by gutted 23 Replies latest jw experiences
Steve 2, I saw this sentence within someone's comment today:
My children think I am Satan.
I doubt those children are deciding that for themselves, nor are the adults that make them feel that way.
The part about a dangerous mind-control cult that should concern us, making us zealous to help people out is the "dangerous" part.
gutted- good for you, doing your own thing! I can understand that you want to help your JW friends, but I doubt anything you say will work. It's all about timing and finding the right time to talk about the WT is tricky.- living a great life is the best testament you can make, good luck.
I was actually floored. We were having lunch the other day and he was the one that brought up the issue of 1975! He even said he read some of Crisis of Conscience and we discussed that a bit.
After that I basically laid it all out there, the false prophecies, high cult control aspects, how I don't think a religion should be like a business etc. I told him I know the witnesses are wrong and that I am going to fade.
His main gripe is it's either the witnesses or no organized religion at all. I totally agreed. I told him about being a Christian but without an organizational structure, but he can't reconcile that with how it was in the first century. I'm reading In Search of Christian Freedom and hopefully have some better ideas from the bible I can share with him.
Gutted, sounds like you had a good conversation. I understand your friend's dilemma ("it's either the witnesses or no organized religion at all"). I had that same issue years ago, and that's what kept me in for longer than I should have...
But here's a way to approach that issue. Ask him to think about what "organization" he would have needed to join in the year 600 A.D; 1200 A.D., 1700 A.D., etc. The point is that the Witnesses admit and recognize that there was no real "organization" from the 2nd Century A.D. to the time of C.T. Russell in the late 1800s. So, who's to say that today is any different? In other words, isn't it possible (perhaps even likely) that today is no different from 1600, 1700, etc. in terms of there not being any "organization"?
See, as Witnesses, we are conditioned to view things through a particular lens--namely that we are living in the Last Days and there must be an organization doing the worldwide preaching work. For years, I used this "logic" to squelch my doubts about the WTS/JW faith. But, if the JWs are wrong about 1914 and the Last Days (and they are), then there's no need for there to be an organization doing the worldwide preaching work--even under WTS theology.
