How do you feel after seeing the truth about the “truth"? Perhaps the following illustration posted on WOL might help you to define your thinking.
A Brother and his wife were visiting the Holocaust museum, and from a little distance, they spotted a Nazi-era painting hanging at the end of a hallway. As they got closer, they remarked how beautiful the painting was. They had never seen such a well painted landscape scene as this. The colors were vivid and striking, and it was like you were looking at a photograph, it was just that beautiful.
When they got in front of the painting, and read the plaque underneath, their hearts just sank, and tears filled their eyes. The painting was done during the war years, common material such as canvas was in short supply, so the painting was done on human skin stretched across the frame
What was once considered a beautiful picture now evoked feelings of disgust whenever they looked at it, and thoughts of the person whose life was sacrificed for the sake of the painting. It was now ugly and could not be looked upon.
What can we learn from this story? If you had been associated for many years in the organization, your view of Watchtower might be compared to the couple looking at the painting from a distance. It has a nice appearance as you attend conventions and involve yourself in doing the work associated with being a Witness for Jehovah. Then the day comes you begin to investigate more closely the organization. Why? Perhaps you have been hurt by someone and not treated fair, or maybe a member of your family has experienced some type of injustice at the hands of cruel elders, then again maybe it is the sense of outrage at having to accept whatever is stated without question or experience shunning, it is just not right. Whatever the reason you draw closer to seeing the organization with freedom of thought. This terrifies you at first you become paranoid that at any moment you will be found out and be disgraced before the congregation. Besides what if you are wrong? Yet the desire to know compels you forward, you must find the truth about the organization.
Then one day after many, many hours of study and open thoughts you have kept within, that moment happens, the epiphany of clear vision through a mist that has clouded your vision for so long. It is much like the plaque at the bottom of the painting. You see the truth about the “truth”. It is a lie. It is a subterfuge that masquerades as a “spiritual paradise” yet the reality is a spiritual hamster wheel that sucks a person’s life away into endless literature placements to enrich a printing corporation. It is a “king with no clothes” moment and from that time forward whenever you see a Jehovah’s Witness, a Kingdom Hall, or even a Watchtower magazine you feel anger, utter contempt, nausea, and really stupid for once being a part of the group that had such a fairytale distant view
of such a horrid organization.
Yes, it is true you were a cult member. The type of person you always laughed at in the airport as you passed them by and felt sorry for their misguided attempts at serving God.
That was you!
So what do you do with this new found knowledge? You want to help your friends to see the truth. It is like you are standing at the painting yelling to your friends at the end of the hall saying, “Come here look at what the plaque says it will help you to know the reality!” As you scream these words, your friends and family look at you in disgust and turn away saying. “I never want to see anything negative about the painting and if there is something bad I do not want to see it.”
Why do they do this? For the same reason you stayed with it for so long. They have been brainwashed to stay in the distance, to never read plaques, to never see the reality.
To remain loyal to a cult requires no less action. To remain loyal to a cult requires your family treat you as a Judas and one who betrayed the faith. To remain loyal to the cult requires the loss of family to have favor of a printing corporation. To remain loyal to a cult they condemn family members to death while they are still alive with the smug satisfaction that God loves them for this. To remain loyal to a cult they will lie, cheat, steal, and whatever other means of immoral ethics need apply to protect the organization.
The CULT has control and the CULT will not be happy till you sacrifice your life for them thinking it is for God. It is the ultimate sacrifice that brings ecstasy to any psychopath. It is the lust for absolute control over a person. The Germans of WWII brought it to an almost art form status. Millions of Germans died for a cult conceived by Adolph Hitler. Supporting to the death the ideals that were completely wicked yet an entire nation was unable to see the reality, the plaque. They stayed at the end of the hall kept to the fairytale vision offered by Hitler and as a result lost everything.
So the 12 little psychopaths known as the Governing Body run their little cult with the same ideals. Keep them at the end of the hall, keep them moving literature keep them believing all this sacrifice is in the name of God. As six million brothers and sisters find delight in the beautiful painting from a distance, we who now know the truth view them with sadness and hope someday a few will venture closer and find the freedom to see the truth about the lie they have been living.
Above is the thought the illustration gave me as I read it. Below was the application given by the cult members. Which one do you think expresses the reality?
Do you get the sense of the illustration? We may be involved in some wayward course that seems beautiful in OUR eyes because our deceitful heart has clouded our spiritual vision as to what is right or wrong when held up against the light of the Scriptures.
But upon closer examination, anything that goes contrary to God's word is truly disgusting and ugly in Jehovah's eyes, and we should feel the same loathing about it as he does. This illustration once helped me avoid a wrong course, and I'll never forget it or the Brother that told it to me. I hope that it touches anyone that reads it.