DJS,
I believe you were an elder and had quite a “career” going up the ladder in the Society, if I read your posts correctly. Now that you are not one of Jehovah’s Witnesses I firmly am convinced that you have chosen to follow the noble path of rationality.
But you are also very angry. And you are not being rational in your anger. You were so sure I would be someone to condemn you to hell. You speak as you are so sure that I reject “facts, evidence and rational thought,” as if they are “anathema” to me. None of that is true.
A truly rational person, one who acts on facts and evidence and rational thought (as you mentioned) would not ‘bet’ that they knew things about me that they really didn’t. Evidence is about gathering empirical data, testing it, presenting results for getting them validated by independent and disinterested parties. None of that you did with me. Yet you are claiming you are “so sure” about these things about me. How can you be?
I’m not selling anything, not here to make converts, and will even leave after this last post so that I cannot be mistaken as someone trying to get others to adopt my views (though you feel justified in trying to get me to adopt yours--as your “here’s betting you can’t” demonstrates).
My parents died, an aunt of no blood relation looked after me, and under her roof I had to go to all the meetings at the Kingdom Hall and weekly book study and accompany her on field service when not in school. I did it from age 10 to 18, and never returned to the Kingdom Hall again when I was no longer under her legal custody.
I just came here after some Witnesses came to my door, read around a bit to see what the Witnesses were up to, and answered a question here about Bible reading. No agenda. But I’ve noticed how some people here just leapt upon me exactly as I had been hounded when growing up in the Kingdom Hall.
The only difference is that you folks aren’t elders or ministerial servants or pioneers or your basic everyday Witness anymore--at least most of you aren’t. But it is still the same thing I am experiencing.
From the point of view of that orphaned boy I was who still went to the Catholic school his parents had enrolled him into by day and accompanied his aunt to the Kingdom Hall by night, it is the same old song I hear you singing to me, and oddly enough the same people singing it to me: “You’re wrong in what you believe. Your belief system has caused destruction. It’s time has come. Joining us is the only logical thing to do. If you don’t you will die an idiot.”
I got called “stupid” and a “child of demons” and a “cursed idol worshiper” by circuit overseers, pioneer ladies, and elders, and just about everyone else who were JWs. And now that I am here, thinking I would find refreshing stories to share, I got the same old accusations from the same type of people. Only now you are atheists and agnostics or have a new religion (not all of you are the same).
I never understood how JWs thought there was “the truth” and how they walked around so proud that they had “the truth,” and felt as if having “the truth” gave them license to condemn everyone else.
Now that you are out, you are still saying the same thing to me. I am still being called stupid. Maybe as Catholic I am stupid.
I may be stupid to worship God, and stupid to pray the Rosary, and stupid to go to Mass where I believe the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Jesus. It does sound stupid. I don’t claim it sounds rational, and in fact I don’t think religion should. It’s a crutch to help you get through life. I admit it. I may be a very, very stupid man, still as stupid as I was when I was that orphaned boy.
But I was not stupid enough to join a cult.
So in my “stupidity” I see it as irrational to believe what you have to say now. I can accept becoming an atheist and turning away from God and following that path. It’s possible I am wrong and need to change.
But I am not going to do it because of what you said. In fact, would you follow someone who was stupid enough to join a cult and preach it for--how many years did you do that--now that he claimed he had found something better? Wouldn’t you at least be cautious of their claims? Is that rational?
You haven’t changed. You are still that elder that called this boy fit for destruction so many years ago. You just changed the team you played for, but you are still peddling judgment and self-righteousness.
