I'm new to this forum.
I was raised in " the truth" from age six and now I am in my mid 60's. My wife was born in " the truth" and is very strong in the religion. I have had many experiences during my lifetime with the other members of several congregations. Some experiences were great and others not so much.
I won't be revealing or saying anything you haven't heard before but I came to the reality that things just didn't seem right a long time ago. To keep peace within my own household and the friends that we associated with I just felt that, stay with the status quo.
After all the changes in doctrine and the WTBTS tv show I can't take it anymore. I told my wife it looks like any other tv evangelical show. She's not happy with me since I just quit going to meetings cold turkey several weeks ago. She says I'm being picky and she said she doesn't know me anymore. I won't elaborate on all my misgivings at this time so I'll keep this post short although I will be back to comment later. But I will relate this.
Many weeks ago during the book study Draw Close to Jehovah, there was a question asked by the conductor. He asked " how do we know that the 144,000 mentioned in Rev 14 is a literal number ?". I thought to myself I sure want to hear the answer and hopefully from someone who had been in for a long time.
Well fortunately for me it was a brother in his mid 70's and he was born into the truth. His answer was " because at the beginning of the chapter it says " The Lamb " and and it is a single Lamb and thus it is a single literal number of one. Therefore the number of 144,000 would also have to be a literal number. " So the conductor says that's right, we have to go by the context. And I thought what the hell? Yeah, let's go by the context. " The Lamb" is not a literal lamb and further down in the same chapter it says that an angel will take a sickle which by the way would not be a literal sickle but also symbolic .
This post is not short like I hoped. But I will tell you that I asked 2 different elders and a ministerial servant to explain how the 144,000 is a literal number by using the context of Rev 14. Each one of them told me you can't. I'll admit I am a little dumb sometimes but I'm not stupid. There is a difference. I'll be back here later and let off a little more pressure.
