from what I understand the supernova that went off in the Magellanic Clouds in 1987 set off some neutrino detectors here on Earth. What I thought was interesting was that the star which exploded was over 100,000 light years away and it's neutrinos were STILL detected. Even at that distance.

But supernovas are observed every day throughout the universe but as far as I know their neutrinos aren't detected. I imagine the reason for that is because those particular supernovas are located several millions if not billions of light years away. But this leads me to ask how far would a supernova have to be for us not to be able to detect it's neutrinos?

One time while I was coming back from a trip I took a plane from Seattle to Richmond, Virginia with a stopover in Pittsburgh. When the plane landed in Pittsburgh I looked at my watch and knowing it was still on Pacific time I added two hours to my watch and went to wait for my connecting plane. At the time I was on the mistaken notion that it was a two hour difference between the west coast and the east coast (it was actually three). I looked at the departure time for my flight to Richmond and I THOUGHT I had a two hour wait. I therefore proceeded to kill time by exploring the novelty shops and restaurants there at the airport. As the two hours were almost up I went to find the departure gate for my flight but as I did so, to my horror, my flight was not up on the board. I quickly went up to the flight office to inquire about it only to find out that the plane had already left. I had missed it by twenty minutes (I also then realized my mistake about the time difference). Discouraged, I had no choice but to spend the night there in Pittsburgh and catch the next flight in the morning.

What was most frustrating about that whole incident was this: As I boarded the next flight in the morning THAT flight was a half hour late departing. I can't help but think that if my original flight had been a half hour late I would have caught it.

My question is have any of you ever had an experience where you missed your bus, plane, train, etc by just a few minutes and then the next departure you do catch is late? Please share. I want to know I'm not the only one.

If you're familiar with secular history I'm sure you're aware of the existence of Martin Luther, a protestant reformist who lived in the 16th century. Martin Luther became aware of how the Catholic Church had deviated from true Christianity and made attempts to expose those changes to others. One of those attempts being his publishing of the 95 Thesis. Martin Luther then instituted a religion based on his own understanding of the Bible which today is known as the Lutheran Church.

No doubt Martin Luther may have had some incorrect ideas of his own (I believe he was a trinitarian. Not sure though). But the reason I bring all of this up is because I couldn't help draw a correlation between him and Charles Taze Russell who pretty much did the same thing in the late 19th Century. Forgive me for bringing this up but I have noticed that the Watchtower has quite often branded the various Christian religions in existence as being satanic institutions with the leaders being "in league with the devil" but yet when past errors have been made by previous Governing Body members their actions are excused on the grounds that the faithfull slaves were "simply mistaken".

How do you view Martin Luther? Do you view him as a sincere individual with correct ideas but being honestly mistaken in other ways? Or do you view him as another religious fraud who was deceived by the devil?

I'm sure you're familiar with the parable of the ten virgins (Matthew 25:1-13). What I was curious about is how this particular parable fits in with your beliefs. I have a list of questions:

1. Who are the virgins?

2. What does the oil in the lamps represent?

3. Why couldn't the wise virgins share their oil?

The bridegroom obviously represents Jesus Christ upon his second return but what I was most curious about was how this whole parable fits in with your beliefs with the notion that only 144,000 people will inherit heavenly glory. At the end of the parable the foolish virgins return but are denied entrance to the wedding feast. Their disappointment is obviously implied by Jesus but yet you say that the wicked will be denied a resurrection in which case what would there would be nothing for them to be sorry for being that their not conscious anyway. Could you explain this?

I have heard that one of the reasons Mars doesn't currently have a dense atmosphere like the Earth is because it lacks a strong magnetic field to shield it from the solar wind. I have likewise heard that the same fate awaits the Earth sometime in the distant future as the Earth's core continues to cool and convective currents there cease.

I was curious about Venus though. Because of it's sluggish rotation there isn't enough churning within it's core to produce a magnetic field but nonetheless it still has a very dense atmosphere. Does anyone know if the solar wind is slowly stripping away Venus' atmosphere just as happened to Mars billions of years ago?