Background to the conversation:
I called my parents excited to be having them come out for Thanksgiving break. In the conversation my dad (not a JW) brought up that Michael Jackson's glove just sold for $300,000 while a recently found first edition copy of Darwin's On the Origin of Species sold for only $100,000.
This was the conversation:
Yadda yadda, talking about the glove's value vs. the book's...
My dad also tells us that it was found in the bathroom of a really old house. (which is actually kind of funny)
So my mom (the JW) says (excitedly and sort of meanly but also laughing a little) "Yeah! I hope it was in there being used for what it should be used for -toilet paper!"
I say, "Sheesh, the things that were written in that book, 150 years ago are still true and being taught today. If you take any Watchtower from that time, 150 years ago, nothing in it is true anymore- it has all been changed."
My mom gets soooo mad- "oh! I can't have you being so negative and tearing down -this is really bad, I don't even want to come visit now!"
Me: "I wasn't being negative- I am just talking about facts- it's true that you don't teach anything in those old Watchtowers as true anymore."
Mom: hurumphing sound.
So she is quiet for a few more minutes while my dad tries to kind of make up for it in the conversation. In a little while she starts talking again, not bringing the Darwin subject up again, but joining in nicely with the conversation.
So I guess all is fine and she is looking forward to coming.
My point is, that she made a really crappy statement on one of the finest books written, a subject that has revolutionized almost every scientific field and improved medicine for everyone. Then when I point out a fact about that book vs Watchtowers written at that same time, she literally can't take it and goes into a red rage. I love my mom and we are very close but this area is so divisive.
I am sure this is a scene that has played out in many a house.
Facts are neither positive or negative: they just are.
-K
