I have been spending time in live JW chat rooms since the events of 9-11. Listening to the JWs chat amongst themselves and seeing how they are reacting to this atrocity, I am both horrified and sickened. As stated on another board I frequent:
"For any religion to use this horrific act of terror as a means to proselytize is almost as reprehensible as the act of terrorism itself!"
But it has also brought back memories from when I was a JW back in the '70's, and we were all so certain that Armageddon was going to happen almost immediately.
I was the only member of my family who ever became a JW (I was proselytized at the age of 17). My father was a Presbyterian minister. Needless to say, my parents were "opposers". I loved my family very, very much. The thought of them being destroyed at Armageddon and my never seeing them again was too much for me to consider, so I quietly and privately prayed for their deaths before the tribulation.
For many years I was haunted by a guilty conscience over these prayers. I finally told my family about them, and fortunately they took it with a grain of salt and went about their business.
But, it makes me think: I wonder how many JWs out there lost "worldly" family members in the WTC collapse? And, I wonder how many of them are rejoicing at those deaths because "now they will see them in the resurrection"?
I can't help but remember my own sick prayers, and I weep for those misguided individuals, depraved by a cultic faith system that demands conformity at all costs, even at the expense of one's own family. Perhaps the WTBTS needs to change it's name to the "Watchtower Jihad"?