Losing close relatives in "armageddon"

greendawn

While you were JWs, when the WTS was saying that in a soon to come Armageddon all non JWs were to be exterminated, that was hard to stomach by many especially concerning innocent children.

However did that make you feel very anxious about the killing of close non JW relatives, parents, brothers, children etc and their eternal loss? Did that make you work extra hard to bring them in?

Nathan Natas

While you were JWs, when the WTS was saying that in a soon to come Armageddon all non JWs were to be exterminated, that was hard to stomach by many especially concerning innocent children.

However did that make you feel very anxious about the killing of close non JW relatives, parents, brothers, children etc and their eternal loss? Did that make you work extra hard to bring them in?

I can answer that question from the point of view of an "innocent child" who was raised with the teachings of the WTB&TS:

I was taught that my father, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, teachers and schoolmates were all given the opportunity to accept Jehovah's sovreignty and that if they declined this alliance they were willfully selelcting the side of Satan against Jehovah, and therefore their destruction at Armageddon was absolutely justified. All I had to do was to turn off any natural feelings I might have and stop associating with those who reject Jehovah.

This I did. I wsn't popular with the kids in the congregation, either. I was seldom invited to gatherings and many that I was invited to my mother refused to let me attend. So I adopted an "FU2" attitude toward my younger Dub brothers and sisters. I didn't need them, either.

I consider myself emotionally truncated even to this day. I can take 'em or leave 'em, and it is typical that I don't maintain long term relationships with many. Let me count them... 3. Three people out of hundreds that I have met and worked with and asociated with with whom I maintained a relationship of ten years or longer. I am sometimes wonder why they bother with me, and even sometimes feel that I wouuldn't mind if the relationships ended. I'd just move on, as I have always had to do. when I was growing up.

I don't think I'm a "bad person," but I don't have much time for really needy people.

Just as I once eagely anticipated the death of my extended family members, schoolmates and teachers, today I do a little "happy dance" each time one of the Governing Body of the WTB&TS dies. I only regret that their longer-than usual life was made possible by the mindless servitude of others, and that it is indeed unfortunate that they lived without the stresses and concerns that are part of "the great crowd's" daily existence.

When I was a beleiving member of the congregation, I worked hard at the life saving work of spreading the message in the way that Jehovah's "faithful and discreet slave" directed.

What an ungodly waste of time THAT was!

greendawn

Nathan that's a heartfelt post but most ppl don't really have a big circle of close intimate friends it's usually 5 or 10. We all got taken in at one time by the FDS to sell their publications unpaid by them supposedly the reward would come from jehovah and we also had to get the blood guilt off ourselves by preaching.

To me back then as a teenager it was really worrying that my close relatives could die at Armageddon even if they were at "fault" because they did not listen to the WTS. But of course it was all a fabrication the WTS are not fitted to be God's org contrary to what they claim, why would they get chosen anyway they are really just like all the rest.

Hellrider

However did that make you feel very anxious about the killing of close non JW relatives, parents, brothers, children etc and their eternal loss?

I left very young, was never baptised, but even as a kid, I never really could believe in that. One of my two older sisters ran away from home at 15, and was considered a "lost cause" (Jehovah-wise, ha ha), but she is and always was very dear to me. She`s nine years older than me and was more of a mother to me than my mother really was, and I never could make myself believe that God would kill her, or all my classmates at school, for that matter. Or well, I both believed it and didn`t believe it. It`s hard to explain. I believed it with the depressed, dark side of me, but not when I just sat down and thought thru it: "Would God really do that?". That God would kill 6 billion people, including maybe a billion underaged children, just because their parents happen to not be JWs, is a sick, sick doctrine. When the WTS developed that doctrine, is when they evolved into a very dangerous and sick cult, in my opinion. But if you were able to really believe in this doctrine, then you were very, very brainwashed, and almost beyond hope. So for those of you that once actually believed in this, but still managed to get deprogrammed, here`s to you:

greendawn

That is also what puzzled me that many so called worldly ppl were much nicer than the average JW and it didn't seem right that they would go out at armageddon, that's apart from the countless millions of innocent children. The JW echatological ideas were clearly seriously flawed.

Whatever the end would be wouldn't come in the way they thought and they could never play a role in separating ppl into sheep and goats because they were very substandard as an organisation.

eyeslice

I am sure my wife (faithfully JW) worries about me (ex JW non attender)
Eyeslice

New Worldly Translation

Yes I did worry about relatives dying at armageddon. Just like I now worry about my JW relatives dying in ignorance.

beezknees

being brought up in the organisation, i didn't only just worry about relatives, it was people i knew at school and neighbours, horrible thought of 'clearing' up the bodies after armaggeddon..so cruel to teach this to adults let alone impressionable children

kittyeatzjdubs

I was always terrified of losing my daddy at ''armageddon''. Like most young girls, I was the ultimate Daddy's Little Girl...still am. I love and have always loved my father with all of my heart and soul. It always baffled me that jehoover would do something so cruel as to take away a young girls heart like that. There were many nights as a young child that I would lay awake....just in case armageddon came that night...maybe i could run into my parents room in time to make him say he loved jehoover and maybe jehoover wouldn't take him away from me.

It's nice not having to worry about my father being snatched away from me in the middle of the night anymore....If I had saved all my tears from that time, I could have filled a pool...

luv, jojo

M.J.

I can't imagine how one could fully accept the teaching that the wonderful neighbor next door and all her beautiful children will soon be toast. It must be a thought that is intentionally blocked out most of the time.

Losing close relatives in "armageddon"

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