Welcome Mary,

In my life, whenever I find myself struggling over business, religion, or personal perceptions, I've always found simple answers and peace if I carefully examine my premises. I was trying to live a rational life with irrational core beliefs. That didn't work very well.

In financial analysis we list our assumptions and assign each and every one a percentage weight factor and a percentage value. Any deal I go into has to fly with a zero weight and zero value on all assumption lines. Try that with religion. Try that with Witness religion.

Take the fear that God is going to end the world. What are the tangible, rational, objective, facts that prove the end of the world will actually happen? List them on the left side of a spreadsheet.

Now, on the right side of the spreadsheet, list the assumptions (premises) needed to support the concept that God will end the world.

Mine looks something like this . . .

LEFT~~~~ Rational objective facts: Zero

RIGHT~~~~ Assumptions:
1. There is a God
2. God communicates with people
3. God uses the Bible
4. The Bible is God's communication
5. The Bible is written in code
6. God owns a book printing business in the United States
7. God communicates with the book company writers
8. The book company writers are not inspired
9. The book company writers must be treated as though they are inspired
10. The seven trumpets of Revelation were the seven Jehovah's Witness District assemblies from 1922 to 1928, starting with Cedar Point, Ohio and ending with Detroit, Michigan
11. Every Bible story, pattern, and parable has a type and an anti-type
12. The Watch Tower Society will be right even though they have never been right once before in their entire history


Now, assign a zero to each assumption and give me Vegas odds that there will ever be an Armageddon:-)

 http://www.freeminds.org/buss/buss.htm

                  

Welcome, and I hope you draw a lot of encouragement from JWD.

Being indoctrinated from birth makes leaving and reprogramming your thinking very difficult. It took me many years to finally realise Armageddon is not imminent.

Doomsday cults have predicted the end of the world since the beginning of mankind. Ever since the death of Jesus, in every single century, doomsday preachers have predicted the world would end, in their lifetime. The fact is that the period of time we live in is the best by most measures since the time of Jesus. see http://www.jwfacts.com/index_files/lastdays.htm

The image with legs of clay does not refer to our time period. From the period of the head to the legs, spanning several world powers was only a few hundred years. The destruction was expected to culminate shortly after the period in which it was written. Nothing happened. So people interpret it to mean the feet are in "their" lifetime. That has gone on now for more than 2000 years. Between Rome and America there has been 2000 years of rulership, with multiple nations dominating (ie Spanish) that the "prophecy" fails to recognise or take into account. In other words, the image was not accurate prophecy regarding the end of all government and the world.

Once you can shake all the fear, guilt and superstition of a JW upbringing it will free up your mind and emotions to enjoy life at a whole new level.

welcome