by laverite 22 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
When armageddon comes Jehovah is going to kill all the unbelieving babies.
The dink studying with our family asked me as a 13 yr old boy 'Why does it bother you so much?'
I find it strange now that this issue got tabled in my brain. I don't know how he got around that one (I held up two or three whole 'studies' to wanting an explanation for that). I should have held my ground. Yeah, strange and embarrasing.
Visualize Jehovah's business card: Baby Killer.
Just Lois - the way you write about your thoughts on you and your overall place in the world puts it all into perspective. Yes, individually we are but one of billions of humans. It's very humbling when we think of things that way, yet the JWs will gladly knock on people's doors to tell them they alone have the truth and how the householder thinks and what she believes is wrong. Amazing. And a real eye opener when one first gets an experience where you can see yourself almost from the outside.
Tal - all of those examples are great. They can all fit. Especially when you are looking in almost as an observer and just seeing strange. And we now all know those things are all truly weird. :)
Old Hippie, Julie and Harry - I will be back on the board tonight. I want to respond to your posts. I have a presentation I'm giving today and I have to get going. I'll be baaaack
The amount of time talking about demons. The inappropriate sexual subjects talked about in front of children during meetings. The no beard ban for men. The no pants ban for women. The higher education ban. The no blood transfusion ban. The no holidays or birthdays ban. Having to fill out a time report every month.
With all the strange things about this religion, another strange thing is only the LAW caused this religion to report child molesters within it's ranks.
I thought of this post when I had an experience earlier today. I'm still early in my fade and thus still feeling guilty about not going out in FS on Saturday morning. Nonetheless, today I slept in a bit, went for a jog and then spent some time playing with the kids. My son had a soccer game in another town and on the way we stopped at a Quikmart to get water. There at one of the tables was a car group obviously on break from FS- two parents, two kids and one older brother. I felt this rush of complicated, extreme emotions- shame, guilt, fear, panic, embarrassment, glee, exhilaration, victory. Very strange. They just looked so odd, out of place all dressed up in a gas station with other people going about their normal business. They all looked a bit sad and underwhelmed. I was so so glad not to be one of them. It was so familiar, something I've done hundreds of times and yet in that moment seemed the most bizarre thing in the world. My son's team won their game- a great day.
Great question.
The very last time I went from door-to-door. I felt like I was in one of those dreams where you wake up naked in public.
I realised with a sense of horror that I was an idiot pestering decent people about a stupid religion. I literally had nothing to say and couldn't get finished quick enough. I knew I would never knock another door as long as I live.
It was only a few months since I had conducted a memorial, given the special talk and the Watchtower review at the circuit assembly. It is very much like taking the "red pill".
In a sociology class we had to join a group and then write about it. I was too busy to join a group so I said I attended a few jw meetings as an outsider and wrote about that.
I wrote about the self-brainwashing as I call it--the imperative to constantly be pondering the jw stuff when idle so Satan can't fill your mind--the expectation to bring literature to school and read it at lunch, etc.
My paper was read aloud and featured as a really fascinating piece. I got to talk about my "experience" to the whole class and went on and on about how wacky, exclusionary and paranoid they were. I think I talked about the Armageddon preparedness and Revelation book too. Now that whole room full of people will never become dubs.
Everyone else wrote about the hip hop culture. lol
Welcome to a real, normal life, it feels great, doesn't it? I understand also feeling a bit guilty, it's like getting out of prison, turning around and seeing your former fellow inmates, you are happy to be out, but a little guilty too, they are still locked up. It will get easier as time goes on.
