Do you think that confessing to misdeeds is a good thing?
When I was a JW, I was brought up to believe that confession + genuine repentance = forgiveness. Now I’m not so sure that forgiveness is what’s always needed. I wonder, is confession nothing more than an easy way out of a tricky situation?
Also, when a person confesses to a misdeed, are they also stopping the normal process of learning via one’s mistakes? Could this be the reason that so many JW’s are so incredibly immature and so black and white in their reasoning?
Most persons outside of JW-dom don’t confess to mistakes, rather they seem to endure a period of discomfort after wrongdoing that eventually wears off. It’s almost as though the mind demands this in order that a lesson is learned. Once the lesson is accepted, the conscience lets up on its infliction of discomfort. I am led to believe that this discomfort is not what we could actually call guilt. A much better term would be USEFUL REMORSE.
Remorse, to be useful, needs to be temporary and instructive. I maintain that JW’s need to run and confess all to the elders before being destroyed at Armageddon, is a childish and selfish act that is nothing more than refusing to be responsible for one’s own actions that stops one from being a complete person.
What do you think? Is the temporary relief attained by confession worth what is actually the ultimate loss of the self?
Englishman
..... fanaticism masquerading beneath a cloak of reasoned logic.