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The official word from the Jehovah's witnesses.

You are correct. 144,000 get to go to heaven, the rest of the good ones get to live on a cleansed earth kept pure by a god who DOES fuck people over BEFORE they sin (why he isn't doing that from the beginning, I will never know), and the losers go back to dust with those poor slobs Adam and Eve. Non-existence sounds great to me. Talk about no real incentive.

God, these religions are complicated.

Well, you are hitting on a basic problem with the Bible, or any similarly carelessly written ancient work. It's not clear what was meant, and the authors are not around to provide clarification.

The problem is that a simple, innocent reading of the Bible, as you seem to be involved in, results in difficulty in understanding since the thing is not very well-written. If you question the popular religious sects about their beliefs, which might sound like they aren't supported by a simple reading of the texts, you will discover that they treat the Bible as a theological buffet. They have spent history trying to piece together complete, coherent belief systems by picking and choosing passages that are in line with what they think the universe should be all about, and interpreting other passages as relatively unimportant to resolve cognitive dissonance. Check any religious website. You will see how they pull passages from all over the bible to support their ideas. And, when you read those passages within the context of the bible, you will often wonder why they got that message. It's truly a historical disaster.

What happens is that they see that the bible says in one place that believers will get eternal life. But, they also find in other unrelated passages that unbelievers are sent to suffer for all eternity. Therefore, they have to put together an explanation for this lack of clarity (and lack of a single section that explains the whole thing clearly, DUH!). So, they come up with ideas such as "eternal life" meaning an eternal HAPPY life, and "eternal death" meaning an eternal separation from god and/or eternal torture. Essentially, they add words to the bible that do not exist. Or, they interpret some section as a metaphor, writing that means something other than what is written. Either way, they are able to rationalize problematic texts in order to get to a belief system that satisfies them. At the same time, they are confusing language in general by introducing new meaning to already well-defined words. The fact that the word "death" has two completely different meanings (physical body in a grave and eternal torment) is totally unnecessary and complicating. If a god wrote this book, he is not a very cautious person introducing possible confusion like that. If a decent god wrote to his people, they ought to all come away without any confusion. He would know what he would need to write to get the message across to everyone and he would do it. There wouldn't be all the contradictory belief systems that exist today.

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So, is the Christain/Jewish/Muslim god an entrenched juvenile delinquent?

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He is a middle-eastern, human dictator circa 3000 BC. Then in the New Testament, he is a European religious leader circa 150 AD.

One of the basic problems I have with Judeo-Christian belief is the idea that a perfect god would create imperfect children. Why would he do this? Why are we not as perfect as he is? Wouldn't we make better acquaintances for him rather than being a bunch of needy, sniveling groaners?

If i could have my way, my children would become better than I am. I would want them to at least obtain the level of ability that I have. Why do I feel this way? Because I love them. I have never wanted LESS for them that I have ever had.

Yet, the judeo-christian god created humanity imperfect, set guidelines for them to follow that he knew they were incapable of following, and then punishes them for it. It's insane. It would be no different than me requiring that my kids NEVER disobey me, and if they never disobey me, then they can go to school to become better. It just doesn't make any goddamned sense.

And, why was humanity made by god in the first place? I am told so that god can have friends that interact with him. But the way the judeo-christian god does it is no different then if I deliberately handicap my kids so that they are forced to rely on me for the rest of their lives. This is a way to make friends?

The whole story is ridiculous.

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the judeo-christian god created humanity imperfect, set guidelines for them to follow that he knew they were incapable of following

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