Hello Steve,
I was born into the "Truth" in 1956 to parents who had come into the
"Truth" in the 1930's. They are now 86 and 87 years old in good health
and going to all meetings and very faithful (devout). I never got
baptized as something inside me didn't say it was right. I'm not sure
of all the feelings I am now experiencing. To this day I am handed the
"spiritual food" of books and magazines from Mom and Dad. Last week was
the memorial and I was invited but didn't go. I live in Toronto and as
I was growing up, Bethel boys were often coming over to the house for
dinner or bible study or to meet for "service". Oh , also I didn't
mention that they made an announcement about me for conduct unbecoming
a Christian long after I stopped going to meetings and had never been
baptized. The congregation elders came over to our house, had a meeting
with me where I admitted allegations of fornication once with a JW
married woman. I was 19 at the time she was 21. Also my dad was
publicly reproved for drinking too much. How humiliating for mom and
dad. I forgot to mention that both of my parents are totally blind.
Being both blind and JW's, who wouldn't get drunk once in a while. I
guess what I'm saying is that only now am I starting to have my eyes
opened about these false prophets. The preponderance of evidence
disproving their doctrine is overwhelming! All these years even though
not associating I have continued to beat myself up with guilt for not
taking a stand!! I quit school at 16 in 1972 because I knew the world
was ending and was told further education was the devils way to take
you away from the "Truth"! What kind of help with your life is this? I
believed all of it. And yet, I still did not "Dedicate my life to
Jehovah" with baptism. Why I wonder? I have prayed so often looking for
the answers and never finding them. I kept waiting for the "Active
Force" to be with me. It never came. Though I still believed. I never
could get wrapped around 1914 and the 144,000? I cannot believe how mom
and dad are still at it. Even dad has said "I would have thought the
end would have come before now" and yet keeps on trudging out to
meetings. Mom still has the sisters over for "phone work". I could not
possibly even mention any of this to them, they would never speak to me
again. It would crash their dreams of me being the prodigal son. I am
reading all I can and am going to get some of the x witness
publications as well. I would also like to know what the best version
of bible to read is as that is one of the first things I want to do.
Not the "New World Translation" that I have old copies of (pre 1975).
(I sure new light has altered the wording in them now too). I see your
analogies to 1984 as I read that book also and felt similarly.
I would welcome any comments or thoughts.
KW
Hi K.,
Thanks for writing and sharing your story. We are the same age, and must've left the org about the same time.
Your gut instinct that "something was wrong" was accurate.
It concerns me that you say you still feel guilty, and that you beat yourself up over this. The first years after I left, I had some mixed feelings, and some confusion. Reading everything I could get my hands on soon cured me of that. It wasn't so much about doctrines (though at first they seemed to be of paramount importance.) What struck me the most was how very narrow the Watchtower's world was. Where was the wonder and joy of life? Where was Shakespeare, Beethoven, Chaplin, or Socrates? Where was the passion? Where was real emotion, genuine original thought, or free inquiry? Where was reality? It was all suppressed: shoved aside in order to worship at the altar of conformity.
What a sad, shallow life: to be told what to think. To be handed the ready-made answers to the ready-made questions (so that all we had to do was underline the pre-packaged answers and parrot them back, and imagine that they were our own thoughts). Socrates was so right: "The unexamined life is not worth living." We never had a chance to examine life for ourselves: it was all pre-digested and slanted and sanitized by the "writing committee."
It took me years to realize and admit that this really was what my mother had told me all along: brainwashing.
K., don't feel guilty. Be proud of yourself for having the sense to realize that something was very wrong inside the 'Tower. Celebrate the fact that you escaped at a young age and found some measure of freedom.
Don't let them continue to have a hold over you by beating yourself up with guilt. You have nothing to be guilty about. You escaped a mind-controlling cult without even knowing the facts about them. Very few people manage to do that. Congratulations!
Please recognize that the guilt that you feel are the "voices" they "planted in your head" through countless hours of indoctrination. Whenever you feel guilty about leaving the WT religion, remind yourself that that is the old WT brainwashing regurgitating inside your head. Laugh it off and master your own mind. Kick those bastards out!
Probably the best x-JW book I've read (next to my own, of course) is Franz's
Crisis of Conscience. I read it recently (I found it at the local library), and found it to give a good insider's account of the goings-on of the Governing Body. It plainly shows that they are just a bunch of men making it up as they go along. There are no signs of "divine guidance" (as the history of the WT's writings abundantly prove.)
No one knows more about the unknowable than anyone else.
Please think about that statement.
Since God is not knowable to any of our five senses, it is a subject that I consider unknowable. A group of old men in Brooklyn, posing as some self-appointed "faithful and discreet slave" knows not a jot more about the unknowable than you or I. They give their opinions and palm them off as divinely guided from "God's organization on earth". Why should we believe that? Have ANY of their prophecies ever come true? No, not a one. What does that make them? True prophets or false prophets?
When they laid down the law against vaccinations and later against organ transplants (saying they were "against God's law" and were disfellowshipping offenses) were these laws from God or from men? Think about this hard: real people died due to these "laws" published by the WT. Later, they reversed themselves and lifted the bans against these life-saving medical practices. So, it turned out they weren't against God's law after all. But if God had been leading them or guiding them as leaders of "his name people" in any way shape or form, would God have allowed such a gross error to be published as "his" law? Would God sit idly by and watch his "name people" die slow agonizing deaths for want of an organ transplant that was not against his law? If God was "directing" this organization, it is INCONCEIVABLE that it would issue such a false law and demand that its members give up their lives for an asinine mistake. (Especially while "worldly" people were being saved by the same medical procedure.)
If they were really so "faithful and discreet" and they had any doubt at all about these bans really being God's law, would they have rushed into print with it, or would they have waited and pondered and prayerfully considered the matter... and concluded that the discreet thing to do would be to trust the consciences of their members.
Today the same thing continues with the ban on blood transfusions. People are dying due to this stupid mistake of the WT's. Someday they may overturn this "law" as well. Then it will be clear to the Witnesses (as it is already clear to the rest of the world) that all these people (including many children) died for ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
Someone needs to feel guilty about the Watchtower relgion, but it isn't you K.. It is the leaders: the ones who are blood-guilty for the countless lives lost to the dogma of mindless conformity.
History shows that these men are incapable of detecing when they are being "led by God" and when they are not. They thought -- and proclaimed -- that God was leading them in the matter of vaccinations and organ transplants. It must feel exactly the same to them. That strongly suggests to me that they haven't a clue: there is no "divine guidance" involved. That means we should trust them with Biblical interpretation to the same extent we would trust anyone we happened to meet in the street. (Actually, we should trust the street person more; he or she hasn't PROVEN to be a false prophet.)
For instance, the WT said it was "certain" that the "ancient worthies" would be resurrected in 1925. In fact, the WT claimed that it was "more certain" [sic] of the 1925 date than it was of the 1914 date. Well, guess what? 1925 came and went, and unless Abraham et al. have been hiding in the basement of Beth Sarim for the past 80 years, the WT is guilty of false prophesying. Groups who make false prophecies are false prophets. And since that date was "more certain" than 1914, it means that 1914 is as meaningless a date as 1925. Without 1914 all of their scare tactics lose their teeth, and kids can go ahead and get an education instead of peddling their magazines: all of which spells doom for the WT (since college graduates seldom are duped into returning to fundamentalist end-of-the-world crackpot religions.)
Relgions can have their idiosyncratic notions such as triune gods, virgin births, scupulous aviodance of birthdays and Smurfs, baptism for the dead, etc. And such things might not do anyone harm. But when a religion imposes its thoughts on its members and demands conformity in thought, word, and deed, and prohibits them from lifesaving medical procedures, then that religion is a dangerous cult.
K., please take my on-line "self-deprogramming" course. There are three short parts: Truth, Blood, and Love. I think it will help you to see that the guilt lies on the WT: not on you.
Once free of the 'Tower, we are free to pursue the truth and allow it to take us where it will.
My own path has taken me far beyond the Bible and its vindictive god.
Your path may take you elsewhere, and that of course is fine.
But, since you're asking me what Bible to read, I want to recommend that you
read the King James Bible in conjunction with my online book
"Can the Bible be God's Word?" Knowing where you're coming from, I feel you really deserve to hear the other side of that question.
Please feel free to write me again. And remember: celebrate your freedom every day!
--Steve
|
|