ECOLOGY AND THE ORTHODOX DOCTRINE

Translated from the original by Chris Tsilikas

The wildfires that broke out last August in Greece and the wildfires that had occurred in August 2007 not only caused great suffering and damage to my country, but they also proved once again how mankind degrades the environment.

So, we have decided to see whether the thought and the teachings of the Great Ecclesiastical Fathers of Eastern Christianity, especially of Basil the Great (known as Basil of Caesarea), of Gregory the Theologian (known as Gregory of Nazianzus) and of John Chrysostom, could be of any help in approaching the environment in a totally different way, so that we would be able – in the long run – to solve the huge Environmental Problems we’re facing today.

HOW HAVE WE COME TO SUCH AN IMPASSE AS FAR AS THE ENVIRONMENT IS CONCERNED
It would be helpful for the reader to look into the reasons first why we have reached such a crisis today and why the environment is in danger. And certainly, Christianity has played its role to that crisis. Even in the first years of its existence there were philosophical movements and heresies, which under the influence of Plato and his student Plotinus degrade matter in contrast to the spirit. Especially the heresy of Gnosticism, regards nature and the world as the creation of a degrading evil God. A branch of Gnosticism, Manichaeism, influences the thought of the Greatest Father of the West, of Holy St. Augustine. And due to this influence the whole theology and philosophy to be formed in the West has been affected, making it easy thus for all those thoughts and practices which degraded the material creation and allowed for the ravaging and the depredation of it to develop.

So the theologian, philosopher and mathematician Descartes, who is considered to be the precursor of orthology, accepts the material world as a perfect machine in the service of man. After Newton’s discoveries the Western man is exhilarated by the technological achievements and starts to realize the surrounding environment as ‘res’, meaning as a ‘thing’, which is to become a ‘guinea pig’ in his needs for consumerism and bliss!

The relationship between God and humans is stopped. Due to the Cartesian theory of Dualism, God is ousted from human life and is now considered to be a supreme perfect being, a great mechanic who created the world and after that he left the world working on its own, just like a clockmaker who after he has made a clock he lives it ticking on its own.

At the same time in the advanced countries of West Europe and of the U.S.A. people induced by Calvin’s protestantic ethics will set up one of the most hideous economic systems of exploiting man and the world, Capitalism. It may sound absurd, but the foundations of the capitalistic system were actually religious. It is based on Augustine’s doctrine of predestination, of which Luther and Calvin became fans. The doctrine of Predestination refers to aristocratic elite of faithful who have been selected by God in advance and will be saved. The visible sign they have in order to be selected for salvation by God is their wealth. Wealth and Profit never again reached such divine dimensions in the History of Mankind – although it is still worshipped in our Capitalistic system, regardless of the means used to achieve it, slavery, rape of nature, or inhuman working conditions, in the so-called Third World.

THE THREE HIERARCHS’ PREACHING ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP OF MAN WITH NATURE

Contrary to what is happening in the West, in the East, when the three Hierarchs were called to comment on the book of the Holy Writ, Genesis, they made a distinction between Man and Nature, which is in fact the solution to the big ecological problem. They accept the creation of both the world and the man as a result of the free loving power of The Trinity God. Therefore when man looks around him, he should actually see the loving power of God everywhere, even in the tiniest things even if they are inanimate. So he can’t abuse nature because then he refuses God’s love. In order to make this explicit let us quote a letter that Elder Joseph the Hesychast sent to one of his spiritual children: “Listen to the wild rocks, the secret theologians, to deliver profound meanings and spirit to Lord. The voiceless theologians speak theology, the beautiful rocks and everything in nature. Everything speaks with its voice or with its non-voice. If you touch a tiny grass with your hand, it speaks out right away with its natural odor. Hey! You don’t see me, but you have hurt me! And everything has a voice, when moving with the wind they become a harmonic musical prayer to God. And, what is to say about reptiles and birds? When the Saint sent his disciple to tell the frogs to hush, they answered: “Be patient, until we finish the matins.”

The harmonious relationship between man and the environment is also apparent in the instance when God assigns Adam the job of worker and protector of Paradise. And the culmination of this relationship is delivered to us when all living creatures, from birds to reptiles and beasts, are led before him to give them a name.

The verb ‘know’, which has caused so many sufferings to nature since the western spirituality interpreted it as possession and depredation of the object under investigation until it yields its secrets to us, in the Pateric Orthodox thought it is interpreted as a relationship and it is regarded as the most significant indeed since it is the same as the sexual, loving affair and intercourse. “And Adam knew Eve his wife” – genesis narrates – and she conceived, and bare Cain.” In the Eastern Orthodoxy we don’t need the nomination of a special day as the International Day for the Preservation of the Environment, in order to remind us that we ought to respect the Environment, because in every Sunday Service and in every celebration when the faithful takes part in the Service of John the Chrysostom or of Basil the Great, he/she is encouraged to experience the relationship with God, with the other humans and with the environment. This thanksgiving action the faithful does signifies the recognition of the material world as a gift and as a blessing of God’s Grace and Love and not as a neutral object to be possessed and exploited, to be used and abused. That’s why the divine services of the two Hierarchs mentioned above are full of sacramentals and special blessings to God for the integrity and salvation of the material creation as a whole. “Visit us, Lord, with your kindness”, Basil the Great says, “Give us favourable and beneficial winds. Deliver to us peaceful raindrops for the fruition of the ground. Bless the current year with your kindness.” Let me refer to one more blessing from the Divine Service of Mark the apostle. “Pray for good winds and for fruit to be yielded from the ground. Pray for the harmonious raise of the river waters. Pray for blessing rainfalls and for the ground seeds. Send blessing rainfalls to where they are needed. Raise the river waters in moderation by your grace. Increase the ground seeds for seed- and harvest-time.”

SOLVING THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEM IS NOT AN EASY TASK

Of course we are not deluded to believe that the great environmental problems are easy to solve. Great profits are at stake every day, which make the solution even harder. Civilization and economy nowadays are based not on consumerism but on excessive consumerism of the products. Thus, our planet is plundered and depleted in order to cover this need for excessive consumerism. We are all responsible for this plight either we believe in God or not. Unfortunately we all take measures that solve the problem only partly. We sometimes trust our governments which however, serve the interests of those who have sponsored their election campaigns, so they enforce laws for deforestation and building construction businesses. So we see houses and cottages in the place of the trees and forests we used to see, and all these houses belong to the elite of the society, lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs and so on so forth. And some other times we trust people who declare to be ecologists just in order to be elected and as a result people and organizations that have pure ecological motives are slandered. Here in Greece we cannot forget that painful incident a few years ago when an ecologist female Member of Parliament obstinately refused to withdraw her position to someone else since this decision had been taken in advance among the ecological parties. Or stop to think how the Green party – one of the greatest ecologist movements in Europe – started in Germany and how it ended up.

Yet, it is true that such sickly phenomena appear in the field of the Church as well. The Abbot of the Monk of Penteli in Greece sued the head of a non-governmental ecclesiastical organization a few years ago because they wanted to take hold of the land of the church in order to turn a green paradise into a summer resort with hotels of cement. As you all know we live in the era of the ubiquitous cement!

If we wish to save our beautiful planet we ought to follow the path that the three Hierarchs showed. And this is no other than the path of love, of seeing the world as the creation of the free loving power of The Trinity God. If man believes in that he will force himself first and the authorities after to act in such a way that this gem called Earth will be saved.

THE LETTER AN INDIAN CHIEF SENT TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.A.

We would wish to end this article with an extract from the letter that the Indian Chief, named Suhami, sent in 1855 to the President of the U.S.A., Franklin Pears who had asked Suhami to sell his land. “How can you buy and sell the sky and the warmth of the land? This idea is strange to us. The freshness of the air and the shimmering of the water are not our property. How could you possibly buy them from us? Every piece of this land is sacred for my people. Every tiny pine-needle that sparkles in the sun-rays, every sandy beach, the mist in the deep forest, every clearing in the forest, every buzzing bee, is sacred in the memory and in the experience of our people. We understand that white people do not comprehend our behavior. The white people see all places on Earth identical, because they act as strangers who come during the night and violently grab anything they need from the ground. They don’t see the ground as their brother but as their enemy, so after they have conquered it they move on, living it behind. This greediness and voracity will certainly devour Earth and only desert will be left. It hurts our eyes to see your cities. But then again, it might be due to the fact that we are a savaged people, unable to understand!”

Writer Christ Pal

ANGELS AND DEMONS IN THE APOCRYPHAL BOOK OF ENOCH

Translated from the original by Chris Tsilikas

The term ‘apocryphal’ or ‘Apocrypha’ was almost unknown to the wide public in the past. Due to various reasons, however, it has recently become widely known and it has also been the reason for the publication of most of the ‘Apocrypha’, so that they are accessible to anyone who wants to study them.

The starting point for the resounding success of these books was when some years ago just before Easter “The apocryphal Jude’s Gospel” was published, which described Jude as a completely different person from what had been known about him so far.

Obviously a lot of talk surrounded the issue in question, so the term ‘Apocrypha’ became known and familiar to the wide masses of people. The reader can find more information on this issue in our article “Jude’s Gospel”.

Of course, Dan Brown’s books “The Da Vinci Code” and “The illuminati” helped a lot in making the term familiar and known. The two books also became movies which met with great success.

All these, however, referred to the ‘apocrypha’ of the New Testament. Most people believe that only the New Testament contains ‘apocrypha’ and they will be surprised to know that we can find ‘apocrypha’ in the Old Testament as well.

WHAT THE TERM ‘APOCRYPHA’ MEANS

At least in the beginning, the term ‘apocrypha’ meant various texts – of theological interest of course – which contained internal teaching strictly directed to only a specific group of people, the ‘selected’ ones.

Later on the term meant those texts which supposedly had some secrets to hide, secrets about the future of God’s people, yet, secrets which are revealed only to the pious readers, that’s why they are sometimes called ‘Revelations’ or ‘Books of Revelation’.

When we refer to the Apocrypha of the Old Testament, we mean the Hebrew religious texts written between 200 B.C. and 100 A.D. Those texts were written either inside Palestine or away from it by the pious Jewish people of Diaspora. The language in which they are written is either Hebrew or Aramaic, but of course some of them are written in the international language of the era, the Greek language.

Nowadays of course, what we mean when we use the term ‘Apocrypha’ is those books which are not part of the Holy Bible; which constitutes the catalogue that the Church has compiled in order to declare the Books of the Holy Bible that the Church accepts and regards as authentic in expressing the Christian Faith.

Similarly, long before the Christian Church, Judaism had also rejected those texts from its canon, in a congress that had been held in the city of Iamnia in Palestine, in 91 A.D., not only because they wanted to define the books that they considered as accepted, but also to protect their faithful from the published books of the rapidly developed Christianity in that era.

It’s also worth mentioning that while the Church had a negative attitude towards the apocryphal books of the New Testament – since most of them contained heretic teaching – it showed tolerance towards some apocryphal books of the Old Testament. Moreover, the Church incorporated some of the teachings they included and with the appropriate interventions and alterations it gave them a completely Christian mood.

It only takes a comparison between these books and the book of Revelation of John the Evangelist to ascertain the truth of what has been said so far. And it couldn’t be helped anyway, in an era which had been tantalized for two Centuries with teachings about the Messiah to come as a Judge, about the oppression of the last days, about the Last Judgment and the eternal Paradise of the righteous, about which no Christian could remain insensitive – especially the Christian of that era who was characterized by intensive enthusiasm and an element of the utmost danger.

Let’s now refer to some of the “Apocrypha” of the Old Testament, which might sound familiar to some of you either because you’ve heard or because you’ve read about them. In brackets we state the year or period they are likely to have been written. Enoch (200 B.C.), The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (150-100 B.C.), Jubilees (150-100 B.C.), The Ascension of Isaiah (1st century A.D.), The Life of Adam and Eve (1st century A.D.), The Apocalypse of Abraham (100 A.D.), Sibylline Books (2nd century B.C.-2nd century A.D.), The Assumption of Moses (6-30 A.D.), The Lives of the Prophets (1st century A.D.), The Testament of Job (100-50 B.C.) etc.

“THE APOCRYPHAL BOOK OF ENOCH”

Enoch is considered to be the Patriarch of the Jews. We don’t know much about his life, apart from a few rather confusing things, which are mentioned in the Holy Bible, especially in its first book, that of Genesis. According to that (Genesis, chapter 4, verse 17) Enoch was the son of Cain and the father of Jared, while according to Seth’s genealogy (Genesis, chapter 5, verse 18), he was the seventh generation of Adam, son of Jared and father of Methuselah.

He lived 365 years in total obedience to God and he was ‘transfered’ to heaven without ever experiencing death (Genesis, chapter 5, verse 24).

This ‘transfer’ of his to heaven created a myth around his name, having as a result the writing of various literary books about his name, which a Jew gathered and put together in one book around 200 B.C., the “Book” or the “Bible of Enoch”. The book was first written in the Aramaic or the Hebrew language. Extracts of this book are saved in the Latin or the Greek language, and it is all saved in the Ethiopian language, that’s why it it known as ‘1 Enoch’ or ‘Ethiopian Enoch’, to be distinguished from another “apocryphal book” which is called ‘2 Enoch’ or ‘Enoch Slav’. It can also be found as ‘Enoch’ or ‘Enoch’s vision’.

The division of this work varies depending on the critic, but we are going to refer to that of Georg Beer, to which the ever memorable Savvas Agourides referred:
1. Of Angels (ch. 1-36) 2. Of Mesiah (ch. 37-71) 3. Astronomical (ch. 72-82) 3. Historical (ch. 83-90) 4. Admonitory (ch. 91-108).

ABOUT ANGELS AND DEMONS

Our reasons why we have decided to deal with that part of Enoch referring to angels and demons is clearly for informative purposes; because “Watchtower - stop” doesn’t only aim at fighting against the heresies but also at informing our faithful readers. Because we believe that being rightly informed about the issues of faith helps the faithful have a clear and holistic view of what he/she believes in and worships.

So, a lot of names of angels and demons that the faithful are familiar with and believe that they appear in the Holy Writ, they will be surprised to find out that they do not derive from the Bible and moreover the Bible doesn’t even mention them.

Let’s start with chapters 6, 7 and 8 where Angels’ fall is described, which angels the writer calls ‘Watchers’, and their ‘mix’ with women, which the writer has obviously lent from the corresponding narration in Genesis, chapter 6, verses 1-2. It’s worth noticing that while the narration of that issue is very short in the book of Genesis – it only takes two verses – in the book of Enoch it’s much longer and it also mentions the names of the fallen angels and the immoral and brutal actions which they had led humans to with their teaching.

The reader should also take notice of the fact that the writer regarded the production of weapons and other objects for war as demons’ work, as well as the discovery of the exploitation of metals and the first steps of science, eg. astrology and the observation of the course of the moon.

ANGELS’ FALL. DEGENERATION OF HUMANITY

Chapter 6
1 And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born
unto them beautiful and comely daughters.
2 And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one
another: 'Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men
3 and beget us children.' And Semjaza, who was their leader, said unto them: 'I fear ye will
not
4 indeed agree to do this deed, and I alone shall have to pay the penalty of a great sin.' And
they all answered him and said: 'Let us all swear an oath, and all bind ourselves by mutual
imprecations
5 not to abandon this plan but to do this thing.' Then sware they all together and bound
themselves
6 by mutual imprecations upon it. And they were in all two hundred; who descended in the
days of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon, and they called it Mount Hermon, because
they had sworn
7 and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it. And these are the names of their
leaders: Samlazaz, their leader, Araklba, Rameel, Kokablel, Tamlel, Ramlel, Danel, Ezeqeel,
Baraqijal,
8 Asael, Armaros, Batarel, Ananel, Zaq1el, Samsapeel, Satarel, Turel, Jomjael, Sariel. These
are their chiefs of tens.

Chapter 7
1 And all the others together with them took unto themselves wives, and each chose for
himself one, and they began to go in unto them and to defile themselves with them, and they
taught them charms
2and enchantments, and the cutting of roots, and made them acquainted with plants. And they
3 became pregnant, and they bare great giants, whose height was three thousand ells: Who
consumed
4 all the acquisitions of men. And when men could no longer sustain the m, the giants turned
against
5 them and devoured mankind. And they began to sin against birds, and beasts, and reptiles,
and
6 fish, and to devour one another's flesh, and drink the blood. Then the earth laid accusation
against the lawless ones.

Chapter 8
1 And Azazel taught men to make swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates, and made
known to them the metals of the earth and the art of working them, and bracelets, and
ornaments, and the use of antimony, and the beautifying of the eyelids, and all kinds of costly
stones, and all
2 colouring tinctures. And there arose much godlessness, and they committed fornication, and
they
3 were led astray, and became corrupt in all their ways. Semjaza taught enchantments, and
root-cuttings, 'Armaros the resolving of enchantments, Baraqijal (taught) astrology, Kokabel
the constellations, Ezeqeel the knowledge of the clouds, Araqiel the signs of the earth,
Shamsiel the signs of the sun, and Sariel the course of the moon. And as men perished, they
cried, and their cry went up to heaven . . .

NAMES AND FUNCTIONS OF THE SEVEN ARCHANGELS

In chapter 20 of the book of Enoch the names of the Archangels are mentioned together with their functions. Here, the number of the Archangels is seven. However, we’ll see later on that in another part of the book this number changes and the Archangels become four:

Chapter 20
1,2 And these are the names of the holy angels who watch. Uriel, one of the holy angels, who
is
3 over the world and over Tartarus. Raphael, one of the holy angels, who is over the spirits of
men.
4,5 Raguel, one of the holy angels who takes vengeance on the world of the luminaries.
Michael, one
6 of the holy angels, to wit, he that is set over the best part of ma nkind and over chaos.
Saraqael,
7 one of the holy angels, who is set over the spirits, who sin in the spirit. Gabriel, one of the
holy
8 angels, who is over Paradise and the serpents and the Cherubim. Remiel, one of the holy
angels, whom God set over those who rise.

THE FOUR ARCHANGELS

In chapter 40 of the book of Enoch as we have already said, four Archangels are mentioned, and this proves that the critics of the book of Enoch are right when they say that the specific book is just the conglomeration of literary fragments:

Chapter 40
8 After that I asked the angel of peace who
went with me, who showed me everything that is hidden: Who are these four presences which
I have
9 seen and whose words I have heard and written down? And he said to me: This first is
Michael, the merciful and long-suffering: and the second, who is set over all the diseases and
all the wounds of the children of men, is Raphael: and the third, who is set over all the
powers, is Gabriel: and the fourth, who is set over the repentance unto hope of those who
inherit eternal life, is named Phanuel.

NAMES AND FUNCTIONS OF THE FALLEN ANGELS AND OF SATAN

The person who conglomerated the book of Enoch recurs to the issue of the fallen angels in chapter 69. But this time he/she uses different names for them, different from the ones he/she had mentioned in chapters 6 and 8. Moreover, his reference to the techings of the demons which led humans away from God is more extensive this time than it was in the previous chapters. However, it’s impressing that his enmity against literary things and science still remains, since they are once again considered works of demons. Of course there is an explanation for this phenomenon, but it’s not our aim to deal with it right now. We’ll only remind our reader that the book of Enoch is written in a period during which the Seleukids start brutally suppressing people of Judaism in order to make them convert to other religions, and the climax of that situation is the provocative action of Antiochus IV Epiphanes to turn Solomon’s Temple into a Temple of Zeus, an action which inevitably led to the rebellion of the Maccabees.

Chapter 69
3And these are the chiefs of their angels and
their names, and their chief ones over hundreds and over fifties and over tens.
4 The name of the first Jeqon: that is, the one who led astray [all] the sons of God, and
brought them
5 down to the earth, and led them astray through the daughters of men. And the second was
named Asbeel: he imparted to the holy sons of God evil counsel, and led them astray so that
they defiled
6 their bodies with the daughters of men. And the third was named Gadreel: he it is who
showed the children of men all the blows of death, and he led astray Eve, and showed [the
weapons of death to the sons of men] the shield and the coat of mail, and the sword for battle,
and all the weapons
7 of death to the children of men. And from his hand they have proceeded against those who
dwell
8 on the earth from that day and for evermore. And the fourth was named Penemue: he taught
the
9 children of men the bitter and the sweet, and he taught them all the secrets of their wisdom.
And he instructed mankind in writing with ink and paper, and thereby many sinned from
eternity to
10 eternity and until this day. For men were not created for such a purpose, to give
confirmation
11 to their good faith with pen and ink. For me n were created exactly like the angels, to the
intent that they should continue pure and righteous, and death, which destroys everything,
could not have taken hold of them, but through this their knowledge they are perishing, and
through this power
12 it is consuming me. And the fifth was named Kasdeja: this is he who showed the children
of men all the wicked smitings of spirits and demons, and the smitings of the embryo in the
womb, that it may pass away, and [the smitings of the soul] the bites of the serpent, and the
smitings
13 which befall through the noontide heat, the son of the serpent named Tabaet. And this is
the task of Kasbeel, the chief of the oath which he showed to the holy ones when he dwelt
high
14 above in glory, and its name is Biqa.

Coming now to the end of this article we would like to point out again that we have dealt with this interesting issue only superficially. It’s up to the restless, persistent reader to look into the issue further in order to form a more complete view on it.

Writer Christos Pal

JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES: ARMAGEDDON – AND AFTER THAT – WHAT?

Translated from the original by Chris Tsilikas

How Jehovah’s Witnesses imagine Armageddon

If a person who is not aware of the Society of Jehovah’s Witnesses “Watchtower” happens to open one of their leaflets, he/she will certainly be amazed by the way the Society deals with all spiritual issues. Because he/she will find out that they deal with them in a materialistic, garrulous way. Even God is not exempted from such attitude. For instance the Society takes all the anthropocentric expressions of the Holy Writ – that is, expressions that have human beings as their centre – literally, and as a result they are led to incredibly wrong, extraordinary conclusions which a lot of times reach the levels of comic.

That’s why, on the one hand, god is sometimes presented by the “Watchtower” as a simple creature with some supernatural powers, and on the other hand, his almighty is withdrawn and he is presented as a powerless creature that cannot give immediate solutions to human problems, and needs time to solve them.

All chapters of the publications and of the leaflets of the Society of Jehovah’s Witnesses are fraught with such descriptions which refer to the war of Armageddon or Harmagedon. A war every Jehovah’s Witness anywhere in the world lives and breathes for, since he/she is convinced by the Society that it is then that justice will be rendered, with the annihilation of the evil people, meaning the people who are not Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the survival of the good people, that is Jehovah’s Witnesses only.

Before we get to explaining what Armageddon is, we have to warn our benevolent readers that what they are going to read about will not only sound incredible, but they will also get to the levels of comic. However, this is not our fault. We just publish everything we managed to ‘fish’ from the leaflets of the “Watchtower”.

Anyway, this is what happens to anyone who doesn’t walk in life along with God’s Spirit and deals with everything in such a garrulous and materialistic way.

WHAT ARMAGEDDON IS AND WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN DURING IT
The word Armageddon derives from the Hebrew expression “Har-magedon” and it literally means the mountain of Megido. It is referred to in John’s Apocalypse, chapter 16, verse 16, “And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon”.

Megiddo was a city of ancient Israel and it was the place where decisive and bloody fights took place. This is why this expression is metaphorically used to represent the fight between good and evil during the Day of Judgement.

Jehovah’s Witnesses however take this fight literally. They believe that canons, tanks, aircrafts, etc. will be used against Christ by the nations which according to the Society of the Witnesses are evil!

Yes, that’s right! We’re not pulling your leg! Remember we have warned you. Of course, even the “Watchtower” itself understands the implausibility and the ridicule of the whole situation they describe, so they try to calm things down by saying that due to the fact that human weapons cannot reach and hit Christ in Heaven, they will be turned against his followers down here on Earth, that is, Jehovah’s Witnesses.

But there’s a point where they do not even try to calm things down at all, but they speak literally, and this is about the way the attackers will be dealt with by Christ. The ridicule of the description in the “Watchtower” is more than enough: “Their tongues will rot out!... they will be blind!... sinewy warriors will lose their strength!... the electric systems of the high tech weapons will go bad and miss their targets!!!”

You wonder where you can read these entirely ridiculous things. Do we have to give an answer to that? In the official magazine of the Society, the “Watchtower”, of course. You can find all these mentioned above in the “Watchtower” of October 15th, 1975, pp. 637 and 638:

“Of course, the nations cannot reach up to heaven and attack this city, but they can attack those on earth who represent it.
Either their tongues will rot out, physically, or they will fail just as though they had no tongues. Powers of vision will suddenly go black! Muscles and sinews of highly trained, physically developed warriors will lose strength and movableness as they stand on their feet. Their arsenal of weapons, including computerized missile guidance systems, will go bad.”

The “Watchtower” of October 15th, 1975, pp 637 & 638, The nations will attack Christ and their tongues will be rot out and high tech weapons will miss their targets!

And the freak of the war of Armageddon never ends. Wherever we, the non-Jehovah’s Witnesses want to hide, we’re for ever lost. Neither the mountains nor the caves, not even private submarines can save us! Jehovah will search every nook and cranny and he will find us – the “watchtower” has managed to turn him into a hound – to give us, according to the “Watchtower” what we desreve.

HE WILL SLAUGHTER US TO MAKE OUR BLOOD OOZE!

And what was our crime? We didn’t become Jehovah’s Witnesses! ‘Enjoy’ all the above in the “Watchtower” of November 1st, 1967, pp 659-660.

“If, as it were, they should go into the mountainous region of Bashan and onto its high peaks, from there the inescapable Jehovah God will bring them down and back to punishment. If, even in atomic-powered submarines, they should try to hide themselves in the depths of the sea, the unavoidable Jehovah God will bring them back. To what? To face slaughter, that their lifeblood might be poured out.”

The “Watchtower” of November 1st, 1967, pp 659-660, God will find us even if we hide in submarines in order to slaughter us!

And listen to the contradiction now. While we will be suffering all these by Jehovah, the God of love: having become prey for wolves and wolverines after so much blood we will have lost, Jehovah’s Witnesses will survive in safe places, content not only because they were saved but also because of our slaughter! And such cruelty comes from people who are supposed to love us! And the cruelty becomes even bigger if one thinks that among the people who will be slaughtered, there will be parents, children, brothers and sisters, spouses, and other close relatives who were not lucky enough to be Jehovah’s Witnesses. Well, they should have been careful! Anyway, the “Watchtower” does not ask too much from its followers. Only to distribute its magazines “The Watchtower” and “Awake” and once you do this you will find salvation in Armageddon!

Well, up to now, you may have wondered how “The Watchtower” knows when exactly Armageddon will break out and moreover how it is possible for them to find the time to warn all Jehovah’s Witnesses that Armageddon is imminent. But as you can guess we have no answer. They will probably have cable or digital communication directly with God. Anyway, they must know better.

Due to the fact that the leaflets and magazines of the “Watchtower” are fraught with photographs depicting happy Jehovah’s Witnesses surviving Armageddon, we decided to present the one that is published more often. It’s from the ‘Watchtower” of February 15th, 2001, p 16:

The “Watchtower” of February 15th, 2001, p 16, Happy Jehovah’s Witnesses, survivors of Armageddon!

AFTER ARMAGEDDON
So, let’s say that Armageddon is over. Have all our problems finished? Not, at all. It’s now that they start. And the first and biggest problem is that of the corpses. As we all know every war has its victims. Especially during such a war which covers the whole Earth. So, there will be billions of dead bodies. What is going to happen? Jehovah’s Witnesses who have survived are not enough to bury them all. So, they run the risk of disease spread. An immediate solution must be found. And it is found indeed. You wonder what it is; but, ‘Deus ex machina’, of course.

According to the “Watchtower” of June 1st, 1973, pp 345-346, God will use…highly scientific means he has at his disposal, to clean the earth from the corpses! And we thought we had heard it all! But we had never heard of a Scientist God before.

“But the animals could never dispose of all those slain at Har–Magedon. Hence, the Almighty God will doubtless use some highly scientific means at his disposal to get rid of the surplus of the decaying bodies in a speedy and sanitary way.”

The “Watchtower” of June 1st, 1973, pp 345-346, God will clean the earth from the dead corpses using…scientific means!

The next problem is the resurrection of the dead. Because according to the Holy Writ all the dead people from past years and centuries are going to resurrect. Therefore, there will be a problem of overpopulation on Earth since they need to stay somewhere as the “Watchtower” supports. How is this problem going to be solved? Don’t worry! The “Watchtower” who has a phone link directly with Jehovah has found the solution to that. The dead people will resurrect with…a priority number! Yes, that’s right. We’re not kidding. According to the “Watchtower” of April 15th, 1973, p 246, they won’t resurrect on a twenty-four-hour day, but gradually. Wait for your turn! You’ll all take Resurrection! There’s no need to urge and shove your way through the queue!

16 “Bear this fact in mind: “Hell” will not disgorge all its dead at one time, on one twenty-four-hour day, thus producing a bewildering population explosion for the relatively few God-fearing survivors of the universal war of Har–Magedon. “

The “Watchtower” of April 15th, 1973, p 246, The dead people will resurrect gradually!

Yet, there is a point where the “Watchtower” disappoints Jehovah’s Witnesses. And this point is the issue of marriage. Unfortunately, the “Watchtower” of October 15th, 1967, p 638, points out that Jehovah’s Witnesses won’t be able to marry their old spouses again. But, due to fact that as we have said a lot of Jehovah’s Witnesses protested, the “Watchtower” let hopes arouse that something may be done since Jehovah is great and he is aware of the needs of his loyal servants. You see, they don’t want to lose their delivery boys because otherwise who is going to deliver the magazines “Watchtower” and “Awake” without being paid?

“Many faithful servants of God who look forward to living forever on earth and whose mates have died would like to have support for their hope that they could be reunited as husband and wife in the resurrection. While not being callous to their sincere feelings, we must admit that apparently Jesus’ words apply to the earthly resurrection, and they indicate that those resurrected will not marry or be reunited in a marriage relationship with former mates. “

The “Watchtower” of October 15th, 1967, p 638, Resurrected Jehovah’s Witnesses won’t be able to get married to their old spouses again!

And now we get to more trivial problems to which, unfortunately, not even the “Watchtower” has the answers. Probably their phone link is out of order, who knows! Or they might have all the answers but they have thought that they should deliberately keep a few things as a secret so that there is a hint of suspense. Well, what do you think?

Of course, to be honest, the “Watchtower” says that they don’t have the answers because there is nothing written about these trivial problems in the Holy Writ. But the fact that Jehovah will clean all the dead bodies using scientific means is written in the Holy Writ, indeed. Where exactly is this written? In their imagination, of course, where else?

Let’s discuss now these trivial issues which will bother the survivors Jehovah’s Witnesses and the resurrected dead after Armageddon. First and foremost, we have to clarify that according to the “Watchtower” there will be total destruction and wilderness during Armageddon and no human creation will remain still on Earth. You won’t be able to communicate, because there will not be any telephones, there won’t be any airplanes and cars to move around, no…electrical appliances such as cookers and washing machines, no new clothes, no…hammers or…nails to build houses, nothing will be there as we know it today.

How can all these problems be solved? It’s very likely that Jehovah will use his scientific powers again and give a solution to these unsolved problems.

And as a last problem we have left something that will unfortunately disappoint the wine lovers all over the world. Unfortunately, after Armageddon there won’t be any spirits for consumption. So, hurry up! Drink as much as you can now, before Armageddon breaks out! And after that, you will stay sober for ever, with no alcohol at all. Not even a beer for the hot summer days.

8 “True, the prospect of a genuinely new order excites wonderment and many questions easily come to mind. For example, some ask, ‘In that new order, who will supply all the services the present worldly systems have been providing? If all the present systems end in the coming “great tribulation,” how will the survivors communicate with one another around the earth? With mail, telephone, telegraph and radio systems gone, how could there be any unified direction of activities, as by an earthly governing body serving under the heavenly kingdom?
9 Still others wonder about transportation methods then, whether there will be automobiles, airplanes or other such powered means of travel. Among feminine questioners there may be more concern as to whether such conveniences as electric stoves, electric washing machines and similar devices will be available. And, for that matter, what about really fundamental things, such as clothing? When the clothing or shoes one is wearing at the time of survival wear out, where will new ones come from? Or if one wants to build, where will one obtain such things as hammer, nails, saw and other equipment now supplied by the systems of this present order?
11 as a possible survivor into the New Order. The absence of an alcoholic beverage industry would not prevent this“

The “Watchtower” of June 15th, 1973, pp 361 & 367, No planes, no electrical appliances, no nails and hammers, no spirits after Armageddon!!

And a piece of advice for our beloved Jehovah’s Witnesses: To play it safe, hide a bottle of beer somewhere, just for the difficult hot days awaiting you after Armageddon!

Writer Christos Pal