I was talking to my wife last night about various things. She is a woman who wears many hats, the student, the mother, the teacher, the witness. A lot of demands on her and she feels like she neglects her family the most. She's sticking it out in school but will be so glad to get it over with. She loves her teaching job but feels like the requirements are too much sometimes given the little pay. Then there's my wife the witness.
She admits that she is not a very good one and that the demands of the religion are a little more than she wants to commit to. She does not like the fact that there are others in the religion who are proverbially, on fire for Jehovah. She does not understand why she does not have that same zeal. She says that she is not really a religious person and therefore feels like she is not doing enough. I would say that she is, according to the Watchtower, a classic weak in the faith witness. This is a good thing from my perspective as the last thing I need in my life is an over zealous dub. However, I do feel bad for her having to feel like she needs to do more, do more, do more to show herself approved.
I told her that she was not alone but I did not tell her the stories I'd see here and on freeminds.org where people shared similar experiences. I did not want to bristle her with stories coming from 'apostates.'
She also shared with me the reason why she feels that she needs to be a witness. "It's the closest thing to the truth that she knows." "She has a lot of anxiety attacks and hates that she might end up 'passing those genes' to our daughters. Therefore, she is looking forward to the promised 'new system' to take care of those things." "She wants to be sure that she is ready for when Armageddon starts, the brothers will be able to tell her where to go."
That last comment made me bring up a humorous anecdote I read in The Spanking Room. The author, raised a witness by his abusive mom, recalls an event where he was asking his mom what to do in case Armageddon strikes while he was a school. His mom said, "Stay there and I will come by to get you and drive you to the nearest Kingdom Hall." He recalls imagining his mom dodging meteorites on her way to get him and on their way to the Kingdom Hall.
She laughed when I told her this but said that she did not see it QUITE that way. However, she did say that she believed that if such time should come, one of the brothers at the Kingdom Hall would inform them about it and tell them what to do next.
COME AGAIN???!!!!
I had to clarify this, in other words a brother would tell them when Armageddon would come and where to go for Jehovah's protection? This smacks of Harold Camping telling his followers when they should expect Armageddon to come and what they should do to be prepared for it.
She said that I would not believe it coming from the witnesses to which I stated that I would not believe it coming from anywhere, including someone from church. If I heard it at the church I now attend, I would be looking for a new church. I told her how in the past I use to hear preachers and other Christians predict the dates for Armageddon with a 100% failure rate. I told her how I use to watch Jack Van Impe Presents regularly and get concerned that he might actually be right. I recall Jack stating that the Tribulation period would begin around the late 1990's though he did not give an exact date.
I also told her that time is the enemy of a false prophet.
I told her that I now try to maintain a balance in my belief in the coming end of things. While I look forward to such a day, I get on with life today. I implored her not to be too gullible about things like this. I told her that it is an easy trap to fall into for a believer. Christians can criticize Camping's followers all they want but they need to realize that "there but for the grace of God, go they." Having a certain level of skeptism within the faith is healthy in spite of what certain religious leaders would have you believe.
This morning, I saw Paul Blizzard's post on facebook where he linked an article about Camping's latest prophecy failure. Paul stated that he had no sympathy for him or his followers. Another poster commented on how they were no different in 1975 and Paul even admitted that he too was stupid for believing that. Looking back at my cult 20 years ago, I could say that I was stupid too for getting too caught up in it but this seems to be the natural tendency of religion and cults.
My wife asked me earlier in my conversations if I ever had a panic attack. I said that I might have but did not get into detail since I was more interested in her doing all the talking. The answer is, YES, I did have something that could be construed as a panic attack. It came on as a result of my reading some doomsday religious book that said things like UFO's were really demons and that people who had near death experiences and saw a light at the end of the tunnel were seeing Satan being transformed into a being of light. That book scared me and my mom, upon telling her about it, told me to throw that book away. I eventually did.