End times of the Jehovah’s Witnesses
March 6th, 2010
I am liking more the end conception of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I see it as a blend of Christian love and Buddhist compassion. In fact, as I muse about it, it seems almost awesome.
Here is the end scene. The good people are divided into two groups, the elite and the common. The elite are taken up into heaven to experience God directly and totally, and while they presumably do not lose their personal identity, they are so caught up with God that they forget themselves entirely. Odd situation. Interesting situation. They are individuals, but there is no conscious of their individuality but only of the object of focus. I think the Hindus may get into this.
The common herd enjoys the material existence on earth and can remain conscious of their individuality and join in a common existence, including all the delights of Mohammed’s paradises.
Now the bad people are annihilated and simply do not exist anymore. No suffering, no pain, no delight, no nothing, and thus no more real than space and time are real.
The common saints are thus not troubled by the loss of someone they are attached to who is now destroyed. They say, “their suffering is over. They suffer no more. They are beyond anything.”
And so a totally happy ending. Not unlike typical moral stories, e.g., all the bad children died and the good children were safe and happy.
The Buddhist element is obvious, I think, to those familiar with Asian stuff. It is the dream of the Buddhist, annihilation of desire (including that for self identity) and the voiding of the soul (leaving nothing at all, not any more than space and time), and thus non-existence. And there is the happy element of the elite not thinking of the destroyed (for they are totally focused on God) and the commoners who sometimes will remember those destroyed, but have each other [and I’m not so clear on this aspect], and so can quickly engage in a rousing German drink march (for they are all marches) and forget about the dead.
And the Christian aspect is clear. Happiness for all. All of God’s children are happy and no one would want to change his or her state for another, although I am sure they wonder about the supreme and delight at being entranced by the Absolute in Person which is the reward of the elite.
Now, I wonder what dear Kant would say about this. Does it give one a moral justification to do bad, a willingness to take the consequence, namely annihilation in exchange for immediate delight? I wonder. Is that a deal that someone would consider. I can do all these horrible deeds and not worry about having to suffer for them. I’m not sure. The JW’s may put some fiery pain before the annihilation. So the deal becomes: I may do all the evil I want to now and I will suffer pain of fire for a while (like a few years in jail, and here the penalty is certain) and then I will stop suffering and be like I am asleep, except I won’t have any dreams.
Now that, I think, is a deal that an evilly inclined man might be willing to take. I think this is what Don Giovanna did, delight now and then pay the consequences. He was given a final chance to repent, just at his death, and he refused to renounce the deal and to avoid the pain of hell. And perhaps Faust.
So I don’t think Kant would be pleased. For him the pain must be infinite in duration.
The Christians might utilize this aspect of the Buddhist element, namely that the morally corrupt go to a realm without God and without law of any kind and must lives with others just like themselves and it can be compared to a pit of fire for emphasis (but which is inadequate, for there is not enough pain in hell to wipe out consciousness). There is only one way out and that is to opt for annihilation and thus have final fleeting glimpse of showing hatred before loss of consciousness. And so here we can think of the annihilation option as the last mercy of God, the remnant of God within hell.
The key element in happiness of the Christians is the elimination of secrets. This is where Gandhi can be useful, showing us the benefits which come from truthfulness and candor. Where, for instance, the two of a marriage can find an unexpected delight in each other, something which were clouded over by the expectations inculcated through society, and which can only be overcome in mutual trust.
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