So what will they do now.....?

by Gill 31 Replies latest jw friends

  • Gill
    Gill

    2014, a hundred years since Christ's supposed invisible presence began, has come and gone. It is now 2018.

    You are now 75 years old and the world is packed with free information. You can find out anything you want to, and infact, you have to use the internet every day just to shop and bank and a lot of the things you need to do. On the virtual newspaper, you read the latest WTBTS scandal that has unfolded. The estimated figure of the amount of JWs who died over the blood transfusion ban, estimated at one and a half million, has become world wide knowledge since it was revealed that one of the GB had regular transfusions to keep him alive during 2010. You realise that was the time the blood transfusion ban was totally lifted due to 'new light' from Jehovah!! Finally 2 and 2 make 4. You've had quite a shock, but nothing compared to other shocks......like the WTBTS selling arms all over the world. The WTBTS fighting the tobacco ban that governements have been attempting to enforce, because they believe in 'free will'. But it turned out they were major share holders in a tobacco company. You found out they used to be in the UN and so many other things......just too many.

    You realise that it has been 25 years now since you saw your four children, two boys and two girls. They are all in their forties now and they have nine children between them, and you have never seen any of them. Twenty five years ago, your children came to you and tried to tell you the truth about the WTBTS but you, and your wife, refused to listen. You turned all four in for apostasy and they were disfellowshiped. You have shunned them for twenty five long years. They tried to contact you, by letters, by telephone, but you refused to reply.

    You and your wife have had virtually no conversation today. The world is a different colour now. Everything you expected has disappeared, and your shared depression is like a couple who have suffered a miscarriage. Your future, your shared future has been miscarried and your horizon.....has simply slid away into nothingness.....in fact worse than nothingness......it has slipped away into a deep black hole....six feet deep.

    Your whole life, you turned down opportunities. You could have gone to university, but you chose to full time pioneer. You could have been promoted at work, but that would have meant working overtime, and worse, on meeting nights. You could have had more money, gone on holidays, celebrated family occassions and holidays with your whole family.........so many happy times lost.......so much time gone......so many chances wasted.

    It is cold today. Infact it is Christmas Eve. You can see the happy shinning lights in your neighbours homes, on their Christmas trees. Someone deep inside you discover about yourself that you have always wanted a magical Christmas Tree. You want to turn the fire on but.....wil the meagre state pension stretch to pay for it? You dare not.

    You notice your wife has red eyes. She wraps a blanket around herself and sits quietly on the setee hugging a hot water bottle. You know her arthritis will suffer if you don't put the heating on.....but that was all supposed to get better soon.....after Armageddon......because....Armageddon WAS coming....it WAS....and now... Now you both know, and you don't like what you know. You KNOW you were fooled! You both KNOW that you lost and wasted your lives, your hopes, your dreams, your family.

    You think you see disdain for you in your wife's eyes, and infact, you see her in another light also. How could SHE have been SO stupid? How could YOU have been so Stupid.

    The truth hurts, as all is lost. Really ALL is lost! Life, time, time and life. After all, that's all we really get, and it took you both 75 years to work it out.

    How it hurts! You stand looking outside at the grey, cold evening, knowing only darkness lies ahead.

    So, what should this JW do now? How would YOU feel and what would you do? There may well come a time when many a JW is faced with a similar scenario.

  • diamondblue1974
    diamondblue1974

    If I imagine for a moment that I am not a raving mad apostate son of satan and put myself in this scenario, I have to admit the same old fears would creep back - what if they (WTBTS) are right? what if, what if, what if? What would I do with this remaining part of my life? What can I do? What is left to do given my health? How can I claw back the remaining part of my life? Is it worth it?

    Tell me is it worth it?

    G

  • Gill
    Gill

    Hi Gary!

    I think how deep a person's despair could really get, when they finally realise it was all a lie, would depend on their potential for a life without the bOrg.

    If there was little time left, like our couple above, I think regrets might well drive them into deep depression if they didn't have the drive to get up and find their lost family.

    For a younger person, there would still be problems, depending on how strongly they believed what they had been trapped into believing.

    Whether it is worth it, depends on how depressed it makes you and if you can drag yourself out of that depression.

    It's like the Shawshank redemption, in the scene where he drags himself through the shit but comes out a free man. He would say it was worth it!

    But is it worth living a lie? Is it worth carrying on being a JW once you know it's all BS? I think the answer has to be NO. I don't know how anyone can do that, unless they have a 'cunning plan'.

  • OnTheWayOut
    OnTheWayOut

    I liked your future scenario. I use a past ficticious preaching story in a similar way.
    I describe the current situation of an 18 year-old from 1969 who was told that the
    end is right around the corner, don't go to college, don't get married and have children,
    just get baptized and serve Jah until Armageddon comes.

    You describe the near future for an active JW now. Sad that most JW's wouldn't get
    the point- but I do. Great sad story.

  • Crumpet
    Crumpet

    That is incredibly Orwellian Gill (and a little Dickensian - with that scrooge scene!)- very frightening and chilling as it sounds like a prediction of teh future for my parents and my sisters. I can only hope my sisters will not have any children and bring them up like we were - inflicting this hate-filled legacy on another generation.

    One thing did grab me though - you describe how in the future shopping, bill paying, travel - almost everythign will be internet dependent and you are right - so how will the WBTS get round that one with their stern warning not to use the internet unless unavoiable. Maybe they will have a designated servant at teh back of the hall to download and up load info so the brothers dont get infected by apostate material online.

    Well written and well thought out - certainly made me shudder. Definitely should be a best of!

  • juni
    juni

    For some people they'd shoot themself or jump off a bridge knowing that they missed out on so much and you can't go back in time for a "do over".

    Others would deal w/depression until the day they died.

    Others with the total cult "mind makeover" would feel as one elder expressed to a group of children gathered at a school for a school assembly. He said this, "If we are wrong we still have the satisfaction that we served God whole-heartedly. But if we are right, then all of you are dead."

    That is a true statement that has stuck in my brain to this day. He was a very smug and self righteous elder - a good speaker - but a real twit.

    Juni I agree w/Crumpet Gill. This should be included in "the best of". Makes thinking people

    analyze this religion.

  • Nellie
    Nellie

    You don't have to look to the future for stories like this - they're all around us today. My husband's aunt is 75 years old, never been married (I think is a virgin, but I won't ask), has lost all of her immediate family, has no children, lives alone, has friends in the congregation but is really too sick to do much in the way of associating with them. What has she done with her life, really? When she looks back, what has she ever done for herself? Did she enjoy her singleness - traveling and exploring the world? No, she was too busy working and going to meetings and in service. Those were the only three activities in her life. How sad - but at 75, what else does she know?

  • Gill
    Gill

    Onthewayout and Crumpet - Thanks.....truth be told, I felt that way at 38! I still can't seem to shift the anger however, even four years on!

    Juni! I'm totally horrified at what that Elder said. Having spent the last four years reading just about every book going on history, pre history, ancient history, etc, I've come to the overwhelming conclusion that if the JWs are right about ANYTHING then I'm the Queen of Sheba!

    The sheer arrogance of that Elder saying that to those kids. I could........spit!

  • Gill
    Gill

    Nellie - Heaven forbid that she learns the truth about da troof and gets hold of and AK 47 tactical assault rifle, and heads to Brooklyn!!!

  • VM44
    VM44

    "...Heaven forbid that she learns the truth about da troof and gets hold of and AK 47 tactical assault rifle, and heads to Brooklyn!!!"

    This is the real reason why the Watchtower is against the Witnesses owning guns! They are afraid something like that will happen.

    --VM44

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