Here was my reply to her little, "shame on you for not being there. We will get you Sunday". Some personal chit chat will be deleted, and any of my comments to you guys that was not in the letter will stand out. Note, I start with why the Bible is crap, thus taking it from the top. Then once I have hit home base, I go on to why I shouldn't follow the WTS.
I think it is rude of everyone to ask you about me. If they have not seen me in a while, why would they take the chance of upsetting you like that? I little tact goes a long way there. I know they mean well, but it is just very rude and disrespectful to you. SEE, THEY HAVE BEEN ASKING MY MOM WHERE I HAVE BEEN AND IT MAKES HER CRY AT THE HALL. I HAVEN'T GONE TO A MEETING IN SO LONG, THEY SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF THEIR STUPID BEHAVIOR. IT''S FAIRLY OBVIOUS WHERE I HAVE BEEN!
I'm glad for xxx. If he can stay away from the drugs, even better for him. I know xxx needs his dad, so I'm happy for xxx as well. xxx is your big brother, so maybe now you can get to know him finally. THIS IS THE NEWLY REINSTATED ASSHOLE OF THE FAMILY
I would love to be able to visit with you guys, but it seems like every time I've gone over there lately, something happens that makes me regret it. Whether it be dad's Armageddon rants, or just something that ends up in an arguement. I just don't want that kind of stress in my life. If we could hang out like a normal family with no drama, it would be great. (my man) isn't avoiding ya'll either. He just goes where I go.
I have to be honest and tell you why I do not go to the meetings. I didn't want to have to tell you this because I know how it would upset you, but it would be wrong of me to lie. First, let me say that this is NOT apostate material. Nor did I ever get this information FROM apostate material. This is strictly the History channel, WatchTower literature, the Bible, and my own line of reasoning. So please read on with my assurance that none of these ideas or phrases has ever come from an apostate, or from Satan. They are from me, your daughter, who has a mind that is able to think for itself without being told how to think. I KNOW APOSTATE IS A DIRTY WORD, BUT I CAN'T HAVE THEM BELIEVING THAT I GET MY INFO FROM ANYONE. THIS IS STRICTLY MY LETTER AND I NEEDED THEM TO KNOW THAT SO THEY WOULD READ ON INSTEAD OF DELETING IT FIRST
In the Old Testament, there were certain laws set in place surrounding menstruation, childbirth, eating certain animals, and other things. I have read in a "Questions from readers", the answers as to why these laws were set in place. They were there to foster good hygiene and a healthy lifestyle, stress the sanctity of blood, and show the need for atonement of sins.
Menstruation. So the Bible is FULL of remarks about the filth and dispicable-ness of a girl on her period. You can't touch her. It's spoken of as something she should be ashamed of. I realize this has something to do with blood, but why would a loving god give a woman a monthly cycle that she should hide away for? Today, we have sanitary napkins, and we are clean. Back then, they had pelvic wraps (like a diaper), which were just as clean. Imagine living in a world where your husband can't touch you for a week out of each month.
Also on the blood side of things, childbirth. The law back then that if a woman had a baby girl, she was supposed to be quarantined for almost TWICE as long than if she had a boy? Now tell me, what makes the blood of labor involving a girl dirtier than that of a baby boy? Twice the female filth? GOT THAT FROM SOMEONE IN HERE, KUDOS!!! I've absolutely never understood this, and I have always believed this to be a Middle-Eastern male mentality......NOT something that a loving God would put in place. I know that these men were quite disappointed that they couldn't get a son every time, but is it worth punishing their wives? Apparently so, because I just can't see how all these male vs female childbirth rules could hold any water. After all, the blood that comes out of the mom is the same blood.
Why would a woman have to be ashamed of having a period or a baby? Why would the natural menstrual cycle, or the natural aspects of childbirth be a reminder that we are sinners? Why would a mother have to be hidden for a longer period of time after having a female baby? That was not based on any advice given from a loving God. It was the opinion of some very female-hating men back in those days.
It's similar to the rules on not eating certain animals. They didn't know how to properly prepare them, so some people got sick, and the imperfect men of the day panicked and outlawed them, saying it was word from God. If Jehovah were talking to these men, He would have told them how to properly prepare these animals, not to ban them altogether....then suddenly eat them after Jesus dies.
When Jesus came, the OT was no longer something to be followed. So suddenly, period blood and labor blood became clean?
If we are no longer under the OT, why do we still refer back to it for some advice on things? But we disregard others, such as "hide your head in shame, it's a baby girl instead of a boy"? Imagine how ashamed and guilty those poor women must have been. I'm sure the abuse went much further than what's written in the scriptures. If you travel to the Middle East today, you will find that this primitive, cruel behavior is still being practiced. This is the same part of the Earth where the Bible was written. It's too much of a coincidence.
There, they still consider women to be the "weaker vessel". Science has proven that women not only have a higher threshold of pain than men (labor actually splits the pelvis bone, which I'm sure no man had ever experienced), but also have more empathy for others, much like Jesus.
Jesus did not discriminate against women. In first-century Palestine, the way Jesus treated women was considered revolutionary. Mary Magdalene is almost always mentioned first in a list of the female disciples of Jesus Christ. The risen Jesus appeared to her first. It’s ironic that in a time when women could not be legal witnesses, Jesus Christ chose women as the first witnesses of his resurrection.
So, if Jesus is the exact likeness of God, why were the laws in the OT so discriminating against women? If Jehovah never changes, I can't see why he would go from giving unnecessary orders to women, then Jesus comes along and changes everything, then after Jesus dies, Paul goes on to continue to write degrading remarks of the female gender in Corinthians. If the Bible is inspired of God, and Jesus is a mirror image of God, then God has changed his mind about the whole gender issue quite a bit.
And I am not just on some bra-burning feminist rant here. REALLY, I'M NOT. IT JUST PROVES A POINT The fact of the matter is that these are major inconsistencies that just do not work, no matter how hard you try to make it work. There are many other similar things I could think of, but it would just take too much time to type. The basic point I am trying to get across is this: The Bible has been tinkered with by men, without a doubt in my mind. There are things written in it, such as how to go about killing sinners in the name of Jehovah, that just doesn't seem characteristic of what Jesus would have done. If he is a mirror image of Jehovah, then Jehovah would never have ordered his followers to raid cities and kill fornicators. He would have found a peaceful way to correct people.
I know I am probably sounding crazy to you, but you know that I am not out to be a Satan worshiper just because I believe men used the Bible to their advantage centuries ago.
This is how the Bible became what it is today:
It wasn't always a tidy little compact book like you see it now. Back in the days of Emperor Constantine, there were these scrolls written by prophets that were scattered throughout his entire kingdom in these little churches. He wanted to unite his kingdom, and he thought that by using Christianity, he could do just that. So, he set out his men to collect all of the scrolls they could find, in order to bring them back to him. Once they retrieved the scrolls, he sat around a huge table with his wise men, and they put the scrolls together in an orderly fashion, so that they will fit into somewhat of a story-line. Many of the scrolls he had were discarded because he wanted them to fit a certain way, and some of them would have been rejected by many of the little churches, so they were burned. There were a few different versions of Genesis, Revelation, and a few other scrolls that would have fit into the gospels, but were rejected because there was some repeats of stories, and there were some that were too "gloomy" for his taste, So out they went.
Once he had a set book, he returned the new copies in a neater fashion to the churches, to try to unite them into one big church. It worked, and he had his way. But then, as they were read by the people, they found many important details left out. One of those details was of who Cain would have married in order to create the human race. So, the emperor had a recall of the books, and they added a little incest to the story. It disturbed the people at first, but it gave them some closure to the nagging question of where we came from.
So, you have these scrolls that were edited by an emperor that we don't even recognize as being part of Jehovah's plan. These scrolls were written by sexist men, and were tweaked a little bit more by an emperor.
Here we are, centuries later, who knows what else has happened to the Bible since then, and I am supposed to accept it all as fact. Not only that, but I'm not even allowed to interpret it the way I would like to. Instead, I have to accept the scrolls, then I have to accept Emperor Constantine's opinions, then I have to accept the interpretation of a group of white men in Brooklyn who I have never met in my life. And if I dare to question their divine authority, I will be banned from my family? Who are they? I know they like to remain anonymous because they say they don't want to be idolized. But I know the names of the prophets, I know Jesus' name, I know who Mary and Joseph are, I know I can obtain a list of the living 144,000 on earth, so why am I not able to know who's making all the decisions in the lives of over 6 million people?
I'm sorry, I know you believe that they have Jah whispering in their ears while they sleep. But that would mean that God is partial to them. And yes, they have found a way to involve themselves into the grand scheme of things so that this will seem normal to those who will believe it. I don't believe it. And honestly, I am a much happier person because of it. I know you are saying to yourself, "this is Satan talking to me". Trust me, Satan does not, and never has, thought for me once in my life. I am a human, and I have a brain that will only be satisfied once it has seen the logic in things. This obedience to human beings is not logical to me. Obeying God is one thing, obeying men because they say God wants you to is another.
I also do not feel as though the elders are "loving shepherds" in any way whatsoever, and they are not in the position to decide who gets disfellowshipped and who gets reinstated. They denied me when I was at my most repentent state, but then once I started to finally give up and say to myself that I didn't care anymore, they let me back in! If Jehovah directs their decisions, then why wouldn't Jehovah let me in when I was at my sadest state, but then suddenly decide it was my time once I'd stopped caring a little?
Once again, I am not a mean/Satanic person. I would be willing to bet that if a building was on fire, I'd risk my life trying to save my family. The men on the gov body would probably try to save themselves first, because they have this grandiose feeling that they are so important to humanity that they must live on. There is a reason why we don't know many details of what goes on in Bethel, I am sure. I don't know what those reasons are, but there has to be something to hide because we are kept in the dark on so much. I don't tinker with Apostate literature, because I'm sure they have come up with a load of exaggerated theories. Apostates are full of crap. GIGGLE, LOL...TICKLING THE EARS HERE. YOU KNOW HOW THAT ITS... I am a honest person who has weighed and measured the evidence, and can find no reason to believe that the loving God we always talk about is about to massacre 6.5 billion people! That's just nuts!
In the Garden of Eden, after Adam and Eve sinned, he wanted to prove to Satan that he doesn't have to wipe humans off of the earth in order to get them to serve Him. Ok, that would make sense as to why he didn't just start over fresh. But what will wiping off most of the earth's population do now? Only prove to Satan that most people won't serve Jah? If anything, that whole theory just proves Satan's point, and on a very large scale with lots of suffering, mind you. It's foolish. That's because that conversation between God and the Devil never took place. It was written in an attempt to explain where we come from and why we suffer, and it was written by a man who was very superstitious in his belief system.
Am I running to the Catholics for their help? No. I don't see any reason to trust what another human believes to be truth.
I refuse to live a lie, and to go through the motions just to be a hypocrite. If I'm not buying it, I'm not buying it. I respect others' beliefs, and I'd like mine respected as well.
Of course, I'd never share any of this with anyone I know, and I have been keeping it to myself for a long time because this organization has it set up in a manner in which I have to keep my mouth shut, or lose my family. I am so sorry that they allow young people to get baptised. At 13, a person just goes with the flow without even having the chance to grow up and analyze everything they have been taught.
Jehovah is not coming to kill me, or anyone else on this planet. You can't just blindly believe this because twisted men wrote a twisted book, then it was twisted some more by an emperor, then twisted even more by humans in Brooklyn trying to find out the meaning of it, of which there is none.
That's how I feel. I don't want any angry/screaming/crying phone calls because of it. This is probably something you will need time to absorb and get used to.
It doesn't change how I feel about ya'll, and it doesn't make me hate Witnesses as a group. The belief system just doesn't work for me and I'm sorry. I know you are upset, but mom...we are all going to die of old age eventually. That's a healthy, natural view of life. There won't be an Armaggedon, that is a sick and unhealthy view of the future. The prospect of eternal life is also not healthy. We are supposed to die, and I am ok with that.
If you share this with anyone, I am positive I will be disfellowshipped within a week because they don't want anyone who thinks for themselves to share their thoughts with the others. That's a sad reality for me, but I am going to feel better having been honest with you now.
Love you,
XXX
OK, DON'T YOU THINK I PRETTY MUCH MADE IT CLEAR? I THOUGHT I'D HAD MY BASES COVERED! LET ME NOW FIND AND POST HER REPLY...
