Witnesses believe they have special knowledge of an entire realm of which most humans are utterly ignorant. Angelic battles are being waged all around as universal court cases proceed. All of this is happening, they believe, totally unnoticed by everyone else, except perhaps apostates and demons, who see it but for some reason remain defiant in the face of their approaching doom.
It can be a giddy feeling to believe you know what no one else knows, especially when they mock your beliefs as nonsense. You simply remark with a seen-it-all-before sigh that they will find out for themselves soon enough, and move on.
I remember a co-worker asking me one day what made me so sure I had the truth. "Evan," I said, "the Truth is so incredible that once you've seen it, you can never go back. It's so different from anything you can imagine, it's a completely new paradigm. When you've seen it, you'll know it." Did I score a point or two for drama? Maybe. A bit on the Matrix side? Perhaps. But I think most serious Witnesses believe something like this.
As I was driving home from picking up my take-out lunch today, it struck me with a sort of morbid irony, if I may turn a phrase, that for all this specialized knowledge Witnesses imagine having, they actually know almost nothing about anything.
Let's think about it:
- The Bible
We might start where the Witnesses are likely to know the most. Give them the home field advantage, so to speak. As it turns out, JWs actually know almost nothing about the Bible. Even the most knowledgeable ones can usually only use the set of WT-approved scriptures that have been drilled into them for decades. Precious few have any knowledge of the actual history surrounding the Bible, how it was compiled, what competing manuscripts were available and rejected from the cannon, why that happened, what we do and do not know based on archeology, and so on. - Their Mythology
I call it mythology, rather than doctrine, because that's what it is. I'm not talking about what they say about the soul or the Trinity. I'm talking about this supposedly breathtaking view of world events unfolding around us - the UN as eighth world power, the demons lurking around every corner, the great tribulation, the lightning bolts from heaven, the abyss, the final test, etc, etc. The fact of the matter is that this rich mythology, if written concisely, would fit on the inside of a crackerjack box. And that is literally all there is to know about that.
For the purposes of comparison, consider Star Trek mythology, which is incredibly robust. There are people who know the specs to every part of the Starship Enterprise, and can explain how all the devices onboard work! Where the Witnesses have a handful of stories and a general timeline with five or six events on it stretching over the next thousand years, the Trekkies have hundreds of hours and pages of actual mythological detail, and they know it. The Trekkies put the Witnesses to shame when it comes to being knowledgeable about one's mythology. - The Natural World
Anyone who was raised a Witness and subsequently began to study science on his or her own knows that the JW awareness of the natural world is horribly, painfully tiny - and inaccurate at that. And to top it off, they often comment with an air of tired indifference on how scientists are just making stuff up as they go along to fit their agendas, to make money, or to harm the poor Witnesses. It has been one of the most humbling experiences of my life to find out how much actual scientific knowledge there is out there for the taking.
I'm constantly amazed at how much I've learned in the past few years, and how utterly little I knew before I left the organization. It is literally a puddle to the ocean.
What about you? Is there some field that you thought you knew everything about, but were astounded to learn the true depth of knowledge once you left the organization?
SNG