For me there was a time TTATT wouldn't faze me a bit. I was conditioned to cast aside TTATT as twisted teachings of demons to clusterflup your spiritual mind.
You could have told me pedo's were prevalent and getting away with abuse and I would have said wait on the Big J. You could have expressed your frustration that the overlapping generations teaching was unscriptural and illogical and I would simply say you gotta wait on the Big J. You could tell me that the Org. joined the U.N. as an NGO for a decade and I would have (with relish) said it's theocratic warfare.(keep your friends close and your enemies closer). You could tell me that there is absolutely nada archeological evidence to support 607 B.C.E and i would have said just wait, something will no doubt be uncovered to support it by archeologists any day now.
Up until a few months ago, I could easily provide an excuse/ answer to anything that challenged the org., simply because we are trained from the beginning to trigger defense mechanisms in our mind that stop us from thinking deeply and honestly about troubling information we receive. Without thinking, we use patented responses like:
You are an apostate! That is apostate material!
Take it up with God in prayer.
Wait on the Big J.
We are a perfect organization run by imperfect men so the light keeps getting brighter and brighter.
What are your motives for looking at that information?
(Without considering the info) Where did you get that information? etc.
What I didn't have a defense for was seeing the mental anguish, the sad faces of those who came to meetings month after month, year after year who were trying to get reinstated while being coldly shunned by everyone in the congregation. There has always been a constant stream over the past 12 years of df'd ones (in every cong i have been in) trying to come back. They sat in the back in assigned seats being treated like trash. One would finally be reinstated, but another would come along Then the next one would go through it, and the next...
Having never been df'd or publicly reproved myself, I could never relate to or rationalize Jesus' teachings of love. mercy and forgiveness with the treatment of those who were trying to get reinstated. Watching the anguish of these people year after year was like a thousand paper cuts that finally I couldn't bear anymore.
Emotion, not logic, is the core of faith. Yet, often times it is emotion rather than logic that when let loose it becomes the trigger that destroys our indoctrination.
