Was my entire life fake?

by BonaFide 38 Replies latest jw friends

  • Open mind
    Open mind

    Tom Cabeen, a former Bethel print-room overseer, shared some beautiful thoughts the other day that I think you might enjoy. By way of explanation, he mentions "Stan & Julie" in this quote. They are still-believing JWs.

    It came from page 18 of this thread if you want to read it in context, but it's not really necessary, IMO:

    Best regards,

    Open Mind

    ******************************************************************

    http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/160509/18.ashx

    "Therein lies the great thing about love. An old man may have abused himself most of his life. He may be an alcoholic, lacking in moral strength, a drug user. And yet his children may still love him in spite of all that. The purest and highest form of love does not depend upon the loveableness of its object. Therein lies its strength and beauty. This is one of the fundamental teachings of Christianity.

    One day, Stan and July may come to see the WTS differently. They may discover something that convinces them without a shadow of a doubt that the rosy pictures painted in the WT pubs are not as true as they once thought. Then they will have some self-examination to do. They will be faced with a choice about how to handle that truth. They may choose to delude themselves, and go on in the organization, just pretending that they believe, but with bitterness and hurt inside for the rest of their lives. Or they may choose to redirect the love they now have for the WTS to something or someone more deserving of their love and loyalty. They will most likely have to deal with embarrassment, shame, anger, the sense of being betrayed, the sense of lost time, wasted lives. But for now, the love with which they love is, I believe, still genuine and beautiful. It is, in fact, the presence of such love in the world that which reassures me of the presence of a source of such a noble quality, a loving God.

    In the last book of CS Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia series, The Last Battle, a false god, Tash, wars against the true god, the Emperor. Near the end of the story, one of Tash's loyal servants meets Aslan, the good lion (the Christ figure). The soldier served Tash faithfully and loyally all his life. Only after he "dies" does he learn that his god was evil. He meets Aslan and thanks him for the privilege of meeting him, but understands that he was on the wrong side. Aslan must view him as an enemy and thus kill him. "No", says Aslan, "I accept all the service you rendered to Tash all your life as if it were done to me, for you did it with a pure heart." (I am paraphrasing from memory, as it has been over a decade since I read this book to my now-grown boys as a bedtime story.) This is how I view Stan and July. I am not the judge, of course, but I would like to think this is how God will judge all who love others with a pure heart. Whoever loves is God's child, for He is both the source and example of such pure, unselfish love. It shines through despite our tendency to be selfish and to hurt ourselves and others.

    This same factor is at work in the WTS (and all other human endeavors). There are doubtless a few evil people associated with that organization, as there are with just about any group of any size one could name. But I am sure that many if not most of them are, like Stan and July, involved because they believe the WT message and they believe they are doing good. I know I did. Whether through money, work, meeting attendance, etc, they supporting and contributing to something they believe in, to some extent at least. If they believe that God is associated with that organization, why should they not spend some of their time and money to make "God's place" as nice as possible? There could be many noble reasons to spend some of their profits on decent facilities for their volunteer labor. Turning the situation around, if they have money but don't spend it to make the facilities nice, would that make them more righteous? In other words, I separate the motivations of the members from the truthfulness of the message of the Society. They are two separate issues to me.

    Should they spend more to help the poor? Undoubtedly! The WTS is very bad about giving to the poor. They don't even help their own very well. My mother gave everything she had to the WTS for sixty years, and spent a decade in the circuit work with my dad. She gave all her material possessions to the WTS. But she did not get back a penny of assistance or support. When her limited funds finally ran out, the local congregation dumped her in a nursing home and called me, her disowned and disfellowshipped son, to help her. I did so gladly, because she is my mother, and I love her. She has dementia and doesn't even know me, but I still love her and consider it a privilege to help her.

    When I left the WTS, I had to deal with the same things others did, hurt, anger, loss. But I had to separate the beautiful things that I see in people from the badness we are capable of. I had to learn to love others in spite of what they do to themselves and others. Forgiving them released me from the hurt, and I was able to move on, grow and love even more deeply.

    Blessings,

    Tom

  • willyloman
    willyloman
    She said "I can't believe YOU of all people saying that. I thought you would encourage me to put Jehovah first."

    When I was an elder (just a few years ago), a sister approached me about some severe family problems she was having. She said a sister advised her to seek professional counseling, or therapy. She asked what I thought, as she thought the Society had been pretty negative about therapists.

    I told her therapy would help her work out her feelings and enable her to solve her problems and she should make an appointment with a family counselor immediately. She was so relieved to get that advice and walked away with a bounce in her step.

    A week or so later, I caught up with her at the KH and asked how things we going in counselving. She said, "Oh, I can't do that. I talked to brother so-and-so (another elder) and he told me the Society really frowned on seeing a therapist, that it would just lead me away from Jehovah. He said I should study, pray more, and get out in service more often."

    Within months, she and her husband were in the middle of a very nasty divorce. And there were children involved, who I imagine suffered a great deal.

    That was one of the many times during my final days as a JW that I realized there was something seriously wrong with the whole picture.

  • Shawn10538
    Shawn10538

    Answer: Pretty much yes. but, eve sadder than that, your life now is even faker than it was before because now you know better. You may not be admitting the extent that you agree with me here yet, but I'm pretty certain you will agree with me 100% at some point. You have started your exit. Your mind is awakening. You are feeling the cognitive dissonance. Now you need to slowly bring your life into accordance with truth, which is what the cognitive dissonance is asking you to do, as well as the universe. What will you do?

  • BonaFide
    BonaFide

    My name? The reason I picked Bonafide was because of the movie "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" and George Clooney comes back from prison to find his wife engaged to another man and she says, "He's bonafide." Even his six girls say "He's bonafide."

    I thought that was funny, like why is HE not bonafide?

    That's why.

  • iloowy
    iloowy

    Hey Bonafide.

    The counsel from Worf and others about reading Crisis of Conscience is true.

    The two books Crisis of Conscience and in Search of Christian Freedom help you see and reason without forcing you one way or another.

    Your life is real. It is what you make of it. Live it with the help of the Scriptures if you place your hope in their sayings. The two books will not take this faith away, they will reinforce your faith in God's Word. They did for me.

    I just stepped down as an elder. I hate the term "stepped down" but that 's accurate in the Society's expectation. To other brothers and sisters you're up some step if you're an elder. In Search of Christian Freedom helps you to see that it's not a matter of appointed to an office or post of service, it is the service that you provide for your brothers and sisters that really matters in the end.

    You could have told the sister to do what she felt was right according to her study of God's Word. Let her develop a Christian conscience. Don't give advice you feel uncomfortable giving. She did trip you up in the end with the remark about putting Jehovah first. That's not the issue really, she could put Jehovah first in doing what she can to be a Christian while taking college courses.

    I'm praying for you brother, and I hope you do look into reading CoC and CF by Raymond Franz. They're available at http://www.commentarypress.com or at http://www.amazon.com and if you want there are links online that give some chapters for download gratis.

    With Christian love and best wishes. --ILOOWY

  • wings
    wings

    Hi and welcome. Don't need to repeat what has already been said, just want you to know that as you open your mind to investigate your own crisis on conscience those of us here on this board will be here to discuss and share with you our own path through it, you are not alone. BTW you are not a fake, nor is your life. Welcome again...wings

  • Rapunzel
    Rapunzel

    Hi BonaFide: Your name is a Latin expression. It is the ablative of bona fides - "[with] good faith" or [by] good faith." In English it means "authentic;" "honest;" "true;" "sincere." It is a very good name, I think.

    In your post, you mention the stance of the Witnesses' organization in regard to birthdays and Christmas.

    It has been a very long time since I have set foot in a Kingdom Hall, but, as I recall, the Witnesses condemn birthdays as examples of "self-glorification" or even a form of self-idolotry. If you want to accept this arguement, feel free to so. I, however, do not accept it as such.

    Another supposed "reason" behind the Society's stance is the fact that, in the case of the biblical scriptures, the celebration of a birthday led to some calamitous result or outcome. This reasong is the epitome of what is termed the post hoc, ergo propter hoc logical fallacy. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc simply means "after this, therefore because of this." This refers to the erroneous assumption that because one thing follows another, that thing was caused by the other. In other words, just because event A precedes event B, there is no reason to assume that event A brings about, or causes event B to occur.

    There is no reason to assume that the birthday celebrations mentioned in the scriptures necessarily caused the calamities that followed. As a matter of fact, it is quite difficult to establish a causal connection between any two events.

    What to say about Christmas? Its pagan origins are clear. So are the origins for the days of the week and the names of the month. Wedding rings are of "pagan' origin, and yet Witnesses wear them. So are mascara and other facial cosmetics.

    It is good to ponder why people celebrate Christmas in our day and age. In our day and age, Christmas is simply a time for families to come together. The aim of the vast majority of people is not to celebrate the winter solstice. Christmas has become a world-wide holiday in places where there hardly exists any solstice whatsoever. In the equatorial regions of the Earth, there is little, if any, of the solstice effect. Essentially it's a question of a year-long equinox.

    My point is that people today celebrate Christmas for very different reasons than did ancient peoples and cultures. Christmas has become a part of modern day culture.

    Were you aware that, formerly, Witnesses did celebrate Christmas? I am sure that there are people on this board that can provide documentary evidence; the Witnesses did indeed used to celebrate Christmas. And they cannot use the old "new light" excuse. For many, many centuries, people have been aware of the origins of Christmas in the ancient Roman Saturnalia. Russel and his "Bible students" were well aware, and yet they celebrated Christmas and Easter.

    In truth, the Witnesses refuse to celebrate simply to be contrary. They just want to be different and antagonistic toward society in general. They thrive on the idea that they are "suffering persecution."

  • hotchocolate
    hotchocolate

    Yippee! It makes me so happy when I hear of another person coming to a realisation of truth.

    I completely understand that feeling of being proud of your accomplishments as a witness. I think so many of us have huge "worldly" potential, and so we have replaced that with our JW successes.

    It was very interesting that you wrote about the Matrix. The first time I watched that film it really spoke to me. It wasn't until more recently that I've realised why I had such an attraction to it. The witnesses really promote that conspiracy concept, that the whole world is against them. And now I wonder sometimes, like you, was my entire life fake? I cannot believe that I lived and fought for an idea that I always sub-consciously knew was untrue, out of a sense of rightness and responsibility. But I don't plan on sitting back and feeling sorry for myself. Life does go on, and I plan to make mine a good one. :-)

    x

  • sweetstuff
    sweetstuff

    Ok, let me throw a monkey wrench in here.

    You are proud of your accomplishments? Does that include all the people you may have counselled, made feel like they were worthless because they "sinned" and all the people you may have misled because you yourself were misled? What the heck is there to be proud of in that? Instead you should be proud now that you are coming to an accurate knowledge of what TRUTH is. And using that knowledge to help others for the first time ever! Before you make your mind up to exit, you do have the opportunity to treat people with true honesty, something you cannot possiblely have done as one of "Jehovah's servants". You can't beat yourself up for the past, but I also don't think you should be congratulating yourself for being part of the chain of deceit, even unaware.

    Call me crazy, but service should be something you now find PAINFUL, because you know you are serving up lies and misinformation to the general public and might even inspire someone to grasp it firmly in hand as "truth". That would make me want to vomit, personally. I think your comfort lies in not wanting to face the past for what it is, wasted time and energy. It's painful to realize you've devoted your life to a big fat lie, so its much easier to be in denial and say, well "it wasn't all a waste". What part of it wasn't? It doesn't make your life worthless to admit that, it is just admitting that you were conned completely and lost all control over the direction your life was headed. Alot of us who were born in, have had to face that fact, deal with it and move past it.

    You mentioned counselling a young sister, about college and how good you felt by encouraging her to go, in the past did you ever discourage someone from attending college? Or seeking therapy? Or leaving their abusive spouse? I'm not accusing, I'm asking. If so, I would hope you would have enough self reflection to realize only now can you truly help yourself, let alone anyone else.

    You would benefit from reading CoC and perhaps finding some excuse to avoid service/meetings for a week and really reflect on where YOU want your life to go from here. Best of luck.

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