With these new disasters going on around the world, I would imagine that the JW's are going ape shit with the thought of death and destruction right around the corner. (for everyone but them of course)
I was smart enough to leave this cult after 1975 came and went with a whimper. I was in my teens at the time and I vividly remember to this day the excitement ALL the Witlesses had with the knowledge that '75 was going to be the year of ARMAGEDDON!!! I was there, I know the excitement was palpable. I still have Witness relatives, and even though they lived through those times, they follow the company line and say that the Org. never even implied the date, it was just rogue Witnesses getting ahead of themselves. Whatever that means.
To be a dedicated Witness you really do have to have some kind of mental illness. Or at the very least, have a form of depression. I remember the buzz leading up to 1975, the Witnesses really were pushing the prophecy that the ONE true people will be persecuted before Armageddon.
When the Witness dopes in Malawi wouldn't sign their government card apparently the savages that they lived amongst started committing atrocities against them.
I remember the speakers at my congegration with what seemed like glee recounting the atrocities being committed against the Witnesses in Malawi. I remember one speaker telling the congretion about a Witness man being made to rape his own child. I was a teenager at the time and I remember feeling a disconnect with what I was being made to listen to and be a part of. I was sitting there wondering why my parents brought me up in this crazy religion.
Did any of you grow up in these times? Did you sit there as a kid, teen? and wonder why you?
All my Cathloic friends seemed to be having a great, stress free childhood.