I had my "awakening" about a year ago, after spending my entire adolescent life feeling as if I was the only one among my associates with my head screwed on straight. I was appalled by the nearly universal ignorance and deplorable close-mindedness and stupidty of the JWs, the arbitrary dismissal of all scientific evidence as mere "human speculation", etc. The 2008 change in the definition of the "generation" (at age 18) is what made me seriously commit to an investigation of my long held beliefs, a belief system and world view that had been permanently graphed onto my still developing brain as an infant.
Some things the bee hive subscribe to are so irrational, yet I still held firmly to the belief that they MUST have the "Truth", since I still believed in the bible as the inerrant, completely inspired word of God, and JWs were the religion that most stringently adhered to actual bible teachings in a majority of cases - ie - no hellfire, no immortal soul, no trinity, etc..
After an exhaustive study of the organization's origins in the Russell and Rutherford eras, and their history of constantly revised doctrines, failed predictions, and absurd beliefs subsequently abandoned and revised only after the passing of time deemed them impossible, I came to the conclusion that they were not "God's channel", and they certainly had no claim to exclusivity as "God's only chosen people who would survive destruction"...
So that lead me to the next logical assumption..if not even the JWs have the truth, and all the other Christian denominations grossly misrepresent biblical teachings and distort the teachings of Christ, and compromise on the principles he taughts us to abide by...then God has no earthly organization..He has abandoned us to our own devices...He has left us all alone, and he has left us in this state of affairs for at least the last 2,000 years..
After moving beyond the the typical JW dismisal of all science that could possibly contradict the bible and their beliefs, I took up an objective, unbiased, study of science...and what I discovered is that without any presupositional limitations to one's critical analysis of the fact...science's theory of evolution is the best explanation for the diversity and nature of biological life around us...I also discovered that although there is dispute among scientists as to the explanation for evolution or the origin of life itself...that there is no dispute as to the validity of evolution.. The fact that evolution happened and continues to happen before our very eyes is incontrovertible...absolutely indisputable when objectively evaluating all the mountains of evidence..multiple lines of evidence that all converge at one point...common descent..As but one example - The anatomical distinction between Homo Sapiens Sapiens and Homo Sapien Neanderthalis emerge at a certain point in the fossil record..and not coincidentally the mapping of the Neanderthal and modern Human genomes point to a genetic divergence at the exact same time as the fossil record indicates!
Or the fact that the flood never happened and was a scientific, numerical, and logisitically impossiblity on a number of accounts. Or that mankind is clearly older than 6,000 years...etc..
So the majority of what we find so awe-inspiring about our enviornment and existence can now be easily explained by science..The one thing science can't account for is the emergence of self-replicating life itself...nor can they answer what gave impetus to the origin of the universe and all matter, both living and non-living.
Because we cannot logically affirm a theory of infinite regress..there must be something or someone which transcends the limitations of the laws of physics as we know them...something which supercedes time and space..something that gave impetus to the creative destruction that ultimately culminated in the existence of a rational animal known as Man.
This would lead me to a belief in some sorty of divinity..whether you call that Deity a male or a female, or even an impersonal force..I don't know..I only know that it must exist..
And yet..why would a creator design so much violence in nature (ie. - animals designed to fight for survival, to tear one another to shreds, to devour the flesh of other living, breathing, feeling things which have an equally strong desire to live??)?
Why would he leave us, humans, the only animal with a capacity to truly comprehend our own existence, with an awareness of our relative position within the universe, and a cognizance of our own inevitable mortality, to our own devices, to toil and to suffer? To live for a brief moment in time, only to die and decay and beget yet another generation with the same awful eventuality? What's the purpose? What would be his point? If that is his purpose, then he obviously isn't benign or loving or merciful..
Yet after all of this, I maintained a belief in Jesus Christ, and I thought him to be of divine origin, the son of God or what have you. His teachings were so simple and yet so amazingly beautiful, and I still feel myself inescapably drawn to his teachings..Yet upon a careful analysis of the New Testament, particularly his prophecies regarding his second coming...I discovered that his prophecies failed to come true..
He prophesied that his second coming would come within THAT generation...the generation of his day...It came and went and 2000 years have since transpired and he still hasn't shown up...A reading of the Pauline epistles and the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and all other early Christian writings clearly show that his disciples of the 1st century were expecting an iminent fulfillment of his prophecies in THEIR day..
Jesus, in the Olivette Discourse in Matthew 24 gives a list of signs of his coming...with the finale being celestial phenomena and unmistakable, globally visible, descension from the heavens riding upon the clouds with an army of angels to come and execute judgement upon the earth..Immediately after that..the text reads that the aforementioned, along with other portents, were all destined to occur within his generation..And the greek word for generation used is not "genea" which allows for a more convenient interpretation (because it means class or people or race or kind)..Instead he used the Greek word for generation which denotes a literal temporal generation, bound by temporal limits and taken to mean exactly what we would think it means..For further proof of this understanding of the word, one need look no further than the words of Jesus himself..Jesus used the same word "generation" on mulitple occassions, and in every single instance he was referring to the generation of his day...
Early Christians still held hope that he would come and preached his iminent arrival..but decade after decade passed, and soon centuries passed until they finally gave up hope and subsequently rationalized away the prophecy by reinterpreting the message...the Church that would later adopt the name of the "Roman Catholic Church" began to teach that the earthly manifestation of the Kingdom was embodied by the Church itself, and access to that Kingdom was contingent upon membership in that universal Church...
Fastforward about 1800 years and you have the Adventist movement appear in the United States..they took up with renewed zeal what Christianity had previously given up on nearly 2 millenia before - the belief that Jesus was still coming..and by Jove..he was coming soon!When their predictions failed, it lead to the Great Disappointment, but some stubbornly clung to these notions anyway....and the surivivors of that movement founded new branches...some of which endured, some of which didn't..
Among the many that endured was the Rusellite movement, which itself fractured after another round of failed predictions and power struggles, and the most enduring faction of that movement was the one who held control over the money and power within the organization...ie - Rutherford's followers...later to be called Jehovah's Witnesses...
This movement is still alive and well...yet despite over 130 years' time..and countless billions of hours spent spreading their message...their recruitment efforts have only resulted in a very miniscule following...7 million people throughout the entire world..and supposedly these 7 million people are the only ones who have any hope whatosever for suriving the impending apocalyptic destruction of humanity.
The bottom line is that after my research, and especially after coming on this board..I came to the realization that the Watchtower was not God's organization...The Governing Body is not God's mouthpiece...and if my membership in the organization was dependent upon an unquestioning obedience and agreement with every teaching of its leadership..then I could not feasibly be a member...
Yet..the problem was..I was an MS..And as a member of this high-control cult-like religious group, I had alienated all my non-Jw family, I had no friends outside the org, and my mother...the one constant in my life who I love so deeply..would be devestated by departure from her faith...
So for the last several months I've racked my brain..trying to come up with a way to resign from my position as an MS without raising red flags..my heart was no longer in it..so I began seriously slacking in my responsibilities...I missed service repeatedly because I didn't have the necessary motiviation to drag myself out of bed early on Saturday morning, after a long week of work and school, only to drive far away and waste my costly gas, to preach to people about something I myself no longer believed in..
Anyway...they dismissed me from my position...or technically I was "invited" to step down from my "privelege". When I disclosed that to my mother..she was heartbroken..but I decided I could no longer contain my feelings, supress my frustrations..and live a lie..so I told her how I felt..Needless to say..this past week has been the most heart wrenching, emotionally tumultuous time I have ever experienced...
The rational part of my brain tells me I'm making the right decision...but that little voice in the back of my mind which stems from years of severe indoctrination tells me I am a vile thing worthy of and destined for destruction at God's hand in the near future..
Because of the above..I think I am going to need counseling..
I also "came out" to my girlfriend..who has essentially been my only friend in life (other than Mom) for some time now..She refused to even listen to my argument or my reasons and put up the JW thought-stopping blinders...only to break down crying..and tell me she can't ever speak to me again..and that I hurt her more than anybody has in her entire life...
So...now I feel horribly guilty because I've alienated the only two people who really matter to me in life..the only two people I truly love...and I've brought them such grief and misery..
I'm also incredibly bitter at the org and even somewhat resentful of my mother for having ever been so naive and gullible so as to be suckered into this cult and raise me in it...
Simultaneously..my 13 year old dog who I have had since I was 9 years old is dying, and will be dead within days...I hold him in my arms and sob and cry puddles of tears both for him and for my situation.
My world has come crashing down and I have to rebuild a new life... But the point is I'm officially out...and within a year I'll be transferring to a university farther from home..and I'll be able to move out of my mother's house and not have to see her suffer any longer...I just wish for her sake I could have somehow managed to continue being a JW for the rest of my life...But I'm not good at faking who I am..and I have to live my own life..
I'm not happier than before..quite the contrary actually...I feel liberated in the sense that I no longer have to fake belief in something..that I am no longer an intellectual captive/slave of the Governing Body...that I don't have to waste away half my life reading nonsense publications, attending meetings, and preaching doom and gloom from door to door..and yet that sense of comfort that comes from certainty..the certain belief that a savior is coming soon to rid us of all our problems...the comforting belief that I would never grow old..that soon my health problems and chronic pain would be done away with...the belief in paradise, etc...all that is shattered.. the simplistic utopian vision of the future is now replaced with fear and uncertainty...And that is deeply distressing...Realizing that it was all a delusion is earth shattering.
I don't have everything all figured out, and I certainly don't claim to have all the answers..What I do know however is that I could not go on believing in and propogating the belief in a delusion...in a false hope..
I never understood when people said "Ignorance is Bliss"...Those words are painfully true in my case. I only wish I were less intelligent and inquisitive so that I could have gone on completely ignorant of reality and deluded like the JWs..I only wish I still believed in the hope they hold..
But as a intelligent individual and objective truth seeker, I can't believe a lie...I can't convince myself of a lie..nor can I bury my head in the sand like an ostrich..
So here I am today...I don't know what to expect..I don't even know if I'm right..It is possible that despite all the overwhelming evidence and reason...that the JWs are somehow correct...But we can't know anything in life is certain...and if something doesn't make sense..it's inevitably due to a faulty assumption...and it is my belief that the JWs have all fallen victim to a faulty assumption...
I woke up...and I have to do what I feel is best...I just hope I'm right..